Heh heh. I believe that I often suffer from over-wenchification! This story is my attempt at a waspish catharsis. Bring the sullen wenches of sorrow forth from their pits of hate. I hope Ivan is well. He must be expecting a bubble any day now. Thank you for astuteness DC!
Short Story / The Juggling Muzhik
At the innermost point in Minsk, at the nucleus of the whole gravid, subterranean ragshack, amid the squealing wants of the hussars and the desolate mewl of the beggars, stood a juggling muzhik named Husky Huskovich – an infertile, knuckle-dragging haemophiliac allergic to gravel and warts.
On his left, at the innermost point minus three baby steps stood the debauched damsel Countess Whisk Whiskovich, cigarillo pressed between her scant, talcum-tainted fingers and a smirk of the seediest proportions etched on her ligneous lips. Having stumbled from the shaky depths of Count Mandrakovich’s boudoir, she was poised on the brink of emotional annihilation.
“Tell me, peasant… have you enough kopecks to be able to eat tomorrow?” she asked the muzhik, rendered silent and dumb by her flat monotone.
“Um… are… are…”
“Well, I am addressing you, peasant! What do you have to say for yourself?”
“Madam, I am your humble servant, I…”
“Have you enough kopecks?”
“No madam, I don’t earn much from my juggling.”
“Ha! I don’t imagine you do. Well… tell me how great I am. Fall at my feet in grovelling appreciation at once!”
“Pardon me, madam, it would be my greatest wish to fall at your feet, I am your humble servant, your humble servant! But I fear I cannot… for you are the great Count Mandrakovich’s wife!”
“Oh, don’t you mention that wretch’s name to me! He is nothing but a strutting blackguard, a lowly vagabond. Worse than yourself, I daresay, worse than yourself!”
“But not the Count, madam! He is a fine, noble man! I believe it is you who is the blackguard, madam, at least, that is, according to the esteemed Count Mandrakovich!”
“Such insolence from a scruffy muzhik. I am deeply insulted by your pathetic, peasant tongue. Prostrate yourself before me!”
“Madam, I cannot! I must not disobey the Count. He will have me flogged at once, madam, flogged at once!”
“Well… juggle for me, peasant! Show that your allegiance to this infernal Count of yours is not above that to the wishes of a noble lady.”
“Madam, pardon me, but I cannot juggle for you! If I was to be found with a ball in my hand, juggling before the disgraced Countess Whisk Whiskovich… I would be exiled to Tobolsk!”
“Very well, you wretched peasant. Follow me instead.”
The juggling muzhik, at this point in our story perhaps better known as the muzhik who was temporarily indisposed to juggling because of the presence of a disgraced Countess, followed the disgraced Countess to a small, brown-walled apartment in the Frumpy Prospect. Upon arriving the apartment, the Countess removed her furs, sat on a moth-eaten chair and lit her cigarillo.
“I must confess something to you, peasant. I have been banished from the Count’s estate forever. I have been cast out into the street like a common beggar such as yourself. Does this surprise you, peasant? I now have no prestige left, merely a tarnished name that people will forget in the space of two to three weeks. I used to have an estate with one-thousand serfs. Now all I have is this fusty room, for two days, no less, this inexpensive fur and my pack of cigarillos. Sit down on the disgusting bed, peasant, I must explain something to you.”
“Madam, I…”
“Just sit down, peasant! Listen to me. I require a way to inveigle myself back into high society. Therefore, I must convince the Count that I am carrying his child. I require you, a nameless vagrant from poor stock, to bear me a child then disappear from my life forever. Can you do that, peasant? We have two days to produce this child, so I would recommend that we begin as soon as possible.”
The juggling muzhik was unsure what to make of the request. He was unfamiliar with how human beings reproduced, knowing only of the red-winged magpies of Omsk and how in oestrus they drop their gnarled storks on the ground.
“We must engage our storks, madam?”
“Pardon me? Oh, you know nothing of reproduction! Let me explain to you very clearly how the process works. You will desire me, peasant. You will lust after me when I tell you to, and when I instruct you to, you will engage your phallus and I will engage my labia. When I tell you to, you must insert your phallus into the appropriate opening. As soon as I give the signal, you must release your sperms so they can do their work upon my ovaries. Is that clear to you, peasant?”
“I think so madam, but I must protest…”
“No more protesting! We shall reproduce as many times as we can within the first two hours, permit ourselves a break, then we will recommence the attempts for a further four hours. In the evening I shall visit a doctor to check if we you have been successful or not. If you have failed, I will give you one more chance tomorrow before I must vacate the room.”
