Somewhere there exists a planet, a precise replica of Earth, possibly with minor deviations, currently in the era immediately before the great geographical discoveries. Absolutism, merry drunk musketeers, a cardinal, a king, rebellious princes, the Inquisition, sailors’ taverns, galleons and frigates, beauties, rope ladders, serenades, etc. And this is the country (a cross between France and Spain, or Russia and Spain) where our earthmen, long since absolute communists, “plant” someone—a young, strapping, good-looking guy with a huge fist, an excellent fencer, etc. Actually, not all earthmen plant him there, but, say, the Moscow Historical Society. One day, they approach the cardinal and tell him, “Here’s how it is: you wouldn’t understand, but we’re leaving this kid here; you’ll protect him from any intrigues; here’s a sack of gold, and if anything happens to him, we’ll skin you alive.” The cardinal agrees, the boys leave a broadcasting satellite by the planet, the guy wears a gold circlet around his head, as is the local fashion—except with a camera built into it instead of a diamond, which communicates with the satellite, which then in turn communicates pictures of the society to Earth. The guy is left alone on the planet, rents an apartment from Monsieur Bonacieux, and occupies himself in sauntering around the city, milling about the noblemen’s anterooms, drinking in pubs, sword-fighting (but he never kills anyone, he even becomes famous for it), chasing girls, etc. This part would be very well written, fun, and amusing. When he climbs up the rope ladders, he modestly covers the lens with a plumed hat.
Then the era of geographical discoveries begins. The local Columbus returns and reports that he discovered America, a country as beautiful as Seventh Heaven, but there’s no way to stay there: he was beset by beasts unseen on this side of the ocean. Then the cardinal summons our historian, and tells him, help us, you are capable of a lot, let’s avoid unnecessary victims. The rest is clear. He calls for help from Earth—a high-powered tank and ten of his buddies with blasters, assigns a rendezvous with them on the other shore, and sails there on the galleons with the soldiers. They arrive, war begins, and then it’s discovered that these animals are also intelligent creatures. The historians are humiliated, called up to the World Council and given a good dressing down for their mischief.
This can be written in a really fun and interesting way, like The Three Musketeers, only with medieval piss and filth—how women smell there, how the wine is full of dead flies. And there would be the implicit idea that a communist who found himself in such an environment would slowly but surely become a petty bourgeois, although for the reader he would remain a sweet and kind kid.
That’s almost it, isn’t it? But at the same time it’s not quite it—and in a certain sense it’s definitely not it. We used to call these kinds of plans “sturdy substantial skeletons.” The existence of such a skeleton was a necessary (although not sufficient) condition for beginning real work. At least in those times. Later, another extremely important condition appeared: we absolutely had to know what would “soothe our souls”—what would be the ending of the planned work, the final landmark in the direction of which we were supposed to be dragging the plotline. But at the beginning of the 1960s, we still didn’t understand how important that was, and therefore we would often take a risk and be forced to change the entire plot along the way. Which is exactly what happened with Seventh Heaven.
The “sturdy substantial skeleton” of the novel Arkady suggested was without a doubt good and promised us some wonderful work. But apparently, even at an early stage of the discussions, some differences in approach between the coauthors appeared; we hadn’t even sat down at the table to begin the work when there was already a debate, the details of which I certainly do not remember, but its general course can be traced through other excerpts from Arkady’s letters. (My own letters through the year 1963 were lost—alas!—irretrievably.)
03/17/1963—AS: …the entire program which you outlined can be completed in five days. But first I’d like to tell you, my pale flabby brother, that I’m for a light kind of thing—I’m talking about Seventh Heaven. So women would cry, walls would laugh, and five hundred villains would shout, “Get him! Get him!”—and they wouldn’t be able to do a thing with one communist.
The last phrase is a slightly modified quotation from our beloved Dumas trilogy, and we’re apparently talking about the vein in which to write the new novel.
I had my own views on that subject. What they were exactly can be guessed from my brother’s comments in this next excerpt:
03/22/1963:… About The Observer (that’s what I’ve renamed Seventh Heaven). If you’re interested in a rush of tumultuous life, then you will have a full opportunity to spill your guts in Days of Kraken and The Magicians. But what I’d like to do is to write a novel about abstract nobility, honor, and joy, like Dumas. And don’t you dare argue. Just one story without modern problems in naked form. I’m begging on my knees, bastard! My sword, my sword! Cardinals! Port taverns!
This entire exchange was happening against a very interesting political backdrop. In the middle of December 1962 (I don’t remember the exact date), Nikita Khrushchev saw an exhibition of contemporary art at the Moscow Manege. Goaded (according to rumors) by Leonid Ilichev, then the head of the ideological commission of the Central Committee, the furious chief—a renowned expert in the areas of painting and all fine arts, you understand—ran through the exhibition halls (again according to rumors), shouting, “Assholes! Who do you work for? Whose bread do you eat? Motherfuckers! Who did you daub this for, daubers?” He stamped his feet, blood rushed to his face, and he showered spittle for two yards around him. (This was precisely the origin of the famous anecdote in which Nikita the Corn Man, staring at a certain ugly image in a frame, yells in a voice not his own, “And what’s this butt with ears?” And is answered with fear and trembling: “That’s a mirror, Nikita Sergeyevich.”)
All mass media without exception immediately descended on abstraction and formalism in art, as if for the last ten years they had been preparing just for this, collecting materials and only waiting for permission to speak about this burning topic.
And that was only the beginning. “On December 17, at the Reception House on Lenin Hills, there was a meeting of the leaders of the Communist Party and the Soviet government with the writers and artists.” Brezhnev, Voronov, Kirilenko, Kozlov, Kosygin, Mikoyan, Polyansky, Suslov, Khrushchev, and various other prominent plainclothes literary and art critics gathered in one place in order to “make comments and suggestions on the development of literature and art.”
Observations were made. The press was no longer roaring, it was literally howling: THERE CAN BE No COMPROMISE; THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE ARTIST; THE LIGHT OF CLARITY; THE WORRY THAT GIVES US WINGS; ART AND PSEUDO-ART; TOGETHER WITH THE PEOPLE; OUR STRENGTH AND WEAPON; THIS IS OUR PARTY, THIS IS OUR ART!; DOING IT LENIN’S WAY; ALIEN VOICES… It was as if an ancient abscess had burst. Bad blood and pus overflowed from the newspaper pages. All those who during the years of the “thaw” had gone quiet (it seemed to us), who had flattened their ears and only looked around like hunted animals, as if waiting for the inconceivable, impossible, improbable retribution for the past; all these monstrous offspring of Stalinism and Beria-ism, who were up to the elbows in the blood of innocent victims, all these covert and overt informers, ideological operators and moronic do-gooders—they all instantly sprang out of their hiding places; they all turned out to be right on the spot, energetic, agile, able hyenas of the pen, alligators of the typewriter. Go to it!