Ilia Erenburg, The Thaw. Spring 1954
Ehrenburg describes two very different sorts of painter in Soviet Russia, the successful careerist and the honest but neglected artist.
Original Source: Novyi mir (Spring 1954).
The evening of the readers’ meeting was also to be memorable in the family of the old schoolmaster, Andrei Pukhov, though none of them went to the club. His daughter Sonya had meant to go, but it was Andrei’s birthday (he was 64) and his wife, Nadezhda, said that whatever happened, they must give a party. For three days Andrei listened to Nadezhda’s lamentations; flour was scarce, there was not a turkey or a goose in any shop in town, and as though on purpose, eggs were unobtainable as well.
Andrei chuckled: that’s what she was like, to hear her talk you’d think there would be nothing, yet the guests would eat so much that they could hardly get up from the table.
Nadezhda wanted to invite her cousin and her husband, a contemporary of Andrei, the former headmaster now pensioned off, but Andrei said: ‘Let’s ask Sonya’s and Volodya’s friends, let them have a good time; you and I will enjoy ourselves looking at them.’
Andrei was sociable, he liked Brainin and the former headmaster and sat for hours listening to his wife’s cousin talking about her rheumatism, her mud baths and her new bee-venom treatment. He often visited the widower Egorov who lived nearby and comforted him in his recent loss; they discussed machines, or Eisenhower’s latest speech or Egorov’s daughter who taught music. But he was never happier than among young people; it may have been that he had kept a youthful fervor, or perhaps that he had taught for over thirty years and really knew the young-there was nothing he couldn’t understand about the terrors of examinations or the tragedies of first love or youthful dreams of fame.
Only in his own family he at times felt lonely.
He had lived happily with his wife for thirty years. In her youth she, too, had been a teacher-she had taught in an adult school. Their first child, Volodya, was born in 1920, the famine year. When Nadezhda took him to the headquarters to show Andrei, the sentry stopped her: ‘Look out, little one, don’t drop him’-small and thin, with her short-cropped hair, she looked a child herself. A year later she had a daughter who died within a month; Nadezhda was dangerously ill and had two operations. When Andrei went back to school teaching she devoted herself to the duties of a wife and mother. By the time Sonya was born she had long forgotten the dreams she had had as a girl, the diary she had kept then, the books that she had read; she had grown fat and soft. On the rare occasions when she recalled her youth she was amazed: it seemed to her that it must have been another woman who had addressed those soldiers’ meetings, galloped, while she was pregnant, across the steppe or helped her husband to print leaflets. How long ago it was! Her world had closed in round her and grown compact.
When Andrei fell sick Nadezhda felt that she must save his life. She complained to everyone of his not following the doctors’ orders, of his behaving like a child unconscious of its danger. In reality Andrei knew he had not long to live and just because of this refused to be an invalid-he felt the moment he surrendered the engine would stop.
He announced that he was well and would return to work; for the first time in all their married life Nadezhda became frantic. She screamed, wept, ran to see the doctors. Vera Sherer said: ‘Of course he ought to be in bed, I’ve told him that. But sometimes a man knows better than his doctors. He told me he couldn’t live without his work. If I were you I wouldn’t worry him.’ Nadezhda did not give up, she went to see the Headmaster, the School Director, and the Secretary of the Town Committee. Andrei did not go back to work.
He was not idle. He looked after his former pupils, those of them whose fathers had fallen in the War and whose circumstances were particularly difficult. One had a mother who was a speculator and sent him to the market, another had to nurse a younger sister who was ill, a third had been neglected and kept bad company. Andrei would help the mothers and do their homework with the children, telling them of long past days: how the Revolution was started, how he once saw Lenin, how the Whites were driven back.
Nadezhda watched her husband growing weaker and every day she begged him tearfully: ‘Couldn’t you stay in bed at least a day?’ He reminded himself that her eyes, cruel in their concern, were the eyes of love and hid his suffering, forcing himself to smile instead of groaning when lie had a heart attack.
