Young Writers Society

II

Levin is imprisoned

Levin held his shovel firmly in hand as he inspected the pit: he had dug quite a bit and the dirt was now mixing with the rainwater to produce a thick mud. It seeped into his boots and trousers. It smelled of fungus and damp filthiness. He was surrounded by mud and water and could hardly differentiate his tongue within his mouth. His eyes too quickly became dry, as if the repugnant sight of his actions made his very eyes cringe and wither. And soon his stomach seemed lurched over on its side and he felt horridly nauseated. It was without a doubt the putrid, gelid air, as it drained into his lungs with each breathe, which petrified his senses and nauseated him to the point of confusion. At this instance, he looked at his muddy arms. His arms continued digging almost mechanically and independent of his own thought. It seemed, remarkably, to be the first time he took a close look at anything in this wicked dream, and it seemed that he began to look at this scene of mad digging, of pure madness, and, even, himself, as separate from his physical perception: he could see the mud being flung out of the grave in front of him, but he could also simultaneously see himself flinging the mud from outside the gravesite. And then he listened for the rain. Even the rain was strange now; it seemed to pulse back and forth, synchronized with the very shoveling motions of his dumb, lifeless arms.

Levin wrestled against his very self, to stop digging, to stop moving at all. He even stopped breathing for a moment, in desperation, until the air forced its way through his throat and into his lungs, in a perverse attempt to keep him alive, to keep him here and conscious of the torture. And he cried aloud, in desperation, but could not form any words with his dry tongue and soon his voice became powerfully muffled by the rain. He cried, but could make no sound. He dug madly, but was only becoming himself buried in mud. He fought against the rain, and the shovel, but the mud nearly reached the height of his waist as he kept shoveling until he felt a deep and powerful rumbling from underneath him. The rumbling grew and a dark figure emerged before the poor man. The figure emerged from the fungal putrescence of the very grave, slathered in mud and a thick, warm, crimson liquid. Nikolai Levin was crouched and in fact nearly kneeling before the figure and he looked up at the strange thing, trembling in awe and overtaken by absolute dread. Now he could not move. He could only behold as this thing took a concrete form as a hideous corpse, which slowly came to be from the once amorphous muddy figure. The corpse was, to Levin’s absolute horror, almost completely skeletal, with only a few rags covering the body here and there and a few slices of putrid flesh hanging grotesquely from certain crevices. There was a black hole where the breast bone should have been, and in its place was a bright, red, beating heart. The head was nearly completely skeletal, save for a slab of blackened, withered skin stretched taut across one side of the face. Blood trickled from the jawbone. Blood trickled from the vacant eye sockets. The macabre figure rose to full height and faced Levin directly. And Levin could not bring himself to face it, for, after some thinking and recalling of where he stood and why he stood where he did, he realized the true identity of this figure and was horrified. Out from its bloody, vacant eye sockets, the corpse spewed forth two small glistening pieces of gold metal. They fell and landed before Levin’s trembling hand. They were gold cufflinks, shimmering like brand new acquisitions in the moonlight…

He awoke almost the instant he saw the shimmering. He awoke bathed in ice-cold sweat and absolutely overwrought. In quick, small frantic motions he scurried to his feet after feeling the stone ground with his hands, much like a mole feels its surroundings. Levin had, in his panic, hurt his fingers against a metallic frame. It was dark except for a slight flicker of candlelight in the distance. It was, of course, a prison cell. He had awoken on the floor of the cell, madly writhing nearly all night under the fear of more nightmarish apparitions. The metallic chassis was a desk, standing against a stone, white wall. The cell itself was small and consisted of this desk, and a bed just a few paces away. On one of the walls there was a barred window, and on a fourth wall there was what seemed to be a door with no handle or knob of any kind.

Levin had awoken in the middle of the night, to find that the events that had transpired the day before, the whole business with the mad shoveling and defilement of a grave, and the arrest, his trial and imprisonment, were true and he bitterly savored the facts until he was prepared to swallow them. After a long while of sitting on the cold floor, no doubt remembering everything from the night before, I was told that he howled in outrage. And he howled for a while before finding, in the darkness, a little bed and falling asleep on it.

The next morning was routine. At around eight o’clock in the morning, a police officer, surely overwhelmed with pessimistic boredom and morning lethargy, opened a little slit near the bottom of the only door in Levin’s cell. Through the slit, the officer slid a tray holding a small assortment of foodstuffs, and then promptly shut the slit, all while Levin was still asleep. Levin surely must have dreamt again, of that evil figure which pervaded his thoughts since he had been arrested. It was not, however, the thoughts and behavior of some lunatic, mind you. This was not, in the scientific sense, a disease of the mind. While I, to this day, believe it was a disease, I confess to admitting to a deep misunderstanding of him in the time I knew of him. What is clear to me, however, is that one should not be so quick to judgements, for people are seldom as simple and uncomplicated in their inner workings as we may initially perceive them to be. And neither are we. A watch is deceptive in its functioning, but we are confounded and, indeed, our world crumbles once the little thing falls in need of repair, and we are forced to open a great new world, cleverly hidden within the little thing.

I imagine that he awoke in the morning, perhaps again drenched in sweat and having just relived the drama of the whole affair with the graveyard. I imagine the whole scenario very clearly. He remained lying on his bed, staring blankly at the ceiling, just two meters above him. I cannot help but laugh while I remember this. He must have remained there completely motionless for at least a half hour, the poor fool! Thinking and thinking. After a half hour, I imagine, he lethargically rose to his feet and felt his clothes. He was stripped of his boots and all his clothes had been replaced with brown, course cloth. Some sort of twine was tied around his waist and held his trousers in place, acting as a harmless belt. After examining his clothes, he paid attention to the many, luckily, nonfatal but still quite painful wounds and gashes across his right side from his collarbone down to his ribcage. The bottom gash at his ribcage extended from the side to a point near his spine. His wounds, having been sloppily, were no longer bleeding. At least not then. They would bleed intermittently later on, and they continued to afflict him with great pain upon moving his torso or arms in a rapid or otherwise unwelcome manner.

He carefully walked to the tray of food once he saw it. It seems as though he was quickly conditioned by his shoulder pain; he did not scramble to the food in a wild motion, but walked slowly and all too mindfully of his pain. He thought that the extreme pain, which he would have to endure for a few seconds and even for a few more seconds after reaching the tray of food, surely outweighed the marginally less time it would take to reach the tray and eat the food had he scrambled to the floor like a starved animal. But, he was indeed a starved animal. He only wished that a general rule could be made of this: that one could simply think about an action and about the associated consequences and balance in one’s mind the positive against the negative, and make a deliberation. Of course, one could always do such a thing. But there is the question, he thought, of the almost inevitable case where one’s perfect judgement and expectance of reality does not align with reality as it may play out. One could in fact be faced with perhaps the most extremely different reality, never to have been expected. And this extremely different reality is in many cases the most tragic one, and is in many cases due to the sheer probabilistic complexity of the world. Once great tragedy has befallen one, one can do nothing but look back and conclude that one was simply dealt an unlucky hand by the heavens. There is no cause, there is never a cause. It is precisely this thinking, this causal thinking, which leads people to true unhappiness, because they can find no object at the end of their thinking. They fail to interpret their reality as simply an unlucky hand. And this is surely what Nikolai Mikhailovich Levin thought of while he feasted.

