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Catherine

Thoughts on "Wings" by Mikhail Kuzmin

  • Let me start by saying that this is not a particularly serious post.  After all my excitement about Bohemian Rhapsody, my appetite for gay men in history was too large to be satiated, so I've stayed on that theme since seeing the movie, and naturally, this led to me reading the original Russian Gay Fiction--a short work called "Wings" by a relatively little-known author named Kuzmin.  I'd always been curious as to what exactly it was about, and now felt like the right moment to bite the bullet and just read the thing.

    I'll start by saying that, while "Wings" is better than Bohemian Rhapsody turned out to be (whoa, burn), Tolstoy it ain't.  Kuzmin became famous for this piece, not so much because it was fabulously written, but because it scandalized the whole community of Russian intellectuals back in 1906 when it was published with its open depiction of love between men.  People were calling it pornographic and saying it should be banned, although, I should note, there is absolutely no physical intimacy between men described ever, at all, in all three parts of the story.  More on that later.

    As for the reason it's not Tolstoy, the first thing I'll note is that I constantly had to Google things while reading it--yes, my Russian's not perfect, but it wasn't a question of words I don't know; it was all these pretentious-ass references to obscure artists and writers and things.  

    I understand that no media ages well in terms of references; when we read The Tale of Genji, unquestionably a masterpiece, we need notes to explain the significance of the Chinese poets being referenced, and songs like Weird Al's "All About the Pentiums" are completely incomprehensible to younger generations, who don't know what a Commodore 64 is and have no recollection of floppy disks. I also understand that in 1906, the intended audience of this story had a wider (not "better"--wider in terms of the range of themes) education than the average modern reader, so they all would have been familiar with the references to Greek poets and to opera, even if that wasn't their main specialty.  But there are good references and bad references, and name-dropping some artist with a phrase like "this makes me feel the way I do when I see the paintings of X" or "the atmosphere recalled the novellas of Y" isn't a great way to do it, even if you add another sentence elaborating on what the feeling/atmosphere is like.  See, when you do that, it comes off as you merely showing off that you know this particular artist.  If the reference is too obscure to be understood without explanation, but also made pointless by the explanation, probably you should just get rid of that reference.  That's why allusions within the text--phrases that call to mind a different text for those "in the know", but are still perfectly understandable for the uninformed--are usually the way to go.  Other Russian authors stick with those, while Kuzmin is over here like some kid writing a Naruto high school AU and deciding it's a good idea to have the characters compare themselves to the heroes of Supernatural.  (That reference in itself is probably outdated, but I haven't been in internet fandomland for a long time, and I don't plan to return.  Please forgive me.)

    I would also list a general disorganization as a downside of "Wings"--it didn't help that the formatting of the online version I found was FUBAR, but even when I got around that, I couldn't shake the feeling that Kuzmin had just written out a variety of interesting conversations and monologues that he liked, then patched them together into a narrative about a sort of bland gay teenager traveling around Russia and Europe and learning about life.  This kid, the main character, Vanya, basically exists to ask questions that will provoke treatises on the nature of love and God, listen to the teachings of various gay and probably-gay instructors, and blush when one particularly handsome and ludicrously pretentious Englishman is around.  Okay, it's not that bad, but the story really wouldn't suffer if the main character had a bit more character.

    The overall impression I got was, to use the notation we learned for the ISEE back in 5th grade and never used again, something like, "Russian action movies:Hollywood::'Wings':Oscar Wilde".  Oscar Wilde, but the Russian knockoff version.  There were some witty moments, and I particularly appreciated some little self-aware jibes at the vapid petite bourgeois characters, but most of the pretentiousness was kind of pointless.  

    So now that I've criticized the form to death, let's get on to the content, which is definitely worth considering.  Remember how I said there's no physical intimacy between men in this scandalously gay story?  There are some vaguely erotic descriptive passages, and a lot of stuff that takes place backstage, so to speak, but that's the extent of it.  Meanwhile, there's a lot of straight physical intimacy.  And it's there because while this story has a number of points, haphazardly presented in a variety of Socratic dialogues and unprompted lectures, one of the biggest ones, told less by the characters and more by the narrative structure itself, is "the straights be crazy".

    It kind of reminds me of Taras Bulba (probably the last thing you expected me to mention here, but hear me out!): Gogol starts that story with Taras warning his sons that, as Cossacks, they should focus on their relationship with their brothers-at-arms, and contact with women is corruption to be avoided.  Then, as one might expect, one son does not heed his advice and disaster ensues.  The resulting lesson is that straight relationships are the bad ones.  Now, if we look at a passage from the start of "Wings":

    "The further humans are from sin, the further they must be from childbirth and physical labor. . . The laws of nature are in an entirely different category than so-called-divine laws or human ones . . . And the law of nature can be broken only by one who can touch his lips to his own eyes without tearing them from their sockets and see the back of his own head without a mirror.  And when they say to you "unnatural", just look at the blind man who spoke that word and walk past, not imitating the sparrows that flee the garden scarecrow.  People walk about as though blind, as though dead, when they could create a most passionate life, in which all pleasure would be as intense as if you were just born and about to die.  Everything should be considered with such greediness.  There are miracles around us at every step: there are muscles and ligaments in the human body which one can't look at without trembling!  And those who connect their understanding of beauty with the beauty of a woman to a man are displaying vulgar lust, and are further, further than anything from the true meaning of beauty.  We are Hellenes, lovers of the magnificent, Bacchantes of the life to come."

    The last sentence is only there to help you understand how ludicrously pretentious all this sounds.  But you get the point, don't you?  "Oh, we're perverts?  You know who's the real pervert?  YOUR PARENTS," says Kuzmin, "and I can PROVE IT."  and then he proceeds to write a story in which straight people:
    --Rape each other
    --Try to rape Vanya (he has to physically defend himself from a girl)
    --Have kind of gross opportunistic sex in a tavern
    --Kill themselves (wouldn't be Russian literature without at least one rather contrived suicide)
    --Fall in love with one wonderful girl, then run off with some strumpet
    --In general are kind of banal and shallow
    And gay people:
    --Talk a lot about classics and art
    --Go to the opera and read great literature
    --Have super deep philosophical discussions
    --Are generally super intellectual, cultured and interesting
    Overall, the text is telling its readers: look how immoral these straight people are.   (To be fair, there are a lot of people whose sexuality is left undefined as well; it's not that cut-and-dried--this is my overall impression.)  Gosh, I thought homosexual propaganda wasn't actually a thing, but Kuzmin might be proving me wrong.  Maybe that's why some Russian politicians are so worried about it: because they haven't read anything published later than 1906.  Meanwhile, I find it charming.

    To be fair, not everything is so chaste.  Kuzmin needed a reason for Vanya to become disillusioned with his love interest and go out on his own, so he has the latter hire a live-in servant who used to be a bathhouse attendant, and Vanya is crushed.  All the more because he actually runs into this young man before he starts working and overhears the story of how he was hired: the attendant welcomed a gentleman to the bathhouse, and this gentleman asked to be washed by him, but he didn't know what that really meant, so an older boy had to come too and show him what to do; everyone does it, after all.  And now he's being set up at the gentleman's home with a good salary.  Here no intimacy is described, but it's painfully obvious.  It's interesting how quickly Vanya recovers from his disappointment, however.  It only takes one person telling him that his crush misses him (the fact that the servant is gone by then is also part of it, but still, is that really enough to erase the effect of such a betrayal?) to make him ready to go back again.  I guess he was already fine with a sort of polyamory as long as the emotions were right. Or maybe Kuzmin just forgot to patch in a little more character development.

    I do want to share some passages I like, in my rough translation.  Because this essay has become a monster, like most of mine, and I want to end it on a positive note.  So, without further ado:

    "They say: "fanciful, unnatural, too much," but if we were to use our body only in the way that is considered natural, we would do nothing but tear apart raw meat and shove it into our mouths with our hands, or brawl with our enemies!"
    (True!  Who among us really lives a "natural" life?  Bear Grylls?  IDK, I don't think humans were meant to drink that much piss.)

    "Vanechka, I love to walk on the hot ground barefoot, or swim in the stream; You see your own body through the water, and the golden sparks in the water running across it, and when you dive and open your eyes down there, everything is green, so green, and you see how the little fish dart by, and then you lie down on the hot sand to dry, the wind blows past you, it's wonderful! . . . And it's not true what the old women say, that the body is sinful, flowers and beauty are sinful, bathing is sinful.  Didn't the Lord make all of this: the water, the trees, the body?
    (A little early-20th-century body positivity to brighten your day.)

    "Oh, it's not that easy to make a shoe according to the rules of art; you must know, you must study the foot you are dressing, and you must know where the bone is wider, where it is narrower, where the corns are, where the arch is higher than it should be.  Because no man's foot is just like another's, and you have to be a dunce to think that a boot is a boot and will fit any foot; and signors, such feet there are, ach!  And all of them must walk.  The Lord God made all feet to have five toes and a heel, and all else is just as fair, you understand?  Yes, and if someone has six or four toes, that means the Lord God gave him such feet, and he must walk like the rest, and the cobbler must know that and make it possible."
    (Get the metaphor?  I'm on the right track, baby, I was born with six toes.)

    Oh, and if you were waiting to punch the "word of the day/title of the story" button:
    "And the people saw that all beauty, all love comes from the Gods, and they became free and brave and grew wings."

    I don't know--I think all love is divine, but I don't see those wings.  Can I get my money back?

    *Oh, and one more thing: with regards to the quality of my translation, I feel compelled to translate one more small passage:
    "Instead of a person of flesh and blood, laughing or gloomy, whom you can love, kiss, or hate, in whom you can see the blood flowing through the veins and the natural grace of the naked body, to have a soulless doll, usually made by a simple craftsman--that is a translation."

    That's right, if you don't read your Greek poetry in the original, you suck!  And don't read my translations; learn Russian, plebs!  Yeah, I obviously don't agree here, but these passages I've translated were all done at ~2AM, so take them with a hefty salt lick.



Catherine

The Land of Crimson Clouds--Arkadiy and Boris Strugatskiy--Translation Chapter 5

This chapter gave me hell, because it has poetry in it.  You don't sign up to translate a sci-fi novel expecting poetry.  But that's why the Strugatskiy Brothers are miles ahead of pretty much all other Soviet sci-fi authors--I'm reading "Andromeda Nebula" by Ivan Yefremov right now, and it's good, but there's certainly no poetry.  It's a little too much Soviet utopia, not enough interesting characters and intellectual challenge.  Anyway, if you're still reading my translations, please enjoy this chapter!

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

5. TRIAL BY FIRE [AKA How much of this will be on the final?]

After seeing off Krayukhin and the geologists—they left in a car called for them from the settlement—Bykov scratched his head thoughtfully and went back to the garage. The “Kid” stood two steps from the gates. Streaks of rain glistened on its tapered sides.

“A test!” Bykov said out loud. “Well, fine. A test is a test.”

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Catherine

The Land of Crimson Clouds--Arkadiy and Boris Strugatskiy--Translation Chapter 4


Took me long enough!  After a month of illness and a month of finishing my master's thesis, as well as a trip to Dauge's homeland, I am back from Riga with an update.  I don't know if it's good, but I can't look at it anymore.  So here goes!

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

4. WORKDAYS [AKA You’ll eat what’s put in front of you, young man]

The settlement was small: a few hundred new cottages stretched out along four even, parallel streets in a valley between two ridges of bare, flat hills. The red morning sun weakly lit the wet asphalt, sloping roofs, and cheerful little trees in the yards. Beyond the hills, huge, lofty structures, recognizable from movies and photographs, peeked out from behind reddish mist; these were launch platforms for spaceships.

Alexei Bykov, having stuffed himself into a white bathrobe, stood next to a huge window that spanned half the wall, looking at the street below and waiting for the doctor to call him. The crew of the “Hius” had arrived in this settlement the previous evening. Bykov slept on the airplane, but obviously not enough, because he dozed off in the car on the way from the aerodrome. The only impressions of the city that remained in his mind were a street drenched in red evening sunlight, the bright, many-storied hotel building, and the attendant[1] saying “here’s your room, comrade, make yourself comfortable . . .” Dauge woke him at seven and said that all crew members were required to appear for a medical examination, and that sleeping too long gives you bedsores.

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Catherine

Как перезагрузить отношения США и России? Одним словом—космос

Сегодня День космонавтики.

В этот же день в 1961-ом году Юрий Гагарин совершил первый полет человека в космосе. Это часто считается советским достижением, но на самом деле это и общечеловеческий подвиг—сколько людей испокон веков мечтали летать в космос, во скольких странах?  Это огромная теоретическая и даже философская работа, сделанная человечеством.

Сейчас ракеты в новостях: из твитов Дональда Трампа и заявлений других мировых лидеров они поднимают свои боевые головки над Сирией, угрожая возобновленной войной.

Но все могло бы быть иначе!  И даже между такими вечными врагами, как США и Россией, ракеты могли бы означать мир.

В ранних произведениях братьев Стругацких об утопическом альтернативном будущем, который потом был назван «Миром полудня», представлен фантастический мир, где деньги не имеют значения, где люди путешествуют по солнечной системе как по своему городу. Там советские космонавты дружат с французскими, китайскими, японскими, и даже индийскими астронавтами. С американцами они ведут дружные идеологические споры. 

В американском сериале «Звездный путь» дела обстоят еще фантастичнее. В одном экипаже космического корабля служат одновременно белый американец, черная американка, японец, русский, шотландец, и даже инопланетянин. 

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Catherine

The Land of Crimson Clouds--Arkadiy and Boris Strugatskiy--Translation Chapter 3

Chapter 1
Chapter 2

This chapter had so much physics in it that I almost cried, and wrote a crazy footnote which I have left intact for your amusement.  Please, enjoy.

