WOMEN CUSTOMERS - OUT OF HELL - Tragediennes

RHYMING ILLUSTRATED 

If I don't come to you and steal a kiss,

This paltry world will offer me no bliss.

There is no other joy that it can give.

Your love alone can make me glad I live.

Your glances flood the world with light sublime

So that all secrets it contains I may divine.

I owe my noblest feelings to that light, 

Imbuing all my life with pure delight.

My loving dreams soar higher than the skies.

My guiding stars are your beloved eyes.

   Translated by Dorian Rottenberg

(From AZERBAIJANIAN POETRY, Progress Publishers, Moscow.)

Excellent rhyming. Terrific climax.

Kishalay Sinha [G] 

FUNNY INTERVIEW 

Nicole Krauss (53:19)/Brombergs Bokforlag (YouTube)

Funny interview. German* publisher lady has a very funny English accent. The lady author is incomprehensible. What is she talking about?!! I guess all sweet s. females want to contact Him - double entendre?

* I am not sure if the lady publisher is German, Swedish, Jewish. Does that matter? All females are the same coz all females have the same ... STOP!

NOTE FOR NEEDLESSLY JEALOUS FEMALE RIVALS: I have not read the author at all. In fact I never heard of her before. I just happened to watch this YouTube video out of curiosity as I watch lots of other YouTube videos only because these videos were shown on My smartphone screen by some computer algorithm during My search! My mentioning any female author does not mean of course that I am recommending any of her books which I have not even read! This should be great relief for many. 

Kishalay Sinha [G] 

WOMEN CUSTOMERS 

So here I am - an apprentice. I am the "boy" in a "stylish footwear" shop on the main street of the town.

Besides the master, there are two assistants in the shop: my cousin Sasha (son of Yakov), and the senior assistant, a slick, slimy, ruddy fellow.

Whenever a lady entered the shop, the master would take his hand out of his pocket, lightly touch his moustaches, and glue on a saccharine* smile. 

The assistant always spread his fingers in an amazing manner when kneeling before a lady to try on shoes. His hands would be all aquiver, and he would touch the leg as if afraid of breaking it, although it was usually a fat leg, resembling a droop-shouldered bottle turned upside down.

Once one of the ladies squirmed and kicked out her toe, saying:

"Oh dear! How you do tickle!"

"That's just out of politeness, ma'am," was the assistant's quick rejoinder.

It was comical to see him hovering about the ladies and I had to turn away to keep from laughing. But I could never resist the temptation to turn back, so ludicrous were the shop assistant's devices. And it seemed to me that never in my life could I make my fingers stick out so politely, or fit shoes so deftly.

Often the master would retire to a little room at the back of the shop and call Sasha, leaving the senior assistant alone with a customer. I remember his once touching the instep of a large blonde and then drawing his finger tips together and kissing them.

"Oh, what a naughty fellow you are!" giggled the woman.

"Ah-h-h-h!" said he, smacking his lips.

*[saccharine = too romantic in a way that seems silly and insincere: I hated the movie's saccharine ending. (Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English)]

(From "MY APPRENTICESHIP", the second volume in Maxim Gorky's famous entertaining autobiography in three volumes: (1) "CHILDHOOD", (2) "MY APPRENTICESHIP", (3) "MY UNIVERSITIES", all translated from the Russian by Ms. Margaret Wettlin, Progress Publishers, Moscow.)

What a funny story! How ludicrous!

Kishalay Sinha [G]

OUT OF HELL 

Looking at s. female authors and their s. female interviewers talking about books on YouTube, such as "Ottessa Moshfegh/My Year of Rest and Relaxation", makes Me feel that many of these sweet s. girls have been rescued from torture in Nazi underground hell.

Kishalay Sinha [G] 

MY UNIVERSITIES 

And so, I was leaving for Kazan, to study at the university - no less!

The thought of University studies had been put into my head by a Gymnasium student, N. Yevreinov - a lovable youth, very handsome, with the tender eyes of a woman. He lived in an attic room in the same house with me. Seeing me often with a book under my arm, he grew so interested as to seek my acquaintance; and it was not long before he began to urge it upon me that I possessed an "extraordinary gift for learning." 