Of course, I speak derisively about this thinking. I say that there has never been a more moronic mode of thinking than this. This is the thinking of godless fools, and this is the thinking of Levin. It is this sort of thinking that is itself the cause of so-called probabilistic or random misfortunes. Godless men like Levin fail to have the faith necessary to believe that it is God and God alone who reads our hearts. And, from this, He transcribes our fates. It is only pious folk, such as myself, who bear this heavily in mind and who practice in their lives the holy preachings, who are led to true happiness.

*

In the coming days, Levin was flogged, beaten, and burned. But not alone. For about five days a week, the overseer released prisoners out into the courtyard or, rather, pit housed under a metallic frame in the shape of iron bars, about four meters from the ground. Five days a week, thirty or so men flooded the pit and entertained themselves with a variety of activities, from gambling, to sitting around like madmen, to engaging in violent displays of masculinity. On one day, two men were engaged in a brawl; one large and muscular and the other short and scrawny with blond hair. He is sure to die, the poor man, Levin thought, observing from a safe distance along with several other men who were either thoroughly entertained or bearing an expression of the most resolute boredom. Although the man was of a small build, he was certainly endowed with the impressive physique bestowed by many years of hard labor and of vicious fighting and protecting of his own life from those much stronger than him. These men wrestled for about ten minutes, after which three guards separated them. The larger man retreated into a corner, holding a rag to his bleeding nose, while the blond man sat himself by Levin, up against the wall and clutching his side. The guards banged their batons against the walls to tame the riotous crowd of spectating inmates, which dispersed and the offices returned to their places above the pit.

“You’re bleeding,” Levin said, following the rivulets of blood stream down the blond man’s hand and wrist.

“That brute had a concealed knife,” the blond man gasped, clenching his teeth. He glanced at Levin and the tear on his shirt, where the bandaging over his injured shoulder was placed. “This wound will kill me.” Levin looked at the man, as if staring into the eyes of a dead man. “Give me one of those bandages.”

Levin looked at his shoulder and at the man. “Go see a doctor. There are doctors here. I will call one for you.”

But before he could stand, the man spoke. “They won’t see me anymore. Please, give me one of those.”

After a moment of hesitation, Levin obliged, carefully removing two bandages from his shoulder without damaging the adhesive. “Make sure you swab some of the clear fluid onto them. Yes, like that.” The blond man ripped his shirt, revealing the wound. It was not very deep, but it would have sufficed, I’m sure. “Careful, lay it over the whole wound.” Levin did so without a second thought, except thinking that he would save this man, that he wouldn’t die, that he wouldn’t have to have a dead man in his arms. He softly patted down the bandage.

“I owe you my life.”

Levin turned his gaze at the man. “What is your name? Who’s life did I save?”

“Kolya,” he replied, removing shoes. He began to massage his own feet, careful not to stretch his side too much. “Who has saved my life?”

“Levin. Nikolai Levin.”

“It is a great pleasure to make acquaintance with you.”

This is how Nikolai Levin met Kolya, the rugged inmate with the blond hair. In the coming days, Levin would discover the harsh reality of the world which he had so conveniently avoided all these years, but whose discovery by such a buffoon was inevitable from the very beginning. Here is the harsh reality: there is no freedom in prison. But Levin could hardly call this a punishment were it not also for the lack of drink, women, and, of course, the company of those empty men who followed him around in his youth and, because they could do no better with their lives, took pleasure in his senseless yet extraordinary activities. Of course, with only this description of prison, he might have only felt that his greatest luxuries, namely the drunken bodies of women and the roaring laughter of these empty men, had been suspended.

But it was a quite harsher reality than this, because of the fact: other men, other inmates, had more mindlessly sinister and cruel reasons which had condemned them to life in prison. These were the men who had sometimes engaged in short-lived brawls with certain guards, until another one or two guards came to the aid of the one. What idiots would do such a thing, when they know they are so clearly outnumbered in both number and strength of tools and weapons? Surely no idiots, but very cunning men, since these inmates only had the intention of pickpocketing the officers’ whips during the confusion and havoc wreaked by the brawl caused by throngs of onlooking prisoners. But the very cunning and sadistic men who did this often simply aimed at nicking something from the guards, usually a box of matches, knife of some sort, and, very rarely, whips. Of course, their motivation in procuring such weapons from the officers is obvious, and this motivation became painfully clear to Levin in the coming days.

So Levin had been the unfortunate subject of the cruelty and wrath of many fellow inmates. But so had been Kolya, the unruly dog. This was particularly fortunate for our buffoon, since it was often the case that the two found themselves in the same predicament and facing the same enemies, and also suffering the same pains. They began to not only live the exact same life, but also to value the exact same things, such as an extra hour of sunlight, an extra little ration of bread or soup, and a few day’s time without being tormented by anyone. The two of them grew to find solace in each other’s company after a while. In this respect, it can be said, I suppose, that they were friends.

Levin was promptly introduced to the two jewels of Kolya. And I say ‘jewels’ because it is in precisely this way that the man referred to them. One could hardly think of things that unruly dog valued more than the two men presented to our man Levin. Of course, contact like this could only be had in the few days a week when all the men were allowed to wander through the courtyard under the unfailing eye of the police above them. And while Kolya was friends with his two jewels, they could not be seen together very frequently, for obvious reasons. But this was a special occasion. The immediate thing that Levin thought upon meeting the two jewels was how incredibly true it is that one can determine very much by first impressions. The first was a man whom Kolya referred to as Mitya.

“Kolya, is this our new friend? Wonderful!” the loud and terribly obnoxious voice of this man first struck Levin. Mitya even leaped to reach our man’s hand and shook it with vigorous enthusiasm, all the while sporting a dumbstruck smile. He was quite young, no older than twenty-five, very tall and portly, with short brown hair and squinty little blue eyes. Everything about this man, from his posture and giddy stance to the flailing of his arms in speech, to the slight twitch in his right eye, exuded a robust energy which Levin could only but latch onto and use to magnify his own.

“My good fellow,” Levin exclaimed. “You are a jewel, indeed!”

“This man,” Kolya said, embracing Mitya, “has been in this place for nearly five years, and I have known him since he was just a boy, who got himself into great mess in his adolescence. And he is now one of my two jewels. I tell you Levin, you will find no other man as loyal as Mitya here. And there is the other,” he pointed at a man sitting on the ground against the courtyard wall. He had his head sunk into his hands and seemed to be weeping. “Krupin! Get over here and welcome our friend, won’t you?”

