424
PARTISAN REVIEW
back to normal. Everything was as it should be.
It
was time to go. He
was suddenly gripped by a sense of urgency.
It
seemed this was his last
voyage, that he would die somewhere along the way, like Bunin's gen–
tleman from San Francisco, a rich man in the hold of a liner with a still–
undigested oyster in his stomach.
If
he died suddenly, there would remain in him the disorder of a raw
life, not yet filtered through his artistic brain. He knew that everything
that came into his field of vision, finely tuned through many years of
habit, would become a work of art.
I must get back to the hotel as soon as possible. I want to get back to
Moscow. There my new novel is waiting. What if I die and the work gets
lost? They won't print it as it is. Some loutish, pigeon-toed editor will
crawl into the text, dig in his claws and tear out all that is best. He won't
understand, the bastard, that this is more painful than to reach into my
belly and rip out my insides. The way to do it, when the time comes, is
to go to his office, and clutching frequently at my heart, wait until he
signs it off to press, and then follow through to make sure that he, the
monster, doesn't cross anything out, that he doesn't touch.
And Masha understood it again, as always. She gave a sign: It's time.
Oh, Masha, Masha, what would I do without you? I would be helpless,
completely helpless and lost.
Worn out by the long evening but still smiling with that indelible
American smile, the professor took him on a little joyride deep down
into the garage of the cavernous hotel; bathed in columns of light, the
building resembled more a baroque cathedral than a human dwelling
place. The writer again felt the impatient itch of the spindle twisting in
his palms. He knew that he would work all night so as not to forget to
bring to Moscow his last corrections.
The devil tempted me to leave, he burst out, repressing a feeling of
nausea as the elevator sped toward the heavens. Anxious, he implored
in the weak voice of a sick child:
What do you think, Masha? Has it gone to press? Will I have time to
correct it? Masha knew very well this terror that often overcame him–
the story would leave his hands and go to the printer'S without his final
approval.
You'll make it, you'll make it, invisible Masha patted him on the
hand. Faithful Masha. Masha, who had left him long ago, more than
two years now.
All she had said then was: I'm tired, Siava. I'm so tired.
Translated from the Russian by Sylvia Maizell
