No-Arms

About the story: Andrey Platonov (1899-1951) is now considered by many to be the greatest Russian writer of the 20th century. Like Boris Pasternak and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the other, better-known names who might also be thought worthy of that title, Platonov was someone who for a time believed in the ideals of the Russian Revolution and the Communist Party before commencing a sceptical examination of the new reality it birthed, often by violence, in Russia. The individual and often mystifying emphases of his work and his utterly distinctive (and therefore unassimilable) style made it difficult for him to publish. Though Platonov published a number of great short stories during his lifetime, most of his longer works, along with his plays and screenplays, were published only long after his death. In his last years, he wrote a series of stories based on Russian folktales, infusing the material of these fairly well known stories with the spirit of his own metaphysics. In this tremendously powerful and wrenching story about a woman whose arms are cut off by her own brother, Platonov shows us both the ubiquity of human evil and the persistence of human grace in situations of extreme suffering. Although the story preserves the folktale’s clear distinctions between good and evil people, it is very complex in its understanding of guilt, redemption and justice. The recognition scene in which sundered lovers are reunited will remind Indian readers of a similar scene in Kalidasa’s Shakuntalam, while the final act of violence (and the unforgettable image of a horse returning from the steppe) recalls Oedipus’s self-blinding when he finally perceives all the evil that has passed through him. ‘No-Arms’ is translated by Robert Chandler, one of the most prominent contemporary translators of Russian literature into English and also the translator of Platonov’s short stories and the great novels The Foundation Pit and Happy Moscow.

There was once an old peasant who lived in a village with his wife and their two children. He came to the end of his life and he died. Then it was his old woman’s turn to get ready to die—her time had come too. She called the children to her, her son and her daughter. The daughter was the elder, the son the younger.

She said to her son, “Obey your sister in everything, as you have obeyed me. Now she will be a mother to you.”

The mother gave a last sigh—she was sorry to be parting from her children forever—and then died.

After the death of their parents, the children lived as their mother had told them to live. The brother obeyed his sister, and the sister took care of her brother and loved him.

And so they lived on without their parents, perhaps many years, perhaps few. One day the sister said to her brother, “It’s hard for me to keep house on my own, and it’s time you were married. Marry—then there’ll be a mistress to look after the home.”

But the brother did not want to marry. “The home has a mistress already,” he said. “Why do we need a second mistress?”

“I’ll help her,” said his sister. “With two of us the work will be easier.”

The brother didn’t want to marry, but he didn’t dare disobey his elder sister. He respected her as if she were his mother.

The brother married and began to live happily with his wife. As for his sister, he loved and respected her just as before, obeying her in everything.

At first his wife seemed not to mind her sister-in-law. And the sister-in-law, for her part, did all she could to be obliging.

But soon the wife began to feel upset. She wanted to be first in the home; she wanted her word to count for more than her sister-in-law’s. The young master would go off to plough, or to market, or maybe into the forest. And when he came back, he would find trouble. His wife would start complaining to him about his sister: she didn’t know how to do anything properly, she had a wicked temper, she’d broken the new pot...

The husband said nothing. “I go out,” he thought, “and trouble comes in. That’s not good at all.”

But a man can’t stay at home all the time.

Once more the brother left home; once more he found trouble when he came back.

“It’s none of my business—but that sister of yours will make beggars of us all. Just look in the barn! Our cow Zhdanka died yesterday. Your hateful sister fed her something and the cow’s fallen down dead.”

His wife didn’t say that she’d fed the cow poisonous herbs herself, just to be rid of her husband’s sister.

The brother spoke to his sister. “So you’ve poisoned the cow, sister. We’ll have to earn a lot of money to buy another.”

The sister was innocent, but she took the blame on herself. She didn’t want her brother to think ill of his wife.

“I’ve slipped up, brother,” she said. “It won’t happen again.”

“Well then,” said her brother, “give me your blessing. I must go and work in the forest and earn a few kopeks. Look after everything at home, sister, make sure nothing goes wrong. When my wife gives birth, help the child into the world.”

Off he rode to the forest—and it was a long time before he returned. While he was away, his wife gave birth to a little son, and his sister helped the boy into the world and took him into her heart. But the boy was not to live long in the world: one night, his mother lay on him inadvertently in her sleep, and he died.

Just then the brother came back from the forest. At home he found sorrow. His wife was weeping and howling: “It’s that sister of yours, the snake in the grass. She’s smothered our little son, next she’ll be the death of me too.”

