My foreword:

In this Russian story, a 16 year old girl named Nastya is chained up naked in an oven and cooked for three hours, then consumed by her family and family friends. Her young friend Arina, attending, is to be cooked in two months.

I don't think this was published as erotica, but it's erotic throughout and you can tell the author is into guro.

No need to thank me for manually adding in all those italics 😏





Nastya (2000) by Vladimir Sorokin
Translated from Russian by Max Lawton





A GRAYISH-BLUE LULL BEFORE DAWN, a slow boat on the heavy mirror of Denezh Lake, emerald caverns in the juniper bushes creeping menacingly toward the white wash of the alpine waters.

Nastya turned the brass knob of the door to the balcony and pushed it open. The thick, reeded glass swam to the right, splintering the landscape with its parallel flutes and mercilessly dividing the little boat into twelve pieces. A damp avalanche of morning air flowed through the open door, embraced her, and shamelessly flew up into her nightgown.

Nastya inhaled greedily through her nose and walked out onto the balcony.

Her warm feet recognized the cool wood, and its boards creaked gratefully. Nastya lay her hands upon the peeling paint of the railing, tears came to her eyes as she took in the motionless world: the left and right wings of the manor, the garden’s milky green, the severity of the linden grove, the sugar-cube church on the hill, the willow branches lying on the ground, the stacks of mown grass.

Nastya rolled her wide, thin shoulders, let down her hair, and stretched out with a moan, listening to her vertebrae crack as her body woke up.

“A-a-w-a-w-h . . .”

Over the lake, the spark of morning began to slowly catch, and the damp world turned, offering itself to the sun’s inevitability. “I love you,” whispered Nastya to these first rays, turned, then walked back into her bedroom.

Her red chest of drawers looked out gloomily through its keyholes, her pillow smiled broadly, like a woman, her candlestick screamed mutely with its melted mouth, and the highwayman Cartouche grinned triumphantly at her from the cover of a book.

Nastya sat down at her little desk, opened her diary, took out a glass pen with a purple nib, dipped it into her inkwell, and began to watch her hand carry itself across the yellow paper:

August 6th.

I, Nastassia Sablina, am now sixteen years old! It is very strange that this does not surprise me in the slightest. Why is this? Is it good or bad? I am probably still sleeping, though the sun has risen and is lighting up everything around me. Today is the most important day of my life. How will I spend it? For how long shall I remember it? I must try to remember it down to the smallest detail: every drop, every leaf, every one of my thoughts. I must think positively. Papa says that good thoughts light up our souls just like the sun. Then may my sun light up my soul today! The Sun of this Most Important Day. I shall be joyful and attentive. Lev Ilyich arrived yesterday evening and, after dinner, I sat with him and Papa in the big gazebo. They were arguing about Nietzsche again—about what it is necessary to overcome in one’s soul. Today I must overcome. Though I’ve never read Nietzsche. I still know very little about the world, but I love it very much. And I love people, though many of them bore me. Must I also love boring people? I am happy that Papa and Maman are not boring people. And I am happy that the Day that we’ve been waiting for has finally arrived.





One of the sun’s rays hit the end of her pen, which created an intense burst of multi-colored light.

Nastya closed her diary and stretched out once again—sweetly and achingly putting her hands behind her head. The door creaked open, and her mother’s soft hands closed around her wrists.

“Oh, my little early bird . . .”

“Maman . . .” Nastya threw back her head, saw her mother’s inverted face, and embraced her. Her mother’s unrecognizably toothy face hid the sculpted cupids on the ceiling from view.

“Ma petite fillette. Tu as bien dormi?”

“Certainement, Maman.”

They were frozen in their embrace.

“I saw you in my dream,” her mother declared, stepping back from her daughter and sitting down on the bed.

“And what was I doing?”

“You were laughing to the point of forgetfulness,” she looked at her daughter’s hair gleaming in the sunlight with intense pleasure.

“Was I being foolish?” Nastya stood up and walked over to her—lean and delicate in her semi-transparent nightgown.

“Why would you think laughing is foolish? Laughter is joy. Sit down, my little angel. I have something for you.”

Nastya sat down next to her mother. They were the same height, with similar builds, wearing nightgowns of an identical blue. Only their shoulders and faces were different.

Nastya’s mother opened a small crimson-colored velvet box with her delicate hands, pulled out a diamond heart hanging from a delicate golden chain, and put it in front of her daughter’s neck.

“C’est pour toi.”

“Maman!”

Nastya looked down, put the heart between her fingers. Her hair fell in front of her face, and the diamond flashed blue and white.

Daughter kissed mother upon still-youthful cheek.

“Maman.”

The sunlight lit up her mother’s green eyes. She carefully opened the chestnut curtain of her daughter’s hair: she was holding the diamond in front of her lips.

“I want you to know how important today is.”

“I already know, Maman.”

Nastya’s mother stroked her head.

“Does it suit me?” Nastya straightened up, puffing out her strong, young chest.

“Parfaitement!”

Nastya walked up to the tripartite mirror, which seemed to grow out of the decorative tinsel of the table, upon which it sat. Four Nastyas stared out at one other.

“Ah, how glorious . . .”

“Yours forever. From Papa and me.”

“Wonderful. . . . And where is Papa? Still sleeping?”

“He woke up early today.”

“Like me! Ah, how glorious . . .”

Her mother picked up the bell next to the candle and rang it. They heard someone begin to shuffle over to the door, and Nastya’s tall, full-figured nanny walked in.

