I sat in the room full. Book: Literary Notes

On the Courage of a Writer

Published according to the edition: Yu. Kazakov. Evening call, evening Bell. In 3 vols. Publishing House "Russian World"

I was sitting at the top of this trodden, well-to-do, filled with various sailors and expeditions, filthy, beautiful Arkhangelsk hotel (in its old wing), in our room, among torn backpacks, scattered things, among all these boots, packs of cigarettes, razors, guns, cartridges and everything else, after a heavy, unnecessary argument about literature, he sat near the window, sadly propped himself up, and it was too late, for the umpteenth time the humble White Night and poured into me like poison, calling even further, and although I was angry, it was good, fun from the thought that tomorrow we need to get settled on a schooner in order to go then to Novaya Zemlya and even further, somewhere in the Kara Sea.

And I kept looking out the window into the distance, over the roofs, at the bright horizon with light pink clouds. On the Dvina, gleaming here and there between the roofs, huge timber trucks stood black in the roadstead, weakly blinking their masthead lights, sometimes steam hissed, the working propellers muttered muffledly, the high sirens of tugboats yelped like dogs, and farewell horns buzzed powerfully and sadly.

Cars, now rare, rustled below, trams rumbled even more rarely. Downstairs the restaurant was noisy, buzzing at that hour, playful, chirping and pounding the orchestra (at that time some pensions played there in the evenings), and I could hear it well, even though the restaurant windows overlooked the courtyard. Downstairs, the irreplaceable, eternal uncle Vasya did not let various swindlers into the restaurant, who were hungry for a luxurious life, and at that hour my happy friend-friend was sitting in the restaurant with Romanian circus performers, talking to them in Spanish and Eskimo, and I was alone, that's all he remembered how we had just been arguing downstairs about literature with a local connoisseur, and thought about the courage of the writer.

A writer must be courageous, I thought, because his life is hard. When he is alone with a blank sheet of paper, everything is decisively against him. Against him are millions of previously written books - it's just scary to think - and thoughts about why else to write when all this has already been said. Against him a headache and self-doubt in different days, And different people who call or come to him at that moment, and all sorts of worries, troubles, deeds, as if important, although there is nothing more important for him at this hour than the one that lies ahead of him. The sun is against him, when he wants to leave the house, to go somewhere in general, to see something like that, to experience some kind of happiness. And the rain is against him, when the soul is heavy, cloudy and does not want to work.

Everywhere around him lives, moves, spins, goes somewhere the whole world. And he, already from birth, is captured by this world and must live together with everyone, while he needs to be alone at this moment. Because at that moment there should not be anyone near him - neither his beloved, nor his mother, nor his wife, nor children, but only his heroes, one word of his, one passion to which he devoted himself should be with him.

When the writer sat down at a clean White list so many, so unbearably many, take up arms against him at once, so everything calls him, reminds him of himself, and he must live in some life of his own, invented by him. Some people that no one has ever seen, but they still seem to be alive, and he must think of them as his loved ones. And he sits, looks somewhere out the window or at the wall, sees nothing, but only sees an endless series of days and pages behind and ahead, his failures and retreats - those that will be - and he feels bad and bitter. And no one can help him, because he is alone.

The whole point is that no one will ever help him, will not take a pen or typewriter, will not write for him, will not show him how to write. This he must himself. And if he himself cannot, then everything is lost - he is not a writer. No one cares whether you are sick or healthy, whether you have taken up your business, whether you have patience - this is the highest courage. If you wrote poorly, neither titles, nor awards, nor past successes will save you. Ranks will sometimes help you to publish your bad thing, your friends will hasten to praise it, and you will receive money for it; but you're still not a writer...

You need to hold on, you need to be courageous to start over. You need to be courageous to endure and wait if your talent suddenly leaves you and you feel disgusted at the mere thought of sitting down to the table. Talent sometimes goes away for a long time, but it always comes back if you are courageous.

A real writer works ten hours a day. Often he gets stuck, and then a day passes, and another day, and many more days, but he cannot quit, cannot write further, and with fury, almost with tears, he feels how the days pass, of which he has so few, and pass wasted.

Finally he puts an end to it. Now he is empty, so empty that he will never write a word again, as he thinks. Well, he might say, but I did my job, here it is on my desk, a sheaf of scribbled paper. And there was nothing like this before me. Let Tolstoy and Chekhov write before me, but I wrote it. This is different. And let it be worse for me, but still I’m great, and nothing is yet known whether it’s worse or not worse. Let someone like me try!

When the job is done, the writer might think so. He put an end to it and, therefore, defeated himself, such a short joyful day! Moreover, soon he will start a new thing, and now he needs joy. She's so short.

Because he suddenly sees that, say, spring has passed, that a huge amount of time has passed over him since the moment when, at the beginning of April, at night, black clouds gathered in the west, and out of this blackness a warm wind blew indefatigably, evenly and powerfully, and the snow began to pierce. The ice drifted, the draft passed, the streams died down, the first greenery smoked, and the ear filled up and turned yellow - a whole century passed, but he missed it, did not see anything of it. How much has happened in the world during this time, how many events have happened to all people, and he only worked, he only laid new white sheets of paper in front of him, he only saw the light that was in his heroes. No one will return this time to him, it has passed for him forever.

Then the writer gives his thing to the magazine. Let's take the best case, suppose that the thing is taken immediately, with joy. The writer is called or sent a telegram. Congratulate him. Show off his thing in front of other magazines. The writer goes to the editorial office, enters there freely, noisily. Everyone is glad to see him, and he is glad, they are all such nice people. "Expensive! they tell him. - We give! We give! We put in the twelfth number! And the twelfth number is December. Winter. And now summer...

And everyone cheerfully looks at the writer, smiles, shakes his hand, pats him on the shoulder. Everyone is somehow sure that the writer has five hundred years of life ahead of him. And that six months to wait for him, like six days.

A strange, painful time begins for the writer. He rushes the time. Hurry, let the summer pass. And autumn, to hell with autumn! December is what he needs. The writer is exhausted in anticipation of December.

And he works again, and again he succeeds, then he doesn’t, a year has passed, the wheel has turned once again, and April dies again, and criticism has entered into action - retribution for old thing.

Writers read criticism on themselves. It is not true that some writers are not interested in what is written about them. And that's when they need all their courage. In order not to be offended by the dressings, by injustice. To not get angry. In order not to quit work when they scold you very much. And not to believe the praises, if praised. Praise is terrible, it teaches the writer to think of himself better than he really is. Then he starts teaching others instead of learning himself. No matter how well he writes his next thing, he can do even better, you just need to be courageous and learn.