Volodya had been Nadezhda’s favorite from his childhood; he was a handsome boy with clever, mocking eyes. She told her neighbors: ‘He looks so quiet and yet he worries me.’ He was never naughty, never fought with other boys but, always with the same meek voice and courteous smile, behaved impertinently to his father whom he nicknamed ‘The Old Guard’; he teased his schoolfellows, composed rude verses about little girls and drew caricatures of the teachers. His love of drawing was already obvious when he was small and his mother asked herself with joy: ‘Perhaps he’s really gifted;,’
He studied painting in Moscow; spending his holidays at home, he would tell his mother funny stories about his teachers, about first nights, about the girls at the Red Poppy restaurant, talking like an old man tired of life. Horrified, Nadezhda begged her husband: ‘Do talk to him. He must have got in with the wrong sort of people.’ Andrei sighed; he had long ago tried everything-arguing, begging, scolding. Fate was making fun of him; people said: ‘Pukhov is even capable of re-educating criminals;’ only with his own son he could do nothing. Volodya never disagreed, he only looked at him mockingly through narrowed eyes, and Andrei knew the boy was laughing at him.
After finishing at the Art School, Volodya painted a big picture called ‘The Feast at the Kolkhoz’. It was greatly praised. He was given a studio in Moscow, he sent some money to his mother and wrote that he intended to get married. The girl threw him over for a film producer. Volodya was offended. He was equally offended when the jury rejected his picture, ‘A Meeting in a Workshop’. His nerves got the better of him. Unexpectedly even to himself, he lost his temper at an artists’ meeting and trounced the venerable masters, laureates twice and thrice over. It was then that it was found he had been given the studio by mistake and it was required for an artist who had recently been made a laureate. At the same time his commission to paint the portrait of the distinguished steel worker was inexplicably cancelled. Volodya realized that he had said the wrong things. He set about retrieving his position; he lavished praise upon the artists he had insulted, he ran down his own work, calling himself a boor and a bad comrade, and finally announced curtly that he was leaving for the provinces to gain experience of daily life at an industrial plant.
Thus, after his long absence, he was again at home. Of his failure he had said nothing; on the contrary, he made his mother happy by telling her he had been sent on a creative assignment and that he was pregnant with a great work upon a ‘shock’ theme,
Six months later, the editor of the local newspaper, looking at Volodya’s painting of two workers reading a newspaper, was filled with admiration: ‘Immensely talented! Look at the expression in those eyes! We must have a feature on it!’ It was said that Pukhov’s name would be put forward for a Stalin prize. His mother congratulated him on his success. He shrugged his shoulders. ‘You like it? I think it’s trash. Not that they do better than that in Moscow. On the whole I prefer not to think about it.’
Nadezhda confided to her husband: ‘That girl Volodya meant to marry must be terribly stuck-up, you know how easily he is influenced … Do you like his painting?’ Andrei replied unwillingly: ‘It’s the way he thinks that I don’t like. Yesterday I heard him arguing with Sonya about some book or other. Sonya said there weren’t any ideas in it; Volodya told her a writer wasn’t paid to have ideas. “All that happens to you with ideas is that you break your neck. What you’re meant to look for in a book is ideology. If it’s there what more d’you want? It’s lunatics that have ideas.” You know you’re wrong in saying he is influenced, he’s much more likely to corrupt others. Even as a boy he was the same. It’s that frightful cynicism …’ Andrei’s voice shook and Nadezhda became alarmed: ‘You mustn’t get excited.’
Nadezhda thought Andrei, as always, misjudged Volodya; he was always taking Sonya’s side. She could not realize that though, indeed, he worshipped Sonya he now felt painfully estranged from her. He thought it was his own fault-it must be that he no longer understood young people, that he wanted her to be like him as he had been at her age; it was well known that fathers never understood their children. ‘Volodya I have the right to judge, he’s a careerist, there must be many people of his own age who disapprove of him. But what can I blame Sonya for?-Nothing. If occasionally we misunderstand each other it must be because I talk the language of the past. The only thing that’s strange is that I don’t feel this barrier with my pupils, or with Savchenko, or with Lena. Perhaps the more you love people, the harder it is to understand them.’
