'You can't remake the world without politics.' 'Now you're at it again, Vasil! You're simply unbearable! ... Let's go home, or we'll have a real row.'
Only when we tied up at the pier did I feel how tired I was. My hands were sore from the rub of the oars. At the gate I wanted to say good-bye and get away, but Angelika put her hands behind her back and said: 'You'll do no such thing... Today you're going to spend the whole evening with me. Come to our house. I'll introduce you to Daddy.'
Angelika's father was sitting in the big dining-room laying out cards on the dinner table. He was so absorbed that he did not even turn round when we entered.
'Daddy! We have a guest!' Angelika cried and touched his shoulder.
Andrykhevich turned round. Tossing the pack of cards on the table he rose to greet us. He was tall and big- boned. His head nearly reached the heavy chandelier that hung from the ceiling. I was struck at once by his bushy, knitted eyebrows and curved, hawk-like, nose.
'With whom have I the honour?' he said, offering me a big wrinkled hand.
'Vasily Mandzhura,' I said.
'He's our new neighbour, Daddy. I told you Maria Trofimovna had some new lodgers. Vasily's one of them. I hope you'll like him. He's a tremendous arguer.'
'I like to meet young people thirsting for argument. It was the great art of argument that gave ancient Greece her culture. Those arguments revealed many truths that are still alive today.' And motioning to a chair: 'Sit down, Vasily.'
'Mironovich,' I said, giving him my patronymic, and pulled my chair up to the massive table.
'Do you know what we have for supper, my dear? Crayfish! Just think of it, Kuzma brought me a whole pailful from Alekseyevka! I've just sent Dasha for beer.'
'Daddy's a devoted crayfish-eater,' Lika explained. 'He often gets the train attendants to bring him crayfish all the way from Ekaterinoslav.'
The engineer glanced at me very keenly and said: 'You entertain our guest, Lika, and I'll go and cook these creatures.' And he went out to the kitchen.
'Now Daddy will perform his rites! He boils the crayfish in a special way—with caraway and laurel leaves and parsley. He loves cooking them. Even when Mummy's at home, he doesn't let her have anything to do with it. Mummy's still away at Uncle's. She hasn't come back since she went at Easter... Would you like me to show you my little nest?' '
Once you let yourself in for a thing, you have to go through with it. Now that I had consented to come in, I had to agree to the wishes of my hostess.
Lika and I went into a small room with windows looking out into the garden. The room was draped from floor to ceiling with Persian carpets. On one of the carpets hung a little icon and before it, suspended in a brass holder, burned a red-glass lamp. 'Oho! Religious into the bargain!' I thought.
Angelika touched a switch and turned on the ceiling lamp, flooding the room with light. The dazzling shafts from the windows shone on a piece of flower-bed and a sandy path edged with broken tiles.
'Is this where you talk to your fairies?' I asked with a grin.
'Yes. This is where I tell my secrets to my kind grey princess, and study the horoscopes of great people... By the way, Vasil, which month were you born in?'
'April. What about it?'
'In April? Under the Ram?'
'What Ram?. . .' I exclaimed, not troubling to hide my impatience.
'No need to get offended! The 'Ram is the first zodiacal constellation. Sit down here and listen. I'll tell you everything about your personality.'
She rustled the pages of a book and sweeping back her long chestnut hair, began to read.
' The sign of the Ram endows people with many talents: perseverance, courage, an unquenchable thirst for action, bordering sometimes on madness. People born under the Ram are always ready to fight fanatically for the cause to which they have devoted themselves, even in the after-life and in the service of Beelzebub. It is to be regretted, however, that owing to their immense impulsiveness they sometimes dedicate themselves to causes unworthy of such zealous devotion. It is this heightened impulsiveness and lack of forethought that makes them rash at times and leads them to deeds of madness. A man born
under the Ram may show a tendency to martyrdom, thus becoming a Lamb of Sacrifice. . ......Well!' said
Angelika, drawing a deep breath. 'And that's you! Amazing, isn't it? Your whole character spread out before you. What have you got to say to that, Vasil?'
'It's all a lot of superstition.'
'Why superstition, Vasil? Don't be silly! Listen to what it says now: 'The Ram endows people with a leaning for technical matters and industry. It gives birth to people for professions connected with fire and iron, it develops a talent for organization and leadership...' Isn't that exactly about you and your ideals?'
'Prophecies like that can be made to fit anyone... And what's this after-life got to do with it?'
'But not everyone is born in April. And just listen to this: 'He should seek friends born between twenty-fourth of July and the twenty-fourth of August, under the Lion.' And did you know, my birthday's on the twenty-fifth of July? We were made for each other by Providence!'
'What's she getting at with all her cunning flattery?' I thought in alarm. 'That would be a fine thing! To get tied up with this mademoiselle with her carpets and fairies!
Br-r-r! That'd just about finish a fellow off!' I shuddered at the thought.
'Why don't you say something, Vasil?... Don't look at me in that awful way, you'll make me faint.'
'It's all rubbish ... superstition, drivel!' I said with conviction. 'Only people who haven't got anything left in this life invent another world.'
'Why is it drivel? Oh, you are so intolerant! My father has engineers round for spiritualist seances. They turn a little table in the dark and call up spirits. They've already had messages from the spirit of Napoleon, and even Navuchodonosor has spoken to them!'
'I know all about those tricks!' I said and began to laugh heartily. 'Back home in Podolia, not far from our town, people suddenly started talking about the Kalinovskoe miracle. The local women thought they had seen blood flowing out of the wounds of a figure of Christ on a roadside cross. Crowds of people came to see it, like at a fair. And what do you think? A special commission came down and checked up on everything and found out that it was some priests who had faked the whole thing to stir the people up against Soviet power. They made a lot of money out of it too!'
'Oh you disbelieving Thomas!' she said vexedly. 'I. don't know anything about your miracle, but we all heard the voice of Navuchodonosor quite distinctly.'
'He didn't give you a message of greetings from Rogale-Piontkovskaya's daughter in London, did he, by any chance?' I jeered. 'Or from her husband in the other world? What did he say, is the Charleston in fashion up there?'
At that moment Andrykhevich appeared at the door of Angelika's 'nest.'
'Be so kind!' he said and waved us into the dining-room with a sweeping gesture.
The table was kid. Thick dark beer foamed in delicate jugs that stood on an embroidered table-cloth. For every person there was a slender cut-glass goblet and a serviette. A little pot-bellied decanter of the same thick red glass as the icon-lamp that burnt in Lika's room nestled beside one of the beer jugs. And in the middle of the table rose a heaped dish of crimson steaming crayfish with long, drooping whiskers.
'There are crayfish for you!' I thought, sitting down. 'Not like the little midgets we used to catch by the candle factory.'
'While these creatures cool off, I suggest we have some sturgeon,' Andrykhevich said, seating himself opposite me.
I noticed another dish with a long slab of white fish on it bathed in thick yellow sauce and trimmed with slices of lemon.
Spearing a piece of fish with a fork, I began to cut it with my knife. Suddenly I noticed Andrykhevich and his daughter exchange glances. I must have done something wrong.. Looking at her father, Angelika put her finger quickly to her lips. He smirked silently and raised his eyebrows. The appetite that I had begun to feel after rowing vanished at once. What had I done?
