[In the following essay, Naydan presents a semiotic analysis of Olesha short story “The Cherry Pit,” emphasizing the concepts of Biblical myth, regeneration, and time.]

Oleša's contemporary Jurij Tynjanov succinctly expresses the polysemantic nature of the word in his classic study Problema stixotvornogo jazyka (The Problem of Verse Language): “Slovo ne imeet odnogo opredelennogo značenija. Ono—xameleon, v kotorom každyj raz voznikajut ne tol'ko raznye ottenki, no inogda i raznye kraski” [A word does not have one definite meaning. It is a chameleon, in which not only various shades, but even various colors arise with each usage] (48, 64).¹ In the Russian wordconscious tradition of Gogol' and Leskov, the lexicon of Oleša's short story “Višnevaja kostočka” (“The Cherry Pit”; 1929)² exhibits marked polysemy: certain signifiers allow for multiple signifieds. When we examine the similarities among these signifieds in toto, the myth-oriented polysemantic nature of the text serves to expand our interpretation of the story from the level of fabula to a more complex psychological and symbolic plane. In a curious parallel, Tynjanov's metaphor of the “chameleon” also accurately describes the dominant quality of the story's hero Fedja, who alters his appearance at various times to blend into the world as he perceives it. Thus, the “wordchameleon” and the “protagonist-chameleon” operate as functional equivalents. Subjective perception of a given reality determines the ontological status of both the word and the protagonist.³

A brief survey of the work's fabula leaves us with a rather disconnected and uninspiring story about unrequited love interwoven with representative details from Soviet reality of the late 1920s.⁴ Yet critics have observed other levels of interpretation that expand its scope. Some have aptly characterized the story as the writer's plea for individuality, for freedom of the imagination, for co-existence within the stifling reality of the newly initiated Five-Year Plan.⁵ One cannot help but agree with such analyses. Yet, rather than confining myself to the story's socio-political context, I shall focus on the psycho-symbolic nature of the author's fantasies and fantasizing. Such an approach will yield insights into the deeper structures of the work and into the nature of the author's creative process. My discussion will have three interrelated foci: Biblical myth, the motif of creative regeneration, and time.

Perhaps no other work of Russian fiction articulates the nature of the creative process more compactly than “Višnevaja kostočka.” As we have observed, the story is ostensibly plotless. It revolves around the narrator's experiences in an unfulfilling reality, and his escape from that reality into a world of fantasy. Within the context of the story, Oleša conveys this fantasizing state by means of myth and symbolism as well as by depicting the cognitive creative process. The Biblical account of the Creation and its aftermath provides the underlying mythological code that infuses and frames Oleša's tale.⁶ So that the reader should not miss this, Oleša names Fedja's neighbor Avel' (Abel), a rather obscure name in Russian, and one with obvious Biblical implications.⁷ Oleša fuses the stories of God's Creation of the world, Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, as well as other imagery from the Bible into a single new mythical entity.⁸

The very title of the story generates associations with aspects of the creation myth. The modifier “višnevaja” refers both to a tree and its fruit, two pivotal objects in the Biblical account. The diminutive nominal form “kostočka” (which literally means “little bone”) has an etymological link with another significant image from the Bible, Adam's rib. In Genesis 2:23 Adam says: “vot, teper' èto kost' ot kostej moix i plot' ot ploti moej; ona budet nazyvat'sja ženoju: potomu čto ot muža vzjata ona” (This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of man).⁹ Oleša conceals the clue and invests the myth with his own coloring by reversing the normal sequence as found in the Bible. Instead of having the kost' transferred from man to woman, Fedja receives the kostočka from the woman Nataša with whom he is in love. The diminutive form gives the first linguistic hint of parodic intent, i.e., the narrative will be based on a well-known model, but it will be a kostočka instead of a kost'.

The story begins in an Edenic setting at Nataša's dača. Boris Mixajlovič, Nataša, and Fedja set off for the woods where they find a glade brightly lit by the sun. Boris Mixajlovič and Fedja become rivals for Nataša's affection. The relationship of the three people parallels the triangular relationships found among the characters in the early part of Genesis: Adam, Eve, and God; Adam, Eve, and the serpent; Cain, Abel, and God. The triad, with the inherent possibility of one of the figures becoming envious or acting as an interloper, forms a model for all the relationships in the story.¹⁰ In the Biblical account, we are reminded of Cain's jealousy of Abel owing to the latter's favored status with God.