Sonya was exceedingly reserved, she hardly ever showed any enthusiasm and she never opened her heart to anyone. Her parents knew, of course, that she was not indifferent to Savchenko, a young engineer, who often came to see her, but when Nadezhda tried to talk to her about him she answered quietly: ‘He’s nice, but you mustn’t think … He’s only an acquaintance.’ Several times, her mother had invited Savchenko to dinner-once on Sonya’s birthday, once to celebrate Volodya’s homecoming; Sonya treated him the same as all her other guests. Only when she was alone with him did she change, her face. softened, her eyes grew warmer. One day last autumn they went together for a country walk. All around them the September woods were full of sad and brilliant colors. Sonya stopped to pick some gold-leaved branches; then they walked on in silence. All at once Savchenko took her in his arms. For a moment she lost her head and kissed him, then she was herself again, hurrying back to the path. That evening she said to him: ‘We’ll have to wait. I’ll know in February where I’ll be directed to … Not much good getting engaged if we’re to be in different places … Or perhaps you’d like me to be a kitchen wife! Anyway, you couldn’t get a flat. Zhuravlev would never give you one, you haven’t been here long enough.’ Savchenko went away upset-why was she so sensible? He was not to know that after he had gone she threw herself face downwards on her bed and cried. ‘Was I very stupid? I must have been. But you have to think about the future! Usually the man is practical. But he’s a boy, so it’s I who have to talk about these things. Can’t he understand I hate to do it! He doesn’t understand a thing, but I can’t do without him.’
Was she as coldly logical as her father and Savchenko thought, or did she only try to look as if she were, believing that anything else had to be written off as ‘nonsense’, ‘idealism’, ‘Quixotic foolishness’? She loved literature but she studied engineering her father could not make it out. She told him: ‘It’s more useful. It will make it easier for me to get an interesting job.’ Once she had started on her course, she became genuinely keen on electrotechnics, but she went on saying: ‘This is what is called for nowadays.’ She liked poetry, particularly Blok and Lermontov, but she told her father: ‘If there is any room for poetry at all, it can only be for Maiakovskii’s.’ She helped her mother with her housework she felt sorry for her; she was far more competent than Nadezhda, she always managed to get to the counter in a shop, however big the crowd, and knew how to stir up the manager of their block of flats. When her mother worried about her father’s doing too much, she said: ‘He has to have an interest. It keeps him going.’ And listening to her father’s stories about Misha’s progress or Senya’s chemistry, she thought: ‘How old I am compared to him!’
When she congratulated him on his birthday, Andrei smiled: ‘What is there to rejoice about? I’ve lived long and done little.’ Sonya laughed:
‘You seem very young to me.’
Guests arrived for the birthday dinner; they were Volodya’s friends, the artist Saburov and his wife, and an actress from the local theatre, Orlova, who was generally known as Tanechka. Nadezhda had naturally asked Savchenko but he said that he was speaking at the club and would drop in afterwards.
At dinner, Volodya gently pulled Saburov’s leg; Saburov tried to hold his own, but he mumbled so that nobody could understand a word he said.
Volodya and Saburov had been friends at school but life had parted them. Volodya dreamed of fame, of money, he always knew which were the ‘shock’ themes, what artists had been rewarded and who had been told off All this time Saburov diligently painted landscapes which were never shown. He seemed to care for nothing except his painting and his wife, Glasha, who was delicate and a cripple. Glasha was a proof-reader and they lived mainly on her very small earnings; needless to say they lived badly. judging from the way Saburov swallowed chunks of pasty which Nadezhda kept piling on his plate, he didn’t often eat his fill.
Glasha looked at him with adoring eyes. Since his marriage, he painted, in addition to his landscapes, portraits of his wife; he made her ugly but gave her ugliness a charm. Volodya often told his parents that Saburov was talented-perhaps more talented than the rest of them-but that he had a screw loose: ‘Simply hasn’t an idea of what is wanted at the present time. He’ll never get anywhere.’
He was making fun of Saburov now:
‘Still trying to win over our epoch?’
Saburov mumbled heatedly about Raphael, color sense, composition, until Nadezhda said: ‘Do eat, your pasty will get cold.’
She had kept the champagne until the last, waiting for Savchenko. When he came in she stole a glance at Sonya who was arguing about some play with Tanechka and did not so much as look up.
Pukhov asked how the meeting had gone off
‘I was surprised at Koroteev,’ said Savchenko. ‘I’ve always thought he was intelligent and sensitive. Yet he spoke according to the book of rules. Have you read the novel?’
‘I haven’t, I sighed Pukhov. ‘Haven’t got round to it. They say it’s good.’
