Part 21 (1/2)

”I'm falling, I'm falling!” exclaimed Tanya, and both she and Lola jumped down on the gra.s.s.

”Would you like some more bilberries?” asked Peter.

She shook her head, then looked askance at Lola and, turning to Peter again, added: ”She and I have decided to stop speaking to you.”

”But why?” mumbled Peter, flus.h.i.+ng painfully.

”Because you are a poseur,” replied Tanya, and jumped back onto the seesaw. Peter pretended to be deeply engrossed in the examination of a frizzly-black molehill on the edge of the avenue.

In the meantime a panting Vladimir had brought the ”necessary implement”-a green sharp little stick, of the sort used by gardeners to prop up peonies and dahlias but also very much like Elenski's wand at the magic-lantern show. It remained to be settled who would be the ”knocker.”

”One. Two. Three. Four,” began Elenski in a comic narrative tone, while pointing the stick at every player in turn. ”The rabbit. Peeped out. Of his door. A hunter. Alas” (Elenski paused and sneezed powerfully). ”Happened to pa.s.s” (the narrator replaced his pince-nez). ”And his gun. Went bang. Bang. And. The. Poor” (the syllables grew more and more stressed and s.p.a.ced). ”Hare. Died. There.”

The ”there” fell on Peter. But all the other children crowded around Elenski, clamoring for him to be the seeker. One could hear them exclaiming: ”Please, please, it will be much more fun!”

”All right, I consent,” replied Elenski, without even glancing at Peter.

At the point where the avenue joined the garden terrace, there stood a whitewashed, partly peeled bench with a barred back, also white and also peeling. It was on this bench that Elenski sat down with the green stick in his hands. He humped his fat shoulders, closed his eyes tight and started to count aloud to one hundred, giving time to the players to hide. Vasiliy and Tanya, as if acting in collusion, disappeared in the depths of the park. One of the uniformed schoolboys cannily placed himself behind a linden trunk, only three yards away from the bench. Peter, after a wistful glance at the speckled shade of the shrubbery, turned away and went in the opposite direction, toward the house: he planned to ambuscade on the veranda-not on the main one, of course, where the grown-ups were having tea to the sound of a bra.s.s-horned gramophone singing in Italian, but on a lateral porch giving on Elenski's bench. Luckily, it turned out to be empty. The various colors of the panes inset in its latticed cas.e.m.e.nts were reflected beneath on the long narrow divans, upholstered in dove-gray with exaggerated roses, that lined the walls. There were also a bentwood rocking chair, a dog's bowl, licked clean, on the floor, and an oilcloth-covered table with nothing upon it save a lone-looking pair of old-person spectacles.

Peter crept up on the many-colored window and kneeled on a cus.h.i.+on under the white ledge. At some distance one saw a coral-pink Elenski sitting on a coral-pink bench under the ruby-black leaves of a linden. The rule was that the ”seeker,” when leaving his post to spy out the concealed players, should also leave his stick behind. Wariness and nice judgment of pace and place advised him not to stray too far, lest a player made a sudden dash from an unsighted point and reach the bench before the ”seeker” could get back to it and give a rap of victory with the regained wand. Peter's plan was simple: as soon as Elenski, having finished counting, put the stick down on the bench, and set off toward the shrubbery with its most likely lurking spots, Peter would sprint from his veranda to the bench and give it the sacramental ”knock-knock” with the unguarded stick. About half a minute had already elapsed. A light-blue Elenski sat hunched up under indigo-black foliage and tapped his toe on the silver-blue sand in rhythm with the count. How delightful it would have been to wait thus, and peer through this or that lozenge of stained gla.s.s, if only Tanya ... Oh, why? What did I do to her?

The number of plain-gla.s.s panes was much inferior to that of the rest. A gray and white wagtail walked past across the sand-colored sand. There were bits of cobweb in the corners of the latticework. On the ledge a dead fly lay on its back. A bright-yellow Elenski rose from his golden bench and gave a warning knock. At the same instant, the door leading onto the veranda from the inside of the house opened, and out of the dusk of a room there came first a corpulent brown dachshund and then a gray bobhaired little old woman in a tight-belted black dress with a trefoil-shaped brooch on her chest and a chainlet around her neck connecting with the watch stuck into her belt. Very indolently, sideways, the dog descended the steps into the garden. As to the old lady she angrily s.n.a.t.c.hed up the spectacles-for which she had come. All of a sudden she noticed the boy crawling off his seat.

