I feel I have just been given a college assignment--an essay on Babel, to be backed up by arguments visible in the text. I'm not sure I have the energy to make my argument properly, but i will attempt. Yes, I do believe that Raisa and our narrator have had sex. If nothing else, this is because of the old "if there is a gun in the first act, it must go off by the final act" maxim. We have seen breasts and sexual dreams in abundance here. We have seen flirtation, drunkenness, abandonment. We have seen Raisa fling her arms out wide against the bookshelf. "Of all the gods ever crucified, she was the most captivating." We have seen these two re-enact a scene from a (Maupassant) story that concludes with sex. We see the narrator leap up, causing 29 volumes of his hero to fall to the floor, "their pages flying wild." (SEX HAPPENING HERE--the passion of Maupassant's pages flying wild!) I'm not sure what it means when Babel writes "the white nag of my fate walked a slow walk," but i'm wondering if it refers to his erection diminishing after their union. (Raisa now growls, "You're so funny," words she "muttered" before the sex act occurred.) We have watched our narrator walk home, no longer drunk, but walking drunkenly anyway--a post coital stupor. He wants to retain the feeling of having just had sex. He sings in a language he had just invented (From Lonely Island's masterpiece: "Sometimes something beautiful happens in this world. You don't know how to express yourself, so you just gotta sing.") The fog rolls "in waves" (orgasmic). Monsters roar (orgasm occurs). And, later, we watch our young narrator read of his possible future: a slow death from a sexually contracted disease due to his passions.
Oh, yes, these two definitely had sex.
PS Lonely Island's song is called I Just Had Sex and it's not for everyone. You've been warned.
The white nag refers to the coachman's horse in The Confession that plods on while the coachman at last gets what he wants from Céleste. But the reference to "fate" is that Céleste meets hers in that timespan: the coachman impregnates her.
Consequences, consequences. So, like you, I think Narrator and Raisa did it. But there will be consequences (though not of the Céleste kind).
I think this is a great set of interpretations Mary! And I'll add one more: the falling 29 volumes, the surprise crash of it, as a metaphor for premature ejaculation when this young man gets the lover he so desires, who is out of his league. Maybe it's a little out of time sequence but the energy of it struck me this way.
The book explosion = premature ejaculation is a great idea, but I tend to see it as you do, Karen. Why would Babel place the white nag metaphor (for his fate) if something slow and deliberate weren't going on?
And why would Narrator stagger off down the street singing at the top of his voice if he'd made a fool of himself and not "concluded" with Raisa? Drunkenness isn't automatically synonymous with joy.
You make a good case, Mary, (in my translation the pages "fly open") and I agree with you, except that I'd situate the sex after the second "growl" - in the hiatus after Raisa's last growl and before the narrator's departure. In my translation "the white mare of my fate went on at a walking pace" could also mean that the books falling slowed him down, which may have been beneficial in the long run. I'm wondering about the opera that the husband and sisters went to. I have trouble seeing the narrator as Holofernes to Raisa's Judith.
Great analysis, Mary. The story specifies that De Maupassant’s syphillis was congenital, though. Having read the story before, this surprised me - I hadn’t caught that detail before.
Yes, for Maupassant, it is congenital. Still, he died a slow and agonizing death. The narrator of the story does not want to die in that way--like an animal. And here he has gone and had unprotected sex--so it's possible he's contracted syphilis already. He is now afraid, having learned of the kind of death syphilis can bring on. (So the fact that Maupassant acquired it through his own mother has no bearing on our narrator's fears.)
I don't think a specific fear of an STD is the warning Narrator may be getting from Maupassant's life story. It's bigger and darker than that.
You may be brilliant, you may be an international "success", but very bad things may still happen to you. Was the great French writer a "success" or a "failure"? His fate was an early death in a madhouse.
(What will be mine?) <-- "Thinks" bubble over Narrator's head.
Yes, agreed. But sex is at the core of this story. Following your passions in all ways--the job you take, your sexual life, etc. And the entire story leads to the moment where the narrator and Raisa throw out any caution and give in to their passions. So, to me, this may be the meaning of it all--follow your passions but be aware of the consequences of being the sort of person who does so. And sexual passion can lead to a slow death. I don't know--I'm just winging it here!
I think it's certainly part of it. But Narrator's appetite is open wide for money and the good life in general. And literary success. Whip them all up together and it makes a great big cream pastry at the heart of which sits grinning Death.
Lust can drive people to make crazy, dangerous choices. And this story feels so contemporary. There's literally a myriad of scary STDs these days, as well as HIV and other life-threatening consequences from unprotected sex, and yet, and yet. People still have unprotected sex all the time. Especially the young, who feel immortal. The ending of this story is masterful in how it captures that moment when a young person really GETS it: "I'm mortal, too." Is it too late for our narrator? Probably not—how likely is it, really, that he contracted Syphilis from this one encounter with Raisa (although it IS possible)?But the fact that he suddenly realizes he could have, is a life-changing moment for him. He has a newborn awareness of his mortality. I remember that moment in my own life—when I really understood I was going to die one day. It felt so dark and foreboding. It shook my world.
Yes he realizes that no matter how good a writer you are not immune to dying a horrible death at a young age. I don’t know if the idea of unprotected sex would have occurred to him.
Well, the adage is that a GOOD writer will not put a gun in Act One if they don't plan on that gun going off in Act Three. And Babel, obviously, is a good writer. And everything he puts into a story is there on purpose.
First thought: “Yes, no, both, neither.” (GS, talking about something else). Second thought: the narrator wants us to think he and Raisa did it while at the same time creating a shield that implies they didn’t (nag moved slowly on does both, both refers to but also differentiates from the story of the other couple doing it in the wagon, like also saying “that ship has sailed”), but he really wants people to think they did, even though the arc of the story reveals it wasn’t love making to each other, it was love making of and through the books.
So interesting that to us--modern readers--we cannot tell for certain if sex occurred or not. (Though I am convinced that they DID have sex.) I wonder if Babel realized that when he wrote the story--or if he felt he'd put in enough clues that it was obvious (one way or another). I mean, why confuse the reader in such a way? Did he mean to? I tend to think he did not mean to. But what do i know? Hoping George will tell us!
It’s funny, the first time I read it I thought, ‘he’s screwed this up, not screwed Raisa’. I mean, how could anyone wield sexual allure after flailing into a bookcase and knocking down 29 volumes?
The second time, prepared for the comedy book flail, I instead noticed the narrator stumbling down the street singing drunkenly in a glorious language all his own. And I thought: this is the joy of someone breast-obsessed who has just touched a breast.
So I’ve decided they both did not have sex as well as did have sex. Or, more likely, they did have sex but he was far more pleased with his performance than she was.
I too have to go with they both did and did not have sex. And what a clever plot device from a talented writer. I can't remember any specific titles but I know literature if full of stories where the reader is left hanging and has to sift through the clues to decide. There's been ample entertaining clue-detection here to conclude they did have sex. But on the other hand our young narrator has been quite up front, boastful really, about the largess he's received from his relationship with Raisa -- daily breakfast, new stove, herring, chocolate, money. And he's not at all bashful about literally undressing Raisa and sharing that she was ready to get it on (until the books came crashing down). So if they did have sex, why not add that to his list of accomplishments, rather than being coy about it? And yes, he did go singing merrily down the street afterward. But then he gets into bed and starts reading Maupassant's life story. Really? Hardly celebratory after getting as far as we know he did. Even though the story is not about her, it would have been fun to hear Raisa's version of what transpired.
