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Nadezhda Teffi (1876-1952), Russian writer who had to leave Russia after the revolution of 1917. She wrote a lot of various short stories, and here are two of them translated into English. Click on the links below to read the stories:
" 'Strangers' and 'Close Friends' " " Lifeless Beast " |
It was very funny at the celebration of the New Year eve. There was a fir-tree, and there were many guests, both little children and adult people. There even was one boy about whom Kate's nurse said that he had been flogged on that day. This was so interesting that almost all the evening Kate tried to stay near him; she waited that he would say something special, and she looked at him with respect and fear. But the flogged boy behaved just like an ordinary boy, he asked for sweets, blew his trumpet and played with fly flaps, so Kate had to get disappointed and leave him, with bitterness in her heart.
The party was about to be over, and the parents started to prepare the least and loudly crying children for leaving, when Kate got her most important present - a big woolen lamb. It was very soft, with a long meek head and human eyes, it smelled of sour wool and his head, if pulled down, made a tender and insistent sound : "baaaaa". The lamb amazed Kate with it's appearance and smell, and with its voice, so that she, just for conscience sake, asked her mother: It's not alive, is it?" Her mother turned away her bird-like face and didn't answer anything; she hadn't spoken to Kate for a long time already, she didn't have time for it. Kate sighed and went to the dining-room to feed the lamb with milk. She put its head right into the milk-jug, so that the lamb became wet with milk up to its very eyes. A young lady came up to them and shook her head. Oh-oh, what are you doing? You can't feed the lifeless lamb with real milk. It will die of this. You should give it fake milk. Like this." The young lady made a gesture with an empty cup in the air, brought the cup to the lamb's mouth and smacked her lips. "Do you understand now?" "I understand. And why do we give real milk to the cat?" "Because it must be like this. For every beast there is it's own rule. For a live beast - a real thing, for a lifeless beast - a fake thing." The woolen lamb started living in the nursery, in the corner, behind the nurse's trunk. Kate loved the lamb, and due to her love, with every passing day, it became more and more dirty and disheveled, and he pronounced his tender "Baaaa" in a more and more low voice. And because it became so dirty, the mother didn't allow Kate to put it near her at the table at dinner. Dinners became very sad. The father kept silent, the mother kept silent. Nobody even turned round when after finishing the cake Kate made a curtsy and said in the thin voice of a smart girl: "Thank you, Daddy! Thank you, Mammy!" One day they started dinner without the mother. The mother came back home after they all had finished the soup and she was shouting from the hall that there were a lot of people at the skating-rink. And when she came up to the table the father looked at her and suddenly threw the decanter onto the floor. "What's happened to you?" the mother cried. "Your blouse is unbuttoned on your back!" He shouted something else, but the nurse grabbed Kate from her chair and took her to the nursery. After that, Kate didn't see both her father and mother for many days, and all her life became as if fake. The servant's dinner was brought from the kitchen, the cook came and talked to the nurse in whisper: "And he told her... and she told him... He says to her... Get out! And she replies to him... and he says to her..." They whispered, rustled. Some strange women with fox's faces began coming from the kitchen, they stole glances at Kate, asked the nurse something, whispered, rustled: "And he told her... Get out! And she replied..." The nurse often left home. Then the fox-like women got to the nursery, searched the corners and shook their crooked fingers at Kate. But without these women Kate got much more scared. She was scared to go to the big rooms: they were empty and resonant. The curtains at the doors were blowing, the clock on the mantelpiece were tickling angrily. And there was "this" everywhere: "And he told her... And she said to him..." Before dinner, in the nursery the corners became darker, as if they were moving. And in one corner there was a fire, the stove's daughter, it was making sounds with the stove-door, it showed red teeth and ate wood. Kate was afraid to come up to it: it was very angry, once it bit Kate by her finger. It won't make Kate come up to it anymore. Everything was uneasy, not the way it used to be before. Life was easy only behind the nurse's trunk where lived the woolen lamb, the lifeless beast. It ate pencils, an old ribbon, the nurse's spectacles, - whatever God provided the lamb with; it looked at Kate meekly and kindly, it didn't argue with her at all and it understood everything. One day Kate got naughty while playing, and the lamb turned away its head, and it was obvious that it was laughing. And when Kate turned a cloth around its neck, it was sick so badly that Kate even cried. It was very scary at night. There was rustling and screaming all over the house. Kate woke up and called her hurse. "Hush! Get back to sleep!Those are rats, rats are running, they will eat your nose!" Kate hid herself under the blanket, thought about the woolen lamb and, when she felt it, very close, lifeless, she fell asleep again calmly. And once, in the morning, she and the lamb were looking through the window. Suddenly in the yard they saw someone running across the yard - it was brown, shabby, looking like a cat, only with a long tail. "Nurse! Nurse! Look, what a terrible cat!" The nurse came up to the window." "This is a rat, not a cat! A rat! See, how big it is! It can eat any cat! A rat!" She was pronouncing these words so nastily, opening her mouth and showing her teeth like an old cat, and Kate got scared with disgust. And the rat, walking slowly like a master, business-likely went up to the nearest barn and, squatting a little, crawled under the door. The cook came and said that there were so many rats now that soon they will eat up people's heads. "They started eating even the master's suitcase. How