But it is not the praises or reprimands that are the worst. The worst thing is when they are silent about you. When you have books coming out and you know that they are real books, but they are not remembered - that's when you have to be strong!

Literary truth always comes from the truth of life, and to the actual writer's courage. Soviet writer should add more courage to pilots, sailors, workers - those people who in the sweat of their faces change life on Earth, those about whom he writes. After all, he writes, if possible, about the most diverse people, about all people, and he must see them all himself and live with them. For some time, he must become, like them, a geologist, a lumberjack, a worker, a hunter, a tractor driver. And the writer sits in the cockpit of a seiner with sailors, or goes with a party through the taiga, or flies with polar aviation pilots, or steers ships along the Great Northern Route.

The Soviet writer must also remember that evil exists on Earth, that physical extermination, deprivation of elementary freedoms, violence, annihilation, hunger, fanaticism and stupidity, wars and fascism exist. He must protest against all this to the best of his ability, and his voice, exalted against lies, hypocrisy, and crimes, is courage of a special kind.

The writer, finally, must become a soldier, if necessary, his courage must be enough for this, so that later, if he survives, he will again sit down at the table and again find himself face to face with a blank sheet of paper.

The courage of the writer must be first class. It should be with him all the time, because what he does, he does not for a day, not two, but all his life. And he knows that each time it will start all over again and it will be even more difficult.

If a writer does not have the courage, he is lost. He's gone, even if he has talent. He will become envious, he will begin to vilify his fellows. Chilling with anger, he will think that he was not mentioned there and there, that he was not given a prize ... And then he will never know the real writer's happiness. And the writer has happiness.

Still, there are moments in his work when everything goes on, and what did not work yesterday, today it works without any effort. When the machine crackles like a machine gun, and blank sheets are laid one after another, like clips. When the work is easy and reckless, when the writer feels powerful and honest.

When he suddenly remembers, having written a particularly powerful page, that in the beginning there was the Word and the Word was God! This happens rarely even among geniuses, but it always happens only among the courageous, the reward for all the labors and days, for dissatisfaction, for despair is this sudden divinity of the word. And having written this page, the writer knows that later it will remain. The other will not remain, but this page will remain.

When he understands that it is necessary to write the truth, that only in truth is his salvation. Just do not think that your truth will be accepted immediately and unconditionally. But you still have to write, thinking about the countless people you don't know for whom you end up writing. After all, you do not write for an editor, not for a critic, not for money, although you, like everyone else, need money, but you do not write for them in the end. Money can be earned in any way, and not necessarily by writing. And you write, remembering the divinity of the word and the truth. You write and think that literature is the self-consciousness of humanity, the self-expression of humanity in your face. You should always remember this and be happy and proud that such an honor fell to your lot.

When you suddenly look at your watch and see that it's already two or three, it's night all over the Earth, and in vast spaces people are sleeping, or they love each other and don't want to know anything but their love, or they kill each other, and planes with bombs are flying , and somewhere else they dance, and the announcers of various radio stations use electricity for lies, calm, anxiety, fun, for disappointments and hopes. And you, so weak and lonely at this hour, do not sleep and think about the whole world, you painfully want all people on Earth to finally become happy and free, so that inequality, wars, and racism, and poverty disappear, so that labor becomes necessary everyone needs air.

But the most important happiness is that you are not the only one who does not sleep this dead of night. Other writers do not sleep with you, your brothers in word. And all together you want one thing - for the world to become better, and people more humane.

You don't have the power to reshape the world the way you want. But you have your truth and your word. And you must be thrice courageous so that, despite your misfortunes, failures and breakdowns, you still bring joy to people and say endlessly that life should be better.

1966

I was sitting at the top of this trodden, well-to-do, filled with various sailors and expeditions, filthy, beautiful Arkhangelsk hotel (in its old wing), in our room, among torn backpacks, scattered things, among all these boots, packs of cigarettes, razors, guns, cartridges and everything else, after a heavy, unnecessary argument about literature, I sat near the window, sadly propped myself up, and it was too late, for the umpteenth time the humble white night came and poured into me like poison, calling even further, and although I was angry, but on the other hand, it was good, it became merry at the thought that tomorrow we need to get settled on a schooner for hunting, then to go to Novaya Zemlya and even further, somewhere in the Kara Sea.

A writer must be courageous, I thought, because his life is hard. When he is alone with a blank sheet of paper, everything is decisively against him. Against him are millions of previously written books - it's just scary to think - and thoughts about why else to write when all this has already been said. Against him is a headache and self-doubt on different days, and different people who call him or come to him at that moment, and all sorts of worries, troubles, deeds, as if important, although there is nothing more important for him at this hour than the one that he is to. The sun is against him, when he wants to leave the house, to go somewhere in general, to see something like that, to experience some kind of happiness. And the rain is against him, when the soul is heavy, cloudy and does not want to work.

When a writer sits down at a blank white sheet of paper, so many immediately take up arms against him, so unbearably many, so everything calls him, reminds him of himself, and he must live in some life of his own, invented by him. Some people that no one has ever seen, but they still seem to be alive, and he must think of them as his loved ones. And he sits, looks somewhere out of the window or at the wall, sees nothing, but only sees an endless series of days and pages behind and ahead, his failures and retreats - those that will be - and he feels bad and bitter. And no one can help him, because he is alone.

A real writer works ten hours a day. Often he gets stuck, and then a day goes by, and another day, and many more days, but he cannot quit, cannot write further, and with rage, almost with tears, he feels how the days go by, which he has so little, and is wasted.

Then the writer gives his thing to the magazine. Let's take the best case, suppose that the thing is taken immediately, with joy. The writer is called or sent a telegram. Congratulate him. Show off his thing in front of other magazines. The writer goes to the editorial office, enters there freely, noisily. Everyone is glad to see him, and he is glad, they are all such nice people. "Expensive! - they tell him. - We give! We give! We put in the twelfth number! And the twelfth number is December. Winter. And now it's summer...

Literary truth always comes from the truth of life, and to the actual courage of a writer, a Soviet writer must add the courage of pilots, sailors, workers - those people who, in the sweat of their brow, change life on Earth, those about whom he writes. After all, he writes, if possible, about the most diverse people, about all people, and he must see them all himself and live with them. For some time, he must become, like them, a geologist, a lumberjack, a worker, a hunter, a tractor driver. And the writer sits in the cockpit of a seiner with sailors, or goes with a party through the taiga, or flies with polar aviation pilots, or steers ships along the Great Northern Route.