‘I don’t know if it’s good or bad, but it stimulates you. There’s an unhappy love affair, that’s what Koroteev couldn’t stomach. It seems that private tragedy won’t do in novels–“Why delve into emotions?” and so on. If it had been Brainin now, it wouldn’t have surprised me, but I wouldn’t have expected it of Koroteev.’
Volodya grinned:
‘He’s clever. Why should he say what he really thinks?’
Andrei could not contain himself:
‘Not everybody thinks the way you do. Korovteev is an honest man, that doesn’t seem to have occurred to you.’
There was a moment of embarrassed silence–Andrei had spoken with unusual sharpness; then Savchenko began again:
‘I was sorry the speech I made at the meeting came before Koroteev’s, but there was a girl who answered him; she was very good. I think you are mistaken, Vladimir Andreevich, everybody spoke quite openly. Perhaps you haven’t been to these discussions recently, things have changed a good deal … This novel touches on a raw spot-so often people do one thing in their private life but say something quite different. The public is longing for such books.’
‘It’s the same with plays,’ Tanechka exclaimed. ‘Think of it, three new plays we’ve had, and every one a flop … There simply isn’t a play worth acting … Art … ‘
‘You are right,’ broke in Saburov. ‘It’s high time we remembered there is such a thing as art. Say what you like, Volodya, I can’t argue with you. But Raphael isn’t color photography.’
Volodya answered lightly:
‘Raphael wouldn’t be admitted to the Artists’ Union. We can’t all be like you, painting masterpieces for the year two thousand. Not that I’d bet on your masterpieces arousing much interest in the year two thousand.’
‘Don’t say that, Vladimir Andreevich,’ murmured Glasha. ‘If you saw his latest landscape-it’s quite extraordinary.’
‘All the same, insisted Savchenko, I can’t make Koroteev out. I’ve been working with him close on a year. He’s a real live person, you can feel it in his every word. Why did he attack Zubtsov?’
‘I’ve read the novel, I said Sonya, ‘and I quite agree with Koroteev. It’s not enough for a Soviet man to control Nature, he has to control his own feelings as well. Zubtsov’s love is somehow blind. A novel has to educate, not to confuse the reader … ‘
Savchenko overturned a glass in his excitement:
‘It isn’t blind, it’s big. And you can’t put everything neatly into pigeonholes … ‘
Nadezhda thought: ‘He’s in love with her A right. How cold she is. Who does she take after? Not after Andrei or me … ‘
It may have been the wine-everybody suddenly talked at once, shouting one another down. Saburov was yelling something about ‘the force of color.’ Tanechka had leapt up and was repeating: ‘Love is love, say what you like,’ Volodya, mimicking her, wrung his hands.
Andrei was standing by the window; looking out at the snow flooded with a white acid light, he thought: ‘I can’t make Sonya out. Did she say it only to tease Savchenko? No, she talks like that when he isn’t there. She must be right in her own way. Who am I to judge? I am too old.’
Sonya, taking advantage of the noise, slipped away unnoticed to her room. She sat down on the bed without putting on the light. She felt she had to be alone, if only for a moment. She thought: ‘I’ve really lost my head. It’s enough for him to look at me and I become unnatural, I can neither talk nor think. It’s frightful! I must control myself, I must behave towards him as I do to all the others, or he’ll despise me. He insulted me again tonight, telling me you can’t put everything into pigeonholes.. How stupid! If that’s what he thinks of me he doesn’t understand me in the least. I feel as much as other people do-I even feel too much. But I hate emotionalism, I really hate it.’
Savchenko walked into the room. He could not see her but stretching out his hand he touched her shoulder. He took her in his arms and kissed her.
‘You’re mad. People might come in.’
‘When will you stop being so logical? If you love me … ‘
She got up, switched on the light and looked at him furiously:
‘Well, this shows I don’t. And I’ll tell you what, don’t let’s talk about it any more.’
‘Wait. I’ll tell you … ‘
‘You’ve told me quite enough. Now we must go back or they will notice … Father will be hurt, it’s his day.’
Soon the party broke up. Sonya did not look at Savchenko once and never said a word to him as he was leaving.