impudent they are! I am coming in, and it is sitting and isn't even trying to run away!" In the evening fox-like women came again, they brought a bottle and stinky fish. They ate it, and the nurse drank with them, and then they all laughed at something. "And you are still with your lamb?" said the fattest woman to Kate. "It's time for your lamb to go to a flaying-house. See, its leg is dangling, and it iss so shabby. Soon your lamb will die." "Come on, stop teasing her," said the nurse. "Don't tease the orphan." "I am not teasing, I am talking business. The bast will get out of it, and it will die. A live body eats and drinks, and that's why it lives. And no matter how much you make a cloth wet, it will fall to pieces all the same. And she is not an orphan at all, and her mother, maybe is going near the house and laughing secretly. Hehehehe!" The women became red-faced with laughter, and the nurse put a piece of sugar into her glass and gave it to Kate to suck. After sucking the nurse's sugar Kate's throat became sore, her head became dizzy and she pulled the lamb's head. "It's not an ordinary lamb. Do you hear? It's talking." "Hehehehehe! You are so stupid!" the fat woman laughed. "Pull the door and it will make a sound, too. If the lamb were real, it would talk itself." The women drank some more and started whispering the old words: "And he told her... Get out! And she said to him..." And Kate left with her lamb and hid herself behind the trunk and she suffered a lot. The lamb will soon die. He'll perish. The bast will get out of it, and it will die. If only it could eat at least a little, somehow! She took a piece of dry bread from the shelf and gave it to the lamb, and then she turned away so that she shoul not embarrass the lamb. Maybe it will bite a little... She waited a bit, then turned back - no, the bread was not bitten at all. "Maybe I will bite it myself, first, because maybe the lamb doesn't want to be the first to start eating it." She bit a little of the bread and gave it to the lamb again, turned away, waited a little. And again thelamb didn't touch the bread. "Well? You can't? You are not live, you can't!" And the woolen lamb, the lifeless beast, answered her with all its face, meek and sad: "I can't! I am not a live beast, I can't!" "Well, call me yourself! Say: "Baaaaa!". Will you? "Baaaa". You can't? You can't!" And Kate's soul suffered and was so wistful with love and pity for the poor lifeless beast. Kate fell asleep on the pillow, wet with tears, and in her dream she walked along the green path, and the lamb was running beside her, ate the grass, said "Baaaa" itself and laughed. It was so healthy! It will outlive everyone! The morning was dull, dark, restless, and suddenly the father appeared. He came grey, angry, with disheveled beard, he looked at everyone sullenly, like a goat. He gave his hand to Kate to kiss and told the nurse to take all the toys away because a teacher would come. And he went away. The following day there was a ring at the front door. The nurse went out and then came back in a hurry: "Your teacher has come! With a dog-like face!" The teacher made sounds with her heels, she gave Kate her hand. She really looked like an old clever dog, and even near her eyes there were some yellow hairs, and she turned her head very quickly as if she was catching a fly with her teeth. She looked at the nursery and told the nurse: "Are you the nurse? So, please, remove all these toys, the child shouldn't see them. All these donkeys, lambs - out! The child should get used to the toys gradually and rationally, otherwise her mind will become sick and thus she will be harmed. Kate, come up to me!" The teacher took a small ball with a thread out of her pocket and began playing with this ball and singing: "jump, jump, here and there, up and down, straight. Repeat after me: up and down... What a stupid child!" Kate kept silent and smiled sadly, she was afraid to burst out crying. The nurse was taking away her toys, and the lamb said "baaa" in the doorway. "Pay attention to the surface of this ball. What do you see? You see that the surface has two colours. One side is blue and the other side is white. Show me the blue side. Try to concentrate." The teacher left after giving her hand to Kate. "Tomorrow we'll make small baskets!" Kate was shivering all the evening and couldn't eat anything. She was thinking about the lamb, but she was afraid to ask about the lamb. "He feels so bad, the lifeless thing! He can't do anything. He can't talk, he can't call me. And she said "remove him'!.." And her soul became cold and wistful after these terrible words. In the evening the old women came again, they ate and whispered: "And he told her, and she..." And again: "Remove! Remove!" At dawn Kate woke up with a terrible, unusual fear and wistfulness. As if someone called her. She sat down in her bed and pricked up her ears. "Baaaa! Baaa!" This is her lamb, calling her so sadly and insistently! The lifeless beast is crying. Kate jumped down from her bed, all cold, her fists pressed tightly to her chest, she was listening. The cry came again: "Baaaa! Baaaaa!" It's somewhere from the hall. It must be there... Kate opened the door. "Baaaa!" The sound came from the store-room. She went there. The door wasn't locked. The dawn was foggy, dark, but still, she could see everything. Some boxes, small and big bundles. "Baaaa! Baaaa!" Dark spots were swarming near the window, and the lamb was there, too. Suddenly a dark thing jumped up, caught the lamb's head, pulled it. "Baaa! Baaa!' And here came two more dark things, caught the lamb's sides, its skin is cracking. "The rats! The rats!" Kate recalled the nurse's teeth. She shivered all over, pressed her fists tighter to her chest. But the lamb wasn't calling anymore. There was no lamb anymore. The fat rat was soundlessly moving the grey soft pieces of the bast. Kate ran back to her bed, covered herself up with the blanket, she was silent and didn't cry. She was afraid that the nurse would wake up, that she would grin like a cat and that she and the fox-like women would laugh at the woolen death of the lifeless beast. Kate became very quiet, tight like a little bundle. She will live very quietly, very quietly, so that nobody should know anything. The end
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