But all this is beside the point. What’s important is the emotion you feel — that righteous but unproductive fury which is an inevitable by-product of failure. This is fury in its purest form, and while it’s still seething in your blood, you should quickly channel it in the right direction and not let yourself get carried away by trifles in the process — which unfortunately is what most people tend to do.
Let us imagine, for example, a certain individual, who in a state of noble fury decides to make the most daring and momentous phone call of his life — and on a pay phone at that. Before he has even been connected, however, the telephone swallows his only coin. Quivering with rage, the man begins tugging at the receiver hook as if it were the ripcord of a parachute that refused to open. Then, even more illogically, he tries to thrust his head into the coin return which, being no larger than a matchbox, obviously cannot accommodate a human head. But never mind that, let us suppose that he does manage to thrust his head into this miserable aperture; what good will it do him? Even if he should happen to catch sight of his lost coin, he will hardly be able to scoop it out with his tongue.
Finally, having spent all his fury in this senseless pulling and tugging, he leaves the phone booth and, quite unexpectedly perhaps even for himself, takes a seat in a shoeshine stall. To look at him now, you would think that he was merely out for a stroll and had decided to stop and get a shoeshine on the way. Just as if his noble fury had never existed! And what is particularly revolting is the way he keeps fiddling with the new laces he has just purchased from the shoeshine man — first checking their tips and then comparing them for length. He continues to sit there for a long time, his lips slightly extended as if he were whistling to himself, and on his face the calm, businesslike expression of a fisherman letting out his nets or of a peasant fingering the old sack in which he plans to take his grain to the mill.
Ah, whither art thou fled, noble fury?
Another individual, having reached this exalted state, suddenly starts dashing after a little boy who has accidentally hit him with a snowball. Well, even supposing it was no accident, why on earth should a grown man go out of his way to chase a little boy, especially when there is no hope of catching him. For of course this little boy knows all of the yards and alleyways of the area like the palm of his hand. And to make things more interesting, he purposely slows down just enough so the man can keep him in sight.
Having squandered all his fury in this unexpected chase, the man suddenly comes to a halt in front of a warehouse and begins to watch some truckers unloading huge barrels from the back of a truck. So intently does he watch them, in fact, that one would think he had come running up for this very purpose. After a while, when he catches his breath, he even starts giving them advice. No one listens to him, of course, but they don’t interrupt him either. Thus, from a distance it might appear as if the truckers were actually working under his supervision, and if he hadn’t come running up in time, who knows what chaos might have resulted. Finally the barrels are rolled into the cellar and the man walks away appeased, as if all that had happened were a normal part of his daily routine.
Ah, whither art thou fled, noble fury?
As I was lost in these reflections, the door opened and once again the girl from the mail and supply room walked in.
“I’ve brought you some paper,” she said, placing a ream of paper on Platon Samsonovich’s desk.
“Thank you,” I replied. This time I was happy to see her; she had roused me from my daydreams.
“Well, what’s the news from Russia?” she asked with affected casualness.
“They want an article on the goatibex,” I replied equally casually.
She gave me a long, quizzical look and then walked out.
Once again I settled down to work. The goatibex emerged as the star of my article, far outshining everyone else. The village of Walnut Springs rejoiced at his presence, though unfortunately, due to local climatic conditions, the goatibex had taken a dislike to the local she-goats. I was just putting the finishing touches on this charming tableau when the phone rang. It was Platon Samsonovich.
“Listen,” he said, “couldn’t you hint in your article that some kolkhoz workers are already beginning to talk about the long-haired Tadzhik goat?”
“What are they supposed to be saying?” I asked.
“Something to the effect that while they’re happy with the goatibex, they want to keep moving forward. Otherwise these people here at the agricultural administration will start dragging their feet and refuse to cooperate.”
“But it’s all your own idea,” I objected.
“Never mind,” said Platon Samsonovich, sighing wearily into the receiver. “I’ll worry about the recognition later. Right now it would be better if the idea came from the masses. That will encourage these people here to take action.”
“I’ll think about it,” I said and then hung up.
I knew that certain sections of my article would not be to his liking, and in order to gain approval for these sections, I decided to support his new idea. But this was easier said than done. For thinking back over all the people I had met at Walnut Springs, I realized that not one of them could possibly have referred to a Tadzhik goat, except perhaps for Vakhtang Bochua — and Vakhtang hardly qualified as a kolkhoz worker. After much deliberation I finally decided to refer to the animal myself, at the end of the article and in such a way as to make it appear that the crossbreeding of the goatibex with the Tadzhik goat was a logical next step in the development of our livestock industry. “The time is not too far away,” I wrote, “when the goatibex will encounter the long-haired Tadzhik goat — an event which will mark yet another significant breakthrough for our Michurin school of biology.”
I read over what I had written, placing the commas as best I could, and then turned the article in to the typist. Having struggled with it for almost three hours, I was utterly exhausted. At the same time, however, I felt like a diplomat who has just pulled off a brilliant coup. For thanks to my skill and finesse, the goatibexes had been given their due and the chairman had emerged unscathed.
I left the office and went to have lunch at an outdoor café located in the courtyard of one of our seaside restaurants. I sat down at a table under a palm tree and ordered a bottle of Borzhom mineral water, some chebureki,[10] and two cups of Turkish coffee. After finishing the chebureki, I furtively wiped my hands against the shaggy trunk of the palm — the waitress having neglected as usual to bring any napkins. Then I settled back and began sipping the strong, thick coffee. Once again I pictured myself as a diplomat — an exceptionally skillful and experienced one at that. The hypnotic rustling of the palm leaves, the hot coffee, the cooling shade of the palm tree, the old men peacefully clicking their worry beads — all these things gradually drove the goatibex from my mind, and I sank into a blissful torpor.
At the next table the dentist Solomon Markovich was holding forth before a group of old-timers. Long ago, sometime before the war, his wife had slandered and deserted him, and from that time on he had started drinking and generally going to seed. He was a great favorite with the café regulars, who were always buying him drinks. Although their sympathy for him was probably genuine, still it is always pleasant to see someone who is even more unfortunate than ourselves. At the moment, he was relating parables from the Bible to his elderly Muslim audience, interspersing them with examples from his own life.