The key to the understanding of verbal imagery is not found in a narrow linguistic sphere. A word becomes image-bearing only when it proves itself able to evoke the images of the real world which are alive in us. The most sophisticated means of linguistic imagery of A. Efimov's sort can turn out to be fruitless.² But even the most simple word can be a powerful image. The power of a word to create an image does not per se reside in the word, but rather in the way the word acts upon us. That is why a narrowly linguistic approach to the problem cannot reveal the basis of the artistry of the language of literature.

Thinking in images is not the property and privilege of the writer alone. All of us think in images—more or less. The worth of the writer consists then not simply in that he thinks in images, but in the strength and scope with which the ideas are born through his image-bearing thought processes.

It is clear that the mere ability to narrate something coherently and vividly does not yet constitute authentic art. Art begins with typification. I shall explain this through one of many possible examples.

It had been a long time since I had read Čexov's “The Man in a Case”. As could be expected, I remembered quite well the essence of the story—the figure of the ‘anthropos’ Belikov, which contained such-and-such a common and satirical meaning. I did not recall how the story was constructed or along which specific lines the movement of the narration progressed. I did not recall specifically that the story of Belikov is told by the teacher Burkin.

And then, when I reread the story a short time ago, I noticed what an extremely important role its beginning has (which precedes the actual story about Belikov) and so does its ending—which takes place after the story about Belikov has been concluded. For the sake of the present discussion it would be rather instructive to turn our attention at least to these two specifics of the structure of the story.

It begins as follows:

The belated hunters settled down for a night's rest in the barn of Prokofij, the village elder. There were only the two of them. (And then we read) They did not sleep. Ivan Ivanyč, a tall, lean, old man with a long moustache, was sitting outside the door, smoking his pipe; the light of the moon made him visible. Burkin was lying on the hay inside, hidden in the darkness.

What role does this description of the locale of the interlocutors play in the narration? It is most likely that A. Efimov would find no “linguistic means of imagery” here. After all, there aren't any tropes. It is quite possible that not only A. Efimov but many others would consider this description to be a particular necessary for ‘verisimilitude’.

Actually, verisimilitude is present. It is quite natural that Ivan Ivanyč before going to sleep does not smoke in the hay-filled barn, but rather outside. It is also normal that Burkin, a non-smoker, would go into the barn and carry on the conversation from there. However, we would understand nothing of Čexov's artistry were we to limit it here solely to verisimilitude.

Now we draw near the end of the story. Everything about Belikov has already been said. Then:

The high school teacher went out of the barn …

“What a moon, what a moon!” he said, glancing up …

Burkin's exit is essential for artistic unity. First, he gives emotional emphasis to the heaviness of the story about Belikov when, having told it, he wants to breathe some fresh air. However, the meaning of Burkin's exit is much broader. He stares at the moon, and this is immediately followed by the author's words about what Burkin is feeling:

On a moonlit night, when you see a broad country road with its huts, haystacks, and sleeping willows, your soul becomes quiet; in its rest, concealed in the shadows of the night from work, anxiety, and sadness—the street is gentle, sad, beautiful, and it seems that stars also look down with kind, tender emotion, and that evil no longer exists in the world and that all is well …

A bitter remark by Ivan Ivanyč immediately shatters this moon-inspired illusion. In him, as we understand it here, the generalizing work of thought and feeling, provoked by the story about Belikov, continues. “And indeed the life we lead in the city, in stuffiness, in the crush, the useless papers we write, the vint we play—isn't this a case? …” Ivan Ivanyč asks suddenly. And the story about Belikov suddenly begins to broaden in its internal meaning. “The man in a case” begins to signify not simply a specific breed of callous bureaucrat. In the capacity of a “case”, the conditions of life of those times begin to come forth on a broad front. Ivan Ivanyč suddenly feels that both he and Burkin are “people in a case”.

The development of the story and the broadening of the idea depend upon the simplest of circumstances—that Burkin went out of the barn; this alone makes the consequent structure of the artistic thought possible. Here you understand that the narrator Burkin was not put in the barn just for the sake of verisimilitude. That which unfolds at the very end of the story was foreseen and prepared earlier by the placement of the interlocutors.

Here in all its glory appears the theatrical mastery of the author who had the talent to find the most expressive ‘stagings’ in the development of a depicted reality. It turns out that the simple, business-like reference to where the people sat before the beginning of the conversation becomes a link of imagery which is all the more important for the deep meaning of the story.

