Chapter 4 beauty

beauty one I remember when I was a student in the fifth or sixth grade of secondary school, I once drove with my grandfather from the village of Velikis Klyepkoe in the Don District to Rostov-on-Don.It was a hot day in August, and it was uncomfortably dull.The sun was scorching hot, and the dry hot wind blew puffs of dust towards us, making our eyelids stick together, our mouths dry, and we neither wanted to enjoy the scenery nor talk nor think.Whenever the drowsy coachman Karpoyan the Ukrainian whipped the horse and the whip touched my hat, I would neither protest nor make a sound, but just woke up from my lethargy and looked listlessly and gently into the distance. , Look through the dust and smoke to see if there is a village.To feed the horses, we stopped at the home of a wealthy Armenian whom Grandpa knew in a large Armenian village called Bahci-Sari.Never in my life have I seen a funnier man than this Armenian.Please imagine a small, shaved head with two bushy eyebrows hanging upside down, a bird nose, two long white mustaches, a wide mouth with a stick in it. Long pipe made of cherry wood.That little head was glued to a thin and hunchbacked body indiscriminately, wearing a strange set of clothes: a short red gown on the upper body, and a pair of dazzling blue fat trousers on the lower body; Legs, feet with a pair of slippers.When he spoke he did not remove the long pipe from his mouth, and he acted with pure Armenian dignity: no smile on his face, eyes wide open, trying not to notice his guest.

There was neither wind nor dust in the Armenian's room, but it was still as uncomfortable, stuffy, and boring as the steppes and roads.I remember that I was covered in dust, my limbs were weak from the heat, and I was sitting on a green box in the corner.The unpainted wooden walls, the furniture, the ocher-painted floors smelled of dry wood heated by the sun.Everywhere you look, there are flies, flies, flies. …Grandpa and the Armenian whispered about grazing, about pastures, about sheep. ... I know it takes them a full hour to make the samovar, and Grandfather always drinks it for an hour for tea, and then lies down and sleeps for two or three hours, so I have to wait a quarter of the day He, from now on it will be another scorching, dusty, bumpy cart.Listening to the muttering of the two men, I began to feel as if I had been looking at the Armenian, the sideboard with the dishes, the flies, the windows that let in the sun for a long, long time, and It won't look like this until the far future, so my heart is full of hatred for the grassland, the sun, and the flies. … A Ukrainian woman in a turban brings a tray of tea services and then a samovar.The Armenian walked into the hall without haste and shouted: "Marcia! Come get some tea! Where are you? Marcia!"

At this moment there were hurried steps, and a girl of about sixteen entered the room, wearing a plain calico dress and a small white kerchief. She stood there washing the tea utensils, with her back turned to me when she poured the tea, I could only see her very thin waist, and her little bare feet were covered by the long trouser legs. The master invited me to drink tea.I just sat down at the table and looked at the face of the girl who handed me the teacup, and all of a sudden, I felt as if a wind had blown through my soul, blowing away all the impressions, boredom, and dust of the day in my soul.I saw the most beautiful, charming face I had ever seen in real life or in dreamland.It turned out that there was a beauty standing in front of me, like a flash of lightning, I saw it at the first sight.

I would swear that Masha, or Marcia, as her father called her, was a real beauty, but I could not prove it.Sometimes the sky is crowded with many clouds randomly, and the sun hidden behind dyes the clouds and the sky with various colors: purple red, orange red, golden yellow, lavender, dark red; this cloud looks like a monk, That cloud was like a fish, and the other cloud was like a Turk with his head wrapped around his head.The sunset covered a third of the sky, illuminating the cross on the church and the window panes on the landlord's house, reflected in the streams and ponds, trembling on the trees; far, far away, there was a flock of wild ducks, Against the sunset, fly somewhere to spend the night. ... A shepherd boy was driving many cows, a land surveyor walked past the dam in a carriage, and several gentlemen were taking a walk. They all looked at the sunset, and all of them thought the scenery was extremely beautiful, but where was the beauty? No one knows, no one can tell.

I am not alone in finding this Armenian girl beautiful.My grandfather, a prim old man of eighty, who had always been indifferent to women and the beauty of nature, looked at Masha affectionately for a full minute and asked, "Is she your daughter, Arwitt?" Nazarich?" "It is my daughter. She is my daughter..." replied the host. "A very beautiful young lady," said Grandpa applaudingly. A painter would say that the beauty of this Armenian girl is classical, rigorous.It's just such a beauty that, God knows why, you just have to look at it and you're pretty sure you've seen a good face, that hair, that eye, that nose, that mouth, All the movements of that neck, that breast, that young body, blend into a complete and harmonious harmony, in which Nature does not err in the smallest detail.For some reason, you feel that an ideal beauty should just have a nose like Masha's, straight, with a slight hook, and eyes like that, big and dark, with long eyelashes, so delicate. eyes.You thought her black curls and eyebrows would go just as well with the whiteness of her brow and cheeks, as the green reeds go with a quiet brook.Masha's fair neck and her youthful breasts are not yet fully developed, yet you feel it would take a great deal of creative talent to shape them.You look at her and you gradually develop a desire to say something to Masha that is very pleasant, sincere, and as beautiful as she is.

