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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 " |
All people who we are acquainted with we divide into "strangers" and "close friends". "Close friends" are those people about whom we know for sure how old they are and how much money they have. Age and money of "strangers" is a mystery for us forever. And if, for some reason, this mystery is revealed to us, - "strangers" will immediately become our "close friends", and this fact is extremely disadvantageous for us, and I can explain why: "close friends" consider it their duty to tell you the truth all the time, whereas "strangers" must tactfully fib! The more "close friends" you have got, the more bitter truths you know about yourself, and the harder your life is. For example, you happen to meet a "stranger" while walking in the street. The "stranger" smiles at you very friendly and tells you: "You look so wonderful today!" In about three minutes (what on Earth could have changed about your look during such a short period of time?!) a "close friend" comes up to you, he looks at you suspiciously and tells you: "What's happened to your nose? It's swollen! Are you sick? Have you caught a cold, honey?" If you have really fallen ill, you will get only pleasure and joy from "strangers": they send you flowers, nice letters, chocolates. A "close friend" first of all starts to find out where and when you could catch a cold, as if it were the most important thing. When, finally, your "close friend" is satisfied with your answers and thinks that the exact place and time have been defined, he begins reproaching you why you caught a cold at that particular place and at that particular time: "How could you have left the umbrella at home when you went to aunt Mary's place in the rain! It's so strange of you to be so careless at your age!" Besides, "strangers" always pretend to be extremely worried about your illness and they pretend that they consider it very serious: "Oh, you seem to have a cough? This is terrible! Maybe you have got pneumonia? For Lord's sake, consult as many doctors as you can! Your illness is not a joke! I won't be able to fall asleep tonight because I am so worried over you!" Such words are very pleasant for you, and, besides, the sick person is always flattered when his cold (with a very slight temperature) is called "pneumonia". "Close friends" behave quite differently: "Come on! Stop pretending! Why are you in bed? Shame on you to be in bed with such a slight temperature!! You are so terribly over-worried about your health! Cheer up! Pull yourself together!" "I have got a very high temperature!" you are trying to defend your own illness. "That's not important!" goes on the "close friend". "People don't complain and even go on working when they have got typhus! And you are going to die when you've got such a trifle - only a slight temperature! This is outrageous!" Your "close friend" goes on telling you things like that, he reminds you about some old funny stories of your life when, some time ago, you were in bed, moaning and dying (just the same way you are doing now), and a couple of hours later you ate the whole turkey and felt quite alright. These stories will finally drive you mad and they will really make you very sick! "Close friends" call these stories "cheering up the sick relative". Having "close friends" is very sad and irritating! "Strangers" are very nice to you, very friendly and pretend to be ecstatically happy to see you. As you should not know how old these "strangers" are, they will always look good and young, they will talk to you merrily, they will seem very brisk and in good spirits. As you should not know how much money they have got, to deceive you they will offer you good tasty expensive things to eat. For the same reason, they will show you to the best room with the most beautiful furniture they can ever afford to buy, and they will never show you their bedroom with old curtains and a stool which serves as a wash-hand-stand - no matter how you will plead them to show you all this! They will give you new cups, and the tea-pot will also be new, and napkins will be clean and white, and the "strangers" will talk to you about something pleasant for you - about some of your talents, and if you have no talents at all, they will talk about your new hat, and if you have no hat, they will talk about your good character! Please, don't expect anything like that from your "close friends"! As you know very well each other's age, "close friends" will be very gloomy and grumbling: "Oh, how hateful old age is! I have been having a headache for the third day!" And then they start recalling how many years have passed since you finished school: "Time flies! It seems that you left school only yesterday, and in fact it was 30 years ago!" Then, as you know how much money your "close friends" have, and they won't be able to deceive you, all the same, they will offer you a cup of tea with old bread and they will talk to you about prices in shops, and that their old flat was bad and the new flat is even worse but it is more expensive. "Strangers" give you most cheerful prospects. You will succeed in everything! You are so smart, you are so charming! Your "close friends" are very skeptical about everything you think of doing in future, they don't believe in you. They always have some terrible anticipations about you. And, besides, knowing that you are so careless, so absent-minded, that you are unable to get on well with people, they can prove you for sure that you are in for big troubles if you don't give up your plans in time. The idea that "strangers" are much nicer than "close friends" is very popular with people, and I had a few chances to make sure that this is true! Once (it was in a train) some gentleman shouted at the other man sitting next to him: "Why are you sitting like that?! Don't you think that others also need some place to sit down? If you are ill-bred , you should travel with dogs in a special van! Not with decent people! Mind it!" And the man sitting next to that shouting man answered: "That's fantastic! You see me for the first time in your life, and you are shouting at me as if I were your close friend!" I can give you another example: I heard one young lady praising her husband: "We have been married for 4 years already, and my husband is still so kind, so nice, so considerate - as if he were a stranger!" And her listeners were not surprised by that strange praising. Neither was I The end
" Lifeless Beast " |
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