3. ON THE THRESHOLD [AKA What Men Talk About at Sleepovers]



Bykov sighed and sat up on the sofa, tossing away the blanket.  He simply couldn’t make himself fall asleep.  Dauge’s office was dark—the only bright spot was the white sheet, which was slowly migrating towards the floor.  Beyond the broad windows, a faint halo of lights glowed pink in the night over the capital.
He reached towards the nearby chair for his watch.  It slipped out of his fingers and fell.  Bykov slid off the sofa and started searching for it, running his hand over the rug and the smooth floorboards.  He couldn’t feel the watch.  Cursing softly, he stood up and began to adjust the sheet.  This was the third time he’d done so since Dauge had wished him goodnight and left for his bedroom to write a few letters.  Bykov lay down, but still couldn’t fall asleep.  He tossed and turned, sighed, tried to get comfortable, counted to a hundred.  But sleep wouldn’t come.
Too many new impressions, thought Bykov, sitting up again.  Too many new impressions and new ideas.  Dauge had explained too much already, but there was even more Bykov still didn’t know.  A cigarette sure would be nice right now—but no, that was off limits!  He had to quit.  To quit smoking and stop drinking spirits.  Just earlier Ioganich, having listened without enthusiasm as Bykov informed him that “in this very suitcase, my friend, is a bottle of the finest Armenian cognac with our names on it,” asked blandly, “fifteen years old?”  “Twenty!” Bykov ceremoniously corrected.  “Well, throw it out, then,” Dauge offered sweetly.  “Toss it in the garbage chute or give it to someone else tomorrow.  And keep in mind that there’ll be no smoking on the ship.  That’s the rules.  On Earth we can only have grape wine in small doses, and during the expedition, not a drop!  Such are the rules, comrade interplanetor.”
“Freaking monastery . . .” Bykov muttered, curling up under the blanket.  “I should sleep.  Give it another try . . .”
He closed his eyes, and immediately he pictured the huge empty foyer where he had waited for Dauge after the meeting.  Bogdan Spitsyn and chubby Krutikov had walked past him and paused by a newsstand.  As far as he could tell, they were discussing some new book.  Or rather, Spitsyn stayed mostly quiet, flashing his blinding smile, and Krutikov tattered on in a high tenor, continually throwing the most welcoming, good-natured glances in the newbie’s direction.  Bykov sensed that he would soon be invited to join the conversation, but then Dauge and Yurkovskiy appeared.  Dauge walked purposefully, biting his lip, and Yurkovskiy’s face was distorted by a spasm.  He held a crumpled newspaper in his hand.
“Dangée is dead,” said Yurkovskiy, walking right up to the conversing pair.
Bykov watched the smile melt from dark-haired Spitsyn’s face.
“Ah, God damn . . .” he cursed.
Krutikov rushed forward, with trembling lips:
“Oh my Lord . . . Paul?!”
“On Jupiter!” Yurkovskiy said furiously.  “Got stuck in the exosphere, lost his momentum, and then just up and stayed there.”
He held out the newspaper.  Bykov saw a portrait in a black frame: a slim young man with mournful eyes.
“Jupiter . . . Godforsaken Jupe again!”  Yurkovskiy clenched his fists.  “Worse than Venus, worse than anything in existence!  That’s where I ought to . . . that’s it . . .” he turned sharply and strode away across the springy, matte white floor.
Krutikov was sadly shaking his head, repeating, “Paul Dangée, Paul . . .”
“I didn’t get around to answering his letter . . .” Dauge said with difficulty, face pinched, as though looking into a bright light.
All went silent; only the thick cover of the book in Mikhail Krutikov’s hand crinkled . . .
. . . Bykov opened his eyes and rolled onto his back.  That incident had cast a shadow on the whole evening.  His conversation with Ioganich hadn’t turned out very well.  These interplanetors are damn brave people, the engineer thought, and surprisingly persistent.  Real heroes!  So many have already laid down their lives on Venus!  They set off for battle on bulky rockets with pulsed motors and limited fuel supplies.  No one was forcing them—they were delayed, restricted, even forbidden from flying . . . if they came back.
And now the “Hius” was joining the fray.
The photon rocket “Hius” . . . like any nuclear engineer, Bykov was acquainted with the theoretical concept behind the photon drive and had followed with great interest all new information on the subject that appeared in the press.  A photon drive turns fuel into quanta of electromagnetic radiation, and thereby creates the maximum possible thrust speed for a rocket engine, equal to the speed of light.  Either thermonuclear processes (the partial conversion of fuel into radiation) or antimatter annihilation (the complete conversion of fuel into radiation) can serve as the energy source for a photon drive.  The photon rocket’s superiority over atomic rockets with liquid fuel are huge and undeniable.  First, the lower weight of the propellant; second, a larger payload; third, incredible maneuverability for such a rocket; fourth . . .
That was all well and good in theory.  But Bykov was also aware that until recently, all attempts to put the photon drive idea to use in practice had failed.  One of the main problems with the idea—the reflection of the radiation—simply would not be solved.  To create photon thrust, the electromagnetic radiation needed an intensity equivalent to millions of kilocalories per centimeter of the reflective surface squared, and no material could withstand even short exposure to the resulting temperatures of hundreds of thousands of degrees.  Unmanned test crafts burned to a crisp before spending even one percent of their fuel.  And yet, the “Hius” was built!
“They’ve created a perfect mirror,” Dauge had said, “’the ultimate reflector.’  A substance that repels any radiative energy of any intensity, as well as all types of elementary particles with energy up to 100 or 150 million electronvolts.  All but neutrinos, I think.  A miraculous substance.  An institute in Novosibirsk came up with the concept for it.  Admittedly, they weren’t thinking about photon rockets.  They were trying to create a perfect shield from the gamma radiation released by nuclear reactors.  But Krayukhin immediately realized what was going on.”  Here Dauge had laughed.  “Krayukhin is a photon rocket maniac.  He’s the one who gave us the aphorism—‘one photon rocket and the universe is ours’.  Krayukhin was hooked on the ‘ultimate reflector’ immediately, set two-thirds of the lab to work on it, and boom—the ‘Hius’!”
The creation of the “ultimate reflector” was the first real achievement of a new, fantastic branch of science: mesoatomic chemistry, chemistry using artificial atoms whose electron shells had been replaced with mesons.[1] This was so fascinating to Bykov that briefly forgot about everything else—about poor Paul Dangée, about Venus, even about the expedition.  Unfortunately, Dauge couldn’t tell Bykov much about the “ultimate reflector”.  But he did tell about the “Hius”.
The “Hius” was a composite spacecraft: it had five ordinary atomic pulsed rocket engines which carried a parabolic mirror made of the “ultimate reflector”.  Portions of tritium plasma were periodically injected into the focus of the mirror.  The atomic rockets had a dual purpose: first, they allowed the “Hius” to take off and land on Earth.  The photon rocket wouldn’t be useful for that—it would contaminate the atmosphere with the effect of dozens of hydrogen bombs at once.  Second, the rockets’ reactors are fed by powerful electromagnets, whose fields control the flow of plasma and stimulate nuclear fusion.
How simple and clever: five rockets and a mirror.  Incidentally, the ugly five-legged tortoise that Bykov had seen in Krayukhin’s office was in fact a model of the “Hius”.  The craft was not exactly remarkable for its graceful contours . . .
The engineer sat again, slumped over, pressing his bare back against the cool wall.
“We’ll be flying on the photon rocket ‘Hius-2’.  ‘Hius-1’ burned up during a test flight two years ago,” Dauge had told him hesitantly.  “No one knows why.  And there’s no one to argue with.  The only person who could say anything about it would have been Ashot Petrosian—may he rest in peace!  He dissolved into radioactive dust along with the mass of titanium alloy the first ‘Hius’ was made of.  A quick, honest death . . .”
Probably, none of us are afraid of death, Bykov thought.  We merely try to avoid it.  Who said that first?  He got off the sofa.  He wouldn’t fall asleep now—that was clear.  The ultimate reflector, Dangée, “Hius”, Petrosian . . . I’ll try my last resort.
He stepped out onto the balcony, automatically grabbing the pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket.
If you can’t sleep, it’s not a bad idea to cool off for a while.  Bykov rested his arms on the railing.  All was quiet.  The enormous city was sleeping under the ghostly twilight of the midsummer night; far off, beyond the horizon glimmered a flickering reddish light, and to the north the pinnacle of the Palace of Soviets[2] stretched into the grey sky like a blinding white arrow. 
It must be past two already, Bykov thought.  Where the heck is my watch, though? . . . It’s so warm.  A soft warm breeze . . . but “Hius” in Siberian dialect means a cold winter wind.  The photon rocket project was developed by Siberian engineers, and they suggested that word as a code name.  And then they passed it on to the spacecraft.
Strange, unfamiliar names.  “Hius” in honor of the Siberian chill, “Uranium Golkonda”, in memory of an ancient city[3] where King Solomon supposedly stored his treasures at one point . . . And also the “Tahmasp Enigma”.  After Tahmasp Mekhti, a famous Azerbaijani geologist and the first person to set foot on the Golkonda.  Yermakov, Tahmasp and two other geologists had managed to land successfully on Venus in a specially equipped racing rocket.  This was due to incredible luck and good fortune.  Everyone thought so, even Yermakov himself.
They landed somewhere about twenty kilometers from the edge of the Golkonda.  Tahmasp left Yermakov with the rocket, and he and his geologists headed outside to investigate.  What happened afterward was unknown.  Tahmasp returned to the rocket four days later, alone, half-dead from thirst, delirious and covered with sores from radiation sickness.  He brought back samples of uranium, radium and transuranium ores (“Such rich ores, Alexei, amazing ores!”) and a container full of reddish-grey radioactive dust.  He could barely retain consciousness.  He showed Yermakov the container and started talking quickly and furiously in Azerbaijani.  Yermakov didn’t understand Azerbaijani and begged him to speak Russian, because it was clear he was talking about something important.  But all Tahmasp could say in Russian was “Beware the red ring!  Don’t go near!”  That was the last he spoke before his death.  He died during takeoff, and Yermakov spent half a month in the rocket with his corpse. 
“The red ring”—that was the Tahmasp Enigma, the enigma of the three geologists’ death, the enigma of the Golkonda.  Or maybe there was no enigma at all.  Maybe, as many believed, Tahmasp simply lost his mind due to radiation sickness or after watching his comrades’ death.  The reddish-grey powder in the container turned out to be an organosilicon compound, which, as it happened, was already well known on Earth.
It was unclear why Tahmasp was dragging that container with him . . . and also how it was related to the “red ring”.
Dauge rushed through this explanation, wincing as though from heartburn.  He didn’t believe in the “Tahmasp Enigma”.  But he was happy to talk about the riches of the Golkonda for hours.  If only we could fly there, walk there, crawl there . . .
Bykov leaned over sideways across the railing.  The pack of cigarettes was ever so tempting, so he laid it next to him.  A small helicopter fluttered softly by overhead.  Bykov followed its signal lights, red and white.  He remembered again his conversation with Dauge.
Tahmasp and his comrades went to the Golkonda on foot.  But our expedition is taking a transporter.  Dauge says that it’s a brilliant machine.  Ioganich always says things are brilliant: the “Hius” is brilliant, the transporter is brilliant, Yurkovskiy is brilliant.  But he was more restrained when talking about the commander.  Apparently, Yermakov is Krayukhin’s foster son.  He’s of the best cosmonauts in the world, but has his idiosyncrasies.  Of course, he apparently had a very difficult life.  Dauge said of him with unusual uncertainty:
“I don’t really know him . . . people say . . . they say he’s very brave, very knowledgeable, and very cruel . . . They say he never laughs . . .”
Yermakov’s wife was the first person to land on Venus’s moon.[4] After that, there was an accident.  No one knew exactly what happened—some kind of conflict between members of the crew.  Since then, women were no longer allowed on long interplanetary flights, and Yermakov dedicated himself entirely to the siege of Venus.  It turned out he had tried four times to land on the surface of the planet, and all four times he failed.  The fifth time he flew with Tahmasp Mekhti.  And now, on the “Hius”, he was going to Venus a sixth time. 
Bykov paced the balcony, hands folded behind his back.  No, he couldn’t even cool off tonight!  It was much too hot, muggy even.  Bykov could feel himself growing more and more certain that the best and most radical sleep aid would be a cigarette.  A slender, aromatic cigarette, enchanting, lulling, comforting . . . he picked up the pack.
The best way to overcome temptation is to give in!  He snickered.  But no, dammit—the rules!  The cigarette pack shot down all the way from the eleventh floor.  Bykov bent over the railing and stared into the dark abyss.  Down below, a set of blinding lights ignited, scuttered across the asphalt and went out.
Littering now, thought Bykov.  I just can’t get it together!  I should sleep . . . He went back inside and felt his way to the sofa.  Something crunched under his foot.  And there’s my watch, he thought, struggling to find a reference point in the darkness. 
He sighed deeply and lowered himself onto the spongy cushions of the indomitable sofa.  No, no sleep for you tonight, comrade engineer, “desert specialist”!  What’s up with that pretty-boy Yurkovskiy resenting me so much?  Now the nickname’s stuck: desert specialist.  And the way he looked when he talked about Paul Dangée! . . . No, that type doesn’t get insomnia before a flight.  “We aren’t afraid of death, we merely try to avoid it.”  Is that so, engineer?  And what if, a year from now, someone in that same foyer tells his friends: “Comrades, have you heard?  The ‘Hius’ crashed.  Yermakov is dead, and Yurkovskiy, and also . . . you know, what’s-his-name . . . the desert specialist.”  . . . Oh, nonsense, Alexei!  This is insomnia and idleness talking.  If only morning would come sooner—and the plane, and the Seventh Polygon, and the launch pad in the arctic, where the expedition will prepare for takeoff and wait for the Hius, which is now on a test flight.  I have to get up at eight today, but I can’t sleep, God damn it! . . . Dauge must be asleep already . . .”
But then Bykov noticed that the door to Dauge’s bedroom was cracked open, and a faint ray of light fell on the adjacent wall.  He got up, tiptoed to the door and peeked through the crack.  Dauge sat, head in his hands, at a desk beside his unmade bed.  The desk was almost bare; on the floor lay a huge camping backpack.  On top of the backpack was a geological hammer with a glossy handle.  Bykov cleared his throat.
“Come in,” said Dauge, without moving.
“Uhhhm . . .” Alexei drew out the sound, as he had no idea what to say.  “You know, I forgot to ask you . . .”
Dauge turned around.
“Come on in, come on . . . sit down.  Now, what did you want to ask?”
Bykov wracked his brains so hard his teeth scraped.
“Uhhhm . . . Well, you know . . .” suddenly a thought struck him.  “Right.  Why are we putting radio beacons on Venus if its atmosphere doesn’t let radio waves through?”
The deep shadow of a lampshade cut across Dauge’s face.  Bykov sat down in a small, low armchair and triumphantly crossed one foot over the other.  He felt very relieved now that he was in a lighted room, and his loyal friend Ioganich was beside him.
“Yes,” Dauge said thoughtfully.  “That really is an extremely important question.  Now I understand what’s been keeping you awake. I was thinking, what’s he doing traipsing around the room like that?  Does he have a toothache or something?  And all along it was those beacons . . .”
“Y-yeah,” Bykov replied uncertainly, putting his foot back down.  The feeling of relief had run off someplace.
“I imagine you have some theories on the subject?”  Dauge continued in a most serious tone.  “Naturally, you must have come up with something during your . . . vigil?  Something useful to us . . .”
“You see, Ioganich . . .” Bykov began pathetically, trying to make his expression as profound as possible and without the slightest clue as to how he would finish the sentence.
“Yes, yes, I understand you,” Dauge interrupted with a nod.  “And you know?  You’re completely—absolutely right!  That’s exactly how it is.  Venus’s atmosphere really does block radio waves, but, at a very specific wavelength, we believe we can break the radio blockade.  That wavelength has been determined using both entirely theoretical calculations and observational data examining the local ion interactions on . . . on what, engineer?”
“Venus,” Bykov said darkly.
“Precisely!  Venus!  The planet’s atmosphere does sometimes release other wavelengths, but that’s a matter of chance, which we can’t rely on.  So, our job is to determine the viable range and, having done so, set up our beacons on the surface of . . . the surface of what?”
“Venus!” Bykov spat.
“Brilliant!” Dauge said admiringly.  “You didn’t spend the night awake for nothing!  Although all previous attempts to set up a radio transmitter on the surface ended . . . how, engineer?”
“Enough,” Bykov stopped him, fidgeting in his chair.
“Hm . . . too bad.  My friend, they ended badly.  Most likely because the rovers holding the beacons crashed into cliffs.  Or, at least, went out of order during landing some other way.  Although, even if they hadn’t broken, what would we do with them?  They would be no use to us.  But now we have . . . what do we have?”
“We have no patience left,” Bykov muttered.
Dauge solemnly proclaimed:
“We have the ‘Hius’, and we have the beacons, and we know the exact wavelengths at which the signals of the aforementioned beacons will break through the atmosphere.  That means we have everything, everything but patience, and patience is a simple matter.  I think you can sleep soundly.”
Alexei sighed sadly and stood up.
“Insomnia,” he said.
Dauge nodded.
“It happens.”
Bykov walked across the room and stopped in front of a trio of holographic photos on the wall.  The one on the left depicted a narrow antique street in some Baltic city, the right—a space ship, similar to a hugely magnified rifle bullet from the Great Fatherland War, its sharp end piercing the black sky.  In the middle photograph Bykov saw a sad-looking young woman in a dark-blue dress buttoned to the neck.
“Who’s this, Ioganich?  Your wife?”
“Y-yes . . . actually, no,” Dauge said uncomfortably.  “That’s Maria Yurkovskaya, Vlad’s sister.  We broke up . . .”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
The engineer bit his lip, returned to the armchair and sat.  Dauge aimlessly paged through a book on the desk in front of him.
“She left, actually . . . that’s more accurate . . .”
Bykov stayed quiet, looking over his friend’s tanned face.  In the bluish lamplight it seemed dark indeed.
“I can’t sleep either, Alexei,” Dauge said dejectedly.  “I’m sad about Paul.  And this time I don’t really feel like flying.  I love the Earth.  A lot!  You probably think that all interplanetors are dedicated sky-dwellers.  But you’re wrong.  We all love Earth very much, and miss the blue sky.  That’s our affliction, missing the blue sky.  Think: you’re sitting somewhere on Phobos.  The sky is endless and black.  The stars pierce your eyes like diamond needles.  The constellations are unfamiliar and feral.  And everything around you is artificial: the air is artificial, the heat is artificial, even your weight is artificial . . .”
Bykov listened motionlessly.
“You don’t know about that.  You can’t sleep just because you’re on the threshold—one foot here, the other there.  While Yurkovskiy is sitting somewhere and writing poetry.  Poetry about the blue sky, about misty lakes, about white clouds above a forest clearing.  Bad poetry—on Earth every editor is up to their ears in that sort of poetry—and he knows that perfectly well.  But he writes it anyway.”
Dauge shut the book and leaned back in his chair, cocking his head.
“And our round navigator, Krutikov, is racing through Moscow in his car, of course.  With his wife.  She’s at the wheel, and he’s sitting there and can’t take his eyes off her.  And he’s feeling sad that the kids aren’t here.  His children live with their grandmother in Novosibirsk.  A little boy and a girl, great kids . . .”  Suddenly Dauge laughed.  “If anyone is sleeping right now, it’s Bogdan Spitsyn, our co-pilot.  He’s most at home in a rocket.  He says, ‘for me, Earth is like a train—I want to lie down and sleep so I can get off faster.’  Bogdan is a sky-dweller.  There are some of those among us—addicted for life.  Bogdan was born on Mars, in a research settlement on the Syrtis Major.  He lived there until he was five, and then his mother got sick and had to be sent to Earth.  And so, people say, they set itty-bitty Bogdan down on the grass to play.  He walked around a bit, then stepped in a puddle and started screaming, ‘I wanna go hoooome!  To Mars!’”
Bykov laughed gratefully, sensing that the mass of confused feelings weighing down his soul was melting and sliding away.  Everything was so simple: he really was on the threshold, one foot here and the other there . . .
“Well, what’s our commander doing?” he asked.
Dauge drew back.
“I don’t know.  I can’t even imagine . . . I don’t know.”
“He’s probably asleep too, like sky-dweller Bogdan . . .”
Dauge shook his head.
“I doubt it . . . is the sky clear tonight?”
“No, it’s overcast . . .”
“In that case, I really don’t know.”  Dauge shook his head.  “I could imagine Anatoliy Yermakov standing somewhere, staring at a bright star on the horizon, at Venus.  His hands . . .” Dauge paused.  “His hands clenched in fists, knuckles white . . .”
“Some imagination you have, Ioganich!”
“No, Alexei, I’m not imagining it.  Venus is, all in all, a single episode for us.  We’ve been on the Moon, we’ve been on Mars, and now we’re flying to study a new planet.  We’re just doing our jobs.  But Yermakov . . . Yermakov has a score to settle, an old, savage score.  I can tell you why he’s flying: he wants to avenge and conquer.  Mercilessly, once and for all.  That’s how I see it . . . He’s dedicated his life and death to Venus.”
“You know him well?”
Dauge shrugged his shoulders.
“That doesn’t matter.  I can feel this.  And anyway,” he started counting on his fingers. “Nishijima, the Japanese pilot—his friend, Sokolovskiy—his closest friend, Xi Fen-Yu—his teacher, Ekaterina Romanovna—his wife . . . Venus devoured them all.  Krayukhin is a second father to him, and Krayukhin’s last flight was to Venus.  After that trip, the doctors forbid him from flying . . .”
Dauge stood up and started pacing the room.
“To tame and conquer,” he repeated.  “Mercilessly, once and for all!  For Yermakov, Venus is the obstinate, malicious embodiment of the all elemental forces that threaten humankind.  I’m not sure the rest of us will ever get to experience the same feeling.  And it’s probably for the better.  To understand it, we would have to struggle like Yermakov has, and suffer like he has . . . To conquer once and for all . . .” Dauge repeated thoughtfully.
A sudden chill shook Alexei’s shoulders.
“That’s why I mentioned clenched fists,” Dauge finished, looking at him intently.  “But since it’s overcast tonight, I really can’t imagine what he might be doing.  Probably, you’re right, and he’s asleep.”
They stopped talking for a while.  Bykov figured he’d never had a boss quite like that before.
“And how are things with you?”  Dauge asked suddenly.
“What things?”
“With your teacher in Ashgabat.”
Bykov’s face fell.
“Not so great,” he said sadly.  “We’re dating . . .”
“Is that so?  Dating.  And?”
“That’s all.”
“Have you proposed to her?”
“Yes.”
“And she refused?”
“No.  She said she’d consider it.”
“And when was this?”
“Six months back.”
“And?”
“What do you mean, ‘and’?  That was it.”
“So, what you’re saying is you’re a complete idiot, Alexei—pardon me, for goodness sake.”
Bykov sighed.  Dauge smiled at him mockingly.
“Incredible!”  He said.  “A thirtysomething guy loves a beautiful woman and has been dating her for seven years already—”
“Five.”
“Alright then, five.  After five years he tells her how he feels.  Note that she waited patiently for five years, this poor unfortunate woman . . .”
“Grigoriy, stop it,” Bykov said, frowning.
“One minute!  After she said she would consider it, either out of humility or as gentle revenge . . .”
“Cut it out!”
Dauge sighed and threw up his hands.
“It’s your own fault, Alexei!  Your courtship style is downright insulting!  What must she think about you?  Jeez!”
Bykov listened despondently.  Then he perked up and said,
“When we get back . . .”
Dauge chuckled:
“Oh, the brave conqueror!  . . . sorry, desert specialist!  ‘When we get back!’  I can’t even look at you anymore.  Get to sleep!”
Bykov stood and took the book from the table.  “La description planétographique du Phobos.[5] Paul Dangée,” he read.  The title page bore a Russian inscription written in thick red pencil: “To my dear Dauge, from your loyal and grateful friend Paul Dangée”.
*
Bykov woke at dawn.  The door to the bedroom was half-open.  Dauge was standing in his underwear by the writing desk, dark and disheveled, staring at the portrait of the young woman—Maria Yurkovskaya.  Then he took the portrait from the wall and stuffed it into his backpack.
Bykov quietly rolled over and fell asleep again.




