The Death of Vazir-Mukhtar by Yury Tynyanov

Author:Yury Tynyanov
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: LCO014000, Literary Collections/Russian & Former Soviet Union, FIC019000, Fiction/Literary
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 2021-12-04T00:00:00+00:00

3

He enjoyed the possibility of choice and Nino’s unconditional submission.

He looked at Dashenka and Nino, compared them, and found comfort in the availability of both, of which no one but he was aware. Nino’s eyelashes fluttered at a single glance from him, and she would come unquestioningly, at once, and play the piano with him. The initial period of the courtship had come to an end, but he enjoyed protracting it. He enjoyed Dr. Adelung’s worried glances in his direction. The inexperienced Maltsov seemed happy enough, as if instead of going to Persia, he had received an appointment to Tiflis, to see Eliza. In this strange state, at this sudden Tiflis stopover, so incomprehensible to himself, he spent hours playing the piano as if trying to extract from the keyboard something ultimately clear and decisive, gazed distractedly at Dashenka, and alarmed Praskovya Nikolaevna.

What if, in the same light and easy manner, he were to hum a tune on the piano and say to her: “I’d like to talk to you about …” and then speak about Dashenka, not Nino, out of sheer absentmindedness?

She had already had a dream along these lines.

Zavileisky wrote him letter after letter, and when meeting Griboedov, he tried to talk to him about the project, but Griboedov merely answered, almost sympathetically:

“Quite fascinating.”

He was unbearably polite.

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