“Nurse!” Nastya ran over and jumped into her plump arms.

The cold dough of Nastya’s nanny’s arms enveloped her.

“My darling! My precious!” the nanny swayed and trembled, as if she were about to cry, and kissed the girl’s head quickly with cold lips.

“Nurse! I’m sixteen! Sixteen already!”

“Goodness me, my little darling! Goodness me, my precious!”

Nastya’s mother looked at them with intense pleasure.

“It seems like just yesterday that you were in your swaddling clothes!”

The nanny’s bosom shook, she was having difficulty breathing.

“Not so long ago, Lord Jesus! Just yesterday, Mother Mary!”

Nastya turned away fiercely, tearing herself away from the plentiful dough of her nanny’s belly.

“Have a look—isn’t it rather beautiful?”

Still not able to see the diamond through the tears that had filled her eyes, her nanny solemnly shook her heavy hands.

“Goodness!”

Barely able to restrain her joy, Nastya’s mother whirled over to the door.

“We’ll eat on the veranda, Nastenka!”

Having washed Nastya’s body with a sponge soaked in lavender water, the nurse dried her off with several towels and began to tie her hair into a braid.

“Do you remember your sixteenth birthday, Nurse?” moving her head defiantly away from her nurse, Nastya looked down at a red ant crawling across the floor.

“At your age, goodness me, I was already with child!”

“So early? Oh, but I remember, you were betrothed at fifteen!”

“Just so, my darlin’. And my precious Grisha was born before the Nativity Fast. Unfortunately, though, he passed on by way of an ear infection. Then came little Vasya, then little Khimush. By the time I was twenty, I had one runnin’ ‘round the garden, another cryin’ in the cradle, and a third in my tummy. It’s true!”

The nanny’s swollen white fingers flashed through Nastya’s golden-brown waterfall of hair: a braid was implacably growing.

“But I’ve never had a baby,” Nastya stepped on the ant with the tip of her canvas shoe.

“Goodness, my darling, what a thing to complain about!” the nanny cried out. “You want to give up your beauty for a family? You’ve been shaped to another purpose.”

The braid hung like a dead python between her shoulder blades.





A garish samovar wheezed hysterically on the white veranda, cunning ivy climbed through open windows, and Pavlushka, their young lackey, was clumsily putting down their dishes. Her mother, father, and Lev Ilyich were sitting down at the table.

Nastya ran up to them.

“Bonjour!”

“A-a-h! The birthday girl!” as ungainly and angular as a broken chaise longue, Lev Ilyich began to stand up.

“My little sauteuse!” her father winked, still chewing.

Nastya kissed him on the spot between his black beard and his large nose.

“Thank you, Papa!”

“Let’s have a look at our Russian beauty!”

She backed away instantaneously, rose into first position, and spread her arms apart: an embroidered, olive-colored summer dress, Nastya’s naked shoulders, the gleaming diamond at the midpoint of her long collarbones.

“Voilà!”

“Our Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk!” her father laughed white-toothedly.

“None of that, Seryozha!” her mother waved her napkin.

“She could be a bride!” Lev Ilyich was standing up and holding his long arms out in front of him.

“Shut your mouth, brother!” her father picked up a crimson piece of salmon with his fork and slapped it down onto his plate.

“I could barely keep myself from giving it to you when we were talking about Mr. Mustache last night.” Lev Ilyich reached into the inside pocket of his tight-fitting blazer. “But thank God I didn’t!”

“Haste makes waste!” her father began to cut the salmon rakishly.

Lev Ilyich held his bony fist out to Nastya and opened it. In his palm, as dry, flat, and swarthy as a piece of wood, lay a golden brooch made up of Roman letters.

“Transcendere!” read Nastya. “What’s that?”

“The transgression of boundaries,” translated Lev Ilyich.

“Hold on, brother,” her father shook his steep-browed head. “You’re accusing me of literal-mindedness with that definition.”

“If you’ll allow me, Nastenka, I’ll clip it onto you . . .” Lev Ilyich walked up to her ominously, holding his arms out like a praying mantis.

Nastya took several steps toward him and looked out the window at the cook’s blonde twins walking along the edge of the water with one yoke and five buckets—Why are they only using one yoke? she thought. Tobacco-stained fingers with long, unkempt nails moved over her chest.

“Of course, it’s your birthday, not your name day . . . but if Sergei Arkadeyevich is truly the champion of progress he says he is . . .”

“You’ll ruin my appetite with all this talk!” her father chewed lustily.

“How is it possible to hang five buckets from one yoke? Strange . . .”

“There we are. . . .” Lev Ilyich dropped his hands and, squinting, moved back abruptly, as if he were getting ready to butt Nastya as hard as he could with his little head. “It suits you.”

“Merci,” Nastya curtsied quickly.

“They suit each other well,” her mother looked at both the diamond and the brooch.

“And Father Andrei, what he will do-o-o is that is he will gi-i-ive Nastassia Sergeyevna another bijou and that is ho-o-ow our Nastassia Sergeyevna will become . . . a Christmas tree!” Father winked to daughter as he cut into a warm roll.

“Then are you going to stand me in the corner, Papa?”

Everyone laughed.

“Let’s have some coffee,” Nastya’s father wiped at his full lips.

“The cream has cooled down, master. . . . Shall I warm it up?” asked the freckled lackey.

“Don’t call me master, this is the third time I’m telling you,” her father rolled his strong shoulders irritably. “My grandfather was a plowman!”