Yuri Pavlovich Kazakov was born on August 8, 1927 in Moscow. For a long time he lived on the Arbat. His father Pavel Gavrilovich and mother Ustinya Andreevna moved to the capital from the Smolensk region from a young age. His father, a carpenter, was convicted in 1933 of "disloyal talk" and spent several years in exile. Mother nursed children in other families, worked as an assistant at a factory, trained as a nurse. Military Moscow, bombings, death of people on the streets, poverty - the main impressions of childhood, reflected in the unfinished story "Two Nights" (1962-1965).

From the age of 15, Kazakov became addicted to music. After 8th grade high school entered the architectural and construction technical school, then graduated School of Music them. Gnesins (1951) in the double bass class. Played in jazz and symphony orchestras; worked for newspapers.

The early literary experiences of the Kazakovs are verse preserved in the archive, in prose, short plays, essays for the newspaper "Soviet Sport" and stories "from foreign life» - refer to 1949-53. Kazakov's first publication was one-act play"New machine" in the "Collection of plays for circles amateur performances"(M., 1952), the first printed story -" Offended policeman "(Moskovsky Komsomolets. 1953. January 17). With admission to the Literary Institute. M. Gorky (1953) Kazakov seriously turns to prose.

In the stories of 1956-1958, which appeared in the magazine "October", "Znamya", "Moscow", "Young Guard" and immediately noticed by critics and readers, he declared himself as an already established master.

In 1958, Kazakov defended his diploma and was admitted to the joint venture (with the recommendations of V. Panova and K. Paustovsky).

In 1959, a collection of short stories "At the Stop Station" was published in Moscow, which the author considered his first full-length book after two books: "Teddy" (1957) and "Manka" (1958), published in Arkhangelsk.

Yuri Kazakov adhered to the position of a principled traditionalist: he perceived his contemporary as the successor of the age-old historical and cultural evolution, relied on Christian ideals, was more interested in living antiquity than in dubious newness, for which he was repeatedly attacked by semi-official criticism. Kazakov was accused of idealizing the past, of “whining” and thoughtless epigonism, reproached for admiring the emigrant I. Bunin (who conquered the young writer with a “hawkish vision of man and nature”), for his interest in K. Hamsun and E. Hemingway. Meanwhile, Kazakov not only adopted the plasticity of words from the classics, learned the language, but also inherited their spiritual problems, feeling an indissoluble kinship with Lermontov (the story “The Ring of Breguet”, 1959, was written about him) and L. Tolstoy, with Bunin, Chekhov and Prishvin.

Indicative is the young hero of the story Blue and Green (1956), the author's lyrical counterpart, the first among naive Moscow dreamers who dreamed of hunting and traveling. From the collision of such heroes ("Ugly", 1956; "Not a knock, not a grunt", 1960; "Easy Life", 1962) with their pragmatic village peers, the writer begins to comprehend the paradoxes of the Russian character. Infantile townspeople and rude country guys differed in temperament and outward habits, but their rivalry had deep socio-historical roots: the conflict between them concerned the view of the nature and destiny of man.

The search for answers to the "eternal questions" of faith and conscience, the need for creative self-determination led Kazakov to the Russian North. As a boy in the late 1940s, he first came to a Vyatka village (his father was exiled in those parts) and immediately fell in love with old huts and a “man with a basket” - an “alien from the Bunin century”, and already a student Literary Institute(1956) went on a business trip in the footsteps of Prishvin, who wandered around the White Sea 50 years ago. There, having tasted the free forest life and plunging into the flow of natural lively speech, the young writer, in his words, was "born a second time." wild nature, whole people, to match her, the harsh Pomeranian life in the first northern stories of Kazakov (Nikishkina Secrets, 1957; Pomorka, 1957; Arcturus the Hound Dog, 1957; Manka, 1958) are seen with a keen, indifferent look, they are permeated with a sense of transparent temporal abyss.

Later, the writer's routes ran along the Kola Peninsula, Karelia and the Dvina, along the coast of the Arctic Ocean, through Murmansk, Arkhangelsk, Mezen, Naryan-Mar, Solovki. As a result, the "Northern Diary" was formed - a book that Kazakov replenished with successive chapters for more than 10 years (1960-1972). Travel impressions, landscapes, portraits of fishermen and hunters are soldered here with lyrical memories and excursions into history.

The writer seemed to plunge into the historical time and was convinced: the age-old peasant way of life, based on the old-fashioned faith, Orthodox customs and private property, is collapsing in the Russian North. He was depressed by the dramatic fate of the Pomors (Nestor and Cyrus, 1961), he was burdened by a sense of guilt for the order that destroyed honest workers. It was a shame to observe the filthy ruins of an old monastery, which was turned into a concentration camp in the 1920s and then destroyed (Solovki Dreams, 1966). The poetry of eternity, together with the cruel truth of modernity, called for the careful preservation of culture. Among the characters of the “Northern Diary” are the storyteller S. Pisakhov and the “savage of the 20th century”, national hero Nenets, artist Tyko Vylka (Kazakov wrote about him later, in 1972-1976, the story "The Boy from the Snow Pit").

The confrontation between the North, inaccessible in its ideal purity, and the middle, inhabited Russia determines the plots of many Kazakov stories, incl. and love stories. Passion is an integral quality of Kazakov's talent. And love for a woman is associated with a surge of energy and inspiration, becoming an impetus for creativity and sacrificing worldly peace to the “secret of one’s self-fulfillment” (“Autumn in Oak Forests”, 1961; “Adam and Eve”, 1962). Kazakov’s love, furious (“Manka”), dreamy (“Blue and Green”), completely unfulfilled (“Night”, 1963), is vulnerable, demanding and generous. Both the unlucky buoy keeper Yegor (“Tra-li-vali”, 1959), and his antipode, the Muscovite intellectual (“Two in December”, 1962), each in their own way finds peace of mind when devotedly loving women are near them.

TO central Russia, Oka and Tarusa (where he lived for a long time) Kazakov was tied even more tightly than to the North. The beauty of the Central Russian plain, the man on earth and here gave the writer a reason for creative reflection. In the almanac Tarusa Pages (Kaluga, 1961), he published the stories To the City (1960), No Knock, No Grunt (1960), Smell of Bread (1961), where he was one of the first in those years, anticipating "village prose", raised the theme of the peasant leaving the village. Leaving parental shelter, his inconsolable heroes fled to Siberian construction sites (On the Road, 1960), tempted by the “easy life” and city temptations, being unable to understand true reason his longing. The tragedy of a passportless villager, exhausted by the arbitrariness of the authorities, was seen by Kazakov as an ominous symptom of the spiritual impoverishment of the country.

