Blue Notebook / Голубая тетрадь. Книга для чтения на английском языке. Даниил Хармс
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Michelangelo sit down on the grass and they are seated on the grass like mushrooms. They hold each other's hands and look up at the sky. And in the sky appears the outline of a huge spoon. What on earth is that? No one knows. People run about and lock themselves into their houses. They lock their doors and their windows. But will that really help? Much good it does them! It will not help.
I remember in 1884 an ordinary comet the size of a steamer appearing in the sky. It was very frightening. But now – a spoon! Some phenomenon for a comet!
Lock your windows and doors!
Can that really help? You can't barricade yourself with planks against a celestial phenomenon.
Nikolay Ivanovich Stupin lives in our house. He has a theory that everything is smoke. But in my view not everything is smoke. Maybe even there's no smoke at all. Maybe there's really nothing. There's one category only. Or maybe there's no category at all. It's hard to say.
It is said that a certain celebrated artist scrutinised a cockerel. He scrutinised it and scrutinised it and came to the conclusion that the cockerel did not exist.
The artist told his friend this, and his friend just laughed. How, he said, doesn't it exist, he said, when it's standing right here and I, he said, am clearly observing it.
And the great artist thereupon hung his head and, retaining the same posture in which he stood, sat down on a pile of bricks.
That's all.
On Phenomena and Existences. No. 2
Here's a bottle of vodka, of the lethal spirit variety. And beside it you see Nikolay Ivanovich Serpukhov.
From the bottle rise spirituous fumes. Look at the way Nikolay Ivanovich Serpukhov is breathing them in through his nose. Mark how he licks his lips and how he screws up his eyes. Evidently he is particularly partial to it and, in the main, that's because it's that lethal spirit variety.
But take note of the fact that behind Nikolay Ivanovich's back there is nothing. It's not that there isn't a cupboard there, or a chest of drawers, or at any rate some such object: but there is absolutely nothing there, not even air. Believe it or not, as you please, but behind Nikolay Ivanovich's back there is not even an airless expanse or, as they say, universal ether. To put it bluntly, there's nothing.
This is, of course, utterly inconceivable.
But we don't give a damn about that, as we are only interested in the vodka and Nikolay Ivanovich Serpukhov.
And so Nikolay Ivanovich takes the bottle of vodka in his hand and puts it to his nose. Nikolay Ivanovich sniffs it and moves his mouth like a rabbit.
Now the time has come to say that, not only behind Nikolay Ivanovich's back, but before him too – as it were, in front of his chest – and all the way round him, there is noticing. A complete absence of any kind of existence, or, as the old witticism goes, an absence of any kind of presence.
However, let us interest ourselves only in the vodka and Nikolay Ivanovich. Just imagine, Nikolay Ivanovich peers into the bottle of vodka, then he puts it to his lips, tips back the bottle bottom end up, and knocks it back – just imagine it, the whole bottle.
Nifty! Nikolay Ivanovich knocked back his vodka and looked blank. Nifty, all right! How could he!
And now this is what we have to say: as a matter of fact, not only behind Nikolay Ivanovich's back, nor merely in front and all around him, but also even inside Nikolay Ivanovich here was nothing, nothing existed.
Of course, it could all be as we have just said, and yet Nikolay Ivanovich himself could in these circumstances still be in a delightful state of existence. This is, of course, true. But, as a matter of fact, the whole thing is that Nikolay Ivanovich didn't exist and doesn't exist. That's exactly the whole thing.
You may ask: and what about the bottle of vodka? In particular, where did the vodka go, if a non – existent Nikolay Ivanovich drank it? Let's say that the bottle remained. Where, then, is the vodka? There it was and, suddenly, there it isn't. We know Nikolay Ivanovich doesn't exist, you say. So, what's the explanations?
At this stage, we ourselves become lost in conjecture.
But, anyway, what are we talking about? Surely we said that inside, as well as outside, Nikolay Ivanovich nothing exists. So if, both inside and outside, nothing exists, then that means that the bottle as well doesn't exist. Isn't that it?
But, on the other hand, take note of the following: if we are saying that nothing exists either inside or outside, then the question arises: inside and outside of what? Something evidently, all the same, does exist?
Or perhaps doesn't exist. In which case, why do we keep saying «inside» and «outside»?
No, here we have patently reached an impasse. And we ourselves don't know what to say.
Goodbye for now.
The thing
A mom, a dad, and the maid named Natasha, were sitting at the table, drinking.
The dad was undoubtedly an alcoholic. Furthermore, even the mom looked down on him. But that didn't prevent the dad from being a good man. He was smiling honestly while rocking in a chair. The maid Natasha had a lace apron and was very extremely shy. The dad was playing with his beard, but maid Natasha was lowering her eyes shyly, showing, in that way, that she was ashamed.
The mom, a tall woman with a big hairdo, spoke with a horselike voice. Her voice spread around the dining room and echoed back from the yard and other rooms.
After the first drink, everyone was quiet for a moment while they ate a sausage. A moment later, they all started talking again.
Suddenly, completely unexpected, someone knocked at the front door. Neither the dad, nor the mom, nor the maid, Natasha, could guess who was knocking on the front door.
– How strange? – said the dad. – Who could that be?
The mom looked at him with compassion and, even if it was not her turn, poured another glass, chugged it down and said:
– Strange.
The dad did not swear, but also poured a glass, chugged it down and got up from the table.
The dad was a short man. Completely opposite from the mom. The mom was a tall, plump woman with a voice like a horse, and the dad was simply her husband. And above all that, the dad had freckles.
He approached the door in one step and said:
– Who is it?
– Me – said the voice behind the door.
The door opened immediately, and in the room entered a maid, Natasha, all confused and blushing. Like a flower. Like a flower.
The dad sat down.
The mom had another drink.
The maid Natasha, and the other one, the «flower – like» one, got very shy and blushed. The dad looked at them but he did not swear, instead he had another drink and so did the mom.
The dad opened a can of crab paté to get the bad taste out of his mouth. Everyone was happy and they ate until morning. But the mom was quiet and she did not move from the chair. That was very impolite.
When the dad was about to sing a song, something hit the window. The mom jumped up terrified and yelled that she could clearly see someone looking through the window from the street. The others tried to convince the mom that that was impossible, because they were on the third floor and nobody from the street could possibly look through the window, as he would have to be a giant or Goliath.
But the mom would not change her mind. Nothing in the world could convince her that nobody could have been looking through the window.
In order to calm her down, they gave her another drink. The mom chugged it down. The dad also poured a glass and drank it.
Natasha and the maid, the «flower – like» one, were sitting, looking down in confusion.
– I cannot be happy when someone is looking at us through the window – said the mom.
The