Authors: Andrei Bitov
“Well, but to screw, as you choose to put it—to screw is to die, don’t you think? What is more like death than this ultimate ecstasy? Don’t we, in our bawdy, polite Russian vernacular, use the verb ‘finish’ for this? To ‘live’ and to ‘finish’—don’t you hear?”
“You’re reasoning like a male animal, Pavel Petrovich.”
“Who am I to reason otherwise?”
“The female may have a different opinion.”
“Oh, the female may even be death itself. At least, we always die in her. Weren’t you talking just now about the termination of the individual, about the unfortunate fishes and spiders who die in the moment of fulfilling their purpose? But notice: most often it’s the males. And the female, nearly always, executes the sentence. We males do have some remote idea of death from our experience of love. They do not! No, death is unknown to them. We’re mortal, but they’re immortal. Immortal because they
are
death. They are homogeneous and eternal. They are more ancient than we. They slumbered,
existed
, in that eternal and absolute darkness before the light. We didn’t. And won’t. And don’t need to!”
“My Mephistopheles!” The doctor laughs. “Have they really vexed you so much? Yet for all that, they’re your instrument.”
“My Faust! They’d drive even the King of Darkness crazy
…
Here again, you see how right I am. He is, after all, king of what? Of
daaarkness
! Haven’t we, dear Doctor, been neglecting our sole comfort?” And Pavel Petrovich looks at the dark bottle against the light, to determine how much he hasn’t neglected.
“Haven’t we been neglecting the sea?”
“Why neglecting it? There it is.” Pavel Petrovich points to the smooth expanse with a gesture as generous and careless as though he had beckoned it into existence. “The sea is always there, help yourself.”
We will omit their long squabble on the subject of whether it’s better to have a drink first and then a swim (Pavel Petrovich) or to have a swim first and then a drink (Doctor D.), inasmuch as Pavel Petrovich originally favors just having a drink, in the belief that
chacha
will equalize the temperatures of the body and the environment more quickly and accurately than other liquid procedures, while the doctor believes an altogether monstrous thing, that it’s better to have a swim and nothing more to drink at all—for which he pays by having a drink both before and after swimming, while Pavel Petrovich pays only by swimming. Moreover, Doctor D. swims a long time, with the breaststroke, and Pavel Petrovich a short time, with the overarm stroke.
“Now, about the nature of squeamishness,” Pavel Petrovich says, blissfully drying off. “You were saying that it’s a gene memory of the source of disease. An innate fear, exaggerated through primordial ignorance. And I agree with you, it’s exaggerated. Just as I agree with your scientific conclusion that there’s no inedible meat, especially poisonous meat, in nature. Protein is protein. I would even give courses in non-squeamishness, for people who think themselves enlightened. Have harmless grass snakes and tarantulas go crawling after them
…
” Then and there, apparently to prove both points, he catches a mosquito and eats it before the doctor’s very eyes. “Have them bathe more often and launder their socks. Nevertheless, this squeamishness vis-à-vis mice and spiders is different in nature from what you say. It’s not an innate fear in the individual but an unconscious hostility in the whole species:
they
, the rats, cockroaches, spiders, et cetera, will outlive
us.
That is, when we ourselves have outlived our usefulness, they will remain to populate our earth without us. But who says the earth is ours and not theirs! They’re more ancient than we are, they have outlived everything and everyone that existed before us, this is their earth, not ours. The dolphins, they won’t outlive us. We’ll outlive them, and without them we’ll become even worse. Do not animals regard us with horror, the same way we regard insects? The dolphin alone still finds within him the strength to trust us. The reason he’s even smarter than man is that he’s better
…
”
Pavel Petrovich draws breath. And the doctor butts in:
“If you constantly resort to the notion of a Creator in your constructs, you raise the usual question of the imperfections in Creation, the system of evil inherent in it. And, already foreseeing some of your arguments and proceeding from your system of coordinates, I amend your discussion of squeamishness, with which, in principle, I can’t help agreeing: namely, that ‘squeamishness’ is a more private concept than ‘disgust.’ Now, I don’t remember exactly how this goes, but in the Old Testament—you correct me, please—there was something about the ‘seven plagues of Egypt,’ which included both snakes and insects. That is, if snakes and insects are indeed God’s creations, they’re somewhat ambiguous as a punishment. And for that reason the disgust they inspire will take a form less personal and superficial than mere ‘squeamishness,’ and more fundamental.”
