"Personal Life" A Humorous Short Story About Getting Old - by Mikhail Zoshchenko

Personal Life 

This short story by Zoshchenko is consistent with his humorous style regarding the everyday Soviet citizen under Stalin. This story begins with a man walking along the streets and noticing that women do not look at him anymore, let alone smile at him. He feels invisible and so he starts to ponder why women no longer notice him. "Why won't the old gals give me a glance? How come? What do they want?" He thinks back to a "bourgeoisie" intellectual he once heard claiming that everything men do is actually for women. "... not only our personal life, but whatever we do, is for women. And struggle, fame, wealth, honor, change of apartments, and the purchase of an overcoat, and so forth and so on - all this is done for the sake of a woman." He thinks that maybe it's not everything, but maybe a man's personal life is in such accord. 

So why won't they notice him anymore? At first, he thinks that it is because he hasn't eaten much lately, and so looks a bit frail. And so he stops and get some food to perk himself up, but with no luck. 1 Then he thinks that maybe he is no longer noticed because he isn't muscular enough. So he sets out and buys all types of exercise equipment, and dedicates six months to continually working out. He even almost injures him on his trapeze equipment, and almost drowns himself swimming trying to get in shape. He builds an incredible physique, but ... no luck. 

So he decides to start doing some cold exposure while he sleeps to get some color back into his face. Giving himself rosy cheeks, he sets out the theatre strutting himself around to gain some attention from women there, only to find jeers and hostility. "There, in the theatre, I go up to the big mirror and I stand admiring my taunted figure, the chest of which now measures thirty five inches. I flex my arms and take a stance, and I spread my legs, now this way, now that. I am sincerely astonished at that fastidiousness on the part of women ... What the devil do they want anyway?" 

But then, in the mirror, he notices that he is not dressed that nicely. His clothes don't properly fit and are a bit tattered. Alas! This must be the problem. So he sets out to get some new clothes. 2 Having acquired a new wardrobe, he sets out for a final piece of a great overcoat from the market. "I go out on the Tver Boulevard, and I step along like a performing camel. I walk here and there, I turn my shoulders, and I do little dance steps with my feet." He receives laughs and jeers, and so continues on and finally spots a woman sitting on a bench, looking warmly at him. 

"And suddenly at the Pushkin Memorial I noticed a well-dressed lady who is looking at me with infinite tenderness and even flirting. I smile in response and seat myself on the bench opposite. A well-dressed lady with still some traces of faded beauty is looking at me steadily. Her eyes slide admiringly along my attractive figure and along my face, on which is written everything good. I bow my head, shrug my shoulders, and, ideologically, I am admiring the harmonious philosophical system of that bourgeois economist concerning the value of women. Then I turn to the lady again, whom I now notice is following my every movement with unblinking eyes. Then I am beginning somehow to be a little afraid of those unblinking eyes." 3

As it turns out, the woman is looking at him because her husband's coat was stolen. She approaches and asks to see the lining of the coat, only to realize that it is her husband's and to let out a scream. Our character then must go down to the police station to make a report ... there they ask him his age, to which he responds with an "almost three digit number." 

Then it hits him ... he doesn't receive attention from women anymore because ... he's just old. 

"'Well, okay, I'll make do!' I tell myself. 'My personal life will consist of labor. I will work. I will help people. A woman isn't the only light in the window.' I begin to poke fun at the words of the bourgeois scholar. 'It's all lies!' I tell myself. 'Idle fabrications! Typical Western nonsense!' I laugh. I spit to the right and to the left. And I turn my eyes away from approaching women." 4

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1 - Zoshchenko, Mikhail. Scenes From the Bathhouse. (Ann Harbor. University of Michigan Press, 1961). Pg. 105.

2 - 106 

3 - 107

4 - 108