[1] So, in case you don’t know, a meson is a subatomic particle that consists of a quark and an antiquark.  Also, just for the record, muons are not mesons, as Wikipedia assures me, but are in fact leptons.  I trust you know what to do with this information.  Oh, and did you know quarks have flavors?  But those flavors are up, down, top, bottom, strange, and charm.  Come on, guys, charm?  That is the worst Lay’s “Do Us A Flavor” idea ever.  If you’re going to arbitrarily call your science concept a flavor, you ought to have the wherewithal to keep the theme going and call the equally arbitrary variations on it, like, barbecue, or green apple or something.  (Listen, I picked the hardest biology class just so I could avoid physics in 12th grade, and this is literally rocket science.)
[2] This is not a real building.  It was supposed to be built on the site of the old Church of Christ the Savior, and should have been the headquarters of the Soviet government, but the soil there couldn’t support its weight, so a pool was put there instead.  In the post-soviet era, the old church has been rebuilt. The image at the start of this post is a photoshopped artist's interpretation of how Moscow would look had the Palace of Soviets been successfully built.
[3] The real Golkonda is a city in India, home to mines that produce diamonds of exceptional quality.  We’re talking hundreds of carats.  No word on whether King Solomon was ever there, because all the Google results aside from Wikipedia and Britannica are just fancy hotels there.
[4] So, Venus actually doesn’t have a moon, but that’s what it says.
[5] “A Planetographical Description of Phobos” in French.
Catherine

The Land of Crimson Clouds--Arkadiy and Boris Strugatskiy--Translation Chapter 2

The second chapter of my translation pet project is done.  Here is chapter one, if you haven't seen it.  But first, a note about names:

Russians have three names--a first name, a patronymic (formed from their father's name), and a surname.  For example, the main character of this book is Alexei (first name) Petrovich (patronymic, derived from the name Petr) Bykov (surname).  Typically, friends call each other by first name (or nickname), while in more formal situations, or when addressing a person of higher rank, the first name and patronymic are used together.  I have left this system mostly intact in my translation.  To make things easier for those with no background in Russian, I will not be including Russian nicknames (Volodya, Misha, etc.), aside from Ioganich, which is a nickname used for Dauge.  It is derived from his patronymic, which is somewhat unusual (but not unheard of).

Also, enjoy my poorly photographed artist's interpretation of the boys . . .