Although in Oleša's revision of the Biblical model individual characters can be associated with mythical archetypes at a given instant in the story, these associations are not fixed throughout, particularly in the case of the chameleon-like Fedja. His very ability to alter his form in his flights of fantasy parallels the capacities of God and the devil in the Bible. Recall that God appears to Moses as a burning bush and that the devil assumes the shape of a serpent. At the beginning of the story, Nataša archetypally functions as Eve and Fedja as her Adam, since she treats him as her equal [obraščaetsja kak s ravnym] (214, 147). Both are referred to in the text by the diminutive forms of their names. Fedja as lover corresponds to Adam, but he is a new Adam who already knows the names of all things. Thus, as a poet-figure he must seek innovative ways to describe things that the original Adam has already defined. In continuing the analogy to the Biblical myth, Boris Mixajlovič therefore fits the archetype of God. This is supported by the fact that Fedja, in an obvious gesture of respect and subservience, addresses him by his first name and patronymic, while Nataša speaks to him as though he were an older person [kak so staršim] and fawns on him [lastitsja k nemu].

In Oleša's Eden, God and Adam reverse roles. Boris ends up with Nataša, i.e., God ends up with Eve. As the god-figure who takes on the role of Adam, Boris acquires the knowledge of sexuality and the physical reality of that experience by kissing Nataša, with Nataša serving up the fruit of his knowledge. In the first paragraph of the story her face is referred to as a “shining little china saucer” [vdrug ee lico pokazalos' farforovym bljudcem] (214, 147). The epithet suggests that she will be both the server and the dish. Thus, her function is equivalent to Eve's. In the traditional story Eve serves Adam the fruit. And the violation of God's single interdiction ultimately leads to her being condemned to conceive children in sorrow, i.e., her sexuality becomes her curse and burden. Thus, the sequence of events in the two accounts is reversed. The Biblical Adam acquires the fruit first, then the knowledge of sexuality. While in the role of Adam, Boris Mixajlovič first partakes of the sexuality, and then receives the fruit.

Fedja communes with a different “serpent”; the thrush (drozd) distracts him from reality and inspires his imagination. Rejected as lover, he has a heightened sense of awareness when he searches for the singing bird while Boris Mixajlovič and Nataša kiss. He later refers to himself with the psychologically charged word “infantile” [infantilen; infantil'nyj sub”ekt], which alludes both to his sexuality and to his manner of looking at the world with the eyes of a child. Now in the archetypal role of the author-creator, he first partakes of the creative process; he reaches an altered state of consciousness through meditation on objects in the physical world.

The thrush is masculine in gender like the serpent (zmej) from the Bible. Like the serpent, it comes from the animal world. As a song bird and as a bird of spring, it traditionally represents love, inspiration, and cyclical regeneration. It performs all three conventional functions in the story. Besides being present during the love experience between Boris Mixajlovič and Nataša, the thrush diverts Fedja—to his dismay—from “sinning” with Nataša. Yet in the archetypal role of serpent, the thrush provides him with the inspiration and the intuitive knowledge to become like God—to become a creator. Although it takes a more passive role than its Biblical counterpart, Oleša's thrush fulfills the serpent's promise to Eve. By inspiring Fedja, it allows him to experience a symbolic regeneration by inducing him to participate in the creative act.

Gogol's Mertvye duši (Dead Souls) provides the most likely literary source for Oleša's bird.¹¹ A thrush in a wooden cage appears in Chapter V of the poèma-novel. Čičikov first observes the thrush—which bears great similarity to its owner Sobakevič—just before meeting the latter's wife. The bird's tapping for five minutes in a silent room accompanies Čičikov's experience of ostranenie, when he notices that the objects of the room become animate and seem to vocalize their similarity to Sobakevič. In the words of Gogol: “razdavalsja tol'ko stuk, proizvodimyj nosom drozda o derevo derevjannoj kletki, na dne kotoroj udil on xlebnye zernyška” [The only sound in the room was the tapping of the thrush's beak on the wood of the cage as he fished for grains on the bottom of it] (Sočinenija, 833, Dead Souls, 195). Hence, the thrush in both works stimulates the creative process.