A lesser writer would not have kept us guessing: Did they or didn’t they? And there’s so much to say for both “did” and “didn’t.” I think they both believed the moment was at hand. “Please sit down, Monsieur Polyte” was a clear invitation, and the narrator took it. Then came the farcical collapse of that shelf full of books “filled with pity, genius, passion…” They intruded into the scene like a living character. The narrator, already not in the best shape for a tryst, lost his erection, and “the white nag of his fate moved slowly on.” To me that has the ring of missed opportunity, underscored by Raisa’s growl, “You’re a funny one.”
Someone here mentioned Judith and Holofernes (I now can’t find the comment, which expanded the story for mei). It’s surely no accident that the opera mentioned is Judith. The Biblical Judith lured Holofernes with the promise of sex, got him drunk and beheaded him before the deed. So why does he sing on the way back to Kasantsev’s? Bravado, I think. He’s feigning confidence he doesn’t feel, surrounded as he is by the sense of monsters seething behind walls. And there’s that ominous line: “The wooden pavements cut off the legs of those who walked on them.” Not the kind of reflection that comes to mind after a conquest.
In the staggering final paragraph, he is lifted out of his petty yearnings and disappointments by the discovery of Maupassant’s terrible end. I didn’t see that coming. Who could? It opens a whole other vista, unimaginably bleak, when you least expect it. “I was brushed by a foreboding of truth” is a brilliant final sentence. Brushed, but not flattened. He is young, and his illusions won’t die with one blow. He has many more pratfalls ahead.
I’m grateful to this chorus of deeply perceptive readers. Your insights push me to read more closely and have brightened a day of sickness. Instead of feeling sorry for myself, I am thinking about the storytelling powers of Isaac Babel.
This is great, Rona. I think there are excellent arguments to be made for either possibility--sex or no sex. That "white nag" sentence really does stump me, though I understand the connection to the white horse in Maupassant's story who dances in one spot while sex occurs in the attached wagon. I keep wondering if it has something to do with the narrator's feelings about writing and translation. How you have to twist just so much and not more, and how the placement of a period is all. He makes those proclamations and then--he shows himself to not be able to follow them, as he manages to skip over what seems to be a crucial moment in the story. So he is young and still learning. And, like Maupassant, he will suffer for his art, whether he has syphilis or not. Something like that? I fear there is no definitive answer as to what actually happened between those two. And that perhaps that is point--that this young narrator needs to work on his craft. But i'm just making all of this up right now and hope George weighs in on it at some point.
Reading the story with this equation, white horse = time, then the horse and its plodding along has a sometimes mundane and yet sometimes terrifying consequence.
Exactly what Maupassant's white nag does (without the coachman's whip) is:
"Et le vieux cheval blanc se mit à trottiner d'un train si doux qu'il semblait danser sur place..."
"And the old white horse started jogging along at such an easy rate that he seemed to be dancing on the spot..."
So he is moving forward, steadily.
The scare words in Babel's Narrator's phrase are "my fate". Céleste's fate is to be pregnant and thus lose the chance of a "good husband" (in her mother's reckoning). What is Narrator's? Babel leaves it to our wonderings.
In the Babel story (recounting the Mauapassant story) it says this: "The white nag, its lips pink with age, went forward at a walking pace." Then, later (in the "real life" of the story) it says: "the white nag of my fate walked a slow pace." So--they are the same. Both are walking. Sex happens in both stories.
They might be different: the 'real life' nag moves on after the shelf of Maupassant has come crashing down but in the same sentence. The pages 'stood on their sides'. Maupassant's nag moves slowly enough for impregnation.
So you will infer that I am in the camp of those who are less interested in whether sex was performed than in the possibility that it might have been.Too reductive a conclusion limits the indeterminacy of our understanding of his grandfather's wisdom 'we are born for the pleasure's of work,fighting, love, we are born for that and nothing else '.
George put it like this: 'Is Babel celebrating this young man’s excess, or condemning it?
Yes, no, both, neither.
I always think that what a writer is doing, ultimately, in making a character, is calling a certain human trait into the light for further examination.
Here, that trait is something like “passion,” or “lust” or “desire” or “hunger” – as embodied in a particular young man, in a particular flavor.'
To me, the sex, the breasts, the quest for wealth, all of it is a school of red herrings. Curiously, there are at least five mentions of breasts in Basement. Where were the misogynistas? Where were the titillating (!) comments? To be clear, the term misogyny is misapplied here and elsewhere. More correct would be philogyny. This narrator, like Eugene in The Devil does not hate women. He is fascinated by women. Don't like philogyny? Maybe Gynephilia would work just as well. For those unsure about how to define and apple misogyny may I suggest "Justine: Philosophy in the Bedroom" by the Marquis de Sade.
I think this is a well written story about a 20 year old at least middle class youth who is trying out a Bohemian gig economy lifestyle. He gets a translating gig, makes a few wry, valuable, comments regarding good versus bad translations, offers some insight to the gauche lifestyle of the nouveau riche, makes a pass at his employer's wife (and is rejected) and after returning home has a minor epiphany. The end. How could he be looking for wealth with a temporary gig particularly after he gets an advance, he and his mates blow the lot on food and drink? Are the maid's eyes really "licentious" or is he just fantasizing like his dream about the washerwoman? Wine flows. Raisa flirts, calls him "mon vieux" (my buddy, or pal). He misinterprets her tipsy flirtation (as a horny 20 year old would), responds by calling her "ma belle". He makes a pass (she stumbles backwards against the wall, arms outstretched to steady herself) and is rejected. (Sit down, monsieur Polyte...you're a funny one). It's over before it begins. That horse (the white nag) has left the barn.
Me, I think that many readers look for insight where there are only mirages. Oh! It's (fill in the blank with famous author)! There must be some mystery here, some hidden message, some puzzling maze, a code to decipher! It has to be more than a well told tale! It just can't be this simple! Or can it?
I thought this might be The Basement's narrator grown up and moved to the big city to live the boho life. Similar obsessions (breasts; literature), similar over-the-top behavior. Just a passing thought.
I agree Kevin - that struck me too. Also the set up is similar in both stories - poor boy gets invited to wealthy home on the strength of his talent with words. He's a little awkward and then it all comes crashing down, literally. I think the maid's eyes gradually hardening and losing their seductive look indicate that she has seen all this before. Raisa likes to seduce young men without actually having sex with them, just to flatter herself. The maid at first imagines this fellow might be different but sees him fall for her mistress's wiles . . .
There are many similarities in the structure, cadence and theme of Basement and Confession. Many commenters have missed this. That the narrator in Basement is twelve and the narrator in Confession is twenty is not accidental.
You're right Jay. The narrator feels very much the same in both stories, both trying to escape their poverty through imagination and the stories of others.