Savchenko walked home morosely, plastered with snow, remembering how he had hurried from the club to the Pukhovs, dreaming like a fool of happiness. ‘I’m twenty-five, my youth is finished. Koroteev says I’m a romantic, I exaggerate, I let myself be swept away. He’s right. It isn’t possible to live like that. Perhaps he’s altogether right? Why should love be so important? I’ve got an ‘interesting job. Koroteev trusts me. Ahead of me there will be many tests, we live ‘in an extraordinary time. just imagine a young man like me, sighing over his unhappy love in the spring of ‘forty-one! And a little later defending Stalingrad! But perhaps the one doesn’t exclude the other? I remember Uncle Lenya coming on leave. I followed him about asking him how to work a mortar and build pontoons; he showed me a girl’s photo and said: “Grisha, I’ve found my happiness.” And six months later he was killed. How complicated it is to live … Here am 1, thinking all the time of Sonya; it’s because of her that I remembered Uncle Lenya. And now I can’t even go and see her. Can she be in love with someone else? She’d never say she was in love, she’s much too proud. I’m not, I’m ready to admit to anyone-I found my happiness and now I’ve lost it.
Sonya told her mother the champagne had given her a headache. She would get up early and tidy the place, but now she must go to bed.
She lay down without undressing and thought about Savchenko. ‘Clearly, I’ve lost my head. He has, too, I think … But why is it we always end by quarrelling? Our characters are too different. Love alone is not enough. How can you share your life with somebody who doesn’t understand you? I mustn’t think about him. He’s good, straight, honest. That isn’t the point, either, I love him. But one has to subjugate one’s feelings. He’s right in one thing, worst of all is to say one thing and do another. It would be best if they sent me far away to the Urals or to Siberia. Then the problem will vanish, I’m sure of it. But this is weakness, let them keep me here and I’ll still manage. This is like another examination-to see if I can dominate myself Of course I can. But how wretched it makes you feel.’
Volodya said to Tanechka he would see her home.
She lived far away and they had missed the last bus. Volodya longed to take a taxi but she said that she had drunk too much, she needed some fresh air. Volodya was annoyed-a pleasant pastime, walking in a snowstorm! Tanechka talked incessantly. She had liked Volodya’s father, he was kind and handsome-she wasn’t being funny, she meant handsome-distinguished. She hadn’t understood a word Saburov said but she liked him, too. It was a bad idea to drink too much, afterwards you felt sad. She felt unhappy, that was clear as two and two, but she wouldn’t think about it, it wasn’t worth it.
Tanechka had kept a child’s directness, though she was thirty-two and had spent nine years working in theatres in the provinces, among people who shied at nothing so violently as ingenuousness and sincerity. She worked conscientiously, she was considered gifted and had gradually made her way; now she often played leading parts. But deep in her heart she was unhappy.
As a child she had thought of acting as a life of tragedy and splendor. You would expect what followed to have sobered her. She came to realize that she had no talent and that indeed talent was not often met with. Other people were content with craftsmanship. She saw intrigues, cliques, ham actors, little rooms in dirty hotels, light affairs and a weight of misery. Tanechka had grown sad, her face was covered in little wrinkles (it’s the greasepaint, she comforted herself); outwardly she was resigned, but at the bottom of her heart there survived a dream: somewhere there must exist a bigger, better life, and Tanechka had simply lost her way.
Long ago-some seven years-she had decided to take poison when the actor Gromov, whom she adored, told her: ‘We ought to part, we’re getting on each other’s nerves.’ Gromov was her first real love, she looked upon him as her husband. Afterwards there had been others–Kolesnikov, Borodin, Petya. She learnt to give herself without illusions and to part without much grief. Volodya she had accepted out of loneliness, without asking herself if she loved him. Besides, he had been so insistent, he had argued, pleaded.
He was nice to her, he teased her only moderately, and often cheered her up-he had a lightness that she lacked. When she complained she had no talent, there were no decent parts and she was sick of everything, he distracted her with funny or malicious stories of famous actors he had known in Moscow. Sometimes his views on life annoyed her, but at others they made her laugh. He said that everybody was a pot-boiler, that that was nothing to be surprised at; and that turnips were more necessary than art; but nobody ever thought of spelling turnip with a capital T and nobody made a drama out of forwarding the cause of turnips, they just planted them and served them up. You had to live as best you could. And life contained a few good things a ragged piece of sky seen through a window or a ship’s siren heard at night.
