The destiny of a professor's wife

Daniil  Kharms

Once a professor had something to eat, and you could not say a little something, and he began to feel sick. His wife approached him and said: "What's wrong with you?" And the professor said: "Nothing." The wife went back to the kitchen.

The professor lay down on a divan, stayed there for a while, got some rest, and went to work.

And there, a surprise awaited him: They had cut down his salary, instead of 650 rubles now he made only 500. The professor tried everything, but nothing would help. He went to the director, but the director wanted to strangle him. He went to the bookkeeper, and the bookkeeper said: "You should go see the director." The professor got on a train and went to Moscow.

On the train the professor caught the flu. When he got to Moscow, he was so sick he could not get off the train.

He was put on a stretcher and taken to a hospital.

He stayed there no longer than four days and died.

The professor was cremated, and his ashes were put in a little jar and sent off to his wife.

So here is the professor's wife, sitting and drinking coffee. Suddenly the doorbell rings. What's going on? "You got a parcel." The wife is very happy, she is smiling, tipping the mailman with 5 rubles, and quickly opens the parcel.

She looks, and inside the parcel are a little jar with the ashes and a note: "This is all that is left of your husband."

The wife cannot understand what is going on, she shakes the jar, looks at it, she reads the note six times - finally she understands and gets really sad.

The wife gets oh so very sad, she cries for three hours and then decides to bury the jar with the ashes. She wraps the jar in a newspaper and takes it to 1st Petoletka Park, formerly known as Tavrinchesky.

The wife finds a spot, a little out of the way, and then, as she is about to start digging - a park guard appears. "Hey!" shouts the guard. "What are you doing here?" The wife gets scared and says: "Oh nothing, I wanted to catch some frogs in a jar." "Well," says the guard, "that's OK, but be careful, it's forbidden to walk on the grass."

When the guard leaves, the wife buries the jar in the ground, packs the dirt and goes for a walk around the park.

In the park a sailor approaches her. "Let's," he says, "go somewhere and sleep." She says: "Why would we sleep in the middle of the day?" And he is going on: "Sleep, sleep."

And really, the wife got sleepy.

She is walking around and feeling very sleepy. Around her, some blue and green people are running around - and she is getting sleepier and sleepier.

She is walking and sleeping. And she dreams that Leo Tolstoy approaches her with a patty in his hand. She asks him: "What is this?" And he points at the patty and says: "See." He says: "Here I made something, and now I want the whole world to see it. So," he says, "everybody can share it."

The wife looks and sees that this is not Tolstoy anymore, but a shack, and on the shack there is a hen.

The wife starts chasing the hen, but the hen gets under the bed and from there peeks out, but now as a rabbit.

The wife goes under the bed after the rabbit, and wakes up.

She wakes up and sees: Really, she is under the bed.

She gets out from under the bed and sees - her own room. See, here is the table with the unfinished cup of coffee. On the table is the note: "This is all that is left of your husband."

The wife cries again and sits down to finish the coffee.

Suddenly the doorbell rings. What's going on? Some people come in and order her: "Let's go."

"Where?" asks the wife.

"To a loony-bin," answer the people.

The wife starts to scream and resist them, but the people get her and take her to the loony-bin.

And here, a completely normal woman is sitting on a bed in a loony-bin with a note in her hands, and fishing, all over the floor, for some little, invisible fish.

This professor's wife is just one sad example of many unlucky people who in their lives do not take the place which they deserve.

August 11, 1936