“Forgive me, Sergei A-ryka-dievich . . . and the cream . . .”

“You don’t need to warm it up.”

The taste of coffee reminded Nastya that she had to go to the pond.

“I won’t make it! It’s already eight!” she jumped up from her chair.

“What do you mean?” her mother raised her beautiful eyebrows.

“The washbasin!”

“Ah—it’s so sunny today!”

Nastya ran away from the veranda.

“What’s the matter?” Lev Ilyich asked, buttering his bread.

“Amore, more, ore, re!” Nastya’s father replied, sipping his coffee.





Nastya jumped off of the porch and ran to the pond. She saw the blonde twins walking toward her from the hill carrying the upside-down yoke with five full buckets hanging from it.

“That’s it!” Nastya smiled at them.

Having forgotten about the weight of their load, the barefoot twins gaped at her. Milky snot was visible in the first one’s nose. Water dripped from all five buckets.

A rash of white moss, the heavy silhouette of an oak tree, velvety hazel leaves, and a ripple of light on the rugged rows of sedge all interrupted the granite semicircle of the pond.

Nastya walked down the mossy steps to the dark-green water and stopped dead: the sundial on the cracked column showed a quarter past eight. A pocket of damp cold hung over the water in a barely discernible fog. At the center of the pond stood a marble Atlas holding a crystal orb on the yellow and white musculature of his back; he was up to his knees in water. Bird droppings covered the statue’s head and shoulders, but the orb shined with transparent cleanliness—the birds could not sit upon polished glass.

Nastya squinted her left eye: enormous leaves and the trunks of imaginary plants darted about in rainbow colors on the surface of the orb.

“Oh, Sun! Come to me!” she squeezed her eyes tightly shut.

A quarter of an hour passed by in what felt like a moment. Nastya opened her eyes. A broad stream of sunlight forced its way through the canopy of oaks to the crystal orb, which created a refracted needle of golden light that pierced the thickness of the water.

Holding her breath, Nastya looked around.

The needle of light slowly crawled along the surface of the water, leaving a tender vapor in its wake.

“Thank you . . . oh, thank you . . .” whispered Nastya’s lips.

The Presence of the Mysterious Light passed.

The needle of light was extinguished as unexpectedly as it had come into being.





Having torn a young branch off the pecan tree and brushed its leaves against her lips, Nastya started home through the Old Garden. She opened the rotten gate, walked through rows of cherry trees, stood, and watched the blue beehives, waving off the bees with her branch. She walked through the New Garden with its cylindrical greenhouse, then ran past the barn, the hayshed, and the animal pens.

In the stables, she heard people arguing. Three girls carrying empty baskets ran out of them laughing and turned toward the New Garden, but, seeing Nastya, they stopped and bowed.

“What’s going on in there?” Nastya approached them.

“Pavlushka’s bein’ flogged, Nastassia Sya-a-argevna.”

“What for?”

“For callin’ his master ‘master.’”

Nastya walked toward the entrance of the stables. The girls ran off into the garden.

“Uncle Mityai! Uncle Mityai!” Pavlushka’s shrill voice rang out.

“Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid . . .” the stableman said in his low tone.

Nastya started to walk into the stables, but stopped short. Turned around, traced a path along the building’s log walls, looked through a murky little window. Saw how, in the gloom, the two stablemen Mityai and Dubyets were binding Pavlushka to a bench. They pulled down Pavlushka’s dark-blue pantaloons, and his drawers fell to his ankles. The stablemen were quick to strap him down, Dubyets sitting by his head and holding his arms. The stocky, red-bearded Mityai pulled a bundle of long birch rods from a bucket of salty water, shook them off over his head, crossed himself, and began to whip Pavlushka with great force, directing his blows onto the boy’s small, pale behind.

Pavlushka squealed.

“Understand! Understand! Understand!” Mityai declaimed.

Dubyets looked on indifferently from beneath his fur cap, holding the lackey’s arms.

Nastya watched his buttocks and skinny legs shaking in the gloom. Pavlushka’s young body was shuddering as he tried to wend away from the blows, but the bench would not allow him to. He whimpered in time with the blows.

Nastya’s heart pounded in her chest

“Un-der-stand! Un-der-stand! Un-der-stand!”

“Agh! Agh! Agh!”

Behind her, someone let forth a quiet laugh.

Nastya turned around. Next to her was Porfishka, the village idiot. His tattered white shirt had come untucked from his striped pants, his ruined sandals were bound to his bare feet with bast, and his pockmarked face glowed with quiet insanity.

“I locked the frog in the sauna! So that his wife gives birth to ME!” he said, his blue eyes shining, then laughed without opening his mouth.

Nastya gave him the pecan branch and started walking home again.





Father Andrei arrived at around noon in his new droshky. Slim, tall, and with a beautiful Russian face, he squeezed Nastya’s head between his strong hands and kissed her firmly on the forehead.

“My wingless seraph, the very picture of beauty! I’d been hoping to celebrate your name day, but a birthday’s better than nothing: six-teen ye-a-a-a-rs old! That’s quite a mouthful!”

He rustled around in his slightly blue, mostly lilac-colored cassock when, suddenly, a small box made of red Morocco leather appeared before Nastya. The priest opened it with his strong fingers: in a tiny depression in the pink silk was a black pearl.

Papa knew about this! thought Nastya and smiled.