The man rose to his feet after quickly wiping his face. “Weeping again, Krupin?” Mitya asked. “You have been crying for nearly ten years, haven’t you? Why don’t we play a hand? It’ll distract you, I promise.”

“No, no, Mitya,” Kolya interjected. He patted the man named Krupin on the back. “There’s no distracting him…This is Levin, our new friend. Hopefully, for not very long,” he laughed.

“Welcome to your home,” the man said, dryly and without so much as looking at Levin. This was quite a pathetic sight: Krupin was a short, older fellow, terribly gaunt and with a wispy white beard and sallow complexion. He was nearly a corpse!

“Cheer up, Krupin,” Kolya said. The pallid man did nothing but give his friend a slight smile and nod.

“You’ll play a quick hand with me, won’t you Levin?” Mitya pulled out, from a concealed fold in his garment, a small stack of grubby playing cards. Many of them of different colors and design.

“Of course! But there should be a warning before we play: I have spent most of my life in pubs playing these games.”

Kolya turned to Mitya. “It’s quite true. Levin here is, for all practical purposes, a helpless drunkard. Perhaps after today you will no longer be the greatest card player of us all.”

“Ah, but there is no alcohol here. We will have to see how well you play while sober!” They played their little card games for as long as they could before a loud banging from above. An officer banging his baton against the metal ceiling above them signaled that their time in the courtyard was up.

III

The Kolmogorov family

I formally met Lola Kolmogorovna’s fiancé about three years ago, when Casimir and I were sixteen. My father had maintained good relations, as normal, with Kolmogorov, even after the latter lost his management position of the volosts. This seemed not to bother the man very much; Casimir once told me that his father’s day to day routine had hardly changed at all. He woke up at sunrise, ate a small breakfast, prayed for a long while, read from a few books, took a few naps, and had an enormous dinner, as habit would have it. But, more on the fiancé. I had seen him around the manor on several occasions, mostly whenever I passed Lola’s quarters to get to Casimir’s bedroom. But I never heard him speak until Kolmogorov invited my parents and me to dinner one evening. My father told me that his friend had boasted, with characteristic pride, that his servants had obtained a most delicious delicacy from the markets that afternoon. Kolmogorov may be many things, but he is certainly not greedy, at least, not for the sake of leaving anyone else empty-handed or, rather, empty-stomached. I could go on and say that this was only because it was necessary for Kolmogorov to not be greedy in order for him to lampoon his wealth to others, but this is not very important.

Just like any other time Monsieur Kolmogorov invited my parents and me, I found myself bored out of my wits, sitting, listening to the man as he spoke to my parents of some trivial little thing. “Casimir!” he called, and my friend appeared from the adjacent chamber a few moments after. My eyes became lit. He wore what he usually wore: black trousers and a white, French blouse. “I think Monsieur Denisov and Madame Denisovna are now thoroughly bored of me.” Everyone laughed. “And so I think it is time for dinner to be served. Go into the garden and bring your sister and the good Lord de Cagale.” Lola had been with her fiancé, the good Lord Antonin Francois de Cagale, in the garden nearly all afternoon. A few moments later, Casimir returned with Lola and Cagale following suit. Lola wore a very simple, straight, white silk dress. She held her fiancé’s hand as they walked towards the glass dinner table. I remember very well that Cagale was a very impressive figure: he was very tall, and terribly handsome, classically French, and wearing a black suit and top hat. He removed his top hate gracefully before sitting, and also took a slight bow as he introduced himself to everyone. He spoke with such urbane sophistication. But his Russian was quite flawed.

“Welcome, my dear son,” exclaimed Grigori. His eyes twinkled slightly as he spoke to the man. As did Lola’s eyes, whenever she turned to regard him eating. And the two of them exchanged looks every so often. Grigori called for the food to be served, and so it was.

“When do you marry?” my father asked de Cagale.

“Mm,” the man replied, contemplating his food for a moment. “I think that it is yet to be decided exactly.” He glanced lovingly at Lola. “But I think that it will be within the next three or four months.”

“How excited you must both be.”

“Yes, they are indeed,” said Grigori. And so began the praise. “Listen now,” he pointed firmly at the Frenchman with his spoon. “This man is, aside from belonging to one of the most prest--”

“Papa!” interrupted Lola, with an cautionary glare.

“Sorry, sorry. Aside from belonging to one of the best Parisian families, is also the owner of a very lucrative business in, ah, where was it?”

“Algiers,” replied Cagale.

“Yes, right. In Algiers.”

“How fabulous,” exclaimed my father.

“You do me too much honor, Monsieur Grigori,” said de Cagale, humbly yet absolutely charmingly. But he had made a mistake in his Russian. I am certain that Kolmogorov caught the mistake.

“No, no. On the contrary. I do not do you enough honor, my boy…Now I say that we forget this Russian. What is it with all this Russian? Our guest here, my daughter’s beautiful fiancé, is French. Let us speak his tongue, yes?”

“Oh but I insist we continue in Russian. I really should practice, shouldn’t I?”

“Nonsense. Who the hell speaks Russian?”

So we spoke in French.

“I should add,” began the Patriarch. “That this wedding will surely be a beautiful thing. For quite a few reasons, but chiefly because of how it is reminiscent of Shakespeare.”

“Ah this is so true, my friend,” flattered my father.

“Yes, Shakespeare wrote the tragedy ‘Romeo and Juliet’ and as the Montagues and Capulets feuded, their love bloomed. So, like Romeo and Juliet, my daughter and her brilliant fiancé shall bloom despite the recent tension between our two countries. Isn’t that wonderful?”

My father could not resist even the slightest reference to political matters of any kind. “But the war is over, remember,” he added, quite pointlessly.

“Yes, thanks to God. But what I mean to say is still quite beautiful and true, is it not?”

There was a brief silence, broken by the handsome man. “I must thank you for this observation, Monsieur Kolmogorov,” he said.

“Yes, Papa,” added Lola, slowly swiveling her fork in her dainty fingers. She looked at Cagale with longing as she spoke, flattering him in every possible way, even with her almost obsequious gaze. Casimir of course noticed this also, and was disgusted, and then bored. “Papa, how you flatter us and our love by comparing it to that of the great love between Romeo and Juliet.”

Everyone smiled warmly at the happily betrothed couple. I turned from my food to my friend, sitting across from me. He looked unimpressed, and, finding it worth his time, spoke. “It’s rather cliché of you, Papa. Also, I do not think it’s very wise to think of Romeo and Juliet and their tragedy when one speaks of my sister and her fiancé…unless one takes into account the tragedy of it all, yes? Even so, it doesn’t bode well, does it?”

