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In one of the best stories of the collection, «Собака», a similar reversal takes place. The story begins when the narrator, Lialechka, then a high-spirited and pretty fifteen-year-old, is spending the summer at the estate of her friends, the Katkovs. Among the many young people staying there is the son of the steward, Tolia, a nice but terribly shy boy who is deeply but hopelessly in love with Lialechka. All the young people are in the habit of strolling in the evening to a hillock, which overlooks the river and an abandoned mill. One evening thay take turns telling stories and Tolia tells a true tale about the mill. At one time long ago, the mill was rented to a silent, reclusive old German who had an enormous dog. The dog sat opposite the miller for whole days, not taking its eyes off him. Then one day the dog, for no apparent reason, jumped on the old man and bit through his throat. It then ran away and disappeared. Since that time, the mill has been empty.
The others like Tolia's story, but someone complains that is wasn't scary enough; Tolia should have added that since that time tha place is bewitched, and that anyone who spends the night there turns into a dog. The very next night Tolia decides, at Lialechka's prompting, to stay overnight at the mill to see if this is in fact true. In the morning Lialechka, who was terribly nervous at night and hardly slept, is awoken by a scratching at the shutters. Terrified, she throws them open and is overjoyed to see Tolia standing before her. She hugs him and screams: «— Как ты смел, негодяй, как ты смел не обратиться в собаку!» (302). Tolia objects: «Лялечка, ... да разве ты не видишь? Да ты просто смотреть не умеешь! Я ... Лялечка, собака, твой пес навеки верный, никогда не отойду от тебя» (302).
Tolia and Lialechka soon leave the estate, she for St.Petersburg, he for Smolensk. They meet briefly two years later, after which Tolia sends her an enormous bouquet of roses to which he has attached a little heart-faced dog. At the sight of the dog, Lialia is overwhelmed with pity: «Мне почему-то ужасно стало его жалко. И собачка была такая жалкая, с блестящими глазками, точно плакала» (303).
After this begins the «сумбурная полоса жизни» for Lialia (304), coinciding approximately with the First World War and the Revolution. While Tolia and the Katkovs join the war effort, Lialia remains in St.Petersburg to study voice at te conservatory. She soon drifits from her studies, however, and becomes immersed in the Petersburg artistic bohemia, so active at the time. She frequents the famous literatury cafe, Бродячая собака, and it is there that she meets Garri Edvers, a sickly but dandyish young man of the Oscar Wilde type who writes little songs, all to the same tune. At first repelled by him, she is soon drawn into his decadent circle and, with hair cropped and dyed and wearing a man's suit, she begins singing his nonsensical songs. Garri approves of her perfomance, but adds: «— Вы должны воткнуть в петличку ненормальную розу. Зеленую. Огромную. Уродливую» (306). This abnormal rose becomes emblematic of Garri's whole milieu: «У Гарри была своя свита, свой двор. роже “ненормальный, зеленый и уродливый”. Зеленая девица — кокаиноманка, какой-то Юрочка, “которого все знают”, чахоточный лицеист, и горбун, чудесно игравший на рояле» (306-7). Lilia's relations with Garri are also strange. She is repelled by his presence, «точно я целуюсь с трупом» (307), but cannot live without him. Here as in «Русалка» the grotesque is transposed from the realm of fantasy, with which it is usually associated in supernatural tales, to the «real» woeld of Petersburg bohema. Garri's «green and deformed» suite resembles a collection of petty demons, while Lialia's relations to Garri himself smacks of necrophilia.
Things go from bad to worse for Lialia, especially since her old friends, the Katkovs, disapprove of her way of life and shun her. As for Garri, he disappears for long periods, during one of which he succeeds in getting Lilia's money from her aunt in the country by pretending to be Lilia's husband. The culmination point is reached when Lilia discovers that Garri and his cocaine-sniffing circle, although formerly sympathetic to the White cause, are now associated with the Cheka. This news finally bestirs her to try to escape from her situation and get to her aunt's estate. While running around for the propper papers, Lialia meets one of the Katkov brothers, now a White officer, who promises to get a message to Tolia: «Ляля зовет собаку на помощь» (316).
Lilia manages with great difficult to get the necessary papers, but she still needs to get back some of her money from Garri in order to make the trip. The day she decides to broach the subject she waits for him in her room and suddenly feels someone's eyes on her. She turns around and sees a dog: «Большая, рыжая, худая, шерсть сбитая, а порода в роде chien-loup! Стоит в дверях и смотрит прямо на меня. Что за чудо?». She cannot understand how it got into the locked room and lets it out. Then Garri appears, looking terrible and in state of extreme agitation. He suddenly screams: «— Это откуда?» (318), and Lilia, turning around, sees the dog huddled in the corner, staring intently at Garri. Garri, almost excessively frightened, chases it from the room. Lialia begins her conversation, but then sees a horrified look on Garri's face. She turns around and sees the dog with both its paws on the window sill. It jumps down, but she manages to see its terrible eyes fixed on Garri. When Lilia raises the question os money with Garri, his reaction is direct and brutal: he tears up her paper and grabs her by the throat. Lilia loses consciousness, but first manages to call for help. At this point something weird occurs: «Раздался звон разбитого стекла и что-то огромное, тяжелое, мохнатое впрыгнуло и упало сбоку на Гарри, повалив его и покрыв собою» (319). When Lilia comes to, she finds that Garri's throat is torn through and the dog has
disappeared.This occurs on the twenty-seventh. A long time later, Lilia discovers that Tolia, who had received her message and was rushing to her aid, was shot by the Bolsheviks on the very same day. The story concludes:
«Вот и вся целиком история, которую я хотела рассказать. Ничего в ней я не сочинила и не прибавила, и ничего не могу и не хочу объяснить. Но сама я, когда оборачиваюсь к прошлому, я вижу ясно все кольца событий и стержень, на который некая сила их нанизывала.
Нанизала и сомкнула концы» (320).
«Собака» is typical of Ведьма, in that nothing unambiguously supernatural occurs, and yet one would be hard put to give a rational explanation of the events. What is not typical is the character of Tolia te dog. For while in the other stories, the uncanny force is generally some dark passion or superstition, here it is wholly positive: Tolia's devoted, self-sacrificing love. It is significant in this regard that Tolia is not associated with the frightening нечисть who figure in the other stories, but with a dog. For to Teffi the kind of selfless love that he exemplifies is present in its purest form precisely in animals. She devoted a considerable number of stories to this marvelous animal love, particularly in the volume published immediately after Ведьма, О нежности.
And so in «Собака», even more clearly than in «Русалка», a striking reversal takes place. It is to Lialia's everyday milieu — Garri's «green, abnormal» circle — that grotesque and rfightening traits are attributed. Tolia, on the other hand, although pathetic in his hopeless love, is portrayed as wholesome and boyish, with his round face and childlike eyes.
In general in Ведьма, there is a dichotomy between everyday life — at best monotonous and at worst terribly cruel — and the uncanny. While the latter rarely takes as positive a form as in «Собака», it is frequently an emanation of some genuine and strong passion, although at times perverted by circumstances, as in «Русалка». Even in those cases when some dark superstition is being portrayed, with no particular redeeming features, as in «Ведьма», it still adds a certain excitement and interest to life, which would otherwise be almost unbearably dreary.
Список литературы
Эдит Хэйбер. "Ведьма" Тэффи: мифология русской души
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