The juggling muzhik rose to his feet as the Countess sealed the door shut, wedging a table in the spot where the frame hung open. She drew the blinds. A lonely cockroach tap-danced across the ratchety wooden floors, taking refuge under the bed before the reproduction began. The bed was riddled with cracks, tears and lice and the wallpaper fettered with brown stains.
“Right. You must remove your clothes, peasant. I will require you to wash your phallus before we engage in our reproduction. Please do so, and I will create a space for you beneath my dress.”
“As you wish, madam…”
It is at this point that our story takes its most sordid, disgraceful turn. I will refrain from describing the sight within that room – the sight of the gaunt, hirsute muzhik, riddled with scars and corpuscles, lying on the bed with an erect phallus, waiting patiently for the blushing Countess to straddle him and direct his phallus inside her. It was a sight most unbecoming to the eye, most unbecoming to the soul! I will also refrain from mentioning the groggy moans of the muzhik and the elegant rasps of pleasure from the Countess – these sounds might mislead the reader into assuming a certain amount of enjoyment was derived from the process. On the contrary, dear reader, this was agonising for both of them!
After the first hour, the Countess was in tears. She broke down on the floor, tormented by the wretched, wriggling peasant seed inside her, and contemplated taking her own life. The only hope she had left was that one day, she would turn up on the Count’s estate with a child in her arms, convince him it was his own flesh and blood, then betray him for a lifetime through raising a son born of lowly peasant seed. If the son proved to be a dolt, her revenge would be exacted to perfection.
Our muzhik was troubled and in a fit of palpitations. He had never experienced such excitement before in his lifetime, and knew what he was doing was in some way sinful. He lay mumbling on the bed a solemn prayer for his wickedness, ignoring the Countess through his own sad-eyed trauma.
“Right,” she said, wiping away sobs, “let us recommence at once! We cannot waste anymore time. I simply must be impregnated!”
“But madam, it hurts, it hurts! I have betrayed my Count, I have betrayed my God… I cannot continue!”
“Don’t you disobey me now, you wretch! Get back on that bed and produce another erection for me!”
Despite the rather pressing fact our muzhik was infertile, he was now also unable to maintain an erection. The Countess lowered herself to stroking his phallus, muttering sweet nothings in his scaly ears and even removing the first button on her corset to arouse him. His inability to respond sent her into a flaming rage.
“This is unacceptable, muzhik! You are going to be the ruin of me! How dare you remain flaccid when I am enticing you in such a coarse manner? You have disgraced yourself, peasant! How do you feel about this? You are unable to help me have my bastard! What do you have to say for yourself, you stinking wretch?”
“Madam, I am humbled before you, I…”
The Countess remained in his presence not a moment longer. She pulled her stockings back up, fastened the loose button on her corset and spat on the filthy muzhik.
“I hope you perish on the streets of Minsk,” she said, fleeing the apartment for another suitor. The muzhik began to weep and slowly rocked off the bed, clasping his hands together and reciting a feverish excuse:
“God, God! I didn’t mean to fail the Countess! She asked too much of me! I could not remain erect for her, I simply failed because I am a cheap peasant and am not worth one millionth of the esteemed Countess. I beg for your forgiveness!”
He left the apartment after flogging himself until his bottom began to bleed. Limping out onto the groggy night streets of the Frumpy Prospect, he was surrounded by violent-eyed peasants with large stones in their hands and gloomy, murderous expressions on their faces.
“Where do you think you’re going? Look at us, you stinking reject!” a strong voice commanded. The muzhik spun around to confront the man, meeting with an iron-shod fist in his face and a strong relentless pounding sensation on his back. The latter was the heavy rainfall, but the former was a toothless nightcrawler fond of brutality.
“No, please!” the muzhik begged.
“It’s not safe to walk the streets at night no more,” the leader said, instructing his gang to kick the muzhik’s sides, his stomach, his face and his legs, which they did with considerable venom.
The juggling muzhik took such a beating that he nearly passed into the afterlife. His fate seemed written in advance, had it not been for the fortuitous appearance of a certain Count.
At this moment, the esteemed Count Mandrakovich was about to enter the rundown apartment block to rendezvous with his mistress, when he saw our muzhik curled up in a bleeding half-dead ball, rats scurrying over his freezing body.
“Good God, what a sight! Lord in heaven, I have never seen a man in such a wretched state before, I do swear this is enough to churn the most noble Russian soul! Mistress Gnavovich, cover him up at once and help me lift his body into our carriage!”
“Oh, do I have to touch him? He is covered in blood and excrement, ‘tis revolting!”
“Yavolova Gnavovich, have you no mercy? This man needs our help, we cannot just leave him here to die!”
