Galya Ganskaya

An artist and an ex-sailor were sitting on the terrace of a Parisian café. It was April, and the artist was in raptures about how beautiful Paris was in the spring and how charming the Parisiennes were in their first spring costumes.

“Yet in my golden age Paris in the spring was, of course, even more beautiful,” he was saying. “And not only because I was young – Paris itself was completely different. Just think: not a single car. And as if Paris lived then the way it does now!”

“Well, for some reason spring in Odessa has come to mind for me,” said the sailor. “You, as a native of Odessa, know even better than I do all its utterly special charm – that mixture of the already hot sun and the still wintry freshness of the sea, the bright sky and the spring clouds out at sea. And on days like this, the spring smartness of the women on Deribasovskaya Street…”

The artist, puffing at his pipe, called: “Garçon, un demi!” and turned back to him animatedly:

“I’m sorry, I interrupted you. Imagine – talking about Paris, I was thinking about Odessa too. You’re absolutely right – spring in Odessa really is something special. Only my memories of Parisian springs and the Odessa ones are always inseparable somehow, they used to alternate for me – I mean, you know how often I came to Paris in the spring in those days… You remember Galya Ganskaya? You saw her somewhere and told me you’d never met a girl more charming. Don’t you remember? But it’s all the same. Just now, starting to talk about Paris as it was then, I was thinking specifically of her too, and of that spring in Odessa when she came to my studio for the first time. Every one of us probably has some particularly dear amorous memory or some particularly grave amorous sin. Well, and Galya is, I think, my most splendid memory and my gravest, although, God is my witness, nonetheless involuntary sin. It’s such an ancient business now I can tell you about it with complete frankness…

“I knew her when I was still an adolescent. She grew up, without a mother, with her father, whom her mother had left long before. He was a very well-to-do man, but by profession an unsuccessful artist, an amateur, as they say, but such a passionate one that, other than painting, he was interested in nothing in the world, and he did nothing all his life except stand at an easel and pack his house – he had an estate at Otrada – full of pictures old and new, buying up everything he liked, everywhere, wherever he could. He was a very handsome man, burly, tall, with a wonderful bronze beard, half Polish, half Ukrainian, with the ways of a grand gentleman, proud and with a refined politeness, inwardly very reserved, but who pretended to be a very open man, especially with us: at one time we, the young artists of Odessa, all visited him in a gang every Sunday for about two years in succession, and he always greeted us with open arms, behaved with us, for all the difference in our years, in a totally comradely way, talked about painting endlessly and entertained us lavishly. Galya was then about thirteen or fourteen, and we were enraptured with her, only, of course, as a little girl: uncommonly sweet, playful and gracious she was, a little face with light-brown ringlets like an angel’s down her cheeks, but so coquettish that her father said to us one day when she’d run into his studio for some reason, whispered something in his ear and immediately slipped out:

“‘Dear oh dear, what sort of a girl have I got growing up, my friends! I’m afraid for her!’

