Three Stories

by Daniil Kharms

Kalindov

Kalindov was standing on tiptoe and peering at me straight in the face. I found this unpleasant. I turned aside but Kalindov ran round me and was again peering at me straight in the face. I tried shielding myself from Kalindov with a newspaper. But Kalindov outwitted me: he set my newspaper alight and, when it flared up, I dropped it on the floor and Kalindov again began peering at me straight in the face. Slowly retreating, I repaired behind the cupboard and there, for a few moments, I enjoyed a break from the importunate stares of Kalindov. But my break was not prolonged: Kalindov crawled up to the cupboard on all fours and peered up at me from below. My patience ran out; I screwed up my eyes and booted Kalindov in the face.

When I opened my eyes, Kalindov was standing in front of me, his mug bloodied and mouth lacerated, peering at me straight in the face as before.

On Phenomena and Existences. No. 1

The artist Michelangelo sits down on a heap of bricks and, propping his head in his hands, begins to think. Suddenly a cockerel walks past and looks at the artist Michelangelo with his round, golden eyes. Looks, but doesn’t blink. At this point, the artist Michelangelo raises his head and sees the cockerel. The cockerel does not lower his gaze, doesn’t blink and doesn’t move his tail. The artist Michelangelo looks down and is aware of something in his eye. The artist Michelangelo rubs his eyes with his hands. And the cockerel isn’t standing there any more, isn’t standing there, but is walking away, walking away behind the shed, behind the shed to the poultry-run, to the poultry-run towards his hens.

And the artist Michelangelo gets up from the heap of bricks, shakes the red brick dust from his trousers, throws aside his belt and goes off to his wife.

The artist Michelangelo’s wife, by the way, is extremely long, all of two rooms in length.

On the way, the artist Michelangelo meets Komarov, grasps him by the hand and shouts:

— Look!..

Komarov looks and sees a sphere.

— What’s that? — whispers Komarov.

And from the sky comes a roar:

— It’s a sphere.

— What sort of a sphere is it? — whispers Komarov.

And from the sky, the roar:

— A smooth-surfaced sphere!

Komarov and the artist Michelangelo sit down on the grass and they are seated on the grass like mushrooms. They hold each other’s hands and look up at the sky. And in the sky appears the outline of a huge spoon. What on earth is that? No one knows. People run about and lock themselves into their houses. They lock their doors and their windows. But will that really help? Much good it does them! It will not help.

I remember in 1884 an ordinary comet the size of a steamer appearing in the sky. It was very frightening. But now — a spoon! Some phenomenon for a comet!

Lock your windows and doors!

Can that really help? You can’t barricade yourself with planks against a celestial phenomenon.

Nikolay Ivanovich Stupin lives in our house. He has a theory that everything is smoke. But in my view not everything is smoke. Maybe even there’s no smoke at all. Maybe there’s really nothing. There’s one category only. Or maybe there’s no category at all. It’s hard to say.

It is said that a certain celebrated artist scrutinised a cockerel. He scrutinised it and scrutinised it and came to the conclusion that the cockerel did not exist.

The artist told his friend this, and his friend just laughed. How, he said, doesn’t it exist, he said, when it’s standing right here and I, he said, am clearly observing it.

And the great artist thereupon hung his head and, retaining the same posture in which he stood, sat down on a pile of bricks.

That’s all.

On Equilibrium

Everyone now knows how dangerous swallowing stones is. A friend of mine even coined the expression “Dan-in-ston”, which means: “It’s dangerous to ingest stones.” And a good thing too. “Dan-in-ston” can be easily remembered and, as required, instantly recalled.

He worked, this friend of mine, as a stoker on a steam engine. He travelled either the northern line or to Moscow. He was called Nikolay Ivanovich Serpukhov and he smoked Rocket cigarettes at thirty-five kopecks a packet, and always said that they made him cough less, while those costing five roubles, he says, “always make me choke”.

And so Nikolay Ivanovich once chanced to get in to the restaurant in the Yevropeyskaya Hotel. Nikolay Ivanovich sat at a table and at the next table some foreigners were sitting munching apples.

At this point Nikolay Ivanovich said to himself:

— This is interesting, — said Nikolay Ivanovich. — A man’s life this!

Barely had he said this to himself when from out of the blue a Fairy appeared in front of him, saying:

— My good man, what do you need?

Well, of course, in a restaurant you do get a commotion from which, it may be said, this unknown diminutive lady may have sprung. The foreigners even ceased munching their apples.

Nikolay Ivanovich himself rather had the wind up and spoke rather offhandedly, so as to give her the brush-off.

— I’m sorry, — he said, — but I don’t really require anything in particular.

— You don’t understand, — said the unknown lady, — I, — she said, — am what is called a Fairy. In the merest jiffy I’ll lay on whatever you fancy.

Nikolay Ivanovich happened to notice that a citizen in a grey two-piece was listening intently to their conversation. The maitre d’hotel was rushing through the open doors and behind him some other specimen with a cigarette in his mouth.

— Bloody hell! — thought Nikolay Ivanovich. — there’s no telling what’s going on.

And there was indeed no telling what was going on. The maitre d’hotel was leaping around the tables, the foreigners were rolling up the carpets and generally the devil only knew what! They were all doing whatever they felt like!

Nikolay Ivanovich ran out to the street and didn’t even pick up his hat from the custody of the cloakroom; he ran out on to Lassalle Street and said to himself:

— Dan-in-ston! It’s dangerous to ingest stones. — Nothing like this ever really happens, surely!

And arriving home, Nikolay Ivanovich told his wife:

— Don’t be alarmed, Yekaterina Petrovna, and don’t get worried. Only there’s no equilibrium in the world. It’s just an error of some kilogram and a half over the universe as a whole, but it’s really a surprising thing, Yekaterina Petrovna, totally surprising!

And that’s all.