“This precious pearl comes from the bottom of the ocean,” Father Andrei bored into her with his strong eyes. “It is no ordinary pearl, but a black pearl. Ordinary pearls are created when the shell opens under the water and lets in the sunlight: it begins to shine with that same light. But this is a different kind of pearl. A black pearl. This pearl is carried in the mouths of wise fish who listen to the voice of God with their gills. They carry them for a thousand years, then become dragons and the guardians of rivers. An enigma!”

“Thank you, Father!” Nastya took the little box from his hand. “And how do I . . . wear it?”

“You mustn’t wear it—you must keep it safe.”

“Like a fish?”

“Yes, like a fish perhaps,” laughed Father Andrei and, quickly stroking his beard, looked into the cold light of the sitting room. “Well, are they going to ask me in for a drink?”

“Hold on, Father,” Sablin stepped into the sitting room. “We’ll have plenty of time to make merry later!”

They embraced, both strong-bodied and tall, with similar beards and faces, then loudly kissed each other on the cheek three times.

“Oh, how jealous I was of you three days ago, brother!” Sergei Arkadeyevich shook Father Andrei by his lilac shoulders. “The blackest envy! The black-est envy!”

“Why was that?” the priest arched his thick eyebrows.

“Sashenka!” her father’s voice boomed through the entire house. “Just listen to this! I’m driving past your farmstead, I look, and you’ve got a whole company of women tidying up your hay! Such women too—the very picture of health! Nothing like my delicate ladies here.”

“Yes, well, my mother got them from Mokroye,” Father Andrei laughed. “They were mowing the footpaths, when suddenly . . .”

“Oh, but I didn’t see your mother there! Only those women! Such women!” Nastya’s father laughed.

“That’s enough!” Father Andrei waved his hand.

“Has my husband gone too far in his jokes again?” Nastya’s mother came in and exchanged kisses with Father Andrei. “It’s time, Nastenka!”

“Already?” Nastya showed her the pearl.

“How charming!”

“A black pearl, Maman!”

“O-o-h,” her father hugged her mother from behind and looked over her shoulder. “From deep beneath the sea, way over by Buyan Island! Beautiful.”

The clock struck noon.

“It’s time, Nastyusha!” her father nodded his head severely. “Well, if it’s time, then I suppose it’s time,” Nastya sighed tremulously. “Then . . . I’ll . . . just . . .”

Walking into her bedroom, she opened her diary and wrote in enormous letters: IT’S TIME! She removed the diamond on the chain from her neck and looked at it. She put it under the mirror next to the brooch. She opened the little box with the pearl, stared straight at it, then looked into the mirror.

“Inside of me?”

She thought for a second, opened her mouth, then swallowed the pearl with ease.

The dark-blue silk of her father’s office, a star chart affixed to the ceiling, a bust of Nietzsche, stacks and stacks of books, a huge, ancient battle ax taking up a whole wall, hands holding Nastya firmly by the shoulders.

“Are you strong?”

“I’m strong, Papa.”

“Do you want it?”

“Yes, I want it.”

“Shall you be able to?”

“I’ll be able to.”

“Shall you overcome?”

“I’ll overcome.”

Her father walked up to her slowly and kissed her on the temple.





The red stone fence of the inner courtyard, fresh whitewash on the newly built Russian oven, their cook, Savely, naked to the waist, sticking a long poker into the oven’s mouth, her father, her mother, Father Andrei, Lev Ilyich.

The nanny undressed Nastya, neatly laying her clothes down onto the edge of a rough oak table: dress, undershirt, underpants. Nastya was left standing naked in the middle of the courtyard.

“What about the hair?” asked her father.

“Let it . . . be, Seryozha,” her mother narrowed her eyes.

Nastya touched her braid with her left hand. She was shielding her thin pubis from view with her right.

“The oven is ready,” Savely straightened up and wiped the sweat from his brow.

“In the name of the Eternal,” her mother nodded to the cook.

Savely put an enormous shovel with chains dangling from it onto the table.

“Lie down, Nastassia Sergeyevna.”

Nastassia walked over to the shovel uncertainly. Nastya’s father and Savely lifted her up and lay her down on the shovel.

“Let me move your little legs . . .” the cook’s white, wrinkled hands bent her legs at the knee.

“Hold onto your knees with your hands,” her father bent down.

Looking at the tufts of cloud drifting through the sky, she took her knees into her hands and pulled them to her chest. The cook began to chain her to the shovel.

“Be gentle . . .” the nanny raised her hands anxiously.

“Don’t be afraid,” Savely tightened the chains.

“Make sure the braid doesn’t get caught, Nastenka!” her mother advised.

“It’s fine how it is, Maman!”

“Put it under your back or it’ll burn,” Father Andrei looked on frowningly, spreading his legs apart and crossing his arms over his chest.

“Hold onto the chain with your hands, Nastenka,” Lev Ilyich hunched forward to get a better look.

“There’s no need . . .” her father waved his hand impatiently. “It’s better like this . . .”

He shoved Nastya’s wrists under the chain, tightening them to her hips.

“He’s right,” the cook nodded. “Otherwise, she’ll simply come loose as soon as she starts to wiggle.”

“Are you comfortable, ma petite?” Nasya’s mother asked.

“Yes, yes . . .”

“Don’t be afraid, my little angel, just don’t be afraid . . .”

“Yes, Maman.”

“The chains aren’t too tight?” Her father pulled at them.

“No.”

“May the Eternal be ever at your service,” he kissed his daughter’s forehead, which was covered in a cold sweat.

