Free Calligraphy Lesson by Mikhail Shishkin

vaults of hundred-year-old lilacs, a windy June supper. Your wife is twirling the binoculars and laughing crazily, aiming them first at the moon, which has surfaced like a jellyfish, then at the deck chairs flapping in the wind, then directly at her plate. A pimply lass whoarouses herself at night with her finger is eating the icing roses off the cake. I don’t think that was me, but you know better. You’re across from me. There’s a whole beard in the rusty lilac inflorescences that drop on the table. You wink and mumble, “These are dead moths;” you scoop them up in your glass with a spoon and lick it off. My father—a cheap drunk—is shouting now, “I told them so. Here you are!” he shouted and brandished his empty glass. “Please be so kind as to join us! I’ll cut their umbilicus. Congratulations on coming into the Divine light!” But they’re shouting, they’re not satisfied! They think, the Divine light is over there, while over here is the very Kingdom of Darkness.
    Of course, my unclad little people, there’s been a misunderstanding, you were misled, I explained to them, but there’s nothing you can do. It’s too late. Live as best you can! Here, my brothers, each has his own share of agony, his own path of suffering is marked out, and there’s no avoiding it. Each must drink to the dregs! They strain and howl, as if to say, Why? We are innocently condemned! they say. And I tell them, Hush! You’re all like this at first. But later? You don’t honor your father and mother, you create idols, you commit adultery, you covet your neighbor’s ass! So suffer and don’t squawk! But again they holler! And wail!
    When I came in, Alexei Pavlovich was wiping the dirt off the jars, disturbing the dissected popeyed creatures’ peace.
    Zhenya? Why are you here? Someone could stop by at any time.
    Look at that, Alyosha, 9 you’re afraid of me. I can tell. I was at your house yesterday. I went to see Vera Lvovna specifically because I knew you weren’t home. I went to convince myself that she doesn’t have long left. There’ll be no need to hide, and this humiliation will end. We’ll liveopenly, together, afraid of no one, and I’ll give you a wonderful baby, scrumptious, chubby-cheeked, blowing bubbles from satisfaction when we tell him the bogeyman’s coming to get him. My father will deliver the baby. He’ll hold my hand and say, “Push, mama, push!” And everything will turn out well. I’ll recover, I’ll crunch a cucumber, and pale, tormented, and beautiful, I’ll look down at you from my window, as you stand on the sidewalk under an umbrella, chilled to the bone, happy.
    Zhenya, you have no idea what nonsense this is. You have to understand. This is vile, this is just plain vulgar, this is the height of banality—to cheat on a dying wife with a young idiot in love with love!
    Yes yes, Alyosha, exactly so. A hymn to vulgarity. Banalissimo . Pistils and stamens. Life and death.
    Quiet, Zhenya, I’m exhausted. Listen, tomorrow I’m taking Vera Lvovna south, to Yalta. For a month maybe. Or more. We’ll see how it goes. You have to understand. Even when I talk to her about the weather, I feel like the worst scoundrel on earth! You know I’d leave her without a second thought, but how can I abandon someone in this situation? You don’t understand. Some things are more important than love! Zhenya, my sweet Zhenya, we must part. Temporarily, of course. Vera says to me, “Where are you taking me? Why? What does it matter where I croak? Our friends are here, here Zhenya comes by.” And I don’t know what to tell her or how to explain. Well, why don’t you say something? Say something quick, before they come in.
    Bon voyage!
    I was reading to Roman. Me in the armchair under the lamp, him on the couch. When the book was over, we sat in silence. I kept