“The Yaureys have left for Israel. / Deer fled to Finland. / The fish went to Japan. / In the capital there remained instants and dissidents. They fought. ”
So the poet living in Leningrad, who he calls the Capital, talks about his time. However, he calls everything in his own way, changing the usual words, not knowing the boundaries of either geographical or chronological. In the morning, he leaves his attic in the Ballet House along the Bunny Rosa (i.e., Architect Rossi) on Nevsky, not on Nessky Prospekt. At eleven o'clock, the seven-headed monster Nessie pops up there: “instants and dissidents kneel down and bow to Nessie, drink: instants from the cup of honor, washed down with a sauce of conscience, and the dissident - a glass of Satanism, drinks, having a bite, chewing cuffs. Drinking a chat ... Ideas are heard here and there! ”
The poet himself presents himself as follows: “I did not eat 666 days: I drank. I: Ivan Pavlovich Basmanov, I am 437 years old. " Basmanov is the first adviser and libel of False Dmitry, who remained faithful to him until the last minute, killed with a sword in his hand. Another poet calls himself a Geometer, and the young poetesses who study with him are geometrical. They often visit his attic, in the mornings he sees off another girl and drinks the egg that lies in his refrigerator, always one. Miracles are available to the poet. Here he is, "walking" in the city, reaching the sea to them. St. Belta (i.e., the Baltic Sea) and, like Christ, walks along the waves. But he is surrounded by patrol boats and forced to go ashore. The “Instants” do not need a miracle, they want the poet, like the others, to paint their portraits, because they do not spare “brulees” (that is, rubles) for this. They also hypocritically urge the poet to “heal” fellow citizens. The poet barely restrained himself so as not to gasp the "dummies" with "damask steel - on the head." But nevertheless he heals the terrible deaf-mute drunkard Zubikomlyazgik, he finds hearing and speech. What heals? His own scary look, because, like many around him, the poet is in a state of hangover and looks even worse than others.
“My syllable is composed,” the poet admits and tells readers his own “classic short story”, “Patmos Island”. On the seashore, in tents, a scientific expedition of three people lives: Julia - a specialist in dolphins, Julius - “a lad with a theodolite and alpenstock, a grain of sand grains” and the author himself, he draws “a stick in the sand, archiving”. Julia and Julius love each other. Julia is engaged in experiments for the armed forces, the goal is to make kamikaze from dolphins. Dolphins die one by one, and it seems to the author that they all commit suicide. Julia has a dog, Kristia, at the request of Julia, he kills her, causing the indignation of the author. The quarrel leads to a strange and cruel duel: the author and Julius take turns jumping from a boat to an iron stake. One of them will inevitably die, "the second will fall in love with Julia." Julius dies. Julia gives favor to the winner and goes to the capital to defend a thesis on dolphins.
Basmanov is lonely: “I have no honor to rank myself in the human caste of beings. I’m not a person, but I don’t know who I am. ” The poet is strangled with tears, but his cry is heard only by the secret services, on behalf of which the head of the gendarmes Major Miliuta Skorlupko visits him. The next day, Basmanova is invited by a senior lady of the Titan, Sebastyanovna Suzdaltseva, as it turns out - a colonel in the secret chancellery. Ivan Pavlovich leaves the house of “instants” through a window to which a personal Boeing is served.
In the mornings, the poet leaves the house and visits the “Ice Cream Maker”, where Katya sells “red meat” and drinks alcohol, even drinks “Red Moscow” cologne. “The shopkeepers reign in the capital. All power is with them. ” The poet erects a monument to Katya "on Nesssky Prospekt, between the Ellipseevsky Deli, Public Beliberdeka, the Palace of Juniors named after St. Joule-Lenz and the Theater. St. Yushkina. " Yes, this is the same monument to Catherine II. Here the poet daily observes the life and customs of the “bloodsuckers” that have not changed for centuries: he gave this name to his compatriots, since they are “quick to shed blood” and worship the Beast.
The poet recalls different stories. Here is a "sentimental novel" about an "instant idolog" who reached high ranks and lived with his young wife "from congress to congress." The wife is cheating on him with a thoroughbred dog, whom the jealous husband treacherously kills. Here is the story of the poet X., the “nugget” strangled by his wife Alena Kulybina, also a poet. And here is the story of the brave hero M.N. Vodopyanov, the astronaut. After a forced planting in an orange grove, he ate only oranges for ten days and now suffers from a strange nervous disease: he takes revenge on oranges, buys, peels them “alive” and puts them in a closet.
Gradually, we learn about the fate of the poet himself. About his wife Maya - capricious, unpredictable, mysteriously feminine. About the unfaithful chemist Fedor trying to seduce Maya. About the lustful “esthete” Wife Jasminsky. About Leo Tolstoy - this is the name of Maya’s father: this “soldier of all wars, instant office of the Secret Office” became an exceptional moralist in old age. Confused in life, Maya commits suicide. “We killed Maya ... We are all killers,” the poet tells himself, experiencing the death of his beloved woman as his own death. "For three days I was dead, and now I am risen." Risen, for in the life of the poet there is another, special dimension. In it, he is absolutely free and independent, conducts a continuous dialogue with Khlebnikov, Tsvetaeva, Indian mathematician Ramanujan, dancer Vaclav Nizhinsky, who lived before in the same House of Ballet, where the poet now lives. "Tomorrow, Vaclav Nizhinsky will turn 30 years old and he will go crazy." But a moment before madness, he (and with him the poet) manages to say: “I want to love, to love. / I am love, not atrocity. / I am not a bloodthirsty animal. / I am a man. / I am a man. "
