Man From the USSR & Other Plays (27 page)

                            I need to pray....
My diary—here it is, my humble, faithful
prayer book....Think I'll start in the middle....
(reads)
“Fifteenth
November: moon is blazing like a bonfire;
and Venus seems a little Japanese
lantern....”
(turnspage)

            “Bravo for Kingsley. Always looks like
he's playing—sturdy and light-footed....Problems
with our poor dogs: Gypsy's gone blind, and Grouse
has vanished: fell into a seal hole, I
imagine....”

            “Christmas Eve: today the sky was
lit up by an aurora borealis...
(turns page)
“Eighth February: the Pole. Norwegian flag
is sticking from the snow.... We have been beaten.
I'm very sorry for my loyal companions.
And now we must go back.”
(turnspage)
“Eighteenth of March:
we're straying. Sleds keep getting stuck. And Kingsley
is going downhill.” “The twentieth: the last of
the cocoa and meat powder.... Johnson's feet
aren't well. He's very cheerful, very lucid.
We still go on discussing, he and I,
what we'll do afterwards, on our return.”
Well,...Now I must add only that—too bad
the pencil's broken....

              I suppose it is
the most appropriate ending....

              Lord, I'm ready.
My life, just like the needle of a compass,
has quivered and has pointed to the Pole—and
Thou art that Pole....

              My skis have left their tracks
upon your boundless snows. There's nothing else.
That's all there is.
(pause)

              And in a city park,
back home in London, with some toy or other,
all bathed in sunshine, and with naked knees....
They'll tell him later on....
(pause)

                        Everything's quiet.
I picture Fleming on the vast, smooth plain—
he walks and walks, moving his skis ahead
so steadily—one, two ... he's disappearing....
And I'm no longer hungry....Such great weakness,
such quietude is rippling through my body....
(pause)
It's probably delirium....I hear....
I hear.... Can it really be possible?
They've found us, here they come ... our men ... our men....
Keep calm, Captain, keep calm....No, it is not
delirium, not the wind. I clearly hear
snow creaking, movement, steps upon the snow.
Keep calm ... must rise ... must meet them....Who is there?

 

FLEMING

It's Fleming....

 

CAPT. SCOTT

          Ah, the blizzard has died down— hasn't it?...

 

FLEMING

          Yes, it's cleared up. The wind has stopped,
(sits down)
The outside of our tent is all aglitter,
powdered with snow....

 

CAPT. SCOTT

            Say, do you have a knife?
My pencil's broken. Thanks, this will do fine.
I have to make an entry that you're back.

 

FLEMING

And you can add that Johnson isn't.

 

CAPT. SCOTT

                                      It's
one and the same....
(pause)

 

FLEMING

            Our tent will not be hard
to notice, it shines so....

                      Oh, by the way,
about Johnson: I came across his body.
He'd dug into the snow, face down, his hood
thrown back....

 

CAPT. SCOTT

          It seems a pity, but I do
not think I can write more....Now, listen—can
you tell me for what reason you came back....

 

FLEMING

I simply couldn't help it....He was lying
so well. His death had been so comfortable.
And now I shall remain here....

 

CAPT. SCOTT

                              Fleming, you
remember how, as children, we would read
about Sinbad's adventures—you remember?

 

FLEMING

I do, yes.

 

CAPT. SCOTT

      People are fond of fables, aren't they?
Thus, you and I, alone, amid the snows,
so far away.... I think that England....

The Grand-dad (Dédushka)
was completed on 30 June 1923 at the Domaine de Beaulieu. It was published in
Rul'
in Berlin on 14 October of the same year. The English translation is based on a collation of the published text and two almost identical handwritten versions recorded by Nabokov's mother in her albums. What few discrepancies and lapses there were generally had resulted from oversights in copying.

Wife
Husband
Passerby (de Mérival)
Juliette
Grand-dad

 

The action takes place in 1816 in France, in the house of a well-off peasant family. A spacious room, with windows giving on a garden. Slanting rain. Enter the owners and a stranger—a passerby.

 

WIFE

          ...Come in. Our living room
is over here....

 

HUSBAND

          ...One moment—we'll have wine
for you.
(to his daughter)
              Juliette, run to the cellar, quickly!

 

PASSERBY
(looking around)
How cozy it is here....

 

HUSBAND

                ...Be seated, please—
here....

 

PASSERBY

          Bright.... And neat....A carved chest in the corner,
a clock up on the wall, its dial adorned
with cornflowers....

 

WIFE

            Aren't you soaked?

 

PASSERBY

                    Oh, not at all—
I ducked under a roof in time. A real
downpour! You're certain it's no trouble? May I
wait till it stops? As soon as it is over...

 

HUSBAND

Oh, it's our pleasure....

 

WIFE

              Are you from nearby?

 

PASSERBY

A traveler....I've recently returned from
abroad. I'm staying at my brother's castle—
de Mérival.... Just a short way from here...

 

HUSBAND

Yes, yes, we know it....
(to his daughter, who has come in with the wine)

                    Put it here, Juliette.
There. Drink, good sir. It's sunshine in a glass....

 

PASSERBY
(clinking glasses)
Your health....Ah, what a fine bouquet! And what
a comely daughter you have too.... Juliette,
my sweet, where is your Romeo?

 

WIFE
(laughing)

                  What is
a “Romeo”?

 

PASSERBY

          Oh ... Never mind—one day
she'll learn herself....

 

JULIETTE

                    Have you seen Grand-dad yet, sir?

 

PASSERBY

Not yet.

 

JULIETTE

       He's nice....

 

HUSBAND
(to Wife)

                  Say, by the way, where is he?

 

WIFE

Asleep inside his room, smacking his lips
just like a little child....