It can be whatever you want it to be. If what you get out of it is that it is a well-written story with a minor epiphany, then that is exactly correct. I find it deeper than that, and I am exactly correct, as well. (I don't know what you mean by hidden messages, mirages or mysteries in this story.) As far as misogyny and this story--I agree with you that there isn't any.
Well, if we are both equally correct, then why should not the misogynistas be correct as well? There are commenters here that argue that a story should be whatever the reader wants it to be. Is this discussion really "it's true if you can imagine it"? Or, to paraphrase Orwell: "All animals are correct, but some are more correct than others"?
To you, the story isn't much. To me, it's more than that--deeper and more satisfying. We are not saying anything more than that. Those who find misogyny in the story need to look up the definition of misogyny. They are not correct from a definitional viewpoint.
Yes, sounds good, but Raisa does skip the theatre to stay behind to work. Her sisters are in town and it is a hot ticket at the theater. Raisa forfeits the night out with her guests and stays behind and insists on getting the young man drunk with a nice bottle of83 Muscatel. "My husband will kill me..." By the end of the evening he has had five glasses. Her nipples are hard, cited by the narrator, and she refers to him as "M'sieur Polyte," before ordering him to sit in the chair. Is Raisa attempting to be funny? She has not shown a sense of humor up until this point, or is Babel's story paralleling with Maupassant's and they are going to "have fun." When he does get out of the chair and leave to go home it is very late and before the family arrives home. He does not want to see them. Both translations end with the narrator's overwhelming feeling of"premonition truth or foreboding truth." The concluding diction is a bit ominous for a "minor epiphany."
See my latest comment on this further on. Raisa stays behind because she wants to work. They haven't worked (on her "passion") in a week. Narrator shows up sort of unexpectedly, not at his normal time. She's "drunk", but not drunk enough to stagger, slur her words throw up, pass out, etc. Sober enough to "work". Her intent is not to get N drunk. She is grateful for his input and expertise. The wine has loosened her formality just enough to call him "my buddy, pal, mate, whatever). Tipsy N misinterprets that familiarity as a "come hither" moment and when he kisses her she recoils and put him in his place. To me, the epiphany is that he realizes he is not the dashing young man he imagines himself to be and that he has more to learn about life than he expected. I asked a bunch of rhetorical questions further on in the comments. Care to answer? Converse? Respond?
I think the white nag is the clue. In the Maupassant story the white nag moves slowly while Celeste and Polyte get busy in the coach. And then at a critical juncture the narrator mentions the white nag of his fate moving slowly on. So there is a parallel.
Now, I wonder about the postscript detailing the fate of Maupassant. Afflicted with hereditary syphilis, he dies at 42, while his mother (from whom he inherited, if in fact he did have congenital disease, and didn't contract it on his own) survived him. It first showed up for Maupassant at 25. Our hero is 20 and has a foreboding of truth.
What has he just spent the last few weeks doing? Translating ribald stories, paying attention to the beautiful language ("free, flowing, with the long breathing of passion"), with a sexy woman at his side while a licentious maid wanders around (I think Cloris Leachman could have played the part). Eating and drinking to excess on the earnings from his work. Railing against Tolstoy, who got cold feet, because his religion is fear. Dreaming of the potential hotty who supplies hot water every morning (but it turns out she's faded, with ash-gray curls and damp hands). Seeing his boss's sisters spilling out of their dresses as they head to the opera, before drinking a bottle of Muscadet '83 with his benefactress, while they giggle and tease each other over Céleste and M. Polyte. And then a direction to sit on a sloping chair. Finally, crashing the 29 books of Maupassant (what's the significance of 29, repeated several times?) And then choosing to stumble home ("I was sober and could have walked on a single board, but it was much better to stagger") because he's aware of how he should be reacting to what (may have) just happened.
So, lots of excess here, in food and booze consumption, bosoms, interior decorating, Maupassant volumes, along with some cautionary notes (the haughty maid, the faded, damp-handed hot water woman, the hereditary syphilis, the fog that came up to the window). Did they do it or not? Was Raisa just playing with him because she's caught up in the Confession and playing it out, but only so far? Did he just knock down the 29 volumes and beat a hasty retreat and come to once outside, still playing the romance out and stumbling home, only to face the lesson he's been learning and being brushed by a foreboding of truth?
I'm struck by a couple of hints describing the narrator. One: he's using falsified papers. Two: he borrows another man's coat to pay his first visit to Raisa. There's playacting from the get-go right through to the stumbling home, culminating in the hysterical reading of the Confession and crash of the 29 volumes, with a grand finale in the telling of the tragedy of Maupassant's life.
I think he really wants to make it in the literary world, and St Petersbourg is where it's at. So the play-acting is natural and almost obligatory. Along with the head-spinning feeling of success when it appears to work.
Also, just remembered the really manic behavior: "Irma, wild, her hair unbound, threw her despairing arms around the officer’s neck, straining him to her; then, leaving him, rolled upon the floor, overturning the furniture, catching the fringes of the armchairs, biting their feet . . ." Biting the furniture! That's sort of Babelian behavior.
I'm not sure if the narrator and Raisa did anything sexual or not. Maybe she said, "You're a funny one" because she thought something would happen, but nothing did.
Agree. By inviting the narrator to seat himself in the "blue Slavic armchair," Raisa's set to role play with "M'sieur Polyte." And what does this clumsy, drunk, child-like narrator do? He beelines it to his hero De Maupassant on the bookshelves instead. That's pretty funny.
Also, to me, the narrator's great eye for detail and love of vivid storytelling may be because he's some kind of journalist. On the first page, he's talking about lounging about "in morgues and police stations." This is exactly what journalists do (or used to do, at any rate) to cultivate sources, sniff out stories and scoop the competition.
Yes, to me I can't see him "functioning" in that way, but reading other's comments, perhaps he managed, but it was all over so soon for Raisa she decided to call him a funny one. I can't imagine saying that after sex! But it may have been funny sex, which sounds bad.
Yeahhh, they did it. Clearly, from Raisa's rundown of The Confession, Celeste and Polyte had sex in that story. "Are we going to have a bit of fun?" / "A man and a woman, no need for music!" So, when the Narrator kisses Raisa, and then she refers to him as Polyte: "Be so kind as to seat yourself, M'sieur Polyte." That's when you know they're both in.
There is that stumbling episode before her final growled "You're so funny", which could read as anger. But, he leaves the house that night singing. I feel like if the Narrator embarrassed himself and walked away without having sex, he wouldn't be singing.
I think he fumbled it, just like he did those 29 books.
Why? Typically, a guy sauced on a bottle of wine and stumbling over a bookshelf isn't going to pull much off. :')
Also, snarling through teeth and growling "you're a funny one" doesn't sound much like sexy sex talk to me. Our young narrator isn't noticing, but Raisa's got the ick.
I don’t know if she’s got the ick so much as the ‘you’ll never get another shot vibe’ . The growling. It’s like a door closing in her mouth. And lets imagine a growl has an allure for Babel or our Narrator, its still not a sexy sentence for growling
I think the narrator is looking back on his life and, although he doesn't regret his choice to be an artist, he recognizes that it wasn't the joyous life of success he had dreamed of either.