Following the incident with the kiss and the thrush, Nataša offers both of her Adams cherries, the symbol of her sexuality. Boris receives both physical love and its emblem, while Fedja, the romantic dreamer, acquires only the symbolic offering. This exchange serves as the paradigm for the idea that pervades the remainder of the story: the spiritual side of the artist takes precedence over the physical, the imaginary world prevails over reality. Yet the two worlds must exist simultaneously since they comprise a single universe.

In an act of sublimation over the loss of the physical Nataša, from childhood habit Fedja sucks the cherry pit clean, leaving it in his mouth with the pit having the appearance of wood [ona imela vid derevjannoj] (215, 148). The epithet “derevjannoj” linguistically hints at the tree (“derevo”)—as well as being the actual physical seed and source of the tree—that will later sprout in the story. It also strongly echoes the description of the thrush's cage in Mertvye duši (derevo derevjannoj kletki) and further underscores the link between the imagery of the two works. Having acquired Nataša's symbolic love in the form of the fruit's seed, Fedja becomes empowered as a creator by the ritual exchange. Instead of being banished by God, as occurs in the Biblical myth, Fedja, apparently of his own accord, leaves the Eden-dača for the city. And instead of Eve alone becoming the bearer of fallen mankind's progeny, in Oleša's reworking of the myth, Fedja also becomes the bearer of the seed, which will give birth to a new tree, a new work of art born of the imagination—his story. In his chimerical conversation with Nataša five years later in the empty lot, Fedja compares his “child” with Nataša's: “Ja prjatal v zemle semja. Èto derevo—moj rebenok ot vas, Nataša. Privedite syna, kotorogo vam sdelal Boris Mixajlovič. Ja posmotrju, tak li on zdorov, čist i bezotnositelen, kak èto derevo, rodivšeesja ot infantil'nogo sub″ekta” [It was a seed I hid in the ground. This tree is my child by you, Natasha. Bring along the son which Boris Mikhailovich made you. I want to see if he is as healthy clean and without blemish as this tree born of a man afflicted by infantilism] (218, 153). Thus both “Eves” have the power of procreation: Nataša in the real world, Fedja in the imaginary.

Adam and Eve and Fedja depart in the same direction upon leaving their respective paradise. In Genesis 3:23-24, God banishes Adam and Eve to the east:

I vyslal igо Gоspоds Bоg iz sada Idimsкоgо, ctоby vоzdilyvats zimly, iz коtоrоj оn vzyt.

I vygnal аdama, i pоstavil na vоstокi u sada Idimsкоgо kiruvima i plaminnyj mic оbrasaysijsy, ctоby оkranyts puts к dirivu zizni.

Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.

So he drove out the man: and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubim, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.

Later in Genesis 4:16, Cain also is banished to the east: “I pošel Kain ot lica Gospodnja; i poselilsja v zemle Nod, na vostok ot Edema” [And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden]. Fedja goes in the same direction: “… ja idu na vostok” [… I'm going east] (215, 148). Like Adam and Cain, he is condemned to till the ground for the rest of his days; he must plant his cherry pit. In one obvious respect Oleša's story diverges from the Biblical account; Fedja's “banishment” does not represent punishment for him, since the cherry stone symbolizes his own creativity. For him the role of planter becomes the role of creator. Consequently, his fall is fortunate: it gives his character and, by analogy, the writer-artist the freedom to create.

