The Big Green Tent by Ludmila Ulitskaya Read Free Book Online

the habit of smiling for no discernible reason, then breaking into a frown, then twitching his nose or lips. He was improbably polite, addressing everyone with the formal “you”; but he could also be very caustic.
    For starters, when Ilya was wending his way through the rows of desks with his unsteady gait, the teacher said: “Why are you waddling about like a duck?” Ilya took an instant dislike to him. Then the teacher picked up the attendance book to call roll. When he got to the surname Svinin (someone did have that unfortunate name, which sounded so much like “swine”), he stopped, peered closely at Svinin’s small face, then said in a strange tone that could have been either respectful or mocking: “Nice name.” The class erupted in guffaws, and Senka Svinin turned red as a beet. The teacher raised his eyebrows quizzically.
    â€œWhy are you laughing? It’s a very distinguished name. There was an ancient clan of boyars called the Svinins. Peter the Great himself sent a Svinin, I don’t recall his first name, to Holland to study. You’ve never read The Silver Knight ? The Svinins are mentioned in it. It’s a fascinating book, by the way.”
    Within three months, all of them, including Ilya, Senka Svinin, and, in particular, Mikha, thought the teacher could do no wrong. They clung to his every word, twitching their lips and furrowing their brows in perfect imitation of him.
    The Hand also read poetry to them. At the beginning of every class, while they were settling into their seats and getting their notebooks out, he recited a poem from memory, never telling them who the author was. His choices seemed very idiosyncratic. One day it would be the familiar “A lonely sail is flashing white”; and the next, the enigmatic but memorable “the air is blue, like the bundle of linen of a patient just discharged from hospital.” Then, out of nowhere, he’d toss out some inspired gobbledegook, like:
    Outside it was cold, Tristan was on the stage .
    A wounded sea sang in the orchestra pit,
    Green realm behind the bluish steam.
    A heart that ceased to beat.
    No one saw her enter the theater,
    But there she was, seated in her box,
    Like a Briullov painting.
    Women so lovely live only in novels,
    Or come to life on-screen …
    Men steal for them, or worse.
    They ambush their carriages and
    Poison themselves in garrets …
    Mikha’s heart leapt to his throat when he heard poems like this, though the other students were unmoved. But Mikha was the one the teacher looked at—he was almost the only one who lapped up the verses. Sanya would smile condescendingly at the teacher’s weakness: some of the poems were ones that his grandmother had read to him. The other kids forgave their teacher his curious predilection. They considered poetry an effeminate affectation for a man who had fought on the front lines during the war.
    Occasionally, however, he recited something very apropos. When they began reading Taras Bulba , he came to class with something that was clearly about Gogol:
    Our own wayward riddle,
    You alighted on the earth,
    Our own thoughtful mockingbird
    With sorrow on your brow.
    Our Hamlet! Laughter mixed
    With tears, inner woe,
    Outer cheer, burdened by
    Success, as others by ill luck.
    Darling and martyr of
    Fame, always gentle to you,
    Drone of life, wanderer,
    Struggling with an inner storm.
    A ruined ascetic in spirit,
    An Aristophanes on the page,
    Physician and scourge of all
    Our ills and wounds!
    It seemed there wasn’t a single occasion in life for which he didn’t have a poem at the ready.
    â€œWe are studying literature,” he would constantly remind them, as though it were breaking news. “Literature is the finest thing humankind has created. Poetry is the beating heart of literature, the highest concentration of all that is best in the world and in people. It is the only true food for the soul. It is