“Yes we can. We came here, Maximilian Mandrakovich, to have a clandestine tryst. Now, which would you rather do… help out this scruffy half-dead peasant, or have carnal relations with me for approximately three and a half hours?”
The Count mused on this for a moment.
The moment ended.
Alas, our juggling muzhik was no substitute for the sublime womanly allure of Yavolova Gnavovich, the daughter of titular counsellor Alvin Fyodor Bumovich. They parted company from the juggling muzhik to engage in lustful, despicable behaviour on the fourth floor while our poor juggling muzhik bled to death on the solid, sordid, sorry, serpentine streets of moody old Minsk.
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penny2204 reviewed Version 1 -
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Wow! There is so much to say about this story! First, I want to say that the story is very interesting. You’ve done a good job with the framework. The characters are lively and believable--I could almost SMELL the muzhik! The countess, again, believable and interesting. The setting…a total curiosity…a dirty place, yet like a train wreck in that I feel the need to stay and “watch”. The language…nice job! Sometimes confusing, although that may be due to my limited Russian experience. I loved the language. It made the story lively--made it dance! The dialogue…again very interesting and believable. You write dialogue very well. I have to say that I think this would make a great chapter as part of a larger work. It’s one of the strangest stories I have read in a while but I would definately like to read more of your writing. You have a great command of the language.
I did have trouble with a couple of things. It seems that sex in your “world” is always timed. Two hours…three and a half hours… I found that a bit strange and more than a bit distracting. Also, I wasn’t too sure how any doctor, even the finest Russian doctor, could know whether or not this woman was pregnant within hours of the conception. Finally, I don’t understand why the crowd beat the muzhik to death. He seems of little consequence to them. I definately think you could slow this piece down, ferret out quite a bit more detail, and make it a brilliant piece.
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DCAllen reviewed Version 1 -
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Excellent story. The part where the narrator describes the room and the “hirsute” muzhik all the while promising not to describe these things is very well done.
Does it make sense that the Countess leaves the muzhik in her apartment? And what did he flog himself with?
The last line of the story has a sing-songy ring to it that almost makes the muhhik’s death sound cheery.
The would-be munificent Count is surrounded by devious, hateful women. A statement?
Proofreading notes:
silent and dumb (redundancy intentional?)
bear me a child (Maybe I’m wrong, but wouldn’t sire be better here?)
to check if we you (typo?)
anymore time = any more (not the adverb)
stephanloy reviewed Version 1 -
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Very nicely conceived and executed political satire, reminiscent of Chekov. The symbolism of the various actions of the privileged class, the peasantry and the rock throwers came through clearly and with punch. There was one question, and I wish almost that i hadn’t read your author’s notes because of it. In those notes, you said the tale does not commence until 1956, but this is clearly not 1956 Russia. By then, there may still have been counts in name only, but they would not have been esteemed and they wouldn’t be public about their title. Nor would they be privileged. Nor would they have ridden in carriages. The story I read is clearly pre-revolutionary Russia. So I’m confused by the stated date. Also, the authorial intrusions (”...at this point in our story…”, etc.) would normally be a story killer that removes the reader from the narrative, but I think it works here.
smileygirl reviewed Version 1 -
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Hi there! (: This short story did keep me engaged all the way through. It was relatively easy and enjoyable to read from beginning to end. The narration and overall style of the story makes it read like a fable. For example, in the middle of the action the narrator breaks in saying, “It is at this point that our story takes its most sordid, disgraceful turn”. The reader gets the distinct impression they are being told the story, instead of the story just unfolding before them. I’m not saying this is good or bad, only that it is the way in which it comes across. Also, the types of characters and the European setting further add to the fable / fairytale feel. You have peasants, nobility, a faraway locale, etc…but what is missing in this fable is the overall meaning or lesson. The story was told, but why? Why would someone choose to tell this story, except to possibly demonstrate the selfishness of nobility? If you apply an overall moral or plot device, you will have created a fairytale in the 21st century. That would certainly be a unique endeavor! (:
hypatia reviewed Version 1 -
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I can taste the decay and poverty from your words. Well done. The opening first paragraph is brilliant, your words come to life in technicolour, or monochrome. The attention to description does not carry throughout the piece and I feel you could enhance the reader enjoyment by paying attention to all the little descriptive details throughout. It would not become a long boring read as your opening paragraph is proof of your creative writing ability and (this) reader interest.
You choice of names for all of the characters is genius adds to the setting very well. Your writing style for the sordid sexual scenes is well done any reader could conjure the unsightly images so it did not lack for anything.
arriving (at) the apartment
Bravo – Round of applause.
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