When Fedja leaves the Eden-dača with the cherry stone in his mouth, he carries within himself elements of both Adam and God. He acquires the power of poetic utterance, the power of the word. He receives precisely what he desires from his Eden: the ability to create his story. He begins his journey through the imagination with the marker phrase: “Ja putešestvuju po nevidimoj strane” [I travel through an invisible land] (215, 148). Like Adam he is observed. In Fedja's words: “odin moj put' dostupen nabljudeniju vsex” [one of my paths is accesible to the observation of all] (215, 148). But like God he is the creator and observer in a new world where only his laws rule. In his words: “Tak, značit, naperekor vsem, naperekor porjadku i obščestvu, ja sozdaju mir, kotoryj ne podčinjaetsja nikakim zakonam, krome prizračnyx zakonov moego sobstvennogo oščuščenija? [So, does it mean that, disregarding everyone, disregarding order and society, I create a world which is not subject to any laws except the shadowy laws of my own sensation?] (215, 149). The meeting with the wild dog (odičalaja sobaka) in the passageway (koridor) between the two buildings emphasizes the duality of his nature. Like the wild dog and the Biblical Cain, Fedja is condemned to a life of wandering in the physical world. Note Cain's words in Genesis 4:14: “… i ot lica Tvoego ja skrojus', i budu izgnannikom i skital'cem na zemle; i vsjakij, kto vstretitsja so mnoju, ub'et menja” [… and from thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me shall slay me].

The phrase “nevidimaja strana” (invisible land) also has Biblical connotations. In the beginning the world (zemlja) was invisible (bezvidna) and void (pusta). Besides the evident similarity between “nevidimaja” and “bezvidna,” note the etymological relationship in Russian between the primordial void (pusta) and the empty lot (pustyr') where Fedja reenacts the creation. Thus, his journey would indicate a need to reach back to that moment before mankind's beginnings in order to acquire the ability to become a creator, to create a world out of formless chaos. The epithet “nevidimaja” likewise echoes the description of God's creation from the Creed of the Divine Liturgy: “Veruju vo edinogo Boga Otca, Vsederžitelja Tvorca nebu i zemli, vidimym že vsem i nevidimym” [I believe in One God, the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and earth, and of all things, visible and invisible] (my italics). Thus, the related imagery further indicates one side of Fedja's nature as a being endowed with God's ability to create. Particularly in his fantasizing state, Fedja acquires a God-like status in the invisible land. Observe how he takes on the role of a person directing people to their destinations as well as that of a policeman, both figures of authority and figures in control.

Fedja's perception of himself as God the Creator occurs even on a much more deeply embedded and semantically motivated level. This symbolic imagery also has its source in the Bible. Closely examine Fedja's conversation with Avel' on the streetcorner: “Kazalos' by, ja dolžen šestvovat' po nej [nevidimoj strane] spokojno i veličestvenno, kak vladetel', i cvetuščij posox mudreca dolžen sijat' v moej ruke … A vot smotrite: v ruke moej milicejskij žezl! Kakoe strannoe skreščenie mira praktičeskogo i voobražaemogo” [I would've thought I'd stalk through it [the invisible land] calmly and majestically, like a proprietor with the flowering staff of a sage glowing in my hand … And now look: I'm holding a traffic cop's nightstick! What a strange hybrid of the everyday world with the imaginary] (217, 152). Compare the imagery of the staff (posox) and nightstick (žezl) with the twenty-second (twenty-third in English Bibles) Psalm: “Esli ja pojdu i dolinoju smertnoj teni, ne ubojus' zla, potomu čto Ty so mnoju; Tvoj žezl i Tvoj posox—oni uspokaivajut menja” [Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me] (emphasis mine). The imaginary acquisition of the two symbols of authority and, by association, the two emblems of God the Creator, ritually empowers Fedja as a creator. This imagery from the psalm consequently supports the traditional interpretation of the story as the writer's plea for serenity and peace, for his very right to be creative in politically dangerous times.

The garden motif reappears during Fedja's fantasizing in the passageway between the two buildings. There Fedja mentions that the soil is moldy and yielding as in a vegetable garden [kak v ogorode] (215, 148). In a parody of Adam and Eve hiding from God after having eaten of the forbidden fruit, the dog avoids Fedja [zaranee storonjas'] (215, 148), who now as a creator figure is caught up in the throes of the creative process. The Eden motif is recapitulated for the third time in the story's final scene. Again, paralleling Adam and Eve's—as well as Cain's—timidity in God's presence Fedja defers to Avel' and his excursion group in the empty lot where Fedja planted the cherry stone. Fedja remarks: “Ja otošel v storonku” [I stepped out of their way] (220, 156). In this final scene of the story, Oleša reverts to the myth's traditional roles. Here Avel', like the Biblical Abel, is a keeper of sheep. He is a tour guide with a human flock. The narrator of the story makes this connection unmistakably clear when he notes: “Avel' otdelilsja ot pastvy” [Abel detached himself from his flock] (220, 156). At this point we see Fedja and Avel' move toward resolution of their rivalry. The extended parallel between the two in various roles coalesces in the empty lot. While they both share God and Adam and Eve as part of their creative lineage, Fedja the planter becomes the artist creator, and Avel' the shepherd—the righteous komsomol leader. The second nature of Avel' as a creator figure emerges in the final scene; he is the builder of the communist future.

