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The Crushed Flower
Chapter 2
Translated by Herman Bernstein
An unusual day arrived. It was mother's birthday. Guests were
expected in the evening; military music was to play, and in the
garden and upon the terrace parti-coloured lanterns were to burn, and
Yura need not go to bed at 9 o'clock but could stay up as late as he
liked.
Yura got up when all were still sleeping. He dressed himself and
jumped out quickly with the expectation of miracles. But he was
unpleasantly surprised--the rooms were in the same disorder as usual
in the morning; the cook and the chambermaid were still sleeping and
the door was closed with a hook--it was hard to believe that the
people would stir and commence to run about, and that the rooms would
assume a holiday appearance, and he feared for the fate of the
festival. It was still worse in the garden. The paths were not
swept and there was not a single lantern there. He grew very uneasy.
Fortunately, Yevmen, the coachman, was washing the carriage behind
the barn in the back yard and though he had done this frequently
before, and though there was nothing unusual about his appearance,
Yura clearly felt something of the holiday in the decisive way in
which the coachman splashed the water from the bucket with his sinewy
arms, on which the sleeves of his red blouse were rolled up to his
elbows. Yevmen only glanced askance at Yura, and suddenly Yura seemed
to have noticed for the first time his broad, black, wavy beard and
thought respectfully that Yevmen was a very worthy man. He said:
"Good morning, Yevmen."
Then all moved very rapidly. Suddenly the janitor appeared and
started to sweep the paths, suddenly the window in the kitchen was
thrown open and women's voices were heard chattering; suddenly the
chambermaid rushed out with a little rug and started to beat it with
a stick, as though it were a dog. All commenced to stir; and the
events, starting simultaneously in different places, rushed with such
mad swiftness that it was impossible to catch up with them. While
the nurse was giving Yura his tea, people were beginning to hang up
the wires for the lanterns in the garden, and while the wires were
being stretched in the garden, the furniture was rearranged
completely in the drawing room, and while the furniture was
rearranged in the drawing room, Yevmen, the coachman, harnessed the
horse and drove out of the yard with a certain special, mysterious
mission.
Yura succeeded in concentrating himself for some time with the
greatest difficulty. Together with father he was hanging up the
lanterns. And father was charming; he laughed, jested, put Yura on
the ladder; he himself climbed the thin, creaking rungs of the
ladder, and finally both fell down together with the ladder upon the
grass, but they were not hurt. Yura jumped up, while father remained
lying on the grass, hands thrown back under his head, looking with
half-closed eyes at the shining, infinite azure of the sky. Thus
lying on the grass, with a serious expression on his face, apparently
not in the mood for play, father looked very much like Gulliver
longing for his land of giants. Yura recalled something unpleasant;
but to cheer his father up he sat down astride upon his knees and said:
"Do you remember, father, when I was a little boy I used to sit down
on your knees and you used to shake me like a horse?"
But before he had time to finish he lay with his nose on the grass;
he was lifted in the air and thrown down with force--father had
thrown him high up with his knees, according to his old habit. Yura
felt offended; but father, entirely ignoring his anger, began to
tickle him under his armpits, so that Yura had to laugh against his
will; and then father picked him up like a little pig by the legs and
carried him to the terrace. And mamma was frightened.
"What are you doing? The blood will rush to his head!"
After which Yura found himself standing on his legs, red faced,
dishevelled, feeling very miserable and terribly happy at the same
time.
The day was rushing fast, like a cat that is chased by a dog. Like
forerunners of the coming great festival, certain messengers appeared
with notes, wonderfully tasty cakes were brought, the dressmaker came
and locked herself in with mamma in the bedroom; then two gentlemen
arrived, then another gentleman, then a lady--evidently the entire
city was in a state of agitation. Yura examined the messengers as
though they were strange people from another world, and walked before
them with an air of importance as the son of the lady whose birthday
was to be celebrated; he met the gentlemen, he escorted the cakes,
and toward midday he was so exhausted that he suddenly started to
despise life. He quarrelled with the nurse and lay down in his bed
face downward in order to have his revenge on her; but he fell asleep
immediately. He awoke with the same feeling of hatred for life and a
desire for revenge, but after having looked at things with his eyes,
which he washed with cold water, he felt that both the world and life
were so fascinating that they were even funny.
When they dressed Yura in a red silk rustling blouse, and he thus
clearly became part of the festival, and he found on the terrace a
long, snow white table glittering with glass dishes, he again
commenced to spin about in the whirlpool of the onrushing events.
"The musicians have arrived! The musicians have arrived!" he cried,
looking for father or mother, or for any one who would treat the
arrival of the musicians with proper seriousness. Father and mother
were sitting in the garden--in the arbour which was thickly
surrounded with wild grapes--maintaining silence; the beautiful head
of mother lay on father's shoulder; although father embraced her, he
seemed very serious, and he showed no enthusiasm when he was told of
the arrival of the musicians. Both treated their arrival with
inexplicable indifference, which called forth a feeling of sadness in
Yura. But mamma stirred and said:
"Let me go. I must go."
