The Prank, page 7
“Encore!” hissed the schoolboy.
“What the hell is going on!” Colonel Pepsinov muttered in my ear. “You could have stayed home to hiccup, sir!”
Zoya blushed. Once again I hiccuped, and then I ran out of the box, my fists fiercely clenched. I paced up and down the hallway. I paced, and paced, and paced—and I hiccuped. The things I ate and drank to make the hiccups go away! At the beginning of the fourth act, I called it quits. I went home. No sooner did I get home, than I stopped hiccuping. I hit myself on my head and exclaimed, “Why don’t you hiccup now! Go ahead, hiccup, you booed-off fiancé! No, not booed-off! You didn’t boo yourself off the matrimonial stage! You hiccuped yourself off!”
The next evening, I went to dine with the Pepsinovs, as was my habit. Zoya didn’t come down to dinner. She sent a message that she couldn’t see me. She was ill. Colonel Pepsinov gave a long speech about how certain young men do not know how to behave in public. The idiot! Didn’t he know that the organs that produce hiccups are stimulated independently of conscious control? A stimulus, ma chère, means an impulse.
“Would you have given your daughter, if you had one,” Pepsinov said to me after dinner, “to a man who permits himself to engage in public belching? Well, sir?”
“I would,” I muttered.
“Then you’d be making a mistake, sir!”
That was the end of Zoya. She couldn’t forgive the hiccups. I was done for.
The remaining twelve incidents—should I describe them?
I could, but enough! The veins of my temples bulge, my tears flow, and my liver churns. “O brother writers, our fates are stamped with doom!”* Allow me, ma chère, to wish you the very best! I press your hand and I send my regards to Paul. I hear that he is a good husband and father. Praise be unto him! It’s a shame that he drinks like a fish, though (don’t take that as a reproach, ma chère!).
Good health to you, ma chère, and good cheer. I remain your most faithful servant,
MAKAR BALDASTOV
* These are all opera singers who were famous in Russia at the time.
*Faust (1859) is an opera written by Charles Gounod (1818-1893) that consists of five acts and ballet pieces. In the first act, the aged Faust complains that all his studies have come to nothing and made him miss out on life and love.
*An ironic quote from Nikolay Nekrasov’s poem “At the Hospital” (1855).
A SINNER FROM TOLEDO
(Translated from the Spanish)
“WHOSOEVER reports the whereabouts of the witch, who calls herself Maria Spalanzo, or whosoever delivers her living or dead to the court, shall receive absolution for their past sins.”
Such was the proclamation signed by the Bishop of Barcelona and by four judges back in those long-gone days that remain an indelible blot on the history of Spain—and, one could say, of humanity itself.
All of Barcelona had read the proclamation. The hunt began. Sixty women who looked like the witch in question were detained; her relatives were tortured. Back then there was a foolish but deeply held belief that witches can turn themselves into cats, dogs, and other animals, invariably black ones. Very often, it was said, a hunter who had been attacked by an animal would cut off a paw for a trophy only to discover, on opening his hunting bag, a bloodied human hand—that of his own wife. The residents of Barcelona had killed every last black cat and every last black dog, but all in vain—none of them was Maria Spalanzo.
Maria Spalanzo was the daughter of a successful Barcelona merchant. Her father was French; her mother, Spanish. From her father she had inherited a Gallic lightheartedness and the boundless gaiety that makes French women so attractive; from her mother, a perfect Spanish figure. She was beautiful, smart, and always cheerful. She led a life of Spanish leisure and was dedicated to the arts. Joyful as a child, she had never shed a tear in all of her twenty years. On the day she turned twenty, she married a sailor named Spalanzo, well-known to all of Barcelona, very handsome, and—it was said—very learned. She was marrying him for love. Her husband vowed that he’d rather die than see her unhappy. He loved her madly.
Two days after the wedding, her fate was sealed.
Towards evening, she set out from her new home to pay a visit to her mother. She was soon lost. Barcelona is a large city, and not every woman there can be expected to know her way around it.
Maria ran into a young monk. “How can I get to St. Mark’s Street?” she asked.
The monk stopped. He peered closely at her—he seemed to be thinking about something. The sun had set. The moon had risen. It cast its cold rays upon Maria’s beautiful face. Not for nothing do the poets mention the moon when they praise the beauty of women. A woman is a hundred times lovelier by moonlight. Maria’s brisk walk had left her breathless and panting. Her beautiful black hair had tumbled down over her shoulders and her breasts. She reached up to draw her scarf around her neck and inadvertently bared her arms to the elbow.
“By the blood of Saint Januarius, you are a witch!” the young monk burst out.
“If you weren’t a monk, I’d say you’re drunk!” Maria parlayed back.
“A witch!” Through clenched teeth, the monk recited an incantation against evil. “That dog that I saw just a moment ago, where is it? It’s you! I saw it turn into you. I know. I saw. I am not yet twenty-five years old, but already I’ve uncovered fifty witches. And you are number fifty-one! I am Augustine . . .” And crossing himself, he turned and was gone.
Maria knew all about Augustine. She’d heard about him from her parents. She knew he was a zealous exterminator of witches and the author of a learned tract that reviled women and men born of woman.
Maria went on her way and before long, she met Augustine again. Four black figures emerged from a large building with a long Latin inscription over the door. They let her pass and then followed her. One of them, she could tell, was Augustine. They followed her all the way home.
Three days later, a man with a puffy shaved face, dressed in black, evidently a judge, paid a visit to the Spalanzos. Spalanzo was summoned before the archbishop immediately.
“Your wife is a witch!” the archbishop thundered.
Spalanzo turned pale.
“Praise the Lord,” the archbishop continued. “A man whose precious gift is to see the evil spirit within has opened our eyes. Your wife was seen to turn into a black dog, a black dog that turned back into your wife.”
Spalanzo gasped. “She’s not a witch. She’s my wife!”
“The bride of Satan is no wife for a Catholic! Wretch, she has betrayed you with the evil one countless times. Haven’t you noticed? Go home. Bring her here straightaway.”
The archbishop was a very learned man. He derived the word femina from two words: fe and minus, because incontestably a woman has less faith than a man.
Spalanzo left the archbishop’s chambers as pale as a corpse. He clutched his head. If the monks said Maria was a witch, who would believe him if he said otherwise? Who would dare?
All Barcelona would be convinced. Every last person! Fools will fall for a falsehood, and the people of Barcelona were fools to a man!
“No people are more foolish than the Spanish,” Spalanzo’s father, a doctor, had inveighed on his deathbed. “Scorn them and their beliefs!”
Spalanzo shared many beliefs with his fellow Spaniards, but the words of the archbishop he didn’t believe. He knew his wife. In any case, he was convinced that it was only when they got old that women turned into witches.
“The monks want to burn you, Maria!” he told his wife. He was back from seeing the archbishop. “They say you’re a witch. They’ve ordered me to bring you there. Listen, wife! If you really are a witch, well—that’s that!—turn into a black cat and flee; but if there’s no evil spirit in you, I’m not going to turn you in. The monks will put a dog’s collar on you. They won’t let you sleep until you confess, whether it’s true or not. But if you are a witch—just leave! Run away!”
Maria didn’t turn into a black cat. She didn’t run away. She wept. She prayed to God.
“Listen!” said Spalanzo to his weeping wife. “My father told me that the time will come—soon—when people who believe in witches will be mocked. My father may have been an unbeliever, but he was no liar. We’ve got to hide you away until that time comes. And that’s easy! My brother Christopher’s ship is in the harbor for repairs. We’ll hide you there until the time is ripe. My father promised it would be soon.”
That evening, Maria sat in the ship’s hold, shivering from cold and fear, and listening to the noise of the waves. She couldn’t wait for Spalanzo’s father’s unlikely prophesy to come true.
“Where is your wife?” the archbishop demanded.
Spalanzo lied. “She turned into a black cat and ran away!”
“Just as I said! Never mind. We’ll find her. Augustine has a gift! An extraordinary gift! Go in peace, my son, and next time, don’t marry a witch! Evil spirits can migrate from wife to husband. Just last year I burned a devout Catholic who touched an unclean woman and was compelled to give his soul to Satan. You’re free to go!”
Maria was in the ship for a long time. Every night, Spalanzo visited her. He brought her whatever she needed. She was there for a month, for two months, for three, and still the longed-for time had not come. Superstitions disappear, Spalanzo’s father was right about that, but not in a matter of months. Superstitions live on and on—it takes centuries for them to die off.
Now that she was used to her new life, Maria began to make fun of the monks. She called them crows. She could have gone on like that for a while and, when the ship was all fixed up, sailed away to distant lands, far far from foolish Spain—as Christopher proposed—if not for an irreparable disaster.
Passed from hand to hand and published in every plaza and marketplace, the archbishop’s proclamation had finally made its way to Spalanzo. He read it lost in thought. He couldn’t stop thinking about the promised absolution of sins.
“How good to be absolved of all my sins!” He sighed.
Spalanzo considered himself a terrible sinner. He had countless sins on his conscience, sins for which many a Catholic had been burned or died under torture. When Spalanzo was young, he had lived in Toledo, then a rallying point of sorcerers and wizards. During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, arithmetic flourished in Toledo as nowhere else in Europe. But in Spain, arithmetic was one step away from magic. Under the tutelage of his father, Spalanzo had practiced magic. He’d dissected animals. He’d gathered strange herbs. Once, while pounding something in an iron mortar, a bluish flame had burst out: an evil spirit that escaped with a horrible noise. Life in Toledo had been rife with sin!
After his father’s death, Spalanzo left Toledo, consumed with remorse for his sins. An old monk—a very learned doctor—told him that if he wanted to be forgiven, he must perform a great deed. Spalanzo was ready to do anything to receive absolution for his sins. If only he could rid his soul of these memories of his shameful Toledan life and avoid hell! He would have given half of all his earthly goods, if indulgences had been available at the time. He would have gone on foot to the holy sites, but his business dealings held him back.
He read the archbishop’s proclamation and he thought, “If I weren’t her husband, I’d turn her in.”
Day and night he was tormented by the thought that with just one word he would receive absolution. He loved his wife—he loved her very much. If not for that love, a weakness despised by monks and by Toledan doctors too, he would probably have spoken.
He showed the proclamation to his brother Christopher.
“If she’s a witch, I’d turn her in,” said his brother, “except she’s so beautiful. Absolution’s a good thing. Then again, we won’t lose out if we hand Maria over to those crows when she’s dead. Let them burn her then. Dead, there’s no pain. And she’ll die when we’re old, when we’ll really need absolution.”
Christopher had said his piece. He burst out laughing, and slapped his brother on the shoulder.
“I might die before her,” Spalanzo brooded. “If I wasn’t her husband, I’d turn her in, I swear!”
A week later, Spalanzo paced the ship’s deck. “If only she were dead!” he muttered under his breath. “I won’t turn her in alive, no! Dead, I’d turn her in! I’d trick the lot of those damned old crows and receive absolution!”
So foolish Spalanzo poisoned his poor wife.
He brought Maria’s dead body to the court. It was burned.
He received absolution for the sins he’d committed in Toledo. He was forgiven for learning how to heal people and for studying the science that in years to come would be known as chemistry. The archbishop praised him and gave Spalanzo a book that he’d written himself. In it, the learned archbishop explained that it’s because demons are black that black-haired women are so often possessed by demons.