As Cain, the archetypal tiller of the earth, Fedja has planted the seed in the empty lot, but it is Avel' who proclaims the creation of a new garden, a new Eden, where the cherry tree of creative imagination will bloom: “—Korpus ètot budet razpoložen polukrugom … Vsja vnutrennost' polukruga budet zapolnena sadom. U vas est' voobraženie?” [The entire building will be laid out in a semicircle … The entire part inside the semicircle will be a garden. Do you have imagination?] (220, 157). And Fedja responds: “Est'. Ja vižu, Avel'. Ja vižu jasno. Zdes' budet sad. I na tom meste, gde stoite vy, budet rasti višnevoe derevo” [I have … I see it, Abel. I see it clearly. The garden will be here. And in the place where you are standing, a cherry tree will grow] (220, 157). Thus, the story ends with the Cain and Abel myth drastically altered. Instead of jealousy and murder, Oleša's story ends, to borrow a phrase, on a note of peaceful co-existence between the real and imaginary worlds, between the two “brothers” who, as god-like figures, partake in the process of creation. Their mutual understanding promises the ability to establish a joint paradise, symbolized by the building in the shape of a semicircle facing the garden.

Now that we have described Oleša's reshaping of Biblical motifs, we come to the question of the role and function of the process as well as its symbolic significance. The Soviet critic Viktor Percov perhaps is not far from the mark when he calls Time the main character in the story (168).¹² The time frame pointedly links the story to the Biblical myth. It begins on a brightly lit Sunday afternoon (v voskresen 'e) and ends on a Sunday morning (voskresnoe utro), the day on which God rested after creating the world as well as the day of Christ's resurrection. Thus, a full seven days of creation—or perhaps only one—have passed by analogy to the mythical paradigm. The story is also divided into seven distinct scenes, with a double space marking the division between six of the seven parts in the text.¹³ The first scene is at the dača, the second in the empty lot (pustyr')—the antithesis of Eden, i.e., the land of Nod, the third with Fedja on the streetcorner waiting for Nataša, the fourth in the empty lot, the fifth at home in Fedja's room, the sixth in the woods on the way to Nataša's, and the seventh again in the empty lot. The separate parts do not comprise full days of quotidian time, and the time sequence—if we can call it that—seems somewhat ambiguous, if not contradictory.

The narrator uses the mythical paradigm to initiate what Mircea Eliade would call “the mythical ritual scenario of annual World regeneration,” which is used to nullify the effect of time (75). Fedja's fall from the dača paradise marks the beginning of his journey to regeneration. Observe the journey motif found throughout the story. Fedja travels to Nataša's dača. He travels home. He refers to himself as making a twofold trip [ja soveršaju dvojnoj put'] (215, 148). He journeys through the invisible land. He travels to the streetcorner to meet Nataša. He takes a journey through the woods. The “flock” from Kursk journeys to the empty lot with its tour guide Avel'.

During his return from the dača, Fedja undergoes what Eliade would characterize as the “symbolism of initiation rituals …, a regressus ad uterum … (79).” In Oleša's words: “Ja vstupaju v koridor, obrazovavšijsja meždu dvumja korpusami. Koridor beskonečno vysok, napolnen ten'ju. Zdes' počva gnilovata, podatliva, kak v ogorode” [I step into the passage between two buildings. The buildings are immensely tall and the passageway is full of shadow. Here the ground is a bit moldy, yielding, like the earth of a vegetable patch] (215, 148). Note that the Russian word “korpus” can refer to a building as well as to the human body. Fedja returns to the scared place twice: once to plant the seed and the second and final time when he meets Avel'.