”Priate-qui? Priate-qui?” (pryatki, hide-and-seek), she uttered with the farcical accent inflicted on Russian by old Frenchwomen after half a century of life in our country. ”Toute n'est caroche” (tut ne khorosho, here not good), she continued, considering with kindly eyes Peter's face that expressed both embarra.s.sment with his situation and entreaty not to speak too loud. ”Sicha.s.se pocajou caroche messt” (seychas pokazhu khoroshee mesto, right away I'll show a good place).

An emerald Elenski stood with arms akimbo on the pale green sand and kept glancing in all directions at once. Peter, fearing the creaky and fussy voice of the old governess might be heard outside, and fearing even more to offend her by a refusal, hastened to follow her, though quite conscious of the ludicrous turn things were taking. Holding him firmly by the hand she led him through one room after another, past a white piano, past a card table, past a little tricycle, and as the variety of sudden objects increased-elk anders, bookcases, a decoy duck on a shelf-he felt she was taking him to the opposite side of the house and making it more and more difficult to explain, without hurting her, that the game she had interrupted was not so much a matter of hiding as of awaiting the moment when Elenski would retreat sufficiently far from the bench to allow one to run to it and knock upon it with the all-important stick!

After pa.s.sing through a succession of rooms, they turned into a corridor, then went up a flight of stairs, then traversed a sunlit mangle room where a rosy-cheeked woman sat knitting on a trunk near the window: she looked up, smiled, and lowered her lashes again, her knitting needles never stopping. The old governess led Peter into the next room where stood a leathern couch and an empty bird's cage and where there was a dark niche between a huge mahogany wardrobe and a Dutch stove.

”Votte” (”Here you are”), said the old lady, and having pressed him with a light push into that hiding place, went back to the mangle room, where in her garbled Russian she continued a gossipy conversation with the comely knitter who kept inserting every now and then an automatic ”Skazhite pozhaluysta!” (”Well, I never!”).

For a while Peter remained kneeling politely in his absurd nook; presently he straightened up, but continued standing there and peering at the wallpaper with its blandly indifferent azure scroll, at the window, at the top of a poplar rippling in the sun. One could hear a clock hoa.r.s.ely ticktocking and that sound reminded one of various dull and sad things.

A lot of time pa.s.sed. The conversation in the next room began to move away and to lose itself in the distance. Now all was silent, except the clock. Peter emerged from his niche.

He ran down the stairs, tiptoed rapidly through the rooms (bookcases, elkhorns, tricycle, blue card table, piano) and was met at the open door leading to the veranda by a pattern of colored sun and by the old dog returning from the garden. Peter stole up to the windowpanes and chose an unstained one. On the white bench lay the green wand. Elenski was invisible-he had walked off, no doubt, in his unwary search, far beyond the lindens that lined the avenue.

Grinning from sheer excitement, Peter skipped down the steps and rushed toward the bench. He was still running, when he noted an odd irresponsiveness around him. However, at the same swift pace he reached the beach and knocked its seat thrice with the stick. A vain gesture. n.o.body appeared. Flecks of sunlight pulsated on the sand. A ladybird was walking up a bench arm, the transparent tips of her carelessly folded wings showing untidily from under her small spotted cupola.

Peter waited for a minute or two, stealing glances around, and finally realized that he had been forgotten, that the existence of a last, unfound, unflushed lurker had been overlooked, and that everybody had gone to the picnic without him. That picnic, incidentally, had been for him the only acceptable promise of the day: he had been looking forward after a fas.h.i.+on to it, to the absence of grown-ups there, to the fire built in a forest clearing, to the baked potatoes, to the bilberry tarts, to the iced tea in thermos bottles. The picnic was now s.n.a.t.c.hed away, but one could reconcile oneself to that privation. What rankled was something else.