This obvious oversight makes Pavel Petrovich feel very gloomy. He could, of course, apropos of this, regale Doctor D. with a brilliant retelling of his Indian legend about Nikibumatva and Escheguki and the creation of the world, inasmuch as Doctor D. hasn’t had the opportunity of hearing it. But Pavel Petrovich is not the kind of man to repeat himself, as a matter of principle. And this is the tack he takes:
“As concerns the imperfection of Creation, we haven’t yet reached the point in the plot where I’ll be able to state this for you and you’ll be able to assimilate it. Much will become clear when everyone finally understands that man didn’t come from the monkey at all, but the monkey from man.”
“How’s that? Don’t you mean
…
?”
“No, I do not.” Pavel Petrovich shakes the bottle, and his face grows stern. “This is our fault, Doctor, yours and mine. Disgust and squeamishness are on your conscience and mine. We are charmed by that which is lighted, and terrified by that which lies in darkness.” So saying, with a broad, graceful gesture, Pavel Petrovich unfurls before Doctor D.’s eyes a view of the sea (now slightly bluer), and with a threatening finger he points down, either under the ground or to the sea floor. “As you see, we’re extending our topic and revealing the interconnection of all things. Of course, the Creator didn’t literally create everything on earth; evolution worked on a few things, too. Sometimes He may have been distracted from earthly affairs for a brief hour, but who shall say what God’s Hour equals? And when evolution was working alone, it didn’t improve Creation but merely exposed and exaggerated every mistake in it. The Creator did His work enviably well. And afterward, Envy did the work for Him. Envy with a capital letter, and you know whose name that is
…
Evolution is as saturated with envy as a fruit with juice. Take all those dinosaurs and brontosaurs, who trampled the earth as thoroughly as men have
…
Evolution can accumulate only catastrophe, when in His Hour the Creator shall turn his attention to His Creation. O Lord! What a
cataaas-
trophe awaits us
…
”
Since Doctor D. is poised to give an expert speech on evolution (with which he himself, however, is not thrilled), Pavel Petrovich is forced to abbreviate, if not the size of the impending catastrophe, then the pause appropriate to its scale
…
.. then it was He who created Beauty in the world. That which lies open for us to see and admire is beautiful. That which hides in darkness, as if actually ashamed of its own ugliness, is hideous. Evolution, or more correctly, mutation, works with impunity underground and in darkness, generating giant monsters and reptiles so hideous that they perish at one glance from us, if chance casts them up on a lighted surface. Death, too, has its own small zoo. Even death can’t do without life.”
This time Doctor D. succeeds in venting his indignation: “This isn’t even anthropomorphism, it’s narcissism of some kind! The ‘beautiful,’ if you please, is merely that which we recognize as beautiful. But what do we compare, and where do we derive our criteria? Everything alive is in hiding, if you will, and won’t poke its head out without special reason. There’s a hypothesis on the origin of sleep, quite unproven, but I like it: sleep isn’t for rest at all, it’s for survival. If you’ve managed to eat your fill—hide, lest you get eaten. That is, be still, die, sink into the darkness you’re fighting so hard. What is sleep but a small death? And we practice sleep far more often than coitus—although that, too, leaves us inclined to sleep—”
“What is sleep without dreams! How will you explain dreams, if not as the struggle of light and darkness! Perhaps you yourself, awake, are being dreamed by someone
…
And you are safe, in your dream, from poorhouse and jail, / you are stealing sleep, when the guards arrive. / They’ll fold up your bunk. But still by day / you’ll see men almost not men, woven of night. / And like a scrap of freedom, in your bosom you keep warmth and sleep’s last mirage, that it’s a game, and you lay down your bet
…
”
“True, true,” Doctor D. says contentedly. “I said you were a poet. But have you sat in prison, too?
…
But shouldn’t we move on, shouldn’t we be getting to the relict grove?”
“Have I sat in
…
?” Pavel Petrovich starts, and immediately becomes himself again. “But we’re sitting right in it—in your relict grove!” He waves his arm to the right, as much as to say that the creation of the grove has cost him nothing.
