tEFORE
SUNRISE
497
I scan through the letters. ·They are inept and comic·. But
at the same time serious. They certainly are! The issue concerns
an important aspect of everyday life-baths.
I draft an outline and start writing.
Even the first few lines amuse me. I laugh. I laugh louder
and louder. I finally roar with laughter to such an extent that
the pencil and pad drop from my hands.
I start writing again. And again I'm convulsed with laugh-
ter.
No, later on, when I'm rewriting the story, I shan't laugh
, so loudly. But the first draft always amuses me to an incredible
degree.
I feel sick with laughter.
A neighbor knocks on the wall. He's an accountant. He
has to get up early tomorrow. I'm preventing him from sleeping.
Tonight he's pounding with his fist. I must have wakened
him.
Annoying.
I call out:
"Sorry,
Pyotr Alexeyevich...."
I take up the pad again. Again I laugh,
this
time with my
face in a pillow.
Twenty minutes later the story is complete. A pity I wrote
it so quickly.
I go across to the desk and copy out the story in nice, neat
handwriting. While copying it out, I continue to laugh quietly.
But tomorrow, when I'm reading the story to the editors,
I shan't be laughing. I shall read it glumly and even grimly.
Two a.m. I go to bed. But for a long time I can't sleep. I
• think up subjects for new stories.
Dawn. I take bromide in order to sleep.
More Rubbish Again
The editorial office of the literary journal
Contemporary.
I gave five of my best little stories to this magazine, and
now I've come for the answer.