“Then, with the rudeness of youth, we somehow all at once and to a man, as though we’d arranged it, gave up visiting him, we were fed up with something about Otrada – probably his incessant conversations about art and about how he’d finally discovered another remarkable secret about how one should paint. It was just at that time I spent two springs in Paris, imagined myself to be a second Maupassant where matters of love were concerned and, returning to Odessa, went about like the most vulgar fop: a top hat, a pea-green knee-length overcoat, cream gloves, semi-patent-leather ankle boots with buttons, an amazing cane – and add to that wavy whiskers, also in imitation of Maupassant, and a treatment of women that was utterly vile in its irresponsibility. And so I’m walking once down Deribasovskaya on a wonderful day in April, I cross Preobrazhenskaya, and on the corner, beside Liebmann’s coffee house, I suddenly meet with Galya. Do you remember the five-storey corner building where that coffee house was – on the corner of Preobrazhenskaya and Cathedral Square, renowned for the fact that in spring, on sunny days, its ledges were for some reason always packed with starlings and their twittering? Extraordinarily sweet and cheerful it was. And so imagine: it’s spring, everywhere a multitude of smartly dressed, carefree and affable people, these starlings pouring out their unceasing twittering like some sort of sunny rain – and Galya. And no longer an adolescent, an angel, but an amazingly good-looking, slim girl, all in new clothes, light grey, springlike. The little face beneath the grey hat is half-hidden by an ash-grey veil, and through it shine eyes of aquamarine. Well, of course, exclamations, questions and reproaches: how you all forgot Papa, how long it is since you visited us! Ah yes, I say, so long that you’ve had time to grow up. Straight away I bought her a small bunch of violets from a ragamuffin of a girl – she, with a quick smile of gratitude in her eyes, immediately, as all women are supposed to, thrusts it up to her face. ‘Would you like to sit down, would you like some chocolate?’ – ‘With pleasure.’ She lifts the veil and drinks the chocolate, throwing festive glances and keeping on asking about Paris, and I keep on gazing at her. ‘Papa works from morning till evening, so do you work a lot, or are you forever falling for Parisiennes?’ – ‘No, I don’t fall for them any more, I work, and I’ve painted several decent little things. Would you like to drop into my studio? You can, you’re an artist’s daughter after all, and I live just a stone’s throw from here.’ She was terribly pleased: ‘Of course I can! And then I’ve never been inside a single studio, apart from Papa’s!’ She lowered the veil, grabbed her parasol, I take her by the arm, she hits me on the leg as we walk and laughs. ‘Galya,’ I say, ‘I can call you Galya, can’t I?’ She answers quickly and seriously: you may. ‘Galya, what’s happened to you?’ – ‘What do you mean?’ – ‘You always were delightful, but now you’re simply amazingly delightful!’ Again she hits me on the leg and says, maybe joking, maybe serious: ‘This is nothing, there’s more to come!’ You remember the dark, narrow staircase from the yard to my turret? Here she suddenly falls quiet, walks up, rustling her silk underskirt, and keeps looking back. She entered the studio even with a certain reverence, began in a whisper: how lovely and secretive you are here, what a terribly big couch! And how many pictures you’ve painted, and they’re all of Paris… And she started going from picture to picture in quiet rapture, forcing herself to be even excessively unhurried and attentive. She looked her fill and gave a sigh: yes, how many beautiful things you’ve created! ‘Would you like a glass of port and some biscuits?’ – ‘I don’t know…’ I took her parasol from her, threw it onto the couch, and took her hand in its white kid glove: may I kiss it? ‘But I’m wearing a glove…’ I unbuttoned the glove and kissed the start of the little palm. She lowers the veil, looks through it expressionlessly with her aquamarine eyes, and says quietly: well, it’s time I was going. No, I say, first we’ll sit for a little, I’ve not had a good look at you yet. I sat down and set her on my knees – you know that entrancing weightiness of women, even of the light ones? Enigmatically somehow, she asks me: do you find me attractive? I looked at the whole of her, looked at the violets, which she’d pinned to her nice new jacket, and even burst out laughing with tenderness: and you, I say, do you find these violets attractive? ‘I don’t understand.’ – ‘What’s so hard to understand? Here you are, just exactly the same as these violets.’ Dropping her eyes, she laughs: ‘At our school, such comparisons of young ladies with various flowers were called hack work.’ – ‘That may be so, but how else can I put it?’ – ‘I don’t know…’ And she gives her smart, dangling legs a little swing, her child’s lips are half open, gleaming… I raised the veil, bent her little head down and kissed her – she bent it down a little more. I went up her slippery, greenish silk stocking as far as the fastening on it, as far as the elastic, unfastened it, kissed the warm pink flesh of the start of the hip, then again the half-open mouth – she began giving my lips little bites…”

The sailor shook his head with a grin:

“Vieux satyre!”

