My friend, who is far away from me, has been separated for more than eight years, but you still remember the past. I even remember the gray-haired night watchman in his sky-blue servant's uniform. On cold Petersburg mornings we used to meet in the dusty, snuff-bottle-shaped Suvorov Memorial, but he never bothered. How fervently we kissed behind the waxed Konrad statue! Later, when we came out of the old hall the sun was setting, and the Tavrichesky Gardens were bathed in the flaming evening sun. We saw a soldier drilling there on the orders of his commander. He was shouting and striding over the slippery ice toward the scarecrows that stood in the way. At the flash of silver, the bayonet pierced the scarecrow's stomach.
You must feel strange, I had promised you on the last letter, no more memories, no more talk about the past, especially the triviality of the little ones, because we as writers, we should cherish words like gold. But I was so influenced by you that I made an exception in the first line, and rekindled old feelings. But, my friend, here I am not trying to talk exclusively about the past.
It's nighttime, the lights, the furniture, the paintings on the walls - the still life of the night is waxed shut. From beyond the walls comes the occasional whimper of a drainpipe, which is like the sobbing of a house. At night I go out for a walk. The wet, shiny asphalt of Berlin reflected the glow of the streetlights and stored puddles of water in its folds, the tops of the fireboxes were illuminated with small, orange lights, and the houses were shrouded in night fog, while the glass signs marking the names of the tram stops were covered in a yellowish hue because of the lights inside. The night tram passed me, then clanked around the corner. The compartment was empty, and through the window I could see the maroon rows of seats illuminated by the lights, and the lone conductor with the black purse, staggering drunkenly, with his back to the direction of the train, crossing the aisle. At this moment, I don't know why I feel both joy and despair.
Walking along the quiet dim road, I like to listen to the sound of the night returnees. He walks in the shadows, his face unseen, and you cannot guess by any means which doorway will be revived by him. The key is thrown into its lock-hole, it opens with a babble, then closes with a snap, and again the sound of the key-turning rings out, but this time it is behind the door. Through the glass of the door, a soft light could be seen flickering abruptly deep in the aisle.
The public **** car cast a wet light on the poles, while the body of the car was dark, with a pale yellow showing just below the window. Wet sounds resonate in my ear tubes, and the shadows of the cars glide past my feet. The street is empty now, except for an old dog, tapping its paws on the sidewalk, and leading a lazy, beautiful woman for a walk. The woman wore a small umbrella and no hat, and as she passed under the orange-red light of a fire hydrant, the black umbrella suddenly reflected a pale red diluted with water.
And at the turn of the sidewalk -- so unexpected! -- the wall of the theater courtyard shone like a diamond set in it. Inside it, on the moon-bright screen you could see a group of trained men coming toward you, their figures growing larger and larger. The face of a woman appears, so large and big that even the fine lines on her vermilion lips are clearly visible. She blinks her gray eyes, and a lovely, glycerin-like, round, shiny teardrop falls down her cheek. And sometimes there is an unprocessed snapshot (life doesn't know it's in the camera): a chance crowd, crystalline running water, silent trees.
Past the theater, in a corner of the square, a woman with a smile is wandering. She looks a little bloated in her black fur coat. She stops in front of a glittering store window to look at a wax statue inside: a lady dressed up, heavily made up, wrapped in a turquoise satin blouse and peach stockings. Doubtless only a nocturnal traveler would have noticed it. I watched with interest how the young bearded gentleman, who had come from Babinburg on business, approached the fat lady, who was also young: he crossed her at a brisk pace, but looked back twice, so that she led him unhurriedly to the grotto. The house was in the neighborhood, and contained one empty room with furniture. In broad daylight, the house would not have been easy to spot among the usual premises, which were equally inconspicuous. An impassive but courteous watchman kept watch all night in the aisle just inside the door. And above, on the fifth floor, an equally impassive old woman opens the door for them and serenely accepts payment for their stay.
Do you know the loud clatter of the electric train as it whizzes over the viaduct? It's translucent all over, and ha-ha laughter flies out of all the windows. Its journey may not be out of the suburbs, but it passes through the black hole of the bridge suddenly filled with solemn iron music, can not help but make me think of those windy and sunny south. If I could get the 100 marks I have been longing for, I would go to that place without fear or favor.
I was so relaxed that I even patronized the local bar to see how people danced. Here, many of the people are resentful and feed off their resentment, decrying modern fashions, including the modern dances that are all the rage, saying that they are the inventions of mediocre people, that they have no talent, that they are all over the place, and so on. By criticizing and cursing them, they are in effect recognizing that mediocrity can also be creative (regardless of the state management mechanism or novelty). They talk about this and that. In fact, our seemingly fashionable dances are not original; they have existed since the days of the ruling cabinet. There were black bands, and tights were once fashionable for women. And fashion, after many centuries, often survives. Wasn't it the bell dress that prevailed in the middle of the last century? For a time it was abandoned again and replaced by narrow skirts and close-fitting dances. On the whole, our dances are simple and generous, and sometimes, as at London balls, for instance, are praised for this simplicity. Do you remember how Pushkin described the waltz? "Monotonous and ardent." You can still say that now. As for the talk of the world going to hell ...... Do you know what kind of words I read in Agricola's excerpts? "I have never seen a more nasty minuet than that of the present day."
Yes, I love to watch people double-dancing in my local pub, the ridiculously painted but cute circles under their eyes, the pairs of white and black tips of shoes going in and out, while outside the door is the lonely night that's been with me for so long, the wet lights, the bus horns and the gusts of fresh air from on high.
