Bright images of contemporaries, metaphorical language, philosophical reflections—in the autobiographical story “Security Clearance.” The author speaks about his love for music, philosophy, and poetry with painful tenderness, about the inseparable intertwining of life and art. Many pages are dedicated to Marburg, where Pasternak discovered the secrets of the Kogen philosophical system. The final part tells about V. Mayakovsky and the “young art” of those years.