To me, the gun was the narrator's refusal to take the clerk's position because it was "better to go hungry, to go to prison, to be a tramp, than to sit at an office desk ..." The gun is shown and loaded by the narrator's admission that he hasn't broken his vow. It is telling to me that what's missing after that is any sort of sentiment about what a good or wonderful life he has because of that decision. The the first act closes with the inciting incident--the chance to translate Maupassant.
Then in the beginning of the second act we are shown the tacky splendor created by Bankers. Their success, although tangible, is looked down upon by the narrator. We get that wonderful sentence, all on its own, giving us the image of those velvet bears with crystal lamps and we can connote all kinds of wonderful things from them about the Bankers, such as strength, success, even beauty and maybe a bit more gaudiness. But, I think that the narrator wants to see those bears as his future incarnate. And in fact, those burning crystal lamps are the brightest moments.
This sentence "In their gaping jaws burned crystal lamps" is pretty awesome and strangely out of place standing alone as it does. It is the 3rd paragraph on page 73. Why was it set apart, why did the bears and their gaping jaws with burning lamps get this kind of call out?
Through out the second act the adjectives start to cool. The boiling water of his dreams chilled by the damp hands he finds in the morning. The scar smoulders. And as the second act comes to a close, our young narrator enjoyed a moment, his time spent carousing and relishing his hubris (the attack on Tolstoy), and delighting his benefactors with his cleverness, and yes even getting his Celeste, but his moment ends. The bear now gives way to a white nag with its pink mouth.
The third act captured by image of the slow walk forward of the white nag. Here the gun finally fires. Our narrator realizes that no matter how successful, life is not going to be what he thought it was--his bear now a nag and even Maupassant, the source of the narrator's current success, in the end turned into a beast.
The story a tragedy and the future obscured by fog.
After reading Confessing, I would change my thought above. The narrator didn't get his Celeste, he realized he was Celeste, or rather in an analogous way had given something he couldn't take back in exchange for something with a time limit and didn't how much longer he had until its expiration.
The sex whether it happened or not, kinda irrelevant. He's getting fucked by time either way.
Could the bears represent Russians (they caricature themselves as bears after all) and the burning crystal lamps the culture that comes out of Russia? (Including from its Jewish citizens) Or is it Stalin coming to crush them all/
That's interesting! The bears a stand in for the domination of Russia, in this instance Russian society, project his confidence in his future. And these bears in particular a tacky velvet imitation indicating his view of the Bankers success.
Both times I read it, I assumed they didn't have sex. I read the "growl" as discomfort and defense. I think the boisterous fake drunkenness was a big show he put on to boost his mood, but it didn't seem like it worked: He perceived danger and monsters on his walk home. It seemed like he arrived back deflated, and I thought he might have woken his friend up if he was feeling boastful -- instead he quietly retreated to his room and read Maupassant's bio. Maybe something about being rejected by Raisa compelled him to take an interest at that moment in the life of the man who inspired her... curiosity about her champion?
What a delight to hear my former teacher read the original text in Russian! I understood nothing, but loved it. Hungarian and Russian don’t have much in common, I can confirm :) I also loved this reading of the text, about youthful arrogance, striving and hunger. I was hoping to find out why he had a forged passport… anyone has an idea? I don’t know why this detail stayed with me more than the breasts…
Narrator leaves before midnight, and Babel links that departure, in the same sentence, to the impending return of the sisters and husbands. Time to disappear, being found so late with Raisa would be compromising (kompromat ? ;) ). So there's been time to do it...
There's sex in the three Maupassant stories that, in a sense, frame the Babel story. Youth and age (of differing social or national/religious circumstances) come to no good in two of them, Miss Harriet and The Confession. In The Idyll, the famished young worker can satisfy his hunger at the bursting breasts of the nurse. Both are satisfied, no one gets hurt.
So I'll go for DID IT!
But in Maupassant's real life, we learn, there is a great deal of hurt, and an early death. A sobered-up narrator might do well to keep away from the Bendersky household -- there are enough (shadowy or barely emphasized) signs of hurt to come if he sticks around.
Or are the stories a surrogate for sex? Are they both living in a fantasy world where they do things that could get them in trouble - 'my husband will kill me' and presumably the narrator too if they were caught in flagrante? Maybe what the narrator learns about his fate is that he can't go on pretending any more. The white nag of his fate draws him on and soon reality will bite as it did tragically for Maupassant. The real story replaces the fantasies at the end.
Yes, that's pretty much what I see, beyond that I think the sex probably happens :)
The whole Maupassant story -- not just the internationally famed author with the swish French handle, but the horror of his decline and early death -- brings Narrator to a sobering conclusion.
I wasn't sure it mattered a whole lot whether the sex happened - except of course for the STI implications. The comparison between Raisa and the crucified Christ gave the scene a weird sadistic/sado-masochistic overtone.
That image plus the burning spots and scars on Raisa troubled me more than any amount of big-breast silliness. Meaning, I don't get what Babel meant by it.
It was lovely to listen to that short reading of the story. It does sound musical and I could pick out the words Spanish and Raisa!
I also wondered if the chambermaid was slightly scornful of the narrator when she realised he desired Raisa. After all, they are both supposedly from the same class so she probably sees him punching above his weight. Maybe she has seen this happen before with other men who come to the house?
And I don't think they do the deed, despite their lust and all the wine. I get a feeling from the story that Raisa is too canny and formidable to let it happen straight away. I feel she will string him along until he has served his purpose. She has all the power here. He delights her with his translations but I think she could tire quickly of him. I suspect that deep down he knows this too.
I feel I have just been given a college assignment--an essay on Babel, to be backed up by arguments visible in the text. I'm not sure I have the energy to make my argument properly, but i will attempt. Yes, I do believe that Raisa and our narrator have had sex. If nothing else, this is because of the old "if there is a gun in the first act, it must go off by the final act" maxim. We have seen breasts and sexual dreams in abundance here. We have seen flirtation, drunkenness, abandonment. We have seen Raisa fling her arms out wide against the bookshelf. "Of all the gods ever crucified, she was the most captivating." We have seen these two re-enact a scene from a (Maupassant) story that concludes with sex. We see the narrator leap up, causing 29 volumes of his hero to fall to the floor, "their pages flying wild." (SEX HAPPENING HERE--the passion of Maupassant's pages flying wild!) I'm not sure what it means when Babel writes "the white nag of my fate walked a slow walk," but i'm wondering if it refers to his erection diminishing after their union. (Raisa now growls, "You're so funny," words she "muttered" before the sex act occurred.) We have watched our narrator walk home, no longer drunk, but walking drunkenly anyway--a post coital stupor. He wants to retain the feeling of having just had sex. He sings in a language he had just invented (From Lonely Island's masterpiece: "Sometimes something beautiful happens in this world. You don't know how to express yourself, so you just gotta sing.") The fog rolls "in waves" (orgasmic). Monsters roar (orgasm occurs). And, later, we watch our young narrator read of his possible future: a slow death from a sexually contracted disease due to his passions.
Oh, yes, these two definitely had sex.
