Едіт Хейбер. "Відьма" Теффі: міфологія російської душі

Teffi herself considered the collection Відьма (Berlin, 1936) among her best things. Recalling proudly in a late autobiographical note how it was praised highly by Bunin, Kuprin and Merezhkovskii, she adds: "У цій книзі наші давні слов'янські боги, як вони живуть ще в народній душі, в переказах, забобони, звичаї, все, що траплялося мені в моєму дитинстві в російській провінції» 1 . The key words here, I believe, are «живуть ще в народній душі»; in other words, the «слов'янські боги» in Відьма join to form not so much an externalized mythological system, as what one may call a mythology of the Russian psyche. That Teffi is recalling specifically Russian phenomena is evident from the beginning of the title story: «Іноземцю, само собою зрозуміло, розповісти про це абсолютно неможливо - нічого не зрозуміє і нічому не повірить. Ну, а справжній російська людина, не остаточно забув минуле, той, звичайно, все вважатиме цілком достовірним і буде правий »2 .

Fantastic stories generally fall into two categories: one in which supernatural forces indeed operate, the other where a rational explanation is given at the end - the protagonist has been dreaming, someone was playing a trick, etc. What is unusual and striking about Teffi's uncanny tales is that they fall into neither of these categories. Some strange events occur, which simple folk interpret as the intercession of unclean spirits, but the events are never unambiguously supernatural, and Teffi doesn't force us to admit the existence of various нежить. At the same time, however, no more plausible explanation is given and the reader therefore is left in a state of disturbing uncertainty: is the supernatural really involved or is this merely some weird coincidence? A clue to Teffi's method is provided by the remarks of the narrator of «Собака»:

«Я взагалі вважаю, що чудесних історій на світі набагато більше, ніж ми думаємо. Треба тільки вміти бачити, вміти простежити справжню нитка подій, не відкидаючи свідомо те, що нам здається неймовірним, не підтасовуючи фактів і не нав'язуючи їм своїх пояснень.

Часто люди схильні бачити чудове у дрібницях або взагалі там, де всі звичайно й просто, люблять пріпутать які-небудь свої передчуття або сни, що вони тлумачать відповідно випадку, так чи інакше. Інші ж, тверезі натури, навпаки, дуже скептично ставляться до всього незрозуміло, розбираючи і пояснюючи історії, які лежать поза їх розуміння.

Я не належу ні до тих, ні до інших, пояснювати нічого не збираюся, а просто чесно розповім, як все було, все, починаючи з того початку, що я сама початком вважаю »(295-96).

The sober tone of the passage quoted above is very characteristic of this book of uncanny tales. Teffi on the whole eschews the usual techniques of gothic fiction; her stories are understated and restrained, and the narrators usually convince the reader of their level heads and calm natures. The stories generally create an atmosphere of prosaic, even boring, everyday life, into which some strange occurrences intrude, disturbing the placid surface.Such a treatment of the uncanny fits well into Teffi's vision of the world as it emerges from an examination of the totality of her writings, especialle her late works. In generally, Teffi looks upon our seemingly rational and rather boring everyday life as a sort of artificial screen, which only serves to conceal the chaos beneath. As she writes elsewhere:

«Справа в тому, що ми живемо в двох планах! Один план - це наша нехитра реальне життя. Інший - весь з передчуттів, з вражень, з непояснених і непереборних симпатій і антипатій. З снів. У цієї друге життя свої закони, своя логіка, в яких ми невідповідально. Винесені на світло розуму, вони дивують і лякають, але подолати їх ми не можемо »3 .

In Відьма she gives us instances of the appearance of these underlying irrational forces, which can be given supernatural interpretation.

A good example of this is the title story, «Відьма». The narrator, described as an «дуже шановна дама» (198), tells of an odd occurrence in her past, when she was nineteen years old and living with her husband and year-and-a-half old daughter in a small town in the steppes4 . The town is an extremely boring, dreary place: «І нудне ж було місце цей самий містечка! Влітку пил, взимку снігу навертає вище вуличних ліхтарів, навесні і восени такий бруд, що на соборній площі трійка мало не потонула, мотузками коней витягали »(198).

