‘Why?’ Jekabs breathed, when he could stand the silence no more. ‘Why do that … for me?’
Beside him, Chichikov reached into his pocket and produced one of Jekabs’ soldiers, plundered from him many nights before. ‘Have you any idea?’ he replied, his voice raw through the blisters. ‘When I line up your soldiers, toymaker, I’m a boy again. I’m with my papa and he’s lining up soldiers too. I’m in front of that fire, in Petersburg where we used to live, or I’m in the Gardens of Mars fighting with sticks. I’m … not here, and …’
Cathy imagined him about to say ‘I’m not me’, but the sentiment was too much for a man like Chichikov. He hawked up phlegm, spat it into the snow...
‘And that is how,’ said Jekabs. ‘How I survived, and how I knew what toys truly are. I’d found a kind of … a magic, if you will. A way of reaching the soul of a man... there’s a shared heritage in toys. Take any man and show him a hobby horse, and a little piece of him will be a boy again, desperate to put it between his legs and take a ride. If you’re going to make a toy, you have to hold one truth as inviolable above all others: that, once upon a time, all of us, no matter what we’ve grown up to do or who we’ve grown up to be, were little boys and girls, happy with nothing more than bouncing a ball against a wall...
The Toymakers by Robert Dinsdale
Beside him, Chichikov reached into his pocket and produced one of Jekabs’ soldiers, plundered from him many nights before. ‘Have you any idea?’ he replied, his voice raw through the blisters. ‘When I line up your soldiers, toymaker, I’m a boy again. I’m with my papa and he’s lining up soldiers too. I’m in front of that fire, in Petersburg where we used to live, or I’m in the Gardens of Mars fighting with sticks. I’m … not here, and …’
Cathy imagined him about to say ‘I’m not me’, but the sentiment was too much for a man like Chichikov. He hawked up phlegm, spat it into the snow...
‘And that is how,’ said Jekabs. ‘How I survived, and how I knew what toys truly are. I’d found a kind of … a magic, if you will. A way of reaching the soul of a man... there’s a shared heritage in toys. Take any man and show him a hobby horse, and a little piece of him will be a boy again, desperate to put it between his legs and take a ride. If you’re going to make a toy, you have to hold one truth as inviolable above all others: that, once upon a time, all of us, no matter what we’ve grown up to do or who we’ve grown up to be, were little boys and girls, happy with nothing more than bouncing a ball against a wall...
The Toymakers by Robert Dinsdale