How I Was Visited By Messengers

Something clicked in the clock on the wall, and I was visited by messengers. At first, I did not realize that I was visited by messengers. Instead, I thought that something was wrong with the clock. But then I saw that the clock worked just fine, and probably told the correct time. Then I noticed that there was a draft in the room. And then it shocked me: what kind of thing could, at the same time, cause a clock to click and a draft to start in the room? I sat down on a chair next to the divan and looked at the clock, thinking about that. The big hand was on the number nine, and the little one on the four, therefore, it was a quarter till four. There was a calendar on the wall below the clock, and its leafs were flipping, as if there was a strong wind in the room. My heart was beating very fast and I was so scared it almost made me collapse.

"I should have some water," I said. On the table next to me was a pitcher with water. I reached out and took the pitcher.

"Water should help," I said and looked at the water.

It was then that I realized that I had been visited by messengers, and that I could not tell them apart from the water. I was scared to drink the water, because I could, by accident, drink a messenger. What does that mean? Nothing. One can only drink liquids. Could the messengers be liquid? No. Then, I can drink the water, there is nothing to be afraid of. But I couldn't find the water. I walked around the room and looked for the water. I tried putting a belt in my mouth, but it was not the water. I put the calendar in my mouth -- that also was not the water. I gave up looking for the water and started to look for the messengers. But how could I find them? What do they look like? I remembered that I could not distinguish them from the water, therefore, they must look like water. But what does water look like? I was standing and thinking. I do not know for how long I stood and thought, but suddenly I came to.

"There is the water," I thought.

But that wasn't the water, and instead I got an itch in my ear.

I looked under the cupboard and under the bed, hoping that there I might find the water or the messengers. But under the cupboard, in a pile of dust, I found a little ball, half eaten by a dog, and under the bed I found some pieces of glass.

Under the chair I found a half-eaten steak, I ate it and it made me feel better. It wasn't drafty anymore, the clock was ticking steadily, telling the time: a quarter till four.

"Well, this means the messengers are gone," I said quietly and started to get dressed, since I had a visit to make.

August 22, 1937

DLROW

For a while I was convinced that I saw the world. But the world as a whole was unreachable for my eyes, and I saw only fragments of it. And everything that I saw, I called 'world fragments'. And I observed characteristics of those fragments and, by observing them, I developed a science.

I understood that there were intelligent and unintelligent characteristics in the fragments. I distinguished the fragments and gave them proper names. And depending on their characteristics, I saw the world fragments to be either intelligent or unintelligent.

There were also world fragments that could deduce. And these fragments also observed the other world fragments, and me. And all those fragments were similar to each other, and I was similar to them. And I would talk to those fragments.

I would say: "Fragments are the thunder."

The fragments would say: "A heap of time."

I would say: "I am, also, a part of some trinity."

The parts would respond: "We are seeing nothing but little specks."

And suddenly, I stopped seeing them, and then I stopped seeing the rest of the fragments. And I feared that the world was disappearing.

But then I understood that I did not see the parts of the world anymore, but all the world as a whole. At first I thought that this was NOTHINGNESS. But then I understood that this was the world, and that what I had been seeing earlier, was not the world. And I always knew that this was the world, but, what that was that I had been seeing earlier, I still do not know.

When the fragments disappeared, their intelligent characteristics stopped being intelligent, and their unintelligent characteristics stopped being unintelligent. And the world as a whole stopped being intelligent or unintelligent. But when I understood that I was seeing the world as a whole, I suddenly stopped seeing it at all. I got scared because I thought the world had disappeared. And while I was thinking, I understood, that if the world really had disappeared than I could not be thinking. And I looked, searched for the world, but I could not find it. After that I did not know where to look. Then I remembered that, no matter whether I looked or not -- the world was always around me. And now it was not anymore. There was only me.

And then I realized, that I was the world.

But the world was not me.

Although, at the same time, I was the world.

But the world was not me.

But I was the world.

But the world was not me.

But I was the world.

But the world was not me.

But I was the world.

And after that I did not think anything anymore.

The Thing

A mom, a dad, and the maid named Natasha, were sitting at the table, drinking.

The dad was, undoubtingly, an alcoholic. Furthermore, even the mom was looking down on him. But that didn't prevent the dad from being a good man. He was smiling honestly while rocking in a chair. Maid Natasha had a lace apron and was extremely very shy. The dad was playing tricks with his beard, but maid Natasha was lowering her eyes shyly, showing, in that way, that she was ashamed.