“Casimir!” roared his father. I tittered under my breathe. His father looked at my friend with fiery eyes for a moment and Casimir looked, of course, indifferent, but with very subtle loathing, almost incidental. When I saw my friend’s indifference, while I had seen it very many times in the past, I could not help but begin to worry. It was all quite comical to the both of us here, but I thought about it. I thought about how utterly depressed he was at times, specifically, when he would get into those private arguments with Kolmogorov. I only ever listened to one such argument, but judging from Casimir’s disposition after any such argument, it seemed to me that they were in fact actually battles plucked from a war scene.And Casimir was a soldier, torn by a war. “I have spoken to you about this so many times in the past. I will not engage in a discussion now, boy, but I will say that it seems that my disappointment in you is endless.” He spoke, no longer angrily, but bitterly. “Put down that spoon and get the hell out of my sight.”

At right this moment, a servant entered the dining chamber from the foyer. Kolmogorov saw her and gestured at her to speak. “There is a man at the door. An Englishman. He says he knows you, sir.”

“What did he call himself?”

“Bayland, sir. Thomas Bayland.”

Casimir remained seated as his father’s eyes became lit. “Oh how delightful,” he said. He looked at his watch and turned again to the servant. “Yes it’s just about time he arrived. He’s so punctual. Send for him and have Leti set another place at the table at once.”

Grigori turned to my parents. “I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure of having dinner with all of my friends at once before. So I do not think you have met Mister Bayland. He is a prodigy! A real genius. Ah but I won’t spoil any of that. I shall let my friend speak for himself. Oh and his French is excellent, as you may be surprised.”

I finished my bowl of soup when the man named Thomas Bayland entered the dining area, led by the servant. He was a stout, ginger-haired man, wielding a polished brown cane. His hair was oily and his face seemed to be pressed inwards. He sat down and propped his cane against his seat. “Welcome my friend. I hope your trip from Moscow was not very boring?” said Grigori.

“My dear Monsieur Grigori, you don’t have to begin flattering. Yes, yes I heard from in the foyer that I am a ‘prodigy’ and a ‘genius’, as you say so enthusiastically,” he replied, chuckling. Grigori burst into laughter and so did my parents. I think Casimir found this man quite funny, because he too laughed a bit. And so I laughed a bit.

“But my friend, don’t sit here and pretend that such accolades are not good for business.”

“Yes but there is a fine line, Kolmogorov, between what would help business, and what would simply make you sound like a buffoon, throwing accolades left and right,” he smiled at Grigori impishly. The latter laughed some more. I could tell very easily that my friend had a difficult time resisting the urge to say something witty now. But he could not have his father notice his presence again. “And let’s skip the introductions, since they bore me very much. I can see that those folks over there are your guests also, and that these are your children. Pleasure to meet you all.” He began eating. “I am Thomas Bayland: impresario-extraordinaire, naturalist, and physician. Though not all at the same time, mind you!” He cackled grotesquely, and Grigori laughed.

“Impresario, did you say?” inquired my father, quite interestedly. “Opera?”

“Yes indeed,” he did not stop eating to speak. “I work for a very lucrative, yet obscure, opera company in England. I was actually just in Moscow in an effort to recruit one of your fine sopranos for a season. But I bet Kolmogorov wishes I hadn’t told you that: he loves to see the expression on people’s faces after they get to know me a bit and then learn that I am actually quite in tune with the arts.” Grigori nodded as he finished his bowl of soup. Bayland slurped up the last of his. “This soup is fantastic. I don’t think I’ve ever tried it before.”

“Well you haven’t been in Russia for very long, then” replied my father.

“Yes, it’s a classic,” said Grigori. “It’s shchi. Cabbage and beef.”

“I must say, Grigori,” began my father. “That I am a little surprised we are eating this simple dish. I would have thought that you, of all people, would have liked to serve something a bit more sumptuous, in light of our foreign friends’ presence.”

“Oh? Too simple?”

“One may say that.”

Grigori teased my father. “May one say that it is perhaps a little too peasant-class for us all?”

“Grigori, perhaps it is not the time to talk of such things. Especially not with our foreign friends here.”

Cagale put his spoon down, excitedly, as he was prompted by this. “I have heard of the situation. But I’m still unfamiliar of the whole thing.”

“Bah!” complained Bayland. “And I here know nothing of the sort. I’m just here to pick up a Russian broad. Well go on, then. Tell us.”

The Great Patriarch also put his spoon down, quite pleased with himself and his ability to stir such interest in his guests. “I would be very glad to discuss this with you all, but we should wait; I have another guess arriving soon.”

“Well, this is turning out to be quite the dinner party isn’t it?” said my father, quite pointlessly. “Who is it?”

“Oh you know him already, Monsieur Denisov. It’s Monsieur Boris Vasilyev, from the Ministry of the Interior. He is in Prachevya District until Friday. I did not think it would be a bad idea to invite him to our dinner. I know that Mister Bayland, especially, may like to meet him.” Grigori turned to the stout man. “He has, like yourself, a proclivity for business.” He then turned to de Cagale. “And I’m sure it would be a good thing for you to acquaint yourself with some of the local government, my son. In the meantime, why don’t you, Mister Bayland, tell us a bit more about yourself.”

“Oh, that would be wonderful,” said de Cagale. Lola held his arm closely as he spoke. She stared at him the entire time. “As I was saying a moment ago, I own a small business in Algiers, and I would very much like to--”

“Say no more,” said Bayland, smiling contentedly. He crossed his arms smugly. “Well, as I said, I am looking to recruit a Russian soprano in Moscow, for a new production that my opera company is organizing. It’s for an installment of ‘Don Giovanni’,” he abruptly turned to Casimir. “Have you seen it, young man? You surely must have. If not, we must go see it at once. I hear they are playing it not far from here.”

Casimir was surprised by the question, or, rather, by the fact that Bayland was addressing him. “I saw it several years ago. I don’t remember it much, but I’m familiar with it.”

“Terrific, young man. In his youth, your father very much reminds me of a dashing Don Giovanni. In that entire opera, Don Giovanni is without a doubt my favorite character. He is such a strong persona and carries with him so much character and sturdiness of will, symbolized of course by his many conquests. Your father is much like this model of excellence.”

I saw Casimir’s face become slightly more livid after each word this Englishman uttered. It was like he had been entirely consumed by pure absurdity. He bore the expression he made whenever I said something profoundly stupid. “Too much, sturdiness of will, I think. What is it, Mister Englishman, have you decided that you have poked more fun out of my father than you expected? And so now you feel like you must compensate by flattering him?” Casimir could not stand to hear any accolades given to his father. I looked at him as he stared bitterly at his empty bowl. “I remember the last scenes very clearly. Don’t you?”

“For God’s sake, child, contain yourself,” wheezed Kolmogorov, in Russian.

