My Several Selves, Imaginary and Real 22 страница
To be called out by Shimkóvich to recite before the class was flattering, but to be called upon to read a long poem before the assembled school including the Director and the Headmistress was simply terrifying. The occasion was an anniversary of Lomonosov, a poet and scientist of the eighteenth century, and the poem his ‘Ode on the Usefulness of Glass’. Shimkóvich seemed to take a personal pride in the achievements of this man, who was the son of a fisherman on the shores of the White Sea, and who walked all the way from there to Petersburg in search of education. In my young eyes, however, Lomonosov’s poems were not poetry at all but mere naturalistic tracts in verse form. One read them at school only because one had to, and privately made fun of their old-fashioned, church Slavonic, pre-Pushkin language.
When Shimkóvich’s choice of reader fell on me — as everyone in the class seemed to expect — it was like a seal set on my status of a ‘favourite’. I was the only one caught unawares and my first reaction was dismay. I dared not refuse and my silence was taken for consent.
Shimkóvich gave me the book and asked me to practise memorizing and reciting it at home. I memorized it quickly enough but could not concentrate on any other of my tasks because of my preoccupation with the coming ordeal. A couple of weeks passed. My mother came to M* to do some of her Christmas shopping and found me in a state of such anxiety that it worried her.
‘Why don’t you tell him you would rather not do it?’ she asked.
I explained that I could not give him the true reason. What reason could I give him?
‘Say that your voice is not strong enough to carry across the big assembly hall; tell him that anyway his ode is so boring that people would fall asleep while you’re reciting it!’
I do not know whether my mother meant me to follow her advice literally: she could not have known in what reverence Lomonosov was held by our teacher. Be that as it may, feeling unable to stand the strain much longer, I plucked up my courage to stand up in class and ask Shimkóvich to release me from the task of reciting the ode to the assembled school.
When I gave as my reason the weakness of my voice, Shimkóvich looked quite unconvinced, so hurriedly I trotted out my mother’s unfortunate remark about people falling asleep. Shimkóvich’s face darkened and took an intimidating hardness of expression. In a dry, hostile voice he began to speak of another great Russian, Krylov, whose fables were so well known that quotations from them became a part of the common usage. He mentioned the fable about a mighty oak and the acorns scattered on the ground beneath it. An animal, which need not be named, he said, having eaten the acorns, began to dig under the tree, undermining its roots. We were all reaping the benefits of Lomonosov’s scientific labours, but some of us were ungrateful enough to talk slightingly of his work as a poet.
|
|
|
I stood behind my desk as he delivered himself of this tirade and the eyes of all my classmates were fixed on me. When he had finished, I sat down utterly crushed and silent with confusion. Some of my classmates would have tittered if they dared but the spectacle of Shimkóvich’s wrath froze them into silence and immobility.
As soon as he had left the room, however, they began to laugh and whisper among themselves, and Liolia Tálina broke into uncontrollable giggling.
Anna Avdyéevna tapped her desk to call the class to order. I dared not look in her direction, afraid of seeing my humiliation reflected as pity in her eyes. The break bell rang, and I mixed with the others to get out into the corridor as soon as I could.
A little crowd surrounded me, sympathizing, expressing their indignation at the teacher’s rudeness. Ania Bielynóvich told me with her usual bluntness that I was a fool to have backed out of the task Shimkóvich had assigned to me. ‘He’ll never forgive you for that,’ she said. ‘It’s the end of your being his favourite,’ she said.
Mania and Liuba Komarovskaya must have thought so, too: I detected a glint of triumph in their outwardly commiserating gaze.
‘I hope he won’t carry on as he did today —I mean taking revenge on you,’ said Mania, and I felt she was hoping he would do just that.