The mom, a tall woman with a big hairdo, spoke with a horselike voice. Her voice was spreading around the dining room and echoing back from the yard and other rooms.

After the first drink, everybody was quiet for a moment while they were eating a sausage. A moment later, they all started talking again.

Suddenly, completely unexpected, somebody knocked at the front door. Neither the dad, nor the mom nor the maid, Natasha, could guess who was knocking at the front door.

-- How strange! -- said the dad. -- Who could that be?

The mom looked at him with compassion and, even if it was not her turn, poured another glass, chugged it down and said:

-- Strange.

The dad did not swear, but also poured a glass, chugged it down and got up from the table.

The dad was a short man. Completely opposite from the mom. The mom was a tall, plump woman with a voice like a horse, and the dad was, simply, her husband. And above all that, the dad had freckles.

He approached the door in one step and said:

-- Who is that?

-- Me, -- said the voice behind the door.

The door opened immediately, and into the room entered a maid, Natasha, all confused and blushing. Like a flower. Like a flower.

The dad sat down.

The mom had another drink.

Maid Natasha, and the other one, the like-a-flower one, got very shy and blushed. The dad looked at them but he did not swear, instead he had another drink and so did the mom.

The dad opened a can of crab pate to get the bad taste out of his mouth. Everybody was happy and they were eating until the morning. But the mom was quiet and she did not move from the chair. That was very impolite.

When the dad was about to sing a song, something hit the window. The mom jumped up terrified and screamed that she could clearly see somebody looking through the window from the street. The others were convincing the mom that that was impossible, because they were on the third floor and nobody from the street could possibly look through the window, for that one would have to be a giant or Goliath.

But the mom would not change her mind. Nothing in the world could convince her that nobody could have been looking through the window.

They gave her another drink, in order to calm her down. The mom chugged it down. The dad, also, poured a glass and drank it.

Natasha and the maid, the like-a-flower one, were sitting, looking down in confusion.

-- I cannot be happy when somebody is looking at us through the window. -- the mom said.

The dad was desperate, he did not know how to calm the mom down. So, he went down to the yard and tried to look through the window on the first floor. Of course, that was impossible. But that did not convince the mom. She did not even see that he couldn't reach the first floor window.

Finally, confused by the situation, the dad run into the dining room and had two drinks in the row, giving one to the mom. The mom had her drink, and said that she was drinking for the sole reason that somebody was looking at them through the window.

The dad spread his hands.

-- Here, -- he said to the mom, and opened the window.

A man with a dirty coat and a big knife in his hands tried to get in through the window. When the dad spotted him, he closed the window and said:

-- Nobody is there.

But, the man with a dirty coat was outside looking in the room through the window, and furthermore, he opened the window and got in.

The mom was extremely disturbed by this. She started acting hysterically, and, after she had a drink that the dad gave her and ate a little mushroom, she calmed down.

Soon the dad calmed down, too. Again everybody sat at the table and continued to drink.

The dad took the papers and spent a long time flipping them up and down trying to determine what comes up and what comes down. But, no matter how long he tried he couldn't sort it out so he put the papers aside and had a drink.

-- Nice, -- said the dad -- but we are out of pickles.

The mom made a sound like a horse, which was pretty inappropriate, and made the maids look at the table cloth and laugh silently.

The dad had another drink and suddenly grabbed the mom and put her on the cupboard.

Mom's gray, big, light hair was shaking, she got red spots all over her face, and, generally speaking, she was pretty upset.

The dad fixed his trousers and started a speech.

But at this point a secret hatch opened down on the floor and from it crawled out a monk.

The maids were so confused that one of them started to puke. Natasha was holding her forehead and trying to hide what was going on.

The monk, the one that got out of the floor, aimed at the dad's ear and hit him so hard that everybody could hear the bells ringing in the dad's head!

The dad just sat down without even finishing his speech.

Than the monk approached the mom and with his hand, or leg, somehow from below, he kicked her.

The mom started to scream and cry for help.

Then the monk grabbed both maids by their aprons and, after swinging them through the air, let them hit the wall.

Then, unnoticed, the monk crawled back into the floor and closed the hatch behind himself.

For a long time neither the dad, nor the mom nor maid Natasha could recover. But later, when they got some fresh air, they had another drink while fixing their appearance, they sat down at the table, and started to eat salad.

After another drink everybody was talking quietly.