"Remember," said father, referring to something Yura did not
understand but which resounded in his heart with a light, gnawing
alarm.
"Stop. Aren't you ashamed?" mother laughed, and this laughter made
Yura feel still more alarmed, especially since father did not laugh
but maintained the same serious and mournful appearance of Gulliver
pining for his native land....
But soon all this was forgotten, for the wonderful festival had
begun in all its glory, mystery and grandeur. The guests came fast,
and there was no longer any place at the white table, which had been
deserted but a while before. Voices resounded, and laughter and
merry jests, and the music began to play. And on the deserted paths
of the garden where but a while ago Yura had wandered alone,
imagining himself a prince in quest of the sleeping princess, now
appeared people with cigarettes and with loud free speech. Yura met
the first guests at the front entrance; he looked at each one
carefully, and he made the acquaintance and even the friendship of
some of them on the way from the corridor to the table.
Thus he managed to become friendly with the officer, whose name was
Mitenka--a grown man whose name was Mitenka--he said so himself.
Mitenka had a heavy leather sword, which was as cold as a snake,
which could not be taken out--but Mitenka lied; the sword was only
fastened at the handle with a silver cord, but it could be taken out
very nicely; and Yura felt vexed because the stupid Mitenka instead
of carrying his sword, as he always did, placed it in a corner in the
hallway as a cane. But even in the corner the sword stood out alone -
one could see at once that it was a sword. Another thing that
displeased Yura was that another officer came with Mitenka, an
officer whom Yura knew and whose name was also Yura Mikhailovich.
Yura thought that the officer must have been named so for fun. That
wrong Yura Mikhailovich had visited them several times; he even came
once on horseback; but most of the time he came just before little
Yura had to go to bed. And little Yura went to bed, while the unreal
Yura Mikhailovich remained with mamma, and that caused him to feel
alarmed and sad; he was afraid that mamma might be deceived. He paid
no attention to the real Yura Mikhailovich: and now, walking beside
Mitenka, he did not seem to realise his guilt; he adjusted his
moustaches and maintained silence. He kissed mamma's hand, and that
seemed repulsive to little Yura; but the stupid Mitenka also kissed
mamma's hand, and thereby set everything aright.
But soon the guests arrived in such numbers, and there was such a
variety of them, as if they had fallen straight from the sky. And
some of them seemed to have fallen near the table, while others
seemed to have fallen into the garden. Suddenly several students and
ladies appeared in the path. The ladies were ordinary, but the
students had holes cut at the left side of their white coats--for
their swords. But they did not bring their swords along, no doubt
because of their pride--they were all very proud. And the ladies
rushed over to Yura and began to kiss him. Then the most beautiful
of the ladies, whose name was Ninochka, took Yura to the swing and
swung him until she threw him down. He hurt his left leg near the
knee very painfully and even stained his little white pants in that
spot, but of course he did not cry, and somehow his pain had quickly
disappeared somewhere. At this time father was leading an important-looking bald-headed old man in the garden, and he asked Yurochka,
"Did you get hurt?"
But as the old man also smiled and also spoke, Yurochka did not kiss
father and did not even answer him; but suddenly he seemed to have
lost his mind--he commenced to squeal for joy and to run around. If
he had a bell as large as the whole city he would have rung that
bell; but as he had no such bell he climbed the linden tree, which
stood near the terrace, and began to show off. The guests below were
laughing and mamma was shouting, and suddenly the music began to
play, and Yura soon stood in front of the orchestra, spreading his
legs apart and, according to his old but long forgotten habit, put
his finger into his mouth. The sounds seemed to strike at him all at
once; they roared and thundered; they made his legs tingle, and they
shook his jaw. They played so loudly that there was nothing but the
orchestra on the whole earth--everything else had vanished. The
brass ends of some of the trumpets even spread apart and opened wide
from the great roaring; Yura thought that it would be interesting to
make a military helmet out of such a trumpet.
Suddenly Yura grew sad. The music was still roaring, but now it was
somewhere far away, while within him all became quiet, and it was
growing ever more and more quiet. Heaving a deep sigh, Yura looked
at the sky--it was so high--and with slow footsteps he started out to
make the rounds of the holiday, of all its confused boundaries,
possibilities and distances. And everywhere he turned out to be too
late; he wanted to see how the tables for card playing would be
arranged, but the tables were ready and people had been playing cards
for a long time when he came up. He touched the chalk and the brush
near his father and his father immediately chased him away. What of
that, what difference did that make to him? He wanted to see how
they would start to dance and he was sure that they would dance in
the parlour, but they had already commenced to dance, not in the
parlour, but under the linden trees. He wanted to see how they would
light the lanterns, but the lanterns had all been lit already, every
one of them, to the very last of the last. They lit up of themselves
like stars.
Mamma danced best of all.