“Don’t talk nonsense,” said the artist. “Remembering all this is very painful for me.”

“Well, all right, tell me what happened next.”

“Next was my not seeing her for a whole year. One day, also in spring, I finally went to Otrada and was greeted by Gansky with such touching joy that I was burnt up with shame at how swinishly we had dropped him. He’d aged a lot, there was silver in his beard, but there was still that same animation in conversations about painting. He began showing me his new works with pride – huge golden swans flying over some blue dunes – he was trying, poor chap, not to fall behind the times. I lie through my teeth: wonderful, wonderful, you’ve taken a great step forward! He stays strong, but he’s glowing like a boy. ‘Well, I’m very glad, very glad, and now lunch!’ – ‘And where’s your daughter?’ – ‘Gone into town. You won’t recognize her! Not a little girl, but already a young lady, and the main thing is, completely, completely different: she’s grown up, shot up like a poplar!’ There’s bad luck, I think, I’d actually come to visit the old man only because I’d had a terrible desire to see her, and now, as if on purpose, she was in town. I had lunch, kissed his soft, fragrant beard, made promises to be there without fail the next Sunday, left the house – and coming towards me it’s her. She stopped joyously: is it you? What brings you here? You’ve been with Papa? Ah, how glad I am! – ‘And I even more so,’ I say, ‘your Papa told me you can’t even be recognized now, no longer a sapling, but a grown poplar – and it’s absolutely true.’ And it really was the case: as though not even a young lady, but a young woman. She’s smiling, and twirling an open parasol on her shoulder. The parasol’s white, lacy, her dress and large hat are white and lacy too, her hair to the side of the hat has the most delightful ginger tint, there’s no longer the former naivety in her eyes, the little face has lengthened… ‘Yes, I’m even a little taller than you.’ I just shake my head: it’s true, it’s true… Let’s take a stroll, I say, to the sea. ‘Let’s.’ We set off down a lane between gardens, I can see she senses all the time that, while saying any old thing, I’m not taking my eyes off her. She walks along, elegantly swinging her shoulders, she’s closed the parasol and she’s holding her lace skirt with her left hand. We came out onto the cliff – a fresh wind began to blow. The gardens are already clothing themselves, delighting in the sun, while the sea is like a northern one, low, icy, rolling in in steep, green waves, covered in white horses, and sinking in the distance in blue-grey murk – in short, Pontus Euxinus. We fall silent, stand looking, and seem to be waiting, and she’s evidently thinking the same thing as I am – of how she had sat on my knees a year before. I took her by the waist and pressed the whole of her so hard against me that she bent back. I try to catch her lips – she attempts to free herself, twists her head, turns aside, and suddenly gives in, gives me them. And all this in silence – not a sound, not from me, not from her. Then suddenly she tore herself free and, adjusting her hat, said simply and with conviction:

“‘Ah, what a good-for-nothing you are. What a good-for-nothing.’

“She turned and, without looking back, set off rapidly down the lane.”

“And had there been anything between you that time in the studio, or not?” asked the sailor.

“Not all the way there hadn’t. We’d done an awful lot of kissing, well, and all the rest, but then pity had taken hold of me: she’d got all flushed, like fire, all dishevelled, and I can see that, in an utterly childish way, she can no longer control herself – she’s frightened, but she’s dreadfully eager for this frightening thing as well. She’d pretended to be offended: well, don’t, don’t, if you don’t want to, then don’t… I’d started kissing her hands tenderly, and she’d calmed down…”

“But how on earth after that did you not see her for a whole year?”

“The devil knows. I was afraid I wouldn’t take pity a second time.”

“You were a bad Maupassant.”

“Perhaps. But wait, just let me finish the story. I didn’t see her for about another half a year. The summer was over, everyone had started returning from the dachas, although that was just the time to be staying at a dacha – that Bessarabian autumn is something divine in the tranquillity of the monotonous hot days, in the clarity of the air, in the beauty of the even blue of the sea and the dry yellow of the maize fields. I too had returned from the dacha, and one day I’m walking past Liebmann’s again – and imagine, again she’s coming towards me. She comes up to me as if nothing had happened, and starts chuckling, curling her mouth charmingly: ‘What a fateful spot, Liebmann’s again!’