And nature, like a disappearing village, was perceived by Kazakov as a “leaving object”. He raised the traditional hunting story to a philosophical novel (“I Cry and Sob”, 1963) about the greatness of life and death, about the responsibility of man for the future of all life on earth, including himself. The perspicacious artistic vision of the Cossacks also suggested the possibility of a look “from nature”: through the eyes of a forest, a bear, a hound dog. This look demanded wisdom and compassion, echoing in Kazakov's stories with a visionary poignant note of repentance (Belukha, 1963-1972).

Kazakov traveled extensively in the 1960s. In addition to the Arctic, he visited the Pskov region (“For the first time I got to the Pechery ...”, 1962), the Baltic and Transcarpathian regions, Siberia and Kazakhstan. He happened to visit the GDR, Romania, Bulgaria. It was readily printed abroad: in England and Denmark, India and Yugoslavia, Spain and Holland, Switzerland and the USA. Awarded in Paris for the best book year, translated into French. (1962), in Italy they were awarded the Dante Prize (1970). Unforgettable was a trip to France in the spring of 1967, where Kazakov collected materials for a book about Bunin, met with B. Zaitsev, G. Adamovich and other émigré writers of the "first wave".

In 1968, Kazakov firmly settled in Abramtsevo, near Moscow.

In the 1970s, little was published, but two stories - "Candle" (1973) and "In a dream you wept bitterly" (1977) - convincingly testified to the permanence of his talent. The theme of home and homelessness, the feeling of family kind, wounded by the dramas of the past decades, distinguishes these classically strict stories, which are a "conversation of two souls" - father and son. The mystery of infancy and the search for truth on the border of life and death, the fatality of fate and the salvation of faith, the unity of father and son as a condition for the immortality of the nation, people and humanity - Kazakov raised these eternal problems in his mournful and major stories.

Kazakov's "narrator's novel" remained unfinished. However, the resources of the "internal biography" of the writer were not exhausted. The evolution of the Kazakov lyrical hero can be traced not only in books (“On the Road”, 1961; “Blue and Green”, 1963; “The Smell of Bread”, 1965; “Two in December”, 1966; “In a dream you wept bitterly”, 1977) , but also according to the plans left in the sketches (“Separation of Souls”, “Heavenly Angel”, “ old house”,“ The ninth circle ”,“ Death, where is your sting? and etc.). Kazakov wrote most of his stories at the end of the 1950s - until the mid-1960s, their chronology often did not coincide with the sequence of publications. The fragments included in the posthumous collection "Two Nights" (1986) significantly correct the overall picture of Kazakov's creative path.

Kazakov spent his last years in seclusion in Abramtsevo. He completed the translation of the three-volume epic of the Kazakh prose writer A. Nurpeisov, “Blood and Sweat,” begun in 1964. He composed children's stories for the Murzilka magazine, of which he was a member of the editorial board. Books for young readers ("Tropics on the stove", 1962; "Red Bird", 1963; "How I built a house", 1967, etc.) were the subject of his special concern. As a screenwriter, Kazakov participated in the production at Mosfilm of the 2-episode film The Great Samoyed (1982, directed by A. Gordon) about Tyko Vylka.