“Like we always say: be strong, Nastenka,” Nastya’s mother put her forehead to her daughter’s shoulder.

“God be with you,” Father Andrei made a sign of the cross.

“We’ll be right there with you,” Lev Ilyich smiled tensely.

“My darling . . .” the nanny kissed her slender legs.

Savely crossed himself, spat into his palms, took hold of the shovel’s iron handle, grunted, picked it up, staggered over to the oven, and, almost at a run, pushed Nastya into the oven with a single movement.

Her body erupted into orange light. Here we are! It’s begun! Nastya managed to think, looking at the slightly sooty ceiling of the new oven. Then she felt the heat. It overwhelmed her like a frightening, red bear and called forth a wild, inhuman scream from her lungs. She thrashed on the shovel.

“Hold on!” Nastya’s father shouted at Savely.

“It’s always like this . . .” he locked his short legs and gripped the handle tightly.

Nastya’s scream became a roar coming from deep inside of her.

Everyone gathered around the oven. Only the nanny moved off to the side, wiping away her tears and blowing her nose with the hem of her apron.

The skin on Nastya’s neck and shoulders tightened and soon blisters began to flow over her body like drops of water. Nastya wriggled around and, though the chains had less and less of her to hold onto, they still held fast. Her head jerked very slightly, and her face turned into one gigantic, red mouth. A scream tore itself loose from her in an invisible, crimson stream.

“You need to poke the coals, Sergei Arkadeyevich . . . so that her rind catches . . .” Savely licked the sweat from his upper lip.

Nastya’s father took the poker, put it into the oven, but was unable to move the coals.

“Goodness me, not like that!” the nanny ripped the poker out of his hand and began to rake the coals toward Nastya.

Another wave of heat came over Nastya. She lost her voice and, opening her mouth like a big fish, wheezed weakly. Her eyes rolled up into her head, their whites now red.

“Over to the right . . . to the right . . .” Nastya’s mother looked into the oven and directed the nanny’s use of the poker.

“I can see where,” the nanny moved the coals with greater force.

Nastya’s blisters began to burst, spattering her body with lymph juice, and the coals hissed, their blue tongues flashing. Urine flowed from Nastya and immediately began to steam and boil. Her violent movements began to weaken, she could wheeze no longer, now merely opening and closing her mouth.

“How quickly the face changes . . .” muttered Lev Ilyich. “It’s not even a face anymore . . .”

“The coals have caught!” her father bustled about. “Make sure not to burn the outside.”

“We’ll close her up to let the insides bake. No chance she’ll get loose now,” Savely straightened up.

“Don’t dare overcook my daughter!”

“I know what I’m doing . . .”

The cook let go out of the shovel, picked up the thick flap, and put it in place over the oven pipe. Everyone stopped scurrying around. They’d become bored almost immediately.

“Then you . . . then . . .” Nastya’s father scratched his beard and looked at the handle of the shovel sticking out of the oven.

“She’ll be done in three hours,” Savely wiped the sweat from his brow.

Nastya’s father looked around, as if he were searching for someone, then waved his hand.

“Very well . . .”

“I’ll leave you gentlemen to it,” Nastya’s mother mumbled and walked away.

The nanny followed her with a heavy tread.

Lev Ilyich stared numbly at the crack in the oven pipe.

“Well then, Sergei Arkadeyevich . . .” Father Andrei put a reassuring hand onto Sablin’s shoulder. “Shall we test our diamond-covered spades against our clubs? A little round of cards?”

“While we’ve got the time, we might as well, no?” Sablin looked at the sun perplexedly. “Come on, brother, let’s play.”

The shovel’s iron handle suddenly jerked, and the tin flap chattered. They heard something like a hoot come from inside the oven. Nastya’s father darted over and grabbed the hot handle, but everything was already calm.

“That was her soul leaving her body,” the cook smiled exhaustedly.





The oblong, semicircular windows of the dining room, evening sun on the tired silk of the curtains, layers of cigar and cigarette smoke, scraps of unrelated conversations, the sloppy clinking of eight thin glasses: while waiting for the arrival of the roast, the guests had finished a second bottle of champagne.

Nastya was brought to the table toward seven o’clock.

She was met with the delight native to mild intoxication.

Golden-brown, she was presented on an oval serving dish, clutching at her legs with now blackened fingernails. White rose buds were scattered around her, slices of lemon covered her chest, knees, and shoulders. White river lilies bloomed innocently on her breasts, pubis, and forehead.

“That’s my daughter!” Sablin stood up, glass in hand. “Tonight’s special, ladies and gentlemen!”

Everyone applauded.

Sitting at the beautifully decorated table with Nastya’s mother and father, Father Andrei, and Lev Ilyich were Mr. and Mrs. Rumyantsev and Dmitri Andreyevich Mamut with his daughter Arina, Nastya’s friend. Savely stood at the ready in his white apron and chef’s hat, a large knife and a two-pronged fork in hand.

“Excellent!” Rumyantseva looked hungrily at the roast through her lorgnette. “How wonderfully she was laid out! Even in this suggestive pose, Nastenka is so pure.”

“I can’t bear it.” Sablina pressed her hands to her temples and closed her eyes. “It’s beyond my strength.”

“Don’t spoil this special day for us, Sashenka,” Sablin gestured over to Pavlushka, who had begun to bustle about with the bottles. “Neither of us have ever eaten our daughter before, so this is a difficult time for both of us. But also joyful. So let us rejoice!”

“Yes!” Rumyantseva affirms. “I didn’t rattle around in that carriage for seven hours just to be sad!”