Eliade remarks that the hero can experience the initiation rite in another way—by being symbolically swallowed (80). Fedja, the hero-narrator, experiences this at the end of the story. Note his description of Avel' in the last scene: “… on poglotil menja, ne dožidajas' soglasija i soprotivlenija” [… he gulped me down, not waiting for my permission or resistance] (220, 156). This regression paves the way for the hero to annual time and thus to take part in the creative act.

Like Adam and Eve on their expulsion from Eden, Fedja becomes hyperconscious of profane time. While waiting for Nataša on the street corner, Fedja, in nervous anticipation, comes a half-hour before the appointed hour. A tram clock hangs above the intersection. It reminds him of the bottom of a little barrel. He cries out: “O, pustaja bočonka vremeni!” [O, empty little barrel of time!] (216, 149). Nataša is supposed to arrive at 3:30. Fedja observes that it is 3:10. He marks his elevation into an altered state of consciousness outside of the realm of profane time with ellipsis: “I vot načinaetsja …” [And here it begins …] (216, 149). The creative process begins. But he slips back and forth between the realms of profane and sacred time, between the role of the fallen and now mortal Adam, and God. He focuses in on the clock at 3:15, fifteen minutes before the appointed hour of meeting:

Citvirts citvirtоgо. Strilкi sоidiniliss i vytynuliss pо gоrizоntali. Vidy etо, y dumay:

«Etо muka sucit lapкami. Bispокоjnay muka vrimini.»

Glupо! I кaкay tam muka vrimini!

Ona ni idit, оna ni pridit.

(216)

Three-fifteen. The hands joined on the horizontal line. I looked at them and thought:

“It's a fly rubbing its legs together, the restless fly of time.”

How stupid! What's this stuff about a fly of time!

She's not here, and she won't come at all.

(150)

The first “ona,” which loses its ambiguity in the English translation as “she,” is also the annoying fly of profane time. In Fedja's hyperconscious state, time has become ponderously static. The second “ona,” Nataša, will not come to meet him. And Fedja's immediate need is to escape profane time's oppressive nature, to escape reality. Avel' responds to Fedja's imaginary transformation accordingly: “Ja ničego ne ponimaju. Èto kakoe-to bergsonanstvo” [I don't understand anything. This is some kind of Bergsonism] (217, 152). Avel' hits the mark with this off-the-cuff remark. Fedj'a's time is Bergsonian duration, a constant flow of the past to the future.

The task of the writer-artist therefore is to overcome time. He does this by mythically recreating Eden, by creating a timeless state before the fall. In this way, he regenerates his creative power. The old and the new world, the past and the present of profane time, must be fused, transcended, and transfigured anew with each creative act. Joseph Campbell precisely describes this kind of ritual that invokes the creative process in his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces:

Professor Toynbee uses the term ‘detachment’ and ‘transfiguration’ to describe the crisis by which the higher spiritual dimension is attained that makes possible the resumption of the work of creation. The first step, detachment or withdrawal, consists in a radical transfer of emphasis from the external to the internal world, macro- to microcosm, a retreat from the desperations of the wasteland to the peace of the everlasting realm that is within.

(23)

The very process of ostranenie imitates and intimates creation. By recreating the myth, Oleša's hero-narrator prepares himself for the journey through the mind's creative process. By means of his fantasy he withdraws from the wasteland of reality to create a paradise within.

Notes

1. For the sake of those who do not read Russian, I have quoted from the translation by Michael Sosa and Brent Harvey. The first page number in parentheses indicates the original Russian text, the second the translation.

2. References to the story in the Russian will be from Jurij Oleša, Izbrannoe. English translations refer to the translation by Andrew R. MacAndrew. Page numbers will appear in parentheses following each quotation, with references to the Russian text first and the English text following. I have taken the liberty of adapting MacAndrew's translation where I feel a more literal parallel to the original is needed. Another English version of the story (translated by Aimee Anderson) is also available.

3. One might argue here for a shared semantic fluidity that binds the word and the protagonist, since the character in any given text owes his ontological status to semantic motivation. Many thanks to John Fizer for sharing his ideas with me on this subject.