They were used to one another. If Volodya stayed away Tanechka became upset; and Volodya told himself in surprise: ‘There’s nothing to her, and yet I like her.’
It was a long walk. The storm roared, Volodya raged, and Tanechka. talked on.
‘Tell me, what are Saburov’s pictures like?’
‘One house and two trees. Or two houses and one tree. He doesn’t believe in any other kind.’
‘Why?’
‘He says that’s painting.’
‘And what do you say ?’
‘I say he’s a schizophrenic. Nobody has ever bought a single sketch of his.’
‘I’ll tell you why you say that. It’s because your own pictures are pot-boilers. Oh yes, they are. He’s not a schizophrenic, he’s an artist, you can tell at once. I want to see his pictures. A house and two trees, that isn’t at all funny, stop being so pretentious. And don’t tell me I’m drunk. Of course I’ve had a lot to drink, but I’ll say just the same tomorrow. You do paint pot-boilers. What d’you want with such a lot of money? Now Saburov … ‘
‘Are you in love with him?’
‘Don’t be disgusting. But I envy Saburov’s wife. He loves her.’
‘No, he paints her and she loves him, that’s their division of labor. He must have somebody to praise him and he’s found Glasha. She gazes at his masterpieces and squeaks: “It’s quite extraordinary.” ‘
‘That isn’t a bit funny. It’s touching. And it’s a good thing she’s ugly and lame … Now you could never love me … ‘
‘Ali! Now we come to the point. Psychoanalysis and fortunes in the teacups at three a.m. By way of tea leaves, snow. The hero is an ageing producer of pot-boilers. The heroine is an honest actress a little tattered by life.’
Tanechka stopped and frowned at him: ‘You know, I’m sick of your affectation. If you can’t talk like a human being, you’d better not talk at all.’
They remained silent until they reached her house. Volodya wanted to come in but she banged the door.
She sat in her fur jacket without taking off her headscarf The snowflakes melted and ran down her face together with her tears. ‘That’s the champagne,’ she told herself ‘Saburov is a remarkable man. He must look down on me. I tell Volodya he does pot-boilers and what do I do ? Tripe! Only Volodya has even less excuse. I’m just an average actress, what they call a cog in the wheel, but he’s somebody they discuss, they write about, they take seriously. Nobody knows he’s empty, he has nothing inside his heart. That’s why he laughs at everything. It wouldn’t be a bit surprising if he hanged himself. And I can’t help him-I’m empty, too. Glasha loves Saburov, but do I love Volodya? That’s not love. We’ve just made a deal because it’s too frightening to be alone. He doesn’t love me either. How badly everything has turned out. When I was at the drama school I used to walk along the street and think, just there, just round the comer, there is happiness … Time to go to sleep, there’s a rehearsal early … They say drink makes you sleepy, with me it does the opposite. How can you sleep when you start thinking about everything … Try counting up to a thousand … All the same, Saburov is right, there is such a thing as art.’
Volodya sat gloomily in his taxi. ‘When Tanechka drinks, she’s insufferable. All the same I like her, that’s a fact. She must have known I didn’t want to be alone tonight, that’s why she didn’t let me in. Beastly evening. Beastly arguments about art. Saburov is talented all right, but only a schizophrenic can paint and put away his paintings, in a cupboard. Who’s he painting for? Perhaps his cripple? Everybody’s shouting about art and nobody cares a fig for it really, that’s the sign of our time. No wonder Tanechka was impressed, in her heart she dreams of art with a big A. Nice if she could fall in love with someone solid-a chemist or an agronomist-she needs desperately to be happy. Why did she have to go for me like that? I do pot-boilers, so does everybody else, though they don’t all admit it. She thinks I’m fond of money. Well, you have to live, that’s a fact. Those were terrible days in Moscow before I left … It’s funny, if you have money you get invited out and entertained, and during that time nobody so much as looked at me. I was lucky to scramble out so soon. But was that a crime ? Did I hurt anybody? If it were up to me, I’d show Saburov’s things at once; he’s very talented, but that’s not the point, there isn’t any justice, and I bet he also wants to live. Why did I say he was a schizophrenic, he’s just an ordinary man, only as stubborn as a mule. Comic when Savchenko drank two glasses of champagne and fell on Saburov’s neck. Savchenko is a blockhead, what can Sonya see in him? She isn’t a fool. It’s all right when Father talks about ideas-that’s his right, he grew up in that sort of time-revolution romanticism. But Savchenko is an ordinary engineer, his business is with machines.. not with ideas. Why should he get up on a soap box ? Idiot. Everybody trims his sails, maneuvers, lies, only some are smatter at it, some less smart. I’m sure Savchenko must envy me-I don’t clock in, I can get up when I feel like it and when I sell a picture I make four times as much as he does in a month.