The brother heard his wife’s words and was filled with fury. He called his sister: “I thought you were to be a mother to me. I’ve grudged you nothing, neither bread nor clothes, and I’ve always obeyed you. And now you’ve taken away my only son. If he’d lived, he’d have been a comfort to me, a hope to me when I’m old. He’d have fed you too, when you can no longer work. And you’ve killed him.”

And he added, “Never again will you see the light of the world.”

The sister tried to say something in answer, but in his grief and fury the brother didn’t listen, and he looked at his sister as if he were a stranger, as if he didn’t know her.

Early next morning the brother woke his sister.

“Get ready,” he said. “We’re leaving.”

“But it’s early, brother,” said the sister. “The sky’s still dark.”

The brother wasn’t listening. “Get ready,” he repeated, “and put on your best dress.”

“But, brother, dear brother, today’s not even a holiday,” the sister said in answer.

But the brother didn’t hear her at all; he was already harnessing the horses.

He took her into the forest and then he stopped the horses. It was still early, barely light.

In the forest stood a tree-stump. The brother told his sister to kneel down and lay her head on it.

The sister laid her arms on the tree-stump, and her head on her arms.

“Forgive me, brother,” she managed to say, and she wanted to add that she was not to blame for anything; maybe he would hear her now.

But the brother had already raised his axe high in the air. He had no time to listen to his sister.

Just then a little bird called out from a branch, and its voice was merry and ringing. The sister wanted to listen to the bird, and she lifted her head, leaving her arms on the tree-stump.

The brother brought his axe down and chopped off both her arms at the elbow. He could have forgiven no one the death of his son, not even his own mother.

“Quick!” he said. “Be off with you. Go where your eyes look. I’d wanted to cut off your head, but it seems your fate is to live.”

The brother looked at his sister and wept. “Why is it,” he thought, “that happiness is just happiness, while one sorrow always becomes two? Now I have no son, and no sister.”

The brother started the horses and rode away; his sister remained alone in the forest. She got up from the ground and set off, with no arms, where her eyes looked. The paths were all long overgrown and she had no idea where they led. Soon there were no longer any paths at all. She was lost, weak from not eating, her dress torn to rags.

Days passed; nights passed. The sister walked on, following where her eyes looked. It was strange not to have any arms, and she missed her brother. She walked on, crying:

Winds, winds, unruly winds,

Take my tears to my mother,

Take them to my father.

But I have no mother, I have no father.

Sun, sun, high in the sky,

Give warmth to me, unhappy me.

The light of the wide world before her was all darkened by tears, and she couldn’t wipe them away. She walked on, not seeing how the wind combed her hair and the sun brightened her cheeks, making her pretty and fair of face. It must be true what they say—that good people are made beautiful even by grief, while the evil are disfigured even by beauty.

When her tears dried, there was an orchard in front of her; the forest had gone. And there were apples ripening on the trees—big, juicy ones. Some of them were ripening quite low: yes, she could reach them with her mouth. The sister ate one apple and had a bite of a second, but she didn’t touch a third apple, she held herself back: she was eating what belonged to a stranger for the first time, compelled by mortal hunger.

Just then the watchman came up to her and shouted: “You witch! What’s brought you here, snatching other people’s apples with your mouth? Thirty years I’ve been guarding this orchard and not one apple’s ever been stolen. And now you come along and start munching. You’ll catch it, thief with no arms!”

The watchman cursed her roundly and took the armless woman to the master of the orchard.

Just then the master’s young son was sitting in the hut and looking out of the window. He saw a young maiden. She was thin and wretched, quite plain at first glance, but her eyes were lit by such a good and kind soul that this made her more beautiful than any charm could, and there was no woman in the world more beautiful. He marvelled at this strange girl, his heart beating with joy.

“Let her go!” he called out to the watchman.

He went up to the girl and saw she had no arms. And he loved her still more: yes, not even mutilation can disfigure someone you love.

But then the young man felt sad: what would his father say?

He went up to his father, bowed and said, “Father, I have news for you: news of joy, not of sorrow. Our watchman’s caught a girl in the orchard, and now there’s no one dearer to me in the world. Don’t break my heart, father. Allow me to marry her.”

His father went outside, looked at the girl with no arms, and said: “What’s the matter with you, my son? There are plenty of girls who are prettier than she is—and it certainly won’t be hard to find one who’s richer. Look at her—an armless cripple! You’ll end up walking behind her with a beggar’s pouch.”

