From the short story "Guy de Maupassant." I love the line, have long, long
loved the line -- think about the line frequently -- that reads, "I
was sober and could have walked a chalk line, but it was pleasanter
to stagger, so I swayed from side to side, singing in a language I
had just invented." In the story, Raisa is a publisher's wife in
St. Petersburg who wants to translate a new edition of Maupassant's
works. Polyte, a literature professor whose French is better, is
hired to assist her. They drink a lot. (In this scene, it's a whole bottle
of very expensive Muscatel.) He falls for her, and "makes love"
to her, in that old-fashioned sense, that 19th Century sense, where
it might mean sex, but it might only mean attentiveness, flirtation,
confessions and maybe a few stolen kisses. Or a grope here and there.
Whatever it means, to me it can seem simultaneously more chased and
more lecherous. I like that. The 29 books he refers to are the works
of Maupassant, to whose greatness the story by Babel is a worthy
tribute.
Raisa held out a
glass to me. It was the fifth.
"Mon vieux,
to Maupassant."
"And what
about having some fun today, ma belle?"
I reached over to
Raisa and kissed her on the lips. They quivered and swelled.
"You're
funny," she mumbled through her teeth, recoiling.
She pressed herself
against the wall, stretching out her bare arms. Spots began to glow
on her arms and shoulders. Of all the gods ever put on a crucifix,
this was the most ravishing.
"Be so kind as
to sit down, Monsieur Polyte."
...
Night had blocked
the path of my famished youth with a bottle of Muscatel '83 and
twenty-nine books, twenty-nine bombs stuffed with pity, genius and
passion. I sprang up, knocking over the chair and banging against the
shelf. The twenty-nine volumes crashed to the floor, their pages
flew open, they fell on their edges...and the white mare of my fate
went on at a walking pace.
"You are funny,"
growled Raisa.
I left the granite
house on the Moyka between eleven and twelve, before the sisters and
the husband returned from the theater. I was sober and could have
walked a chalk line, but it was pleasanter to stagger, so I swayed
from side to side, singing in a language I had just invented. Through
the tunnels of the streets bounded by lines of street lights the
steamy fog billowed. Monsters roared behind the boiling walls. The
roads amputated the legs of those walking on them.
- From "Guy de Maupassant" by Isaac Babel
No comments:
Post a Comment