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The Beauties
I
I remember, when I was a high school boy in the fifth or
sixth class, driving with my grandfather from the village
of Bolshaya Krepkaya in the Don Region to Rostov-on-
Don. It was a wearisomely dreary, sultry August day. The
heat and the burning dry wind blew clouds of dust in our
faces, gummed up my eyes and dried out my mouth. I didn’t
feel like looking around, or talking, or thinking; and when
Karpo, our drowsy Ukrainian driver, caught my cap with
his whip as he lashed his horse, I didn’t protest or utter a
sound; I just woke from my doze and gazed meekly and
dispiritedly into the distance to see if I could make out a
village through the dust. We stopped to feed the horse at the
house of a rich Armenian whom my grandfather knew, in
the big Armenian village of Bakhchi-Salakh. Never in my
life had I seen such a caricature of a man as this Armenian.
Imagine a small, shaven head with thick beetling eyebrows,
a beaky nose, a long grizzled moustache and a wide mouth
with a long cherrywood chibouk poking out of it. The little
head was clumsily attached to a skinny, hunchbacked body,
dressed in fantastic attire – a short red tunic and wide,
baggy, bright-blue trousers. This figure walked with his
legs wide apart, shuffling along in slippers, talked without
taking his chibouk out of his mouth, and carried himself
with true Armenian dignity, neither smiling nor staring,
but striving to pay his guests as little attention as possible.
There was no wind or dust inside this Armenian’s
home, but it was just as unpleasant, stifling and dreary
as the road and the steppe outside. I remember sitting,
covered in dust and worn out by the burning heat, on a
green box in a corner. The bare wooden walls, the furniture
and the ochre-stained floors all smelt of sun-scorched
dry wood. Everywhere you looked there were flies, flies,
flies… Grandfather and the Armenian were talking in an
undertone about grazing, pastures, sheep… I knew that
it would take a whole hour to get the samovar ready, and
Grandfather would spend another hour drinking his tea,
and then he’d lie down and sleep for two or three hours, and
I’d waste a quarter of the day hanging about, after which
there would be more heat, and dust, and rattling about
in the cart. I listened to the murmur of those two voices
and began to feel that the Armenian, and the crockery
cupboard, and the flies, and the windows with the hot sun
beating in, were all something I had been seeing for a long,
long time, and that I would only cease to see them in the
far distant future. And I was overcome with loathing for
the steppe, and the sun, and the flies…
A Ukrainian peasant woman in a headscarf brought
in the tray with the tea things, and then the samovar. The
Armenian strolled out onto the porch and called:
“Mashya! Come and pour the tea! Where are you?
Mashya!”
There was the sound of hurried footsteps, and in came
a girl of about sixteen, in a simple cotton dress and a
little white headscarf. As she rinsed the cups and poured
out the tea she was standing with her back to me, and all
I noticed was that she had a slim waist, her feet were bare,
and her little bare heels were covered by the bottoms of
her long trousers.
Our host invited me to come and have tea. As I sat down
at the table, I glanced at the girl’s face while she handed
me my glass, and suddenly felt something like a breath
of wind over my soul, blowing away all my impressions
of the day, with its tedium and dust. I saw the enchanting
features of the loveliest face I had ever seen in my
waking life, or imagined in my dreams. Before me stood a
beauty, and from the very first glance I understood that,
as I understand lightning.
I am ready to swear that Masha, or Mashya as her
father called her, was a real beauty; but I cannot prove it.
It sometimes happens that ragged clouds gather on the
horizon, and the sun, hiding behind them, colours them
and the sky in every possible hue – crimson, orange, golden,
lilac, dusty pink; one cloud looks like a monk, another like
a fish, a third like a Turk in a turban. The sunset glow fills a
third of the sky, shining on the church cross and the window
panes of an elegant house, reflected in the river and the
puddles, shimmering on the trees; far, far away against the
sunset, a flock of wild ducks flies off to its night’s rest…
And the farm lad herding his cows, the surveyor driving his
chaise over the dam, and the gentlefolk out for their stroll,
all gaze at the sunset, and every one of them finds it terribly
beautiful, but no one knows or can say what makes it so.
I was not the only one to find this Armenian girl beautiful.
My grandfather, an old man of eighty, rough and
indifferent to women and the beauties of nature, gazed
affectionately at Masha for a whole minute, and asked:
“Is this your daughter, Avet Nazarich?”
“Yes. That’s my daughter…” replied our host.
“A fine young lady,” said Grandfather appreciatively.
An artist would have called this Armenian girl’s beauty
classical and severe. It was just the sort of beauty which, as
you contemplate it, heaven knows how, fills you with the
certainty that the features you are seeing are right – that
the hair, eyes, nose, mouth, neck, breast, and all the movements
of this young body, have come together in a single,
complete harmonic chord, in which nature has committed
not the slightest error; you somehow feel that a woman of
ideal beauty must possess exactly the same nose as Masha’s,
straight and slightly aquiline, the same large dark eyes,
the same long eyelashes, the same languid look; that her
wavy black hair and eyebrows go with the gentle whiteness
of her brow and cheeks just as a green rush goes with a
quiet stream. Masha’s white neck and youthful breast were
not yet fully developed, but in order to create them in a
sculpture, you feel, one would have to possess an enormous
creative talent. You look on, and gradually find yourself
wishing to tell Masha something uncommonly agreeable,
sincere and beautiful, as beautiful as herself.