“There may be prettier girls in the world,” said the son, “but there are none who are dearer to me. And as for the beggar’s pouch, well, father, if that’s to be our fate, then so be it.”

The father thought deeply.

“Make up your own mind, son. I have power in my home and power in my garden, but I have no power in your heart. Your heart’s not an apple.”

There was an honourable wedding, and the young people began to live together, like all young people. They lived peacefully, they lived happily, but it was not their lot to live together for long: soon they had to part.

War had broken out against the enemy, and the husband of the girl with no arms was taken to serve in the army. As he left, he spoke to his father: “Take care of my wife, father. Soon she’ll be giving birth. Write me a letter then—so I can rejoice in a son or a daughter.”

“Don’t grieve, my son,” said the father. “And don’t lay down your life for nothing. You’re going to miss your wife, but don’t grieve about her—she’ll be like a daughter to me.”

And the young man set off to the war. Soon her time came, and his wife without arms bore him a son. She looked at the child. The grandfather looked at the child. The little boy’s hands were golden, the moon shone bright on his forehead, and where his heart was, there glowed the sun. Yes, for a mother or a grandfather there is no other kind of child.

The grandfather set off to the city, to sell apples in the market. The mother with no arms called the old watchman and told him to write a letter to her husband. In his time the old man had served in the army too, and he had learned to read and write there. First she told him to write greetings—from herself and from her father-in-law—and then to say that she’d given birth to a fine son, and to say everything about him, why it was that everyone who looked at him felt glad.

The old man folded the letter, tucked it inside his shirt and set off.

He walked through forests; he walked through open steppe. Before he knew it, it was night. Not far away stood a hut. He asked to stay the night there.

The owners invited him in and gave him supper. The husband lay down and fell asleep, but the wife began to question the old man: who were his people? Where had he come from and where was he going? And how had he lived to be old—through good times or bad times, in plenty or in hunger?

The old man told her how he had lived in the past and what he was doing now. “Now,” he said, “I’m taking good news to the young master. His wife has borne him a son. And his wife has no arms, but she has a sweet face, and there can’t be anyone in the world more gentle-hearted.”

The mistress of the hut looked surprised. “She hasn’t got any arms at all?”

“No,” said the old man. “They say her own brother chopped them off. I suppose he must have been in a frenzy of rage.”

The woman looked surprised again. “Goodness me! What villains there are in the world! But what have you done with your news? Take care you don’t lose it!”

“Here it is,” said the old man. “It’s in a paper, tucked safe inside my shirt.”

“Why not go and have a good steam?” said the woman. “You must be worn out by now and you’ll have sweated on the road. I’ll get the bath-house stove going right away.”

The old man was glad. “What can be better than an hour in the bath-house?” he thought to himself.

The woman heated up the stove. The old man took off his clothes and went to steam his old bones. But it wasn’t from respect or kindness of heart that the woman had prepared the bath-house for the traveller: no, her husband was No-Arms’s brother, it was from this very hut that he had taken her to the forest, meaning to put her to death. She found the letter in the old man’s undershirt. She read it, threw it into the stove, wrote out another letter and put this new letter where the old one had been. This new letter said that the wife had borne her husband not a son, but something like a piglet in front, like a dog from behind, and with a back like a hedgehog, and as to what should be done with it, let her husband decide.

Morning came, and the old man went on further.

Time passed—and there was the same old man, coming back along the same road. The woman saw him and invited him into her hut.

The old man went inside, to stay the night in a familiar hut. The woman asked him what message he was taking home: what had the young master said to him?

“I didn’t see the young master. He was fighting. After the battle was over, they gave me a letter from him. His wishes are there in the letter.”

“What are his wishes?” asked the woman.

“How would I know?” said the old man. “It isn’t for me to read his letter.”

The old man prepared to lie down for the night. Outside it was already dark.

“Let me darn your shirt, grandad,” said the woman. “Look at what you’ve done to it on the road!”

But the old man was already asleep. The woman took his shirt and looked inside. There, sewed into the lining, she found the letter. She unstitched it and began to read. The letter was from the husband to his wife with no arms. In it he told her to take care of their child and cherish it, and as for the child being born misshapen, it would be none the less precious and dear to him. The husband of the wife with no arms also asked his own father to look after the child and care for it.

“No,” whispered the woman. “Your father will not take care of the child.”

And she wrote another letter, as if from the husband of No-Arms. The letter was addressed to his father, with not a word for his wife. In it the husband asked his father to throw his wife out of the house, together with her son. He wanted nothing more to do with her: why should he live with a wife with no arms? She was no wife for a warrior; if he returned whole from the war, he would start a new family.