“Alexandra Vladimirovna is merely tired,” Father Andrei laid his cigar down into the giant marble ashtray.

“I can certainly understand your maternal instincts,” Mamut turned to her. He was fat, bald, and resembled a June bug.

“My dove, Alexandra Vladimirovna, don’t think bad thoughts. I’m begging you!” Rumyantsev looked at her with his fish eyes and his coarse face, then pressed his hands to his chest. “It’s a sin to be sad on a day like today!”

“Think good thoughts, Sashenka!” Rumyantseva smiled.

“We’re all begging you!” Lev Ilyich winked.

“We’re all ordering you!” the fiery-haired, freckled little Arina spoke up.

Everyone laughed. Pavlushka filled the glasses, his face downcast and puffy from crying.

With palpable relief, Sablina laughed, sighed, and shook her head.

“Je ne sais pas ce qui m’a prit . . .”

“It shall pass, my angel.” Sablin kissed her hand and raised his glass. “Ladies and gentlemen, I hate toasts. Therefore—I drink to the overcoming of limits! Please join me!”

“Avec plaisir!” Rumyantseva exclaimed.

“A toast!” Rumyantsev raised his glass.

“A real toast!” Mamut’s fat lips flapped together.

The glasses came together and rang out.

“No, no, no . . .” Sablina shook her head. “Seryozha . . . I don’t feel well . . . no, no, no . . .”

“Well, then, Sashenka, my dove, then . . .” Rumyantseva pouted, but Sablin raised his hand authoritatively.

“Silence!”

Everyone was quiet. He put his unfinished glass back down onto the table and looked at his wife attentively.

“What do you mean ‘not well’?”

“No, no, no, no . . .” she shook her head faster.

“What do you mean ‘no’?”

“I don’t feel well, Seryozha . . .”

Sablin suddenly slapped her in the face with great force.

“What’s wrong?”

She put her hands over her face.

“What’s wrong, you bitch?!”

Silence reigned over the table. Pavlushka was hunched over with a bottle in hand, completely frozen. Savely watched with both resignation and incomprehension in his eyes.

“Look at us!”

Sablina had turned to stone. Sablin bent down to her and began to speak slowly, as if he were cutting every word into being with a heavy knife.

“Look. At. Us. You. Swine.”

She took her hands away from her face and looked at the guests gathered around the table, as if her eyes had grown smaller.

“What do you see?”

“Peo . . . ple . . .”

“What else do you see?”

“Nas . . . tya . . .”

“And why don’t you feel well?”

Sablina said nothing and stared at Nastya’s knee.

“It’s strange that you would be so open in your dislike for us, Alexandra Vladimirovna,” Mamut spoke weightily.

“You must learn to dissimulate your hatred, Sashenka,” Rumyantseva smiled nervously.

“Isn’t it a little late?” Arina looked at her distrustfully. “At forty years old?”

“Hatred is damaging to the soul,” Father Andrei cracked his knuckles. “He who hates suffers more than he who is hated.”

“How stupid this all is . . .” Rumyantsev shook his head sadly.

“It’s not stupid, it’s evil. This is evil,” Lev Ilyich sighed.

Sablina shuddered.

“No . . . ladies and gentlemen . . . I’m not

. . .”

“What are you not?”

Sablin stared at her firmly.

“I . . .”

“Savely! Give her the knife and fork!”

The cook walked over cautiously and held the handles of the carving utensils out to her.

“Please.”

Sablina took them and looked at them, as if she were seeing such instruments for the first time.

“You’re going to serve us,” Sablin sank back down into his chair. “You’re going to cut the pieces that we ask for. You’re free to go, Savely.”

The cook left.

“Ladies and gentlemen, let us eat before Nastya gets cold,” Sablin tucked the corner of his napkin into his collar. “As the father of the newly baked, I’ll take the first piece: give me the left breast! Pavlushka! Bring us the Bordeaux!”

Sablina stood up, walked over to the serving dish, stuck the two-pronged fork into Nastya’s left breast, and began to cut into her flesh. Everyone listened carefully. Under a brown, crispy crust flashed white meat and a yellow strip of fat. Her juice flowed freely. Sablina put a slice of breast onto a plate and handed it to her husband.

“Please, everyone! Don’t be shy!”

Rumyantseva was the next to ask.

“Cut me some itsy little bits from the ribs, Sashenka, the tiniest bits!”

“I’ll have some rump!” Mamut sipped his wine.

“Shoulder and forearm for me, Alexandra Vladimirovna,” Rumyantsev rubbed his hands together, as if he were counting money. “Make sure it’s nowhere near the hand—from the forearm itself, right there . . .”

“Give me some meat from the hand,” Lev Ilyich coughed modestly.

“I’ll have some from the head,” Father Andrei cheerfully rested his fists upon the table. “So as to withstand the testimonium paupertatis.”

Arina waited until Sablina had taken everyone else’s orders.

“Alexandra Vladimirovna, may I have . . .”

She fell silent and glanced over at her father.

“What is it?” Mamut leaned down to his daughter.

Arina whispered something into his ear.

“You have to ask like a grownup if you want that part,” he suggested, straightening up.

“How might I ask?”

Her father whispered something into her ear.

“What would you like, Arinushka?” Sablina asked quietly.

“I would like . . . the venereal lips . . .”

“Bravo, Arina!” exclaimed Sablin, and the other guests applauded her.