The servants are as awful as everything else, but the narrator seems to be lucky with her maid, Ustiusha. She is quiet, doesn't smoke or get drink, and has as unusual ability to find lost objects. Nevertheless when she disappears for four days after being sent to buy salmon for масниця, the narrator and her husband decide to fire her. The cook, however, warns her mistress that Ustiusha «щоночі на вас шепоче і папір жгет в трубу дме. Ви її прогнати не можете »(202). The narrator's husband regards these words contemptuously: «- Мало ли у темних людей всяких забобонних пережитків середньовіччя »(202). The distinction he makes between the enlightened master and mistress and the benighted servants is soon blurred, however, for although the husband and wife vied earlier for the privilege of firing Ustiusha, now neither is capable of doing it.

It is at this point that the main «horror» occurs. One evening the nanny ominously leads her mistress to the dining room, where she finds that the twelve dining room chairs are placed with their back to the table and that a thirteenth unknown chair is there as well. Whwn asked why this has occurred, the nanny answers: «А потім, що нам звідси всім поворот показаний», and adds enigmatically (the incantatory sound repetitions increasing the sense of threat): «- Так, від воріт поворот, ось Бог, а ось поріг. Повертайте і геть звідси! »(206). In a state of hysteria after these mysterious words, the narrator runs to get her husband at the club. A police officer questions the servants, including Ustusha, but finds out nothing. No further horrors occur that night, but in the morning the husband decides that, although all this is nonsense, it might be best if they leave this house, which they proceed to do.

As a supernatural events, the turning of the chairs is extremely trivial. What is important in the story is not the event itself, but the power of the irrational over the minds of the characters. For, whether or not one believes that Ustiusha is a witch, still her «поворот» worked, as the narrator herself acknowledges in the conclusion of the story: Проте, якщо б я була забобонною, то, мабуть, подумала б: все-таки нерозумно це, а тим не менш адже "поворот" ж нас з цього будинку, повернулись вони, і вигнало. Як там не сміється, але ж вийшло якось не по-нашому, по-розумному і інтелігентній, а по темному нянькіному тлумачення ... »(211). In «Відьма», indeed, both the outer and inner worlds operate on two levels. For while the town is depicted at the beginning as a model of dreary monotony, unexpected and disturbing events occur there. And these dark, inexplicable events echo in the minds even of the seemingly rational people.In certain other stories in the collection this psychological dimension of the uncanny is particularly emphasized. One such story is «Русалка», which takes place on a country estate during the childhood of the narrator. The protagonist here is another maid, Kornelia, whose gentry origins and affectations earn her the title «панночка». She has a white, puffy face, protruding fish-like eyes, and stern eyebrows, but her most striking feature is her remarkably long hair, which she wears in an unattractive crown around her head. Kornelia's nature is quiet, slow, secretly proud. The children are particularly struck by the way she prays on Sundays, dressed in her finest clothes and sitting by the ice house, paying no attention to the prosaic farmyard activities going to around her:

«Поруч клопітно сокотали кури, клював півень сердитим носом у самих ніг "панночки", озутою у святковий прюнелевий черевик, проходила в льодовик ключниця, трясучи ключами, гуркочучи глечиками - вона, горда, біла, товста, густо распомаженная, не помічала нічого. ріхо потріскували чотки, беззвучно ворушилися губи, подкаченние очі, здавалося, зріли неземне »(272).

One summer when the family arrives from Moscow, they find that Kornelia has married and is now living in the wing by the pond. She seems little changed, except that she now prays while sitting, русалка-like, on a low branch of a willow growing by the pond. One occurrence, however, causes a sharp change in Kornelia's behavior. One day the many young ladies spending the summer at the estate (the narrator's older sisters, cousins, and their friends) send for Kornelia to bring sugar to the stable so that they can feed the horses. When she arrives, her hair comes tumbling down her back and one expansive young lady exclaims: «Корнеля! ... Так ви справжня русалка! »(275). She then asks the strikingly handsome young groom, Fed'ko, if he doesn't agree that Kornelia has remarkable hair, and he, to please the young ladies, responds: «Ех, і буває ж краса на світі!» (275). At this Kornelia stares at Fed'ko with her fish eyes, drops the piece of sugar, and walks out.

