DANlLOKIS
103
aside from sheer need, could I have derived such pleasure from trans–
lation?" he replied when I asked him
~bout
jt. His
versi~i1s
of Catul–
les, Petrarch's
Canzoniere,
and ShaKespeare's sonnets, which he pre–
pared with the help of the late Izirkov; must also
be
read
irl
this light.)
I shall pass over the historical events which like a Mrsh land–
scape provided the backdrop to our lives . When I 100k .ba"Ck, it all
comes together in a mixture of snow, rain , and mud ; in the "unity of
intolerable frost." But you may rest assUred, . sir; that Mendel
Osipovich had nothing of the stern mien his ascetic prose might sug–
gest. The letters he wrote to me were as baroque as Flaubert's; they
spoke of all the things his poetry speaks of-and of things it does not:
creative joys and creative crises, innermost states , cities , hemor–
rhoids, landscapes, reasbns to commit suicide and reasons to go on
living, the differenee between prose and poetry. His letters com–
bined amorous sighs, erotic hints, literary theories , travelogues, and
fragments of poetry.
i
§till
recall descriptions of a rose, of a sunrise ,
variations on the theme of bedbugs, speculations on the probability
bf lire after dtath. I remember the description of a tree, a simile in
whit:h the crkkets beneath a hotel window in the Crimea chirp like
wristwEllthes being wound, the etymology of a name, of a city, the
interpretation of a nightmare . The rest, everything edse I can re–
member, was words bf love: pointers on how to
dress
fot the winter
or comb my hair, prayers, "ardent cooing," and scenes ofjeaIousy–
unfounded, needless to say.
Then one day I received a letter. I need not tell you, sir, what
went on in the terrible year of 194-9, when every member of the
Organization of Yiddish Writers was liquidated. The incident I am
speaking of occurred just prior to those tragic events . I received a let–
ter meant for another. Perhapsl ought to have subjected my curios–
ity to the rules of etiquette and left it unread, but that was too much
to ask, especially since my name in Mendel Osipovich's hand was on
the envelope. No, it was not a love letter; it was about the sense, the
meaning of some verse - advice to the young woman who was
translating Mendel Osipovich's poems into Russian. But the letter
was permeated with a certain ambiguity, a mixture of "Dionysian
delirium" and "incorrigible wood-grouse pride" (to quote from his
verse itself). Mendel Osipovich's soul held no secrets for me. I was
certain, sir, and still am (if certainty is not mere consolation or self–
justification) that an ordinary
Liebesbrief
would have hurt me less,
shaken me less : I could have forgiven him his "Dionysian delirium";
