Petrakov / Untitled / Tumbling Old Women | Daniil Kharms, 1905-42

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Untitled

I was born in the reeds. Like a mouse. My mother gave birth to me and put me in the water. And I swam away. Some kind of fish with four whiskers on its nose circled around me. I started crying. And the fish started crying. Suddenly we noticed that some porridge was floating atop the water. We ate the porridge and began to laugh. We were very happy, and we swam along with the current until we met a crayfish. It was an ancient, great crayfish; it held an ax in its claws. A naked frog followed swimming behind the crayfish. “Why are you always naked,” asked the crayfish, “aren’t you ashamed?” – “There’s nothing shameful in it,” answered the frog. “Why should we be ashamed of our fine bodies, given us by nature, when we are not ashamed of the vile acts that we ourselves perpetrate.” – “Your words are true,” said the crayfish. “And I do not know how to answer you. I suggest we ask a human, because humans are smarter than we. We are only smart in the fables that man writes about us, i.e. it means once more that it is the human that is smart and not us.” But then the crayfish noticed me and said: “And we don’t even have to swim anywhere to find him – because here he is, a human.” The crayfish swam over to me and asked: “Should one be embarrassed of one’s own body? You, human, answer us!” – “I am a human and I will answer you: One should not be embarrassed of one’s own body.”

An Incident Involving Petrakov

So, once Petrakov wanted to go to sleep but, lying down, missed
the bed. He hit the floor so hard he lay there unable to get up.

So Petrakov mustered his remaining strength and got on his
hands and knees. But his strength abandoned him and he fell
on his stomach again, and he just lies there.

Petrakov lay on the floor about five hours.
At first he just lay there, but then he fell asleep.

Sleep refreshed Petrakov’s strength. He woke up invigorated,
got up, walked around the room and cautiously lay down on the
bed. “Well,” he thought, “now I’ll get some sleep.”
But now he’s not feeling very sleepy. So Petrakov keeps turning
in his bed and can’t fall asleep.

And that’s it, more or less.

Tumbling Old Women

Because of her excessive curiosity, one old woman
tumbled out her window, fell and shattered to pieces.

Another old woman leaned out to look at the one who’d
shattered but, out of excessive curiosity, also tumbled out
her window, fell and shattered to pieces.

Then a third old woman tumbled from her window,
and a fourth, and a fifth.

When the sixth old woman tumbled out of her window,
I got sick of watching them and walked over to the Maltsev
Market where, they say, a blind man had been given a knit
shawl.

Daniil Kharms, 1905-42, Today I Wrote Nothing: Selected Writings