The Plummeting Old Women by Daniil Kharms

Author:Daniil Kharms [Daniil Kharms]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9781843512509
Publisher: The Lilliput Press
Published: 2011-09-17T04:00:00+00:00

But he did not even manage to sing it through twice before he was taken away in a covered vehicle to somewhere in the Admiralty direction. His feet never touched the ground.

And there we have a short narrative of the life of the valiant knight and patriot, Aleksey Alekseyevich Alekseyev.

(1934–36)

A Story

Abram Demyanovich Pantopasov cried out loudly and pressed a handkerchief to his eyes. But it was too late. Ash and soft dust had gummed up Abram Demyanovich’s eyes. From then on Abram Demyanovich’s eyes began to hurt, they were gradually covered over with repulsive scabs, and Abram Demyanovich went blind.

As a blind invalid, Abram Demyanovich was given the push from his job and accorded a wretched pittance of thirty-six roubles a month.

Quite clearly this sum was insufficient for Abram Demyanovich to live on. A kilo of bread cost a rouble and ten kopecks, and a leek cost forty-eight kopecks at the market.

And so the industrial invalid began more and more to concentrate his attention on rubbish bins.

It was difficult for a blind man to find the edible scraps among all the peelings and filth.

Even finding the rubbish itself in someone else’s yard is not easy. You can’t see it with your eyes, and to ask – Whereabouts here is your rubbish bin? – is somehow a bit awkward.

The only way left is to sniff it out.

Some rubbish bins reek so much you can smell them a mile away, but others with lids are absolutely impossible to detect.

It’s alright if you happen upon a kindly caretaker, but the other sort would so put the wind up you that you’d lose your appetite.

Once Abram Demyanovich climbed into someone’s rubbish bin and when he was in there a rat bit him, and he climbed straight back out again. So that day he didn’t eat anything.

But then one morning something jumped out of Abram Demyanovich’s right eye.

Abram Demyanovich rubbed the eye and suddenly saw daylight. And then something jumped out of his left eye, too, and Abram Demyanovich saw the light.

From that day on it was all downhill for Abram Demyanovich.

Everywhere Abram Demyanovich was in great demand.

In the People’s Committee for Heavy Industry office Abram Demyanovich was a minor sensation.

And so Abram Demyanovich became a great man.

(8 January 1935)

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