Anquish (Novel)

By Сергей Богатков

Ivan Myshkin had lost his closest person in his life - his wife Varya. He went to St. Petersburg where he celebrated his fortieth birthday alone in "The Literary Cafe".
When he returned to the apartment on Gorohovaja Street where he rented a room from a good-natured old woman, he suddenly knew that she died. Left alone in the apartment he pours out his soul in front of her dead body. Ivan reads for her his diary and in detail recalls his a past life. At dawn, he permanently leaves the apartment and moved to another apartment which is located in the Grafskiy alley.
The loneliness begins to crush and destroy his soul. More and more he loses the meaning of life.
In one day, he saw a very realistic dream where he met on the Fontanka river his wife Varya which was sitting in "The gazebo on the embankment" and singing familiar song. At first, he did not recognize her and from the unbearable tension falls into a trance, and when he wakes up, he actually sees in front of him his wife Varya. He learns from her that they will meet very soon and it will happen here in "The gazebo on the embankment!".
Flushed with joy of the meeting, he woke up and realized that it was just a dream. "The gazebo on the embankment!" does not exists. It is just a figment of his imagination. But in the painful dreams Varya began to come to Ivan very often.
After that, Myshkin starts to really live only in a dream. From this moment life's meaning was lost and he plunged deeply in the world of his illusions which turns into reality in "The gazebo on the embankment!"

• Language: English
• Publisher: Сергей Богатков
• Release date: Mar 2, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370674275

Сергей Богатков

БОГАТКОВ СЕРГЕЙ АНАТОЛЬЕВИЧДата рождения: 01 октября 1976 годМесто рождения: г. Узловая Тульской областиМесто проживания: г. МоскваСемейное положение: Женат, имею двоих детейСайт писателя: http://bogatkov.ru/•e-mail: [e-mail]Членство в профессиональных писательских организация:•Член Союза Писателей России (c 2016г)•Член союза писателей-переводчиков (с 2011г)•Кандидат в члены Интернационального Союза писателей (с 2016г)Литературное творчество:Литературное творчество начинается в 2002 году.Неопубликованные:•незаконченный роман "Большой город" (2003г)•рассказ "Звонок из прошлого" (2005г);•стихи: "Печаль о России", "Другу", "Времена", "Поэту", "Кузнецову П.", "Лицедей", "Твой чудный взгляд", "Тверской бульвар", "Судья", "Непослушный зайчонок (детский стих)" (2005г)Опубликованные произведения:Повести:•Деревня•Зима•Бунт•Тоска•Масленица•Дорога•КолоколВсе произведения были опубликованы в сборнике повестей "Моя Россия", автор – Сергей Богатков, издательство "ДПК Пресс", Москва, 2010 год ( тираж 5 000 экз., объем 570 стр.)Книга была представлена на Национальной книжной выставке-ярмарке "Книги России" в г. Москве, получила множество положительных отзывов и в последствии была номинирована на Национальную литературную премию "Большая книга".Рассказы:•Сборник рассказов - "Занимательные рассказы про Ивана Кнопкина", издательство "У Никитских ворот", Москва, 2016 год (тираж 1 000, объём 106 стр.)Роман:• Роман "Надлом"Иные публикации:• Художественно краеведческий сборник "Перекличка-3" (г. Узловая 2011г)• Альманах литературного журнала "Российский колокол" (2016г): рассказ "Неблагодарность" (Московская Городская Организация Союза Писателей России)• Англоязычный журнал "Russian Bell" (2016г): рассказ "Муравей" (опубликован на английском языке) (Интернациональный Союз Писателей совместно с Союзом Писателей России)• Литературный сборник "Самый короткий рассказ" (2016г): рассказ "Сентиментальность" (Союз писателей-переводчиков)

Book preview

*****

ANGUISH

SERGEY BOGATKOV

*****

Copyright© 2017 Sergey Bogatkov

Chief Editor: Nicholas Frederick

Illustrator: Alexandra Androsova

Contact author: [e-mail]

Сontents

I

II

III

IV

V

ANGUISH

Truly great people, I think, must feel a great sadness in the world.

F.M. Dostoevsky. Crime and Punishment

I

"As early as the second half of March spring rained down a series of heavy and cold rains on the ice-covered ground. Low leaden clouds fully covered the sky for several weeks. It was hanging so low that the high peaks of trees almost bumped by its edge into the misty canvas of the dull horizon. Early spring rains were pouring into cities, country-sides and villages, washing away beautiful colors of the leaving winter from the Russia canvas. Everything all-round was becoming dull and joyless.

A gray mess of melting snow and slushy spring mud was lying thick on the Petersburg's sidewalks. Over and over again muddy icicles were falling down from the massive banisters of the Anichkov Bridge, falling on the slowly drifting by Fontanka ice floes. Flocks of urban crows in search of food tirelessly flew from one ice flow to another, carefully picking edible food residues frozen in the ice, while shivering sparrows were nesting by flocks and chirping nervously on the wide windowsills of the neighboring houses.

Awkwardly hiding under umbrellas and jumping suddenly from formed puddles, faceless passers-by were hurrying about their business while the heavy morning mist was continuing to wrap the streets tightly, concealing deceitfully the sharp spire of the Peter-Paul Fortress from the eyes of foreigners.

By the Nevsky prospect sparking at the junction of wires, urban trolley buses moved lazily in its habitual route, and the wry faces of people going to work. Petersburgers were seen from windows as well as curious faces of numerous North capital guests hurrying to see and appreciate all the beauty and majestic sadness.

And in the middle of this bleak view at the very edge of the Anichkov Bridge from famous palace Beloselskikh-Belozerskih, leaning his shoulder unto the granite foot of the rampant horse, the lonely man was standing and looking sadly at the drifting gray ice floes.