The narrator comments that there are instants when the line of fate is broken. Sometimes these moments don't seem unusual at the time and it is only later that one can appreciate their special significance. Such, it seems, is this moment for Kornelia. Now on Sundays, when she sits on her willow tree, she no longer prays, but combs her hair, singing «Злотий влос, злотих влос ...» (276). Kornelia's русалка-like natura takes a more striking form one time when the narrator, her little sister Lena, and the nanny see Kornelia and the laundress bathing in the pond. They suddenly hear a voice from the other shore shouting: «Го-го-го! ... Го! Руса-Алка! »(276). It is Fed'ko, bathing the horses. Upon hearing these words Kornelia turns in his direction and, laughing hysterically, suddenly begins to leap high out of the water up to her waist, while making a beckoning motion with her fingers. Lena screames out: «- Корнеля конячок манить!» (276). Another time, in the evening, the narrator hears a quiet groan from the pond, which sounds like crying or singing: «O -- o. .. і o-o! »(278). The following day Kornelia looks as if she has been crying and the nanny mutters: «- Плаче! ракіе завжди плачуть. Спробуй-но пожалій, вона тобі покаже! »(278). Teffi has already described the русалка's habit of luring people by weeping and arousing their pity in an earlier story: «Руську душу треба брати жалем. Тому що робить русалка? - Вона плаче. Сидить на дереві жінка маленька - вона, власне, не жінка навіть, тому що у неї з половини тіла риб'ячий хвіст ... І ось сидить така - ніжна, маленька, і гірко, гірко плаче ... Жалем і потягне »5 .

The final episode recounts Fed'ko's wedding, which the two little girls, who have felt sick since morning, observe from the sofa. Fed'ko, very red, sweaty, and a little drink, is wearing Kornelia's green tie around his neck. His bride is young but so unattractive that the little girls are amazed. After watching the peasant couples dance in a business-like, joiless way, lena say's, «- Дивись, он там ще весілля» (279). When her sister objects that she is pointing to a mirror, she answer that it is really a door leading to another wedding. She adds, «- Дивись, там Корнеля танцює!» Her sister sees the green, dim people in the mirror, but can't find Kornelia. The Lena says, «- Корнеля плаче ...» The narrator questions, «- Танцює? Плаче? Що ти говориш? »She now looks in the mirror again and sees more than the first time:

«Голова в мене крутиться. І кружляють зелені злі люди, завзято били ногами, мов втаптивая кого-то в землю. Хіба це не та Корнеля, зовсім чорна, каламутна ... дивиться величезними риб'ячими очима ... І раптом підскочила, як тоді в ставку, по пояс гола, руки витягла і манить, вабить, а нижче грудей риб'яча луска ... Рот у неї розкритий, не те поет, не то плаче: «о-о-і-о-о!» (279-280)

Echoing Kornelia, the little girl scream hysterically, «O-o і oo! .. »It turns out that they both have scarlatina. It is only later that thay find out that at about tha time of the wedding Kornelia drowned herself in the mill stream.

The narrator asks the meaning of the story: did Kornelia love Fed'ko or did she simply go mad? In conclusion the narrator offers a third possiblity: there are times when she is ill or half-awake when the truth seems to be what she in the mirror. What then is this true? The simplest answer is that Kornelia actually does turn into a русалка, at least psychologically speaking. This transformation is espcially striking because at the story's beginning she seemed so proper, stem, and religious. Kornelia can, in fact, serve as a personification of life as portrayed in Відьма: on the surface dull and respectable, but then surprising and frightening traits emerge. It is significant that it is a word about beauty - Fed'ko's «; - Ех, і бувае ж краса на світі» - and perhaps Fed'ko's own beauty, that causes the break in her life. Longing for beauty, however distorted, is a powerful force in Teffi's works in general.

