A.
ALVAREZ
who is thus at the mercy Qf the executiQner is no.t annihilated when
he faints frQm pain, fQr he is present at his Qwn end, his past be–
IQngs to
him,
his memQries are his and, if he chooses, he can make
use Qf them, they can help
him
befQre
his
death.
But a man who decides to. CQmmit suicide puts a full stop to his
being, he turns his back Dn
his
past, he declares himself a bank–
rupt and his memQries
to
be unreal. They can no. IQnger help Qr
save
him,
he has put
himself
beyQnd their reach. The cQntinuity
Qf his inner life is broken, his personality is at an end. And perhaps
what finally makes
him
kill himself is nDt the firmness
Df
his resolve
but the unbearable quality
Df
this anguish which belongs to no
one, Qf this suffering in the absence Qf the sufferer, Qf this waiting
which is empty because life has stQPped and can no. Io.nger fill it.
It seems to me that Mayakovsky shot himself Qut of pride, because
he cQndemned something in himself, or close to.
him,
to which his
self-respect could not submit. That Yesenin hanged himself witho.ut
having prDperly thought Qut the cQnsequences of his act, still say–
ing in his inmost heart: "Who knQws? Perhaps this isn't yet the
end. NQthing is yet decided." That Maria Tsvetayeva had always
held her work between herself and the reality of daily life; and
when she fQund this luxury beyond her means, when she felt that
for her sQn's sake she must, fQr a time, give up her passio.nate ab–
sQrptiQn in poetry and 10Qk round her soberly, she saw chao.s, no.
longer screened by art, fixed, unfamiliar, mo.tiDnless, and, not
kno.wing where to run fo.r terrQr, she hid in death, putting her
head into the no.ose as she might have hidden her head under her
pillo.w.
It
seems to. me that Pao.IQ Yashvili was utterly confused, spell–
bound by the ShigalYQvshchina of
1937
as by witchcraft; and that he
watched his daughter as she slept at night and, imagining himself
unworthy to Io.o.k at her, went Qut in the mo.rning to his friends'
house and blasted his head with grapeshot fro.m his dQuble-barrelled
gun. And it seems to me that Fadeyev, still with the ,apologetic smile
which had So.mehDW stayed with him through all the crafty ins and
o.uts Qf PQlitics, to.ld himself just befo.re he pulled the trigger: "Well,
now it's over. Goodbye, Sasha."
What is certain is that they all suffered beYDnd descriptio.n, to the
Po.int where suffering has beco.me a mental sickness. And, as we
bow in homage
to.
their gifts and
to.
their bright memory, we sho.uld
bo.W compassionately before their suffering.
Pasternak writes, I think, with the poignancy of a man who has
been there
himself.
This is not, in any way, to imply that he had
considered taking his own life - a question which is none of our
business - but simply that he had endured those conditiDns in which
suicide becomes an unavoidable fact Df society. As he describes them,