2. THE CREW OF THE “HIUS”[1] [AKA Let There Be Drama]
“Venus is the second planet from the sun.  Its average distance from the sun is 0.23 astronomic units=108 million km . . . Venus makes a full revolution around the sun in 224 days, 16 hours, 49 minutes and 8 seconds.  Its average orbital speed is 35 km/sec . . . Venus is the planet closest to us.  When passing between Earth and the Sun, its distance from the Earth can be as little as 39 million km . . . When Venus passes behind the sun, it is at a distance of 258 million km from Earth . . . Venus’s diameter is 12,400 km (equatorial bulge insignificant).  If Earth’s measurements are taken as equivalent to 1, Venus’s measurements will be as follows: diameter 0.973, surface area 0.95, volume 0.92, gravitational force on the surface 0.85, density 0.88 (or 4.86 g/cm3), mass 0.81 . . . Its rotation period around its axis is about 57 hours . . . Venus is surrounded by an extraordinarily dense atmosphere of carbon monoxide and carbonic acid, with clouds of crystalline ammonia[2] . . . At the moment, mankind is studying Venus with a few temporary and permanent artificial satellites, two of which belong to the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.  A series of attempts to land on Venus (Abrosimov, Nishijima, Sokolovskiy, Xi Fen-Yu, and others) and carry out a direct examination of its surface has proved unsuccessful.”
Bykov glanced at the color photo of Venus—a yellowish disk, touched by blue and orange shadows, on a black-velvet background—and slammed the heavy tome shut.  “A series of attempts to land . . . and carry out a direct examination . . . has proved unsuccessful.”  Short and simple.  Yes, there had been attempts already.  Bykov started thinking over everything he had picked up from books and newspapers, from televised lectures and short, dry press releases.
Toward the end of the third decade after the first lunar flights, almost all the objects within 1.5 billion kilometers of Earth were already well known to humans.  New branches of science had appeared—the planetology and planetography of the Moon, Mars and Mercury, the larger satellites of the gas giants, and a few asteroids.  Interplanetors—especially those who had to work for months or even years far away from Earth,  had become accustomed to the crumbling strata of eternal dust in the Moon valleys, to red deserts and weedy copses of Martian haloxylon, to the frozen crevasses and scorched-white mountain plateaus of Mercury, to alien skies with dozens of moons, to a Sun that looked like a tiny, bright star.  Hundreds of ships had crossed the Solar System in all directions.  Now a new era in the quest to conquer the cosmos was dawning: the era of taming the “difficult” planets—Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Venus.
Venus was one of the first heavenly bodies that drew the attention of researchers on Earth.  Its proximity to the Earth and Sun, the well-known similarities between some of its physical features and Earth’s, and at the same time, the complete lack of even remotely conclusive data on its inner workings fascinated interplanetors most of all. 
At first, as always, unmanned probes were put into action.  The results turned out to be discouraging.  The dense cloud cover, resembling sea foam on Earth, hid everything from view.  Thousands of kilometers of ordinary and infrared film showed the very same thing: a uniform white veil of impenetrable—obviously very thick—layers of fog.  Radio optics were no more encouraging.    In Venus’s atmosphere, radio waves were either swallowed completely or repelled from its outermost layers.  The locator screens remained black or glowed with an even light, revealing absolutely nothing.  The telemechanical and cybernetic mobile labs, which proved themselves so wonderfully during the preliminary exploration of the Moon and Mars, sent nothing back.  They disappeared forever, without a trace, somewhere at the bottom of the dense ocean of pinkish-grey cloud mass.
And so, brave souls ran to join the siege of Venus.  Three expeditions, equipped with the foremost technology of the time, on the world’s best interplanetary vessels, one after another dove into the atmosphere of the secretive planet.  The first ship burned up before it had time to transfer any information (observers noted a faint burst of light at the location where it entered the atmosphere).  The second expedition reported that it was coming in to land and—twenty minutes later—that unbelievably strong atmospheric flows were pulling the ship off course.  Then it went quiet forever.  The third expedition managed to land on the surface of the planet.  Thanks to the caprice of the unstable Venusian atmosphere, it was even able to keep contact with Earth for a whole day.  The head of the expedition told of sandstorms, whirlwinds that could pull down whole cliffs, and crimson-tinged darkness surrounding everything.  Then that expedition also went silent; three days later someone whispered into the microphone: “fever, fever, fever . . .” and the connection was broken.
The death of three expeditions in such a short time was too much!  It became clear that the siege of Venus could proceed only after new, maximally thorough preparations.  Comprehensive, intense and painstaking investigation was essential.  The International Congress of Cosmologists designed a 15-year plan for the study of Venus.  Humanity brought out all the riches of its scientific and technological arsenal for this investigative work.  A set of artificial satellite observatories was built, armed with hundreds of automatic sensors and instruments.  Investigators used self-piloted drones, infrared and electronic optics, ionoscopes and much more.  The data they received was constantly processed by the world’s largest supercomputers.  Venus’s stratosphere was mapped with a thoroughness that surprised the scientists themselves.  Its rotation period around its axis was finally confirmed.  A general picture of its mountain ranges was formed.  Its magnetic fields were measured.[3] The work was carried out methodically and purposefully.
A French satellite observed a region on Venus with unusually high ionization.  Shortly after, Soviet, Chinese and Japanese researchers confirmed this finding.  It turned out that this extremely ionized region, occupying approximately half a million square kilometers, could be periodically observed in a certain quadrant of the planet’s surface, and that it was not connected to the thick layer of clouds and, therefore, could not be considered a feature of the atmosphere.  The remaining hypothesis stated that the source of ionization was part of Venus’s solid crust.  If the ionization was a result of nuclear radiation, then the only possible source for it could be radioactive metals in unheard-of concentrations.  The name “Uranium Golkonda” was chosen without difficulty.
Now this was a completely different story.  Humanity was still stuck with a meager ration of heavy radioactive elements. Technology for the extraction of diffuse elements was developing slowly; in any case, demand for actinides greatly exceeded the production levels of enrichment facilities, and it was much too expensive to synthesize them artificially.  The purely academic, scientific interest in Venus was now bolstered by more practical interests. 
Another series of expeditions followed.  Sokolovskiy, the vice-president of the International Congress of Cosmologists, perished in the first.  The fearless Nishijima returned to Nagoya crippled and blind.  China’s best pilot, Xi Fen-Yu, was declared missing.  It was clear that siege tactics would not work on this planet.  Venus seemed to laugh at humanity’s best efforts.  Analysis of the scanty data on the causes of each expedition’s failure showed that only a rejection of all previous technological forms and principles for interplanetary flight could allow successful landing on Venus.  The International Congress called for a temporary hold on new missions with old technology and instated an award for the invention of a new type of interplanetary transport, capable of cracking the boiling shield of Venus’s atmosphere.  Work to create a photon rocket set off at full speed in the USSR.  Other countries were also searching for new options.
Two years before the start of our tale, official newspapers mentioned in passing that on the largest space station in Earth’s orbit, the “Weidade You-yi” or “Great Friendship”, Chinese and Soviet masters of zero-gravity casting were preparing a mold to cast the body of the first photon rocket.  Perhaps it was this very rocket on which Bykov and his comrades were to break through to the Venusian deserts, “hardly different from the Gobi you love.”
Whether on a photon rocket or an atomic one, whether the sands of Venus differed from Earth’s or not—it was clear that the path ahead of this expedition was not an easy one.  Interplanetary flight, and more so work on other planets, is a triply complex and difficult task.  To conquer Venus and harvest the riches of the near-mythical Uranium Golkonda, one would need outstanding knowledge, ideal physical fitness, and extraordinary endurance.  One would have to be a true interplanetor—the sort they make films about, greet with flowers, or . . . bury in the gloomy abyss of endless space.  Did humble engineer Bykov have the knowledge, fitness and endurance for this challenge?  In any case . . .
Krayukhin would know.  Krayukhin was the assistant chair of the SIPRC, the State Interplanetary Relations Committee.  And if Krayukhin was sure that Bykov could handle it, that meant Bykov could handle it.  After all, interplanetors are human too!  If they could do it, so could he. 
Alexei imagined orange dunes, a sky engulfed with motionless black storm clouds and a handful of people in oxygen masks, wandering across the endless sands.  And himself in front.  Wait, where did the all-terrainers come in?  Maybe the expedition was planning to travel on vehicles?  But how would they get them there? 
Bykov caught himself staring right into the eyes of a pretty young librarian at the desk across from him.  The girl tried to frown, but couldn’t help herself and giggled.  Bykov grimaced.  Yes, he would have to send a message to Ashgabat, to say that this trip would be a long one.  What a shame that he would have no time to visit before the expedition started . . . but what would that do for him anyway?  How could he possibly express everything he hadn’t said to her for five years in a few minutes?  Better to leave it all to fate.  When he came back (an image from a magazine appeared in his mind: heroes of space travel returning from a harrowing flight, flowers, smiles, hands raised in salute) . . . when he came back, he would apply for time off and travel to Ashgabat.  He would walk right up to that house, ring the doorbell, and then . . .
Bykov glanced at his watch.  It was just a few minutes to five.  He rose, returned the encyclopedia to the smiling girl with a slight nod, and headed to Krayukhin’s office.
*
In the reception hall, the one-eyed secretary nodded at Bykov like an old acquaintance.  Bykov looked at his watch once more (it was one minute to five), ran his hand through his hair, adjusted his collar and resolutely threw open the office door.
It seemed to him that he had entered an entirely different room.  The blinds had been raised, and a joyous stream of sunshine burst through the uncovered windows, flooding the velvety-smooth plastic walls with light.  The chair by the desk was pushed to the side, the scuba-esque suit still lying on it with the silvery helmet hanging off the back.  The carpet had been rolled up and pushed against the wall.  In the center of the office, on the bare glossy floorboards, stood a strange object, similar to a hulking grey tortoise with five fat, pedestal-like legs.  Its smooth semispherical shell was no higher than a meter off the floor.  The “tortoise” was surrounded by a few crouched figures.
When Bykov entered, one figure, hunched, broad-shouldered and wearing a pair of black goggles that covered half its face, lifted its head, bald spot glinting in the sunlight, and Krayukhin’s gravely voice declared:
“There he is!  Comrades, let me present to you the sixth member of our crew, engineer Alexei Petrovich Bykov.”
They all turned toward him: a lanky, very handsome person in a light, elegant suit; a fat fellow with a clean-shaven head, flushed from the heat; a dark-skinned and black-haired young man, wiping his sinewy hands on an oily clump of wadding, and . . . Dauge, good old Grigoriy Iogannovich Dauge, just as skinny and awkward as he had been a year before in the Gobi, but wearing an ordinary business suit, rather than loose trousers and a bandana.  Dauge gave Bykov a welcoming nod, his broad mouth stretched into a wide smile.
“Let’s get you acquainted,” said Krayukhin.  “Vladimir Sergeevich Yurkovskiy, an excellent geologist and experienced interplanetary traveler . . .”
The handsome man in the elegant suit limply, as though unwillingly, shook Bykov’s hand and turned away with an indifferent expression.  Bykov looked at Krayukhin.  He thought he saw a spark of laughter light up and disappear in Krayukhin’s round eyes. 
“. . . Bogdan Bogdanovich Spitsyn, pilot, one of the best cosmonauts in the world.  He participated in the first expeditions into the asteroid belt.”
The black-haired young man flashed brilliantly white teeth.  His handshake was warm and firm as iron.
“. . . Mikhail Antonovich Krutikov,” continued Krayukhin.  “Navigator.  The pride and joy of Soviet space navigation.”
“Now, what are you saying, Nikolai Zakharovich?” said the chubby fellow, blushing shyly and looking up at Bykov with a friendly gaze.  “Comrade Bykov might think that I . . . Well, charmed to meet you, charmed, comrade Bykov.”
“And finally . . . I think no introduction is needed here.”
Bykov and Dauge embraced.
“This is fantastic, Alexei!” Dauge whispered.
“I can’t believe my eyes! Is it really you, Ioganich?”
“It is indeed, Alexei!”
Krayukhin tapped Bykov’s elbow.
“And the commander of the ship and head of the expedition . . .”
Bykov spun around.  In the doorway stood a short, slender man, very pale, with a head of grey hair, although judging by his face, with its fine, regular features, he couldn’t be over thirty-five.  It seemed he had entered after Bykov and paused to observe the informal introduction ceremony.
“ . . . Anatoliy Borisovich Yermakov.”
Hearing that name, which had been on the front page of every newspaper just a few months ago, Bykov jerked up and stood at attention.  There are some people whose absolute authority can be felt at first sight.  Yermakov was undoubtedly one such person.  Bykov could physically sense his huge strength of will, unyielding, almost ruthless determination, and flexible, adaptive mind.  Yermakov’s firm mouth was half-open in a polite smile, but his dark eyes cautiously and inquisitively examined the newest crew member.
A few unbearably long seconds passed.  Finally Yermakov said softly:
“Nice to meet you, comrade Bykov.”
The engineer carefully shook his warm, fine-boned hand and hurriedly stepped back towards Dauge.  He noticed a layer of perspiration on Grigoriy’s forehead.  It was really very hot in the room.
“So, comrades . . .” Krayukhin began.  “Now that we’re all together, let’s start our meeting—our last meeting in Moscow.”
He stepped over to the table and pressed one of the buttons on the ebony control panel of the videophone.  There was a hollow buzzing sound.  Bykov involuntarily started as the grey “tortoise” disappeared under the floor and the panels of a trapdoor closed over the square hole it left.  Dauge and Spitsyn rolled the carpet back into place, and chubby Krutikov pulled the chair to its place by the table.
“Please, sit down,” invited Krayukhin.
Everyone sat down on light chairs made of red wood.  Briefly, all was silent.
“I’m happy to inform you, my friends,” Krayukhin said, “that the order has been signed.  The order was signed two hours ago, and all the, so to speak, personal details of the expedition have been unconditionally confirmed.  Congratulations!”
No one moved; only the handsome Yurkovskiy tossed back his head and cast a glance at Bykov.
“With regards to your mission . . .” Krayukhin paused, lifting a piece of paper up to his goggles.  “With regards to your mission, the committee decided it was necessary to make a few changes.  Or rather, additions.”
“So it begins . . .” whispered Dauge discontentedly.
The phone rang.  Krayukhin picked up and dropped it, clicked the switch and grumbled:
“I’m in a meeting.”
“Yes sir!” someone answered.
“Alright, comrades.  By and large, so to speak, everything we planned for this project has been left intact.  Our comprehensive goal is to test new technology and perform a geologic investigation of Venus.  As we have a new teammate among us, who knows absolutely nothing about this business, and keeping in mind that repetition is, as they say, the mother of learning[4] . . . and since in any case it’s worth bringing to your attention the exact text of the order, I will read an excerpt: ‘Section Eight.  The goal of the Expedition consists of, first, conducting a thorough test of the exploitable technological qualities of the new type of interplanetary transport—the photon rocket “Hius”; second, landing on Venus in the vicinity of the radioactive mineral deposits known as the “Uranium Golkonda”, discovered two years ago by the Mekhti-Yermakov expedition . . .’
Bykov audibly gasped.  Dauge placed a cautioning hand on his knee.
“And carry out a geological survey of the area.  Section Nine.  The goal of the Expedition’s geological group consists of mapping the edges of the “Uranium Golkonda” deposits, collecting samples, and making an approximate estimate of the radioactive element supply located there.  Upon returning, they will present to the committee their opinion on the economic value of the deposits.’  Just as it was, don’t you think?”  Krayukhin said.  “And here is the part that was not included in the project earlier.  Listen: ‘Section Ten.  The Expedition’s mission also includes the location of a landing platform, no further than 50 kilometers from the border of the “Uranium Golkonda” deposits and convenient for all forms of interplanetary transport, followed by the installation of automatic very high frequency beacons of Usmanov-Schwartz design on this platform, powered by a local fuel source.’”
Krayukhin set down the page and looked over his listeners.  There was a brief silence.  Then Yurkovskiy, magnificently cocking one thick black brow, pronounced:
“And who will be doing that?”
“A strange question, Vladimir Sergeevich,” Krayukhin said with a smirk.
“Great, fine, we’ll find a platform,” Dauge said quickly.  “In a worst-case scenario, we’ll make one.  But as far as those beacons . . . by all accounts, that must be delicate work, and require specialized knowledge . . .”
“And that, comrades, is not my concern.  That is the concern of the head of the expedition.”  Krayukhin pulled a cigarette out of his desk and lit it.  “Isn’t that so, Anatoliy Borisovich?”
Bykov turned curiously toward Yermakov, who nodded dispassionately.
“I think,” he said slowly, “we can manage it.  In any case, we still have a month and a half at least, if I’m not mistaken.  That should be plenty of time to acquaint ourselves with the intricacies of constructing these beacons and make a few test runs.  It’s not that delicate . . .”
“Just keep in mind,” interrupted Krayukhin, “that I won’t give you a month and a half.  I won’t even give you a month.”
“Well then, if that’s so, three weeks will be enough.”  Yermakov lowered his eyes and began to examine his long, slender fingers.  “Naturally, if you’re willing to give us that much.”
“I don’t understand,” Yurkovskiy broke in before Krayukhin could answer.  “What does that mean, ‘powered by a local fuel source’?  Is that how it’s written there?”
“That means, Vladimir Sergeevich, that you will have to search for a source of energy for the beacons there, on-site,” said Krayukhin.  “By the way, I assume this task is clear to our technicians, yes?”
Krutikov nodded energetically, and Spitsyn said with a smile:
“It’s clear alright . . . radioisotopic generators, if the Golkonda is even half as rich in in radioactive substances as they say, or thermoelectric ones . . . although . . . hey, what can I say?  An order’s an order.”
“Easier ordered than done,” Yurkovsky muttered darkly.  “In any case, that point should have been discussed with us in advance before being put in the order.”
Why doesn’t Krayukhin shut this jerk down? Bykov thought angrily.
Krayukhin’s mouth, straight as a razor’s edge, twisted into a mocking smile.
“You think this mission is too hard, Vladimir Sergeevich?”
“That’s not the point . . .”
“Of course it’s not!” Krayukhin said sharply.  “Of course it’s not!  The point is that out of eight ships we’ve thrown at Venus over twenty years, six have shattered on impact.  The point is that we’re sending the “Hius” not only . . . in fact, not at all for your geologic pleasure, Vladimir Sergeevich.  The point is that there will be others after you . . . dozens of others, hundreds of others.  We can’t leave Venus . . . we can’t leave the Golkonda without landmarks for navigation anymore.  We can’t, dammit!  Either we install reliable automatic beacons there, or we’ll be sending good people to almost certain death forever.  What the hell don’t you understand, Vladimir Sergeevich?”
He cleared his throat, tossed the cigarette in an ashtray and wiped his bald spot with a handkerchief.  Yurkovsky had flushed crimson and was looking away.  All were quiet.  Dauge nudged Bykov with his elbow:
“And so our brother is pulled to Earth from the heights of Olympus.”
“Stop it, Ioganich!”  Bykov whispered in irritation.  “Let me listen.”
He was still having trouble understanding the mission and methods of the expedition.  That handful of people wandering across the shifting sands seemed to have it harder and harder.  Now they had to drag along heavy metal trusses and outlandish machines shaped like five-legged tortoises . . . Just one thing was clear: there had been one successful landing on Venus already.  The landing of the Mekhti-Yermakov expedition.  That meant the Uranium Golkonda wasn’t a myth. 
“I assume we won’t have to change our flight plan?” Yermakov asked.
“No, your course will be the same.  Mikhail Antonovich should plan on a launch between the 15th and 18th of August.”
Navigator Krutikov smiled and nodded.
“I have one more question,” Yurkovskiy said suddenly.
“Go ahead, Vladimir Sergeevich.”
“I’m not exactly sure what comrade . . . er . . . Bykov’s role in our expedition will be.  I don’t doubt for a moment that he has many excellent . . . er . . . characteristics, both physical and moral, but I would like to know his occupation and his objective.”
Bykov held his breath.
“As you know,” Krayukhin said slowly, “the expedition will have to work in desert conditions.  And comrade Bykov knows the desert well.”
“Hm . . . I thought he might be a landing platform specialist.  After all, Dauge, one would think, knows the desert just as well.”
“Dauge doesn’t know the desert half as well!” Grigoriy burst in angrily.  “Not even close.  The aforementioned Dauge got hopelessly stranded in the most banal dunes of the Gobi, and if it hadn’t been for Bykov . . . You don’t know Bykov, Vlad, and you don’t know the desert.  Not all deserts are the same as your Syrtis Major.”[5]
Krayukhin patiently waited for Dauge to finish and added:
“Besides that, Alexei Petrovich is a fantastic engineer, chemist, radiologist, and machinist.”
Yurkovskiy shrugged his shoulders.
“Don’t get me wrong.  I have nothing against engineer Bykov.  But I ought to know the responsibilities of my fellow expedition member!  Now I know: he’s a desert specialist.”
Bykov clenched his teeth and stayed quiet.  But Krayukhin, staring seethingly at Yurkovsky with his round eyes, boomed:
“Correct me if I’m wrong, Vladimir Sergeevich.  I believe it was you whose transporter’s caterpillar broke, five years ago when you were on Mars, wasn’t it?  And you and Khlebnikov had to drag yourselves fifty kilometers on foot, because you just couldn’t figure out how to fix it?”
Yurkovskiy leapt up to object to something, but Krayukhin didn’t stop.
“And when push comes to shove, that’s not even the most important.  Engineer Bykov has been brought into this expedition, aside from everything already mentioned, because of his physical and moral characteristics, which you yourself just said you don’t doubt for a second.  This is a person that you, Vladimir Sergeevich, can count on in times of crisis.  And there will be such times, I promise you that!  And with regards to knowledge, I assure you that Bykov knows his profession no worse than you know yours.”
“Just give in!”  Krutikov shook Yurkovskiy’s shoulder.  “After all, since he saved your beloved Dauge . . .”
“Stop that!” Yurkovskiy muttered. 
Bykov’s breathing returned to normal, and he smoothed the stiff hairs on the back of his head.
“By the way, as for your responsibilities,” said Krayukhin, pulling a folded-up paper out of his desk, “everyone knows them, but I’ll read them once more to remind you.  ‘Yermakov—expedition head, ship commander, physicist, biologist and medic.  Spitsyn—pilot, radio operator, navigator and flight engineer.  Krutikov—navigator, cybernetist, pilot, and flight engineer.  Yurkovskiy—geologist, radio operator, biologist.  Dauge—geologist, biologist.  Bykov—engineer-mechanic, chemist, transport operator, radio operator.’”
“Desert specialist,” Dauge whispered.
Bykov’s shoulder twitched impatiently. 
“Now then, just one more thing . . .” Krayukhin stood and leaned on the desk.  “A few words about the ‘Tahmasp Enigma’ . . .”
“Oh Lord . . .” Krutikov breathed plaintively.
“What was that?” Krayukhin turned toward him.
“Nothing, Nikolai Zakharovich.”
“Perhaps you wanted to say that the legend of the Tahmasp Enigma has you bored to death?”
“Well . . .” Krutikov shifted awkwardly and stared at Yermakov.  “Not exactly, no . . .”
“But something close to it.  Anyway, to business.  Certain people in the academy presidium are very interested in this issue and asked to make the solving of this ‘enigma’ one of the expedition’s objectives.”
“Of course they did,” Krutikov snorted.
“I told them our workload was heavy enough and refused.  But, since in any case you’ll be working quite close to the Golkonda, I request that you take note of any phenomena which, in any way, shape or form, resemble the accounts that were brought to light after the Mekhti-Yermakov expedition.  Understood?”
The listeners were silent.  Only Yermakov softly spoke:
“Unfortunately, the opinion that the strange events Tahmasp experienced are a myth is very popular.  But his death—that’s no myth . . .”
“There are thousands of things that could have killed him,” said Dauge.
“One can’t rule that out.  And one can’t rule out that the “red ring”, whatever that might mean, really exists and really caused his death.”
“In short, this is a request, not an order,” said Krayukhin, “although I’m afraid that the “Tahmasp Enigma” may show itself to you regardless of whether you believe in it or not . . . In any case, that’s all I wanted to tell you.  Now, on to our current activities.  You all know that we are flying out tomorrow.  We will meet here, at twelve.  Then we’ll go together to the Vnukovo aerodrome . . . Alexei Petrovich!”
“Yes sir!” Bykov leapt up.
“Sit, sit.  Where are you staying.  The Prague?”
“He’s staying with me,” Dauge said quickly.
“Isn’t that wonderful!  Well then, comrades, if there are no more questions, you can leave and start preparations.  Anatoliy Borisovich, I’d like you to stay five more minutes.”
Everyone got up and began saying their goodbyes.  As they walked toward the reception hall, Dauge grabbed Bykov by the arm.
“Go to the ground floor, Alexei, and wait in the foyer.  I’m going to call us a cab.  We have the whole evening ahead to sit and talk!  I bet you have a whole bunch of questions, am I right?”
“Ioganich, you’ve so perceptive, I can’t stand it!” said Bykov.