It is possible to interpret the vision in the mirror still further. A trait of the русалка, already mentioned, is her ability to arouse people's pity through weeping. In «Русалка», however, Kornelia weeps, but nobody pities her. The hard-hearted comment of the nanny ( «Спробуй пожалій, вона тобі покаже») is the more typical reaction. The image in the mirror, where the evil, green people trample on Kornelia, is emblematic of the triumph of these heartless, joyless people over the forces of pity and beauty. (The ugliness of Fed'ko's bride might be another indication of this.) And so there is a surprising reversal here of the usual situation in uncanny tales. In «Русалка» it is the forces of everyday life - the grotesquely portrayed «green people» in the mirror - that are more destructive and frightening than the supposedly supernatural creature. Kornelia's transformation, motivated by love and beauty, actually represents a more positive force, although distorted by the conditions of life, and it is the ordinary people here who destroy the русалка, not the other way around.

In one of the best stories of the collection, «Собака», a similar reversal takes place. The story begins when the narrator, Lialechka, then a high-spirited and pretty fifteen-year-old, is spending the summer at the estate of her friends, the Katkovs. Among the many young people staying there is the son of the steward, Tolia, a nice but terribly shy boy who is deeply but hopelessly in love with Lialechka. All the young people are in the habit of strolling in the evening to a hillock, which overlooks the river and an abandoned mill. One evening thay take turns telling stories and Tolia tells a true tale about the mill. At one time long ago, the mill was rented to a silent, reclusive old German who had an enormous dog. The dog sat opposite the miller for whole days, not taking its eyes off him. Then one day the dog, for no apparent reason, jumped on the old man and bit through his throat. It then ran away and disappeared. Since that time, the mill has been empty.

The others like Tolia's story, but someone complains that is wasn't scary enough; Tolia should have added that since that time tha place is bewitched, and that anyone who spends the night there turns into a dog. The very next night Tolia decides, at Lialechka's prompting, to stay overnight at the mill to see if this is in fact true. In the morning Lialechka, who was terribly nervous at night and hardly slept, is awoken by a scratching at the shutters. Terrified, she throws them open and is overjoyed to see Tolia standing before her. She hugs him and screams: «- Як ти смів, негідник, як ти смів не звернутися в собаку!» (302). Tolia objects: «Лялечка, ... та хіба ти не бачиш? Та ти просто дивитися не вмієш! Я ... Лялечка, собака, твій пес навіки вірний, ніколи не відійду від тебе »(302).

Tolia and Lialechka soon leave the estate, she for St.Petersburg, he for Smolensk. They meet briefly two years later, after which Tolia sends her an enormous bouquet of roses to which he has attached a little heart-faced dog. At the sight of the dog, Lialia is overwhelmed with pity: «Мені чомусь страшенно стало його шкода. І собачка була така жалюгідна, з блискучими очима, точно плакала »(303).

After this begins the «сумбурна смуга життя» for Lialia (304), coinciding approximately with the First World War and the Revolution. While Tolia and the Katkovs join the war effort, Lialia remains in St.Petersburg to study voice at te conservatory. She soon drifits from her studies, however, and becomes immersed in the Petersburg artistic bohemia, so active at the time. She frequents the famous literatury cafe, Бродяча собака, and it is there that she meets Garri Edvers, a sickly but dandyish young man of the Oscar Wilde type who writes little songs, all to the same tune. At first repelled by him, she is soon drawn into his decadent circle and, with hair cropped and dyed and wearing a man's suit, she begins singing his nonsensical songs. Garri approves of her perfomance, but adds: «- Ви повинні увіткнути в петлички ненормальну троянду. Зелену. Величезну. Потворну »(306). This abnormal rose becomes emblematic of Garri's whole milieu: «У Гаррі була своя свита, свій двір. пиці "ненормальний, зелений і потворний". Зелена дівчина - кокаіноманка, якийсь Юрочка, "якого всі знають", сухотний ліцеїст, і горбатий, чудово грав на роялі »(306-7). Lilia's relations with Garri are also strange. She is repelled by his presence, «точно я цілуюся з трупом» (307), but cannot live without him. Here as in «Русалка» the grotesque is transposed from the realm of fantasy, with which it is usually associated in supernatural tales, to the «Real» woeld of Petersburg bohema. Garri's «green and deformed» suite resembles a collection of petty demons, while Lialia's relations to Garri himself smacks of necrophilia.