The woman darned the old man’s shirt and sewed her own letter into the lining, keeping the true letter herself.

And the old man went on his way.

He went back to his master, the father-in-law of No-Arms, and gave him the letter.

The old master read the letter and called No-Arms.

“Good day, mistress,” he said.

“Good day, father,” she replied. “But what kind of mistress am I? I’m the youngest in the home.”

“And I,” the old father-in-law said sadly, “am no master. When the watchman brought you in, I wanted to send you away, but you stayed. And now I want you to live all your life here in my home, but you are going to leave forever.”

And he told her what his son had written. “He’s told me I must send you away. His heart must have changed towards you.”

In the morning No-Arms tucked her baby son in the folds of her skirt, gripped the hem between her teeth, and left. She went where everyone goes when they have nowhere to go to—where her eyes looked.

And the old father-in-law was left on his own. He began to miss his grandson; he began to miss his daughter-in-law with no arms. He called the old watchman and told him to search for No-Arms and her son and bring them back home. The watchman set off through the woods and fields and wandered about for a long time, calling to No-Arms. But the world is wide—how could he hope to find them? The watchman returned with nothing.

The old orchard keeper began to grieve and pine. One day he lay down to sleep and didn’t wake up. His own sorrow was the death of him.

As for No-Arms, she had gone on her way through the wide world, following where her eyes looked. She walked through open steppe; she began to feel thirsty. Then she entered a forest. In the forest was an old grandfather oak tree, and not far from that oak—a well. No-Arms bent down over the well, but the water was too far away, she couldn’t drink. No-Arms bent down lower: maybe she could reach it after all. There it was, water. ‘At least I can wet my lips,’ No-Arms said to herself. Her lips touched the water, she unclenched her teeth, and down fell the child, out of her skirt and into the well. The mother stretched after him, remembered that she was a cripple and began to weep. “Alas,” thought No-Arms, “why was I ever born? I can endure both grief and injury, and I’ve given birth to a child—but now I’m unable to save him!”

And through the water she sees her son, lying at the bottom of the well. And she also sees that her arms have grown; she stretches them out to her son and grabs hold of him. But after she’s lifted him out of the water, after she’s saved him—once again she has no arms.

And No-Arms walked on further with her son—her son who had been saved. As it got dark, she came to a village and asked to stay the night there. In the morning No-Arms was about to set off again, but the people in that village were kind people; they took in and welcomed the mother with no arms, so she could live there and bring up her child among them.

No-Arms’s son grew up among good people, but the war where his father was fighting had still not finished. In those days wars lasted for many years.

The time came—and No-Arms’s son was taken to fight too. His mother fitted him out with everything he might need; the whole village helped her to equip the young warrior. They bought him clothes and victuals. They bought him a horse—let him ride to the war. The mother bade farewell to her only son.

“Go now,” she said, “and come back alive. Your father’s fighting there too. Now it’s your turn, my son. If the enemy invades, it will be the end of us; but if you drive them out, we shall never be parted again.”

Off rode her son to the war. His mother was now all alone, and she began to yearn for him. She thought of her son all day and dreamed of him at night. Sometimes he had killed all the enemy and was on his way back to her; sometimes he was lying dead in a field, crows pecking his eyes out.

Her heart couldn’t bear it. No-Arms dressed herself as a soldier and set off to the war. When she got there, the soldiers thought she was a man and just said, “You should be at home, my friend, sitting on the stove. What can a cripple do in a war? You’re a brave fellow, but this is no place for you.”

But there was no other place for No-Arms. She began to care for the sick and the dying. Sometimes a man would be about to die—and her good and kind words would keep him alive. Or a soldier would lose heart, she’d walk in front of him towards the enemy, and the despondent warrior would raise his sword again. Yes, that’s how it was.

And then one day No-Arms caught sight of her son. He was in the middle of the battlefield, and the enemy were falling dead around him. He was hard pressed. All his comrades, everyone who had fought beside him, had now fallen, and her son stood alone. But in place of the enemies he

killed came more enemies, and there was no end to them.

His mother watched: would her son hold out or not? His power was great, but all power can be overpowered. And then a whole dark host fell on him, and she could no longer see if he was alive or dead.

From a distance, the commander himself was watching the battle. He said to his aide, “Find out the name of that warrior of ours over there. Find out whose son he is, and send him help straight away.”

