Apricot Jam: And Other Stories (4 page)

There was no breeze. The cap-like crowns of the pine trees towered high above their bronze trunks, and every needle on their branches was motionless. As before, not a sound came from anywhere.

The pleasant aroma of pine resin, the peace, and the silence all accentuated their total isolation from the world outside.

Fresh tea, deep brick red in color, was poured into glasses with filigree holders. The conversation, naturally, turned to literary topics.

“
Ah, yes,
”
sighed the Writer, admitting even his imperfections.
“
H
ow we ought to write! Flow powerfully we ought to write! We are given the esteem of all the
people,
we are given the attention of the party, the government, and the particular attention of Comrade Stalin himself ...
”

Was this last little phrase really appropriate for a tea table? But no, it had now become the fashion to speak this way in private gatherings. And the Writer, as everyone could see, was in Stalin
’
s personal favor, to say nothing of his close relationship with Gorky.

“
Creating an art of world significance—that is the task of the writer today. The world is waiting for examples, for architectonics from our literature.
”

His arms, not powerful and even a bit plump but still flexible and free of rheumatism in the hands and fingers, extended to show the scale on which he was prepared to work. (Surely he was not hungry? Yet he had fallen upon the sandwiches almost at once, one after another. People told of how he could give entire lectures, off the cuff, on the
kulebyaka
or the sturgeon . . .)

The Critic, of course, had to have his say on a topic like this!

“
Indeed, they are expecting monumental realism from us. This is an entirely new type and genre of art, the epic of a classless society—literature with a positive hero.
”

God knows, Vasily Kiprianovich was of two minds. Even though this sounded crude and clumsy, it might well be what was needed. Though this seemed like nonsense, the literature of the past truly could not be brought back. It was a fact that an entirely new epoch was unfolding in a process that was evidently irreversible.

Here on this veranda, at this table, in this warm and peaceful light playing in the vivid colors of the jam, it certainly looked as if everything had now been settled and would go on for centuries. The common life that still lagged behind would be raised up to this level and polished by it. None of life
’
s harshness could penetrate here; there were no days and nights of working to fulfill the Five-Year Plan, one that in fact had now been completed in four years and three months.

In any case, what was wrong with the elevated striving to create epic forms in art?

“
Take the tragedy of Anna Karenina, now,
”
said the Writer, making an expansive gesture.
“
That
’
s no more than an empty spot today; it can
’
t be the basis for anything in our art. The wheel of a locomotive can
’
t resolve the contradictions between romantic passion and social censure.
”

But the Critic, that guardian who had administered so many public reprimands, now seemed to have much less of the assurance and intransigence he had displayed in his earlier articles. In fact he had none of the bold, persuasive manner of the Writer. He stood up for
How the Steel Was
Tempered
: there was no question about that; it was the high point of the new literature; it was the new epoch.

It was obvious that the Writer did not care for this Critic at all; it was simply that he was a neighbor and he could not tell him what he thought right to his face.

He did not dispute
How the Steel Was Tempered,
though he did parry by saying that not everything new shows us the way forward. Take RAPP itself, for instance: it presented itself as something entirely new, yet it turned out not to be the tribune of the broad masses and in fact was isolated from them behind a wall of dogmatism.

Now that shot hit the mark! And it seemed that it had been carefully aimed at a spot still tender and vulnerable. The Critic shrank like a mushroom near a flame. How this would have infuriated him only a year ago! But as he retreated, he could only say in his high-pitched voice:
“
Yet RAPP did contribute many valuable things to proletarian culture. It gave it a solidly established center.
”

“
Nothing of the kind!
Not a bit of it!
”
the Writer said, totally sweeping aside the Critic
’
s remarks and almost laughing aloud at the change that had now taken place.
“
Those who voiced their suspicions that the RAPP leadership was edging into the ranks of the
‘
wreckers
’
weren
’
t just making idle chatter.
”

Indeed! What do you think of that?

“
They were trying to find some crafty means of discrediting our literature. They defamed me by calling me reactionary and bourgeois and even claiming that I had scarcely any talent. Yet the critic . . .
”
he paused, gazing intently at the Critic and, it seemed, considering whether to deliver a final blow. But no, he still had his humor and went on, sounding even inspired:
“
. . . the critic should be a
friend
to the writer. It is important to know that you have a friend like that when you write. You don
’
t want some Robespierre in a National Convention trying to use his proscriptive gaze to penetrate every convolution of a writer
’
s brain simply to devise a class-based label for him without caring whether you write with a pen or a piece of chalk.
”

The bit about Robespierre was a shot right to the head. Yes, the epoch had broken in two in quite a disgusting way, and this Writer had managed to shift from being a suspicious Fellow Traveler to someone more reliable. He now had a mysterious aura of independence about him.