Things go from bad to worse for Lialia, especially since her old friends, the Katkovs, disapprove of her way of life and shun her. As for Garri, he disappears for long periods, during one of which he succeeds in getting Lilia's money from her aunt in the country by pretending to be Lilia's husband. The culmination point is reached when Lilia discovers that Garri and his cocaine-sniffing circle, although formerly sympathetic to the White cause, are now associated with the Cheka. This news finally bestirs her to try to escape from her situation and get to her aunt's estate. While running around for the propper papers, Lialia meets one of the Katkov brothers, now a White officer, who promises to get a message to Tolia: «Ляля кличе собаку на допомогу» (316).

Lilia manages with great difficult to get the necessary papers, but she still needs to get back some of her money from Garri in order to make the trip. The day she decides to broach the subject she waits for him in her room and suddenly feels someone's eyes on her. She turns around and sees a dog: «Велика, руда, худа, вовна збита, а порода в роді chien-loup! Стоїть у дверях і дивиться прямо на мене. Що за диво? ». She cannot understand how it got into the locked room and lets it out. Then Garri appears, looking terrible and in state of extreme agitation. He suddenly screams: «- Це звідки?» (318), and Lilia, turning around, sees the dog huddled in the corner, staring intently at Garri. Garri, almost excessively frightened, chases it from the room. Lialia begins her conversation, but then sees a horrified look on Garri's face. She turns around and sees the dog with both its paws on the window sill. It jumps down, but she manages to see its terrible eyes fixed on Garri. When Lilia raises the question os money with Garri, his reaction is direct and brutal: he tears up her paper and grabs her by the throat. Lilia loses consciousness, but first manages to call for help. At this point something weird occurs: «Пролунав дзвін розбитого скла і щось велике, важке, волохате впригнуло і впало збоку на Гаррі, повалив його і покривши собою »(319). When Lilia comes to, she finds that Garri's throat is torn through and the dog has

disappeared.This occurs on the twenty-seventh. A long time later, Lilia discovers that Tolia, who had received her message and was rushing to her aid, was shot by the Bolsheviks on the very same day. The story concludes:

«Ось і вся цілком історія, яку я хотіла розповісти. Нічого в ній я не створила і не додала, і нічого не можу і не хочу пояснити. Але сама я, коли обертаюсь до минулого, я бачу ясно всі кільця подій і стрижень, на який якась сила їх нанизували.

нанизала і зімкнула кінці »(320).

«Собака» is typical of Відьма, in that nothing unambiguously supernatural occurs, and yet one would be hard put to give a rational explanation of the events. What is not typical is the character of Tolia te dog. For while in the other stories, the uncanny force is generally some dark passion or superstition, here it is wholly positive: Tolia's devoted, self-sacrificing love. It is significant in this regard that Tolia is not associated with the frightening нечисть who figure in the other stories, but with a dog. For to Teffi the kind of selfless love that he exemplifies is present in its purest form precisely in animals. She devoted a considerable number of stories to this marvelous animal love, particularly in the volume published immediately after Відьма, Про ніжності.

And so in «Собака», even more clearly than in «Русалка», a striking reversal takes place. It is to Lialia's everyday milieu - Garri's «green, abnormal »circle - that grotesque and rfightening traits are attributed. Tolia, on the other hand, although pathetic in his hopeless love, is portrayed as wholesome and boyish, with his round face and childlike eyes.

In general in Відьма, there is a dichotomy between everyday life - at best monotonous and at worst terribly cruel - and the uncanny. While the latter rarely takes as positive a form as in «Собака», it is frequently an emanation of some genuine and strong passion, although at times perverted by circumstances, as in «Русалка». Even in those cases when some dark superstition is being portrayed, with no particular redeeming features, as in «Відьма», it still adds a certain excitement and interest to life, which would otherwise be almost unbearably dreary.

Список літератури

Едіт Хейбер. "Відьма" Теффі: міфологія російської душі