“No, no, it’s quite alright, Kolmogorov. Let me teach this young man something about opera,” said Bayland. “Those last scenes are all nonsense! Do you hear?” he spat at my friend. “I always insist that they be cut out whenever we perform it. They make no sense whatsoever and, further, only spoil the true heroism of Giovanni. I am a man of science, and a businessman of course, but, above all, I am a principled man.”

“How can you say that?” my friend raised his voice in protest. “Don Giovanni is a villain!”

“Good God, boy, shut your damn mouth!” gasped Kolmogorov. He seemed as if he would have a stroke.

Casimir chuckled. “I would certainly not even contain myself if it were actually for God’s sake, papa,” my friend uttered in Russian also.

“What did you say to me? What did you say? Did you speak of God?”

“Kazik please,” I said, quite randomly.

“Don’t call me that, Seryozhka,” he snapped, in a violent, snake-like hiss. He gave me a scathing look. It was so frightful, I cringed. He had never before had a problem with me calling him that, affectionately of course.

“Quiet now, boy!” the Englishman interjected. He gestured at Kolmogorov to settle down, and so he did, reluctantly. “My, what a little imp you are.” He seemed astonished, and turned to Kolmogorov. “I blame you entirely, my friend. Have you never beaten any amount of sense into your son at all? Good God, if he were my son, which I give thanks to God that he is not, I would have beaten him regularly. If a boy is to act like a savage animal, then he should be beaten like a savage animal.”

Kolmogorov said nothing. He was red in the face. He could perhaps not believe that his son could be this audaciously insolent Casimir later confided that his father was an interesting man for two reasons. Firstly, the man treated his son’s savage unruliness with complete astonishment and never actually with physical violence. Yes, Grigori’s eyes would always pop and then flare intensely, but he would never raise a hand against the boy. How I would have hated him if he ever had. This was followed by a usual series of psychological maneuvers of course. I have heard my friend be called a “total disappointment, a failure by my own hand”, “stupid monkey”, and “wretched, disastrous little devil”.

Now that I think of it, Casimir liked to agree with his father on the first point. My friend was, by his own admission, “a disappointment”. But he always said it very satirically, and never without also finishing the quote: “…failure by my own hand”. He scoffed about it often, saying that he himself was only as much failure as was his father. This is not entirely false, I think. And whenever we talked about this matter, which I was reluctant to do so since it caused me discomfort on some level to speak badly of a man my own father said he respected, he looked at me with longing. It was a vague sort of longing, tinged with some sort of resentment, which I could not see then. While he hardly ever allowed himself to tear up in front of me, his eyes alone, free of tears, said so much. And I saw so much, but not enough. So I was never able to repair the little tears in his heart, which happened little by little as a result of his brutish and bloated confrontations. I hate myself for this. But even so: what a brute! I hate him for this. I hate him for his intelligence, and stupid courage, but, even more, I hate him for his damned consciousness and, as a result, the freedom which damned him to hell.

It is a little funny: I always regarded these confrontations as bloated and so unimportant in of themselves. But I did my best to sympathize afterwards. And Casimir took my hand often, but not near the end. In the end, he simply said I was too stupid to understand the confrontations. Perhaps I was.

“And here I sat so comfortably, forgetting that I had ordered you to leave the table some moments ago,” said Monsieur Grigori, in Russian, after a long silence.

“Ah wait a moment,” said Cagale also in Russian, trying very hard to make no mistake. “Let’s not spoil the dinner any more, shall we? We can all agree that there is a time and place for everything, and while, ah, Casimir, may be handled by his father later, let us do the Christian thing and let him sit with us at dinner on this rare of evenings.”

Kolmogorov did not break his enraged gaze at Casimir until a few seconds after hearing this from his dear son. He then turned to him and tried to assuage the rage as much as possible before speaking to the Frenchman. “I am tempted so much by your counsel, Francois,” he muttered kindly. Then he turned again to my friend. “You should be so lucky, wretched little devil.” After a few minutes, Grigori called for the next course to be brought out, and so it was.

Casimir ceased eating, and left his brilliantly prepared plate of food completely untouched. I began to hunger some more as I finished my own and observed as he played around with his without ever eating anything. I thought it petty, but said nothing. I sensed that he was for some reason still wildly angry at me. It was a funny sight: he sat between his father and the Englishman so he seemed to be squeezed between these two fat men as they ate voraciously, while my friend, a tall bony boy, ate nothing. I imagined them swaying their arms in crude delight as they ate. And my friend doing nothing, sitting perfectly still, hardly breathing even.

I ate rather slowly. My parents ate heartily as they talked with Kolmogorov and with Bayland and de Cagale. I looked at Lola, sitting to my left. She never spoke. Instead she held her fiancé’s arm closely. At last her fiancé reached for his glass but, failing to estimate her hold on his arm, toppled it over and red wine spilled over the table. “Ah, Lola darling!” he cried. “Look at this mess I’ve made of your father’s beautiful table.” Lola let go of his arm and looked at him, perplexed. She felt shamefully reprimanded, I’m sure, and bloated the situation in her mind.

Grigori immediately called for a servant. “Natasha!” he bellowed. A short woman, named Natasha, with veiled hair appeared moments after. Kolmogorov gestured at the mess, with a swift flick of his fat wrist and the servant pulled a rag from her apron and promptly cleaned it. “Don’t worry, my son. It is all fixed very easily.”

Cagale spoke vehemently, drawing out his guilt almost superfluously. “I just hope this will not leave a stain.” He stared at Grigori for a moment.

“I don’t think so. Don’t worry yourself, please.”

The Frenchman turned to his fiancée. “In the future, please contain yourself for at least a moment. How boring you become otherwise…” He was quite disdainful. I felt I would nearly be sick at this terrible situation.

A servant entered the dining hall from the foyer. “Monsieur Kolmogorov,” she said. “Monsieur Boris Vasilyev is here. Shall I let him in?”

“Yes of course. It is about time he dropped by for a cup of coffee. Hopefully he does not come with empty hands. Ah, and have another place on the table be set at once.”

A very elderly man with wispy white hair entered the chamber. He presented his host with a bottle of vodka and sat next to Mister Bayland. He spoke with a raspy voice. “And who are all these two unfamiliar faces, Monsieur Kolmogorov? I do recognize only your children, Monsieur Denisov and Madame Denisovna and their son.”

Grigori stopped eating abruptly and began pointing at the two unfamiliar guests. “This is my daughter’s fiancé, Antonin Francois de Cagale, and this is an old friend, businessman Thomas Bayland.” The two greeted Vasilyev.

“Good God, and Englishman and a Frenchman? This isn’t a conspirators’ meeting, is it?” the old man said, with sardonic dryness.

“Oh that’s so very terrible of you,” and we laughed.

There was banter for nearly thirty minutes between the foreigners and Vasilyev, of the Ministry of the Interior. Vasilyev’s motions, as he ate, were slow and resembled those of a dying plant, withering down along its stem. After about thirty minutes, he seemed to have grown tired of the topic, whatever it was. “So, Kolmogorov. You know that I am a very busy man. I imagine that you must have something in mind, to discuss with me?”