Peter swallowed hard and still holding the green stick wandered back to the house. Uncles, aunts, and their friends were playing cards on the main veranda; he distinguished the sound of his sister's laughter-a nasty sound. He walked around the mansion, with the vague thought that somewhere near it there must be a lily pond and that he might leave on its brink his monogrammed handkerchief and his silver whistle on its white cord, while he himself would go, unnoticed, all the way home. Suddenly, near the pump behind a corner of the house he heard a familiar burst of voices. All were there-Elenski, Vasiliy, Tanya, her brothers and cousins; they cl.u.s.tered around a peasant who was showing a baby owl he had just found. The owlet, a fat little thing, brown, white-speckled, kept s.h.i.+fting this way and that its head or rather its facial disc, for one could not make out exactly where the head started and the body stopped.

Peter approached. Vasiliy Tuchkov glanced at him and said to Tanya with a chuckle: ”And here comes the poseur.”

THE VISIT TO THE MUSEUM.

SEVERAL years ago a friend of mine in Paris-a person with oddities, to put it mildly-learning that I was going to spend two or three days at Montisert, asked me to drop in at the local museum where there hung, he was told, a portrait of his grandfather by Leroy. Smiling and spreading out his hands, he related a rather vague story to which I confess I paid little attention, partly because I do not like other people's obtrusive affairs, but chiefly because I had always had doubts about my friend's capacity to remain this side of fantasy. It went more or less as follows: after the grandfather died in their St. Petersburg house back at the time of the Russo-j.a.panese War, the contents of his apartment in Paris were sold at auction. The portrait, after some obscure peregrinations, was acquired by the museum of Leroy's native town. My friend wished to know if the portrait was really there; if there, if it could be ransomed; and if it could, for what price. When I asked why he did not get in touch with the museum, he replied that he had written several times, but had never received an answer.

I made an inward resolution not to carry out the request-I could always tell him I had fallen ill or changed my itinerary. The very notion of seeing sights, whether they be museums or ancient buildings, is loathsome to me; besides, the good freak's commission seemed absolute nonsense. It so happened, however, that, while wandering about Montisert's empty streets in search of a stationery store, and cursing the spire of a long-necked cathedral, always the same one, that kept popping up at the end of every street, I was caught in a violent downpour which immediately went about accelerating the fall of the maple leaves, for the fair weather of a southern October was holding on by a mere thread. I dashed for cover and found myself on the steps of the museum.

It was a building of modest proportions, constructed of many-colored stones, with columns, a gilt inscription over the frescoes of the pediment, and a lion-legged stone bench on either side of the bronze door. One of its leaves stood open, and the interior seemed dark against the s.h.i.+mmer of the shower. I stood for a while on the steps, but, despite the overhanging roof, they were gradually growing speckled. I saw that the rain had set in for good, and so, having nothing better to do, I decided to go inside. No sooner had I trod on the smooth, resonant flagstones of the vestibule than the clatter of a moved stool came from a distant corner, and the custodian-a ba.n.a.l pensioner with an empty sleeve-rose to meet me, laying aside his newspaper and peering at me over his spectacles. I paid my franc and, trying not to look at some statues at the entrance (which were as traditional and as insignificant as the first number in a circus program), I entered the main hall.

Everything was as it should be: gray tints, the sleep of substance, matter dematerialized. There was the usual case of old, worn coins resting in the inclined velvet of their compartments. There was, on top of the case, a pair of owls, Eagle Owl and Long-eared, with their French names reading ”Grand Duke” and ”Middle Duke” if translated. Venerable minerals lay in their open graves of dusty papier-mache; a photograph of an astonished gentleman with a pointed beard dominated an a.s.sortment of strange black lumps of various sizes. They bore a great resemblance to frozen fra.s.s, and I paused involuntarily over them, for I was quite at a loss to guess their nature, composition, and function. The custodian had been following me with felted steps, always keeping a respectful distance; now, however, he came up, with one hand behind his back and the ghost of the other in his pocket, and gulping, if one judged by his Adam's apple.

”What are they?” I asked.

”Science has not yet determined,” he replied, undoubtedly having learned the phrase by rote. ”They were found,” he continued in the same phony tone, ”in 1895, by Louis Pradier, Munic.i.p.al Councillor and Knight of the Legion of Honor,” and his trembling finger indicated the photograph.