Suddenly the dad got red in the face and started to yell:

-- What! What! -- the dad was yelling. -- You think that I am anal! You look at me like at a devil! I do not ask for your love! You are the devils!

The mom and maid Natasha ran out of the room and locked themselves in the kitchen.

-- Go away you drunk! Go, you son of a devil! -- whispered the mom and the totally confused maid Natasha, behind the door with.

And the dad stayed in the dining room until the morning when he took his bag, put on a white hat and quietly went to work.

31 May 1929

A man left his house

With a cane and a sack,

Set off

Down the road

And never looked back.

He walked ever onward,

He walked ever straight,

Never slept,

Never drank,

Never drank, slept, or ate.

He came to a forest

As dark as the night.

He walked

Right in

And vanished from sight.

But if ever you chance

To meet up with this man

Oh please

Let us know

As quick as you can.

A Tale

(A story written by Daniil Charms in 1935, translated freely by Nick

(Translator's note: Vanya is a boy, Lenochka is a girl.)

-- Here,-- said Vanya, putting his notebook on the desk, -- let's start writing a tale.

-- Ok,-- said Lenochka, taking a seat.

Vanya took a pencil and wrote:

"Once upon a time there was a king..."

Then he started thinking and raised his eyes to the ceiling.

Lenochka peeked into the notebook and read Vanya's writing.

-- Such a tale has already been written,-- said Lenochka.

-- How do you know? -- asked Vanya.

-- I know because I've been reading,-- said Lenochka.

-- What is that tale about? -- asked Vanya.

-- Well, it's about the king who was drinking tea with an apple and choked suddenly, when the queen started patting him on the back to make a piece of an apple pop back. But the king decided that the queen was fighting him and hit her head with a glass. Then the queen got angry with the king and hit him with a plate. But the king hit the queen with a bowl. But the queen hit the king with a chair. But the king got up and hit the queen with a table. But the queen tapped a kitchen shelf over the king. But the king got out from under the kitchen shelf and threw a crown at the queen. Then the queen grabbed king's hair and threw him out of the window. But the king got back into the room through the other window, grabbed the queen and stuffed her into the oven. But the queen climbed to the roof through the chimney, then slided down a lightning rod to the yard and came back to the room through the window. Meanwhile the king was starting fire in the oven to burn the queen. The queen sneaked from the back and pushed the king. The king fell into the oven and burned down. That was the end of the story,-- said Lenochka.

-- It is a very silly tale,-- said Vanya.-- I was going to write quite a different tale.

-- Well, why won't you,-- said Lenochka.

Vanya took a pencil and wrote:

"Once upon a time there was a bandit..."

-- Wait! -- yelled Lenochka.-- Such a tale has already been written!

-- I didn't know,-- said Vanya.

-- How come,-- said Lenochka,-- haven't you known how a bandit, when trying to escape the guards, tried to jump on horse, but fell to the other side and hit the ground. Tha bandit cursed and tried to ride the horse again, but his jump was still inaccurate, so he fell to the ground from the other side of the horse. The bandit got up, waved his clenched fist, jumped on the horse and again flew over and dropped to the ground. Then he grabbed a pistol from his belt, shot into the air and jumped on the horse with such a force that he again flew over and collapsed on the ground. Then the bandit ripped a hat off his head, danced all over it and again jumped on the horse, and again flew over, collapsed on the ground and broke his leg. The bandit limped to the horse and hit its forehead with a fist. The horse ran away. Meanwhile the guards arrived on their horses, caught him and lead him to the jail.

-- Well, I won't write about a bandit then,-- said Vanya.

-- But about whom then? -- asked Lenochka.

-- I will write a tale about a smith,-- said Vanya.

Vanya wrote:

"Once upon a time there was a smith..."

-- Such a tale has already been written, too! -- cried out Lenochka.

-- What? -- said Vanya and put down the pencil.

-- Surely,-- said Lenochka.-- Once upon a time there was a smith. One day he was forging a horseshoe and made such a swing with a hammer, that it tore the hammer head off the handle, the hammer head flew out through the window, killed four pigeons, hit the fire watch tower, bounced to the side, broke window in a house of a fire marshall, flew over the table, at which the fire marshall was sitting himself with his wife, broke through the wall in the house of the fire marshall and flew out to the street. Here it tipped a street lamp pole to the ground, hit down an ice-cream seller, and struck the head of Karl Ivanovich Shusterling, who took off his hat for a minute to check the back of his head. After bouncing off the head of Karl Ivanovich Shusterling, the hammer head flew back, hit down the ice-cream seller again, threw two fighting cats off the roof, turned a cow upside down, killed four sparrows and flew back into the smithy and sat back on its handle, which the smith was holding in his right hand. All that happened so fast, that the smith had not noticed anything and still kept on forging the horseshoe.