Yuri Pavlovich Kazakov
(1927-1982)
LITERARY NOTES
On the Courage of a Writer
Solovetsky dreams
Isn't it enough?
Only native word
What is literature for, and what am I for myself?
Let's go to Lopshenga
ABOUT THE COURAGE OF THE WRITER
I was sitting at the top of this trampled, well-to-do, filled with various sailors and expeditions, filthy, beautiful Arkhangelsk hotel (in its old wing), in our room, among torn backpacks, scattered things, among all these boots, packs of cigarettes, razors, guns , cartridges and everything else, after a heavy, unnecessary argument about literature, I sat near the window, sadly propped myself up, and it was too late, for the umpteenth time the humble white night came and poured into me like poison, calling even further, and even though I was angry was, but it was good, it became merry from the thought that tomorrow we need to get settled on a schooner to hunt for a hunt, then to go to Novaya Zemlya and even further, somewhere in the Kara Sea.
And I kept looking out the window into the distance, over the roofs, at the bright horizon with light pink clouds. On the Dvina, gleaming here and there between the roofs, huge timber trucks stood black in the roadstead, weakly blinking their tone lights, sometimes steam hissed, the working propellers muttered muffledly, the high sirens of tugboats yelped like dogs, and farewell horns buzzed powerfully and sadly.
Cars, now rare, rustled below, trams rumbled even more rarely. Downstairs the restaurant was noisy, buzzing at that hour, playful, chirping and pounding the orchestra (at that time some pensions played there in the evenings), and I could hear it well, even though the restaurant windows overlooked the courtyard. Downstairs, the irreplaceable, eternal uncle Vasya did not let various swindlers into the restaurant, who were hungry for a luxurious life, and at that hour my happy friend-friend was sitting in the restaurant with Romanian circus performers, talking to them in Spanish and Eskimo, and I was alone, that’s all he remembered how we had just been arguing downstairs about literature with a local connoisseur, and thought about the courage of the writer.
A writer must be courageous, I thought, because his life is hard. When he is alone with a blank sheet of paper, everything is decisively against him. Millions of previously written books are against him - it's just scary to think - and thoughts about why else to write when all this has already been said. Against him is a headache and self-doubt on different days, and different people who call him or come to him at that moment, and all sorts of worries, troubles, deeds, as if important, although there is nothing more important for him at this hour than the one that he is to. The sun is against him, when he wants to leave the house, to go somewhere in general, to see something like that, to experience some kind of happiness. And the rain is against him, when the soul is heavy, cloudy and does not want to work.
Everywhere around him lives, moves, spins, goes somewhere the whole world. And he, already from birth, is captured by this world and must live together with everyone, while he needs to be alone at this moment. Because at this moment there should not be anyone near him - neither his beloved, nor his mother, nor his wife, nor children, but only his heroes, one word of his, one passion to which he devoted himself should be with him.
When a writer sits down at a blank white sheet of paper, so many immediately take up arms against him, so unbearably many, so everything calls him, reminds him of himself, and he must live in some life of his own, invented by him. Some people that no one has ever seen, but they still seem to be alive, and he must think of them as his loved ones. And he sits, looks somewhere out the window or at the wall, sees nothing, but only sees an endless series of days and pages behind and ahead, his failures and retreats - those that will be - and he feels bad and bitter. And no one can help him, because he is alone.
The whole point is that no one will ever help him, will not take a pen or typewriter, will not write for him, will not show him how to write. This he must himself. And if he himself cannot, then everything is lost - he is not a writer. No one cares whether you are sick or healthy, whether you have taken up your business, whether you have patience - this is the highest courage. If you wrote poorly, neither titles, nor awards, nor past successes will save you. Ranks will sometimes help you to publish your bad work, your friends will hasten to praise it, and you will receive money for it; but still you're not a writer...
You need to hold on, you need to be courageous to start over. You need to be courageous to endure and wait if your talent suddenly leaves you and you feel disgust at the mere thought of sitting down to the table. Talent sometimes goes away for a long time, but it always comes back if you are courageous.
A real writer works ten hours a day. He often gets stuck, and then a day passes, and another day, and many more days, but he cannot quit, he cannot write further and with rage, almost with tears, he feels how the days pass, which he has so little, and is wasted.
Finally he puts an end to it. Now he is empty, so empty that he will never write a word again, as he thinks. Well, he might say, but I did my job, here it is on my desk, a sheaf of scribbled paper. And there was nothing like this before me. Let Tolstoy and Chekhov write before me, but I wrote it. This is different. And even if it’s worse for me, it’s still great for me, and nothing is known yet, whether it’s worse or not worse. Let someone like me try!
When the job is done, the writer might think so. He put an end to it and, therefore, defeated himself, such a short joyful day! All the more so because soon he will start a new thing, and now he needs joy. She's so short.
Because he suddenly sees that, say, spring has passed, that a huge amount of time has passed over him since the moment when, at the beginning of April, at night, black clouds gathered in the west, and out of this blackness a warm wind blew indefatigably, evenly and powerfully, and the snow began to pierce. The ice drifted, the draft passed, the streams died down, the first greenery smoked, and the ear filled up and turned yellow - a whole century passed, but he missed it, did not see anything of it. How much has happened in the world during this time, how many events have happened to all people, and he only worked, he only laid new white sheets of paper in front of him, he only saw the light that was in his heroes. No one will return this time to him, it has passed for him forever.
Then the writer gives his thing to the magazine. Let us take the best case, suppose that the thing is taken immediately, with joy. The writer is called or sent a telegram. Congratulate him. Show off his thing in front of other magazines. The writer goes to the editorial office, enters there freely, noisily. Everyone is glad to see him, and he is glad, they are all such nice people. "Dear! - they say to him. - We give! We give! We put in the twelfth number!" And the twelfth number is December. Winter. And now it's summer...
And everyone cheerfully looks at the writer, smiles, shakes his hand, pats him on the shoulder. Everyone is somehow sure that the writer has five hundred years of life ahead of him. And that six months to wait for him, like six days.
A strange, painful time begins for the writer. He rushes the time. Hurry, let the summer pass. And autumn, to hell with autumn! December is what he needs. The writer is exhausted in anticipation of December.
And he works again, and again he succeeds, then he doesn’t, a year has passed, the wheel has turned once again, and April dies again, and criticism has entered into action - retribution for the old thing.
Writers read criticism on themselves. It is not true that some writers are not interested in what is written about them. And that's when they need all their courage. In order not to be offended by the dressings, by injustice. To not get angry. In order not to quit work when they scold you very much. And not to believe the praises, if praised. Praise is terrible, it teaches the writer to think of himself better than he really is. Then he starts teaching others instead of learning himself. No matter how well he writes his next thing, he can do even better, you just need to be courageous and learn.
But it is not the praises or reprimands that are the worst. The worst thing is when they are silent about you. When you have books coming out and you know that they are real books, but they are not remembered - that's when you have to be strong!
Literary truth always comes from the truth of life, and to the actual courage of a writer, a Soviet writer must add the courage of pilots, sailors, workers - those people who, in the sweat of their brow, change life on earth, those about whom he writes. After all, he writes, if possible, about the most diverse people, about all people, and he must see them all himself and live with them. For some time, he must become, like them, a geologist, a lumberjack, a worker, a hunter, a tractor driver. And the writer sits in the cockpit of a seiner with sailors, or goes with a party through the taiga, or flies with polar aviation pilots, or steers ships along the Great Northern Route.
