474
MIKHAIL ZOSHCHENKO
I had reached 1926. Right up to the day when I stopped •
eating and almost died.
In front of me I had thirty-three stories. Thirty-three hap–
penings which at some time or another affected me.
I began looking through each story. In one of them I had
hoped to find the reason for my misery, my bitterness,
my
sickness.
But I did not find anything in these stories.
Yes, of course, some of them are depressing. But no more
depressing than most people's experiences. Everyone's mother
dies. Everybody has to leave home at some time. Or part with
his beloved. Fight at the front.
No, I did not find what I was looking for in any of the
stories.
Then I put all the stories together. I wanted to see the over–
all picture, the overall chord which perhaps stunned me like a
fish which is taken from the water and thrown into a boat.
Yes, of course, I've had many shocks in my life. A change
of fate. The collapse of the old world. The birth of a new life,
new people, a new country.
I didn't see any disaster in that! After all, I was also striving
to see the sunlight. And I was dogged by misery even before
these events. So they were not the cause of the problem. So that's
not the reason. On the contrary, they helped me to rediscover the
world, my country and the people for whom I began working.
. . . There should be no misery in my heart! But there
is.
I was disheartened. It seems I set myself an impossible task
in seeking the reason for my misery, seeking the unhappy event
which turned me into a miserable speck of dust blown about
by
the winds of life.
(Translated by John Richardson)
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