”Well and good,” I said, ”but who decided, and why, that they merited a place in the museum?”

”And now I call your attention to this skull!” the old man cried energetically, obviously changing the subject.

”Still, I would be interested to know what they are made of,” I interrupted.

”Science ...” he began anew, but stopped short and looked crossly at his fingers, which were soiled with dust from the gla.s.s.

I proceeded to examine a Chinese vase, probably brought back by a naval officer; a group of porous fossils; a pale worm in clouded alcohol; a red-and-green map of Montisert in the seventeenth century; and a trio of rusted tools bound by a funereal ribbon-a spade, a mattock, and a pick. To dig in the past, I thought absentmindedly, but this time did not seek clarification from the custodian, who was following me noiselessly and meekly, weaving in and out among the display cases. Beyond the first hall there was another, apparently the last, and in its center a large sarcophagus stood like a dirty bathtub, while the walls were hung with paintings.

At once my eye was caught by the portrait of a man between two abominable landscapes (with cattle and ”atmosphere”). I moved closer and, to my considerable amazement, found the very object whose existence had hitherto seemed to me but the figment of an unstable mind. The man, depicted in wretched oils, wore a frock coat, whiskers, and a large pince-nez on a cord; he bore a likeness to Offenbach, but, in spite of the work's vile conventionality, I had the feeling one could make out in his features the horizon of a resemblance, as it were, to my friend. In one corner, meticulously traced in carmine against a black background, was the signature Leroy in a hand as commonplace as the work itself.

I felt a vinegarish breath near my shoulder, and turned to meet the custodian's kindly gaze. ”Tell me,” I asked, ”supposing someone wished to buy one of these paintings, whom should he see?”

”The treasures of the museum are the pride of the city,” replied the old man, ”and pride is not for sale.”

Fearing his eloquence, I hastily concurred, but nevertheless asked for the name of the museum's director. He tried to distract me with the story of the sarcophagus, but I insisted. Finally he gave me the name of one M. G.o.dard and explained where I could find him.

Frankly, I enjoyed the thought that the portrait existed. It is fun to be present at the coming true of a dream, even if it is not one's own. I decided to settle the matter without delay. When I get in the spirit, no one can hold me back. I left the museum with a brisk, resonant step, and found that the rain had stopped, blueness had spread across the sky, a woman in besplattered stockings was spinning along on a silver-s.h.i.+ning bicycle, and only over the surrounding hills did clouds still hang. Once again the cathedral began playing hide-and-seek with me, but I outwitted it. Barely escaping the onrus.h.i.+ng tires of a furious red bus packed with singing youths, I crossed the asphalt thoroughfare and a minute later was ringing at the garden gate of M. G.o.dard. He turned out to be a thin, middle-aged gentleman in high collar and d.i.c.key, with a pearl in the knot of his tie, and a face very much resembling a Russian wolfhound; as if that were not enough, he was licking his chops in a most doglike manner, while sticking a stamp on an envelope, when I entered his small but lavishly furnished room with its malachite inkstand on the desk and a strangely familiar Chinese vase on the mantel. A pair of fencing foils hung crossed over the mirror, which reflected the narrow gray back of his head. Here and there photographs of a wars.h.i.+p pleasantly broke up the blue flora of the wallpaper.

”What can I do for you?” he asked, throwing the letter he had just sealed into the wastebasket. This act seemed unusual to me; however, I did not see fit to interfere. I explained in brief my reason for coming, even naming the substantial sum with which my friend was willing to part, though he had asked me not to mention it, but wait instead for the museum's terms.

”All this is delightful,” said M. G.o.dard. ”The only thing is, you are mistaken-there is no such picture in our museum.”

”What do you mean there is no such picture? I have just seen it! Portrait of a Russian n.o.bleman by Gustave Leroy.”

”We do have one Leroy,” said M. G.o.dard when he had leafed through an oilcloth notebook and his black fingernail had stopped at the entry in question. ”However, it is not a portrait but a rural landscape: The Return of the Herd.”

I repeated that I had seen the picture with my own eyes five minutes before and that no power on earth could make me doubt its existence.