Foundation Pit, The by Platonov Andrey

Author:Platonov, Andrey [Platonov, Andrey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Novel, Dystopia
ISBN: 9781448163403
Publisher: Random House
Published: 1987-01-01T02:00:00+00:00

Liquidating the kulaks into the distance86 brought Zhachev no calm; he even felt worse, though it was not clear why. For a long time he observed how the raft floated systematically down the snowy flowing river and the evening wind ruffled the dark dead water pouring, amid chilled farmlands, into its own remote abyss—and in his heart it was getting melancholy and boring. Socialism, after all, had no need for a stratum of sad freaks, and he too would soon be liquidated into the distant silence.

The kulak class on the raft was all looking in one direction—at Zhachev; these people wanted to take note of their birthplace forever, together with the last happy man there.

By then the kulak river transport had begun to disappear around a bend, behind the bushes on the bank, and Zhachev was losing the appearance of the class enemy.

“Fa-are we-ell, parasites!” Zhachev shouted down the river.

“Fa-are we-ell!” responded the kulaks sailing off to the sea.

From the OrgYard above him struck up forward-summoning music; Zhachev crawled hurriedly up the steep clay slope to the triumph of the collective farm87, even though he knew that only former participants in imperialism were exulting there—not counting Nastya and the rest of childhood.

The activist had placed the wireless loudspeaker out on the OrgYard porch, and from it came the march of a great campaign, while the entire collective farm, together with the guests who had made their way over on foot, was stamping joyfully on the spot. With their shining faces, the collective-farm peasants looked as if they had just been scrubbed, and in the emptiness of their souls there was now no pity or regret for anything and no knowing anything, and it felt cool. When the music changed, Yelisey went out into the center, slammed down one foot, and began to dance over the earth, not bending in any way or blinking his white eyes; he was moving like a piston, alone amid the standers, and working his bones and torso with precision. Gradually the peasants got into the swing of things and began to circle around one another, while the women merrily raised their arms and began to move their legs beneath their skirts. The guests threw down their bags, called the local girls over, and hurtled about close to the ground, moving spiritedly—and as a treat for themselves they kissed their new collective-farm girlfriends. The wireless music alarmed life still more; the passive menfolk yelled out exclamations of satisfaction while the more progressive ones developed the further tempo of the festival in all directions, and even the collectivized horses, hearing the din of human happiness, filed over one by one to the OrgYard and began to whinny.

The snowy wind fell silent; an unclear moon came to light in a distant sky that was now emptied of storm clouds and blizzards, a sky so deserted that it allowed for eternal freedom, and so sinister that freedom was unthinkable without friendship.

Beneath this sky, on pure snow already spotted with meat flies, the entire people celebrated in comradely triumph.

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