This man was dressed in black cashmere coat that length was just above the knee, warm suede gloves, dark jeans, black knitted cap with small peak in front and long brown scarf wrapped around neck several times. The high collar of his coat was raised, the triangle of casually tied scarf aesthetically bulged at the unbuttoned top of the lapel. His outlook was falling down like heavy stone and fine facial features expressed sullen musing and sentimentality only.

It seemed that this man just stopped for awhile to admire the unusual view of the ice-covered embankment or take photo of the architectural ensemble he liked. Probably just in this way the artist who wants to capture in colors the passing cityscape chooses the place for himself.

Petersburgers have long been accustomed to such strange people and curious glances, and thus did not pay any attention to the strange man. Foreign guests always tried to pay attention only to city sights without distraction to unnecessary details. That's why everyone went about their own business: somebody was reading a book, sitting comfortably on the seat of the trolley-bus carrying him to work, others was hurrying home returning from a night shift, dragging bags full of products, and somebody was going out of the metro, hurrying to the opening of the Hermitage. In other words in this dark March morning, everyone was busy entirely by himself and his own thoughts and nobody wanted to pay attention to others.

Meanwhile the man standing on the bridge was ill with grief and this grief was such a kind that tends to be inside one’s soul for a very long time, maybe for months and maybe for years. Such grief was gradually picking off the subtle matter of the human being and growing sometimes to such an extent that it can burn the human soul to the ground.

This sad man was Ivan Semenovich Myshkin forty years of age. The last few months of his life he has spent here, in Petersburg. At the beginning he rented a room from Praskovya Vasilyevna a good-natured old woman who was living at 64 Gorokhovaya Street, at that very house where Gregory Rasputin lived once. Praskovya Vasilyevna was so old and could easily remember. At any rate she often asserted that being a little girl she had seen Grishka and once even talked to him personally. Nobody knew whether it was a fact but judging by her age it might be true. Ivan Semenovich tried not to bother the old woman with questions. Coming home at the evening he threw off his shoes routinely near the threshold, gently hung his coat, cap and scarf in the closet, quickly warmed up the food at the kitchen and together with the pot silently disappeared in his room with the window opened on the courtyard – grey, untended, with always opened garbage cans in the corner.

There was an old table in the middle of Ivan Semenovich’s room. It served as a dining table, a desk and a book shelf both. Near the far wall with the window there was a TV and two chairs next to it. Ivan Semenovich also had a small wardrobe where he put the only travel bag with things. The sofa that was old, worn and faded by the time. That’s all that was of the furniture in the Ivan Semenovich’s room.

Landlady Praskovya Vasilyevna was poor and therefore a thrifty old woman like the majority of old people and thus everything placed in the apartment she had purchased together with the already deceased husband. Ivan Semenovich was quite satisfied with such a situation. He did not like that there were a lot of things in the room. It developed way back in his childhood when he lived with his parents in their own home in one of the villages of the Kostroma Region where he was born and raised. After his wedding when he immediately moved in new apartment in Kostroma. There he had been living with his wife for more than ten happy years until she died before arrival of an ambulance from a sudden heart attack. Ivan Semenovich packed his belongings and dropped everything by going from Kostroma to Petersburg. He wanted to take his mind off things, to live in another city in someone else's apartment where nothing would remind him of the tragedy.

Ivan Semenovich's mother died only a few years ago while his father had died when Ivan was seven years old. Ivan Semenovich inherited quite a good cottage with a large garden and kitchen garden from his mother and one-bedroom apartment at the centre of Kostroma from his wife.

The Myshkins have never had children and he and his wife Varya just a few months before her death often thought about adopting of a child. They planned, discussed it and in such a way were preparing to become parents. It was only the sudden death of Varya that disrupted all plans to have a family. Ivan Semenovich was all alone, well, unless of course of few friends, who often came at Myshkin’s home at first, helped and certainly supported him after the death of wife. Ivan Semenovich was sincerely grateful to his friends but of course they could not replace the family. Each of them had his own family, kids, household duties and problems. Ivan Semenovich lost his all in a moment. There was only a gaping void inside and complete understanding of the meaninglessness of his existence.

Loneliness pressed and destroyed, it brought up the past and thus causing even deeper distress of the soul. It was above his decision to stay in an empty apartment, where they had been living with Varya all these years. And he used to go outside, buy alcohol in the next-door kiosk, sat on the bench in the neighbors yard and started to drink. In this yard he and Varya used to sit for a long time and dream about the future, admiring children who were running and playing in the sandbox. After his wife death Ivan Semenovich was drinking alcohol every day and a lot. He hardly woke up in the morning having a headache and went or more precisely he dragged himself to work. After he came back home he started to drink again. Problems with health were the result of such a regime and the lack of adequate nutrition. He started to have liver trouble and sleep problems, blue circles under eyes appeared. Finally when he was fully exhausted, he took an unpaid leave of absence for a long time, gathered all his savings, rented apartment in Kostroma and left for Petersburg. The choice of Petersburg was natural. By choosing the place where he could go Ivan Semenovich determined that first it should be a big city where he can use free time, distract himself and think about the future; secondly it should be the place that leaves a pleasant impression and where not only his body but also soul can get some rest at least. Ivan Semenovich finally settled on Petersburg. Myshkin had often been in this city before and liked it very much. In comparison with Moscow, where for example in his own opinion there is too much needless fuss, empty capital pathos and at the same time a complete lack of recognizable local color and living history except for the Kremlin of Moscow which widely represented Stalin’s architecture. On the top of everything else Varya liked Petersburg