Yefim Martynovich blinked his
lashless
eyes and shrank even more. But was he not a
friend
? He had come, after all, to inquire about the Writer
’
s current work and his plans for things to come. The Writer, with his delightfully expansive nature, no longer bore him any malice, however. He revealed that he was now reworking the second part of his trilogy on the Civil War:
“
I haven
’
t adequately shown the organizing role of the Party in it. I also have to come up with a courageous and disciplined Bolshevik to include. But how can you go against your heart? Yes, I also love the old Russia. And because of that I was slow to understand all that had happened and didn
’
t come to terms with the October Revolution immediately. That was a serious mistake. And I spent some difficult years there in Europe.
”
All of this
he said easily, in his tremulous tenor voice and with the captivating sincerity of a
generous nature. And the strength of his solid position at the center of Soviet literature radiated from him all the more tangibly. (After all, even Gorky had made the same serious mistake by emigrating for a time.)

“
And who dares speak of our writers
’
lack of freedom? When I write,
I
feel the same free sweep of a mowing peasant from one of
Koltsov
’
s
poems. My hands are simply itching to get to work!
”

What he said had to be believed. It came straight from his heart. Yes, what a fine fellow he was.

Even the bald spot on his venerable head shone honestly and impressively.

But one could never accept that he regarded the upper level of the working intelligentsia as better informed than he.

“
Invention in literature is sometimes superior to truth. Literary characters may say things they would never have said in real life, and this can be a greater revelation than the naked truth. It can be a regular festival for art. When I write, I can comprehend my reader through my imagination, and I can see
exactly
what he needs.
”

He warmed to his topic and said as if addressing only Vasily Kiprianovich, and with fondness:
“
The
language
of a work of art is simply
everything
! Had Leo Tolstoy been able to think as clearly as Comrade Stalin he would not have tangled himself in long sentences. How can one approach the language of the common people? Even Turgenev, that Frenchman in Russian garb, and the Symbolists are simply seduced by the French syntax. I have to admit that in 1917, when I was still living the bohemian life, with an outrageous haircut though terribly shy, I had a literary crisis. I realized that, in fact, I didn
’
t really know Russian. I didn
’
t have a feeling for what mode of expression to use in a sentence. And do you know what set me on the right path?
Studying legal documents from the seventeenth century and earlier.
When an accused was being questioned and tortured, the scribes would record precisely and concisely what he said. While someone was being flogged, stretched on the rack, or burned with a hot iron, the most unadorned speech, coming from his very bowels, would burst forth from him. And this is something absolutely new! It
’
s the language Russians have been speaking for a thousand years, but none of our writers have used it. Now this,
”
he said, dripping some of the thick apricot jam from a teaspoon onto a small glass dish,
“
this very amber transparency, this surprising color and light should be present in the literary language as well.
”

And, indeed, every single apricot lay like a condensed fragment of sunlight in the crystal bowl. The cherry jam also had its own mysterious
color, imperceptibly different from
a dark
claret, yet it was not the right color and could not be compared with the apricot.

“
Now and again these days a letter surfaces from some reader who writes in the primordial language. I had one not long ago from a workman building a factory
in Kharkov. His language doesn
’
t follow today
’
s rules, yet it had such compelling combinations and use of grammatical cases! I envy the writer!
‘
I didn
’
t
bewray
my design,
’
‘
There was no cause for
evadement
,
’
or,
‘
There
’
s queer small substance to this heroism.
’
What do you think? Only an ear that hasn
’
t been intimidated by book learning can come up with something like that. And his vocabulary! It makes your mouth water.
‘
I found myself a sojourning,
’
‘
We sweated and strained and learned to live with it,
’
‘
forenenst
the prison,
’
‘
I became entirely bereft of feelings.
’
Things like that you can
’
t invent, even if you swallow your pen, as
Nekrasov
said. And if someone offers you such turns of phrase, you absolutely have to pick them up . . .
”

“
Are you planning to reply in the same fashion?
”
asked Vasily Kiprianovich.

“
What can I say to him? The point isn
’
t in the answer. The point is in discovering a language.
”

1994

<
>

~ * ~

EGO

1

Even before he reached his thirties, even before the German War, Pavel Vasilyevich Ektov realized that he was a confirmed and perhaps
even
a natural-born activist in the rural cooperative movement, and so he never took up any of the grandiose, earth-shaking causes of the time. In order to keep true to his beliefs, he had to engage in some bitter debates on how best to remake the life around him and to resist the temptations and withstand the rebukes of the revolutionary democrats: devoting himself to social change by promoting only
“
small deeds
”
was something trivial; he was not merely squandering his energy on useless work, he was betraying the whole of humanity for the sake of a few people around him; it was cheap philanthropy that would lead to no great end. Now, they said, we have found the path to the universal salvation of humanity; now we have the actual key to achieving the ideal of happiness for all the people. And what can your petty notions of one person helping another and the simple easing of day-to-day tribulations achieve in comparison with that?