PS Lonely Island's song is called I Just Had Sex and it's not for everyone. You've been warned.
The white nag refers to the coachman's horse in The Confession that plods on while the coachman at last gets what he wants from Céleste. But the reference to "fate" is that Céleste meets hers in that timespan: the coachman impregnates her.
Consequences, consequences. So, like you, I think Narrator and Raisa did it. But there will be consequences (though not of the Céleste kind).
Oh, thank you! I read the Confession last week, but forgot the details. I'll go look again.
It's hard to keep saying NO!^^
I think this is a great set of interpretations Mary! And I'll add one more: the falling 29 volumes, the surprise crash of it, as a metaphor for premature ejaculation when this young man gets the lover he so desires, who is out of his league. Maybe it's a little out of time sequence but the energy of it struck me this way.
I saw the slow pace of the white mare as moderating his ardor and slowing him down.
The book explosion = premature ejaculation is a great idea, but I tend to see it as you do, Karen. Why would Babel place the white nag metaphor (for his fate) if something slow and deliberate weren't going on?
And why would Narrator stagger off down the street singing at the top of his voice if he'd made a fool of himself and not "concluded" with Raisa? Drunkenness isn't automatically synonymous with joy.
Telling a good story opens the doors of pleasure^^
Yikes.
Interesting take! I like that interpretation.
You’ve mined the text so thoroughly, there’s nothing left to find, Mary!
No kidding. We're done. What's next?
How It Was Done In Odessa. That one makes me jump and jive.
Ha!
You make a good case, Mary, (in my translation the pages "fly open") and I agree with you, except that I'd situate the sex after the second "growl" - in the hiatus after Raisa's last growl and before the narrator's departure. In my translation "the white mare of my fate went on at a walking pace" could also mean that the books falling slowed him down, which may have been beneficial in the long run. I'm wondering about the opera that the husband and sisters went to. I have trouble seeing the narrator as Holofernes to Raisa's Judith.
Interesting!
That's quite a reading of the did they/didn't they question! Especially the horrible ending for our poor narrator!
I think you nailed it (so to speak, however crudely).
Great analysis, Mary. The story specifies that De Maupassant’s syphillis was congenital, though. Having read the story before, this surprised me - I hadn’t caught that detail before.
Yes, for Maupassant, it is congenital. Still, he died a slow and agonizing death. The narrator of the story does not want to die in that way--like an animal. And here he has gone and had unprotected sex--so it's possible he's contracted syphilis already. He is now afraid, having learned of the kind of death syphilis can bring on. (So the fact that Maupassant acquired it through his own mother has no bearing on our narrator's fears.)
I don't think a specific fear of an STD is the warning Narrator may be getting from Maupassant's life story. It's bigger and darker than that.
You may be brilliant, you may be an international "success", but very bad things may still happen to you. Was the great French writer a "success" or a "failure"? His fate was an early death in a madhouse.
(What will be mine?) <-- "Thinks" bubble over Narrator's head.
Yes, agreed. But sex is at the core of this story. Following your passions in all ways--the job you take, your sexual life, etc. And the entire story leads to the moment where the narrator and Raisa throw out any caution and give in to their passions. So, to me, this may be the meaning of it all--follow your passions but be aware of the consequences of being the sort of person who does so. And sexual passion can lead to a slow death. I don't know--I'm just winging it here!
I think it's certainly part of it. But Narrator's appetite is open wide for money and the good life in general. And literary success. Whip them all up together and it makes a great big cream pastry at the heart of which sits grinning Death.
According to me...
Lust can drive people to make crazy, dangerous choices. And this story feels so contemporary. There's literally a myriad of scary STDs these days, as well as HIV and other life-threatening consequences from unprotected sex, and yet, and yet. People still have unprotected sex all the time. Especially the young, who feel immortal. The ending of this story is masterful in how it captures that moment when a young person really GETS it: "I'm mortal, too." Is it too late for our narrator? Probably not—how likely is it, really, that he contracted Syphilis from this one encounter with Raisa (although it IS possible)?But the fact that he suddenly realizes he could have, is a life-changing moment for him. He has a newborn awareness of his mortality. I remember that moment in my own life—when I really understood I was going to die one day. It felt so dark and foreboding. It shook my world.
Or death by children^^
Yes he realizes that no matter how good a writer you are not immune to dying a horrible death at a young age. I don’t know if the idea of unprotected sex would have occurred to him.
Yes, I see what you’re saying. I misread your post as saying the narrator feared dying as a result of his passions, as De Maupassant did.
The fruits of Flaubert?^^
Yes, I agree. The sex happened somewhere between the muttering and the growling.
Ya, they did it.
You have to admire hungry ^^^^^^s
Nicely said, Mary G.
Thanks, Robin!
Sometimes a gun in Act 1 is just a gun; but here, I agree it's more.
Well, the adage is that a GOOD writer will not put a gun in Act One if they don't plan on that gun going off in Act Three. And Babel, obviously, is a good writer. And everything he puts into a story is there on purpose.
You could always pass it to a friend and ask him to put it in your carriage^^
First thought: “Yes, no, both, neither.” (GS, talking about something else). Second thought: the narrator wants us to think he and Raisa did it while at the same time creating a shield that implies they didn’t (nag moved slowly on does both, both refers to but also differentiates from the story of the other couple doing it in the wagon, like also saying “that ship has sailed”), but he really wants people to think they did, even though the arc of the story reveals it wasn’t love making to each other, it was love making of and through the books.
So interesting that to us--modern readers--we cannot tell for certain if sex occurred or not. (Though I am convinced that they DID have sex.) I wonder if Babel realized that when he wrote the story--or if he felt he'd put in enough clues that it was obvious (one way or another). I mean, why confuse the reader in such a way? Did he mean to? I tend to think he did not mean to. But what do i know? Hoping George will tell us!
It’s funny, the first time I read it I thought, ‘he’s screwed this up, not screwed Raisa’. I mean, how could anyone wield sexual allure after flailing into a bookcase and knocking down 29 volumes?
The second time, prepared for the comedy book flail, I instead noticed the narrator stumbling down the street singing drunkenly in a glorious language all his own. And I thought: this is the joy of someone breast-obsessed who has just touched a breast.
So I’ve decided they both did not have sex as well as did have sex. Or, more likely, they did have sex but he was far more pleased with his performance than she was.
I too have to go with they both did and did not have sex. And what a clever plot device from a talented writer. I can't remember any specific titles but I know literature if full of stories where the reader is left hanging and has to sift through the clues to decide. There's been ample entertaining clue-detection here to conclude they did have sex. But on the other hand our young narrator has been quite up front, boastful really, about the largess he's received from his relationship with Raisa -- daily breakfast, new stove, herring, chocolate, money. And he's not at all bashful about literally undressing Raisa and sharing that she was ready to get it on (until the books came crashing down). So if they did have sex, why not add that to his list of accomplishments, rather than being coy about it? And yes, he did go singing merrily down the street afterward. But then he gets into bed and starts reading Maupassant's life story. Really? Hardly celebratory after getting as far as we know he did. Even though the story is not about her, it would have been fun to hear Raisa's version of what transpired.