The doctor is stunned. The pine under which they are sitting is the outermost tree in the grove. Pavel Petrovich settled down first, facing the grove, and has long been admiring it, leaving for Doctor D. only the view backward, to the shelterless shore.
“Not really! You had me under a spell
…
All right, then, let’s be on our way!”
“Let’s change places instead. We still have some left. You’ll look at the grove, and I’ll look at you.”
As he changes places, Pavel Petrovich once again examines the bottle closely, gauging its contents, and his face expresses dissatisfaction; he begins to rummage through his pockets, as though, by sitting for a long time, he might have acquired some money. The doctor does not take the hint and does not produce the change so nobly returned to him—he lets Pavel Petrovich rake all the crumbs out of his pockets.
“You don’t smoke, do you? I don’t either. But I suddenly have a strong urge.” Pavel Petrovich busies himself intently with enriching the mixture, plucking out unneeded crumbs and blowing them away. “You don’t have any newspaper, either? Oh, well. We’ll read the local press.”
And he begins to unroll the cork. It turns out to be an unexpectedly good-sized scrap of newspaper, which he scans attentively.
“It’s worn at the creases,” he complains. “The thread of the narrative is lost.
Aprasnua Apsny Zantaria Akademia Anauk Achyrba
…
From there on, it’s obliterated
…
Written in Russian letters, but not in our language.”
“I almost thought you knew Abkhazian, too.”
“The Abkhazian language is impossible to know. Only the Abkhazians know it.”
“That difficult?”
“That ancient.”
Pavel Petrovich cuts off a suitable small piece. Adroitly, with two fingers, he rolls himself a cigarette.
“Well. I don’t think I’ll strike a spark by rubbing two sticks. We’ll have to go swimming. There won’t be enough for two doses apiece. So let’s have it after instead.”
They swim for a while.
“By the way, what occurred to me while you were swimming
…
The modification of the landscape in the direction of beauty may have happened with man’s collaboration.”
“I don’t follow.” (The doctor’s words.)
“But what is paradise, in your opinion? And for whom was it created? For Adam, our great-grandfather.”
“What, do you believe in those fairy tales?”
“What else am I to believe in? Why don’t you look at the grove you were so eager to reach! Isn’t this paradise?”
We, too, will look. And we’ll be at a loss for words. Shishkin, that German, muddled all the pines for us. There is shadow. There are pines. Sand sifts in fine streams through the roots of the outermost pines along the shore. A small cloud is caught in the treetops. Doctor D.’s soul overflows with northern, home emotions. He feels clean and young. Full of health and strength, ready for a scientific feat and for the future in general, which these ancient relicts specifically reaffirm, for some reason. There is no old age in these pines. Only the triumph of sobriety. “My God!” the doctor exclaims to himself. “I’m alive!”
“Thus it was before man,” Pavel Petrovich proclaims solemnly. “Since the creation of the world, some seven thousand years ago. Not these trees, of course, but the same kind. Yet these
…
may perfectly well have seen the first Christians.”
Doctor D. looks at Pavel Petrovich sideways, like a very large chicken. His profile expresses the same great surprise. This is like the moment just before a sudden cloud hides the sun, or just after: the irony that always illumines the doctor’s profile is obscured by a cloudlet of perplexed belief. You can’t mean
…
but perhaps
…
but what if we’re still early Christians?
…
And why not? We babble like uncatechized heathens. We overthrew the idols and idolized Christ. Overthrew Christ and idolized man. The time has come to overthrow ourselves, too
…
Pavel Petrovich is carefully carrying a single match that he has picked up on the shore.
With his fingernail he marks an invisible line, quite close to the bottom of the bottle, and looks sternly at Doctor D. The doctor takes a modest sip. Pavel Petrovich prepares himself for his last swallow like a samurai preparing for hara-kiri. He strikes the match skillfully on the bark of the pine tree and inhales, blissfully rolling his eyes and turning his face to the sun. Then he sits down cross-legged and stands the bottle between his feet. Tenderly stroking it, with his eyes half closed, he begins to sway quietly, taking microscopic little gulps and equally short drags. He croons softly, contentedly: