Аннотация: Перевод рассказа И.В.Зорина "Помещик Дыдыш-Б. читает Борхеса"
Illarion Eugrafovich Dydysh-Boltianskiy rode to his native manor. The frozen crust of snow squeaked, the treetops pricked the sun, the coachman devil-may-care was clicking the whip. To come before nightfall leaved the town at crack of dawn, but on the way they've been attacked. Robbers were seven together with pitchforks , but Illarion Eugrafovich once served in grenadiers and since then drove the pistols everywhere. They beat off loosing the hats, but had to make a detour, besides Matveich, squinting from birth, in one"s fright has rolled up the wrong road. Illarion Eugrafovich was pretty hungry and already felt sorry that didn't take the curd-tards. "The stomach ringing is stronger then bells" -he thought, crisscrossing oneself and to distract began recalling the writer, whose name was on everybody's lips in town, though it was hardly reprimanded. In the salons his overseas motherland was praised - Illarion Eugrafovich forgot it in gymnasia - Mrs.Ostropiko's governess had been reading his books aloud Spanish. Illarion Eugrafovich clattered in tongue and significantly turned the eyebrows. On Spanish he only knew he was not Ferdinand VIII and that the Algerian bey has a lump straight under his nose. But his pal Sinichkin, be said a literary man, cause he spoke as he wrote and wrote love-letters for the whole town, dragged him to the bookshop. "You've been sitting too long, my dear, in your Tarakanovka!" - importunate midge, cheeped he, descending to the cellar. But there behind the loosened door a fidgety and hook-nosed Greek or a Jew foisted off on him a small volume in a leather binding. "Good version" letting down the glasses Illarion Eugrafovich flashed "How much would you ask?" The East men said. "See, bookworm!" Illarion Eugrafovich hemmed. But, afraid to display the ignorance, groaning parted with a banknote.
"May you drop dead"- he thought, holding out his hand to Sinichkin at parting. But in return under the sable fur coat there rested a book against his side, a book, that remembered sticky fingers of Greek or Jew. The little bells were tinkling, the endless forests gave way to the boundless fields, and all this was making you sleepy. "Still long to go, Matveich?" Illarion Eugrafovich shouted warning and, getting no answer brought the letters closer to the short-sighted eyes. And there and then traveled on the book through the plains flooded with sunlight by the scorched pastures, crazy herds and frail villages, where drunken shepherds were prodding each other with the knifes. Here two tumbled out of the tavern. One slipped the hand in his bosom, the other thrust his in the top of the boot.
"You've got there something... - said the first one through clenched teeth. - So get it out, lets compare..."
"You killed me in previous avatar"- the other replied indifferently - it's my turn now..."
"What a fool, - Illarion Eugrafovich thought, - they hit the mug first" And recollected Turkey, where his regiment was basing: the deserted territories, the wild people, their fast horses with bare legs and courage until the first volley. "Don't endeavor - he yelled in Spanish - or fast you go to the ispravnik*" The shepherds placed their hats on their hips, looking daggers. But didn't dare to get out the knifes.
"I'd flog them... - Illarion Eugrafovich thought - culture not mushrooms - doesn't spring from rain...". On sides, escorting, stretched the snowdrifts. Illarion Eugrafovich's nose tickled. Fidgeting he got into the pocket and had time to sneeze to handkerchief. The book dropped. He turned the pages for half an hour, but didn't find the former passage. "Not really, what a thick one..." - had mumbled he. Matveich stroke up the "Yamshik". "Life's a long song, - Illarion Eugrafovich thought - in youth it is sung by passion, in ripe old age - by infirmity. And through the drowsiness it seemed to him that in a sleep he, like God, the Most High , was sculpting Matveich from clay. Heart, liver, the ragged zipun (homespun coat). Here pulled down a shock of gray wig over his eyes, distorted them, traced the eyelashes with tar and rouged the cheeks with bull blood. Fastening Matveich to reigns, he reached for the hookah, admiring upon his work, when suddenly felt that he himself was sculpted by someone in his own sleep, like a patch quilt, sewing together out of the pieces of shadows, detaching from twilight and tugging at ears like carrot. Illarion Eugrafovich nearly chattered the teeth, but didn't hear the tap. And then with the pang of indignity he realized that he is only a spook in someone's sleep. "Not for anything," - he stamped numb feet, - "I know who's my father...". "Its the frost stinging" - rubbed he the ears, reddening under the collar. The dawning sprinkled. Now he was eating a fish-soup in a tavern, and a sterlets noddle turbidly mowed down the eyes, suddenly moved the cheek-bones and hissed on Spanish: "So what, Mister, ate it up?" The cock crowed behind the window. Illarion Eugrafovich after retirement liked to luxuriate, and had all the noisy cocks in his village cut long ago. And then he has understood he hadn't woke up, and his previous nightmare was hidden in the other one, like in Matreshka. "What an absurd is filling my mind..." - he swore pulling off the mitten and blowing his nose. "All because of the book..." However, opening in the middle, went on further reading. On the Last Supper the plotters are telling fibs of the governor, but there is a traitor among them. He betrays his friends and perishes, but becomes a hero. "Nothing wonder, - coughing in the fist Illarion Eugrafovich flattered the beard, - you can not break your oath...And a gallows to the mutineers." He already grudged the money and swore like nothing on earth at all Greeks and Jews. "A bee-keeper would've told better, - he twiddled the book. - I guess, Sinichkin was the man who took everybody for a ride..." At the turn the sledge twitched, heeled. Matveich nearly fall down the coachman's seat, Illarion Eugrafovich dropped the book. Keep even... - bawled he. - After all, I'm reading..." Shaking off the snow, he wanted to clear up why the traitor became a hero, but hadn't found the former page. "Well then, I shall read at random..." Clasping to the knee chirred the pages, as if the card pack, and by chance folded with a nail. "Illarion Eugrafovich Dydysh-Boltianskiy rode to his native manor, - revealed to him. - The frozen crust of snow squeaked, the treetops pricked the sun, the coachman devil-may-care was clicking the whip..." Illarion Eugrafovich pinched his cheek but didn't feel the pain, decided that injured it by frost-bite. "This is ultimately tedious, - he thought, - what can one find out here, when I'll be in Tarakanovka tonight..." And began imagining how he would rub the cheek with vodka. They wandered and wandered, miles stung to the wheels, and in the snowdrifts the imps spit their sides with laughter. Illarion Eugrafovich was pretty bored with the book, he started to yawn and now saw himself in the theater, as if he was taking the part of Hamlet. Here appears the shadow of the Father-King, here is Ophelia sobbing on his shoulder, and behind the curtain Polonius, resembling Matveich, is screwing up his eyes slyly. And all of a sudden Illarion Eugrafovich notes that somebody from the dark hall is recalling actors one by one, taking them off the stage, as if the chess pieces. The play was declining as the shagreen leather, that had roles inscripted on its sides, and at last Illarion Eugrafovich was alone. "To be or not to be?" - he stood still on the brink of the stage and lifted his hands in dismay, as the scarecrow.
"Not to be" a muffled echo had reached him from the dark. Illarion Eugrafovich was struck with terror. He guessed where were disappearing the characters: they dies before time because behind Shakespeare"s back there stood another author, moving his pen... Illarion Eugrafovich swore. He no longer dared to read in succession, but took separate sentences at random, as do damsels while
reading fortune. "When God created time, He created enough of it", - he came across. "When there is mowing my slackers are scoffing like that", - he burst out laughing. But suddenly he was not himself with the strange thoughts. It seemed to him, that he is driving inside the gigantic egg, which shell is shining as the snow, and will never reach his Tarakanovka. "Perhaps life is a labyrinth built not for us, - he stumbled across, - and to seek the door out of somebody else's house is purposeless". "Not on your life... - Illarion Eugrafovich began laughing again. - No fear, I go to my village...". However he was past laughter. To learn the ending, he wanted to go back to the story about himself, wetting the fingers, he crumpled the paper convulsive, but only seated moist stains. Then he fixed his eyes on the patch on the back of Matveich, whom he didn't dare to hail. He was terrified. He all of a sudden realized, that Matveich lost his way long ago, and, afraid to tell the truth, drives him not knowing where. "The Fortune is never straight, she dodges before leading to the graveyard", - the book croaked. Before that he would let it skip. So philosophized in the hayloft making faces his serfs Andrey Fadeev and Faddey Andrйa, whom he always mixed up. "There is a church for it, - he wagged his finger at them, - to philosophize by ourselves is the same as to goggle in the larder..." Dusk was falling, the snow clung to sledge runners, and the eyes got blind from the snowstorm. For a moment he felt sorry for himself, he imagined the flushing face of Sinichkin, gossip in the noble Assembly and feigned sighs of servants. "Lord, oh lord..." the peasant women in the village would lament, the ladies in salons would sob, thinking only of their powdered noses. And Illarion Eugrafovich thought that the whole world is that Turkey, where the dogs now fight, now spoon... The stars hang poised. But it was already impossible to make out the letters, nor the back of Matveich's head. The lips of Illarion Eugrafovich turned blue, and the icicles meddlered in the moustache. His teeth were chattering from cold, but he didn't hear the patter. "As if the spectre," - he thought and flung the book into the snow. Matveich, freezed to death had been found only in spring-time. The corpse was gnawed by the wolfs, but it was identified by the sheepskin worn through. Illarion Eugrafovich hadn't been found at all. There spread a gossip that he got lost in the book, as he tracked down the story about himself finally. For before he could arrive, he was to read about his arrive. And before he could read to the end, to arrive...