[1] I left the ship’s name intact, because while I could have called it the Zephyr or something, that felt wrong.  Hius or hiuz is a now-forgotten Siberian dialectical word meaning a cold wind.
[2] I translated this segment directly, without retconning for scientific accuracy.  But I feel the need to note that according to the Encyclopedia Britannica, Wikipedia, and a variety of other trustworthy and vaguely trustworthy sources, the atmosphere of Venus actually consists, by and large, of carbon dioxide and nitrogen (like Earth’s will after a few more decades of burning fossil fuels).  The clouds are made not of ammonia, but of sulfuric acid.  Please do not confuse “Land of Crimson Clouds” Venus with real Venus.  Thank you.
[3] Haha . . . in real life, Venus doesn’t have a magnetic field.  Well, not an internally generated one.
[4] A lovely Russian idiom with absolutely no English equivalent, at least in this context.  I think the meaning is clear, though.
[5] This is a real place!!  It’s on Mars!!
Catherine

The Land of Crimson Clouds--Arkadiy and Boris Strugatskiy--Translation Chapter 1

After finishing the first trillogy of books written by the legendary Soviet sci-fi duo, brothers Arkadiy and Boris Strugatskiy, I started thinking about how much I want to share these books with my non-Russian-speaking friends.  These are a bit different from the ones that made the Strugatskiy brothers famous, like Roadside Picnic, which  was adapted into the well-known film Stalker, directed by Andrei Tarkovskiy.  The first two, The Land of Crimson Clouds and The Way to Amalthea, are simple space adventures, without the philosophical themes typical of their later work.  The third, Interns, feels like a transition into "softer", more thoughtful science fiction, though it features the same characters as the other two.

Now, some may say that "shallow" sci-fi adventures are not all that worth reading.  To these people, I say "Star Wars", and continue that anything is worth reading if it is a well-designed and interestingly presented story with realistic characters and gripping action.  And while the Strugatskiy brothers may have seen their first book as a bit of a failure ("The first pancake is a lump", as they say in Russian"), it was something new in the USSR at the time, and I think it can still be appreciated today.  All the more, in fact, given the optimism in it, that classic spirit in all 50s and 60s sci-fi, from an era when it seemed that travel into deep space was just around the corner, that warring countries could make peace, and that any planet might support life.  I don't know how much of this I can translate or how fast, but in any case, I can now proudly present to you, in modern English, the first chapter of the first book of the first trillogy written by Arkadiy and Boris Strugatskiy:

THE LAND OF CRIMSON CLOUDS



[Anything in brackets is my addition, not in the original text.]

Part One
THE SEVENTH POLYGON

1. A SERIOUS CONVERSATION [AKA Always Research the Company Before your Job Interview]

The secretary raised his single eye toward Bykov.
“From Central Asia?"
“Yes.”
“Documents, please . . .”
The secretary thrust his hand, dark and clawlike, with a disproportionately long pointer finger, across the table; he was missing three fingers and half of his palm. Bykov placed his ID and travel order in the claw. The secretary leisurely unfolded the order and read:
“Engineer-mechanic Alexei Petrovich Bykov of the Gobi Sino-Soviet Expedition Base is directed by the Ministry of Geology to attend a meeting on his future career development. Grounds: a request from SIPRC assistant chairman . . .”
He then glanced over the ID, returned it and pointed to a door covered in black linoleum.
“Go in. Comrade Krayukhin is waiting for you.”
Bykov asked:
“I leave the order with you?”
“You leave the order with me.”
In the chairs along the walls of the reception hall sat a handful of people, obviously waiting their turn to be called. None of them paid the slightest attention to Alexei. That seemed strange to him—he had heard very different reports about the customs in reception halls in the capital. But both the one-eyed secretary and the complacent visitors instantly dropped out of his mind when he stepped across the threshold into the office.
In the wide, dimly lit room, the windows were hatched with bamboo blinds. The bare plastic walls weakly reflected the faint light. The floor was covered with soft red carpeting. Bykov looked around, searching for the owner of the office, and noticed two bald heads by a broad, bare writing desk. One head, pale, even a bit greyish, towered motionlessly above the back of a visitors’ chair. Another, bright saffron, was bent over a pile of folders on the other side of the table and swaying up and down, as though its owner was suspiciously sniffing the tracings and blue photocopies of diagrams that lay before him.
Then Bykov saw a third bald head: it belonged to a monstrously fat figure in a grey jumpsuit, sprawled out on the carpet with its bare grey head clumsily jammed into the corner between the wall and a safe. A red cord stretched out from the back of its neck and disappeared under the table.
Sure, every authority figure has some unusual habits, but wasn’t this a little much? Bykov awkwardly shifted from one foot to the other, tugged once more at the zipper on his jacket, and looked anxiously at the door. At that moment the saffron head disappeared. There was a snuffling sound, and a hollow, hoarse voice contentedly proclaimed, “it holds perfectly! Just perfectly!” And then a ponderous, slumped figure in a nylon work jumpsuit slowly rose above the desk.
This was a person of incredible height, extremely broad in the shoulders and probably quite heavy. His face, covered with pockmarked brown skin, looked like a mask; his thin-lipped mouth was stretched into a straight line, and round eyes without lashes stared coldly and attentively at Bykov from underneath his powerful, jutting brow.
“What do you want?” He inquired hoarsely.
“I’m here to see comrade Krayukhin,” said Bykov, cautiously glancing at the bald figure lolling on the carpet.
“I’m Krayukhin.” The man with round eyes also glanced at the figure, then fixed his gaze on Bykov again.
The bald head in the chair remained motionless. Bykov hesitated for a second, took a few steps forward and introduced himself. Krayukhin tilted his head and listened.
“Good to meet you,” he said coldly.
“I expected you yesterday, Comrade Bykov. Please sit down.” He pointed to the chair with a huge, shovel-like palm. “Here, please. Free the space and sit.”
Understanding nothing, Bykov approached the desk, turned toward the chair and barely held back a nervous laugh. In the chair lay a strange costume, somewhat like a scuba suit, made of sturdy grey fabric. A round silvery helmet with metal fastenings stuck out behind it.
“Pick it up and put it on the floor,” said Krayukhin.
Bykov turned to look at the fat scarecrow lying by the safe in the corner.
“That’s a suit too,” said Krayukhin impatiently. “Go on and sit!”
Bykov quickly emptied the chair and sat, feeling a bit embarrassed. Krayukhin stared at him, unblinking.
“So . . .” he tapped at the table with his pale fingers. “Well then, Comrade Bykov, we’ll get to know each other. Call me Nikolai Zakharovich, love me and pity me, so to speak. You’ll be working under my direction. If, of course . . .”
A sudden ringing interrupted him. He picked up the phone.
“One minute, Comrade Bykov. Yes? Right, I . . .”
After that he didn’t say a single word, but in the blue light from the videophone screen Bykov saw that his face suddenly flushed red and dark networks of veins stood out on his bare temples. Clearly, this was a very serious conversation. Bykov politely averted his eyes and began examining the suit on the carpet next to his chair. Through the open collar, he could see the insides of the helmet. Bykov thought he could make out the rough texture of the carpet behind it, although from the outside, the silvery orb was entirely opaque. Bykov bent slightly to look at the helmet in more detail, but at that moment Krayukhin hung up the phone with a sharp crack, followed by the soft click of a switch.
“Call Pokatilov!” ordered Krayukhin in a hoarse whisper.
“Yes sir!” answered an unseen interlocuter.
“In an hour.”
“Yes sir, in an hour!”
The switch clicked again, and all was quiet. Bykov raised his eyes and saw that Krayukhin was roughly rubbing his face.
“So,” he said calmly, having noticed that Bykov was looking at him. “What a dimwit! Pushing water uphill with a rake . . . so sorry, Comrade Bykov. What were we . . . oh yes. Once more, I’m very sorry. Anyhow, this conversation of ours is a serious one, and there isn’t much time. No time at all. Let’s get down to business . . . first of all, I would like to know you a bit better. Tell me about yourself.”
“What exactly?” asked Bykov.
“Your biography.”
“Biography?”  The engineer thought for a moment.  “My story is very simple.  I was born in 19—[1] in a boat driver’s family, near Gorky.[2] My father died young, when I wasn’t even three years old.  I spent fifteen years living and studying at a boarding school.  Then I worked four years as a motorist’s assistant and motorist on the amphibious rocket hydroplanes on the Volga.  I played hockey.  I competed in two tournaments with the “Volga” team.  Then I enrolled in a land transport technical university.  Formerly a school for the armored tank divisions. (He was pricked by an unpleasant thought: “why am I talking so much?”)  I completed a course in exploratory jet-based transport.  Well . . . they sent me to the mountains, around Tien Shan . . . then to the desert, the Gobi . . . that’s where I served.  And joined the Party.  What else?  I guess that’s all."
“Yes, a simple enough story,” agreed Krayukhin.  “So, you’re 33 now?”
“I’ll be 34 in a month.”
“And you’re not married, of course?”
A question like that from a superior seemed rather tactless to Bykov.  The engineer didn’t like jabs at his appearance, and that “of course” jarred him.  Besides, he was pretty sure that Krayukhin’s own face didn’t exactly correspond to the ideals of male beauty. He even started to say something to that effect, but thought better of it.  In any case, his looks probably weren’t a deciding factor in Krayukhin’s opinion, and Bykov was aware of at least one woman for whom his sunburned face, slab of a nose and bristly red hair were not a deciding factor.
“I mean to say,” Krayukhin continued, “it seems that six months ago you were still a bachelor.”
“Yes,” Bykov answered dryly.  “I still am.  For now . . .”