At first I was upset and embarrassed that Masha took
no notice of me, but kept her eyes lowered; there was,
it seemed to me, some special atmosphere of happiness
and pride about her that separated her from me, jealously
shielding her from my eyes.
“It’s because I’m all covered in dust, and sunburnt,”
I thought, “and because I’m only a boy.”
But then I gradually forgot all about myself, and gave
myself up wholly to the appreciation of beauty. I no longer
remembered the tedium of the steppe, or the dust; I no
longer heard the buzzing of the flies, nor noticed the taste
of the tea – I was simply aware that opposite me, across
the table, there stood a beautiful girl.
I perceived her beauty in a strange sort of way. Masha
aroused in me neither desire, nor delight, nor enjoyment,
but a strange though pleasant sadness. This sadness was
as indeterminate and vague as a dream. For some reason,
I felt sorry for myself, and Grandfather, and the Armenian,
and the Armenian maiden herself; I felt as if all four of us
had lost something important and essential for life, which
we would never find again. Grandfather grew sad too. He
no longer talked about pastures or sheep, but sat in silence,
looking thoughtfully at Masha.
After tea, Grandfather lay down to sleep, while I went
out to sit on the porch. This house, like every house in
Bakhchi-Salakh, was exposed in full sunlight – there were
no trees, or awnings, or shade. The Armenian’s great
farmyard, overgrown with goosefoot and mallow, was full
of life and merriment despite the baking heat. Threshing
was in progress behind one of the low wattle fences that ran
across the yard here and there. Twelve horses harnessed in
line around a post set in the very middle of the threshing
floor, and forming a single long radius around it, were
trotting round in circles. Beside them walked a Ukrainian
in a long tunic and wide trousers, cracking his whip and
shouting out as if he meant to taunt the horses and boast
of his power over them:
“He-e-ey, you wretches! He-e-ey… go die of cholera!
Frightened, are you?”
The chestnut, white and piebald horses had no idea why
they were being forced to trot around in circles crushing
wheat straw, and they ran unwillingly, forcing themselves
on and flicking their tails with a discontented air. The
wind raised great clouds of golden chaff from under their
hooves, carrying it far away over the fence. Women with
rakes jostled one another beside tall, newly built hayricks,
carts moved about, and in another yard beyond the hayricks
another dozen similar horses trotted around a post, and
a second Ukrainian like the first cracked his whip and
taunted them.
The steps I was sitting on were hot, and the heat brought
sap oozing up out of the flimsy railings and window frames.
Little red bugs huddled together in the strips of shade under
the steps and behind the shutters. The sun beat down on
my head, and my chest, and my back, but I was unaware
of it: all I noticed was the padding of bare feet behind me,
on the porch and indoors. When Mashya had cleared away
the tea things, she ran past me down the steps, fanning the
air around me as she passed, and flew like a bird to a little
smoke-blackened outhouse, the kitchen I suppose, from
which came a smell of roast mutton and the sound of angry
Armenian voices. She vanished through the dark doorway,
and in her place a hunchbacked old Armenian woman,
red-faced and wearing wide green trousers, appeared at
the door. She was angrily scolding someone. Soon Mashya
reappeared in the doorway, flushed with the heat of the
kitchen and carrying a large black loaf on her shoulder.
Bending gracefully under its weight, she ran across the
yard to the threshing floor, skipped over the fence, and,
enveloped by a cloud of golden chaff, disappeared behind
the farm carts. The farm hand driving the horses lowered
his whip, held his tongue and stood in silence for a minute
looking over towards the carts; then, when the Armenian
girl once more darted past the horses and skipped over
the fence, he followed her with his eyes and shouted at the
horses in a most offended voice:
“Hey! Go drop down dead, you devil’s brood!”
And all the time after that I went on hearing her bare
feet stepping here and there, and saw her crossing and
recrossing the farmyard with a serious, troubled expression.
Sometimes she ran up or down the steps, fanning me with
a breeze as she passed on her way to the kitchen, or the
threshing-floor, or out of the gate, and I scarcely had time
to turn my head and follow her.
And every time she darted past me in all her beauty,
I felt sadder and sadder. I was sorry for myself, and for
her, and for the farm hand who followed her with sad eyes
every time she ran through the cloud of chaff to the carts.
Whether I envied her beauty, or whether I was sorry that
this girl was not mine and never would be mine and that
I was a stranger to her, or whether I had a vague feeling
that her rare beauty was accidental and unnecessary, and
like everything on earth, would not last; or whether my
sadness was that special feeling aroused when a person
contemplates real beauty – God only knows!
Three hours of waiting passed unnoticed. It seemed to
me that I hadn’t had time to look my fill at Mashya before
Karpo had ridden to the river, washed down the horse,
and was already harnessing it. The wet horse snorted with
pleasure and kicked its hooves against the shafts. Karpo
shouted “Ba-a-ack!” Grandfather woke. Mashya opened
the creaking gates for us, we took our places in the chaise,
and drove out of the yard. We rode in silence, as if angry
with one another.
Two or three hours later, when Rostov and Nakhichevan
were in sight, Karpo, who had not said a word all the way,
looked round quickly and said:
“That’s a fine lass, that Armenian’s!”
And whipped up his horse.