*Freud is not right. . .*
“Life is full of surprises”, I am not one of those who think so. I believe that life is full of obstacles, which I have to overcome--which I do, and which makes me be one of those who never get bored. I am the one who never gets bored. How many your friends can say this? Can you say this?
Every time, getting up in the morning, I don’t know whether my grandma is still alive in her bedroom or not, for she is so old and ill, and it is said, the old men and women die in sleep. Coming in her room I stand still at the door--she is sleeping at this unearthly hour, and I can’t discern, whether she breathes or not. Ready and yet unprepared, feeling unable to approach, I can’t discern it for several horrible seconds--alive or not? alive or not? alive or not? alive or not?--then, eventually, my eyes catch a slight movement: her blanketed shoulder heaves, and since this moment I can see she breathe. That’s all right. Today. Taking breath I leave the room and close the door behind me. It’s my first everyday play with death. I cannot blame anyone in this ordeal, unless my partner death, but it’s silly to do--as silly as death itself. And death keeps on playing.
Going out, I am not sure that I won’t be a victim of a traffic accident any moment, however law-abiding as a pedestrian I am, because so many drug-addicts or simply overstrained drivers are at the wheel now, and every going out for shopping is a play with death for a pedestrian though not all of us are aware of it. Nice distraction and remedy from boredom, isn’t it? This extreme is more than enough for me, and I don’t feel like having any more. Well, life is full of surprises too, if you wish.
Meanwhile, on the 2nd of August (very soon) my grandma is 89. She used to nurse me, yet the time has come and I nurse her now. She raised me like her own daughter though my mother was and is alive, and my parents were never divorced. When I was a little kid I loved my grandma to destruction. Since the time when I was aged 5 that is the time when I had learnt of such a phenomenon as death (it’s too much adult programs on TV and then my questioning), I was consumed with fear of her death, because those days, being ill she had heart attacks that impressed me too much. Everyone in my family might die--my mother, my father, everyone, I hardly noticed that--but not my grandma. According to Freud, now, being adult I should love all old women. Why? It’s beyond me, *shrug*. I dream about men as long as I can remember. I was in love with a male for the first time when I was aged 6--however funny it sounds--he was a boy about 8 or 10, who I loved from afar, admiring him as he played with his playmates at the public garden, where I was brought by hand for a walk. I won’t say why I chose him out of all boys I could see, but it’s with reason. I had been in love with him for one vernal month or so.
Some learned people say that every individual is unique, and most of sane individuals are predisposed to self-examination or self-rating, so I let you know of these details of my life as one more unique individual, no more.
And again, according to Freud, I have to love tall men, since my father, who I loved dearly, was a tall man. Why should I do it? It’s beyond me. I have nothing against tall men, I don’t think they are silly or brutal or narrow-minded, not at all--Dr Phillip Bernhardt-House, who I love dearly, is a tall man, as I was told--but my acrophobia plays a trick to me: every time I saw a man taller than me (which cannot be often in our part of the world) and I lift my head up to look up at his face, I feel giddy (or other unpleasant feeling akin to it), and I hasten to avert my eyes.
I never read Freud don't feel like reading, but I read Nabokov’s witty comments, which I love. Really, a learned man, who claims that every little boy subliminally dreams of making love with his mother and of castrating his father, cannot be taken seriously, and is a good object for Nabokov’s scorns, and anybody else’s, regardless of my own preconception.
Regard this essay as my speech against psychoanalysis, if you wish.
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*Ravens True Stories*
(impressions)
The next day after I published the story about my passing relationship with the sea-gull in this blog--
http://ohlala007.blog.co.uk/2008/05/24/quixotic-4214584
--my relationship with other bird took place. This last story made me recall one more story that too place late in the winter, and recently in summer one more impression was added to the first two. Now, the first, most mysterious story.
