A CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN TWO CORNERS
tinue my business of yesterday, lecture on the economic development of
England in the Middle Ages, build a railroad from Tashkent to the
Crimea, perfect the long-range gun and the technique of poison-gas
production; I am even obliged to do it so that culture may advance
along its prescribed road-so as to hasten its longed-for completion. In
this case, the fiery death of individuality is not only useless, it is directly
harmful, because an individuality consumed in flames and resurrected,
by this very token leaves the ranks of cultural workers. I will remind
you of your own verses:
He who has known the anguish of earth's phenomena,
Knows their beauty,
He who has known the beauty of phenomena
Ktnows the dream of the Hyperborean:
Voluptuously nursing
Peace and fulness in his heart
He calls for the endless blue and emptiness.
Now this is true: "he calls for the endless blue and emptiness." He
will cease lecturing at once, and surely will never submit even a single
report to the scientific society of which he was a member and, moreover,
never again visit it. Let alone the fact that "fiery death in the spirit" is
just as rare as the transformation of sinners into saints. How can you say
that I don't argue? You see, I am arguing and disputing.
But I like these verses of yours. Apparently you, too, once knew
my anguish and thirst, and then you quieted down, and talked your an–
guish away with sophisms about the ultimate transfiguration of cul–
ture and the ever-present possibility of personal salvation through the
fiery death. As you are now piously accepting all history, we indeed have
no common cult. Or, rather, there is something in common, as is proven
by our very friendship that has lasted so many years. I live in a strange
way, a double life. In contact with European culture since my child–
hood, I have deeply imbibed its spirit and have not only become wholly
familiar with it, but also sincerely love a great deal in it-I love its
cleanliness and comfort, I love science, the arts, poetry, Pushkin. I am
at home in the cultural family, I speak eagerly with friends and ac–
quaintances on cultural themes, and I am genuinely interested in these
themes and the methods of developing them. Here I am with you: we
have a common cult of serving in the cultural market place, we have
common habits and a common language. Such is my daytime life. But
in the depth of my consciousness I live differently. For many years a
secret voice has been insistently and uninterruptedly speaking to me:
this is not it, not it!
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