392
KONSTANTIN
PAUSTOVSKY
le~
like a writer than Babel. His shoulders were hunched , he had
no neck to speak of as a result of the hereditary Odessa asthma;
his nose looked like a duck's bill; his brow was deeply furrowed
and there was an oily gleam in his eyes. Not interesting at all, he
could easily have been taken for a traveling salesman or a dealer.
But, of course; only until he opened his mouth. The very first words
changed everything. A persistent irony was heard in the fine ring
of his voice.
Many people were unable to look at his burning eyes. By nature
Babel was a debunker. He loved to catch people off balance and this
gave him a reputation all over Odessa for being a difficult and
dangerous man.
Babel arrived in our office carrying a volume of Kipling under
his arm. When he talked to our chief editor, Ivanov, he put the
book down on the table. But he kept looking at it impatiently, even
carnivorously, as he shifted restlessly in his chair, getting up and
sitting down again. He was visibly on edge. He was longing to read
instead of conducting a polite conversation.
At the first opportunity, Babel switched the conversation to
Kipling. Writers, he said, should write in Kipling's ironclad prose;
authors should have the clearest possible notion of what was to
come out of their pens. A short story must have the precision of a
military communique or a bank check. It must be written in the
same firm, straightforward hand one uses for commands and checks.
Kipling's hand was just like that.
Ba:bel concluded his remarks on Kipling with a quite un–
expected statement. As he made it, he removed his glasses, which
immediately made his face look kind and helpless.
"Here in Odessa," he said, with a mocking glint in his eyes,
"we won't produce any Kiplings. We like a peaceful, easy life. But
to make up for it, we'll have our home-grown Maupassants. That's
because we have plenty of sea, sun, beautiful women, food for
thought. Yes, we'll have our Maupassants, that I can guarantee."
I
looked out of the window to watch Babel leave our building,
his shoulders hunched, and walk off along the shady side of the
street. He walked very slowly and, the moment he was out in the
street, opened his Kipling and started reading as he went. Now and
