“We think of reading as a seamless and indivisible act,” Sacks notes, “and as we read we attend to the meaning—and, perhaps, the beauty—of written language, unconscious of the many processes that make this possible.”

[11] Vozvrashchenie Myunkhgauzena (1927–28), in Sobranie sochinenii, Vol. II, 135–262.

[12] These ideas are discussed in three of Krzhizhanovsky’s nine essays on Shakespeare. “Twinning” and “splitting” as two Shakespearean aspects of the doubles problem that figures into the Hamlet episode in The Letter Killers Club is discussed in one of the first Ph.D. dissertations devoted to Krzhizhanovsky: Ioanna Borisovna Delektorskaya, “Esteticheskie vozzreniia Sigizmunda Krzhizhanovskogo (ot shekspirovedeniia k filosofii iskusstva)” (Moscow: Rossiisskii gosudarstvennyi gumanitarnyi universitet, 2000), 40–43.

[13] “Chelovek protiv mashiny,” written for the in-house publication of the Moscow Chamber Theater, “7 dnei Moskovskogo Kamernogo teatra” (1924), in Sobranie sochinenii, Vol. IV, 660–62, quotes on 660.

[14] “Most cherez Stiks” (1931), in Sobranie sochinenii, Vol. I, 496–507, quotes on 500 and 507.

THE LETTER KILLERS CLUB

TRANSLATORS’ NOTE

A FEW DISCREPANCIES in the published Russian text of The Letter Killers Club have been corrected with the help of Krzhizhanovsky’s typescript (see notes). For improvements to the finished translation we are indebted to Caryl Emerson.

1

“BUBBLES over a drowned man.”

“What?”

A triangular fingernail slid with a quick glissando over the swollen spines gazing down at us from the bookshelf.

“I said, bubbles over a drowned man. Plunge into a pool headfirst and your breath will rise to the surface in bubbles: swell and burst.”

The speaker again surveyed the rows of silent books crowded along the walls.

“You’ll say that even a bubble can catch the sun, the blue of the sky, the green curve of a coastline. Maybe so. But does that matter to the man whose mouth is grazing the bottom?”

Suddenly, as if he had run against a word, he got up and, gripping his elbows behind his back, began pacing to and fro between the bookshelf and the window, only rarely meeting my eyes.

“Yes, remember this, my friend: if there is one more book on the library shelf, that is because there is one less person in life. If I must choose between the shelf and the world, then I prefer the world. Bubbles to the day—oneself to the depths? No, thank you very much.”

“But you,” I tentatively tried to disagree, “you’ve given people so many books. We’re all used to reading your—”

“I’ve given. But no longer give. It’s been two years now: not a single letter.”

“I’ve heard and read that you’re at work on a major new—”

He had a habit of interrupting. “Major? I don’t know. New, yes. But the ones talking and writing about it, this I do know, they will not have a single typographical symbol more from me. Understand?”

My expression, evidently, did not convey understanding. After a minute’s hesitation, he returned to his empty armchair, drew it up to mine, sat down so that our knees nearly touched, and looked me searchingly in the face. The seconds dragged on in excruciating silence.

He was casting about in me for something, the way one casts about a room for a thing forgotten. I stood up.

“Your Saturday evenings, I’ve noticed, are always busy. The day is nearly gone. I’ll be off.”

Rigid fingers gripping my elbow restrained me. “It’s true: I, that is, we lock our Saturdays away from people. But today I shall show it to you: Saturday. You must stay. What you’re about to see, however, requires some background. While we’re alone, I’ll give you a brief sketch. I doubt you know that in my youth I was a student of poverty.