‘Why, the editor, I tell you, the editor! Yes, he read it all right. He looked at me as if I had a swollen cheek, looked sidelong into the corner, and even tittered in embarrassment. He crumpled the manuscript needlessly and grunted. The questions he asked seemed crazy to me. Saying nothing about the essence of the novel, he asked me who I was, where I came from, and how long I had been writing, and why no one had heard of me before, and even asked what in my opinion was a totally idiotic question: who had given me the idea of writing a novel on such a strange theme? Finally I got sick of him and asked directly whether he would publish the novel or not. Here he started squirming, mumbled something, and declared that he could not decide the question on his own, that other members of the editorial board had to acquaint themselves with my work — namely, the critics Latunsky and Ariman, and the writer Mstislav Lavrovich.2 He asked me to come in two weeks. I came in two weeks and was received by some girl whose eyes were crossed towards her nose from constant lying.’
‘That’s Lapshennikova, the editorial secretary,’ Ivan said with a smirk. He knew very well the world described so wrathfully by his guest.
‘Maybe,’ the other snapped, ‘and so from her I got my novel back, already quite greasy and dishevelled. Trying to avoid looking me in the eye, Lapshennikova told me that the publisher was provided with material for two years ahead, and therefore the question of printing my novel, as she put it, “did not arise”.
‘What do I remember after that?’ the master muttered, rubbing his temple. ‘Yes, red petals strewn across the title page, and also the eyes of my friend. Yes, those eyes I remember.’
The story of Ivan’s guest was becoming more confused, more filled with all sorts of reticences. He said something about slanting rain and despair in the basement refuge, about having gone elsewhere. He exclaimed in a whisper that he did not blame her in the least for pushing him to fight — oh, no, he did not blame her!
Further on, as Ivan heard, something sudden and strange happened. One day our hero opened a newspaper and saw in it an article by the critic Ariman,3 in which Ariman warned all and sundry that he, that is, our hero, had attempted to foist into print an apology for Jesus Christ.
‘Ah, I remember, I remember!’ Ivan cried out. ‘But I’ve forgotten your name!’
‘Let’s leave my name out of it, I repeat, it no longer exists,’ replied the guest. ‘That’s not the point. Two days later in another newspaper, over the signature of Mstislav Lavrovich, appeared another article, in which its author recommended striking, and striking hard, at Pilatism and at the icon-dauber who had ventured to foist it (again that accursed word!) into print.
‘Dumbfounded by this unheard-of word “Pilatism”, I opened a third newspaper. There were two articles in it, one by Latunsky, the other signed with the initials “N.E.” I assure you, the works of Ariman and Lavrovich could be counted as jokes compared with what Latunsky wrote. Suffice it to say that Latunsky’s article was entitled “A Militant Old Believer”.4 I got so carried away reading the article about myself that I didn’t notice (I had forgotten to lock the door) how she came in and stood before me with a wet umbrella in her hand and wet newspapers as well. Her eyes flashed fire, her trembling hands were cold. First she rushed to kiss me, then, in a hoarse voice, and pounding the table with her fist, she said she would poison Latunsky.’
Ivan grunted somewhat embarrassedly, but said nothing.
‘Joyless autumn days set in,’ the guest went on. The monstrous failure with this novel seemed to have taken out a part of my soul. Essentially speaking, I had nothing more to do, and I lived from one meeting with her to the next. And it was at that time that something happened to me. Devil knows what, Stravinsky probably figured it out long ago. Namely, anguish came over me and certain forebodings appeared.
‘The articles, please note, did not cease. I laughed at the first of them. But the more of them that appeared, the more my attitude towards them changed. The second stage was one of astonishment. Some rare falsity and insecurity could be sensed literally in every line of these articles, despite their threatening and confident tone. I had the feeling, and I couldn’t get rid of it, that the authors of these articles were not saying what they wanted to say, and that their rage sprang precisely from that. And then, imagine, a third stage came - of fear. No, not fear of these articles, you understand, but fear of other things totally unrelated to them or to the novel. Thus, for instance, I began to be afraid of the dark. In short, the stage of mental illness came. It seemed to me, especially as I was falling asleep, that some very cold and pliant octopus was stealing with its tentacles immediately and directly towards my heart. And I had to sleep with the light on.