-- Well, since a tale about a smith has already been written, I will write a tale about myself,-- said Vanya and wrote:

"Once upon a time there was a kid Vanya..."

-- The tale about Vanya has already been written,-- said Lenochka.-- Once upon a time there was a kid Vanya, and one day he came to...

-- Wait,-- said Vanya,-- I was going to write a tale about myself.

-- A tale about you has allready been written too,-- said Lenochka.

-- This can't be so! -- said Vanya.

-- I am telling you, it has,-- said Lenochka,

-- Where is it, then? -- Vanya was surprised.

-- Buy a "Chizh" magazine, issue number 7 and there you will read a tale about yourself,-- said Lenochka.

Vanya bought "Chizh" number 7 and read exactly the same tale, that you have just read.

1935

A Letter to T. A. Meyer-Lipavsky

Translated by Serge Winitzki

Dear Tamara Aleksandrovna, Valentina Efimovna, Leonid Savelyevich, Yakov Semyonovich, and Valentina Efimovna.

Send my greetings to Leonid Savelyevich, Valentina Efimovna, and Yakov Semyonovich.

How are you doing, dear Tamara Aleksandrovna, Valentina Efimovna, Leonid Savelyevich, and Yakov Semyonovich? What is new with Valentina Efimovna? Please do write to me, dear Valentina Efimovna, about how Yakov Semyonovich and Leonid Savelyevich are feeling.

I missed you very much, dear Tamara Aleksandrovna, and also Valentina Efimovna, and Leonid Savelyevich, and Yakov Semyonovich. And what about Leonid Savelyevich, is he still at the dacha or already returned? If he is back, please send him my greetings. And also my greetings to Valentina Efimovna, Leonid Savelyevich, and Tamara Aleksandrovna. All of you are so much on my mind that at times it seems I could never forget you. Valentina Efimovna stands so lifelike before my eyes, and even Leonid Savelyevich is rather lifelike. Yakov Semyonovich is to me like a brother and a sister, and also you are like a sister or at the very least a cousin. Leonid Savelyevich is to me like a brother-in-law and also Valentina Efimovna like a relative of sorts.

Every now and then I remember one of you or another, and always with such a terrifying clarity and distinctness. But none of you has appeared to me in dreams, and this even surprises me. For if I had dreamt of Leonid Savelyevich it would be one thing, but if instead I imagined Yakov Semyonovich it would be an altogether different matter. One cannot disagree with that. And if I dreamt of you, it would have been again a different matter than if I had dreamt of Valentina Efimovna. And wasn't it quite a happening a few days ago! Imagine that as I was almost ready to go somewhere I took my hat to put it on, and suddenly I noticed that the hat seems to be not mine, as if mine but then, it seems, it's not mine. Gee, I said, what a story! Is it my hat or not? And in the meantime I'm putting it on, all the while. As I had it on, I looked at myself in the mirror: well, the hat seemed as if mine. Although I'm still thinking: what if it is not mine. But then it's perhaps mine. It turned out to be mine, in fact. Also Vvedensky got caught in a fishnet while bathing in the river and was so upset that as soon as he was freed he came home and had a drink. And please also write to me about your life. Has Leonid Savelyevich already returned from the dacha or not yet.

Aug. 1st, 1932. Kursk.

Excerpt from a biography of Daniil Charms, by Vladimir Glotser

"I am thinking about the beauty of all that is first!"

Daniil Ivanovich Yuvachev (1905 -- 1942) invented a pen name "Charms" for himself when he was still in high school. He varied this name rather inventively, even within a single original: Kharms, Khorms, Charms, Haarms, Shardan, Harms-Dandan, etc. The thing was that Charms believed that a fixed name brings bad luck. He was taking a new last name each time as if trying to avoid it. "Yesterday my father told me, that while I was Charms, I would be always in need. Daniil Charms. December 23, 1936" (a diary record)

He was brought up in a family of a well-known populist figure of Ivan Pavlovich Yuvachev, who was sentenced to death but whose sentence was substituted by life in prison, and who was being in exile in Sakhalin, where he made friends with Chekhov. Daniil was born after his father had been released, when Yuvachev came back to St. Petersburg. In those years at the beginning of the century, when Charms's father became an author of religious book and memoirs, he became a prototype of books by Leo Tolstoy and Anton Chekhov. So Charm's roots are very much in literature. But it is known that Ivan Pavlovich did not approve of his son's works, the works being rather unlike those Ivan Pavlovich was fond of in literature.