Bykov suddenly realized that Krayukhin knew a lot about him already and was asking questions not because he wanted to know the answers, but rather in order to form a “personal impression”, or with some other unclear goal.  That was concerning, and Bykov collected himself.
“I’m a bachelor for now,” he repeated.
“And therefore,” said Krayukhin, “you have no close relatives?”
“That’s right, none.”
“And you are, so to speak, entirely alone and independent . . .”
“Alone, yes.  Alone for now.”
“Where did you say you served most recently?”
“In the Gobi . . .”
“How long?”
“Three years . . .”
“Three years!  All that time in the desert?”
“Yes.  With short breaks, of course.  Official errands, classes . . . but mostly in the desert.”
“Aren’t you sick of it?”
Bykov thought that over.
“It was hard at first,” he said carefully.  “Then I got used to it.  It’s not easy to work there, of course.”  He recalled the fiery sky and black ocean of sand.  “But you can come to love even a desert.”
“Can you?” said Krayukhin.  “Can you love the desert?  Do you love it?”
“I’m used to it.”
“Your most recent position?”
“Captain of the Gobi Expedition Base Atomic All-Terrain Transporter Convoy.”
“So, you’re good with vehicles, then?”
“It depends what kind . . .”
“Well, your atomic all-terrainers, at least?”
This seemed like a pointless question to Bykov, so he didn’t answer.
“Tell me, was it you who ran the rescue mission for Dauge’s expedition last year?”
“It was.”
“Good work, you did wonderfully!  Without you they would have died.”
Bykov shrugged his shoulders.
“For us it was a pretty ordinary rapid deployment exercise.  Nothing more.”
Krayukhin’s eyes narrowed.
“But some of your people were injured, weren’t they?  If memory serves me right.”
Bykov flushed—given the color of his face, this was a frightening sight—and said spitefully:
“There was a black storm!  I’m not showing off, Comrade Krayukhin.  Pretty marches with music only happen at parades in Moscow.  In the sands it’s not so easy.”
He was getting flustered.  Krayukhin looked him over with a vague smirk.
“Alright . . . not so easy . . . three years in the sands.  That’s a lot.  And that’s good.  Tell me, comrade Bykov.  Do you have any interests aside from your work?”
Bykov looked at him, puzzled.
“What do you mean?”
“What do you do when you aren’t working?”
“Hm . . . I read, of course.  And play chess.”
“You have some written work, do you not?”
“I do.”
“A lot?”
“No, not much.  Two articles in the journal Caterpillar Transport.”
“What did you write about?”
“Atomic motor repair in field conditions.  Based on my experience.”
“Atomic motor repair . . . very interesting.  By the way, is there any other physical activity you like, aside from hockey?”
“Unarmed self-defense . . . I’m an instructor.”
“That’s excellent.  And have you ever been interested in astronomy?”
It seemed to Bykov that Krayukhin was making fun of him.  He answered:
“No, I’ve never been interested in astronomy.”
“Pity!”
“I guess . . .”
“The fact of the matter is that your work with us, Alexei Petrovich, will be related to that science, to an understandable extent.”
The engineer frowned.
“I’m sorry, I don’t quite understand you . . .”
“What did they tell you when they sent you here?”
“That they were sending me to discuss participation in a scientific expedition.  Temporarily . . .”
“And they didn’t say what sort of expedition?”
“To a desert of some kind, to search for rare minerals.”
Krayukhin cracked his pale fingers and laid his hands on the table.
“Yes, that makes sense,” he mumbled.  “Perfect sense.  They don’t know.”  He sighed.  “Now, Alexei Petrovich.  Clearly enough, astronomy isn’t important here.  Rather, it’s marginally important.  More precisely: for you, it’s marginally important.  It doesn’t matter that you’ve never been interested in astronomy.  It will hardly be useful to you here.  At most you might read something or have something explained to you.  But the important thing is that you won’t be working here.  That is, on Earth.”
Bykov blinked nervously.  Suddenly he felt just as strange as he had half an hour ago, when he stepped across the threshold into the office.
“I’m afraid I . . . don’t understand,” he said with a stutter.  “Not on Earth?  On the Moon, then?”
“No, not on the moon.  Much further off.”
This was like a bizarre dream.  Krayukhin, resting his chin on his intertwined fingers, continued:
“Why are you so surprised, Alexei Petrovich?  People have been flying to other planets for thirty years already.  You think these are different, special people of some kind?  Nothing of the sort.  They’re ordinary people, just like you.  People of various professions.  I, for one, am convinced that you could become an outstanding interplanetor.  In fact, many interplanetors came to us from outside, so to speak, for example, from aviation.  I understand that for you, an engineer with a very “earth-oriented” focus, the possibility of participating in work like ours simply never came to mind.  But certain circumstances have arisen, and now we are sending an expedition to Venus and need someone who is an expert on work in desert conditions.  The sands there can hardly be much different from the Gobi you love.  But it will be a bit more difficult there . . .”
Suddenly Bykov remembered:
“The Uranium Golkonda!”
Krayukhin glanced quickly and attentively at him.
“Yes, the Uranium Golkonda.  See, you know everything already.”
“Venus . . .” Bykov said slowly.  “The Uranium Golkonda . . .” he shook his head and laughed.  “Me—suddenly off to the sky!  It’s unbelievable!”
“Well, why not?  You aren’t such a sinner.  And besides, we aren’t sending you to the gardens of paradise.  Or maybe . . .” Krayukhin leaned down and lowered his voice.  “Maybe you’re afraid?”
Bykov thought for a moment.
“It’s frightening for sure,” he admitted.  “Terrifying, even.  Cause I—I might not be able to handle it.  Of course, if all you need from me is what I already know how to do, then why not?”  He looked at Krayukhin and smiled.  “No, I’m not too afraid to accept.  But you know, this is very unexpected.  And anyway, why are you . . . are you really sure I can do this?”
“I am entirely sure that you can do this.  Of course, it will be difficult, very, very difficult, and surely there will be dangers which, as of now, we can’t even imagine . . . but you will handle them.”
“You would know, comrade Krayukhin.”
“Yes, I believe I do know.  Well then, Alexei Petrovich, shall we conclude that you won’t go running back to your ministry and start begging them to let you off for health reasons or family circumstances?”
“Comrade Krayukhin!”
“You think that doesn’t happen?”  Krayukhin’s face darkened.  “Stronger candidates than you, sitting in that very chair, have balked in the most deplorable way.”  He ran a hand across his face.  “In all honestly, I’ve been keeping an eye on you for a long time, and I’m glad I wasn’t wrong.”
Bykov huffed uncomfortably and looked away.  Then, with a sudden realization, he said:
“How do you know about me, comrade Krayukhin?”
“I knew about the rescue of Dauge’s expedition.  That was an expedition under our jurisdiction, and I’ve been keeping tabs on you since then.  I asked for your profile and so on.  Now the time has come, so we called you in.”
“Fair enough.”
“Usually we give candidates some time to think.  A week, sometimes a month.  But this time we can’t wait.  Make your decision, Alexei Petrovich.  I should warn you: if you have any reason to hesitate, you should refuse.  I won’t take offense.”
Bykov laughed.
“Oh no, comrade Krayukhin, I won’t refuse.  If you think I can handle this, I won’t refuse.  I’m in.  It’s a surprise for sure, but no problem, I’ll get used to it.  I’m in.”
“Just magnificent.”
Krayukhin nodded calmly and glanced at his watch.
“Let’s see now.  The expedition will be relatively short, no longer than a month and a half.  Does that suit you?”
“Suits me . . .”
“I won’t be explaining the details of your assignment now.  You’ll find out later.  Right now time is of the essence.  Just keep in mind that we fly out tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?  To Venus?”
“No, not to Venus right away.  We will be working on Earth for now.  But not in Moscow—somewhere else.  By the way, where’s your luggage?”
“Downstairs, in the coatroom.  I don’t have much—a suitcase and duffel bag.  I didn’t know . . .”
“No matter.  Where are you planning to stay?  I recommend the Hotel Prague.  It’s close, right by us.”
Bykov nodded.
“I know it.  A nice hotel.”
“Very nice.  I’ll let you go now, and in . . .” Krayukhin looked at his watch again.  “In a little over two hours, at precisely seventeen-hundred, comrade cosmonaut, you will come here again.  And you’ll see someone you recognize.  Have you had lunch?  Of course you haven’t.  We have a cafeteria on the thirteenth floor.  Have some food, relax a while in our library or club—those are also right here, no need to leave the building—and come back at seventeen-hundred hours.  Go on, now.  It’s time to give someone a tongue-lashing, so to speak.”
Bykov, still a bit excited, got up, and after a moment’s hesitation asked the question that had been bothering him this whole time.
“Comrade Krayukhin, what’s the full name of this institution?  The order just says SIPRC, and I think I interpreted that wrong.”
“The SIPRC is the State Interplanetary Relations Committee of the Council of Ministers.  And I am the assistant chair of the committee.”
“Thanks,” said Bykov.
“The Interplanetary Relations Committee,” he mumbled to himself, turning to the door.  Of course . . . I thought it was the State International Polytechnic Relations Committee . . . Quite the abbreviation . . .”
In the doorway Bykov ran into a long and gangly man rushing madly into the office.  Bykov only had time to note that the man wore thick glasses with elegant black frames and was extremely pale.  He did not notice the other visitor and, slamming right into Bykov’s chest, cried from the doorway:
“Nikolai Zakharovich!”
“Where is the sixth reactor?”  Bykov heard Krayukhin’s enraged hoarse bass.
“Nikolai, just let me—”
“I said, where’s the sixth reactor?!”
Engineer Bykov closed the door and went toward the exit of the reception hall.  The dark-faced secretary followed him with his one lonely eye, then bent over his desk once more.



[1] According to my calculations based on dates and ages mentioned in this book and the two subsequent ones, these events must be happening around approximately 1995, though obviously in an alternate universe where the Soviet Union survived and Everything is Fine.  That means if you were born in the early 1960s (just after this book was written), Bykov is in your generation.  Have fun with that.
[2] The Soviet name of the city now known as Nizhniy Novgorod.

Catherine

The Fatalist. Mikhail Lermontov. English Translation.

After my grandfather passed away, I was given his old copy of Mikhail Lermontov's novel A Hero of our Time.  The novel has an interesting format--it is the story of one character, Grigoriy Pechorin, told through an assortment of more-or-less self-contained chapters from the point of view of different narrators.  There is an old Cossack who knew Pechorin, Maksim Maksimich, a young man traveling alongside Maksim Maksimich now, and Pechorin himself, speaking through his diary, which the young man finds after Pechorin's death.  It is this fellow who dubs Pechorin "a hero of our time"--but the title is not an honor, as one might expect.  The time referred to is a difficult one, a listless and doubtful one, after the War of 1812 and the Decembrist rebellion, when the politically active and well-educated population of Russia, which not long ago had been bursting with patriotism and revolutionary spirit, lost sight of its goals.  Pechorin, an educated military man, capable of being both charming and boorish, bored and disgusted with life and its meaninglessness, constantly seeking something new to entertain himself and caring little for others' feelings in the process, expresses the mood of this period.  The operative part of the book's title is not "hero", but "of our time"--Pechorin is both a product and symbol of the era in which he lives.

As I read through the yellow-brown pages of Grandpa's old book, purchased, no doubt, during his 1959 visit to the Soviet Union, I saw a bit of myself in Pechorin.  This was Grandpa's favorite book; I wonder if he (in his youth in the 50s and 60s, the post-war generation) did too.

Inside the old book was another set of yellowed papers, covered with Grandpa's handwriting.  This turned out to be a translation of the final chapter of the book, part of Pechorin's diary, titled "The Fatalist".  My Grandpa studied Russian, then Japanese, and traveled all over the world.  He eventually became a professor of Japanese history.  I know I take after him.  So I figured the least I could do was finish the translation, which covered about two-thirds of the chapter.  I also edited Grandpa's portion to fix some inaccuracies, especially in the colloquial/dialectical language spoken by some of the Cossacks, and change some wording that souded outdated or awkward.  But I tried to save as much of it as possible, and to imitate the style in my portion.  I'm not sure if the end product is "good" exactly, because I've been looking at it too long, but I enjoyed working on it and I think Grandpa did too.

Without further ado, I present to you the final chapter of A Hero of our Time.

Картинки по запросу фаталист лермонтов
The Fatalist

By Mikhail Lermontov
Translated by George Wilson and Grace Mitchell

Somehow I happened once to stay for two weeks in a Cossack town on the left flank; a battalion of infantry was there too.  The officers got together at each other’s places in turn, and in the evenings played cards.  Once, having tired of Boston and thrown the cards under the table, we stayed a very long time at Major S’s.  The conversation, contrary to the usual, was animated.  We were talking about how the Moslem superstition that man’s destiny is written in the stars has many admirers even among ourselves; each man told of various extraordinary happenings, pro and con.

“All that, gentlemen, proves nothing,” said the old major.  “Why, none of you witnessed these strange happenings you use to confirm your views, did you?”

“Of course, none of us,” said many, “but we heard from trustworthy people . . .”

“That’s all nonsense,” someone said.  “Where are these trustworthy people who have seen the list that determines the hour of our death?  And if there really is predestination, why were we given will and reason?  Why are we held accountable for our behavior?”

At this time one officer, who had been sitting in a corner of the room, got up and, slowly walking to the table, cast a calm and solemn gaze over everyone.  He was a Serb, as was apparent from his name.
Lieutenant Vulich’s outward appearance fully reflected his character.  His height and dark complexion, his black hair, black penetrating eyes, his large but regular nose, an attribute of his nation, and the sad, cold smile which always roved over his lips; all this seemed to come together to give him the appearance of a special creature, incapable of communicating his thoughts and passions with those whom fate had made his comrades.
He was brave, spoke little, but cuttingly; he confided secrets of his soul and family to no one; he almost never drank wine, and he never ran after young Cossack girls, whose charm is hard to express to those who haven’t seen them.  They say, however, that the colonel’s wife was attracted to his expressive eyes,  but he got genuinely angry when anyone hinted at this.

There was only one passion he did not hide – a passion for gambling.  At the green table he forgot everything and usually lost, but continuous failures only aroused his obstinacy.

They say that once, at night during an expedition, he set up the bank on a pillow.  He was awfully lucky.  Suddenly shots rang out, somebody hit the alarm, and everyone jumped up and rushed for the weapons.  “Stake everything!” yelled Vulich, not rising, to one of the hottest punters.  “I’m on seven,” answered the other, running off.  Despite the general furor, Vulich dealt the next pair; the seven was the winning card.
When he appeared at the front, there was a strong crossfire.  Vulich did not worry about the Chechen bullets or swords; he was looking for his lucky punter.

“The seven is dealt!” he shouted after catching sight of him in a line of riflemen, who had begun to oust hostile forces from the woods.  Going closer, he took out his coin purse and wallet and gave them to the lucky fellow, in spite of his objection to the irrelevance of paying now.  After fulfilling that unpleasant duty, Vulich hurled himself forward, drawing the soldiers behind him, and coolly exchanged fire with the Chechens to the very end of the thing.

When Lieutenant Vulich approached the table, everyone shut up, expecting some original trick from him.

“Gentlemen!” he said (his voice was calm, although lower than usual).  “Gentlemen, why these empty quarrels?  You want proof.  I suggest you test on yourselves whether a person can voluntarily arrange his life, or whether the fateful moment for each of us is determined in advance.  Who’s willing?”

“Not I, not I!” was heard from all sides.  “He’s nuts!  Such things cross his mind . . .!”

“I propose a bet,” said I, for fun.

“What kind?”

“I say there is no predestination,” I said, emptying about twenty gold pieces onto the table—all that I had in my pocket.

“I’ll take it!” answered Vulich in a hollow voice.  “Major, you be the judge.  Here are fifteen gold pieces.  You owe me the other five, so do me the kindness to add them to these.”

“All right,” said the major.  “Only I don’t understand, really, what’s going on.  How will you settle the wager?”

Vulich quietly went out into the major’s bedroom; we followed him.  He went up to the wall where weapons were hanging and at random took one of the various-caliber pistols from its nail.  We still did not understand him, but when he cocked the pistol and poured powder on the shelf, many cried out involuntarily and grabbed his arms.

“What are you trying to do? Listen, it’s madness!” they yelled at him.

“Gentlemen!” he said slowly, freeing his arms.  “Who will pay 20 gold pieces for me?”

Everyone hushed and stepped away.

Vulich went into the other room and sat at the table; everyone followed him.  With a sign he invited us to sit in a circle.  Without a word we obeyed him: in that moment he acquired a certain mysterious power over us.  I stared into his eyes, but he met my searching look with a calm and immobile gaze, and his pale lips smiled; yet in spite of his coolness, it seemed to me that I read the stamp of death on his pale face.  I had observed, and many old soldiers had confirmed my observation, that there is often some strange mask of an inevitable fate on the face of a man who is to die in a few hours, such that it is hard for the practiced eye to be mistaken.

“You are going to die soon!” I said to him.

“Maybe so, but maybe not.”

Then turning to the major, he asked: “is the pistol loaded?”

The major didn’t remember exactly in his confusion.

“Yes, enough, Vulich!” Someone shouted.  “You bet it’s loaded, if it was hanging by the bedhead.  What a joke you’re playing!”

“A stupid joke!” another chimed in.

“I have fifty rubles against five that the pistol is not loaded!” shouted a third.

New bets were being placed.

This long ceremony bored me.

“Listen,” I said.  “Either shoot yourself, or put the pistol back where it was and let’s go to sleep.”

“Definitely!” cried many.  “Let’s go to bed!”

“Gentlemen, I ask you not to move from your places!” said Vulich, putting the muzzle of the pistol to his forehead.  Everyone seemed petrified.  “Mister Pechorin,” he added, “take a card and throw it up.”
I took from the table, as I remember it now, the ace of hearts, and threw it upwards.  Everybody stopped breathing; all eyes, full of fear and some undefined curiosity, ran from the pistol to the fatal ace, which was slowly falling, tumbling in the air.  At the moment it touched the table, Vulich pulled the trigger . . . a misfire!