That day--the next day after I published the story The View From the Left Bank--as usual, I went out for shopping. The day was rainy and cloudy, but the rain stopped by 1 p.m. Now, when walking in a side-street, rather a long and broad green alley (all streets are broad in the town), at a distance of 20 yards from my house, I felt a rapid blow from behind to the back of my head or rather neck, right behind my left ear. The sensation was not faint, although the thing that hit my neck did not feel like something hard, rather it was elastic and wet. Shocked, I kept my balance though. I felt taken at disadvantage and assailable. The point is that earlier last spring, on March 9, I was assaulted by a robber, who wanted my handbag. It was by day, around 2 p.m., in front of my house, at the moment when I expected nothing of the kind. I fought with him but failed, and thus I was robbed of my handbag and got a slight concussion of the brain. And this instant, in some extraordinary way, it was a new attack. I looked back--and saw what it was. It was a raven. The wet bird flew up and lit on the nearest wiring, apparently to come to itself after the collision, and also to be able to watch me, or perhaps being on the point of a new attack. Seeing it was but a bird, I was now concerned about my clothing. With hand I felt the collar of my overcoat trying understand whether it was dirty after the raven’s attack or not. It seemed to be all right. Still shocked, I felt again and again my overcoat’s collar and shoulder, making meanwhile several steps forward. The raven took wing moving forward too, and as soon as I paused, it lit on the next wire. Obvious, the bird kept on watching me. This looked fearsome. Shocked, being afraid of the next attack, I turned to look at people and to know whether anybody saw it all or not. There were only several passers-by in the side-street; all of them were young, and all of them responded to what had happened but just, and what could not slip their attention, very odd, that is they did not respond at all. Like pallid phantoms they simply continued walking towards me and by me, looking either at my face or straight before them--it was impossible to make out--silently, as thought nothing had happened. Apparently, it was a weird day in the town. It made the scene dreamlike. “If the onlookers were some old men or women, they would say some kind words, sympathizing with me,” I said to myself. But I was too much preoccupied with my clothing to watch the strangers longer or to permit myself to be benumbed by the look of those pale phantoms. Keeping silence, the raven did not try to attack again--so making certain of cleanness of my overcoat, I mended my pace, having way on, towards the department store. The raven stopped chasing me, but all along that day, being out, I felt ill at ease. The ravens or crows, which cawed overhead, among the old poplars, seemed possible assailants. Walking in a street I thought I heard footsteps behind me--I looked back, but nobody came after, the street was empty. Footsteps were heard a dozen times on my way home, and every time I looked back the street was empty. It did not give me the creeps, for it was by day, but it was awful anyway. Feeling ill at ease the day long, I still did not understand a reason of the raven’s attack that looked like a sudden, awfully bad omen, precursory of mischief. What about you? Have you guessed of the reason? I’ll tell you, if you have not. Far in the day I told my grandma about this happening (you have to tell at least three persons about the bad omen that looms over you, so that the predestination would not come true) and my grandma said simply: “It’s you glittering earrings.” What kind relief I felt hearing that! The raven did not want my blood that pulsed in the vein right behind a human’s ear, he did not want to hit the vital vein--the winged robber dived from above for my earring, nothing more! No bad omens!
Many ravens, crows and magpies come flying from the snow-clad forests and fields for wintering in the town. Every time I enjoy watching the birds. They look nice, bigger and much clever than the town birds, and even friendly and social at times. One day in February, I was an onlooker or rather a listener of an interesting scene. It took place outside my window, and I may not to see it, because I could hear it all very well. A tomcat went out for a walk--I learnt of his presence because he began miaowing loudly and appealingly. Then I heard other voice. It was a voice of a crow or raven. The social bird began respond to the cat’s miaowing, doing it to the best of its abilities, that is the bird began imitating the cat’s miaowing.
“Miaaow!” said the cat.
“Crriaow…” said the bird.
“Miaaow!” said the cat.
“Crriaow...” said the bird.
As I think, the social bird, as a stranger who had been at home here, was about to make contact with the natives that is with inhabitants of the yard and surroundings, wishing to know them better and to while away the time at a pleasant and cognitive talk. And the tomcat ignored the bird. He seemed to be preoccupied with his own business too much to pay attention to somebody else’s voice. He proceeded: “Miaow!”
