Envy by Yuri Olesha

Author:Yuri Olesha
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781590170861
Publisher: NYRB Classics
Published: 1971-01-02T06:00:00+00:00

2

BUT WAS he ever really an engineer?

The year the Two Bits was being built, Ivan was plying a trade that enjoyed little respect and was, for an engineer, simply disgraceful.

Imagine! He drew portraits at beer stands for people who asked for them, composed impromptu speeches on assigned topics, read palms, and demonstrated the power of his memory by repeating fifty random words read to him in a row.

Sometimes he would pull a deck of cards out of his shirt, which made him look instantly like a cardsharp, and do magic tricks.

People would buy him beer. He would take a seat and then the main event would begin: Ivan Babichev would prophesy.

What did he talk about?

“We are a breed of men that has reached its upper limit,” he would say, banging his mug on the marble like a hoof. “Strong personalities, men who have decided to live their own way, egoists, obstinate men, I am turning to you as being more intelligent—my avant-garde! Listen those of you standing down front! An era is drawing to a close. The wave is breaking on the rocks, the wave is frothing, the foam is shimmering. What do you want? What? To vanish, to be reduced to nothing, droplets, a fine watery froth? No, my friends, you should not perish like that! No! Come to me, and I shall teach you.”

His listeners paid him a certain respect but little attention, however they did support him with cries of “That’s right!” and smatterings of applause. He would vanish without notice, pronouncing each time in farewell the same qua-train, which went like this:

No charlatan from Germany—

Deceit is not my game.

I’m a modern-day magician

With a Soviet claim to fame!

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