It was on a night like this that a 70-year-old woman hanged herself on the Orthodox Christian cemetery, far from the city. Not long ago died her old partner. When I happened to come to the cemetery in the morning, the graveyard keeper, who was on creaky crutches, pointed out a small white cross on which the old woman had hanged herself. There were still a few thin yellow strangulation marks on the cross. "The rope is new." He said softly. But most mysterious and wonderful of all were the curved sickle-shaped marks left on the wet ground by the heels of her small, childlike feet. "Before she died she un**** only hesitated for a short while." The graveyard keeper said serenely. I looked at the subtle strangulation left by the rope, at the newly dug grave, and realized that she must have died with a childlike smile on her face.
My friend, perhaps I write this letter just to tell you that death is so light, so soft. At least that's what the night in Berlin revealed to me.
Listen! I am indeed happy. Happiness itself is a challenge. I walk along the streets, along the squares, along the riverbanks, and suddenly I feel the wet mist licking the cracks of my leather shoes. I proudly harbor this unnamable happiness of mine. Hundreds of years from now, high school students will be bored reading our history. Everything will pass, everything will fade, but my happiness, my dear friend, my happiness will remain forever, in the wet glow of the street lamps, in the turns, on the dark river wharves, in the smiles of the double dancers, in the midst of everything, in the loneliness of God's generously gifted people.
(Translated by Shi Zhenchuan)
Appreciation
A Letter to Russia is permeated with the author's deep and heavy nostalgia. It also takes place in the quiet and lonely environment of the dark night, but the way of feeling is completely different from the author's essay "Elf", which is another song of homesickness in front of the readers.
At the beginning, the work selects the exquisite details of the past, and naturally recalls every aspect of the hometown like a stream of water; then the words turn steeply, and the author remembers his promise to his friend to "stop talking about the past, especially the trivialities", and stops "talking about the past", and returns to the present. "and returns to the quiet, dusky night of the present. However, the author has "rekindled the feelings of the old days", so how does he express his feelings about the Berlin night, and how does he incorporate his own parting thoughts into his perceptions of his surroundings? Nabokov has stated that in conceptualizing his fictional world, he did not use any language, but rather thought in terms of imagery. This preference is also perfectly reflected in this essay. The author starts from the "wax-sealed" still life indoors, and then goes on to the streets at night, trams, theaters, bars and cemeteries, with the line of sight constantly changing and extending, from the inside to the outside, from the static to the dynamic, and the atmosphere throughout all the visual images is always shrouded in a quiet, cold and lonely atmosphere, which permeates the author's emotions, i.e., the visual images become the imagery for expressing his inner feelings. The visual image that permeates the author's emotion becomes the imagery that expresses his inner emotion. The lonely conductor in the empty night train, the night returnees hurrying on the dark road, the old dog leading the lazy beautiful woman for a walk on the empty and sparse streets, the smiling woman soliciting business on the empty square, the people in the small bar who are bored to death and intoxicated by alcohol and dancing ...... All the characters are so lonely and desolate. were all so forlorn and silent, and everything was immersed in an air of somber loneliness of suffocating quiet. Looking at the same crowd wandering in the night, the author has a deep sympathy and realization, "both joy and despondency". Why this complex emotion, he does not know, or, the joy is because of the discovery of the night and their own experience of the same companions, and melancholy and because of the same wandering sympathy. The author "likes to listen to the sound of people returning home at night", perhaps, from the sound of their footsteps and the sound of the door opening, you can vaguely feel the warmth of the sense of homecoming. What he saw and heard in the cemetery is the author's night realization reached a high point, the silence of the silence reminds people of death, perhaps death can also be gentle, peaceful, after all, that is an eternally silent home. The wandering life of a guest in another country may be full and bright, but when the dark night of silence arrives, alone, a strong sense of loneliness and a sense of no place will attack the heart and make people naturally think about some ultimate problems, such as happiness, such as a place to live, such as life, such as death. The surrounding environment and the author's state of mind is so seamless coincidence, in a piece of inexorable thick nostalgia, the author came to the conclusion that a kind of "happiness". "Everything will pass away, everything will fade away", but "happiness" "will remain forever", "in everything", "in everything", "in everything", "in everything", "in everything", "in everything", "in everything", "in everything", "in everything", "in everything", "in everything", "in everything". "in everything", "in the solitude of those whom God has so graciously given". On reflection, this "happiness" is the incarnation of an unending, ineradicable eternity. "Happiness itself is a challenge." Since wandering is irrevocable, enjoy the bliss of the dark night in this endless silence and solitude. This elevation of meaning actually contains deep sorrow and sadness, and the pleasure in bitterness in the midst of the inexorable leads to a deeper sourness in the heart. As for the understanding of solitude, Nabokov once said in an interview: "Isolation means freedom and discovery. A vast, sprawling desert can be more exciting than a city." But at the same time, he admitted, "My life of solitude doesn't make any sense. My choice of this way of life was in no way due to my temperament, but rather to the transformation of the political situation in Russia and the fall of my family. Personally, I am upright, frank, enthusiastic, talkative, and fond of jokes. ......" Just as the work ultimately sublimates quiet solitude into a kind of happiness, the wandering situation of the world and the immutability of external objects make Nabokov accept this way of life, which is alien to his own character, and regard it as an exploration of freedom and discovery. Nabokov accepted this way of life, which is different from his own character, and regarded it as a journey of exploration for freedom and discovery. And how much loneliness and nostalgia will emerge in the dark night is contained in this openness, perhaps only the author himself knows.
(Yuan Wei)