Читать книгу A Man from the Future. 1856 - Евгений Платонов - Страница 33

They went into a cheap tea house on the corner of the square – a dark, smoke-filled room with dirty tables and benches. They ordered a glass of tea each and a piece of bread.

The tea was strong, hot, with a heaping sugar cube on the saucer. The bread was black, sour. But for Dmitry it was almost a royal feast – he hadn’t eaten since morning, and yesterday’s shchi hadn’t really satisfied him.

“You still haven’t told me who you really are,” Rodion said, sipping his tea. “Where you came from and why.”

Dmitry thought. What should he say? The truth – that he’s from the future? Or continue lying about America?

He helped me, Dmitry thought. Gave me his last money. I can’t keep lying to him.

“I’ll say this,” he began carefully. “I really am not from America. I’m… from a very distant place. So distant that you won’t believe it.”

“Try me, I may not look smart,” Rodion looked at him carefully.

“I’m from the future,” Dmitry blurted out.

Silence fell. Rodion didn’t laugh, didn’t shout that his companion was mad. He just looked, searchingly, as if trying to understand – was this true or delirium?

“From the future,” he repeated slowly. “That is, you’re saying that… you traveled through time?”

“Yes. I was born and lived in… many years after your time. And I ended up here by accident. Through…” Dmitry faltered, “through some kind of artifact. Glasses. Old glasses in a museum.”

“In a museum,” Rodion thought. “I see. And now you can’t go back?”

“I don’t know. The glasses are lost. Maybe I can. Maybe not.”

Rodion was silent for a moment, then said:

“You know, I believe you.”

“You believe?” Dmitry was surprised.

“Yes. Because in this world anything is possible. If God created man from clay in a single day, if Christ can rise from the dead, then why can’t a man travel through time?” He smiled. “Besides, your clothes, the way you speak, your view of the world – all of it says you’re not from here.”

He believed me, Dmitry thought with relief. Or pretended to believe. But why?

“Tell me,” Rodion continued, “in your future… is it better than here?”

Dmitry thought. How to answer that?

“It’s mixed,” he said finally. “On one hand, there’s no poverty like here. People live longer, get sick less, have more opportunities. There’s no slavery, no serfdom, more freedom.”

“Sounds like paradise,” Rodion noted.

“But on the other hand,” Dmitry continued, “people have become… empty. They live for money, for consumption. They have no high goals, no faith, no meaning to life. They simply exist – work, buy things, entertain themselves, age, die.”

“Like me,” Rodion said quietly.

“What?”

“Well… I live like that too. Exist without meaning, like a dog. That’s why I think…” he hesitated, “I think about how to change that. How to become not just a creature, but a person. A real person.”

Become a real person, Dmitry repeated to himself. Lord, that’s straight out of Crime and Punishment. Raskolnikov wanted to prove that too – that he was a person, not a “trembling creature.”

“And how do you think you’ll do it?” he asked carefully.

Rodion was silent for a long time. Then he answered:

“I don’t know yet. But I think. I think a lot. Sometimes it seems to me that for this you need to do something… extraordinary. To cross a line. To go against all rules.”

Cross a line, Dmitry went cold. He really is planning a crime.

“Rodion Romanovich,” he said firmly, “don’t do it.”

“Do what?” Rodion looked at him in surprise.

“What you’re thinking about. Crossing a line – that’s a path to nowhere. You won’t become a person from it. You’ll only destroy yourself.”

“How do you know what I’m thinking?” There was sharpness in Rodion’s voice now.

“Because…” Dmitry caught himself.

Because I know your future. Because I read a novel where a character with your name commits murder and then suffers for the rest of his life. But I can’t tell him that.

“Because I thought the same thing myself,” he lied. “In my time. And I know where it leads. To emptiness. To even greater emptiness.”

Rodion looked at him with a long gaze:

“You’re a strange man. Very strange. But perhaps you’re right. Perhaps I’m looking in the wrong place.”

He stood, leaving his unfinished tea:

“I have to go. Business. Will you manage on your own?”

“Yes, thank you for everything,” Dmitry also stood.

“Come by tomorrow evening. To my room. Praskovia Pavlovna will show you. We’ll talk more.” Rodion put on his hat. “I think we have a lot to tell each other.”

He left, leaving Dmitry alone in the smoke-filled tea house.