Charms formed as a writer in the 20s, influenced by V. Khlebnikov and a "zaumnik" (complicator) A. Trufanov. Charms gained understanding in a circle of poets, who called themselves "Oberiuts" (from OBERIU - acronym for Association for Real Art). "Who are we? Why are we?" they were asking in their manifesto. "We are poets of new world awareness and new art... In our creations we expand and deepen the meaning of an object and a word, but we nowhere near destroying it. A concrete object becomes an object of art when washed off its literary and everyday-life shell. In poetry, a collision of word meanings expresses this object with a mechanical precision", etc. Oberiuts find a shelter for themselves under a roof of St. Petersburg House of Press, where their largest evening performance "Three Left Hours" took place on January 24, 1928. Charms, along with Nikolai Zabolotsky, A. Vvedensky, K. Vaginov, I. Bakhterev and others, were reading their poems sitting on a cabinet during the first hour. During the second hour they staged his piece "Elizaveta Bam", its author also being one of the producers. OBERIU very much captivated Charms, and he was torn apart (let's recall his age) between his OBERIU involvment and his beloved. "Who would advise me what to do? Esther brings misfortunes with her. I am perishing with her" -- exclaimed he in his diary record of January 27, 1928. -- "Where did the OBERIU go? Everything disappeared when Esther came into me. I was miserable ever since I stopped writing properly. If Esther brings misery with her, how can I let here go. But also, how can I jeopardize OBERIU, which is my job? -- God, help me! Make Esther leave me next week and live happily! Make me get on writing again and be free as before!"

However some other external and evil forces helped to break this knot, after several years had passed. Wishing to end the OBERIU performances on campuses, clubs, military bases, etc, a youth newspaper "Next Generation" of St. Petersburg issued an article "Reactionary Juggling" (Apr 9, 1930) subtitled "About One Prank of the Literary Hoolihans." It was boldly stated that "the literary hoolihans" (read OBERIUtists) are nothing different but class enemies. The authors of the article were obviously quoting a real dialog between the "proletariat studentry" and OBERIUtists: "Vladimirov (the youngest OBERIUtist Yurij Vladimirov -- note by Vl.Glotser) was obnoxius enough to call the audience the aborigens, who turned up at the European city and stared at an automobile."

Levin (a prosaist, OBERIUtist Dojvber Levin -- note by Vl. Glotser) declared that they are not "yet" (!) understood, but they are the only representatives (!) of the real art, who are building a large building.

-- Who are you building this for? -- he was asked.

-- For the whole Russa. -- the classical reply followed.

And in 1931 Charms, Vvedensky and some of their friends were arrested and exiled to the town of Kursk for a year.

Only two "adult" publications were left behind by Charms, one verse each, in two compilations by the Poet's Union (in 1926 and 1927). Daniil Charms (and also Alexander Vvedensky) couldn't publish one more "adult" line during their lives.

Did Charms long for publications of his "adult" works? Was he thinking about them? I believe that he did. Firstly, this is the imminent law of any creative activity. Secondly, there is an indirect evidence that Charms considered more than forty of his compositions be ready for the publication.

But still (what a feeling of "no-escape"!) he made no attempts of to publish any of his "adult" works after 1928. At least no one knows of such attempts yet.

Moreover, he was trying not to share his writings with the people he knew. Artist Alisa Poret was recalling: "Charms himself was quite fond of drawing, but he never showed me his sketches, nor anything he wrote for the adults. He forbade all his friends and made me swear that I wouldn't try to obtain his original drafts." However, I think, that a small circle of his friends, namely A. Vvedensky, L. Lipavsky (L. Savelyev), Ya. S. Druskin and some others, were his customary audience in the 30th.

And he was writing, or at least was trying to write, every day. "I didn't accomplish my goal of 3-4 pages a day today," he was blaming himself. And after that, in these days, he writes down "I was the most happy when they took the pen and the paper from me and forbade me to do anything. I had no anxiety that I wasn't doing anything of my own will, my conscience was clear, I was happy. It was when I was in the prison. But if they have asked me if I wanted to go there or be in a position similar to the jail, I would've said No, I don't want to."

...