 

PASSERBY

              And your grand-dad—
he's very old?

 

HUSBAND

          Near seventy, I reckon ...
we do not know....

 

WIFE

              He's not our kin, you see:
it was our own idea to call him that.

 

JULIETTE

He's gentle....

 

PASSERBY

            But who is he?

 

HUSBAND

                      That's exactly
the point—we haven't the least idea....One day
last spring an oldster turned up in the village,
and it was clear he came from a great distance.
He had no recollection of his name,
and smiled a timid smile at all our questions.
It was Juliette who brought him to the house.
We gave the old man food, we gave him drink;
he cooed with pleasure, licked his chops, eyes narrowed,
squeezed at my hand, with an enraptured smile,
but made no sense at all; must be his mind
was growing bald....We kept him here with us—
it was Juliette who talked us into it....
He must be coddled, though ... his tooth is sweet,
and he's been costing us a pretty penny.

 

WIFE

Oh, stop it, child ... the dear old man....

 

HUSBAND

                                I meant
no harm.... It was just idle chatter.... Drink, sir!

 

PASSERBY

I'm drinking, thanks.... Although it's almost time
for me to go.... What rain! It will breathe life
into your land.

 

HUSBAND

          Thank heavens. Only this
is just a joke, not rain. There, look—the sun's
beginning to peek through already.... No....

 

PASSERBY

Look at that lovely golden smoke!

 

HUSBAND

                         See—you, sir,
can marvel at it, but what about us?
We
are
the land.... And our thoughts are the land's
own thoughts....We do not need to look, but sense
the swelling of the seed within the furrow,
the fruit becoming plump....When, from the heat,
the earth begins to parch and crack, so, too,
the skin upon our palms starts cracking, sir.
And, if it rains, we listen with alarm,
and inwardly we pray: “Noise, blessed noise,
be not transformed to hammering of hail!”...
And if that ricocheting clatter should
begin resounding on our windowsills,
it's then—then that we plug our ears, and bury
our faces in our pillows, just like cowards
who hear a distant fusillade! Our worries
are many....As when, lately, in the pear tree,
a worm appeared—a monstrous, warty worm,
a green-hued devil! Or when aphids, like
a clammy rash, will coat a youthful vine....
And so it goes.

 

PASSERBY

          Yet what a sense of pride
for you, what joy it must be to receive
the ruddy, aromatic thank-you's that
your trees give to you!

 

WIFE

                Grand-dad, too, awaits
assiduously some kind of revelation,
pressing his ear first to the bark, then to
a petal....He believes, it seems to me,
that dead men's souls live on in lilies, or
in cherry trees.

 

PASSERBY

            I wouldn't mind a chat
with him—I'm fond of gentle simpletons
like that....

 

WIFE

          I look and look at you but I
just cannot figure out your age. You don't seem
too young, and yet there's something....I don't know....

 

PASSERBY

Dear lady, I'm in my sixth decade.

 

HUSBAND

                               Then
you've lived a life of peace—there's not a wrinkle
upon your brow....

 

PASSERBY

                Of peace, you say!
(laughs)
If I
wrote it all down....Sometimes I, even, cannot
believe my past! My head spins from it as ...
as it does from your wine. I've drained the cup
of life in such enormous draughts, such draughts....
And then there were times, too, when death would nudge
my elbow....Well, perhaps you'd like to hear
the tale of how, the summer of the year
seventeen ninety-two, in Lyon, Monsieur
de Merival—aristocrat, and traitor,
so on, so forth—was saved right from the scaffold
of the guillotine?

 

WIFE

            We're listening, tell
us....

 

PASSERBY

          I was twenty that tempestuous year.
And the tribunal's thunder had condemned me
to death—perhaps it was my powdered hair,
or else, perhaps, the noble particle
before my name—who knows: the merest trifle
meant execution then.... That very night I
was to appear, by torchlight, at the scaffold.
The executioner was nimble, by
the way, and diligent: an artist, not
an
axman. He was always emulating
his Paris cousin, the renowned Sanson:
he had procured the same kind of small tumbrel
and, when he'd lopped a head off, he would hold
it by the hair and swing it the same way....
And so he carts me off. Darkness had fallen,
along black streets the windows came alight,
and street lamps too. I sat, back to the wind,
inside the shaky cart, clutching the side rails
with hands numb from the cold—and I was thinking...
of what?—of various trivial details mostly:
that I had left without a handkerchief,
or that my executioner companion
looked like a dignified physician.... Soon we
arrived. A final turning, and before us
there opened up the square's expanse....Its center
was ominously lit....And it was then,
as, with a kind of guilty courtesy,
the executioner helped me descend,
and I realized the journey's end had come—
that was the moment terror seized my throat....
Lugubrious hallooing midst the crowd—
derisive, maybe, too (I couldn't hear)—
the horses' moving croups, the lances, wind,
the smell of burning torches—all of this
passed like a dream, and I saw but one thing,
just one: there, there, up in the murky sky,
like a steel wing, the heavy oblique blade
between two uprights hung, ready to fall....
Its edge, catching a transient gleam, appeared
to be already glistening with blood!
To rumblings from the distant crowd, I started
to ascend the scaffold, and each step
would make a different creak. In silence they
removed my camisole, and slashed my shirt
down to my scapulae.... The board seemed a
raised drawbridge: to it I'd be lashed, I knew,
the bridge would drop, I'd swing face down, and then,
between the posts the wooden collar would
slam tight on me, and then—yes, only then—
death, with an instant crash, would plummet down.
It grew impossible for me to swallow,
my nape was racked by a presentient pain,
my temples thundered and my chest was bursting,
tensed with the palpitation and the pounding—
but, I believe, I outwardly seemed calm....