Sisters of the Cross by Alexei Remizov

Author:Alexei Remizov
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: LCO014000, Literary Collections/Russian & Former Soviet Union, FIC019000, Fiction/Literary
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 2017-12-19T05:00:00+00:00

The first to return was Vasily Aleksandrovich, the clown. He had been putting on a summer performance in Petersburg, while living at a dacha outside the city in Shuvalovo. He would visit the flat only occasionally, and then only look in for a moment. His “slave” Kuzmovna was also in Shuvalovo with him. After Vasily Aleksandrovich, Sergei Aleksandrovich returned, having finished his summer travels. From the warmer climes or, as Akumovna put it, from the country where they ride on bulls, he brought back with him a hundred jars of honey—he was a great one for looking after provisions. Shortly after Sergei Aleksandrovich, Vera Nikolaevna also returned with fresh fruit jam from her mother in Kostrinsk, her desolate, little, white old city with its fifteen white churches. After Vera Nikolaevna Adoniia Ivoilovna herself reappeared.

They had all come back; only Verochka was missing, and there was absolutely no news of her. And as early as September Verochka’s room was rented out, according to the green notice hanging on the door of the doorkeeper Nikanor.

Marakulin’s new neighbor turned out to be Anna Stepanovna Shiianova, married name Leshchova, a teacher from Purkhovets.

Purkhovets is an ancient town on the River Smugra, and for the singing of its nightingales the first nightingale city. At the girls’ high school in Purkhovets where Anna Stepanovna was teaching there were two famous teachers: the history master Rakov and the literature master Leshchov, both of them friends and both, according to their own definition, “progressive.” Anna Stepanovna’s destiny was closely linked to the fate of Leshchov, while Leshchov and Rakov, like two halves of a single body, were one in spirit and thought. Only Rakov was a little bit older and Leshchov a little bit younger. Both Rakov and Leshchov were living with the same landlady a modest, sober and secluded life.

Their landlady, Pavlina Polikarpovna, although she was no sixteen years of age, was still spirited and strong. From time immemorial she had served as cook to the civil servant Gerasimov, and Gerasimov just before he died had settled things for her, as Pavlina Polikarpovna put it, and had given her a lottery ticket for her exemplary service. She bought herself a little house, took in lodgers, and that was what she lived on.

Having found out about Gerasimov’s lottery ticket, Rakov, as a historian, did not neglect to note its number in his notebook and followed the announcement of winning numbers in the newspapers. To Pavlina Polikarpovna he was respectful, serious, and gentle. And the years went by in peaceful seclusion and expectation.

Pavlina Polikarpovna, although she was no sixteen years of age, still had a little thought running round her head and would sometimes suddenly burst into tears just like that, for no apparent reason. In the spring especially, when the sun began to gain warmth, and the hens all started laying, and the gardens turned green, and the nights became warm, muggy, and langourous, and the nightingales began to sing, and Rakov himself would start to play on

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