Lara Biyuts - Beyond The Silver Threads

Beyond the Silver Threads

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(Senza titolo)

by

Lara Biyuts

Copyright © 2019 - Lara Biyuts

“Un coup de dés jamais n'abolira le hasard. ”

(Stéphane Mallarmé)

“’Tis now the very witching time of night,

When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out

Contagion to this world: now could I drink hot blood,

And do such bitter business as the day

Would quake to look on.”

(Shakespeare)

I

Quietude. If any of imaginative young men and observant readers or mere stargazers of any age wanted to get lost in thought and musings, this apartment looked like the most proper place in the world. More or less dusty, here and there picturesque, the intricate topography of this seven room apartment could be more or less interesting to a whole range of art lovers of the described epoch. All the rooms had equally bizarre decorations of the sort that made one suppose that the apartment was not a peaceful abode of the esteemed celibate clerk, privy councilor of Russian Empire, but a pied-à-terre of a young scapegrace or a den of a British colonialist. A lot of ornate ottomans and carved lockers, motley rugs and draperies, varicolored lanterns, antiquated-looking swords, lusterware, trays, and some nice bric-a-brac and rarities whose origin preceded the rise of Christianity by centuries. All the useful domestic utilities, tables, beds, washstands were carefully covered with the folding screens painted all over with golden dragons --such was the fancy of Uncle Anton Korsak, whose apartment was at his nephew’s disposal for a while, and where the nephew of the name of Vadim felt caged and guarded by some obscure thoughts, dreams and visions. How was his Uncle himself? The Uncle was away, abroad, for more booty of the same bizarre sort.

Like some natives of this part of the world, Vadim’s uncle withered in springtime, being subjected to seasonal illnesses and indispositions, and he bloomed in autumn, becoming enlivened, and definitely moving counterclockwise or rather counter-year-wise, being strangely oriented to the year’s solstices; moreover, Uncle would say that the winter cold was healthy for him and that every autumn he felt young again with his desires boiling anew. Thus, while Uncle was traveling abroad, his Nephew lived the dreamlike life in the disorderly and flamboyantly decorated rooms.

The last night’s dreams had not left Vadim’s mind, depressing, in addition to the inquiry letter, this vivid reminder of yesterday’s incident, bright and distinct like someone’s lancet letting blood to his morning hours and making him languid. As the sleep-wearied fifteen-year-old with his disheveled caramel-brown hair read the letter, a little moue of displeasure fleetingly changed the youth’s chubby face with rosy cheeks and cherry lips. A moment more and his eye began wandering round the spacious room that looked both luxuriant and neglected in the scanty light of the northern winter morning. Then, his hand dropped the letter and the heavy mid-Regency paper, golden-coroneted and golden-bordered took a tumble down on the floor like an ill white pigeon. Lying on his back, he looked depressed, with his gray eyes twinkling anxiously, showing some secret alarm. The boring tone of his far cousin Count Felix and the rosy face of his far cousin Annette making eyes at him, next, the spicy talks with his friend Lodie Chartoborsky, seductive and languor-bearing, and then, all of them as well as any images of any curtained pictures, in his mind’s eye, were eclipsed by her smile, the beautiful and sly, whose image remained in the damaged picture in Count Felix’s drawing-room, she who was weirdly alive in Vadim’s restless night dreams, the beautiful witch in white silks, with the eternal loveliness of many faces and with the strange and fatal name “Manon Lescaut.” The beautiful lady in the damaged picture at yesterday’s Twelfthnight soiree had the other name and a type of sofa was named after her, but Vadim preferred to call her Manon Lescaut.

“Sir, you ought to get up,” the butler Mitrich said, and the old man’s ordinary lean physique and his familiar gruff voice impressed Vadim oddly like a morning phantom who eventually proved to be your home lawyer who came to tell about the lamentable state of your home inheritance. Vadim’s late father, the widowed old man, full privy councillor, left Vadim only his pension, a small house in countryside and six State loan bills --actually, the best the widowed old man did to his only son was the enrollment of Vadim at the Imperial Lyceum which gave Vadim the uniform that let the teenager visit some assemblages and ballet shows, where he could socialize and pal up with students and other people who were much older than him. Now, Vadim got out of his bed and went to the washstand behind the Japanese screen.

While dressing, he questioned the butler about the current state of his uncle’s simple household which he was in charge of, at present, for the time of the winter season. Now, after poking the fire in the Dutch tile stove, the manservant left, and Vadim finished straightening his uniform of a Lyceum student, his usual everyday clothing --and finally he began combing his hair. The butler brought a tray with the morning meal.

The old manservant was obviously spoilt and to make it worse, he was an ignoramus who never knew that “man doth not live by bread only but… by a dessert too!” with this writer making no apology to readers for the garbled citation. Waving with the feather duster over all the furniture, the butler left muttering under his breath something disapproving about new times.

The big piece of potato pie was cold and dry. Dulling the edge of his appetite, Vadim felt the languor of his sleep filling his body again, and the dormant air of the apartment caused a drowsy state in his mind though his night hours hardly ever were sleepless and at the time of a day when “for the mortal one, is stilled the noisy day, and, on the silent city’s buildings, the easy shadow of night is softly laid,” as the poet said, Vadim did not suffer from insomnia.

He had plenty of free time. Approaching a window, through the hoar-frost-framed pane, he could see the heavy snowfall outside and a passerby quickly and busily walking in the side-street. He imagined the frost strong and the twilight so early. One of the few available amusements indoors was his pacing from corner to corner, so he began walking about the apartment.

A five-day-old issue of the Northern Bee newspaper was on the card-table; the latest bestseller “Vyzhigin,” by Faddey Bulgarin, was left in the Windsor chair; and the sleeping cherub shelf-sitter statuette neglectfully guarded other books, but Vadim was in need neither of sleep nor spiritual food.

In his idleness, Vadim moved from one room to another, drawing the door draperies open and leaving them sway and stop behind his back. The scanty day light reflected from myriads of facets of hoar frost over the windowpanes. Standing at the window a little longer, Vadim proceeded with the round of the rooms, quietly gliding over the carpets. He paused at one door, looked round for some reason and opened the door. Slowly his feet took the first step as though moving towards mystery, towards his own dreams, towards someone.

II

But nobody was there, and the room was not a forbidden place. Spacious, with two eastern divans along the damask walls, with no desks or bookshelves, it was called a study, for some reason. As though with no particular reason, Vadim was walking around for some time, running his fingers over the line of ancient chibouques in the bronze stand, warming up his hands at the hot tile stove, absent-mindedly watching the white lusterware simple ornament in the form of tiny blue churches. Then he came up to an old chest with a graceful oval swing mirror on the top --the cracked lacklustre mirror obligingly reflected his melancholic visage, dividing a part of his breast across --with his hands he tried it --the lustrous rosewood device was big but not too heavy --then he took it from the top of the chest. Placing the mirror on a small round table in front of the divan, he lay down on the silk pillows and cast his eyes up, because a wall and a picture reflected in the cracked mirror.