Author’s preface
If these notes belonged to a person known for something unquestionably else… That would be one thing. But otherwise, tell me even this: imagine there was, say, a nun, a sister of mercy, who died alone—in a foreign land, or worse, in the center of the homeland. And these astonishing notes remained from her. I would feel my soul lift, I’d be moved with my heart, I’d become enlightened—I would rejoice, I would even somehow calm down for us, for people. But читать, God forbid, I wouldn’t. I would especially feel, almost like I could sense, her supposedly implied style and spirit. I might even, almost with inner vision, see: stones overgrown with grass, the walls, her spirit’s weather, the wood for her lonely bright burdens. I would believe, but I wouldn’t verify.
No, that’s it.
And if someone told me that there, a certain biologist from such-and-such an institute was scribbling something during the course of her life activities—I would simply spit.
But if they told me that the recording exists—magnetic recording—like Brodsky when he got up one morning at home; first it lies there, sighing, not wanting to get up, judging by the squeaks and the film’s languor… and then it rises, gropes for slippers, shuffles it along into the distance, then water flows there, then it boils, then it’s almost silent… then I would listen to this cassette.
May I expect to be read?