Intentionally, I said, I never did any harm…

75-летию Сергея Довлатова

Мы тоже, понятно, не можем не отметить этой даты – и публикуем отрывок из перевода книги "Заповедник" (в переводе – Pushkin Hills)

“Even your love of words – your crazy, unhealthy, pathological love – is fake. It’s nothing more than an attempt to justify the life you lead. And you lead the life of a famous writer without fulfilling the slightest requirements. With your vices you should be a Hemingway at the very least…”

“Do you honestly think he’s a good writer? Perhaps Jack London’s a good writer, too?”

“Dear God! What does Jack London have to do with this?! My only pair of boots is in the pawnshop… I can forgive anything. Poverty doesn’t scare me. Anything but betrayal!”

“What do you mean?”

“Your endless drinking. Your… I don’t even want to say it… You can’t be an artist at the expense of another human being… It’s low! You speak of nobility, yet you are a cold, hard and crafty man…”

“Don’t forget that I’ve been writing stories for twenty years.”

“You want to write a great novel? Only one in a hundred million succeeds!”

“So what? In the spiritual sense a failed attempt like that is equal to the greatest of books. Morally it’s even higher, if you will, since it excludes a reward…”

“These are just words. Never-ending, beautiful words… I’ve had enough… I have a child for whom I’m responsible…”

“I have a child, too.”

“Whom you ignore for months on end. We are strangers to you…” (In conversations with women there is one painful moment. You use facts, reasoning, arguments, you appeal to logic and common sense. And then suddenly you discover that she cannot stand the very sound of your voice…)

“Intentionally,” I said, “I never did any harm…”

Пер. на англ. Катерины Довлатовой