A COMMUNIST HEROINE
Diary of a Soviet Marriage. By Pantaleimon Romano'. Trans- lated by John Furnivall and Raymond Parmenter. (Stanley Nott. 25. 6d.) THIS diary, or to be more exact, this series of letters, is the original of the film Bed and Sofa. I did not see the film, but judging from accounts of it, I feel that it presented another picture of the three characters of the story than does this tense little book. There is in this no consideration of the kind of lives which the characters lead ; there is but the slightest emphasis on their material circumstances (on the whole we imagine them tolerably comfortable). The focus is maintained steadily on the heroine's love affair leading to a divorce, rejection of her lover, and her new feeling of her own strength and responsibility. In the introduction Janko Lavrin explains that the story is a psychological study and a pamphlet in one, dealing with the problem of the eroti.: freedom of the new Soviet society ; demonstrating how this, instead of degenerating into "frivolity and licence," leads to discovery of self and inspiration.
Such is a possible interpretation of this book, but it is not the one most easily suggested to the reader. Quite uncom- mented on, almost unconsciously, it seems, the heroine dis- plays a selfish egotism to a degree which would be almost incredible in a capitalist " bourgeois " society, and pre- sumably still more incredible in a Communist society. She is insensitively prepared to sacrifice anyone or anything to the realisation of herself, and she spends much of her time applauding her own courage in so heaping fuel on the blaze of her personality. We are given no sign that the author does not also applaud. One feels that there must be an
explanation. I hazard one. In the course of the revoln- tionary and transitional ordeal the Russians have gradually developed romantic sensibilities for what has, been either unobtainable or withheld. Such is natural and obviously to be expected, but our different life makes it difficult for us always to follow the directions of the impulse. To take one striking example, the new Underground in Moscow really fills the inhabitants with a feeling _ of thrilling spiritual optimism, impossible to us to whom an Underground is only by a jogging of the senses a miracle, and only by a stretch of the imagination a luxury. Similarly, the revived classical ballet in Leningrad draws a proletarian audience whose enthusiasm is marvellous to see. And so, with the now increasing freedom of ordinary life in Russia, individualism, at such a loss in the first terrible stages of the experiment, is allowed the breath of life, and, given the intense individualism inherent in so many Russians, it romantically seems worthy of enormous propitiations. The nameless heroine of the book declares at the end that she is filled with a new and stronger sense of her public duty, but she reaches that sense through suspiciously Byronic stages. On the other hand, I feel it is foolish to generalise without more intimate know- ledge of Romanov's audience.
Whatever we may think of Romanov's ethic, his art com- mands unreserved admiration. In this book a very different side of it is presented from what is given us in Three Pairs of Silk Stockings. There is no scene like Kislyakov's dinner party ; nor by a succession of deft touches are we made to remember the very air of Russia. The author's vast sense of humour, moreover, is here tightly held in check. In this compact book the central theme only receives attention. There is almost no story. The heroine falls in love, becomes estranged from her husband, divorces, and at the same time rejects her lover. That is all. Very little incident is involved, and yet our attention is held as few " spectacular " writers can hope to hold it, and with the aid of never the least exaggeration. The husband is never described, yet we feel his large, cumbrous presence. The lover is not loaded with physical or spiritual attractions (after the manner of nearly every English novel), so that the reader should also fall in love with him and thus enter into the feelings of the heroine. We are given to understand that he is quite an ordinary man. and that the love affair concerns only himself and the heroine. And yet, fully, we realise that what happens is inevitable. With an avalanche of incidents to 'persuade us, and although the writer analyses every phase, we feel the whole time that these three lives are rushing to a climax. And as a feat of characterisation the letters themselves are a masterpiece. We feel that they must have been written by a woman. A reader who only knows Romanov by this small book can recognise the vastness of his range. CHRISTOPHER SYKES.
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