“‘Why is it you’re so cheerful? I’m terribly glad to see you, but what’s the matter with you?’

“‘I don’t know. After the seaside, I’m beside myself all the time with the pleasure of running around town. I’ve got a suntan and I’ve shot up some more, haven’t I?’

“I look, and it’s true, and the main thing is, such gaiety and freedom in her conversation, in her laughter and in her entire manner, as though she’d got married. And suddenly she says:

“‘Do you still have port and biscuits?’

“‘Yes.’

“‘I want to see your studio again. May I?’

“‘Good Lord! I’ll say!’

“‘Well, let’s go, then. And quickly, quickly!’

“I caught her on the stairs, again she bent back, again began shaking her head, but without great resistance. I led her to the studio, kissing her upturned face. In the studio she started whispering mysteriously:

“‘Don’t listen, but this really is madness, you know… I’m out of my mind…’

“Yet she’d already pulled off her straw hat herself and thrown it into an armchair. Her gingery hair is drawn up onto the crown of her head and held with a vertical tortoiseshell comb, on her forehead is a curled fringe, her face bears a light, even tan, her eyes have a senselessly joyous look… I began undressing her any old how, she hurriedly began helping me. In a single moment I’d thrown the white silk blouse off her and, you understand, a mist simply fell at the sight of her pinkish body with the tan on her gleaming shoulders and the milky white of her breasts, lifted by her corset, with their prominent scarlet nipples, and then at the way she quickly pulled out of her fallen skirts, one after the other, her slim legs in little golden shoes, cream lace stockings and those, you know, loose, cambric knickers with a slit in the side, like they used to wear at that time. When I brutally grabbed her through that slit and toppled her onto the cushions of the couch, her eyes turned black and widened still more, her lips opened feverishly – I can see it all as if it were happening now, she was extraordinarily passionate… But we’ll leave that. This is what happened after a couple of weeks, in the course of which she visited me almost every day. She runs in unexpectedly one morning, and straight from the threshold it’s:

“‘They say you’re leaving for Italy in a few days?’

“‘Yes. So what of it?’

“‘But why didn’t you say a word about it to me? Did you want to leave in secret?’

“‘Heaven forfend. I was meaning to call this very day and tell you.’

“‘In front of Papa? Why not tell me in private? No, you’re not going anywhere!’

“I flared up in a foolish way:

“‘Yes I am.’

“‘No you’re not.’

“‘And I’m telling you I am.’

“‘Is that your final word?’

“‘It is. But you must understand that I’ll be back in something like a month, a month and a half maximum. And in general, listen, Galya…’

“‘I’m not Galya to you. I understand you now – I understand everything, everything! And if you began swearing to me this minute that you’d never ever go away anywhere, it’s all the same to me now. That’s no longer the point!’

“And, throwing open the door, she slammed it with all her might, and her heels started rapidly down the stairs. I wanted to rush after her, but restrained myself: no, let her come to her senses, I’ll set off for Otrada in the evening, say I don’t want to upset her, that I’m not going to Italy, and we’ll make it up. But suddenly, at about five o’clock, in comes the artist Sinani, wild-eyed:

“‘Do you know – Gansky’s daughter has poisoned herself! Fatally! With something rare, the devil knows what, lightning quick, swiped something from her father – you remember, that old idiot showed us a whole cabinet of poisons, imagining he was Leonardo da Vinci. What crazy people these damned Poles are, the men and the women! No one can comprehend what happened to her all of a sudden! The father says it’s as if he’s been struck by a bolt from the blue…’

“I wanted to shoot myself,” the artist said quietly after a pause, filling his pipe. “I almost went out of my mind…”

28th October 1940