At first I was upset and ashamed, because Masha paid no attention to me, and kept looking down at the ground.It seemed to me that there was a special air of happiness and pride separating her from me, guarding her from my eyes. "It's," I thought, "because I'm all dusty and tanned by the sun, and because I'm only a child." But then I gradually forgot about myself and devoted myself to the feeling of beauty.I can no longer think of the dullness of the grassland, the dust, the buzzing of flies, or the taste of tea. I just feel that there is a beautiful girl standing opposite me, across a table.

My sense of beauty is a little weird.What Masha aroused in me was neither lust, nor obsession, nor joy, but a melancholy, though pleasant, and heavy.This melancholy is vague and not clear, like in a dream. For some reason, I suddenly felt sorry for myself, my grandfather, the Armenian, and even the Armenian girl herself.I had the feeling that all four of us had lost something important and necessary in our lives, something we could never get back.My grandfather was also a little depressed.He stopped talking about the pastures, about the sheep, but fell silent and stared blankly at Masha. After tea, my grandpa lay down to sleep, and I went out and sat on the porch.The house, like all the other houses in Bachci-Sari, was built on a sunny spot, without trees, without shade, without shade.The large Armenian yard is full of mallows and cattails, and despite the heat, it is alive and full of joy.There is a fence on the east and a fence on the west in the yard. Behind a low fence, people are threshing corn.There was a post in the middle of the threshing floor, and twelve horses tied together formed a long radius and galloped around that post.Beside him was a Ukrainian walking up and down, wearing a long waistcoat and baggy knickerbockers. He whipped the horses and yelled. From his tone of voice, it seemed that he was deliberately mocking the horses. Showing off his majesty: "Ah-ah-ah, damn it! Ah-ah-ah, it's good that you didn't suffer from the plague! Are you afraid?"

Those horses were bay red, white, and piebald. They didn't understand why they were forced to step on the wheat straw and walk around in one place.They ran reluctantly, as if struggling, and wagged their tails unhappy.From under their hooves the wind raised clouds of golden chaff smoke far beyond the fence.Beside the tall new stacks of wheat gathered women with rakes in their hands, and carts moved about.Behind the stacks, in another yard, there were the same twelve horses galloping around a post, and the same Ukrainian laughed at the horses, whipping his whip. The steps I sat on were hot; gum was growing here and there on the thin railings and window frames from the heat.In the long strips of shadow under the steps and under the shutters small red beetles huddled together.The sun shone on my head, on my chest, and on my back, but I paid no attention to it, and felt a pair of bare feet behind me trampling the planks in the hall and in the room.After packing away the tea things, Masha ran down the steps, bringing a gust of wind in my direction, and flew like a bird into a small, smoke-blackened wing.It was probably the kitchen, and from there came the smell of roasting lamb and the voices of Armenian voices in high spirits.

She disappeared through the black doorway, followed by an old red-faced Armenian woman, stooped, in fat green trousers.The old woman was angry, scolding someone.Soon Masha appeared at the door, her face was flushed by the heat from the kitchen, and she carried a large black bread on her shoulder.Bending gracefully under the weight of the bread, she ran across the yard to the threshing floor, then leaped over the low fence, into the smoke of golden chaff, turned behind a cart, and was gone.The Ukrainian who drove the horses put down his whip, paused, and looked towards the wagon in silence for a moment, and then, when the Armenian girl flashed by the horses again and leaped over the fence, he followed them with his eyes. She yelled at the horse in a tone that seemed very sad: "Oh, I wish you were dead, devil!"

Later, I kept hearing the sound of her bare feet walking constantly, and saw her running around the yard with a serious and worried expression.Sometimes she ran down the steps, bringing me a gust of wind, sometimes into the kitchen, sometimes to the threshing floor, sometimes out the door.I barely had time to turn my head to look at her. The more often she flashed before my eyes with her beauty, the heavier my melancholy became.I felt sorry for myself, and for her, and for the Ukrainian.He followed her sadly with his eyes as she ran toward the threshing floor through the smoke of chaff.Could it be that I am jealous of her beauty?Or do I regret that this girl does not belong to me and never will, that I am a stranger to her?Or is it because I have a vague feeling that her rare beauty is accidental, unnecessary, and like everything else in the world, it will not last long?

