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KONSTANTIN PAUSTOVSKY
potboiling. What's so terrihle about twenty-two versions of
the
same story? You think that's extravagant, do you? But I'm not even
sure ·that the twenty-second version is publishable. I think it could
still be cut down. It's this sort of pruning, my friend, which bringJ
out the independent force of language and style. Language and
style!" he repeated.
"What I do," Babel said, "is to get hold of some trifle, some
little anecdote, a piece of market gossip, and turn it into something
I cannot tear myself away from. It's alive, it plays. It's round like
a pebble on the seashore. It's held together by the fusion of separate
parts, and this fusion is so strong that even lightning can't split it.
And people will read the story. They'll remember it, they'll laugh,
not because it's funny but because one always feels like laughing
in the presence of human good fortune. I take the risk of speaking
about good fortune because we're alone. As long as I live you
mustn't tell anyone about this conversation. Give me your word.
It is, of course, none of my doing that, I don't know how, a demon
or an angel, whatever you want to call it, has taken possession of
me, the son of a petty merchant. And I obey
him
like a slave, like
a beast of burden. I have sold my soul to him, and I must write
in
the best possible way. I guess it's an affliction. But
if
you take it
away from me-either my good fortune or my affliction-the
blood will gush out of my veins and my heart along with it; I will
be worth no more than a chewed cigarette butt. It's this work that
makes me into a man, and not an Odessa streetcorner philosopher."
He remained silent for a while and added with a fresh surge
of bitterness: "I have no imagination. I have only the desire to
possess it. Remember Blok's 'I see an enchanted shore, an en–
chanted horizon'? Blok reached this shore but I shan't. I see
this
shore at an unendurable distance. My mind is too matter-of-fact.
But I should at least be thankful that fate has put into my heart
a longing for that enchanted horizon. I work
to
the very limit of
my powers. I do my utmost because I want to be at the feast of the
gods and I'm afraid I might be driven away."
A tear gleamed behind the convex lenses of his glasses. He
took them off and wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his drab patched
jacket.
"I did not choose my race," he said suddenly in a broken
