MARINA TSVETAEVA
525
Dogs-not love! And whoever falls in love-it's with the soul, and
he'll take her no matter what smell, he'll even roll the cigarettes him–
self. I'm right, ain't I-what do you think Miss?"
I: "Right. My husband always rolls my cigarettes. And he
doesn't smoke himself."
(I'm lying.)
My defender - to someone else: "So she ain't a Miss after all.
Hey brother, you blundered! And your husband, he'll be a student
or something?"
I, remembering caution: "No, well, just my husband .... "
The other one, explaining the situation: "That means they live
off their capital."
My defender : "You'll be going to him then?"
I: "No, I'm going for the children, he stayed in the Crimea."
"What-you have your own dacha in the Crimea?"
I, calmly-"Yes, and a house in Moscow." (I made up the
dacha.)
-Silence-
My defender: "You sure are brave, little Missus. Come, you
don't really want to admit to such things now, do you? These days a
body's so afraid he's happy to bury his house, his money, even
himself in the ground with his own two hands!"
I: "Why bury oneself? There'll come a time when others will
bury us. And anyway, this isn't the first time it's happened: self–
buriers. They used to bury themselves alive in the ground-to save
their souls. And now it's to save their bodies."
- They all laugh, and I laugh too.
My defender: "And how come your husband ain't with the sim-
ple people?"
I: "No, he's with
all the people."
"I don't quite get you."
I: "As Christ commanded: neither poor, he said, nor rich: but
men and Christ in everyone."
My defender, joyfully: "That's it, thou art not guilty of thy
princeliness, and thou art not guilty of thy poverty" ... (a bit
suspiciously) "And you Ma'am .... you wouldn't be a Bolshevik?"
Someone else: "What kind of Bolshevik when they have their
own house?"
The first one: "It don't mean nothing, lots of them are in the
educated class - gentry too, merchants. More and more it's the gen–
try that go over to the Bolsheviks ... "(Glancing, unsure)" And she
has short hair ."
