corridors pursued by a mob of Anton Morozov doubles in shining black shoes; and every time it happened, I would get out of bed, tiptoe to the front door, and stand there for a long while in a grip of clinging, cold fear, listening to the soundless void on the other side and imagining a volley of ruthless knocks that could shatter the drafty darkness at any moment….
The knocking shook the door again, more impatient this time. With dizzying speed Sukhanov traversed forty-eight years of his life in the opposite direction and emerged onto the surface of reality.
“Who is it?” he asked, his voice shaken.
The answer came promptly.
“Militia, open up!”
Though far removed from the inarticulate, sinister, almost surreal menace of his nightmares, the words were nonetheless extremely disturbing, and he found himself clammy with apprehension as he fiddled with the locks. The landing was dim, full of wavering shadow; the bulb over the elevator gate had begun to flicker some days earlier. In the uncertain light he saw three figures looming before him—two uniformed militiamen and, behind them, a large woman of fifty-odd years in an unbecomingly flimsy tangerine kimono, her head blooming with a profusion of pink curlers. With a start Sukhanov recognized Tamara Bubuladze, the celebrated Amneris from the floor below.
For a moment an uneasy silence hung between them, disturbed only by rare, drowsy barks of Bubuladze’s basset hounds reaching them mutedly from the stairwell. Then the older of the militiamen, with a potato-like nose, turned to the singer.
“Seems quiet enough to me, Madame Bubuladze,” he said doubtfully, “and this man here doesn’t quite… Are you sure this is the apartment?”
“Of course I’m sure!” the woman cried, glaring at Sukhanov. “Sounds carry from their place to mine perfectly well. Shameless, positively shameless, and at his age!… Ah, and this must be one of the hussies!”
Turning, Sukhanov saw Ksenya’s nightgown gleaming faintly in the hallway behind him.
“This hussy,” he said, “is my daughter. What exactly—”
“Anyone else with you?” interrupted the younger militiaman, his cheeks red as tomatoes.
“My wife, my son, and my cousin,” said Sukhanov dryly. “Now, can someone please tell me why I was dragged out of bed at… What time is it, anyway?”
Signs of confused stirring were spreading through the apartment: bedsprings creaking, an irritated yawn, the clicking of Nina’s slippers crossing invisible space, a lamp switched on somewhere.
“Just past four,” said the potato nose in a deflated voice. “It appears there’s been a mistake. This lady called us about… er… a noisy party…”
“An
“Yes, well,” said the tomato cheeks cautiously, “but it obviously wasn’t these people here, was it now, Madame Bubuladze? Seems they were all asleep. Maybe you just had a… a bad dream? Why don’t we take you back to your—”
“That,” said the woman, “was no dream. I’m not crazy, I can still tell a dream from reality, thank you very much.”
“If it’s all the same to you, Tamara Eduardovna,” Sukhanov interjected pointedly, “I’d like to get back to bed sometime tonight. If you comrades want to come in and make sure—”
The vegetables exchanged quick looks.
“No, no, that’s not necessary,” said the potato wearily. “Sorry for the disturbance.”
As he shut the door, Sukhanov caught one last glimpse of the heaving, boulderlike breasts and heard the once famous mezzo-soprano shriek, “And
He appeared disgruntled as he explained the incident to a perplexed Nina before retiring to his couch—but in truth, he found it rather amusing (especially as its comic absurdity had rescued him from a further onslaught of dark recollections), and it was with unfeigned laughter that he emerged for breakfast the next day. The whole family, it seemed, had already dispersed on their morning errands; Dalevich alone sat in the kitchen, cutting an apple into thin, precise slices and feeding them delicately to his beard.
“What a night!” he said, smiling. “Is it always so exciting around here? I see what they mean about life in the big city.”
“I’d say the past few days have been somewhat more eventful than usual,” Sukhanov replied with a chuckle. “That woman clearly has a loose screw. I hope you were able to fall asleep again.”
“To be honest, I didn’t try,” said Dalevich. “I spent the rest of the night working on my book. I prefer writing at night anyway. My ideas flow better when it’s dark and quiet.”
“Excellent pancakes,” observed Sukhanov. “Did Nina make them?… Ah, I suspected as much…. Speaking of your book, Fedya, I’ve been thinking about, how did you put it, this ‘harmonious balance between form and content’ that you say characterizes all true art, and I’m curious about something. In terms of form, the old Russian icons are, you must agree, quite primitive—all those stilted processions of Byzantine saints with unnaturally small faces, short arms, trite golden locks, and eyes the size of saucers, tacked onto flat backgrounds. With their form so imperfect, how can you regard your icons as great art?”
“My dear Tolya,” Dalevich replied, “I can’t believe that an experienced critic like yourself would stumble into the common pitfall of confusing ‘perfect form’ with a form that is merely flawless in its execution. Of course, in its technical aspects, the manner of icon painting is medieval and therefore by necessity flawed. And yet, I insist, it is perfect—insofar as by ‘erfect’ I mean simply the form most suitable to its subject. What better way is there to portray man’s unearthly aspirations, I ask you, than by ignoring irrelevant flesh with its trappings of chiaroscuro and perspective, and presenting instead these floating, pure colors, these insubstantial bodies, these luminous faces, these enormous, mournful eyes? These works create an impression of a door in our dim, mundane lives, opening for a moment to reveal an ethereal glimpse of heaven, a golden flash of God’s paradise. The effect becomes far less wondrous if one dilutes such stark, glowing purity with even the smallest dose of your accurately rendered reality. Compare, for instance, Rublev’s Trinity with that of Simon Ushakov, painted some two hundred fifty years later, on the threshold of a new, material age. Instead of Rublev’s single chalice, Ushakov places
“Spiritual content?” Sukhanov repeated with derision. “Is that what you call spirit, then—a dark tangle of superstitious cliches robed in centuries of random symbols and served up on an elaborately jeweled platter for peasants’ consumption?”
“And what do
“The eternal human striving to attain new heights,” said Sukhanov without hesitation.
“By which you mean, no doubt, various cultural developments ultimately designed to facilitate the advent of bigger factories and happier family units?” asked Dalevich amiably. “That is, after all, what you people preach— useful art in service of a Great Tomorrow? And by the way, have you ever considered that your socialist realism and my religious painting have much in common—indeed, the one may be said to be a logical, if sadly impoverished, continuation of the other. Both have deep communal roots, and both serve a noble purpose—the good of the people or the salvation of all mankind, as the case may be. In both, too, the painter is an anonymous teacher of sorts, a compassionate man with a holy mission to educate, to enlighten, to show the way—a very Russian idea of the artist in general, don’t you find, so unlike the Western type of a solitary dreamer engaged in a private game of self-glorification. And of course, both socialist realism and icon painting are concerned with an ideal, visionary future, except that yours is strictly material, an earthly paradise of your own devising, so to speak, while mine—”
“What in the devil’s name does socialist realism have to do with it?” interrupted Sukhanov. “I’m talking about