At the next lesson Shimkóvich offered the recitation of the ode to Liolia Tálina, and, naturally enough, she accepted. Liolia had a much better voice than I for this task. It was strong and sonorous: she often entertained us in lunch break by singing Gypsy ‘romances’. Her rehearsals in front of the class were models of correct recitation, and Shimkóvich smiled approvingly as he listened to her.
|
|
|
However, Mania Komarovskaya’s secret hopes concerning his treatment of me were not fulfilled. He did not start persecuting me — he just ignored me. It was Liolia whom he now called upon to answer his more subtle or provocative questions, and it was she who re-told the new lessons after he had explained them to us, and got twelves for her efforts. My pride suffered but still I did not regret what I had done. Even when the celebration was in full swing and I was sitting in the audience, listening to Liolia’s model recitation and the applause that followed it, impressed by the apparent simplicity and ease of this performance - even then I had not a moment of doubt that 1 was much better off where I was than on the rostrum.
A few weeks went by. The Lomonosov anniversary and the incident of the ode receded into the past; Liolia was no longer in the limelight. Gradually Shimkóvich was again becoming aware of my existence. Incredibly — for I had accepted his reputation as an unforgiving man -1 found myself restored to my former position as ‘the best pupil’ in Russian literature and language, and to the doubtful privilege of being Shimkóvich’s favourite.
It took me longer to forgive him, and to have my self-esteem even partially restored. His quotation from Krylóv continued to rankle, the humiliating comparison was difficult to forget. Nor could I forgive myself for repeating my mother’s remark about people being put to sleep by Lomonosov’s ode, which so angered Shimkóvich. I felt my mother was to blame for this, and my belief in her wisdom was shaken. But I was also aware that I had somehow profited by this unpleasant experience: an irreparable catastrophe proved to be only a temporary eclipse. It was both a warning for the future and a source of reassurance.
I told myself that I must control my impulsiveness and spontaneity, but this did not come easily to me. Self-doubt often led me to acts of self-display and rebellion against ‘rules and regulations’ which alarmed and upset Anna Avdyéevna. When I broke some minor prohibition she had issued to the class, she would tell me that ‘everyone has to obey the rules’ and demanded to know why I should be ‘an exception’. I had an answer ready on my lips — a passionate affirmation of my right not to conform: ‘Because I am one!’ But the fear of ridicule prevented me from voicing it. The dame-de-classe must have read the challenge in my face and, aware that she was losing control over me, tried to regain it by forceful means, and brought about a head-on collision between us.
|
|
|
One morning we came out of the assembly hall where we had a gym lesson to return to our class-room on the floor below. It was opposite , the women teachers’ common-room, and we were to walk past it in absolute silence. I was paired with Ania Bielynóvich with whom I had a ‘matey’ relationship, half-teasing, half mutually protective. It happened that Ania turned and spoke to a girl behind her just as we were passing the common-room door. She did not see Anna Avdyéevna emerging from our class-room, and to warn her, I gave her a quick prod in the ribs. She turned fiercely towards me but checked herself on seeing the dame-de-classe. With some difficulty I suppressed a giggle.
I was hoping all this had passed more or less unnoticed, but as soon as we were inside the class-room, Anna Avdyéevna called us to her desk telling us to bring our French reading books. These were the anthologies of French classics, and we had started reading Le Cid by Corneille.
‘You will learn these fifty lines by heart before you go home this afternoon,’ she told us, marking them in the book.
Ania shrugged and seemed ready to accept this without protest. I asked Anna Avdyéevna why she was giving us this task. She replied that I knew quite well: it was for talking to Ania in the corridor outside the common-room door. I asserted that I had said nothing to Ania. The dame-de-classe insisted that I was responsible for a commotion which could be heard in the common-room and that my punishment was deserved. I refused to comply.
While this was going on, the class was very quiet, listening, and Anna Avdyéevna’s face became flushed. She dropped her voice to tell me that she would not allow me to leave until I learned these lines, but that I could make use of the next period to learn them because the sewing mistress was unwell and would not be here.
|
|
|
I returned to my place quivering with anger, blood pulsating in my temples and filling my head with a roaring noise. I sat and stared at the open book on my desk, seeing only a blur. When the mist cleared from my eyes I began to read automatically and read the same lines several times before I could see any sense in them.
Car enfin n attends pas de mon affection
Un lache repentir d’une bonne action . . .
She was expecting me to repent ... to submit . . . but submitting to punishment would look like admitting that I had lied when I denied my guilt. That was unthinkable — a humiliation and an act of cowardice which I was quite unable to contemplate. I did my best to calm myself and went on reading without attempting to memorize what I read. The Cid’s noble refusal to compromise fortified my determination not to yield to Anna Avdyéevna’s threats or persuasion.