The Soviet writer must also remember that evil exists on earth, that physical extermination, deprivation of elementary freedoms, violence, annihilation, hunger, fanaticism and stupidity, wars and fascism exist. He must protest against all this to the best of his ability, and his voice, exalted against lies, hypocrisy, and crimes, is courage of a special kind.
The writer, finally, must become a soldier, if necessary, his courage must be enough for this, so that later, if he survives, he will again sit down at the table and again find himself face to face with a blank sheet of paper.
The courage of the writer must be first class. It should be with him all the time, because what he does, he does not for a day, not two, but all his life. And he knows that each time it will start all over again and it will be even more difficult.
If a writer does not have the courage, he is lost. He's gone, even if he has talent. He will become envious, he will begin to vilify his fellows. Chilling with anger, he will think that he was not mentioned there and there, that he was not given a prize ... And then he will never know the real writer's happiness. And the writer has happiness.
Still, there are moments in his work when everything goes on, and what did not work out yesterday, today it turns out without any effort. When the machine crackles like a machine gun, and blank sheets are laid one after another, like clips. When the work is easy and reckless, when the writer feels powerful and honest.
When he suddenly remembers, having written a particularly strong page, that at first there was a word and the word was God! This happens rarely even among geniuses, but it always happens only among the courageous, the reward for all the labors and days, for dissatisfaction, for despair is this sudden divinity of the word. And by writing this page, the feeder knows that then it will remain. The other will not remain, but this page will remain.
When he understands that it is necessary to write the truth, that only in truth is his salvation. Just do not think that your truth will be accepted immediately and unconditionally. But you still have to write, thinking of the countless people you don't know for whom you end up writing. After all, you do not write for an editor, not for a critic, not for money, although you, like everyone else, need money, but you do not write for them in the end. Money can be earned in any way, and not necessarily by writing. And you write, remembering the divinity of the word and the truth. You write and think that literature is the self-consciousness of humanity, the self-expression of humanity in your face. You should always remember this and be happy and proud that such an honor fell to your lot.
When you suddenly look at your watch and see that it's already two or three, it's night all over the earth, and in vast expanses people are sleeping, or they love each other and don't want to know anything but their love, or they kill each other, and planes with bombs are flying , and somewhere else they dance, and the announcers of various radio stations use electricity for lies, calm, anxieties, fun, for disappointments and hopes. And you, so weak and lonely at this hour, do not sleep and think about the whole world, you painfully want all people on earth to finally become happy and free, so that inequality, wars, and racism, and poverty disappear, so that labor became necessary for everyone, as air is necessary.
But the most important happiness is that you are not the only one who does not sleep this dead of night. Other writers do not sleep with you, your brothers in word. And all together you want one thing - for the world to become better, and people more humane.
You don't have the power to reshape the world the way you want. But you have your truth and your word. And you must be thrice courageous so that, despite your misfortunes, failures and breakdowns, you still bring joy to people and say endlessly that life should be better.
1966
SOLOVETSKY DREAMS
Finally, it was twelve o'clock in the morning, and we were sitting in a monastery cell on Solovki, the light streaming in through two windows, one of which looked west, to the sea, the other to the south, along the wall. This cell, which Sasha, the senior instructor of the camp site, gave us, is beautiful, I would give dearly to live in it if I were a monk!
Silence is now everywhere - both on the sea, and in the courtyard of the monastery, and inside "fraternal cells on three floors, and storage rooms below them" - as this building, which houses the camp site, is indicated on the old plan.
The drunks settled down, they don’t sell beer in the courtyard of the monastery, the vodka shop closed and the water supply in the restroom and washbasin was turned off for the night so that some tourist wouldn’t think, God forbid, to drink water at night or something else like that ... It’s not allowed . Hang up. Everything sleeps on the island, everything is turned off, locked, one white night is not turned off - it shines. Pink skies in the northwest, dark purple heavy contours of distant clouds rising over the horizon, and silvery and pearly high flakes of light clouds overhead.
I was about to lie down, then I got into a conversation with a friend, got up again, warmed it up on the stove, and drink strong tea. A breeze, a faint sigh from the sea, suddenly enters the window and spreads over the cell with the spicy smell of algae. Everything is gone, everything is somewhere far away, one night remains and lasts.
No, it's a pity to fall asleep, it's a pity to miss such a night. After looking out the windows again, we dress and quietly go out. In the yard in the freshness of the night, it smells of stone, dust, garbage ... After the gate we turn right, we go first along the Holy Lake, then through the village, then through the forest - to the sea. In the forest, it sweetly showers us with moss, peat, pine needles, and in this infusion it barely perceptibly sounds warm stone.
The sea is like glass. And the cranberry strip on the horizon, and the clouds, and the black karbas at anchor, and the wet black stones - everything is reflected in its mirror image. The tide is coming. On the sandy bottom between the stones, streams fill holes, traces of seagulls. You will be distracted by something, then you will look at the water: the stone that just high and black stuck out of the water is now almost hidden, only the wet bald spot turns pink, reflecting the heavenly light, and the water near this bald spot - gurgling, gurgling! Peck, peck!
Seagulls nearby, like unmelted pieces of ice, white and blue, sleep on the water, their tails upright. Silently, black sea ducks quickly sweep along the shore. Logs are floating here and there in the bay; they were brought here from the Dvina or from the Onega. The seal leaned out, saw us, disappeared, then appeared near the log, put flippers on the log, stretched its muzzle high and looked at us for a long time. It was so quiet that the sound of his breathing could be heard across the water. Having looked enough, he grunted, splashed, his back flashed like a wheel in a rounded motion, and disappeared ... Now there are few seals.
I sat down on a warm stone, lit a cigarette, looked around, and I felt so good that I did not want to think about tomorrow. And the next beautiful and bitter day was waiting for me - and I knew it! Beautiful because I was again on Solovki, finally got back, honored. And the bitterest...
I first visited here ten years ago, in September, having walked before that, having ridden on horseback and on various karbas and dorks, quite a long way along the Summer Coast - from Perto-Minsk to Zhizhgin Island. I was lonely then, because I was the first tourist, the first writer in many years, and in all the villages I was met with suspicion and apprehension.
And I got to Solovki from Zhizhgin on a schooner, landed on the opposite side of the island and, while walking to the Solovetsky Kremlin, did not meet a soul on countless lakes around, on a beautiful road with striped milestones.
The day was wonderful then, a rare warm day in autumn, and the monastery was destroyed, ulcerated, peeled, and therefore terrible. And for a long time in confusion, in sorrowful bewilderment, in anger, I walked around the monastery, and he showed me in humility the shabby walls of churches, some holes, some crumbling plaster, as after an enemy shelling, like wounds - these were wounds, but they were made were "sons of the fatherland", which will be discussed later.
And I was also the first tourist on Solovki, and again my curiosity seemed suspicious.
Ten years have passed, and the Solovki "have become fashionable," as the editor of "Sailor of the North" told me with a laugh in Arkhangelsk, although there are no grounds for fashion or laughter yet. However, the newspapers will also be discussed ahead.
So, the coming day was bitter for me, and I didn’t want to think about it, just as I don’t want to think about the upcoming funeral, because I had to start my walks around the Holy Island in the morning, and today, though briefly, I already saw something . I saw destruction.
