BEFORE SUNRISE
455
I look at this great man who has become a legendary figure.
It's probably bad, disconcerting and tiring to be one. I wouldn't
like it.
As
though answering my thought, Gorky says that by no
means everyone knows him; a few days before he was traveling
by car when some guards stopped him. He told them he was
Gorky, but one of them said: "We don't care whether you're
Gorky
2
or sweet. Show your pass."
Gorky smiles faintly. Then he starts talking again about
literature, the people and culture.
Someone behind
is
writing down everything he says.
We get up. We say good-bye.
With his hand barely touching my shoulder, Gorky asks:
"Why do you look so glum and grim? Why?"
In reply I mumble something about my heart.
"That's bad," says Gorky. "You must get better ... come
and see me in a few days- we'll talk about your affairs."
We go through the kitchen again. We go out onto the stairs.
We go out into the Kronversky Prospect-the Gorky
Prospect.
An Encounter
I go up and down endless stairways. I am holding a file
containing papers and forms. I write down information about
the tenants on these forms. It's a national census.
I undertook this work to find out how people live.
I only believe what I see. Like Harun-al-Rashid I go to
other people's houses. I go along corridors, through kitchens,
• into rooms. I see dull electric lights, tattered wall paper, washing
on the line, ghastly crowding, garbage and rags. Yes, of course,
it is only recently that the difficult years, famine and devastation
passed . . . but I didn't expect to see what I've seen.
I enter a dingy room. A man is lying on a bunk on a dirty
2. Gorky means "bitter"
in
Russian.