“Thank God,” cried many, “it wasn’t loaded.”

“Take a look,” said Vulich.  He cocked the pistol again, and aimed it at the service cap hanging over the window.  A shot rang out; smoke filled the room.  The cap was pierced right through the middle, and the bullet had lodged deep in the wall.

Three minutes and no one could utter a word.  Vulich very calmly transferred my gold pieces into his coin purse.

There was talk about why the pistol did not go off the first time; some attested that probably the shelf had been choked up, others said that at first the powder had been damp and that afterwards Vulich had put in fresh.  But I maintained that the latter assumption was not correct, because I had not taken my eyes from the pistol the whole time.

“You are lucky at gambling,” I said to Vulich.

“For the first time in my life,” he answered, smiling satisfiedly.  “That was better than Bank and Faro.”

“But a little more dangerous.”

“And now? Are you beginning to believe in predestination?”

“I believe; only I don’t understand why it seemed to me that you surely had to die today.”

This same person who had such a short while ago calmly aimed at his own forehead was now suddenly flushed and embarrassed.

“But that’s enough!” he said, getting up.  “Our bet is done, and now your remarks, it seems to me, are out of place.”  He took his cap and left.  This struck me as strange—and not without reason.

Soon everybody dispersed to their houses, gabbling about Vulich’s eccentricities and, probably, unanimously calling me an egoist because I bet against a man who wanted to shoot himself.  As if he could not find a convenient opportunity without me!

I returned home through the empty alleys of the town; the moon, full and red as the glow of a fire, began to rise from behind the jagged horizon of houses.  The stars shone calmly on the deep blue firmament, and I found it funny when I remembered that in the old days, there were wise men who believed that heavenly bodies participate in our miscellaneous quarrels over a piece of land or certain imagined rights.  And what of it?  Those lamps, which they thought were lit only to illuminate their battles and triumphs, burn with their former luster, but their own passions and hopes went out long ago, along with them, like a tiny flame lit at the edge of a wood by a careless wanderer! Still, confidence that the whole sky, with its innumerable inhabitants, looked on them with concern, mute perhaps, but unfaltering, gave them such strength of will!  And we, their poor descendants, wandering over the earth without conviction or pride, without amusement or anxiety, except for that involuntary fear that presses the heart at the thought of our inevitable end—we are no longer capable of sacrifices, for the good of mankind or even for our own personal happiness, because we know its impossibility and languidly go from doubt to doubt as our predecessors threw themselves from one delusion to another, not possessing, as they did, either hope or even the undefined but great pleasure which greets the soul in every struggle with men or with fate.

And many similar thoughts passed through my mind.  I did not hold them back, because I do not like to dwell on any abstract idea.  What would that lead to?  In my earliest youth I was a dreamer; I loved to embrace now gloomy, now rosy images, drawn before me by a restless and greedy imagination.  But what of that is left to me?  Fatigue alone, like after a nighttime battle with phantasms, and confused recollections full of suffering.  In this vain struggle, I exhausted both the ardor of my soul and the constancy of will necessary for a full life.  I entered this life having already lived through it mentally, and I found it boring and nasty, like reading a bad imitation of a book one has long known and loved.

The events of the evening produced a rather deep impression on me and irritated my nerves.  I do not know for sure whether I believe in predetermination now or not, but that evening I firmly believed: the evidence was striking, and I, in spite of the fact that I laughed at our predecessors and their helpful astrology, fell unwittingly into their rut.  But I stopped myself in time on this dangerous path, and in keeping with my rule of not rejecting anything decisively and not believing anything blindly, threw metaphysics out and began to look beneath my feet.  Such a precaution was very apropos.  I nearly fell when I stumbled on something thick and soft, but apparently no longer alive.  I bent down—the moon still shone right on the road—and what was it?  Before me lay a pig, sliced in two by a sword.  Just as I succeeded in making it out, I heard the sound of footsteps.  Two Cossacks ran from an alley.  One approached me and asked whether I had not seen the drunken Cossack who had been running after the pig.  I explained to him that I had not met this Cossack and pointed to the unlucky victim of his violent courage.

“What a bandit!” said the second Cossack.  “Gets drunk on muddy wine and goes off to shred everything that comes his way.  Let’s go after him, Yeremeich.  We’ll have to tie him up, or else . . .”

They moved on, while I continued on my way with great care and at last got home successfully. 

I lived at the home of an old Cossack sergeant, whom I loved for his good disposition and all the more for his pretty daughter, Nastya.

As usual, she was waiting for me at the gate, wrapped in a fur coat.  The moon lighted her sweet lips, grown blue from the cold of the night.  When she recognized me, she smiled, but I paid her no heed.  “So long, Nastya!” I said, walking past.  She wanted to reply somehow, but only sighed.

I shut the door of my room behind me, lit a candle and threw myself on the bed; but this time sleep forced me to wait longer than usual.  The east was already brightening when I fell asleep, but, clearly, it was written in the stars that I should not rest well this night.  At four in the morning two fists banged on my window.  I leapt up; what on earth . . . ?  “Get up and dressed!” voices yelled at me.  I hurriedly dressed and went out.  “Do you know what happened?” the three officers who had come for me said in unison; they were pale as death.

“What?”

“Vulich is dead.”

I froze.

“Yes, dead!” they continued. “Come, quickly!”

“But where?”

“You’ll figure it out on the way.”

We set off.  They told me everything that happened, throwing in various observations about the strange predestination that had saved him from inevitable death half-an-hour before his death.  Vulich had been walking alone on a dark street; the drunk Cossack who had cut down the pig came rushing toward him, and might have gone past without noticing him, had Vulich not suddenly stopped and said, “who are you after, brother?”  “You!” the Cossack replied, striking him with his sword, and slashed him from the shoulder almost to the heart . . . the two Cossacks I had met, following the killer, caught up to him and lifted the wounded man, but he was already breathing his last and said only two words: “he’s right!”  Only I understood the dark meaning of those words: they referred to me; I unwittingly predicted the poor man’s fate.  My instinct did not betray me: I precisely read on his altered face the stamp of the approaching end.

The killer had locked himself in an empty house at the end of town: we were on our way there.  A multitude of crying women were running the same way; occasionally a tardy Cossack clattered out onto the street, rushing to fasten a knife to his belt, and outpaced us at a run.  The furor was frightening.

And finally we arrived and looked around: a crowd surrounded the house, the doors and windows of which were locked from the inside.  Officers and Cossacks were talking heatedly among themselves; women were wailing, cursing and lamenting.  Among them stood out to me the solemn face of one old woman with an expression of mad desperation.  She sat on a thick log, resting her elbows on her knees with head in hands: this was the killer’s mother.  Her lips occasionally quivered . . . where they whispering a prayer, or a curse?

In any case, we had to decide on something and seize the criminal.  However, no one took it upon himself to go in first.

I went to the window and looked through the crack in the shutters: pale, he lay on the floor, holding a pistol in his right hand; his bloodied sword lay nearby.  His expressive eyes spun frightfully in in circles; at times he shuddered and clutched his head, as though hazily recalling the day before.  I did not see much strength of will in his restless gaze and told the major that it was no use stopping the Cossacks from breaking the door down and rushing in, because that would be better to do now than later, when he fully came to himself.

At that moment an old Cossack captain approached the door and addressed the criminal by name; he responded.

“Yefimich, brother, you’ve sinned,” said the captain.  “There’s nothing for it, give in!”

“I won’t!” the Cossack answered.

“Have the fear of God!  You’re no damnned Chechen, you’re an honest Christian.  Well, and sin’s got you mixed up already, so there’s nothing left: you can’t escape your fate!”

“I won’t give in!” the Cossack cried menacingly, and the sound of the pistol being cocked reached our ears.

“Hey, auntie!” the captain said to the old lady, “talk to your son; God willing, he’ll listen to you . . . See, this is just asking for God’s wrath.  And look, these gentlemen have been waiting two hours already.”

The old woman looked at him firmly and shook her head.

“Vassily Petrovich,” the captain said, approaching the major, “he won’t give in—I know him; and if we break the door, he’ll do a lot of us in.  Don’t you think maybe we’d better shoot him now?  Those shutters have wide gaps.”

Just then a strange thought flitted through my head: like Vulich, I decided to test my fate.

“Hold on,” I said to the major, “I’ll take him alive.”  Having told the captain to start a conversation with him and placed three Cossacks by the door to beat it down and run to my aid at a certain signal, I went around the house and approached the fateful window: my heart beat wildly.

“Oh, you devil!” cried the captain, “are you making fun of us or what?  Or you think we’re no match for you?”  He started to hammer at the door with all his might; I pressed my eye to the gap in the shutters, following the movements of the Cossack, who was not expecting an attack from this side . . . and all at once tore off the shutters and threw myself headfirst through the window.  A shot rang out by my ear, and the bullet tore off my epaulette.  But the smoke that filled the room hindered my enemy’s search for the sword that lay beside him.  I grabbed him by the arms; the Cossacks burst in, and before three minutes had passed, the criminal was tied up and escorted away.  The crowd dispersed, and officers congratulated me—with good reason.

After all that, it seems, how could a one not become a fatalist?  But who really knows whether he’s sure of something or not?  And how often we mistake the deception of our emotions or errors of logic for sure facts!  I love to doubt everything: such a position doesn’t weaken the resolve of one’s character; on the contrary, in my case, I always go forward more surely when I don’t know what lies in store for me.  Because death is the worst that can happen—and death can’t be avoided!

Returning to the fortress, I told Maksim Maksimich everything that happened to me and everything I saw, and asked for his opinion on predestination.  At first, he didn’t understand the meaning of the word, but I explained it as best I could, and then he said, solemnly shaking his head:

“Yeees sir, of course, sir!  That’s a real tricky thing! . . . but anyhow, those Asian hammers often misfire if they’re oiled wrong or you don’t squeeze the trigger just hard enough.  I’ll admit, I don’t like Circassian rifles either; they’re not quite right for our guys: the butt’s too small, look out or you’ll burn your nose off . . . but those swords they’ve got—now those have my respect!”

Later, having thought a little, he murmured:

“Pity, the poor man . . . devil made him talk to a drunk at night!  But of course, it must have been fated for him from birth!”

I couldn’t get anything else out of him.  He can’t stand metaphysical debates.
Catherine

Финал Тихого Дона в разных экранизациях: сравнительный анализ

Недавно в университете нам задали такую задачу: написать короткое эссе об экранизации русской классики.  Я с радостью занялась этим делом, так и забыв, что когда речь идет о Тихом Доне, мои эссе короткими не бывают.  К счастью, добрая преподавательница все прочитала и ошибки поправила.  После чего я сделала несколько изменеинй и решила опубликовать эссе здесь.  Итак, я представляю вам свою работу о разнице между экранизациями Тихого Дона, разных режиссерских целях и решениях.

*

Тихий Дон—великий роман Михаила Шолохова о любви, войне и смерти на Дону в 1910их и 1920их гг, получивший нобелевскую премию, похожий на греческую эпопею своим огромным масштабом и глубоким смыслом. Естественно, лучшие режиссеры России хотят снять фильмы по этому роману. Четырем удалось это сделать: сначала режиссеру Ольге Преображенской в 1930-ом году (фильм был снят по мотивам первых двух томов романа, так как третий и четвертый еще не вышли), потом трем Сергеям: Герасимову (1957), Бондарчуку (2006) и Урсуляку (2015). Фильм Герасимова состоит из трех длинных серий и представляет собой шедевр советского кино; недавний фильм Урсуляка—сложная человеческая драма, представленная в 14 сериях. Особенность фильма Бондарчука (который состоит из семи серий, кстати) заключается в том, что в нем играют английские актеры, и фильм изначально сняли на английском языке, а потом озвучили для русской аудитории. К каждому фильму можно выбрать одно подходящее прилагательное: советский, английский, постсоветский. Это говорит о том, что эти три режиссера работали в разных условиях и поэтому ставили себе разные задачи. Отличный способ сравнить все версии—сосредоточиться на конце истории, на заключительных моментах каждой экранизации.  К сожалению, фильм Преображенской не входит в этот анализ, просто потому что его сюжет рано прерван, но можно посмотреть на кадр из фильма:


Самый интимный контакт между Григорием (Андрей Абрикосов) и Аксиньей (Эмма Цесарская) в немом фильме 30-ого года: обнимка возле коровы . . . какие невинные были фильмы тогда!

*

Сначала, конечно, нужно посмотреть на саму книгу, раз без нее невозможно правильно оценить экранизации. Трагичный конец истории—последний удар, который окончательно ломает жизнь главного героя, Григория Мелехова. Потеряв почти всю семью—маму, папу, брата, жену—он пытается убежать от войны с любовницей Аксиньей. По пути они сталкиваются с красными бойцами, и Аксинья умирает. Потом, в последней главе книги, Шолохов рассказывает о разбитом состоянии героя и его дальнейшей судьбе. Григорий сначала бродит по степи и по лесу, потом попадает к группе дезертиров, живущих в землянке. Он уже явно страдает от посттравматического синдрома. Ему не спится, он не может найти покоя.

«Ему часто снились дети, Аксинья, мать и все остальные близкие, кого уже не было в живых. Вся жизнь Григория была в прошлом, а прошлое казалось недолгим и тяжким сном. «Походить бы ишо раз по родным местам, покрасоваться на детишек, тогда можно бы и помирать», -- часто думал он.»

До того, как Григорий уходит домой, состоятся два разговора, показывающих читателям состояние его души. Сначала к нему приходит бывший товарищ, который остался в белом отряде после ухода Григория. Он рассказывает о войне, предлагает Григорию пойти с ним «легкую жизню шукать». Григорий отказывается. Видимо, «легкая жизня» уже невообразима для него. Потом, когда Григорий решает пойти домой, дезертир ему говорит: «Подождал бы весны. К Первому маю амнистию нам дадут, тогда и разойдемся.» Григорий говорит, что не может ждать. Но (как дезертир, который ходит ночью к семье за хлебом, наверное не подозревает) это не значит, что Григорию не терпится вернуться в прежнюю жизнь с семьей и хозяйством; скорее жизнь для него стала такой болезненной, что он хочет уйти из нее, но до этого еще раз посмотреть на детей, как он мечтает. И поскольку муж его сестры, Михаил Кошевой, обещал арестовать или убить Григория, вероятность, что он погибнет, как только вернется домой, кажется ему высокой.

Конец последнего тома «Тихово Дона» таков: Григорий идет домой по реке, покрытой льдом. Недалеко от родного хутора, он находит открытую воду, и бросает в нее винтовку, патроны и наган, таким образом прощаясь с военной жизнью и (поскольку казак по натуре воин) с жизнью вообще. Потом он идет дальше по улице и видит своего сына. Он зовет мальчика, который не сразу узнает отца. Мальчик рассказывает о том, что его сестра умерла, а тетя Дуняшка (сестра Григория) жива и здорова, и Михаил Кошевой на службе. Григорий не в состоянии говорит, только повторяет слово «сынок». И последние предложения произведения звучат так: «Что ж, вот и сбылось то немногое, о чем бессонными ночами мечтал Григорий. Он стоял у ворот родного дома, держал на руках сына . . . Это было все, что осталось у него в жизни, что пока еще роднило его с землей и со всем этим огромным, сияющим под холодным солнцем миром.»