"Respect for the monuments and relics associated with the history of our Motherland, respect for them has become a glorious tradition of the Soviet people, an indicator of their true culture. In the treasury cultural heritage The Arkhangelsk region amaze with its grandeur and beauty, many monuments of architecture and history. These include the Solovetsky Monastery, founded in the 15th century ... For last years much has been done and is being done in order to restore proper order and ensure the safety of cultural monuments ... Much attention is paid to the organization of conservation and restoration work, which is the main link in the protection of monuments. "This is for the speeches of V. A. Puzanov (Arkhangelsk Regional Executive Committee) at the conference "Cultural Monuments of the Russian North", held in Arkhangelsk in July this year.
And here is what is said in the decision of the Arkhangelsk Regional Executive Committee, adopted after the publication in Izvestia No. 147 for 1965 of the article by V. Bezugly and V. Shmyganovsky "Oasis near the Arctic Circle" - an article, by the way, rather mild, admonishing:
"Repair and restoration work in the Solovetsky Kremlin is carried out extremely slowly, and religious, civil and industrial and economic buildings located on the islands of B. Solovetsky, B. Muksolomsky, B. Zayatsky and Anzersky are being destroyed and are not being restored by anyone.
The roads are not on anyone's balance sheet and are not maintained by anyone, with the exception of a small area, which is slightly supported by an agar plant.
Ancient canals connecting a large number of lakes are not being cleared, no one is monitoring their condition, and no measures are being taken to preserve them.
The fish wealth of the lakes of the Solovetsky Archipelago is not used to provide fish for the local and arriving on the island. Solovki population. Collection and processing of wild plants is not organized.
Tourist base on about. Solovki does not satisfy the needs of tourists. It is designed for only 100 people and is poorly equipped. Poorly organized food for tourists, there is no transport.
The departments and departments of the regional executive committee do not show due initiative and perseverance in carrying out the repair and restoration of architectural monuments and civil buildings of the Solovetsky Islands archipelago, adapting them to the needs of the national economy and the recreation of workers, do not use the richest opportunities of the island.
The executive committee of the island Council of Working People's Deputies (comrade Taranov) puts up with the neglect of the economy of the island of Solovki, downgraded the exactingness to the heads of enterprises and organizations located on the archipelago of the Solovetsky Islands, for the maintenance of the buildings and structures transferred to them.
Where " careful attitude", which V. A. Puzanov spoke about? And where are the "glorious traditions"? The Solovetsky Monastery is really amazing, but not with "grandness and beauty", as Puzanov assures, but with the terrifying state in which it is brought. And nothing has been done there "in recent years", except for the roofs of two towers. Scaffolding has also been erected near the building of the former prison, but during the three days I spent on Solovki I did not see workers on these scaffolding.
It's scary to walk around the monastery. All the stairs and floors are rotten, the plaster has fallen off, the rest is barely holding on. All iconostases, frescoes were destroyed, wooden galleries were broken. The domes of almost all the churches have been destroyed, the roofs are leaking, the windows in the churches have been shattered, the frames have been planted. Beautiful and varied chapels, which were many near and inside the monastery, are now gone.
In the courtyard of the monastery, two surviving monastery bells hang on a wooden beam. One of them is all beaten with bullets. Some "son of the fatherland" was having fun, shooting at the bell with a rifle - probably the ringing was good!
Near the Transfiguration Cathedral was the tomb of Avraamy Palitsyn, an associate of Minin and Pozharsky. The tomb was destroyed, but the gravestone granite stone in the form of a sarcophagus survived.
Here is the inscription on it:
"IN Time of Troubles interregnum, when Russia was threatened by foreign domination, you courageously took up arms for the freedom of the fatherland and showed an unprecedented feat in the life of Russian monasticism as a humble monk. You reached the limit of life on the silent path and descended into the grave not crowned with victorious laurels. Your crown is in heaven, your memory is unforgettable in the hearts of the grateful sons of the fatherland, you liberated with Minin and Pozharsky.
And right there, the name of the "son of the fatherland" - "V. P. Sidorenko" was engraved on the granite. This son was not too lazy, he signed, although it was difficult, probably, to hammer with a piece of iron - granite, after all! And right next to it was a smaller inscription: "Belov" was modest, didn't knock out the initials.
In general, all the walls are written on, they write wherever possible and even where it is completely impossible at first glance. But they still manage to climb onto each other's shoulders.
How many hermitages there were on Solovki, how many chapels, cells, hotels, pavilions, workshops, kitchen gardens and orchards - and all this is now being destroyed. Involuntarily, you come to the conclusion that someone's evil will is to blame for these destructions, dooming the beautiful land to oblivion. And you try to comprehend what guided people in their hatred of the Solovetsky archipelago, what was the benefit to them, what was the benefit to the state (in their opinion) in such a purposeful, consistent destruction of architectural and historical values? And you can’t comprehend ... These people could still be understood if on Solovki - to the detriment of architectural monuments - industry would develop, otherwise this is not even there, and if it were not for the agar plant that processes algae now, then I I don’t even know what the local population would do here and in general why people would have to live here.
A whole year has passed since the decision of the regional executive committee on Solovki, and what? Never mind. I saw the chairman of the island Council Taranov working copy of this decision. Against almost every item that prescribes to do this and that, Taranov has in the margins of registration: "No", "Not delivered", "Not done" ... And the matter is not in the decision, and not in the year that has passed after the decision. Because if they wanted to turn Solovki into a museum-reserve, into the pride not only of Arkhangelsk, but of our entire country, they would have done it long ago, without waiting for appearances in the central press. After all, twenty years have passed since the war! And not only nothing has been restored on Solovki, but even more has been destroyed - some walls have survived, strong walls, you could tear them with explosives, but can you take it with your bare hands?
Taranov did not want to let us go to Anzersky Island.
- There's a nature reserve.
- That's fine! - we said. - Let's go, have a look, talk with scientists - it's interesting!
Taranov was somewhat embarrassed. It turned out that there are no people there, and there is no reserve, and there is nothing at all, just an island - and that's it ...
- I'll give you a pass, - Taranov said at last. - I'll just write you down in a notebook.
Recorded. Then he asked me to list all my books to him. And he wrote books.
And the next day we went to Rebolda - from there we went to Anzer karbasy.
It takes about forty minutes through the karbas strait. Then the deserted shore, the shed, the karbas turns back, and we are left alone. On the barn are traces of tourist wit: "Hotel White Horse". From the barn - a barely noticeable road into the moss, up into the forest.
We are alone on Anzer! It’s not that no one has ever been here at all. Collective farmers come from Letniy Shore to hay, Moscow students do their internships here, and tourists, of course, without any passes ... But now, at this hour, we are alone here, and you won’t understand, joyfully or feel sad about it.
We walked for two kilometers through the forest, swamps, and even though they told us that the island was full of deer, hares, all kinds of game, we didn’t come across anyone, and we walked back, we didn’t see or hear anything either. Everything on that island was silent.
The road is up and up. Ahead, the trees will part a little, you wait with excitement - you are about to see something, some kind of mysterious skete. No, again the crowns close overhead, again deaf lakes on the sides, again you walk through the swamp, then again the road, on the sides in places there are beds of boulders - the road was once good. And the heart already somehow aches, we add a step - what is it, does loneliness oppress us? - so I want to get to the house as soon as possible.
But here again the trees parted, this time for real, a large meadow opened up, a long gentle slope down, a sea bay appeared to the left, a dark lake to the right, and on the isthmus - the whitest building of two-story cells with two bell towers of churches! Then the eye greedily found a few more wooden houses on the sides, and all this lay at the bottom of the valley, in the blue of a light cloudy day, on the shore of a deaf bay in high banks, overgrown with sharp teeth of fir trees. The skete sounded - distantly and mattly - with its pinkish whiteness, the grayness of wooden houses, the red iron roof over everything dark green.