A lesser writer would not have kept us guessing: Did they or didn’t they? And there’s so much to say for both “did” and “didn’t.” I think they both believed the moment was at hand. “Please sit down, Monsieur Polyte” was a clear invitation, and the narrator took it. Then came the farcical collapse of that shelf full of books “filled with pity, genius, passion…” They intruded into the scene like a living character. The narrator, already not in the best shape for a tryst, lost his erection, and “the white nag of his fate moved slowly on.” To me that has the ring of missed opportunity, underscored by Raisa’s growl, “You’re a funny one.”
Someone here mentioned Judith and Holofernes (I now can’t find the comment, which expanded the story for mei). It’s surely no accident that the opera mentioned is Judith. The Biblical Judith lured Holofernes with the promise of sex, got him drunk and beheaded him before the deed. So why does he sing on the way back to Kasantsev’s? Bravado, I think. He’s feigning confidence he doesn’t feel, surrounded as he is by the sense of monsters seething behind walls. And there’s that ominous line: “The wooden pavements cut off the legs of those who walked on them.” Not the kind of reflection that comes to mind after a conquest.
In the staggering final paragraph, he is lifted out of his petty yearnings and disappointments by the discovery of Maupassant’s terrible end. I didn’t see that coming. Who could? It opens a whole other vista, unimaginably bleak, when you least expect it. “I was brushed by a foreboding of truth” is a brilliant final sentence. Brushed, but not flattened. He is young, and his illusions won’t die with one blow. He has many more pratfalls ahead.
I’m grateful to this chorus of deeply perceptive readers. Your insights push me to read more closely and have brightened a day of sickness. Instead of feeling sorry for myself, I am thinking about the storytelling powers of Isaac Babel.
This is great, Rona. I think there are excellent arguments to be made for either possibility--sex or no sex. That "white nag" sentence really does stump me, though I understand the connection to the white horse in Maupassant's story who dances in one spot while sex occurs in the attached wagon. I keep wondering if it has something to do with the narrator's feelings about writing and translation. How you have to twist just so much and not more, and how the placement of a period is all. He makes those proclamations and then--he shows himself to not be able to follow them, as he manages to skip over what seems to be a crucial moment in the story. So he is young and still learning. And, like Maupassant, he will suffer for his art, whether he has syphilis or not. Something like that? I fear there is no definitive answer as to what actually happened between those two. And that perhaps that is point--that this young narrator needs to work on his craft. But i'm just making all of this up right now and hope George weighs in on it at some point.
Feel better soon, Rona!
Reading the story with this equation, white horse = time, then the horse and its plodding along has a sometimes mundane and yet sometimes terrifying consequence.
Time can wear a lady down...on many levels^^
Nitpick follows ;)
Exactly what Maupassant's white nag does (without the coachman's whip) is:
"Et le vieux cheval blanc se mit à trottiner d'un train si doux qu'il semblait danser sur place..."
"And the old white horse started jogging along at such an easy rate that he seemed to be dancing on the spot..."
So he is moving forward, steadily.
The scare words in Babel's Narrator's phrase are "my fate". Céleste's fate is to be pregnant and thus lose the chance of a "good husband" (in her mother's reckoning). What is Narrator's? Babel leaves it to our wonderings.
In the Babel story (recounting the Mauapassant story) it says this: "The white nag, its lips pink with age, went forward at a walking pace." Then, later (in the "real life" of the story) it says: "the white nag of my fate walked a slow pace." So--they are the same. Both are walking. Sex happens in both stories.
They might be different: the 'real life' nag moves on after the shelf of Maupassant has come crashing down but in the same sentence. The pages 'stood on their sides'. Maupassant's nag moves slowly enough for impregnation.
So you will infer that I am in the camp of those who are less interested in whether sex was performed than in the possibility that it might have been.Too reductive a conclusion limits the indeterminacy of our understanding of his grandfather's wisdom 'we are born for the pleasure's of work,fighting, love, we are born for that and nothing else '.
George put it like this: 'Is Babel celebrating this young man’s excess, or condemning it?
Yes, no, both, neither.
I always think that what a writer is doing, ultimately, in making a character, is calling a certain human trait into the light for further examination.
Here, that trait is something like “passion,” or “lust” or “desire” or “hunger” – as embodied in a particular young man, in a particular flavor.'
“The wooden pavements cut off the legs of those who walked on them.” Not the kind of reflection that comes to mind after a conquest.
True. I took it (insofar as I understood it!) for the sensation of being very drunk. There's a British (at least..?) expression, to be "legless".
I liked that sentence a lot
Rona, get well soon!
And thanks for opening out the reference to Judith and Holofernes!
So it was you! A most helpful comment.
I don’t think they had sex, the books came crashing down and the white nag of his fate moved slowly on.
“Rasputin… greatest Love machine” haha!
I agree this is a love story to language and books.
You’ve got to laugh
To me, the sex, the breasts, the quest for wealth, all of it is a school of red herrings. Curiously, there are at least five mentions of breasts in Basement. Where were the misogynistas? Where were the titillating (!) comments? To be clear, the term misogyny is misapplied here and elsewhere. More correct would be philogyny. This narrator, like Eugene in The Devil does not hate women. He is fascinated by women. Don't like philogyny? Maybe Gynephilia would work just as well. For those unsure about how to define and apple misogyny may I suggest "Justine: Philosophy in the Bedroom" by the Marquis de Sade.
I think this is a well written story about a 20 year old at least middle class youth who is trying out a Bohemian gig economy lifestyle. He gets a translating gig, makes a few wry, valuable, comments regarding good versus bad translations, offers some insight to the gauche lifestyle of the nouveau riche, makes a pass at his employer's wife (and is rejected) and after returning home has a minor epiphany. The end. How could he be looking for wealth with a temporary gig particularly after he gets an advance, he and his mates blow the lot on food and drink? Are the maid's eyes really "licentious" or is he just fantasizing like his dream about the washerwoman? Wine flows. Raisa flirts, calls him "mon vieux" (my buddy, or pal). He misinterprets her tipsy flirtation (as a horny 20 year old would), responds by calling her "ma belle". He makes a pass (she stumbles backwards against the wall, arms outstretched to steady herself) and is rejected. (Sit down, monsieur Polyte...you're a funny one). It's over before it begins. That horse (the white nag) has left the barn.
Me, I think that many readers look for insight where there are only mirages. Oh! It's (fill in the blank with famous author)! There must be some mystery here, some hidden message, some puzzling maze, a code to decipher! It has to be more than a well told tale! It just can't be this simple! Or can it?
I thought this might be The Basement's narrator grown up and moved to the big city to live the boho life. Similar obsessions (breasts; literature), similar over-the-top behavior. Just a passing thought.
I agree Kevin - that struck me too. Also the set up is similar in both stories - poor boy gets invited to wealthy home on the strength of his talent with words. He's a little awkward and then it all comes crashing down, literally. I think the maid's eyes gradually hardening and losing their seductive look indicate that she has seen all this before. Raisa likes to seduce young men without actually having sex with them, just to flatter herself. The maid at first imagines this fellow might be different but sees him fall for her mistress's wiles . . .