“Crriaow…” echoed the bird quietly yet distinctly.
“Miaaow!”
“Crriaow…”
“Miaaow!”
“Crriaow…”
“Miaaow!”
“Crriaow…”
“Miaaow!”
“Crriaow…” The bird felt like communing so much, but the cat seemed indifferent to anything but his own business, although the bird cawed being somewhere low, perhaps on a branch right over his head. Presently I was distracted by something, and I never knew who of the two was the first to become silent.
Now, in summer, most of the ravens and other forest birds left the town. I see only some ravens remain. And in July, when the weather is oppressively hot, outside my window, in the last sunrays sometimes a raven’s voice is heard from above. Apparently, the bird finds place somewhere on a top of an old tree or on wiring, but I don’t know of this for certain, and I never saw the bird. I only can hear its voice. The raven caws quietly, with measured pauses, rather pleasantly. I think it is a male--a young raven cawing at the sunset. I enjoy listening the voice. The raven caws so melancholy, so gently that I am beginning to think that it seems to him that he sings like a very nightingale. Next day after the singing, it rains, and I flatter myself with hope that the rain precursor sings for a rain lover like me.
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*the animal shelter in the Moscow:*
In a Moscow animal shelter, two caged dogs talk. The dog, who has been caged only today, asks its sophisticated neighbor: “How many time a day they feed us? When the next meal?”
“Let me see… It’s 9 a.m. now? The next meal is… in three days.”
“Great!”
A family comes in the shelter. They watch the cages with dogs for the purpose of adopting a stray dog. Eventually, Father says to the clerk: “We want this dog.”
“The dog costs 200 dollars,” says the clerk.
Another family comes in. They want to find their own lost dog. In one of the cages they see their dog. They cry out: “There is our dog! We’ve found it! Hurray!”
The clerk says: “This dog costs 500 dollars.”
“But the dog is our!! We are its owners!!”
“This dog costs 500 dollars.”
(quick curtain)
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*more little boys at Revue_Blanche:*
Myka Morozov, 1901
Children, 1899
Sasha Serov, 1897
Artist: Valentin Serov (1865-1911)
*russian theme*
BBC news: “Scientific tests have confirmed that bones found last year in Russia belong to the two missing children of Tsar Nicholas II, Russian officials say.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7375765.stm
The murder of the children of the last Russian Tsar is a part of history. I know the Russian history fairly well or at least, I dare say, much better than anybody else here on blog.co.uk. Russia is a mother country of terrorism, if you like. The Russian terrorism is older than the present day terrorism of the Islamic fundamentalists: recall all those ‘bombists’ of the 19th century, the terrorists who threw the homemade bombs to the representatives of the Tsar’s administration. Most of the terrorists were young men or women; most of the young men or women were students; most of the students were Jews. I am not a Jew (like some bloggers, who write in behalf of gays for the only purpose to seize the opportunity to say “Personally I am not gay” once again, I write about Jews to seize the opportunity to say that I am not a Jew), therefore personally I have no a reason to have anything against the Russian Monarchy. A history lover, I find nothing attractive in social revolutions. A nation, which has ever got through a revolution and murder of an anointed person, is a nation-martyr, in my view. Social changes in the country, where I live, frighten me--even the votes (the most usual thing for all of my friends here on the blog website). To my taste: one president for ever; if not Tsar then at least a lifelong ruler, however awful it sounds. Let the ruler’s political opponents make fuss, stir, noise or whatever around his reign, trying to change the political system or government--that’s nothing but a rule of the game, and their game is not mine. The stake at the game is an enormous profit in addition to their current enormous fortunes and army of vassals. Right in this way the things go in Russia. This being so, I’m not among those who wants social changes/revolutions, and I’d like my young, rebellion-oriented friends to understand me.
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Note: Gorki is a representative of simple people, and Bunin is a representative of noblemen.
