And you say you're from Leningrad and been under the siege...
I don't believe in premonitions.
I have no trust in superstitions.
I don't run from slander or venom.
There's no death on earth.
All are immortal, Everything's immortal.
Don't be afraid of death at seventeen,
At seventy as well... There's just reality and light.
There's neither death nor darkness in this world.
At last we all have reached the shore,
And I'm the one who casts a fishing rod
When immortality is coming in a shoal.
Live in a house, and it'll never fall.
To any of the centuries I'd nod
And enter it, a house I'd install.
That's why with me your children share board,
Your wives join me at my table, and all.
One table serves both granddad and grandchild:
The future's being made right now.
Whenever I'm to raise my hand in tide,
I all five rays of it on you bestow.
With collarbones, as if with timber work,
I propped up every day of past age.
I measured time by a world-wide walk,
I passed through it like through the Urals range.
I chose the age up to my own measure.
We headed south, with dust flying away,
The weeds smoked up, and at his own leisure,
His feeler on the horseshoe, the grasshopper forecast...
He prophesied me death, as if he were a monk.
But with my fate strapped to my saddle fast,
I'm riding now in the time to come
And surging on the stirrups to my own drum.
My immortality is quite enough for me.
For my own blood to flow ages through,
For steady warmth and a haven safe and true
I'd give my life self-willingly and freely,
Had not its volatile, needle-like sword
Been leading me, like a thread, throughout the world.
Marousia? And the children?
Where are the children?
I'm going to tell everybody that you've stolen the book.
- What? - I will, you'll see.
- Now stop it! - Go on, tell everybody!
I will, anyway!
Marina!
You could have come more often. You know that he's missing you.
Let Ignat live with me.
Are you serious?
You said yourself that he would like to.
With you it's better to keep one's mouth shut.
You mean I'm inventing this for my own pleasure?
Let's ask him. Whatever he decides...
Besides, it will make your life much easier.
Why would this make it easier for me?
Have you collected your books?
Go say goodbye to your father.
Your mother and I would like to ask you...
What?
Wouldn't it be better if you lived with me?
How?
You and I will live together. Haven't you said so to your mother?
Said what? When? No, please.
We really look alike, don't we?
Not at all!
What do you want from your mother? What kind of relationship?
The kind of relationship you had in your childhood is impossible.
You speak of some feeling of guilt,
of her life being ruined because of you...
Well, you can't get away from it.
And what she needs is for you to become a baby again,
for her to be able to carry you and protect you.
Why on earth am I meddling in it?
It's always like this...
Why are you whimpering? Explain it.
Should I marry him or not?
- Do I know him? - No...
Is he Ukrainian?
Does it matter?
- What is he doing? - He is a writer.
Doesn't his name happen to be Dostoyevsky?
Yes, Dostoyevsky.
He hasn't written anything worthwhile. Nobody knows him.
He must be about 40, isn't he? Apparently he's got no talent?
You've changed so much.
So, he has no talent, he doesn't write anything.
He does write, but they don't publish him.
Look, our precious flunk has put something on fire.
No need to be so ironic about his flunking.
If he doesn't finish school, he'll end up being drafted.
And you will go begging to have him exempted from the army.
This is all the result of your indulging him.
By the way, the army would be good for him.
Why don't you call your mother?
After Aunt Lisa's death she stayed in bed for three days.
Wasn't she supposed to come here at five?
Is it so difficult to make the first move?
We were talking about Ignat.
It may be my fault, too.
Or is it because we got so bourgeois?
And our embourgeoisement is so dense, so Asian.
With private ownership nonexistent, our well-being is on the rise.
Nothing makes any sense anymore.
Why do you get so irritated?
I know a family whose 15-year-old son said:
"I'm leaving you. It disgusts me to see
how you weasel around trying to please everybody."
Good boy. Not like our booby.
Unfortunately, our boy would never say such a thing.
I can imagine that family of yours!
They're no worse than we are. He works for a newspaper.
And thinks he's a writer, too.
Though he's unable to understand
that a book is not a way of making money but a statement.
A poet is called upon to provoke a spiritual jolt
and not to cultivate idolaters.
What am I going to do?
You're going to get married.
Do you happen to remember who was it who saw a bush on fire?
I mean the angel as a bush?
I don't remember. In any case, it was not Ignat.
Maybe we should send him to a cadet school?
An angel as a flame coming from a bush appeared to Prophet Moses.
He led his people out across the sea.
Why has nothing like that ever appeared to me?
With an amazing regularity I keep seeing one and the same dream.
It seems to make me return
to the place, poignantly dear to my heart,
where my grandfather's house used to be,
in which I was born 40 years ago right on the dinner table.
Each time I try to enter it, something prevents me from doing that.
I see this dream again and again.
And when I see those walls made of logs and the dark entrance,
even in my dream I become aware that I'm only dreaming it.
And the overwhelming joy is clouded by anticipation of awakening.
At times something happens and I stop dreaming
of the house and the pine trees of my childhood around it.