В последней главе романа Григорий—полностью сломанный человек. Казаки воевали за свою землю, свою правду, своих родных и близких; потеряв почти все это, он уже не казак, не боец, не любовник, не защитник, и мало кому нужен. Его прежние роли в жизни уже не подходят ему. Это естественное последствие гражданской войны, которая, как правило, убивает огромное количество невинных людей вместе с солдатами и разрушает имущество. Выживший в такой войне человек живет воспоминаниями о времени, когда он был молодым, сильным и красивым, работал, любил, воспитывал детей. Такие люди в настоящей жизни часто становятся бездомными, преступниками, алкоголиками, и это книга дает читателю шанс понять, откуда это берется, почувствовать горе таких огромных потерь. Но Шолохов, будучи в определенном смысле оптимист и безусловно советский писатель, который должен поддерживать победителя, не может оставить читателя совсем без надежды. И как часто бывает в рассказах Шолохова (напр. в «Судьбе человека» и Донские рассказы «Продкомиссар», «Алешкино сердце», «Шибалково семя» и т.д.) эта надежда принимает форму маленького мальчика, который, предположительно, переживет все трагедии и тяжести военного времени и положит основу новой, счастливой и спокойной жизни. Сын Григория—последняя связь с миром для него, и хотя он почти всю жизнь потерял, он все равно оставит свой след на земле, и горбоносые, диковато-красивые казаки-Мелеховы будут жить в хуторе Татарском как прежде. Можно надеяться, что у сына жизнь будет спокойная, мирная, без войны и страданий.

А как проходят эти события в фильмах? Есть ли всегда такой же смысл, как в тексте Шолохова?

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Начинаем с экранизации Герасимова, характеризуемой как «советская версия». В этой экранизации, истории с дезертирами полностью отсутствует. Когда Григорий еще сидит у могилы Аксиньи, товарищ подходит к нему, и первый из двух вышеупомянутых разговоров состоится. Григорий со слезами на глазах говорит этому казаку, что идет домой. Важно отметить, что речь не идет об амнистии. Зритель понимает, что Григорий хочет домой, но состояние его внутреннего мира непонятно. То, что в книге Григорий не ждет амнистию, говорит о том, что он идет домой именно навстречу смерти. Без этой информации, момент, когда Григорий бросает оружие в реку, воспринимается по-другому: Григорий устал от войны и потери, и вернется в спокойную жизнь. В фильме Герасимова камера долго смотрит на воду, чтобы зрители видели, как оружие тонет в реке. Это обращает внимание зрителя на то, что война закончилась. В книге не говорилось о других детях в хуторе, но в этом фильме дети играют на улице, и сын Григорий быстро узнает отца и бросается ему на шею. В конце трагичного фильма режиссер решил показать радость и любовь детей; это подражание Шолоховской темы «мальчик-надежда». Разговора о смерти Поли, дочки Григория, нет; Григорий сразу берет сына на руки и идет дальше, домой, под триумфальную музыку. Это самый счастливый конец, что может быть в таком фильме. И создатели фильма выбрали его, чтобы выполнить свою поставленную задачу. Герасимов и его команда хотели показать трагедию войны, но, будучи на стороне победителя, представить некое хеппи-энд. Поскольку нет разговора о Поле и Дуняшке, можно предполагать, что все в живых, то есть у Григория все еще двое детей. В конце «добрых» советских фильмов проблемы часто решаются, и все остаются довольными. В фильме на основе трагичного текста это невозможно, но самые грустные детали все-таки пропущены. Зритель не чувствует полную потерянность Григория, а радуется концу войны и шансу начать с нуля.


Обратите внимание на теплые цвета в этом кадре, когда Григорий (Петр Глебов) обнимает сына - это некий намек на будущее счастье.

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Видимо, недовольный советскими изменениями финала, Сергей Бондарчук решил придерживаться текста, создавая свой вариант «Тихого Дона». Его экранизацию можно назвать «английской версией», поскольку в ней в основном английские актеры играют. В этой версии какие-либо разговоры после похорон Аксиньи полностью отсутствуют, то есть эта часть текста просто пропущена. Зато после этого все события происходят строго по тексту. Григорий идет по льду на реке Дон. Он бросает оружие в реку, точно так же, как в советской версии; камера даже так же останавливается на плавающих и тонущих патронах. Потом он идет дальше, в хутор. Он обнимает, потом поднимает на руки сына, а тот, как в книге, не узнает его сразу. Разговор из книги, из которого мы узнаем, что Поля мертва и Михаила нет, сохранена. Несмотря на то, что история с дезертирами совсем пропущена, Бондарчук пытается оставить часть нужных эмоций в конце произведения. Он даже включает слова самого Шолохова: Голос за кадром читает последние предложения книги, пока Григорий несет сына домой. В этом фильме, в общем, все очень близко к тексту. Кажется, что Бондарчук поставил себе именно такую задачу—снять фильм по роману «Тихий Дон» максимально близко к тексту. Голос за кадром помогает выполнить данную задачу. При этом чего-то постоянно не хватает. В конце концов, роман это роман, а фильм это фильм. Когда все снято по тексту, фильм выходит не совсем живой, и нарушает главное правило всех видов искусства: показывай, а не рассказывай. Здесь зрители не видят чувства Григория, а слышат о них от голоса за кадром. Может быть Григорий—сломанный, потерянный человек, но этого не видно ни на его лице, ни в его действиях, что реалистично и соответствует тексту, но не способствует полному понятию смысла финала. Отсутствие разговоров в землянке с дезертирами тоже препятствует передаче эмоции в этом плане. Чтобы показать, а не рассказать внутреннее состояние Григория, нужно было бы поменять текст, отойти от него подальше. Но режиссер не хотел это делать, и фильм получился, хотя не плохим, не особо впечатляющим, даже в самом конце.


Бондарчук выбрал более холодные цвета, подчеркивая печаль Григория (Руперт Эверетт).

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Последняя экранизация «Тихого Дона», которую можно назвать «постсоветской версией», была снята режиссером Сергеем Урсуляком, и является противоположностью английской версии, так как текст оригинального романа почти исчезает в самом конце. Ведь Урсуляк поставил другую задачу для своего фильма. В отличие от Герасимова, ему не нужно было распространять надежду среди усталого от войны населения, и он не хотел снять фильм буквально по тексту. Он решил показать полный объем катастрофы войны, и передать зрителю эмоциональное состояние Григория Мелехова. Чтобы выполнить эту задачу, сначала он сохраняет один разговор из книги—разговор с дезертиром об амнистии. Отказ подождать амнистию уже говорит о том, что Григорий идет домой к своей смерти, без надежды на восстановление жизни. Основная структура последней сцены фильма взята из книги: Григорий идет домой, бросает оружие в воду, пересекает реку. Но кроме этих базовых фактов, сходств с оригинальным сюжетом нет. Однако то, что происходит, вызывает сильные чувства у зрителя. Внимание режиссера, очевидно, было сосредоточено на Григории, на его внутреннем мире. Например, когда он бросает патроны в реку, в отличие от вышеупомянутых версий, камера направлена не на воду, где патроны тонут, а на руку Григория: видно, как он сжимает их в кулаке, потом с силой бросает. Он не просто прощается с военной жизнью, он бьется против нее с последней оставшейся у него силой. Но здесь Григорий бросает не только оружие: в постсоветской версии льда на реке нет, и Григорию предстоит переплыть ее. Поэтому он раздевается до белья. Он подходит, потом подплывает, к родному куреню весь в белом и босиком. Он даже отпускает мешок, который он таскал за собой, и тот плавает по течению реки. Гриша символически оставляет не только войну, но и всю жизнь за собой, возвращаясь домой. Это напоминает библейскую цитату (Иов 1:21): «наг я вышел из чрева матери моей, наг и возвращусь». Гриша возвращается в родной дом сломанный и ожидающий смерти, и в некотором смысле очищенный—без военной формы, искупавшийся в реке, он возвращается в чистое состояние, в котором можно уйти из жизни спокойно. Кстати, цитата из Книги Иова очень подходящая, так как Бог отнял у Иова все, и у Григория тоже.

Но это еще не все, что воздействует на эмоции. Урсуляк добавил новую сцену в фильм, и это словно смертельный удар в сердце зрителя. Когда Григорий плывет, вдруг сцена меняется, появляются поле и яркий, персиковый свет. Гриша, в красивой форме, с шашкой, четырьмя георгиевскими крестами и ухоженными усами, подскакивает на рыжем коне. Он слезает с коня, который сразу же убегает. И Григорий идет вперед по полю. Он потихоньку начинает снимать форму, бросать оружие, и пока он идет, он встречает родных и близких. Сначала он видит маму и папу, потом—погибших товарищей и брата Петра, которые косят траву. Дальше—Аксинья и жена Григория Наталья идут, обе держа за руку девочку, скорее всего мертвую дочь Аксиньи. Перед ними Григорий падает на колени, а они, улыбаясь (и уже не конкурируя друг с другом за его любовь, как при жизни), идут дальше. Даже старая собака к Григорию подбегает, потом убегает за женщинами. Григорий бежит к другому концу поля, где стоит человек с косой. Камера поближе подходит, и зритель узнает этого человека—это австриец, которого Гриша срубил в начале Первой мировой войны, который снился ему потом. Все родные Григория одеты в белом в этой сцене, а один австриец (за исключением самого Григория) в военной форме. Это блестящий сон, с участием всех, по кому Григорий скучает, и наверное ссылка на книгу, так как Шолохов написал, что ему часто снились дети, мать, Аксинья и все остальные. Это и воспоминания, которыми живет Григорий, и мечта о рае, который, возможно, примет его скоро. Присутствие австрица намекает, что Григория простили за военные преступления. На секунду зрителю кажется, что Григорий уже попал в рай, что он тоже станет участником вечной косьбы: австриец дает ему косу, он слегка улыбается и берется за работу. Но в этот же момент вдруг счастливая сцена исчезает, и Григорий выползает из реки. Весь мокрый и трясясь от холода, он подходит к заброшенному куреню. Здесь нет ни сына, ни дочки, ни сестры: в этой версии все потеряно, и он ложится на серую землю. Камера отходит, поворачивает к Дону, и трясущее тело Григория уходит из виду.   Хотя этот вариант значительно отличается от текста Шолохова, он отлично выполняет задачу, которую Бондарчук так и не смог выполнить (а может, не хотел): эмоции Григория, трагедии войны, чувство совершенной потерянности, беспомощности и одиночества, передаются без закадрового рассказа. Сцена с погибшими родными и близкими в золотом поле способствует передаче эмоций, напоминая зрителю о всех исчезнувших персонажах и усиливая контраст между яркой, радостной жизнью молодого Григория и его нынешним страданием. И когда Григорий подходит к дому и прикасается к разваленному забору, на лице актера Евгения Ткачука видно что-то похожее на надежду увидеть здесь всю семью, узнать, что война была лишь страшным сном и вернуться по-настоящему домой. А потом—последнее разочарование.


Григорий (Евгений Ткачук) берет косу у австрица (Тимур Любимский) в золотом сне.

Но конечно, создатели постсоветской версии могли бы сделать все так же, но все-таки оставить последнюю надежду в форме сына главного героя. С одной стороны, учитывая отсутствие близнецов Полюшки и Мишатки на золотом поле, зритель может предполагать, что они еще в живых. Но с другой стороны непонятно, настоящий рай ли это золотое поле, или просто сон Григория, в котором присутствуют все, о чьих смертях он уже знает. Так как детей нет в родном курене, возможно, что они тоже умерли. И так, зачем Урсуляк решил отнять у зрителей эту последнюю надежду, которую другие режиссеры оставили для них? Ответ, наверное, заключается в трех факторах. Во-первых, как было сказано выше, изначальная задача его фильма отличается от других. В отличие от самого Шолохова и Герасимова, которые хотели доказать советским читателям и зрителям, что после трагедии может восстановиться жизнь, и Бондарчука, который хотел снять фильм близко к тексту (то есть, фактически, показать все так же, как Шолохов), Урсуляк не хотел поддерживать победителей войны или даже выразить надежду на послевоенную жизнь. Он, скорее всего, поставил себе задачу убедить зрителей в ужасе войны, причем не только войны в общем, но именно гражданской войны при ранней советской власти, и рассказать о том, как казачество как таковое было уничтожено. Во-вторых, эмоциональное воздействие на зрителя просто сильнее, когда надежды вовсе нет. Чтобы донести до современного обеспеченного зрителя настоящую беду войны, иногда нужно бить как можно больнее.    В-третьих, что касается именно финала, личное состояние Григория, которое, должно быть, одинаковое во всех версиях, передается зрителю эффективнее с помощью крайне трагичной сцены.


Григорий пришел в разваливающий, когда-то родной дом.  Опять (как в фильме Бондарчука) присутствуют темные, холодные цвета.

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У зрителя после просмотра каждого фильма будут разные эмоции. После советской версии будет чувство тяжелой победы; после английской—легкая тоска; а после новой—голая депрессия. Нельзя сказать, что одна экранизация лучше другой, но они точно совершенно разные, с разными смыслами для зрителей. Но впечатляет одно сходство: на последних кадрах каждого фильма течет великий Дон, вечно равнодушный человеческому страданию вокруг себя. И смысл этой картины у всех одинаковый: река смоет кровь и продолжится дальше. Что бы не было с нами, земля крутится. И при любой войне, потере, трагедии, стоит это помнить.

Catherine

How to Tell If You are in a Mikhail Sholokhov Story

With love and respect for the writers of The Toast.

A relative you haven’t seen hide nor hair of since the Civil War has come back, and he wants to sabotage the collective farm.

An animal has been injured in a way that eerily mirrors your life situation or that of someone close to you.

Someone is beating his wife like a beast, kicking her with his heavy soldier’s boots. You are much better than him, because you only occasionally slap yours.

Your preferred method of flirting with women is grabbing  and kissing them when they are alone and vulnerable.  You figure this is okay, because you know they have "experience".

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You’ve found your old father after years of separation, but now he wants to disown you because you sided with the Reds.

People who speak standard Russian dialect and don't "гутарить" stick out like sore thumbs in your village.

Your sleigh breaks the crust on the half-melted snow and spritzes the air with ice.  It's cold, hard going, but this trip is your last hope.

Having slept with every passing soldier while your husband was away at war, you are now burning with syphilis.

You have been tasked with collecting bread for the Communist authorities. You know you won't succeed without violence.

That woman you’ve fallen for is probably a spy for the other side, but you don’t care.

You walk home alone in the frigid air, through the barking of dogs and the bitter smell of burning dung.

When you arrive home, your wife carefully removes your heavy soldier’s boots while you fumble at your Cossack coat with frozen fingers.

Your father and the other village elders were executed by the Reds. Or was that the Whites? It hardly matters now.

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You attempt to make up with your husband after cheating on him, but he only beats you even more than before.

They thought you were killed at war, but here you are, back home, for better or for, okay, let's be honest, it's definitely going to get worse.

Your love interest teaches you how to read in the schoolhouse with the portraits of Lenin in the corner.

You would like to study in the city, but you can’t; you are needed here, and the war and collectivization have stolen your youth.

Your whole family has died except for the children, and you know that you, too, will soon be gone.

An old friend has come knocking at your door. This would be fine, except that you fought each other in the Civil War.

Someone has ridden a horse into the ground. As you walk by, you catch its glassy, dead-eyed stare.

They keep telling you to abandon the child, but you know he must go on living, even if you don’t.

The river flows on, indifferent to the immense human suffering surrounding it.

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(If I had a dollar for every time Sholokhov wrote "heavy soldier's boots" . . .)
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