There are many similarities in the structure, cadence and theme of Basement and Confession. Many commenters have missed this. That the narrator in Basement is twelve and the narrator in Confession is twenty is not accidental.
You're right Jay. The narrator feels very much the same in both stories, both trying to escape their poverty through imagination and the stories of others.
It can be whatever you want it to be. If what you get out of it is that it is a well-written story with a minor epiphany, then that is exactly correct. I find it deeper than that, and I am exactly correct, as well. (I don't know what you mean by hidden messages, mirages or mysteries in this story.) As far as misogyny and this story--I agree with you that there isn't any.
Well, if we are both equally correct, then why should not the misogynistas be correct as well? There are commenters here that argue that a story should be whatever the reader wants it to be. Is this discussion really "it's true if you can imagine it"? Or, to paraphrase Orwell: "All animals are correct, but some are more correct than others"?
To you, the story isn't much. To me, it's more than that--deeper and more satisfying. We are not saying anything more than that. Those who find misogyny in the story need to look up the definition of misogyny. They are not correct from a definitional viewpoint.
Yes, sounds good, but Raisa does skip the theatre to stay behind to work. Her sisters are in town and it is a hot ticket at the theater. Raisa forfeits the night out with her guests and stays behind and insists on getting the young man drunk with a nice bottle of83 Muscatel. "My husband will kill me..." By the end of the evening he has had five glasses. Her nipples are hard, cited by the narrator, and she refers to him as "M'sieur Polyte," before ordering him to sit in the chair. Is Raisa attempting to be funny? She has not shown a sense of humor up until this point, or is Babel's story paralleling with Maupassant's and they are going to "have fun." When he does get out of the chair and leave to go home it is very late and before the family arrives home. He does not want to see them. Both translations end with the narrator's overwhelming feeling of"premonition truth or foreboding truth." The concluding diction is a bit ominous for a "minor epiphany."
See my latest comment on this further on. Raisa stays behind because she wants to work. They haven't worked (on her "passion") in a week. Narrator shows up sort of unexpectedly, not at his normal time. She's "drunk", but not drunk enough to stagger, slur her words throw up, pass out, etc. Sober enough to "work". Her intent is not to get N drunk. She is grateful for his input and expertise. The wine has loosened her formality just enough to call him "my buddy, pal, mate, whatever). Tipsy N misinterprets that familiarity as a "come hither" moment and when he kisses her she recoils and put him in his place. To me, the epiphany is that he realizes he is not the dashing young man he imagines himself to be and that he has more to learn about life than he expected. I asked a bunch of rhetorical questions further on in the comments. Care to answer? Converse? Respond?
I think the white nag is the clue. In the Maupassant story the white nag moves slowly while Celeste and Polyte get busy in the coach. And then at a critical juncture the narrator mentions the white nag of his fate moving slowly on. So there is a parallel.
Yes, i agree.
Now, I wonder about the postscript detailing the fate of Maupassant. Afflicted with hereditary syphilis, he dies at 42, while his mother (from whom he inherited, if in fact he did have congenital disease, and didn't contract it on his own) survived him. It first showed up for Maupassant at 25. Our hero is 20 and has a foreboding of truth.
What has he just spent the last few weeks doing? Translating ribald stories, paying attention to the beautiful language ("free, flowing, with the long breathing of passion"), with a sexy woman at his side while a licentious maid wanders around (I think Cloris Leachman could have played the part). Eating and drinking to excess on the earnings from his work. Railing against Tolstoy, who got cold feet, because his religion is fear. Dreaming of the potential hotty who supplies hot water every morning (but it turns out she's faded, with ash-gray curls and damp hands). Seeing his boss's sisters spilling out of their dresses as they head to the opera, before drinking a bottle of Muscadet '83 with his benefactress, while they giggle and tease each other over Céleste and M. Polyte. And then a direction to sit on a sloping chair. Finally, crashing the 29 books of Maupassant (what's the significance of 29, repeated several times?) And then choosing to stumble home ("I was sober and could have walked on a single board, but it was much better to stagger") because he's aware of how he should be reacting to what (may have) just happened.
So, lots of excess here, in food and booze consumption, bosoms, interior decorating, Maupassant volumes, along with some cautionary notes (the haughty maid, the faded, damp-handed hot water woman, the hereditary syphilis, the fog that came up to the window). Did they do it or not? Was Raisa just playing with him because she's caught up in the Confession and playing it out, but only so far? Did he just knock down the 29 volumes and beat a hasty retreat and come to once outside, still playing the romance out and stumbling home, only to face the lesson he's been learning and being brushed by a foreboding of truth?
I'm struck by a couple of hints describing the narrator. One: he's using falsified papers. Two: he borrows another man's coat to pay his first visit to Raisa. There's playacting from the get-go right through to the stumbling home, culminating in the hysterical reading of the Confession and crash of the 29 volumes, with a grand finale in the telling of the tragedy of Maupassant's life.
I think he really wants to make it in the literary world, and St Petersbourg is where it's at. So the play-acting is natural and almost obligatory. Along with the head-spinning feeling of success when it appears to work.
The 29 books was bugging me also--why 29? I think it may be a reference to another Maupassant story, "Bed No. 29": https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/guy-de-maupassant/short-fiction/ernest-boyd_storm-jameson_jeffery-e-jeffery_lafcadio-hearn_m-walter-dunne_henry-c-olinger_albert-m-cohn-mcmaster_dora-knowlton-ranous_bigelow-brown-co-inc_francis-steegmuller/text/bed-no-29
What a story. The attention to the Captain's physique rivals Babel's.
Also, just remembered the really manic behavior: "Irma, wild, her hair unbound, threw her despairing arms around the officer’s neck, straining him to her; then, leaving him, rolled upon the floor, overturning the furniture, catching the fringes of the armchairs, biting their feet . . ." Biting the furniture! That's sort of Babelian behavior.
I read that story not long ago (why I don't know) and completely forgot about it. It looks like 29 is another clue to syphilis...
Sex can be dangerous....was and still is..part of the DNA allure...
“…who is trying out a Bohemian gig economy lifestyle.”
Exactly.
20 year olds with fear of 29^^
He "could have walked...but it was much better to stagger" -- youth in a nutshell, I think!
I'm not sure if the narrator and Raisa did anything sexual or not. Maybe she said, "You're a funny one" because she thought something would happen, but nothing did.
Agree. By inviting the narrator to seat himself in the "blue Slavic armchair," Raisa's set to role play with "M'sieur Polyte." And what does this clumsy, drunk, child-like narrator do? He beelines it to his hero De Maupassant on the bookshelves instead. That's pretty funny.
Also, to me, the narrator's great eye for detail and love of vivid storytelling may be because he's some kind of journalist. On the first page, he's talking about lounging about "in morgues and police stations." This is exactly what journalists do (or used to do, at any rate) to cultivate sources, sniff out stories and scoop the competition.
Yes, to me I can't see him "functioning" in that way, but reading other's comments, perhaps he managed, but it was all over so soon for Raisa she decided to call him a funny one. I can't imagine saying that after sex! But it may have been funny sex, which sounds bad.
