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BORIS PILNYAK
acy was to walk the town calling on people he knew and on
strangers, urging them to weep. He delivered wild and fiery
speeches on communism as a result of which many people in the
marketplaces did indeed weep. He visited the local officials in
their offices and it was rumored in the town that on these occa–
sions the officials smeared their eyes with onion in order to win,
through this outcast from the brickworks, the popularity which
they so sorely needed. Ivan was frightened of churches but not
of priests and he cursed them to their faces. His slogans were the
most left-wing in the town. He was respected, as it has always
been the custom in Russia throughout the centuries to respect
those holy fools out of whose mouths speak truth and justice and
who, for the sake of truth and justice, are prepared to lay down
their lives. Ivan drank, destroying himself with alcohol. He had
gathered round him men of his own kind: men who had been
created by the Revolution only to be rejected by it. They had
taken refuge underground and they practiced true communism,
brotherhood, equality and fellowship. Each of them had his own
particular madness: one wanted to enter into correspondence
with the proletarians of Mars, another proposed that all the full–
grown fish in the Volga should be caught and steel bridges built
over the river out of the proceeds of their sale, while a third man
had a bee in his bonnet about constructing a tramcar system.
"Weep!" said Ivan.
Akim, lost in his thoughts, did not at first understand.
"What do you say?" he asked.
"Weep, Akim, weep this very minute for the communism
that is lost!" Ivan shouted, pressing his hands to his breast and
lowering his head as though in prayer.
"Yes, yes, I am weeping, Uncle Ivan," said Akim.
Akim was a tall, strong and hulking man. He came up close
to his uncle and kissed him.
The rain lashed down. The murky brickworks proclaimed
havoc and destruction.
(Translated by Max Hayward)
I