Sablina nodded her head and began trying to get a good look at her daughter’s groin: it was impossible to get at between her legs.

“It’s not always so easy to get to that mysterious place!” Rumyantsev winked, and laughter filled the dining room.

“Hold on, Sasha . . .” Sablin stood up resolutely, took hold of Nastya’s knees, then pushed hard, attempting to spread her legs. Her pelvic joints cracked, but her legs wouldn’t move.

“Come on!” Sablin pushed harder. His neck turned purple, and the hedgehog of hair on his head quivered.

“Slow down, Sergei Arkadeyevich!” the priest stood up. “It would be a sin to overstrain yourself today, brother.”

“Am I . . . not a Cossack? I’ve still got . . . some! Some! Some! Powder left to shoot with . . . yes! Yes! Yes!” Sablin grunted.

Father Andrei grabbed onto one knee and Sablin grabbed onto the other. They pushed, grunting and baring their beautiful teeth. The joints cracked juicily, the roasted legs fell open, and juice sprayed out of the meat as it was torn apart. Protected by the thighs from the heat of the oven, her pubis still shined a tender shade of white and seemed to be made of porcelain. Her perineum had split apart, bones and steaming meat visible inside of the gash. A stream of brown juice flowed onto the serving dish.

“Sashenka, s’il vous plaît,” Sablin wiped his hands with a napkin.

The cold knife cut into Nastya’s pubis, as if it were white butter: clumps of stiff little pubic hairs, the submissiveness of the semi-translucent skin, the innocent smile of her childish labial lips spread slightly open and occasionally dripping.

“Here you are, my angel.”

The pubis lay on the plate in front of Arina. Everyone was staring at it.

“It’s a shame to eat such beauty,” Mamut was the first to speak.

“Like . . . a wax angel,” whispered Arina.

“Every moment is precious, ladies and gentlemen!” Sablin raised his glass of Bordeaux. “We shall not let the meat cool. To your health!”

They clinked the crystal glasses together. They drank quickly. Their knives and forks entered the meat.

“M-m-m . . . m-m-m . . . m-m-m . . .” Rumyantsev shook his head while he chewed like he had a toothache. “There’s something . . . h-m-m-m . . . there’s something . . .”

“Magnifique!” Rumyantseva tore off a piece of meat with her teeth.

“Very good,” Father Andrei chewed a piece of Nastya’s cheek.

“Your cook, brother . . . he’s really . . .” the meat’s crust crunched between Lev Ilyich’s teeth

“A perfect roast.” Mamut carefully examined the piece of meat speared on his fork and put it into his mouth.

“A quarter of an hour . . . m-m-m . . . on the coals and three hours in the oven . . .” Sablin chewed cheerfully.

“Just so,” nodded Mamut.

“No . . . this is something . . . this is something . . .” Rumyantsev screwed up his eyes.

“How I love the bits from around the ribs . . .”
smacked Rumyantseva.

Arina carefully cut off a piece of the pubis, put it into her mouth, and, chewing carefully, stared at the ceiling.

“How is it?” Mamut asked her, sipping his wine.

She shrugged her plump shoulders. Mamut delicately cut a strip of meat off the pubis and tasted it.

“M-m-m . . . like God’s sour cream . . . eat while it’s still warm, stop making faces . . .”

“And what about you, Sashenka?” Sablin’s moist eyes moved over to his wife.

“Please don’t spoil the atmosphere, Alexandra Vladimirovna,” Rumyantsev shook his finger.

“Yes, yes . . . I . . . certainly . . .” Sablina gazed numbly at the headless body, covered in its own juice.

“If you’ll allow me, Madame, your plate . . .” Father Andrei reached over for it. “And we shall find you the most delicate meat.”

Sablina handed him her plate. He began to cut beneath Nastya’s jaw, made a semi-circular incision, stuck his fork inside of it, and slapped her steaming tongue down onto Sablina’s empty plate.

“The most tender bit!”

Her tongue lay in the shape of an awful question mark.

“Thank you, Father,” Sablina accepted the plate back with an exhausted smile.

“Ah, how delightful your Nastenka has remained,” Rumyantseva mumbled through the meat in her mouth. “Just imagine . . . m-m-m . . . whenever I saw her, I thought . . . that this . . . that we would . . . m-m-m . . . that . . . no, it’s simply too striking! What delicate, exquisite ribs she has!”

“Nastassia Sergeyevna was a remarkable child,” Lev Ilyich moved the crunchy, fire-polished skin around with his pinkie. “Once, I arrived directly from the Assembly, as tired as a rickshaw, a terribly hot day, and naturally, in the simplest way . . . m-m-m . . . I decided to, you know, go directly to the . . .”

“Wine! Pavlushka! More wine!” cried Sablin. “Where is the Falero?”

“You had asked for a Bordeaux, sir,” Pavlushka turned his white, tight-skinned neck.

“You idiot! Bordeaux is just the prelude! Now run!”

The lackey ran off.

“Devil take it, it’s so delicious!” Mamut sighed heavily. “And it’s completely, entirely correct that you’ve not put any spices on it.”

“Good meat needs no spice, Dmitri Andreyevich,” Sablin said while chewing and leaning back in his chair. “Like any other Ding an sich.”

“That is certainly true,” Father Andrei looked around. “And where, if you’ll forgive me, is the . . .”

“What, brother?”

“The teaspoon . . .”

“Of course!” exclaimed Sablin.

