500
ILYA
EHRENBURG
in the cafe once cut his finger on a knife and Mayakovsky hurriedly
turned away. Arrogant? Yes, of course, he was quick to answer
his
critics and to insult his literary enemies. I remember the following
exchange: Member of the audience--HYour poetry is not fiery,
stirring or catching." Answer-HI am neither a stove, a spoon nor
a disease." Autographing books he always inscribed "For internal
use only." All this is well known. Other things are less well known.
I remember Mayakovsky reciting one evening in the Cafe Vol–
taire in Paris. Lydia Seifullina
'5
was there.
It
was the spring of
1927.
Someone called out "Read us some of your old poems!"
Mayakovsky, as usual, got out of it with a joke. When the evening
was over, I went to an all-night cafe near the Boulevard Saint
Michel with Mayakovsky, Seifullina, Elsa Triolet
'6
and others. There
was music and someone danced. Mayakovsky joked, mimicked
I
the poet Gregory Ivanov
17
who had been at his reading, and then
I
fell silent for a long time, looking around gloomily like a lion in a
cage. We agreed that I would go see him the next morning, as early \
as possible. In his tiny room at the Hotel I stria, where he always
stayed, the bed had not been slept in. He was in a bad mood and
immediately, without greeting me, asked: "Do you think my early
verse was better?"18 He had no self-confidence: it was his studied
pose that misled people.
I think that the pose was more a matter of calculation than of
temperament. He was given to romanticism, but he was ashamed
of it and held himself in check. "Who has not been a philosopher
at the sight of the sea?" (he once said, pondering in a bitter mood
about his life), and then immediately he added ironically, "it's just
water." In his article "How to Make Verse" everything seems logical
and simple. In actual fact Mayakovsky knew well the stresses and
strains which creative effort inevitably involved. Here he talks in
detail about how he "stored up" rhymes for future use, but he
15. A naturalistic Soviet novelist.
16. Russian-born French Communist writer who is the wife of Louis Aragon,
and the sister of Lily Brik, Mayakovsky's mistress in Russia.
17. Emigre Acmeist poet.
18. Mayakovsky's early verse was almost entirely concerned with his per–
sonal torments. After the revolution his work became increasingly
political in content.