The hour dragged, yet the sound of the bell announcing its end made me start. The class-room was immediately filled with the noise of the desks being opened and shut and of books being pushed into satchels in preparation for going home. I heard Anna Avdyéevna asking Ania whether she had finished memorizing her lines, and Ania’s reply, ‘Not quite . . . not all of them.’ All the same, she went over to her and recited them, Anna Avdyéevna gently prompting her through the stumbling progress of her recitation and finally releasing her with a friendly: ‘That’ll do, you may go.’
The class had emptied by that time and I stood up and started packing my books. Anna Avdyéevna came over to me and asked whether I was ready to recite my lines. I told her that I had not been learning them.
‘You persist in refusing?’ she asked softly, her eyes on mine, her chin tucked into her neck.
‘I won’t be punished for something I haven’t done,’ I said, trembling inwardly with indignation.
I remember the flattering phrases she used in an attempt to break my resistance. Need I be so uncompromising? she asked. Didn’t I have an excellent memory? Could I not learn these fifty lines in half an hour? It would ‘cost me nothing’ to do what she asked. Finally she said that if I promised to learn it for tomorrow, I could go home at once.
Exasperated, I blurted out that I was not going to promise anything and that I had to go at once because my cousin, the coachman and the horse were waiting for me, and she had no right to punish them by keeping them out in the cold.
‘Wouldn’t you promise for their sake, if not for mine?’ she insisted.
I shook my head. She looked me up and down with an expression on her face which might have been grudging admiration.
‘Incredible! ’ she murmured. ‘What stubbornness! I suppose you pride yourself on your strength of will . . . Very well, you may go. You might change your mind by tomorrow.’
How little she knew me! My pride was certainly involved in this contest but it was not stubbornness, a mere determination not to give in, which kept me resisting her demand. It was the feeling that I just could not do her bidding. I suppose early Christians felt something like it when their tormentors tried to force them into denying Christ. I believe I would not have given in even if physically tortured; I might even have preferred that to the prolonged emotional torment which was Anna Avdyéevna’s method of coercing me.
The following morning she watched me from behind her desk with a curiously gentle gaze, as if seeking to conciliate me, almost pleading with me to relent. This disturbed me deeply; I tried to look as if I were indifferent, but was conscious that the expression on my face was strained and false. At the end of the first lesson, as I passed her on the way out, avoiding looking at her, I heard her murmur: ‘What strength of will!’ She was teasing me, trying to be playful! I felt baffled, annoyed, almost contemptuous of her tactics.
During the break Ania asked me whether I had learned my lines. I told her I had no intention of taking the punishment I had not deserved. Other girls were listening to our conversation, some with approval, some merely curious, the two Komarovskayas obviously condemning me. Anna Avdyéevna was, no doubt, aware that our contest was being watched. At the end of the day she spoke to me again.
‘I have been waiting for you to come up with that piece of French recitation . . . ’ she told me.
I remained silent.
‘Does this mean that you are determined to defy the rules of class discipline?’
Still I did not reply. She went on to say that I was putting her into an impossible position, setting a very bad example to the class, that if everyone refused to accept their punishment . . .
‘For something they haven’t done?’ I broke in indignantly.
‘Even if they hadn’t done it, they should be able to accept my decision for the sake of the rest. ’
This kind of reasoning seemed to me monstrous. I just stared at her. She made her last appeal.
‘Will you change your mind about this?’
‘I can’t.’
She looked at me for a few moments as if studying me, then jerked up her chin and turned her head away in a gesture of arrogant dismissal. This used to make me feel very small and worthless in my early days at school, but now it stung me into an even angrier rebellion.
‘Very well,’ she said. ‘I now see I’ve been mistaken in you. You can g°-’
As I walked away, her words rang in my head, pursuing me. Mistaken in me? Mistaken in me! Whatever did she mean? What crime had I committed? Why should she speak to me as if I were an outlaw? Much as I tried to persuade myself that I did not really care, I was hurt by Anna Avdyéevna’s parting remark and could not get it out of my mind.