The priest stuck the teaspoon into one Nastya’s eye sockets and twisted it firmly: Nastya’s eye was now on the teaspoon. The pupil was white, but the iris was still the same shade of greenish-gray. After salting and peppering the eye hungrily, the priest squeezed lemon juice onto it and put it into his mouth.

“I can’t eat fish eyes,” Arina said drowsily, chewing slowly. “They’re bitter.”

“Nastenka’s are not bitter,” the priest took a drink of wine. “I would even say they’re quite sweet.

“She loved to wink. Especially when she spoke Latin. She got in trouble for that three times at school.”

“Nastya had a surprising way of looking at things,” Sablina spoke up, thoughtfully moving Nastya’s half-eaten tongue around her plate with her knife. “When I gave birth to her, we were living in St. Petersburg. Every day, the wet nurse would come to suckle Nastenka. And I would just sit there. Once, Nastya looked at me in a very strange and unusual way. She was sucking the wet nurse’s breast and looking at me, but not in a childish way at all. To be honest, her gaze made me feel uneasy. I turned away, walked over to the window, and began to look at it. It was a winter evening. The whole window was covered with frost. There was one clear patch in the middle. In that little dark spot, I could see my Nastenka’s face. Her face was . . . I don’t know how to describe it . . . her face looked like it belonged to an adult. An adult who was even older than I was. I got scared. And then, for some reason, I said ‘Batu.’”

“Batu?” Father Andrei wrinkled his brow. “As in Batu Khan?”

“I don’t know,” sighed Sablina. “Maybe I said it differently. But what I remember now is ‘Batu.’”

“Have some wine,” Sablin moved a glass over to her.

She drank obediently.

“Sometimes, the devil can seem to appear even in those closest to us.” Rumyantsev held out his empty plate. “I’d like some thigh, please, just that bit there.”

“Where?” Sablina got up.

“The well-done part there.”

She began to cut off a piece.

“Sergei Arkadych,” Mamut wiped at his greasy lips. “Your wife’s had enough. Call the cook back.”

“What on earth do you mean?” Sablina smiled. “I find serving you to be extremely pleasant.”

“I look after my cook’s health,” Sablin took a gulp of his wine. “Give me some of the neck, Sashenka, and don’t forget the vertebrae . . . Yes. I look after his health! And I respect him!”

“He’s a good cook,” Father Andrei took a crunchy bite of Nastya’s nose, “if a little rustic.”

“Rustic, brother? His jack snipe in cranberry is even better than Testov’s. There’s not a sauce he can’t make. Do you remember his suckling pigs at Easter?”

“Of course!”

“I brought him eight cookbooks. Yes-yes-yes! To the cook! How could I . . .” Finishing his bite, Sablin stood up, grabbed onto Nastya’s foot, and twisted it.

Bones cracked.

“Make a cut right here, Sashenka . . .”

Sablina made the cut. Sablin tore off the foot, picked up the half-empty bottle of Falerno, and walked from the dining room into the kitchen. In the stuffy, vanilla-scented air of the kitchen, the cook was laboring over a lemon-pink cake pyramid, covering it with creamy, frosted roses from a paper tube. The scullery maid was whipping cream and blueberries next to him.

“Savely!” Sablin was looking for a glass, but found a copper mug instead. “Take this.”

Having wiped the cream from his hands onto his apron, the cook humbly accepted the mug.

“You worked hard today,” Sablin filled the mug to the brim. “Drink in memory of Nastya.”

“Thank you very much.” The cook crossed himself carefully, so as not to spill the wine, brought the mug to his lips, then slowly drank it down to its dregs.

“Eat,” Sablin handed him the foot.

Savely took the foot, gave it a once-over, and bit down hard. Sablin stared at him scornfully. The cook chewed weightily and thoughtfully, as if this were an important piece of work. His carefully trimmed beard moved up and down.

“How does my daughter taste?” asked Sergei Arkadeyevich.

“Fine,” the cook swallowed. “It roasted up nicely. That oven works magic.”

Sablin slapped him on the back, turned away, and walked into the dining room.

Everyone was arguing.

“First, my father would sow lentils and, when they came up, he’d immediately plow them and plant wheat,” Father Andrei explained weightily. “By the Feast of the Transfiguration, the wheat was so tall that my sister and I would play hide and seek in it. You didn’t have to drag it to the threshing barn either. If you pushed the sheafs, they would fall over on their own. We had straw for the stove all through the winter. And you talk to me about steam-powered threshing machines!”

“In that case, Father, why don’t we just return to the Stone Age?” Rumyantsev laughed cruelly. “It’ll be like a song: they plow with their hands and they reap with their nails.”

“We can return to the Stone Age,” Mamut re-lit his cigar, “as long as there’s something to plow.”

“How can it be you’re talking about bread again?” Sablin tucked a new napkin under his collar. “Devil take this conversation! I’m sick of it. Can it be we have nothing else to discuss, friends?”

“They’re men, Sergei Arkadych,” Rumyantseva swirled around the wine in her glass. “You can’t just feed them with bread, they also have to argue about all the mechan . . .”

“What?!” Sablin hit his fist on the table, interrupting her in a contrivedly menacing way. “Where do you see any bre-ad?! Where, my fair lady, do you see any bre-ad?! I didn’t invite you here to break bread! What bre-ad? Let me ask you this—with what kind of bread do I feed men? Hmm? With this bread here?” He picked up Arina’s plate with the half-eaten pubis on it. “Does this look like a boule à la française to you?”

Rumyantseva stared at him with her mouth hanging open.