Or maybe my melancholy is the special feeling that people always have when they see the real beauty?Then only God knows! Three hours of waiting passed before I knew it.I don't think I've seen Masha enough, but Karpo has already driven the cart to the river, bathed the horse, and started harnessing the cart.The wet horse snorted comfortably and kicked the pole with its hoof.Karpo yelled at it: "Go back!" My grandpa woke up.Masha pushed open the creaking gate for us, and we got into the car and walked out of the yard, all the way without speaking, as if angry at each other. After two or three hours, Rostov and Nakhchivan appeared in the distance. At this time, Karpo, who had been silent all the time, quickly looked back and said, "That Armenian girl is so cute!" Then he raised his whip and lashed the horse. two Once again, I was already a college student, and I took a train to the south.That was in May.At a railway station (it was probably halfway between Belgorod and Kharkov), I got out of the car and went for a walk on the platform. Evening shadows are already cast on the little garden of the station, on the platform, and on the fields. The train station shaded the setting sun, but the puffs of smoke coming out of the locomotive, the topmost smoke was a soft pink, which showed that the sun had not completely set. I was walking on the platform and found that most of the walking passengers were always walking and standing near a compartment of a second-class passenger car. Judging from their expressions, it seemed that a famous person was sitting in that compartment.Among the curious people I met beside this carriage was, besides others, a passenger with me, an artillery officer, intelligent, enthusiastic, lovable, like all those whom we met by chance on the journey and left soon afterwards. Like scattered people. "What are you looking at here?" I asked. He didn't answer anything, just cast a wink at a woman.It was a very young girl, seventeen or eighteen years old, wearing a Russian national costume, no hat on her head, and a small shawl on her shoulders casually.She was not a passenger on the train, but probably the daughter or sister of the station master.She was standing by the window of that car, talking to an elderly female passenger.Before I had time to make out what kind of people I was seeing, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the same feelings I had previously experienced in the Armenian village. The girl was stunningly beautiful, and neither I nor those who looked at her with me could doubt it. If her features were to be described piece by piece in the usual way, the only real beauty of her would be her thick, wavy fair hair, which fell loose and tied with a black ribbon, As for the rest of the face, it was either irregular or quite ordinary.Her eyes were always narrowed, either from a peculiar coquettish habit she had acquired, or from myopia.Her nose was slightly turned up, her mouth was small, her face was weak in profile, her shoulders were too narrow for her age, and yet this girl gave the impression of a real beauty. . I looked at her and couldn't help believing that the Russian face does not need to have strictly regular features to look beautiful, not only that, but if the girl had not her snub nose, and replaced it with another straight, perfect Nose, like the Armenian girl, and her face seems to lose all its charm because of it. The girl was standing by the window talking, shrunken by the evening humidity, looking back at us from time to time, now with her hands on her hips, now with one hand raised to her head, arranging her hair.She talked and laughed, with surprise and fear on her face. I remember that her body and face were never quiet for a moment.It just so happened that the secret and charm of her beauty consisted entirely in these trivial and infinitely graceful movements, in her smiles, in the changes of her countenance, in the quick glances she gave us, in the delicacy and grace of these movements exactly in line with her Young and delicate, matched with the purity of her soul in her laughter, with the fragility we love so much in children, birds, deer, and young trees. This is the beauty of butterflies, well suited to waltzes, garden walks, laughter, joy, but not to serious thoughts, sorrow, or peace. It seemed that as long as there was a strong wind or rain on the platform, this fragile body would suddenly shrink, and this unpredictable beauty would dissipate like pollen. "Yes, . . . " the officer muttered, with a sigh, as we made our way to our compartment after the second ringing of the bell. As for what "is ammonia" means, I don't intend to scrutinize it. Maybe he felt melancholy and didn't want to leave that beauty and the spring evening and go into the stuffy carriage, or maybe he felt sorry for that beauty, myself, me, and all those lazy and reluctant walks back home, just as I did. Passengers go to their compartments.We passed a window of the station, and inside sat a pale, fiery-haired telegraph operator, his curls high and fluffy, his cheekboned face dull and pale, sitting at his telegraph.The officer sighed and said, "I'll bet the telegraph operator is in love with that pretty girl. Living in the wilderness and living in the same house with such a light and wonderful person, it's hard not to fall in love with her." , that would require superhuman strength. But, being a somewhat stooped, disheveled, bland, well-behaved but not stupid person, I'm in love with a kind of stupid guy who doesn't think much of you at all. Pretty girl, my friend, what a misfortune, what a mockery! Or, perhaps worse, imagine that the telegrapher is in love with this girl, and at the same time he is married, he Like him, his wife is a bit stooped, unkempt, and decent. . . . That's really hard!" Near our carriage stood a conductor, leaning his elbows on the railing of the little square, looking towards where the beauty stood.His haggard, slack face, swollen and ugly, which had always been mad and weary from sleepless nights and the jolts of the carriage, showed a moved and very melancholy expression, as if he had seen his own in the girl. Youth and happiness, seeing his own sobriety, innocence, wife, children, as if he were tormented, he felt with all his being that this girl was not his, that he was prematurely old, vulgar and bloated, so that he was not the same as the ordinary, The distance between human beings and the happiness of passengers is as far away as he is from the sky. The third bell rang, the locomotive whistle sounded, and the train moved lazily away.First the conductor, the station master, and then the garden, the beauty with her pretty, childlike smile flashed past our window. ... I put my head out, looked back, and saw her following the train with her eyes, walking on the platform, passing the window where the telegraph operator was sitting, getting her hair done, and running into the garden.The railway station no longer blocked the western sky, and the fields were exposed, but the sun had gone down, and clouds of black smoke hung over the green, velvety winter wheat fields.Whether it's the spring air, the darkened sky, or the interior of the carriage, they all look so melancholy. A well-known conductor came into the carriage and started to light a candle.