Grigori seemed to not expect this. I could easily have believed that the Great Patriarch imagined the scenario quite differently. Ideally, he would have a lovely little dinner for the sake of camaraderie with his foreign friends and Vasilyev. But Vasilyev, whom my father told me several times before, is such a man of such great prestige, that he had developed very little patience for these little things. What a doddering old bureaucrat! “Well,” the Patriarch began. “I don’t have anything specific to speak about with you. It simply seemed to me that the relations between the landed aristocracy and the bureaucrats of the Ministry were becoming a bit rusty.”

“Oh, Monsieur Vasilyev,” said Cagale remembering something. “I think that Mister Bayland and myself would be very much pleased to learn a little more of this ‘situation’ I hear of in Russia at present? Something to do with the peasants?”

Kolmogorov was gleeful to find something to talk about. “Yes, do explain. I think you would explain far better than I would.”

“Well,” began Vasilyev. “It is a matter of the peasant class. Simply put, Tsar Alexander’s increasing sympathy for the peasants will produce serious consequences in what seems to be not a long time from now.”

“Russia has a solid history on this matter of the peasants. What exactly do you mean to say by this?” asked de Cagale. Mister Bayland continued eating and seemed to not pay any attention.

“The dissolution of the serf class, young man.”

There was a silence.

Vasilyev continued. “And, considering that Grigori has lost his position in the formal management of the estate there will be some--”

“I’m sorry?” interrupted de Cagale. He had again forced Lola to release him, as she had again grabbed his arm at some point. Cagale was indignant. “I’m sorry,” he chuckled. “Did I mishear you?”

“I beg your pardon?” answered Vasilyev, confused, but defaulting to being indignant.

Kolmogorov looked absolutely mortified. Ha! “That’s quite enough on the matter, Monsieur Vasilyev,” he spoke lightly, trying to marginalize the fact. But he couldn’t, of course. “I think our guests have heard enough of politics and--”

“No, no, wait a moment,” said Bayland. This was quite surprising; I did not think he was paying even a little bit of attention. I suppose he was keen on this very particular brand of gossip. “My friend, how could you not tell me of this?” he was absolutely offended, so much so that he seemed unauthentic.

Cagale looked very troubled. He was, after all, going to be marrying Kolmogorov’s daughter. At last, Grigori confessed when he came to see little point in marginalizing any further. Bayland sat with his arms crossed, like a child. Cagale kept fixedly staring at Grigori, and my parents continued to eat slowly as if nothing out of the ordinary were happening. Casimir was closely watching de Cagale. “Alright,” spoke Grigori. He chuckled again. “Does this matter at all to anyone?” He looked around the table, pretending to have addressed everyone with this question.

There was silence. “Not at all.”

Casimir continued to observe Cagale quite steadily, and, actually, for the remainder of the evening, until the Frenchman retired about an hour after this incident. I went up to Casimir’s bedroom thereafter. It had become customary for me to stay and sleep in the Kolmogorov estate on such occasions when I did not have to wake up before sunrise the next morning to have my lessons. When Cagale retired to his own home a few miles away, he reluctantly kissed Lola and she herself retired to her bedroom. My parents and mister Bayland and Monsieur Vasilyev were escorted by Kolmogorov before I left to my friend’s bedroom. Grigori had, however, calmly asked Casimir to wait for him in the foyer while he escorted his guests out into the garden.

Casimir went up to his bedroom some thirty minutes later. I was lying on his bed entertaining myself with a book I had taken from his rather large bookshelf. Ah, but I wish to stop here for a moment and remember something about Casimir and his books. I hope I do not digress for too long.

He had books ranging from collections of works of Shakespeare, to several versions of Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin translated into various languages, and other pieces of English, Russian, and French literature. I remember that he once read Molière’s The Misanthrope and commented to me that he wished he owned it in English. He then commented that he wished he spoke English. He also used to absolutely love writing up lists of famous pieces of literature that he daydreamed of reading someday. We would write them together. He would not come to read all of them, but some. “Some” is, of course, still something. It was not his father who acquired these books for him over time, nor was it some sort of inheritance from more well-read and learned grandparents or great grandparents. It was actually, surprisingly, Leti who so lovingly and diligently obtained these books for my friend, one by one, since he was six or seven, I believe. I remember on a sluggish Sunday afternoon (the sort that leaves one mind-numbingly idle) Monsieur Kolmogorov had gone with Casimir and Lola to some business off in Prachevya District. I was not aware of their absence so I, as habit would have it, walked over to my friend’s chateau. From outside the garden entrance into one of the foyers, I saw Leti cleaning the glass window just next to the door. I found the door locked so I knocked; it was indeed strange for the door to have been locked so before Leti even answered the door I surmised that Casimir was not, and, indeed, no one, was home, other than the servants of course.

“Oh my dear boy!” she said, rather clumsily, after opening the door. “Casimir’s not here, my boy.” There was an awkward pause while I just looked at her, wondering whether I should wait for Casimir here out on the stone steps leading up to the door. “But come inside; I think he should be back with his father shortly.”

I thanked her by nodding my head slightly. I decided to sit on the ground right next to the door. I saw her perplexed face as I sat down. I was a young boy. But she didn’t say a thing and instead proceeded to finish polishing the window. I dawdled a bit, fiddling with my fingers and keeping my head down. The last thing I wanted, at that moment, was to in some way interrupt or prove bothersome to any of the servants, and this tremendous worry magnified itself in my mind when I was child. Ah but I wanted to see my friend very badly, so, of course, I resorted to make myself as tiny as possible, sitting faithfully against that wall next to the door. I must’ve seemed like such a helpless, vulnerable, and precious little child!

She stopped polishing after a while and turned to look at me. I did not turn to see her, of course, but I could easily notice that she still looked a little perplexed and perhaps even tinged with a little bit of pity. “Oh, dear,” she said. “Are you hungry? Why don’t I prepare a stew for you?” She walked over to me and outstretched her arm, offering me her hand. I said nothing, but I looked at her warm face and pink, round cheeks, and her frilly apron. I took her hand and followed her to the kitchen. In the kitchen, she sat me down at a small, creaky, square wooden table. There was no tablecloth of any kind draping the table. It was bare. I sat down opposite to the only other person sitting there at the time. She was a young woman, of about twenty-five or so. She must be about thirty now. She had just finished eating a meal and was just watching me as I sat down. “Anna,” Leti called from behind a countertop. “Could you please come here and help me make a soup for this young gentleman?” The young woman named Anna did not move, but turned to look at Leti.

“This is little Master Casimir’s friend, isn’t it? We don’t get paid to make food for the Denisov family. He has his own to prepare him a meal if he is hungry. I don’t think you should have even let him in with the masters gone, Leti,” she said coldly.

