The Mirror Page #3

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"about face"!

Put down your rifle.

That's what I did.

Did you learn drill regulations?

About face in Russian means

exactly what I did.

About face means a turn of

What degrees? About face!

To the firing position

forward march!

I'm going to send you

for your parents.

What parents?

You'll know very soon

what parents.

What is the firing position?

Down on the floor mat!

His parents died during the siege.

The firing position is...

a firing position.

- Markov!

- Yes, sir!

Name the basic elements of...

The rifle.

The butt.

- The muzzle.

- It's you who's a muzzle.

What is the muzzle then?

Guys! A grenade!

It's a hand grenade!

Don't do it!

Down on the ground!

You'll be killed!

It's only a dummy grenade.

And you say you're from Leningrad

and been under the siege...

I don't believe in premonitions.

I have no trust in superstitions.

I don't run from slander or venom.

There's no death on earth.

All are immortal,

Everything's immortal.

Don't be afraid of death

at seventeen,

At seventy as well...

There's just reality and light.

There's neither death nor darkness

in this world.

At last we all have reached the shore,

And I'm the one who casts a fishing

rod

When immortality is coming

in a shoal.

Live in a house, and it'll never

fall.

To any of the centuries I'd nod

And enter it, a house I'd install.

That's why with me your children

share board,

Your wives join me at my table,

and all.

One table serves both granddad and

grandchild:

The future's being made right now.

Whenever I'm to raise my hand

in tide,

I all five rays of it on you bestow.

With collarbones, as if with

timber work,

I propped up every day of past age.

I measured time by a world-wide

walk,

I passed through it like through

the Urals range.

I chose the age up to my own measure.

We headed south, with dust flying

away,

The weeds smoked up, and at his own

leisure,

His feeler on the horseshoe,

the grasshopper forecast...

He prophesied me death, as if

he were a monk.

But with my fate strapped to my

saddle fast,

I'm riding now in the time to come

And surging on the stirrups to my

own drum.

My immortality is quite enough

for me.

For my own blood to flow ages

through,

For steady warmth and a haven

safe and true

I'd give my life self-willingly and

freely,

Had not its volatile, needle-like

sword

Been leading me, like a thread,

throughout the world.

Marousia? And the children?

Where are the children?

I'm going to tell everybody

that you've stolen the book.

- What?

- I will, you'll see.

- Now stop it!

- Go on, tell everybody!

I will, anyway!

Marina!

You could have come more often.

You know that he's missing you.

Let Ignat live with me.

Are you serious?

You said yourself

that he would like to.

With you it's better to keep one's

mouth shut.

You mean I'm inventing this

for my own pleasure?

Let's ask him.

Whatever he decides...

Besides, it will make your life

much easier.

Why would this make it easier for me?

Have you collected your books?

Go say goodbye to your father.

Your mother and I would like

to ask you...

What?

Wouldn't it be better if you lived

with me?

How?

You and I will live together.

Haven't you said so to your mother?

Said what? When?

No, please.

We really look alike,

don't we?

Not at all!

What do you want from your mother?

What kind of relationship?

The kind of relationship you had

in your childhood is impossible.

You speak of some feeling of

guilt,

of her life being ruined because of

you...

Well, you can't get away from it.

And what she needs is for you

to become a baby again,

for her to be able to carry you

and protect you.

Why on earth am I meddling in it?

It's always like this...

Why are you whimpering?

Explain it.

Should I marry him or not?

- Do I know him?

- No...

Is he Ukrainian?

Does it matter?

- What is he doing?

- He is a writer.

Doesn't his name happen to be

Dostoyevsky?

Yes, Dostoyevsky.

He hasn't written anything

worthwhile. Nobody knows him.

He must be about 40, isn't he?

Apparently he's got no talent?

You've changed so much.

So, he has no talent, he doesn't write

anything.

He does write, but they don't

publish him.

Look, our precious flunk

has put something on fire.

No need to be so ironic about

his flunking.

If he doesn't finish school,

he'll end up being drafted.

And you will go begging

to have him exempted from the army.

This is all the result of your

indulging him.

By the way, the army would be

good for him.

Why don't you call your mother?

After Aunt Lisa's death she stayed

in bed for three days.

Wasn't she supposed to come here

at five?

Is it so difficult

to make the first move?

We were talking about Ignat.

It may be my fault, too.

Or is it because we got so bourgeois?

And our embourgeoisement is

so dense, so Asian.

With private ownership nonexistent,

our well-being is on the rise.

Nothing makes any sense anymore.

Why do you get so irritated?

I know a family

whose 15-year-old son said:

"I'm leaving you.

It disgusts me to see

how you weasel around

trying to please everybody."

Good boy.

Not like our booby.

Unfortunately, our boy would never

say such a thing.

I can imagine that family of yours!

They're no worse than we are.

He works for a newspaper.

And thinks he's a writer, too.

Though he's unable to understand

that a book is not a way of making

money but a statement.

A poet is called upon

to provoke a spiritual jolt

and not to cultivate idolaters.

What am I going to do?

You're going to get married.

Do you happen to remember

who was it who saw a bush on fire?

I mean the angel as a bush?

I don't remember.

In any case, it was not Ignat.

Maybe we should send him

to a cadet school?

An angel as a flame coming from

a bush appeared to Prophet Moses.

He led his people out across the sea.

Why has nothing like that

ever appeared to me?

With an amazing regularity

I keep seeing one and the same dream.

It seems to make me return

to the place, poignantly dear to my

heart,

where my grandfather's house

used to be,

in which I was born 40 years ago

right on the dinner table.

Each time I try to enter it, something

prevents me from doing that.

I see this dream again and again.

And when I see those walls made of

logs and the dark entrance,

even in my dream I become aware

that I'm only dreaming it.

And the overwhelming joy is clouded

by anticipation of awakening.

At times something happens

and I stop dreaming

of the house and the pine trees

of my childhood around it.

Then I get depressed.

And I can't wait to see

this dream

in which I'll be a child again

and feel happy again

because everything will be still

ahead, everything will be possible...

Mommy!

- Mom, they opened up!

- What's the matter with you?

Hello.

Hello.

- Are you Nadezhda Petrovna?

- I don't think I...

I'm Matvey Ivanov's stepdaughter.

He was a friend of your husband.

What Matvey?

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