Then I get depressed.
And I can't wait to see this dream
in which I'll be a child again
and feel happy again
because everything will be still ahead, everything will be possible...
Mommy!
- Mom, they opened up! - What's the matter with you?
Hello.
- Are you Nadezhda Petrovna? - I don't think I...
I'm Matvey Ivanov's stepdaughter.
He was a friend of your husband.
What Matvey?
The doctor. He used to live here.
Then he moved to Yurievets and became a legal expert.
Are you from town?
We're from Moscow, but we have a room in Yurievets.
We were evacuated last fall.
The air raids on Moscow began and I have two kids.
My mother has some old connections here...
My husband is not here, he's in town.
Stop scratching yourself!
Actually I came to see you. It's a ladies' little secret.
Come on in. Don't stand there...
Wipe your feet. Masha's just washed the floor.
Sit here for a while. We won't be long.
Why are you sitting in the dark? Did it go out?
You should've called us.
- What's your name? - Alyosha.
I've got a son, too. Not so big as you, of course.
It's not easy having kids now, with the war going.
I wish I had a girl too.
Want to have a look? He's asleep.
We'll be quiet. He's such a darling.
The other day he asked his father:
"Why is 5 kopecks bigger than 10 kopecks?"
I was just dumfounded, and his father didn't know what to say.
He always wanted a daughter. He even thought of a girl's name.
And I prepared a pink layette.
Then I had to make everything anew.
He put us up to a lot of trouble, little rascal.
We woke you up, didn't we?
That's your mommy's fault, she just can't stop talking.
See, we've got company. Some strangers, aren't they?
You just wouldn't wake up, would you?
All right, honey, go back to sleep.
Do they become me? And the ring?
- What's wrong? - I just felt queasy.
Of course, you've made a long trip. I should have known better.
Have a drink. It will warm you up.
I just talk and talk when I ought to make supper.
Oh please, you don't have to do it.
- But I can't let you go like that. - We had a meal before leaving.
I don't like his cough!
Well, he runs wild...
We must have my husband examine him.
We can't wait, we have a two-hour walk to make.
And what about the earrings? My husband's got the money.
We're going to have a cock slaughtered. Only may I ask you...
I'm three months pregnant and having fits of sickness.
Even when I'm milking a cow, it gets so bad...
As for the cock... Could you?
Well, I myself...
What, you too?
No, but I've never done it before.
Oh, it's nothing. Sure, in Moscow you ate them already slaughtered.
I usually do it right here, on this little log.
Here's the axe. My husband has sharpened it this morning.
- You mean, right in the room? - We'll put a basin under.
And tomorrow you'll take a chicken with you.
No, I can't.
Maybe we'll ask Alyosha to do that? After all, he's a man.
Why Alyosha?
All right, hold it tight. If it breaks loose, it'll smash the dishes.
Oh no, I don't feel... Well?
Calm down. Everything will be all right.
I wish I could see you
not only when I feel too bad.
- Do you hear me? - Yes.
At last I soared up.
What's wrong, Marousia? You feel bad?
Don't be surprised. I love you.
Are you leaving already? And the earrings? My husband'll be right here.
- He's got the money. - We changed our mind.
It's fifteen versts to the town. It's going to be dark soon.
That's all right, don't worry.
A man has but one body, Like a single cell.
The soul is sick and tired Of its too solid shell,
With ears, mouth, eyes The size of a nickel coin
And skin all scarred and diced, Spread over a skeleton.
Through cornea it wings To a heavenly spring,
To ice-laden slings, To a chariot birds bring.
It hears through the grating Of its living prison pen
The fields' and forests' rattling, The Seven Seas' refrain.
Without body a soul's nude, As a body's nude without a shirt:
No thought's forthcoming, no good, No idea's born and no word.
A question that has no answer: Whoever can come back
From the floor where no dancer Was ever to leave track?
I dream of another soul, In quite a different garb:
While shifting between dole And hope, it burns up,
Like alcohol, and goes Away, casts no shadow
And just leaves as mementoes The lilacs smelling of meadow.
Run on, my child, do not lament The fate of poor Eurydice,
Just keep on driving to globe's end Your copper hoop for all to see.
As long as answering to your step, However slight might be a tone,
The earth sends signals gay and pep To every energetic bone.
Mom, the kerosene stove is smoking.
What?
Everything will depend on him.
Do you think a sore throat could have such an after-effect?
A sore throat has nothing to do with it.
- This is a common case. - Common?
A mother dies suddenly, then the man's wife and child...
A few days and the man is no more, though he was quite healthy.
But no one died in his family.
There're such things as conscience... memories...
What memories have to do it with it?
- You think he's guilty of something? - He thinks so.
Leave me alone.
- Did you say something? - Leave me alone!
I just wanted to be happy.
And what's going to happen to your mother if you don't get up?
It's nothing, everything will be all right...
Everything will be...
Would you rather have a boy or a girl?
The End