Boris Leonidovich Pasternak (1922)

Abstract

On the twenty-eighth of December in the year 1920, in the city of Moscow, towards evening, there came into my room a poet. I could not make out his face very well in the dusk. All I could see clearly was a swarthy darkness and large sad eyes. He was wrapped in a big scarf. I was struck by his shy and challenging manner, by the touchiness of his outward pride, and by the infinite bashfulness of all his inner gestures. After long and painful introductions he began to read a poem about the scourged wings of the Demon. Then I realized who it was that had come to me. Yes, on the twenty-eighth of December at five o’clock in the evening, after finishing my copy of the News, I found myself chatting with Mikhail Lermontov: and these are not any theosophical petits laits¹ — I am simply describing an ordinary meeting with Boris Pasternak, best-loved of all my brothers in the craft.