Yeahhh, they did it. Clearly, from Raisa's rundown of The Confession, Celeste and Polyte had sex in that story. "Are we going to have a bit of fun?" / "A man and a woman, no need for music!" So, when the Narrator kisses Raisa, and then she refers to him as Polyte: "Be so kind as to seat yourself, M'sieur Polyte." That's when you know they're both in.
There is that stumbling episode before her final growled "You're so funny", which could read as anger. But, he leaves the house that night singing. I feel like if the Narrator embarrassed himself and walked away without having sex, he wouldn't be singing.
he definitely wouldn't be singing
I think he fumbled it, just like he did those 29 books.
Why? Typically, a guy sauced on a bottle of wine and stumbling over a bookshelf isn't going to pull much off. :')
Also, snarling through teeth and growling "you're a funny one" doesn't sound much like sexy sex talk to me. Our young narrator isn't noticing, but Raisa's got the ick.
I don’t know if she’s got the ick so much as the ‘you’ll never get another shot vibe’ . The growling. It’s like a door closing in her mouth. And lets imagine a growl has an allure for Babel or our Narrator, its still not a sexy sentence for growling
I think the narrator is looking back on his life and, although he doesn't regret his choice to be an artist, he recognizes that it wasn't the joyous life of success he had dreamed of either.
To me, the gun was the narrator's refusal to take the clerk's position because it was "better to go hungry, to go to prison, to be a tramp, than to sit at an office desk ..." The gun is shown and loaded by the narrator's admission that he hasn't broken his vow. It is telling to me that what's missing after that is any sort of sentiment about what a good or wonderful life he has because of that decision. The the first act closes with the inciting incident--the chance to translate Maupassant.
Then in the beginning of the second act we are shown the tacky splendor created by Bankers. Their success, although tangible, is looked down upon by the narrator. We get that wonderful sentence, all on its own, giving us the image of those velvet bears with crystal lamps and we can connote all kinds of wonderful things from them about the Bankers, such as strength, success, even beauty and maybe a bit more gaudiness. But, I think that the narrator wants to see those bears as his future incarnate. And in fact, those burning crystal lamps are the brightest moments.
This sentence "In their gaping jaws burned crystal lamps" is pretty awesome and strangely out of place standing alone as it does. It is the 3rd paragraph on page 73. Why was it set apart, why did the bears and their gaping jaws with burning lamps get this kind of call out?
Through out the second act the adjectives start to cool. The boiling water of his dreams chilled by the damp hands he finds in the morning. The scar smoulders. And as the second act comes to a close, our young narrator enjoyed a moment, his time spent carousing and relishing his hubris (the attack on Tolstoy), and delighting his benefactors with his cleverness, and yes even getting his Celeste, but his moment ends. The bear now gives way to a white nag with its pink mouth.
The third act captured by image of the slow walk forward of the white nag. Here the gun finally fires. Our narrator realizes that no matter how successful, life is not going to be what he thought it was--his bear now a nag and even Maupassant, the source of the narrator's current success, in the end turned into a beast.
The story a tragedy and the future obscured by fog.
After reading Confessing, I would change my thought above. The narrator didn't get his Celeste, he realized he was Celeste, or rather in an analogous way had given something he couldn't take back in exchange for something with a time limit and didn't how much longer he had until its expiration.
The sex whether it happened or not, kinda irrelevant. He's getting fucked by time either way.
Could the bears represent Russians (they caricature themselves as bears after all) and the burning crystal lamps the culture that comes out of Russia? (Including from its Jewish citizens) Or is it Stalin coming to crush them all/
That's interesting! The bears a stand in for the domination of Russia, in this instance Russian society, project his confidence in his future. And these bears in particular a tacky velvet imitation indicating his view of the Bankers success.
Both times I read it, I assumed they didn't have sex. I read the "growl" as discomfort and defense. I think the boisterous fake drunkenness was a big show he put on to boost his mood, but it didn't seem like it worked: He perceived danger and monsters on his walk home. It seemed like he arrived back deflated, and I thought he might have woken his friend up if he was feeling boastful -- instead he quietly retreated to his room and read Maupassant's bio. Maybe something about being rejected by Raisa compelled him to take an interest at that moment in the life of the man who inspired her... curiosity about her champion?
I read the growl as satisfied hunger
What a delight to hear my former teacher read the original text in Russian! I understood nothing, but loved it. Hungarian and Russian don’t have much in common, I can confirm :) I also loved this reading of the text, about youthful arrogance, striving and hunger. I was hoping to find out why he had a forged passport… anyone has an idea? I don’t know why this detail stayed with me more than the breasts…
Narrator has left the Pale of Settlement for Jews, an area of the Russian Empire, for another part of Russia where he must have a passport.
Gotcha! Thank you
Proves you are a lady......passport false authority without paying for it^^
Did they or didn't they?
Narrator leaves before midnight, and Babel links that departure, in the same sentence, to the impending return of the sisters and husbands. Time to disappear, being found so late with Raisa would be compromising (kompromat ? ;) ). So there's been time to do it...
There's sex in the three Maupassant stories that, in a sense, frame the Babel story. Youth and age (of differing social or national/religious circumstances) come to no good in two of them, Miss Harriet and The Confession. In The Idyll, the famished young worker can satisfy his hunger at the bursting breasts of the nurse. Both are satisfied, no one gets hurt.
So I'll go for DID IT!
But in Maupassant's real life, we learn, there is a great deal of hurt, and an early death. A sobered-up narrator might do well to keep away from the Bendersky household -- there are enough (shadowy or barely emphasized) signs of hurt to come if he sticks around.
Or are the stories a surrogate for sex? Are they both living in a fantasy world where they do things that could get them in trouble - 'my husband will kill me' and presumably the narrator too if they were caught in flagrante? Maybe what the narrator learns about his fate is that he can't go on pretending any more. The white nag of his fate draws him on and soon reality will bite as it did tragically for Maupassant. The real story replaces the fantasies at the end.
Yes, that's pretty much what I see, beyond that I think the sex probably happens :)
The whole Maupassant story -- not just the internationally famed author with the swish French handle, but the horror of his decline and early death -- brings Narrator to a sobering conclusion.
I wasn't sure it mattered a whole lot whether the sex happened - except of course for the STI implications. The comparison between Raisa and the crucified Christ gave the scene a weird sadistic/sado-masochistic overtone.
That image plus the burning spots and scars on Raisa troubled me more than any amount of big-breast silliness. Meaning, I don't get what Babel meant by it.
She was not perfect^^
It was lovely to listen to that short reading of the story. It does sound musical and I could pick out the words Spanish and Raisa!
I also wondered if the chambermaid was slightly scornful of the narrator when she realised he desired Raisa. After all, they are both supposedly from the same class so she probably sees him punching above his weight. Maybe she has seen this happen before with other men who come to the house?
And I don't think they do the deed, despite their lust and all the wine. I get a feeling from the story that Raisa is too canny and formidable to let it happen straight away. I feel she will string him along until he has served his purpose. She has all the power here. He delights her with his translations but I think she could tire quickly of him. I suspect that deep down he knows this too.