4. The highly subjective first person narrator Fedja describes a total of seven scenes. In the first, on a Sunday afternoon Fedja visits his friend Nataša at her dača and goes on a picnic with her and Boris Mixajlovič. While Fedja attempts to observe a thrush fluttering in the trees, Boris consumates his love for Nataša with a kiss. Dejected by his loss of Nataša, at the end of the day Fedja sets off on foot to the city. In the second scene, Fedja walks home at sunset, passing through an empty lot as a dog crosses his path. The third scene depicts Fedja impatiently waiting to meet Nataša at a subway stop. She never arrives, but numerous people approach him to ask for directions: a woman, a Red Army man, a taxi driver, a blind man, an old woman, a drunkard, and a group of children with a flag. Finally, he notices his neighbor Avel' observing him and strikes up a conversation. In the next scene, Fedja plants the cherry pit in the earth of the empty lot and imagines meeting Nataša by the tree in 5 years with their respective “children”—one from his imagination, the other from her Boris Mixajlovič. The fifth scene portrays Fedja's return home as Avel' queries him concerning the fact that he saw him stooped over and digging in the earth. In the sixth scene, Fedja wakes up on a Sunday morning and sets off along the familiar road to Nataša's. Here he inserts a chapter from a book he is writing entitled Putešestvie po nevidimoj strane (Journey through an Invisible Land). In it, using the technique of ostranenie (“estrangement” or “making strange”), he describes throwing a stone at a niche and noticing an anthill from different perspectives. In the final scene, Fedja meets Avel' leading a group of 20 tourists from Kursk through the empty lot where the cherry pit was resting. The story ends with an imaginary letter to Nataša and a final exchange between Avel' and Fedja discussing the location of the planned future garden in the lot.

5. See, for example, Elizabeth K. Beaujour's pioneering study, especially pages 15-22.

6. Kazimiera Ingdahl points out the presence of the Biblical figure of Adam in Oleša's “Liompa” (156-185). In particular she mentions the apple motif as well as the Adamism in Ponomarev's obsessive need to name objects, even at the very moment of his death. See especially her discussion on page 158.

7. Elizabeth Beaujour has elucidated the nature of Oleša's Avel' in relation to the Biblical story; he is “the Righteous One whose offerings are pleasing to authority” (16). In a much more recent study, Robert Russell in part discusses the surface resemblances between Oleša's story and the Cain and Abel myth (90).

8. Nils Åke Nilsson describes Oleša's unique manner of perceiving the world with the metaphor—borrowed from Oleša—of looking through the wrong end of the binoculars (254-279).

9. Quotations in Russian from the Bible will be from the 1914 edition published in Vienna by the British and Foreign Bible Society. Quotations in English will be from the King James Version.

10. Besides the primary triad that we meet in the first scene, numerous other threesomes occur. Three additional guests arrive at the dača, Boris Mixajlovič and two girls (devuški). The two girls form a threesome with Nataša's brother Èrast and set off for a boat ride on the river. When Fedja leaves the dača, he leaves in the company of what he calls two “sisters,” Vnimanie (Attentiveness) and Voobraženie (Imagination), even though they are grammatically neuter in gender. He must, in fact, have the muses in mind. When Fedja plants the seed in the empty lot and imagines meeting Nataša there five years later, the cherry tree (višnevoe derevo) in the invisible land stands between them (“My stanem po obe storony … We'll stand one at either side of it …”) (217, 152). And in the last scene we see a threesome formed by Avel', his collective pastva (flock; i.e., the 20 comrades from Kursk) and Fedja. Fedja himself suggests three archetypal identities within the single narrator: the child, the poet, and the lover. Nils Åke Nilsson has delineated these types in Oleša's works as figures who all have the special ability to perceive the world in a fresh way (262). In fact, this kind of triadic relationship functions as the paradigm for much if not all of Oleša's work. In Zavist', for example, observe the relationships among: Nikolaj, Ivan, and Ofelija; Nikolaj, Volodja, and Valja; Ivan, Andrej, and Nikolaj; and Nikolaj, Anečka, and her husband (or bed). In “Ljubov” we find Šuvalov, Lelja, and the color blind young man in the park. We might add the old world, the new post-revolutionary world, and the invisible world as another and possibly the most significant triad in the story.

