Do you hear, Trubetskoi?
Something about the everyday life of post-office workers, but at the same time . . . Do you get me?"
"Only yesterday I was thinking about the everyday life of post-office workers, and I concocted the following poem.
It's called
'The Last Letter'.
Here it is:
"Gavrila had a job as postman.
Gavrila took the letters round . . ."
The story of Gavrila was contained in seventy-two lines.
At the end of the poem, Gavrila, although wounded by a fascist bullet, managed to deliver the letter to the right address.
"Where does it take place? " they asked Lapis.
It was a good question.
There were no fascists in the USSR, and no Gavrilas or members of the post-office union abroad.
"What's wrong?" asked Lapis. "It takes place here, of course, and the fascist is disguised."
"You know, Trubetskoi, you'd do better to write about a radio station."
"Why don't you want the postman? "
"Let's wait a bit.
We'll take it conditionally.
The crestfallen Nikifor Trubetskoi-Lapis went back to Gerasim and Mumu.
Napernikov was already at his desk.
On the wall hung a greatly enlarged picture of Turgenev with a pince-nez, waders, and a double-barrel shotgun across his shoulders.
Beside Napernikov stood Lapis's rival, a poet from the suburbs.
The same old story of Gavrila was begun again, but this time with a hunting twist to it.
The work went under the title of
"The Poacher's Prayer".
Gavrila lay in wait for rabbits.
Gavrila shot and winged a doe . . .
"Very good!" said the kindly Napernikov. "You have surpassed Entich himself in this poem, Trubetskoi.
Only there are one or two things to be changed.
The first thing is to get rid of the word 'prayer'."
"And 'rabbit'," said the rival.
"Why 'rabbit'?" asked Nikifor in surprise.
"It's the wrong season."
"You hear that, Trubetskoi! Change the word 'rabbit' as well."
After transformation the poem bore the title
"The Poacher's Lesson" and the rabbits were changed to snipe.
It then turned out that snipe were not game birds in the summer, either.
In its final form the poem read:
Gavrila lay in wait for sparrows. Gavrila shot and winged a bird . . .
After lunch in the canteen, Lapis set to work again.
His white trousers flashed up and down the corridor.
He entered various editorial offices and sold the many-faced Gavrila.
In the Co-operative Flute Gavrila was submitted under the title of
"The Eolean Recorder".
Gavrila worked behind the counter.
Gavrila did a trade in flutes . . .
The simpletons in the voluminous magazine The Forest as It Is bought a short poem by Lapis entitled
"On the Verge".
It began like this:
Gavrila passed through virgin forest,