Yet another example. Before the story about Belikov begins there is the following paragraph:

They told various stories. Among other things they talked about how Mavra, the wife of the village elder, a healthy and not a stupid woman, had never left the village in which she was born, had never seen a city or a railroad, and had spent the past ten years behind the oven, venturing onto the street only at night.

“There is nothing remarkable in that!” said Burkin …

And then, as if by association, the story about Belikov begins.

What is the artistic purpose of this paragraph, this mention of Mavra, who walks by night?

The logic of verisimilitude is certainly present here once more. One is informed that the conversation about Belikov arose, say, by accident (as happens in life). The story about Mavra, who also lives in her own sort of “case”, serves as a natural transition to the story about Belikov. But we would err if we were to reduce the matter simply to this.

The story comes to its end. Burkin has already gone out of the barn and admired the moon; Ivan Ivanyč has already made his comment; Burkin has already answered him with the terse: “No, it's time to sleep now. See you tomorrow.” But the narration stretches on. It would seem that everything is already clear; what purpose do these following particulars serve?

Both of them went into the barn and lay down on the hay. And when both covered themselves and began to doze off, they suddenly heard light footsteps: tup, tup … Someone was walking not too far from the barn; whoever it is walked a bit, stopped, and a minute later began to walk again: tup, tup …

“That's Mavra walking”, Burkin said.

The steps died away.

What is the purpose of this? Is it simply to confirm pictorially what was mentioned at the beginning—the fact that Mavra walks at night? Of course not.

Mavra's footsteps have a special meaning for the story: Burkin and Ivanyč listen closely to them for a reason. This attentiveness is depicted, very subtly by the writer. With just four words,³ “The steps died away”, we feel how Burkin and Ivan Ivanyč held their breath listening to these footsteps. But when they became quiet … Ivan Ivanyč ‘exploded’ and began to talk:

“To see and hear them lie and then call you a fool because you endure those lies; to suffer wrongs, insults, not to dare to say openly that we are on the side of honorable, free people, and to lie, to smile—and all of this for a crust of bread, for a warm corner, for a petty civil rank which isn't worth a damn—no, a man cannot live like this any longer!”

Here the theme of the man in a case acquires its clearest and broadest disclosure; a revolutionary protest against a grasping, dehumanized life rings forth. The thought of a life in a case has so inflamed Ivan Ivanyč that he cannot now sleep at all, “He stood up, went outside again, sat down at the door, and smoked his pipe”,—at which point the story is broken off.

It is Mavra's footsteps, suddenly audible, which served as the stimulus for this seething thought. Before that moment they both had already “covered themselves and were beginning to doze off”.

As is evident, the point is that it is Mavra's footsteps which definitely turn the theme of the story away from an exposure of the teacher-bureaucrat Belikov towards exposing the conditions of life which have deadly effects on man. End the tale with the story about Belikov—and the “case” would only come to the personal characteristics of the ‘anthropos’ and to the peculiarities and abnormalities of his bureaucratic existence. But Mavra … She is “a healthy and not a stupid woman”. But she too is in a case, although in a different kind of case than Belikov. That is why Mavra's footsteps in the night evoke such an oppressive feeling; they sound a warning alarm about the cruelty of life, about the necessity of changing it.

Therefore the brief mention in the beginning of the story of the village elder's wife who walks by night is not simply a realistic detail, but the most important link of the figurative thought of the narration.

The reference to Mavra in the beginning of the story and the sound of her footsteps at the end are artistically juxtaposed very exactly. This juxtaposition tells us a great deal, it tells that which was not said by the writer in words. We should notice that these two particulars of the opposed ends of the story can in no way be syntactically and linguistically interconnected. They are connected only structurally. But what a strong connection it is! In this instance—as always in real art—you see that it is the structure which speaks.

Notes

1. From: Vadim Nazarenko, Jazyk iskusstva (Leningrad, Sovetskij pisatel', 1961). Chapter 1, pp. 71–76.

2. A. Efimov, a well known specialist in stylistics. In an article “Image-bearing speech of an Artistic Work”, Voprosy literatury, 8 (1959), he maintains that only tropes and similes can be considered as the lexical media of imagery.

3. In the original Russian—two words.