As we rode away from the island, my head was spinning
with a banal truth: It is so hard to create and so easy to destroy. That island was a symbol of the mockery made of Russian culture and the Church.
We followed a narrow, brush-covered stream to a small inland lake, where we set up for our forest life. These were the best days of our vacation. We rose early, wandered in the woods, rowed around the lake. The discomforts spoiled things a bit. The tent was too small, we had to turn over together at night like prisoners on plank beds, the mosquitoes were vicious, and there was nowhere to wash up because the lake was too cold for swimming. For two days I didn’t undress or change; then I got sick of feeling like a filthy animal. I went into the bushes with a bucket of warm water, stripped, and had a forest wash. It was so good!
As in any Soviet collective, the squabbling and gossip started in a couple of days: Someone was skipping out on chores, someone else was eating too much, and so on. Against the harmony and majesty of nature, people seemed silly and incongruous. I tried to participate as little as possible in this “Soviet life.”
On the way back there was a strong wind, the boat was in turbulent waves, and it was scary. I felt seasick for several hours after we landed. For me, an urban resident, the trip was like a frontier expedition. I felt strong and hardened by life and regarded my calluses proudly.
We were given a present in farewelclass="underline" We were taken to the neighboring tourist camp. It was another sad and depressing sight. It was situated in a dilapidated estate. The once-large and luxurious ballrooms and halls were broken up into tiny rooms without toilets or sinks. It rained that day, muddy goo squished
underfoot, and the vacationers stared out sadly at the world from the windows of their little cells. I was ready to go home to Moscow.
/ j
Oh, I forgot to mention that our tourist base was described in an article in National Geographic . The former director created a luxurious Western-style life for himself on company funds. He bought foreign stereos and TV, drove a fancy car, and lived it up at the best Black Sea resorts. I hear he was arrested. The new director, it was said, was a fine and honest man. But then why were the vacationers still fed rotten meat when they had paid so much for their stay?
On the way back in the train I had already forgotten the unpleasant parts, and all that remained were memories of a fairytale lake, the silence, the forest smells, the dawns and sunsets, the old church on a hill. We promised one another to come back the following year, but to head straight for the woods on the lake, skipping the tourist base. As it turned out, I was in Germany the following summer.
CHAPTER EIGHT
More Miscellany
FEBRUARY 19 . It’s incredible what’s happening with Soviet power! Where’s class hatred?
It’s all these Petersburg things. As a late elderly woman used to say to her son-in-law when he did something unusual by her standards, It s that drop of noble blood in you acting up.” Incidentally, there was more than a drop in him; a good half was noble Russian and English blood.
Leningrad TV news showed a charming descendant of the Volkonsky family. She lives, as most Russian aristocratic emigres do, in Paris, and came to see the homeland of her ancestors. She spoke Russian beautifully. The reporter’s commentary was completely unexpected: “Look at the refined face and manners of this young woman. She represents generations of the Russian aristocracy.” The aristocracy that they had cruelly and thoroughly exterminated since the first days of the Revolution. Now, suddenly, they are coming to their senses. They understand at last that the aristocrats were not the idle bloodsuckers who were robbing Russia. They were first of all people, among whom were both scoundrels and upstanding citizens, useless individuals and geniuses. The Russian aristocrats were always the bearers of the great Russian culture. And culture was not created during banquets and drinking sprees. The talented poet Vladimir Maya-
kovsky, confused by the Revolution, once wrote, “Eat pineapples and munch on pheasant, your final day is coming, bourgeois!” All schoolchildren in the Soviet Union know those lines. But do they also know that in aristocratic families children were brought up in harsh discipline and asceticism? They got up at six, washed in ice water, and started their lessons, which lasted for many hours a day. Pushkin’s education at the lycee is the best example of aristocratic upbringing. And who, if not the aristocracy, demonstrated for the dignity and rights of everyone at Senate Square in 1825?
By the way, who more than the aristocracy knew how to stand up and mock its own weaknesses? The classic image of the noble loafer Oblomov was created by the Russian nobleman Ivan Goncharov.
I admit that I am not objective, for I, too, have that “drop of noble blood acting up.” Peter the Great himself gave one of our ancestors a gift. But I lack the nobleman’s upbringing, and I don’t have the control, the patience, the profound Christian piety.
I always dreamed about living in the nineteenth century, on an estate with large grounds and a pond with lilies, going to the capital for the holidays, and bearing and bringing up young noblemen. My mother always replied to my dreams, “And what if you were born a peasant girl or a servant in a master’s house?”
“That’s impossible,” I replied. “After all, I’m not dreaming of being born an empress, just an ordinary (hereditary?) noble.”
Noble or not, I’m surely a fruitless dreamer.
FEBRUARY 22. I’m feeling sad and lonely. I want to fall in love, but with whom? In the West, it is said, there are clubs for singles, and even if you don’t find someone, you’ll chase away your glum thoughts. When Mama was young, she and her friends went to dances and met people that way. But where can you go now? To the House of Cinematographers, the House of Writers? When I was twenty, I loved those places. Famous actors and writers might gaze at you in a lazily interested way, and that was enough for rapturous gossip with my girl friend for weeks.
Once, out of great love for literature or for writers, we went for a vacation at the writers’ resort. It was the “dead season,” when writers prefer to be in town. But we were wildly popular among those present ... as fellow drinkers. Writers like to talk when they’re drinking, and what could be better than two young and pretty girls delighted by everything they say? It was very innocent, and nothing more was expected of us.
I admit that I fell in love with one of the writers anyway. In the evening, barefoot so that no one would hear, I crept to his room. We drank strong tea and kissed, nothing more.
Now I don’t need adventures like that. I’ve outgrown them.
Even earlier, when I was fourteen, my cousin and I spent hours making up stories about affairs with movie stars. Her “beloved” was Marcello Mastroianni, and mine was Alain Delon. The basic story line was that they both would come with us to Kaluga, and we all would live with our grandparents. We had endless discussions of the sensation they would cause in our neighborhood. All the neighbors would come running while we stood there arm in arm with the handsome stars. We divided up the beds, who would sleep where. My cousin and Marcello,