Yuri Pavlovich Kazakov

LITERARY NOTES

On the Courage of a Writer

Solovetsky dreams

Isn't it enough?

The only native word

What is literature for, and what am I for myself?

Let's go to Lopshenga

ABOUT THE COURAGE OF THE WRITER

I was sitting at the top of this trampled, well-to-do, filled with various sailors and expeditions, filthy, beautiful Arkhangelsk hotel (in its old wing), in our room, among torn backpacks, scattered things, among all these boots, packs of cigarettes, razors, guns , cartridges and everything else, after a heavy, unnecessary argument about literature, I sat near the window, sadly propped myself up, and it was too late, for the umpteenth time the humble white night came and poured into me like poison, calling even further, and even though I was angry was, but it was good, it became merry from the thought that tomorrow we need to get settled on a schooner to hunt for a hunt, then to go to Novaya Zemlya and even further, somewhere in the Kara Sea.

And I kept looking out the window into the distance, over the roofs, at the bright horizon with light pink clouds. On the Dvina, gleaming here and there between the roofs, huge timber trucks stood black in the roadstead, weakly blinking their tone lights, sometimes steam hissed, the working propellers muttered muffledly, the high sirens of tugboats yelped like dogs, and farewell horns buzzed powerfully and sadly.

Cars, now rare, rustled below, trams rumbled even more rarely. Downstairs the restaurant was noisy, buzzing at that hour, playful, chirping and pounding the orchestra (at that time some pensions played there in the evenings), and I could hear it well, even though the restaurant windows overlooked the courtyard. Downstairs, the irreplaceable, eternal uncle Vasya did not let various swindlers into the restaurant, who were hungry for a luxurious life, and at that hour my happy friend-friend was sitting in the restaurant with Romanian circus performers, talking to them in Spanish and Eskimo, and I was alone, that’s all he remembered how we had just been arguing downstairs about literature with a local connoisseur, and thought about the courage of the writer.

A writer must be courageous, I thought, because his life is hard. When he is alone with a blank sheet of paper, everything is decisively against him. Millions of previously written books are against him - it's just scary to think - and thoughts about why else to write when all this has already been said. Against him is a headache and self-doubt on different days, and different people who call him or come to him at that moment, and all sorts of worries, troubles, deeds, as if important, although there is nothing more important for him at this hour than the one that he is to. The sun is against him, when he wants to leave the house, to go somewhere in general, to see something like that, to experience some kind of happiness. And the rain is against him, when the soul is heavy, cloudy and does not want to work.

Everywhere around him lives, moves, spins, goes somewhere the whole world. And he, already from birth, is captured by this world and must live together with everyone, while he needs to be alone at this moment. Because at this moment there should not be anyone near him - neither his beloved, nor his mother, nor his wife, nor children, but only his heroes, one word of his, one passion to which he devoted himself should be with him.

When a writer sits down at a blank white sheet of paper, so many immediately take up arms against him, so unbearably many, so everything calls him, reminds him of himself, and he must live in some life of his own, invented by him. Some people that no one has ever seen, but they still seem to be alive, and he must think of them as his loved ones. And he sits, looks somewhere out the window or at the wall, sees nothing, but only sees an endless series of days and pages behind and ahead, his failures and retreats - those that will be - and he feels bad and bitter. And no one can help him, because he is alone.

The whole point is that no one will ever help him, will not take a pen or typewriter, will not write for him, will not show him how to write. This he must himself. And if he himself cannot, then everything is lost - he is not a writer. No one cares whether you are sick or healthy, whether you have taken up your business, whether you have patience - this is the highest courage. If you wrote poorly, neither titles, nor awards, nor past successes will save you. Ranks will sometimes help you to publish your bad work, your friends will hasten to praise it, and you will receive money for it; but still you're not a writer...

You need to hold on, you need to be courageous to start over. You need to be courageous to endure and wait if your talent suddenly leaves you and you feel disgust at the mere thought of sitting down to the table. Talent sometimes goes away for a long time, but it always comes back if you are courageous.

A real writer works ten hours a day. He often gets stuck, and then a day passes, and another day, and many more days, but he cannot quit, he cannot write further and with rage, almost with tears, he feels how the days pass, which he has so little, and is wasted.

Finally he puts an end to it. Now he is empty, so empty that he will never write a word again, as he thinks. Well, he might say, but I did my job, here it is on my desk, a sheaf of scribbled paper. And there was nothing like this before me. Let Tolstoy and Chekhov write before me, but I wrote it. This is different. And even if it’s worse for me, it’s still great for me, and nothing is known yet, whether it’s worse or not worse. Let someone like me try!

When the job is done, the writer might think so. He put an end to it and, therefore, defeated himself, such a short joyful day! All the more so because soon he will start a new thing, and now he needs joy. She's so short.

(published according to the publication: Yu. Kazakov Evening bells. In 3 vols. Russkiy Mir Publishing House)

I was sitting at the top of this trodden, well-to-do, filled with various sailors and expeditions, filthy, beautiful Arkhangelsk hotel (in its old wing), in our room, among torn backpacks, scattered things, among all these boots, packs of cigarettes, razors, guns, cartridges and everything else, after a heavy, unnecessary argument about literature, I sat near the window, sadly propped myself up, and it was too late, for the umpteenth time the humble white night came and poured into me like poison, calling even further, and although I was angry, but on the other hand, it was good, it became merry at the thought that tomorrow we need to get settled on a schooner for hunting, then to go to Novaya Zemlya and even further, somewhere in the Kara Sea.

A writer must be courageous, I thought, because his life is hard. When he is alone with a blank sheet of paper, everything is decisively against him. Against him are millions of previously written books - it's just scary to think - and thoughts about why else to write when all this has already been said. Against him is a headache and self-doubt on different days, and different people who call him or come to him at that moment, and all sorts of worries, troubles, deeds, as if important, although there is nothing more important for him at this hour than the one that he is to. The sun is against him, when he wants to leave the house, to go somewhere in general, to see something like that, to experience some kind of happiness. And the rain is against him, when the soul is heavy, cloudy and does not want to work.

When a writer sits down at a blank white sheet of paper, so many immediately take up arms against him, so unbearably many, so everything calls him, reminds him of himself, and he must live in some life of his own, invented by him. Some people that no one has ever seen, but they still seem to be alive, and he must think of them as his loved ones. And he sits, looks somewhere out the window or at the wall, sees nothing, but only sees an endless series of days and pages behind and ahead, his failures and retreats - those that will be - and he feels bad and bitter. And no one can help him, because he is alone.

1966

Women's Portal Flero

RELATED ARTICLES