when the horns were silent

On Tuesday’s our writer took classes at a Russian language school which occupied a floor in a decrepit building in the centre of the city. The teacher was born German and already in the third month some of the students were correcting his grammar.

“Yes, I know!” he would yell, “That’s how some would say it!”

And he would carry on explaining what had just been explained to him.

By now our writer knew almost the entire language; he could translate almost anything. But when it came to speaking, he had no talent, and his right eye would twitch when he was called on to answer. There were rumours. Between the four students and the teacher it was believed that his late wife had ghost-written for him.

There was one French lady in the class not particularly attractive, underweight, and pockmarked. She wore the most unusual clothing. She appeared to be obsessed with, for example, this strange off-white woollen garment which she draped over what might otherwise be reasonable attire so that on the days when she wore it she really appeared like a large fish caught in a net. The French lady- Sonia was her name- completely transfixed our writer. It was an obsession unbeknownst to the object, unreasonable to the subject, and invisible to everybody else.
“At some moments,” he remarked to himself, sitting across from her as the teacher stumbled through Pushkin, laying his grotesque German emphasis on «Х» as if each time catching something in his throat, “at some moments… for example right now! Yes, especially when she is trying to understand something, well I’ve plainly never seen a woman more repulsive.”

Noticing his staring, she turned to him and smiled.
“By God!” his mind trumpeted, “What beauty! What a smile! What I would give! What it would be like!” and a thousand images of a future happiness flashed through his mind; now in a field, now at a theatre, now naked beside her.

And now, having once more turned to understand whatever rule of grammar the teacher was misunderstanding, her nose again became too long, her mouth too small, her arms to skinny.

“Ridiculous!” our writer puffed, “She’d never do, just look at her!”

One afternoon our writer resolved to speak with Sonia. He was sure that one conversation would bring her down from this realm of fantasy. Our ideals are carried by people we see but do not often speak with, or see once, and see in some way that makes speaking with them impossible.  

After the class he hurried after her, his briefcase nearly spilling its papers.

In the street they were swallowed by the mass of clerks and professions busy on their way to their wives or loved ones. In the rush he lost sight of her and after a minute of frantically sifting through the exhausted and grey faces he gave it up.

“That says it,” he sighed, fixing his jacket and briefcase. In that moment he was sure that it was boredom, frustration, and scarcity which soiled this fascination. She really was quite unremarkable, after all.

But alas! As he emerged from one cluster of persons he saw her there, standing under a ray of light, with her hand raised as a visor over her delicate face. He had never seen her so beautiful, as if her features were an orchestra before whom the conductor had just appeared. He made straight for her, but again his view was obscured, this time only for a moment.

When she reappeared she was held by another man.

That evening our writer went to see Ritcher perform Rachmaninoff’s Second Concerto. I and everyone else could hear him sobbing when the horns were silent. I’m told he no longer has an interest in Russian.