"Nature created you to further science," he declared, tossing his long hair back in graceful emphasis.

I did not yet know, then, that one might further science in the capacity of guinea pig; and Yevreinov made it so very clear that it was just such lads as I the universities were lacking. The memory of Lomonosov, of course, was evoked as a shining example. In Kazan, Yevreinov said, I would stay with him, studying through the autumn and winter to master the Gymnasium programme. Then I would take "some few" examinations - that was just how he put it: "some few"; the University would grant me a scholarship; and in five years or so I would be a "learned man." It was all very simple; for Yevreinov was nineteen, and his heart was kind.

He passed his examinations and left. Some two months later, I followed...

And there I was, in the semi-Tatar city.

The Yevreinovs - mother and two sons - lived on a miserly pension. From my first days in their home, I perceived the tragic melancholy with which the drab little widow, returning from the market, would lay out her purchases on the kitchen table and ponder her difficult problem: how to turn a few small bits of inferior meat into good and sufficient food for three healthy boys - not to speak of herself.

She spoke very little. Her grey eyes were set in the meek and hopeless obstinacy of a work horse that has spent its strength to the last. Dragging its cart uphill, the poor horse knows that it can never make the top; yet still it pulls its load.

One morning, three or four days after my arrival, I was helping her with some vegetables in the kitchen. The boys were still asleep. Quietly, warily, she asked me:

"What have you come to town for?"

"To study. At the University." 

Her eyebrows slowly lifted, crinkling her sallow forehead. Her knife slipped, and gashed her finger. Sucking the wound, she sank on to a chair, but at once sprang up again, with a sharp:

"Ah, the devil!"

When she had tied up her finger with a handkerchief, she said approvingly:

"You peel potatoes well."

I should think I peeled them well! I told her about my work on the river boat. She asked:

"Do you think that's sufficient preparation for entering the University?"

In those days I had but little conception of humour. I took her question seriously, and explained to her the sequence of measures as a result of which the doors to the temple of learning were to open before me.

She sighed:

"Ah, Nikolai, Nikolai!"

Just at this point, Nikolai came into the kitchen to wash - sleepy, tousleheaded, and, as always, in excellent spirits. 

"Some meat patties would be nice, Mother," he said. 

"Yes, they would," the mother agreed.

Anxious to display my erudition in the culinary arts, I remarked that the meat was not good enough for patties, and, besides, that there was not enough of it.

At this Varvara Ivanovna became very angry, and directed at me a few such forceful words that my very ears flushed and seemed to grow. Flinging down the bunch of carrots she had been washing, she left the kitchen. Nikolai winked st me, and explained:

"She's in a mood."

Settling down comfortably on a bench, he informed me that women, generally, were more nervous than men, such being the female make-up, as had been incontestably established by a certain eminent scientist - in Switzerland, if I remember correctly. An Englishman, one John Stuart Mill, had also had something to say on this subject.

(From M. Gorky: "MY UNIVERSITIES", third in the trilogy (1) "CHILDHOOD", (2) "MY APPRENTICESHIP", (3) "MY UNIVERSITIES", all translated from the Russian by Margaret Wettlin, Progress Publishers, Moscow.)

Kishalay Sinha [G]

Tragediennes 

I have seen female authors Jhumpa Lahiri and Nicole Krauss in some of their YouTube videos (I have not read any of their books of fiction so far, I have only watched some videos by chance). Both are excessively tragic, in voice and appearance, AS IF they are the only females in the world who have experienced personal tragedies (real or imaginary). All other females have ALSO gone through personal tragedies (real or imagined). Dale Carnegie advises us to talk about happy things in our conversations, not to keep talking about death and disease and other unhappy things, because constant pessimistic talk is tiresome and boring to others. God is not impressed in the least by an air of tragedy. All females are equal in His eyes. No difference at all. A level playing field for all. Target is infinite number. End of uplifting pep talk.

Kishalay Sinha [G]