The way she behaved towards me after that made it impossible for me to forget. Although she was facing me in the class-room at a distance of a few feet, she managed to look as if I were, in a current Russian phrase, ‘a mere empty spot’. She ceased addressing me personally, including me only in her general directions to the class. When it was my turn to be a monitor, she gave me a cold stare and handed the blue rosette to Ania, instead of me. She told the two Komarovskayas that she was displeased with the class for not inducing me to submit to her punishment. Her campaign of attrition against me finally culminated in an act of revenge which only these two devoted handmaids of hers failed to condemn.
It was the three hundred years’ anniversary of the Romanov dynasty. Our school, founded by the Empress Maria Fyódorovna, wife of the Emperor Paul I, and maintained from the funds of the ‘Empress Maria’s Department’ was busy preparing to celebrate this event. There was to be a gala evening with recitations, singing, dancing and tableaux vivants on the stage. Arkády Mihailovich, the drawing master, conceived an ambitious scheme of having the portraits of the early Romanovs drawn by pupils of the school, to adorn the walls of the assembly hall. To my surprise he chose me to do the likeness of the Tsar Alexéy Mihailovich, the second Romanov, a feat of which I had not thought myself capable. I should have known that, in any case, a few masterly strokes from Arkády’s own hand would, in the end, put right whatever blemishes I had despaired of correcting by my own honest efforts.
The gym mistress however was not going to be outshone by a rival ‘artist’ on the staff: she decided to produce some traditional dances. She taught us ballroom dancing and noticed Liolia and myself dancing together in a mock-dramatic way. Not being a disciplinarian, she laughed at that, and it must have given her the idea of choosing us to dance a Boyar dance at the prospective celebration.
For some reason dancing before an audience did not alarm me as much as reciting in public, and I agreed at once. Soon Boyar clothes were found for us, and we dressed up in the lunch break for the first ‘dress rehearsal’ of our dance. Liolia and I had been practising it on our own for over a week, and now many of our classmates joined the gym mistress in watching us.
I rather fancied myself in my kaftan of dull gold brocade, wide blue trousers and red leather boots. I set my fur cap rakishly on the side of my head, having done my best to conceal my hair. Liolia displayed hers, throwing her huge plait forward over her shoulder. She acted as a provocative beauty, a part that came naturally to her, arching her eyebrows at me, leading me on with flicks of her handkerchief. As I circled round her, I saw from the comer of my eye that Anna Avdyéevna had entered the room and was watching us from the doorway. ‘Let her look! ’ I thought, triumphantly. ‘Let her see how well we dance and how I am enjoying myself despite her confining me to limbo! ’
It was gratifying to hear our audience clap when we finished our dance. Alexandra Ivanovna looked very pleased and told us we would not need much more rehearsing.
As we slowly jostled one another through the doorway on the way back to our class-room, I saw Anna Avdyéevna going up to the gym mistress with a purposive air. She did not rejoin us until the lesson began, an unusual thing for her to do, and I noticed that she looked rather flushed. I wondered vaguely what she had been talking to the gym mistress about, but I remained unsuspecting of what was afoot.
On the following day I happened to pass Alexandra Ivanovna in the corridor. I greeted her with the usual curtsey, but instead of smiling and nodding back, she stopped and, taking my-arm, led me aside. Then, in an embarrassed and apologetic way, she told me that to her regret the Boyar dance had to be left out of the programme of celebrations. I gaped at her, hurt, uncomprehending.
‘Left out? But why?’
She explained with the same embarrassed air, actually blushing as she did so, that Anna Avdyéevna had vetoed my taking part in the celebrations and that she, as her colleague, could not go against her in this matter.
As I listened to her, my eyes began to burn with tears of indignation and outrage. I escaped to the cloakroom where I spent several minutes gasping for breath and thumping myself on the forehead to punish myself for my weakness and to stop the onset of tears. This was revenge! Anna Avdyéevna has allowed herself to sink as low as that! She was determined to make my life at school intolerable. She had become my enemy!
Дата добавления: 2021-04-05; просмотров: 71; Мы поможем в написании вашей работы! |
Мы поможем в написании ваших работ!