He probably thinks I’m happy, but he’s much happier than I am because he’s much more stupid. I’m sick of everything. Incidentally, must get UP on time-Zhuravlev’s last sitting. He’s got a face like dirty cotton wool. I’ve made him a fine figure, though-leader of Soviet industry, chin up and a glance expressing an iron win. If the Museum really takes it, as Maslov said, that’s twenty thousand. Shall I buy a “Victory”? Nice to speed on the road, everything flickers past, you haven’t time to notice anything. Not worth it, perhaps, better give half to Mother, she doesn’t say she’s short, Father keeps giving everything away. Zhuravlev has a handsome wife, I see her painted by Tintoretto-red hair, pale skin, green eyes. But what’s she really like? Probably swears when she goes to market and babbles rapturously to her friends: “The Commission Stores have shoes from Paris.” Nuisance, Saburov finished off the vodka, I could do with a drink now. At the hanging committee in Moscow Kriukov cursed the painters for being pessimistic and shouted: “We must have optimism” and then took to drink and was taken off to hospital … Why is there such a lot of snow? It makes you feel so wretched you don’t want to go on living … ‘
Andrei Pukhov sat in his armchair, his eyes closed. He remembered Volodya’s words with horror. ‘It’s some kind of double talk! Addresses activists, demands significance in art, paints workers, and then calmly tells you everybody is a liar. No, I mustn’t think about it. What a joy that Sonya is honest. Of course, I find it easier to understand Savchenko … But she is honest, that’s what matters.
One mustn’t expect everybody to be the same, why should Sonya be like Savchenko ? That’s what I wish for sometimes, but that’s bad, that’s grousing at youth. I’m in a bad mood. Birthdays are nice when you’re a child, now they frighten you. And then this wretched heart … ‘
He had told his wife he felt in splendid form, it had been a fine idea of hers to celebrate his birthday, the party had been wonderful … Now he must lie down.
Recently he had become afraid of night time as of a journey to a distant, enigmatic country. He felt worse when he lay down-he was troubled with palpitations, pains in his left arm, dizziness. He couldn’t make himself comfortable and didn’t like to turn for fear of waking up his wife.
Pity to have lived to endure this, he thought. ‘it isn’t death that’s frightening, only this. And you forget, you want to do something and you find you can’t.’ He was invaded by depression; it arose not from his mind but from his body, he felt like yawning loudly or crying out. Nadezhda was asleep and her even breathing made him feel still more afraid. There was a moment when he felt: ‘I’m dying, I mustn’t make a noise, Nadya is asleep.’
He forced himself to think of easy, simple things. Tomorrow he must see Serezha’s mother. No wonder she was having a hard time; as a typist she would earn less than six hundred rubles a month. But Serezha was exceptionally gifted in mathematics, he must not leave school. Andrei had spoken to Nadezhda, they would try to help a little.
For some reason, the image of his wife as a young girl came into his mind. Her hair was like Serezha’s, even to the top-knot. She wore a soldier’s coat. ‘Nadya was brave. When we were surrounded at Rostov, she begged for a rifle. How long ago was that? It’s terrible how long a life can be, you look back on it and you can’t believe it. And, after all, you remain unchanged, and you forget that your age is different. Nadya is still brave. She’s only afraid for me. And I for her. How will she manage by herself? All our fife we’ve been together.’
Now the sound of Nadezhda’s breathing roused a quiet and sad tenderness in him. It occurred to him that he would like to live a little longer, even though he was ill and weak. The pain in his heart eased, it became the normal tedious pain to which he was accustomed. He realized with relief that he would probably soon fall asleep. Suddenly the world was cozy and drowsing off he thought: ‘I’m glad it isn’t for tonight. It seems you always want to live. Right to the very last.’
Source: Ilya Ehrenburg, The Thaw (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1955), Vol. III, pp. 32-56.