Mikhail Shishkin - Calligraphy Lesson

I woke up and thought it was raining, but it was doves on the iron cornice.

Poor Mirra Alexandrovna decided I couldn’t take a step without her. Here she was, torturing herself and me. But in fact, it’s she who’s helpless, not me. Getting oriented in the so-called visible dimension doesn’t necessarily mean seeing. I assure you, Evgenia Dmitrievna, any blind person orients himself as well as you. That’s not the main thing, you know, it’s trivial. It’s much easier than you think. After all, no two doors sound and no two rooms smell alike. Believe me, all it takes is a rustle, the creak of a floorboard, a cough, to know the size of the room, if it’s a strange one, and whether anyone’s in it, if it’s your own. Empty and filled spaces sound different. It’s easy to know when you’re approaching objects by the reverse flow of air on your face, so it’s absolutely impossible to run into a wall or a closed door. Evgenia Dmitrievna, I can immediately determine for you even a detail as small as whether a room is dusty or clean. Do you want me to tell you what you’re seeing now? I just have to snap my fingers. Permit me. The curtains are drawn. The lamp over your bed is on—all it takes is holding your hand out to feel the warmth. There’s a fresh newspaper and flowers on the table. Here there’s an unmade bed. And the marvelous smell of perfume, eau de cologne, and lipstick is coming from over there. You’re wearing a skirt but no blouse yet. It’s reckless to change clothes in the presence of a blind man, Evgenia Dmitrievna.

What’s happened to you, kind Alexei Pavlovich? I wouldn’t recognize you. Where is your caution and prudence? How can you do such rash and risky things? It was a miracle your message didn’t reach my father, since he always collects the mail. Only today, as if sensing something, out of the blue, I woke at daybreak and lay there for a long time listening to the wall clock and watching it swing on its stem toward the cupboard, but never quite all the way. Then some unconscious alarm, some inexplicable force, made me get up, get dressed, and go down for the mail. The clumps of snow—what the mailman left behind—still hadn’t melted on the steps in the vestibule. I opened the box: papa’s Gazette, some ads, and suddenly the Swallow’s Nest floats from Crimea to the floor. Addressed in block letters, so he wouldn’t recognize the handwriting, and instead of text, stamp-cancelled emptiness. Gasping from joy, I thought, but sensed with horror, that there was no happiness in this; on the contrary, the blank card held something humiliating, and I loved you in a completely different way. I put the newspaper and ads back, but I folded your little nest in two, slipped it in my pocket, and went back. Everyone was up by then. I think I wrote you before about Roman, the blind man and his mama dreaming of the conservatory. At the home where he used to live, it turns out, their favorite game was gorodki . One person sets up a figure, claps his hands, and runs back, while the other throws a bat. Remember that stuffed leopard cat in father’s study? Roman touched it and said it was a squirrel. Outside, I stopped him for a minute and went to buy ice cream, but he kept talking to me the whole time—because of the street noise he hadn’t realized he was standing there alone. He asked me to teach him chess, but he just couldn’t remember the positions and kept running his fingers over the pieces. If the scissors weren’t in the sideboard, he’d raise a scandal for his mother Mika—he calls her Mirra Alexandrovna. For that matter, he calls me Evgenia Dmitrievna instead of Zhenya. Mika came to me and asked me to put everything back where it was, and I explained that the position things happened to be in on the day of their arrival was by no means set in stone. I come home and lock myself into my room just so I won’t see him. I can’t stand to watch him constantly rubbing his stuck eyelids with his fist and digging snot out with a toothpick and licking it off. You can’t go into the bathroom after him without a burning match. Mika brought us theater tickets. At the same time she laughed, turning to my father: “Every woman is a bit of a Traviata, isn’t that so?” I spent half the day getting ready, but when it was time to go I still wasn’t ready. Roman, sleek, wearing gleaming boots and smelling of Papa’s cologne, was sitting in the hall by the door. Mika kept checking in on me every other minute. “Zhenya dear, let me help you! Zhenya, please, it’s better to get there a little early and wait! Zhenya, how long can this go on? It’s time! Zhenya, I beg of you!” I was all set when my coral necklace broke and the stone berries rolled all over the parquet. Mika waved her arms in panic. “Zhenya, just go, I’ll pick them up!” I flew into a rage. “What do you mean just go! I can’t go like this! I won’t go anywhere like this!” I put on the lilac dress you like, or maybe you just said you did and really didn’t notice, and now I wear it all the time. By the time we left it was obvious we’d be late. I said, “It’s not so terrible. Imagine, we’ll arrive for the second act. We’ll have a nice walk, there’s no rush now anyway. If Alfred sings his aria without us, he’s not going to marry her because of it.” Roman was giving me the silent treatment. After the rain there were puddles everywhere, and each one had to be stepped around or over. A simple, “Careful, there’s a puddle,” said nothing, and a few times Roman stepped right in the mud, splashing himself and me. He walked along pale and angry and didn’t utter a word the whole way, while I chattered on. He stepped into a puddle again, stopped, and stated flatly he wasn’t going anywhere looking like this. I said, “Don’t be silly.” He insisted. I couldn’t restrain myself. “What earthly difference does it make to you what you look like!” A shudder ran through Roman, and he turned around and went home. I followed him. And so we returned in silence. Mika acted as though nothing had happened, as though it was all supposed to happen like that, but she wouldn’t look in my direction. I also forgot to say I went to see your mother. She talked about what you were like as a child. I can just see it, the teary-eyed little boy running not to her but to me and telling me that the mean little boys there were catching baby birds, poking twigs through their eyes, and running around with these fluttering garlands, boasting over who had more.

Papa, are you busy? I wanted to ask you about one thing.

What, now?

All right, it doesn’t matter. Later. Someday.

Naturally, Evgenia Dmitrievna, there are definite drawbacks to any situation. I don’t like street orchestras. Drumming is to me what a thick fog is to you. Or a snowfall, for instance. Then it’s like even the streetcar’s wearing felt boots. Or new shoes—that’s a torture only the blind can understand. In general, as a result of their limited mobility, nonsee-ers’ muscles are flaccid, their bones thinner, and their fingers—here, look—can be bent back without much effort. And I’ll admit, I don’t find the way you slip me thicker, sturdier dishes so I won’t break them very nice, Evgenia Dmitrievna. On the other hand, believe me, the nonsee-er has his advantages. Why else would the philosophers of antiquity have blinded themselves? Evidently, they understood that your visible world, which you treasure so, is no more than tinsel, smoke, zilch. Those colour pictures say nothing about the essence of things; they only corrupt and render you helpless. With your eyes closed, you couldn’t even get your spoon in your mouth. Of course, it’s easy to cheat a blind person, but you can’t fool him. It’s not hard to artificially make the right facial expression in a conversation, but you can’t do that with your voice. Words lie; the voice never. What seems important to you—colour, shapes, so-called beauty—are in fact of no importance whatsoever. Does it matter what colour the sky or wallpaper is? A bust that is usually admired is really nothing special—a head’s a head. What difference does it make how you look, Evgenia Dmitrievna? I can’t see you, but that doesn’t change anything about our relationship. What difference does it make what kind of hair or nose you have? All that’s important is that you hate me.