But when would this help come? In time, or too late? Suddenly, No-Arms saw her son rise up from the ground. All around him were fallen enemies. And at that moment a black host bore down on him. Her time—the mother understood—had come. She shouted out, “Stand firm, my son! Stand firm, my only begotten son!”—and rushed to his side.

She didn’t stop to think that she had no arms—all she knew was her heart beating away in fury against the enemy and with love for her son—and then she felt her arms again, and the strength in them, as though her brother had never chopped them off. She snatched up the sharp sword of a fallen warrior and started to cut down the enemies crowding around her son. She fought for a long time, defending her son; she was beginning to tire and, as for her son, he was soaked in blood and barely able to stand. Then came the help sent by the commander. Fresh soldiers cut down the remnant of the enemy; those who had fallen at the hands of No-Arms and her son already lay dead. No-Arms’s son had fought by his mother’s side, but he hadn’t recognised her: he had had no time to look at her, and even if he had, he wouldn’t have known her—his mother had no arms, while the arms of this warrior were mighty.

Soon after the enemy had been defeated, the war came to an end. The commander at once summoned all his bravest warriors, asking each to say who were his people and who was his father, and giving each a reward. He called No-Arms’s son and asked: “Who are your people, young man? Who are your father and mother? They too must be rewarded, for having raised such a son.”

No-Arms’s son hung his head. “I have no father,” he said, “and I can’t remember him. I grew up alone with my mother. The earth was our bed, and the sky our covering. Good people took the place of my father.”

“The people are a father to all fathers,” said the commander. “I am less than they and cannot reward them. But your mother must be rewarded for having raised a brave son. Let her appear before me and take her reward in her hands.”

“But she hasn’t got any hands, she’s got no arms at all,” said No-Arms’s son.

The commander looked sadly and penetratingly at the young warrior.

“Go and fetch your mother,” he said. “Bring her to me.”

No-Arms’s son went back to the village to look for his mother. There he learned that his mother had gone to the war too. She had gone to care for those who had been cut to pieces and mutilated.

He went back and spoke to the commander. His mother had left the village, he told the commander; she was here with the army.

The commander asked everyone who had helped heal the wounded and dying to be brought to him, and he began to reward them for the good work they had done. And when a woman with no arms came up to him, wearing the clothes of a soldier, he looked her in the face and knew her as his wife, and No-Arms recognised him as her husband. No-Arms wanted to embrace her husband—she had been separated from him for a whole age—but she remembered she had no arms. They had withered away again immediately after she had stood by her son in the battle. But No-Arms couldn’t bear it, and she reached out towards her husband. She had always loved him; she had never forgotten him. And then, as if from her heart, her arms grew, as strong as they had ever been, and with them she embraced her husband. And from that moment her arms stayed with her forever.

Then the father called for his son and said to him: “Welcome, my son! I am your father, and you didn’t know me, nor I you. Evil people parted us, but there is a power more powerful than evil.”

The son looked at his father and rejoiced. Then he looked at his mother and saw that his mother now had hands and arms. And he remembered that last battle and the warrior who had defended him with his sword. The son fell on his knees before his mother and kissed her hands that had saved him.

Soon afterwards, when peacetime set in, the commander set off to the house where he had once lived with his father, where he had first seen No-Arms and begun to love her. He took with him his wife and his son and rode off to live in peace. After going some distance, they stopped at the hut of No-Arms’s brother, because it was on their way.

As soon as the brother’s wife saw them, as soon as she saw who had come—No-Arms herself and all her family, all whole and hale, and people of standing—she collapsed at their feet in terror and at once, without being asked, told all she had done to doom No-Arms and her little child.

“Maybe they’ll pardon me,” she thought. “It was a long time ago.”

No-Arms listened to her, and, in answer, told of her own fate, of all she had suffered.

No-Arms’s brother bowed to his sister, and said: “Thank you, sister, for your story—but evil must not be left to bear seed. Forgive me, dearest sister.”

And that night, without his guests knowing, he led from the stables a young mare who wasn’t yet broken in. He twisted the reins, and with them he tied his wife to the mare’s tail and himself to his wife. He called out—and the horse was off, dragging husband and wife through open steppe, beating them to death against the ground.

In the morning, No-Arms and her husband and son waited for their hosts, but only a mare ran up, alone, without any people, out of the open steppe.

The guests waited and waited—and then rode off, back to their home and to long and happy lives. Unhappiness may indeed live in the world, yet only by chance; happiness must live constantly.