I turned and saw Leti’s livid face. “Hush, Anna!” she hissed, so charismatically. This little old lady was charismatic and a delight even when she became furious. “You come help now, or Master Kolmogorov will have something to hear about later. You said it yourself: he is Master Casimir’s friend.” Anna rolled her eyes and obediently rose to go help Leti. The two of them made me a delicious soup. I curtly thanked Leti after I finished eating.

Leti took my bowl and gave it to Anna to wash. “Now,” Leti began, looking at me kindly. “I don’t know how long it’ll be until little Casimir returns, but I found a new book for him. I left it upstairs on his bed. It’s a very nice, leather-bound book. I think he’ll like it, since he liked all the other ones.” She spoke enthusiastically, as if she were vividly imagining the look of wonder and awe upon Casimir’s childish face when seeing the book for the first time. “You may go see it and read it if you like. Go on, go on,” she smiled, and I smiled in return. After awkwardly pausing to acknowledge Anna, the other servant who was begrudgingly standing at the other end of the kitchen, I ran up to Casimir’s bedroom. But, how curious of me to remember such a detail: after I had crossed the threshold of the kitchen, where they could no longer see me, I stopped, halted by curiosity. How curious it seemed to me, when I was eleven or twelve years old, that Leti had treated me so kindly. I heard Leti speaking with Anna. “Why do you look at me, so perplexed?” she asked Anna.

I heard a wooden seat being dragged along the floor and slight creaking; one of them had sat down. “I just find it hard to believe that someone so maternal could never bring herself to bare children herself. You even remind me of my own mother sometimes. How annoying,” I heard Anna say to Leti.

I heard Leti chuckle. “I was not always so maternal, Anna.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, yes, I wasn’t.” There was a pause. It was a pause filled with the sudden outpour of memories. These were memories that were always kept and never truly forgotten, but not always felt. We carry around these sagging, stale memories until they come back to us, all at once, with full intensity and all. This is why Leti was heart-stricken now. “It wasn’t until Madame Kolmogorov, that,” her voice faltered. She stumbled on these words as her throat hardened with the pain of remembrance.

“Oh Leti, don’t say anymore, please,” Anna spoke now softly, with pure sympathy, and in fact almost frantically. I heard what I believe were Anna’s footsteps as she walked to counsel the grieving Leti, sitting at the table.

“I just see him sometimes, and I don’t know what to do,” she was freely sobbing now. “So I did only what I could.”

This is all I can recall. I don’t think I recall reacting very specifically to Leti’s sobbing. Of course I didn’t understand it at all. After that, I went up to my friend’s bedroom and found, on his bed, just as Leti had said, a leather-bound book.

Ah but of course I have digressed in my reminiscence. Although, I think it was quite necessary to talk about Leti.

So, after the dinner, Monsieur Kolmogorov escorted his guests outside. I was in Casimir’s bedroom lying on his bed. He came upstairs about a half hour after the dinner ended. He ambled quite sluggishly across the room, from the door to a seat at the foot of the bed. He looked absolutely exhausted and sighed deeply every so often. His eyes were dimmed and droopy. “I am sorry I snapped at you,” he said feebly. I detected this feebleness of spirit, of course, and jumped to my feet, dropping the book onto the bed. A feeling of responsibility, of absolute responsibility overtook me this time and many other times. I needed to be closer, so I sat at the foot of the bed, close to him.

“I did not know you had much of a problem with the way I call you sometimes.”

“‘Much of a problem’?” he smiled weakly at me. “So you did think I would have at least some irritation?” He chuckled, but it was a chuckle full of air and empty-sounding.

“What did your father want with you?”

He did not answer immediately, but instead turned to fully face me. “He said that he does not understand why I am so opposed to him. He said that he does not understand why it has been a while since I sat by him in his study while he worked and talked to him, inquired about his work, or otherwise had any sort of significant contact with him. It is odd that he would ask such a thing. I would think that he should rather ask himself what it is exactly about his character that makes him so repulsive to me.”

I sighed. “You speak of God, once again. It pains me to see you in such a state of conflict with your father. I don’t think you see it yourself but it troubles you, Casimir. And I see it.”

“What do you suggest, then?”

“Why can’t you see that you may be foolish and mistaken?”

He was irritated, and looked at me resentfully, but still with a vague exhaustion. “I hate speaking to you of this. You act so stupidly sometimes. It seems that you can have to yourself your own opinions, but that you are stupid in saying anything at all without any serious thought.” He turned away slightly. “I will not concede at all on this matter. He once again is forcing me to undergo tutoring in the Holy Scripture, as he had years ago. I loathed that tutoring.”

It was nearly three years ago that Grigori Kolmogorov had appointed a priestly man to the position of being responsible for his son’s education as a whole.

Casimir clutched his throat with his hand, almost instinctively, as if vividly bringing forth something from memory. “Damn memory! Damn priests and their damned habits…I throttle them now. Damn them to hell.” At this moment many things became clear to me. “I will not return and I don’t care if it kills me, but my father will never again see me wielding a cross. I would rather spit a thousand times in the air, at heaven, and rather hope that it falls back onto my face.”

“You don’t know what you’re speaking of. You are only frustrated, and this anger is not at all what you believe it to be.”

“There it is, your character speaking out once again.”

“I’m sorry. I mean to know more about this whole affair, if it concerns you so. Go on, then.”

After we spoke,” he continued. “He told me he loved me, like only a father could love his son.” His hand fell slowly from his throat back down to his lap, and so too had his voice changed. It became inflected with sentimentality, with confusion and with maybe even some desire to hold back his tongue. But he became once again, resolute in his speech. Resolute and impassioned. “But if he loves me, I hate him. “Did you not hear any of the conversation?”

“No, I didn’t,” I responded. I was, of course, surprised that his father had said such a thing to my friend. But it seemed, so suddenly, not at all implausible.

“I made a few remarks.”

“What did you say to him?” I said, worriedly.

He slide his hand up and down his forearm a few times, and looked at me. “I told him that I didn’t care at all about him or his god. I told him that if he wanted to sink and drown into the nothingness of his foolishness, that he was perfectly welcome to. He is free, of course. But I said that if he forced me to take part in any of it, that I would hate him.” There was a brief silence. “Then he grabbed my arm, quite forcefully, and whispered to me that he loved me, and that he was only acting to save me from complete nothingness. From hell. I don’t want to be ‘saved’. What is saving a person, if it means binding them? What is saving a person if it means binding them to something that they hate? I’d rather be bound in hell than bound on earth. Unfree in hell than unfree here. It is actually my father that is truly hell, truly Satan. And I, the godly one. But I should be grateful at this point; I should be grateful that I no longer feel bound to my father. If there is any evil in my life, it’s only my father’s brute force. It wasn’t always this way. You know, there was a time when I loved him, of course. Or at least, thought I did. Or, at least, thought I should have love him. It’s perfectly reasonable for me to have thought this way in the past, that I should have loved him. Why not? He is my caretaker, my protector, he provides for me, he is my father. It is in my blood that I should have loved him. But I don’t. And I know that I should not love him. It makes no sense. He is a stupid man, a godly man, and a cruel man. How could I love him if we are so different? Does God love Satan? Does a prisoner love his executor? Does a damn worm love the bird that takes off with it? For God’s sake, why must we love everyone? Could you imagine a world in which it were true that God love Satan? Or that a prisoner love his executor? This is the true absurdity, the true nothingness.”