THE TEMPERAMENTS
(Based on the Latest Scientific Findings)
SANGUINE TEMPERAMENT IN A MALE
THE SANGUINE male is readily influenced by all his experiences, which is the cause, according to Hufeland,* of his frivolity. In his youth he is a bébé and a Spitzbube.† He is rude to teachers, doesn’t get haircuts, doesn’t shave, wears glasses, and scribbles on walls. He is a bad student but manages to graduate. He doesn’t respect his parents. If he is rich, he dresses to the nines; if he is impoverished, he lives like a pig. He sleeps until noon and goes to bed at odd hours. He makes mistakes when he writes. For love alone did Nature create him,‡ and he is constantly in love with someone or other. He is always willing to drink himself silly, but after drinking himself into a stupor, he gets up in the morning as sound as a bell, his head just a touch heavier than usual and not in need of similia similibus curantur.§ He gets married by accident. He is constantly fighting with his mother-in-law. He doesn’t get along with his relatives. He lies nonstop. He is terribly fond of scandals and amateur theater. In an orchestra he plays first violin. Because he is frivolous, he is liberal. Either he doesn’t read at all or he reads nonstop. He likes newspapers and wouldn’t mind writing for them. The “Responses to Our Correspondents” section of humor magazines has been invented specifically for males of sanguine temperament. He is constant in his inconstancy. When in service, he is an official for special missions or something to that effect. In school he teaches language arts. He rarely gets promoted to actual state councillor, but when he does, he turns phlegmatic or, in the rare instance, choleric. Scamps, rapscallions, and ne’er-do-wells are all of the sanguine temperament. It is not recommended to sleep in the same room with anyone who is a sanguine: He’ll tell you jokes all night, and if he doesn’t know any jokes, he will criticize his relatives or else tell lies. He will die of a disease of the digestive system and premature burnout.
SANGUINE TEMPERAMENT IN A FEMALE
The sanguine female is the most bearable of women, at least when not stupid.
CHOLERIC TEMPERAMENT IN A MALE
The choleric male is bilious with a yellow-gray face. The nose is crooked, and the eyes go around in their sockets like hungry wolves in a narrow cage. He is easily annoyed. A fleabite or a pinprick makes him want to tear the whole world to bits. When he talks he splutters and bares his teeth, which are either stained brown or are very white. He is firmly convinced that in the winter it is “damned cold” and in the summer it is “damned hot.” He fires his cook on a weekly basis. He feels miserable at dinner because everything is overdone, oversalted, and so forth. Most men of a choleric temperament are bachelors, but if they are married, they keep their wives under lock and key. He is dreadfully jealous. He does not understand jokes. He detests everything. He reads newspapers only so he can heap abuse on the newspapermen. He swears that all newspapers lie (something he’s believed since he was a fetus). Impossible as a husband and friend; unbearable to employ; unthinkable and altogether undesirable as a boss. All too often, unfortunately, a choleric is a teacher, teaching arithmetic or Greek. I do not recommend that you sleep in the same room with him: He coughs all night, spits, and loudly curses fleas. If the howling of cats disturbs him or a rooster crows during the night, he coughs and in a tremulous voice orders a servant to climb on the roof and strangle the creature, come hell or high water. He will die of consumption or of liver disease.
CHOLERIC TEMPERAMENT IN A FEMALE
The choleric female is a devil in a skirt, a crocodile.
PHLEGMATIC TEMPERAMENT IN A MALE
The phlegmatic male is a likable man (I am talking about a Russian rather than an English phlegmatic, of course). In physical appearance he is ordinary and rough-hewn. He is always serious because he is too lazy to laugh. He eats whatever, whenever. He doesn’t drink because he’s afraid of dropping dead from a stroke. He sleeps twenty out of the twenty-four hours. He is indispensable as a participant in committees, sessions, and urgent meetings, where he understands nothing, dozes off without feeling the least bit guilty, and waits patiently for it all to come to an end. Helped by his aunts and uncle, he gets married at thirty—making the most obliging of husbands: easygoing, agreeable to everything, uncomplaining. He calls his wife “sweetheart.” He enjoys suckling pig with horseradish sauce, church choirs, all things sour, and a nip in the air. The phrase “Vanitas vanitatum et omnia vanitas”* (which he translates as “Nonsense, more nonsense, it’s all nonsense anyway”) must have been invented by a phlegmatic. Only when selected for jury duty does he fall sick. On glimpsing a fat peasant woman he wriggles his fingers and ventures a smile. He subscribes to Niva magazine* and it bothers him that the pictures aren’t in color and that the stories aren’t funny. Writers, in his opinion, are as smart as they are pernicious. He thinks it’s a pity that children aren’t beaten in school, and doesn’t mind administering a good beating himself. He is successful at work. In an orchestra, he plays the double bass, the bassoon, or the trombone. In a theater, he is the cashier, an usher, a prompter, or, sometimes, pour manger,* an actor. He dies of a stroke or of edema.
