The Naked Year by Boris Pilnyak Read Free Book Online Page A

puttied in, forever. During the two years of Gleb’s absence the house really flew into the abyss–it, the large house, built up over a century, standing on a base of six meters, as if on three whales, in one year decayed, decomposed and disintegrated. Furthermore, the mark of Cain was long ago imprinted on it.
    Gleb’s cigarette burns with an even glow by the window, Gleb is listening attentively to the old house. In this house his youth was spent, which always seemed immeasurably bright and clear–and is now cut off by the gloom of the Revolution. And the pain: no more thoughts about art or about prayer–or about a certain fair girl. In the hall on the wall are ancient frameless portraits. A huge, yellow grand piano snarls, like a bulldog, and in the corner are placed screens and behind the screens is Gleb’s narrow bed. In the hall, behind strong frames, there is an unlived-in and damp smell, and the smell is faintly tinged with that of paints and glue–an artistic smell. The mirrors shine dimly, these ones have been neglected and have grown dull. The moon shines outside the windows with a pale pre-morning light. Night–one must be cheerful!
    Subtly again chimes the glass clock, the eighteenth century, and the cuckoo clock of Asia replies. And immediately after the clock, simultaneous with the cathedral’s ringing, a bell timidly rings down below, by the entrance, and again silence arrives, the nocturnal house sleeps. Then Gleb lights up a candle-end–a red tip glows, and the blue shadows of the night, becoming dimmer, quickly flee away–it lights up Gleb’s face, his disheveled hair, his crooked and slender nose, his large forehead, like on the ikons–and his face is ikon-like.
    Near the mother’s bedroom, through the half-open door snoring is heard–that of the mother, née Popkova, and Yelena Yermilovna’s, and from there comes the smell of a stale human body. In the father’s room–Gleb sees through a chink–a lot of dim lamps and tall, slender candles burn by the ikon case, and Gleb sees by the ikon case his father bowed in prayer, his scrawny back can be seen through his dressing gown and his gray, completely white hair. His father’s face can be seen: in his eyes, in his humped nose, in his semi-open lips, in his beard, tousled and gray–is it ecstasy–or, perhaps, madness?… All his life his father, Prince Ordinin, had lived in debauchery, having, in his youth, secured financial well-being, through lack of will-power, with the Popkovs’ capital–but in the first spring of the Revolution, when the rivers had overflowed with their voluminous spring torrents–his life changed sharply; from a drunken prince he became an ascetic, days and nights in prayer.
    In the entrance hall is a wide staircase, worn down by thousands of feet, which goes down to a small trough. Here it is cold, there is a smell of winter, dampness and rotten furs. Along the sides, on the right and the left, doors lead into storerooms–heavy iron doors behind seven locks: behind the doors is kept the wealth of the Popkovs, gathered (stolen, surely?) over the centuries and now scattered–in the bazaars, salvage and communal economy departments.–A candle burns weakly. Gleb opens the outer front door and asks through the inner:
    â€œWho’s there?”
    No immediate answer. It becomes very quiet, and a robin is heard singing in the park.
    â€œWho’s that? –is that you, Gleb Yevgrafovich?” a woman’s voice asks from behind the door.
    â€œIt’s me. Who’s there?”
    â€œIt’s us, I, Marfusha and Yegor Yevgrafovich.”
    â€œYegorushka?”
    And Gleb quickly opens the doors, to see his elder brother, Yegor.
    ...And beyond the door walks the heady June night.
    Yegor is drunk. He is silent. His red bulging eyes are vacant, apart from their characteristic blandness and now embarrassment. He is