Good God! How I remember this moment, how I remember this words! I did not know what to make of it. A boy that did not love his father? Unspeakable.

After he said this, I embraced him. This is all I could think of doing. I was not going to agitate him further. While I did so, I felt him breathe slowly and deeply for a moment. “But I never told him I didn’t love him, no. I never did, and I don’t think I ever could; I fear for my life too much.”

“Promise me you’ll never say it. I should be too fearful of the response. I don’t know very many things, Kazik, but I know that you’re father is a brute.”

“I promise.” He looked at me. “I don’t think you are stupid. But you’re troublesome.” We smiled.

“How so?”

He ceased smiling and his lip began curling downwards, almost in a sort of twitch. “I can’t really say. If I could, though, I don’t think I’d want to, or have to. But nothing has yet given me a reason to believe that you’re stupid, or, at least, bad. So you are my friend.”

And so he had changed his tone in such a dramatic way. I did not at the time think of it at all, but it seems to me at present and as I recall these memories so deeply, that our divergence, our whole-hearted divergence was apparent.

“How formal you are with me, my friend,” I said, in an attempt to make him smile. I failed, and he changed the subject.

“What book were you reading?”

“I don’t remember the name…I began casually flipping through something. You can see for yourself.” He stood up and walked to the book.

“Ah yes,” he said, reading the title. “How do you like it so far?”

“It’s very interesting. It gave me quite a bit to think about, regarding the future.”

“What is your future, Seryozhka?”

“I have thought about it before, actually, and with my father. I think that I will one day perhaps take his position in the Ministry. I don’t think it will be a problem at all to get into university. It’s very curious; I don’t think we’ve ever discussed such things before.”

“Perhaps because they are rather boring,” he said, smiling.

“Perhaps, but some may say that the little things we talk and laugh about are really boring. And what of your future?”

“I don’t know. That’s what I find quite thrilling. Whatever happens, I must, however,” and at this point he, as normally, became a theatrical phenomenon. He spoke now with melodramatic fervor. “I absolutely must live by that river we’ve been to so many times.”

“By the village?” I laughed.

“Yes. It is such a beautiful river.”

“Hmm,” I thought for a moment. “I’d like to join you. I’d like to work and live there, with you, and not in those terribly boring offices. Do you think that would be alright?”

“Why would it not? I’d live alone otherwise.” He laughed, and fell on his back on the bed, his arms outstretched along the width of the bed. I leaned in and covered him with the topmost sheet.

“I want to speak seriously now,” I said. “Why do you hate your father? I can’t believe that it is only because of this difference in opinion. For that matter, you should also hate me shouldn’t you? You don’t hate me, do you?”

“Of course I don’t hate you.” He stared fixedly at the ceiling. There was a lamp hung just above us. A thin velvety fabric covered the lamp, and the light permeated the fabric producing a beautifully colorful shine. “I should ask why it is that you don’t hate me, rather.”

“Don’t be silly.”

“Yes, yes,” he spoke gravely. “We know why you don’t, and, consequently, could not possibly hate me.” There was a silence, and I looked away, casually inspecting the bedroom. It was a dreadful silence. “It is because I am so charming and amusing.” And we smiled at each other, and at this breaking of tension.

“You are avoiding my question, Casimir. If I was able to tell you such a deep secret of mine, why can you not do the same?”

“I can do the same.” There was a silence. And now there is a silence by this fireplace. I cannot remember exactly what he said. He said his father had exiled his mother when he was six. He spoke seriously, and so I became very serious, but also surprised of course. “When you were six?” I quickly thought of my own mother, and imagined her death, or her complete removal from me. It was then, and, of course now as I remember all of this, that I realize what it was that Leti remembered. I realized why Leti had become so maternal. “You have never before mentioned your mother. Not even in passing. No one ever did! Not even my parents. Why is this, Casimir? Tell me what happened, for God’s sake!”

He clutched the topmost sheet tightly in his hands. And he did not look at me. I looked at his eyes and, of course, I understood. He said nothing for a moment, but I understood that he had immersed himself in these thoughts.

“My father was always a poor administrator of our estate. You may not have known that. My mother wanted my father to step down from his position within the estate. He found out,” he said this bluntly. “Siberia,” he sighed. I felt him so coldly. And it could easily be mistaken that he spoke of this tragedy as if it were some little thing. But I can assure myself that he did not think like this. I know it. He did not weep or look grief-stricken at all. But these thoughts consumed him. I could see this very well. They consumed him in a way that some banality would not. “It was all quite easy,” he continued. “She was Austrian. It was easy for him.”

There was silence. But I howled inside.

Casimir sat upright on the bed, still clutching his sheet to his chest. “The night she was taken, my father came up here while I slept. I slept so profoundly while below me my mother was being forced by policemen into a carriage and taken perhaps hundreds of miles away. She was perhaps even brutally mishandled. When my father came into my bedroom, he sat beside me, leaned over to my ear, and awoke me. When I awoke, I was confused. He told me that mother was leaving, and that she would never return.” There was another silence. I did not know what to begin thinking at this time, or what to begin doing. He laughed, abruptly and very heartily. It was an outburst.

“How can this be funny to you, Casimir?” My God, I thought at this moment, what the hell is wrong with him?

“It’s funny because my mother was exiled, and, now quite possibly dead, because she attempted to arrange something which happened anyway, just ten years after. There was nothing that anyone could do to prevent my father from losing his position. And my mother did not know this.” He chuckled. “She should have had more faith in his incompetency.”

“Ten years,” I repeated. I looked at him, and down at my hands. And I remember that I wept. Casimir looked at me. He did not weep. But he looked at me and, in absolute silence with only our eyes, he told me that he was sad but not alone; troubled and even disturbed, but not empty; without a mother, but not without anyone. Without the expression or tears, but not without the feeling. And he also said, in silence, that this solace was noble. I now say that I do regret this weeping. I wept for my friend, in the way that he did not. Perhaps, could not, I don’t know. But sometimes I think that I may not wish to do it again, if I was given an entirely new opportunity. Sometimes I think that I may want to be selfish, and keep my tears for myself. But I come to my senses, and think that it would be awful, especially because I cannot say that it would guarantee that I would to this day have a friend.