These new people had not actually begun to work; they were merely conferring, making preparations.
And then who should turn up but my old friend Yefim, the same Yefim who, while languishing in a tsarist jail, had eaten goose for Christmas. Or, as he put it, “gooses”.
Yefim, smiling bashfully, announced that he had an idea for a political article.
“So far I’ve only got as far as the title: ‘Plehve and his Slaves’.[21] I’d like to get it printed as soon as possible.”
“So where is the article?”
“Well I need a bit more time to think up the article itself.”
A man by the name of Gukovsky appeared too. He opened his gap-toothed mouth wide and tapped on his gums with a fingernail. “Scurvy,” he declared proudly.
From this, everyone was supposed to gather that he had spent time in exile; that he had suffered for his ideas.
We were also joined by someone called Gusev, who had just arrived from abroad. Somebody said that he “had a top-notch singing voice”. All these men were more or less alike. They even spoke in the same way: curling their lips ironically and leaving their sentences unfinished.
I was asked to write something satirical for the paper.
At the time there was a lot of talk about Dmitry Trepov.[22] I no longer remember what position he held, but he was certainly someone very important; hence he was dubbed Patron—a name which, of course, also means “Bullet”. During the suppression of a recent riot[23] he had given soldiers the order to fire and “to spare no bullet”. Soon afterwards, he had been removed from his post.
The editors decided that I should mark this occasion.
I wrote a rhyme called “Bullet and the bullets”:
My rhyme was typeset at once and was supposed to come out the following day.
But it didn’t appear.
What was going on?
Some Gusev or Gukovsky popped out from one of the side rooms and explained, “I asked them to hold back your poem. I wasn’t sure if it’s correct to rhyme ‘recall it’ with ‘bullet’. It will need to be discussed at an editorial meeting.”
I went to see Rumyantsev.
“Pyotr Petrovich, we can’t afford to delay. In a day or two, every newspaper in town will have come up with the same joke. We won’t be able to print it then.”
Rumyantsev ran off to the typesetters and the poem appeared the following day. And by evening, the joke about “Bullet and the bullets” was being repeated everywhere: on the streets, in trams, in clubs, in parlours, at student meetings. I would have liked to have had a word with the expert on poetry who had kept back my poem. However, all the newcomers were so like one another that I was afraid I might get the wrong man, and upset somebody entirely innocent.
“Don’t bother,” said Rumyantsev. “He knows anyway. He only held back your poem to show that he’s an important person around here, that his word means something.”
“But who is he?” I asked. “Is he a writer? How does he come to be such an expert on rhyme? And in any case, it says in the contract that ‘they’ are supposed to keep to the political section. If you know who did it, tell him there are one or two things I’d like to change too in their political editorials.”
He laughed. “That would certainly liven up the paper,” he said. “Interest has been falling off lately.”
But actually, interest in the paper was not falling off.
We had had some interest from Moscow. Valery Bryusov had sent us a short story. Minsky had received a letter from Andrei Bely. The literary section was getting very lively.
There was a lot of talk at the time about new social developments, but it was difficult to detect any general trend. At salons, people discussed the government’s actions. People who were themselves of low social status were saying things like: “Those workers and tradesmen are stirring things up. There’s no satisfying that lot.”
In the hairdresser’s one day, a big, strapping woman with red cheeks, the owner of a horse cab yard, was sitting beside me having her hair set. She was saying to the hairdresser, “You know what, Monsewer, I’m that scared these days, I can’t even leave the house.”
“Why ever not?” asked the hairdresser.
“Well, everyone’s saying the antilligentsia is about to cop it. It’s scaring the living daylights out of me…”
In the house of a certain governor’s wife I met a Baroness O. She had been brought to Russia by Zinaida Gippius.
“Why don’t you have a Carmagnole?”[24] she was saying. “It’s a lovely, cheerful revolutionary song for the triumphant people to dance to. I can write the music and one of your poets can write the words. I love writing music. I’ve already written two romances: one about a Turkish pasha in love, and the other about a queen in love. Now I can write a Carmagnole. So don’t forget, now. Have a word with your poet friends.”
In the dark corners of the editorial office there was much whispering, and the rustling of strange documents—little groups of cockroaches waving their whiskers.
Rumyantsev strode boldly about the office, like an animal-tamer in a circus. He was very pleased with all his staff, and was now waiting impatiently for Lenin’s arrival, so that he could boast to him about how well he had set everything up. He was the object of disapproving whispers from the cockroaches in their corners, but he took no notice of this and only chuckled roguishly. Watching him, you would think he was merely playing at being a Bolshevik, and enjoying himself immensely. Yet he had, in his day, spent time in exile (albeit not in Siberia, but in Oryol).[25] He had translated Marx and was seen by the Bolsheviks as a powerful force in the world of literature. He barely said a word to the whisperers in the corners and sometimes even nodded in their direction and gave us a knowing wink.
But there was an odd mood in the editorial office. It was tense, unfriendly and awkward. Minsky was particularly anxious. He was the chief editor, the paper was authorized in his name, and yet he was not even being shown the political articles. Gorky was no longer coming in to the office. It seemed he had left the city.
“Wait and see,” Rumyantsev tried to reassure everybody. “Soon Lenin will be here and everything will be sorted out.”
I walked about the office, quietly singing, “The master is coming, the master will sort it all out.”[26]
Rumyantsev was right.
The master did come.
And he did sort it all out.
Sitting in reception were Rumyantsev and two other men. One of them I recognized as one of our whisperers, but the other was new to me. The new man was plain and rather plump with a large lower jaw, a prominent forehead with thinning hair, small, crafty eyes and jutting cheekbones. He was sitting with one leg crossed over the other, explaining something to Rumyantsev very emphatically. Rumyantsev kept spreading his hands in dismay and shrugging his shoulders. He was clearly put out.
The whisperer was devouring this newcomer with his eyes, nodding at his every word and even bobbing up and down impatiently on his chair.
When I came in, the conversation immediately broke off. Rumyantsev introduced me and the newcomer said amiably, “Yes, yes, I know” (not that there was really much to know).
21
The title of the original is “Plehve and his Chaff” (“
22
As Governor of St Petersburg, Trepov played an important part in suppressing the 1905 Revolution. See “
23
A strike by railway workers, one of the many rebellions and strikes that swept the country in 1905.
24
An anonymous popular song from the time of the French revolution, a rallying cry for revolutionaries.
25
Any activities considered subversive, including publishing inflammatory political material, could lead to a spell of internal exile. Those found guilty of serious crimes were sent to Siberia; being sent to a provincial town like Oryol was a lesser punishment.
26
Misquoted from a poem by Nikolai Nekrasov, “The Forgotten Village” (1864). This describes peasants waiting in vain for the master to come and sort out their problems.