502
ILYA EHRENBUR6
published. And I have kept the manuscript of
The Bedbug
he
gave to "Tata" (Tatiana Yakovleva), which she had thrown away.
No, she was not like Mayakovsky, although, like him, she was tall
and good looking. I do not want to indulge in what Mayakovsky
.rightly called "gossip," and have only mentioned this episode (by
no means the most significant one in the poet's life) to show how
little he resembled the bronze statue erected to him of the heroic
St. Vladimir of popular legend.
When Mayakovsky was eighteen years old, he entered an
art
I
school-he wanted to become a painter. In his poetry his perception
of the world is that of a painter ; his images are visual, and not de–
rived from his fantasy . He liked painting and had a feeling for it,
and he also liked the company of artists. He didn't hear the world,
he saw it (he used to say jokingly that an elephant had stepped on
his ear).
I have mentioned elsewhere an evening at the Tsetlin's when
Mayakovsky read "Man." Vyacheslav Ivanov
21
nodded his head
approvingly from time to time. Balmont was clearly bored. Bal–
trushaitis
22
was as usual inscrutable. Marina Tsvetayeva
23
smiled,
while Pasternak kept glancing lovingly at Mayakovsky. Andrei Bely
listened ecstatically, and when Mayakovsky had finished reading,
jumped up in such excitement he could hardly speak. Nearly every–
body shared his enthusiasm. But Mayakovsky was annoyed by some–
one's cold, polite remark. This is how he always was-he seemed
never to notice his laurels, but always to be seeking the thorns. In
his verse he wages a constant battle with the enemies, real and
imagined, of the new poetry. What was the real meaning of his
taunts? Was he perhaps arguing with himself?
I have read some articles on Mayakovsky written abroad, whose
authors try to prove that the poet was destroyed by the Revolution.
It is difficult to imagine anything more absurd. Without the Revo–
lution there would have been no Mayakovsky. In 1918 he rightly
called me a "frightened intellectual"; it took me two years to under-
I
stand what it was all about, but Mayakovsky understood and ac- (
21. Symbolist poet who emigrated to Italy in 1924.
22. Yurgis Baltrushaitis, a R ussian poet of Lithuanian origin.
23. T he poetess who became an emigre in the early 'twenties. She com·
mitted suicide after her return to Russia in 1939.