11. The thrush is also prominent in the works of two major Western poets. In his “Four Quartets” T. S. Eliot refers to the “deception of the thrush” as it attempts to confuse reality with illusion. The image comes from his first quartet “Burnt Norton.” The relevant lines read: “Into our first world, shall we follow / The deception of the thrush?” (176). The “Quartets” were written between 1935 and 1942, so the similarity in symbolism can only be coincidental. One other poem in English literature prominently portrays the thrush and, in a curious parallel to Oleša's story, links it with Eden: Gerard Manley Hopkins' “Spring,” which was written in 1877 and published posthumously by Robert Bridges, who brought out an edition of Hopkins' poems in 1918. The poem is brief enough to quote in its entirety:

    “SPRING”

    Nothing is so beautiful as spring—
    When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
    Thrush's eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
    Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
    The ear; it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
    The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
    The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
    With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.

    What is all this juice and all this joy?
    A strain of the earth's sweet being in the beginning
    In Eden garden.—Have, get, before it cloy,
    Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,
    Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
    Most, O maid's child, thy choice and worthy the winning.

    (67)

    Again, the similarity in imagery may be purely coincidental.

12. Unfortunately, Percov does not really deal with the deeper philosophical problem that Oleša raises in the story. Instead, he discusses the question of the need to balance time between personal relationships and the necessities of the Five-Year Plan.

13. Only the first two scenes do not have an extra space between paragraphs marking the text. In another parallel to the creation myth, I would also suggest that the narrator experiences or describes the creative process in six instances: the first in the empty lot, the second on the street corner, the third during his imaginary meeting with Nataša when he plants the seed, the fourth when he describes the process of achieving an altered state of consciousness before sleep, the fifth his description of the anthill and the stone thrown at the niche, and the sixth his imaginary letter to Nataša at the end of the story. Robert Russell supports such a division of the story into seven perfectly symmetrical episodes with the possible addition of an interlude (87).

Works Cited

Beaujour, Elizabeth K. The Invisible Land: A Study in the Artistic Imagination of Iurii Olesha. NY: Columbia U. Press, 1970.

Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. London: Sphere Books Ltd., 1975.

Eliade, Mircea. Myth and Reality. Willard R. Trask, trans. New York and Evanston: Harper and Row, 1963.

Eliot, T. S. Collected Poems, 1909-1962. New York: Harcourt, Brace, & World, 1970.

Gogol, Nikolai. Dead Souls. David Magarshack, trans. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1974.

Gogol', Nikolaj. Sočinenija v dvux tomax, II. Moscow: Xudožestvennaja literatura, 1975.

Hopkins, Gerard Manley. The Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins. W. H. Gardner and N. H. MacKenzie, eds. London: Oxford U. Press, 1967.

Ingdahl, Kazimiera. “The Life/Death Dichotomy in Jurij Oleša's Short Story ‘Liompa’” In Nils Åke Nilsson, ed. Studies in 20th Century Russian Prose. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1982, 156-185.

Nilsson, Nils Åke. “Through the Wrong End of the Binoculars: An Introduction to Jurij Oleša,” in Edward J. Brown, ed. Major Soviet Writers: Essays in Criticism. London: Oxford University Press, 1973, 254-279.

Olesha, Yury. Complete Short Stories and Three Fat Men. Aimee Anderson, trans. Ann Arbor: Ardis Publishers, 1979.

Olesha, Yuri. Envy and Other Works by Yuri Olesha. Andrew R. MacAndrew, trans. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1967.

Oleša, Jurij. Izbrannoe. T. Sumarokova, ed. Moscow: Xudožestvennaja literatura, 1974.

Percov, Viktor. My živem vpervye: o tvorčestve Jurija Oleši. Moscow: Sovetskij pisatel', 1976.

Russell, Robert. “Olesha's ‘The Cherry Stone’,” in Joe Andrew, ed. The Structural Analysis of Russian Narrative Fiction. Essays in Poetics, no. 1. Keele, England, 1982, 82-95.

Tynianov, Yuri. The Problem of Verse Language. Michael Sosa and Brent Harvey, eds. Ann Arbor: Ardis Publishers, 1981.

Tynjanov, Jurij. Problema stixotvornogo jazyka. Leningrad: Academia, 1924.