I Went to Russia by Liam O'Flaherty

Author:Liam O'Flaherty
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Chapter IX

She Could Not Convert Me

But morning has no moon or ghostly shadows to fan the dreams of unreality. Even the wildest love is chastened when the body awakes, either made normal by refreshing sleep, or exhausted by nightmares. When I awoke, reality struck me with unpleasant force and I longed for home.

I had eighty roubles in my pocket. With that I had to pay my hotel bill and my fare to Moscow. For I must get to Moscow since I had left London in order to go to Moscow. If I returned without having gone to Moscow, the whole purpose of my journey would have been wasted. It would be just as if Napoleon had turned back from Borodino. Even though his having gone on to Moscow possibly lost him his empire, it is unquestionable that his career was rounded off from an artisitc point of view by his having reached Moscow. To Moscow, then, I must go.

I cursed myself. For I should be forced to besiege my Russian publishers for my royalties in order to maintain myself in that city and to get my fare home. Should I be successful in recovering from them what they owed me, I had no doubt but that my success would entail the performance of something unpleasant to my nature; I would have to allow myself to be led around by guides, examine buildings, factories, museums, children being cured scientifically of kleptomania, peasants being collectivised and a multitude of other social activities that do not interest me. Indeed, I may state here that these activities are counter to my nature, namely, those activities which are concerned with the eradication of human vice and social anarchy. For if I am a writer, forced to live by my work, I must realise that man’s viciousness has provided the material for all of the world’s great literature, from the Iliad to Macbeth and The Brothers Karamazov.

Then I suddenly remembered that my purpose in coming to Russia was to write Lies About Russia. At once I grew cheerful. For the more I suffered, the more courage I should have to write lies about it. So I jumped out of bed, took off my overcoat and gloves, slapped myself violently, danced a jig and shouted for a waiter in order to restore my circulation. There was a bell and I rang that, in the hope that somebody might come to give me some breakfast.

Curiously enough a waiter did come. After I had tried every language I knew without success, I seized my shoes, sat down to table and made the movements, with my shoes, of a man using a knife and fork with skill and expedition. He watched me in terror for a while without understanding that I wanted bacon and eggs, or eggs without bacon, or even bacon without eggs. Then I pretended to drink tea out of my right shoe without any more success. I took a match, dipped it into an ash-tray and pretended to spoon sugar into the interior of my right shoe.

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