Whom does Pasternak address? Pasternak speaks to himself. One even wishes to say, in his own presence, as in the presence of a tree or a dog, that is in the presence of one who does not betray. The reader of Pasternak is prying, he is peeping. This is felt by everyone. The reader is peeping not into Pasternak's room (what is he doing there?) but under his very skin, under his ribs (what is being done to him there?). Try as he might (as Pasternak already did for many years) to come out of himself, to address himself to these or those people (or even all of them), try as he might to say it, whatever he says is invariably not it. What is even more important he speaks to nobody. For what he speaks are his thoughts aloud, sometimes—in our presence, if it so happens; sometimes—in our absence, if he happens to forget. His are words said in a dream or in a daze. "Babbling of sleepy Parcae."

(An attempt at conversation with Pasternak on the part of the reader reminds me of dialogues in Alice in Wonderland, where to every question there is an answer either belated or be-earlied or beside the point, which otherwise would have been perfect, but in this particular instance is out of place. The resemblance is explained by the fact that in the story a new time is introduced, the time of the dream, the state that Pasternak never leaves.)

Substantially neither Mayakovsky nor Pasternak has a reader. Mayakovsky has a listener. Pasternak has an onlooker or even a path-finder.

Still another point: Mayakovsky does not need his reader's cooperation; his reader's co-creation. With Mayakovsky he that hath an (very ordinary) ear let him hear and withstand.

Pasternak is all in his reader's co-operation and co-creation. Reading Pasternak is not much easier and perhaps no easier than it is for Pasternak himself to write.

Mayakovsky makes an impact on us, Pasternak—within us. Pasternak we read not; we witness his making within us. (pp. 523-24)

All is possible for Pasternak, except another live human being. Another man in all his richness as a different individual, be it just anybody or a specific person, does not come to life for Pasternak. For example, Pasternak's man, any man, except Pasternak himself, is inanimate; he is an anthology of commonplaces and sayings…. The usual man of Pasternak is most unusual. Pasternak can do live mountains, a live sea—what a sea! the best in Russian literature since the sea of "free elements" and equal to Pushkin's—a live…. What's the purpose of enumerating? Everything live he can do, everything! Everything, but the live man, who is either a German, or Boris Pasternak himself, i.e., something singular; unlike anything else, which is … life. Life alone and not a live man. My Sister, Life. Life is not called so by men.

In his short novel about a fourteen-year-old girl [The Childhood of Luvers], the work of genius, there is everything but this particular, whole complete girl, i.e., there is in it all of Pasternak's revelation (and appropriation) of everything, which is soul. There is in it all girlhood, all fourteen-year-oldhood. The entire girl is given in pieces (one even wants to say "pieced together"). There are in it all constituent elements of the girl, and yet this particular girl did not materialize. Who is she? What is she? No one can tell. Because the given girl is not the given girl, but the girl given through Boris Pasternak: Boris Pasternak, if he were a girl, which is to say, Boris Pasternak himself, all of Boris Pasternak, who the fourteen-year-old girl cannot be. (To come to life through himself is one thing Pasternak does not do for people …). What stays with us after reading this short novel? The eyes of Pasternak. (pp. 525-26)

These eyes of Pasternak remain not only in our consciousness, they physically remain on everything he ever put his eyes on. They stay there as a sign, as a marker, as a patent, so that we can establish with certainty whether it is just a leaf or a Pasternakian leaf. (p. 526)

When we read Mayakovsky we remember everything but Mayakovsky. When we read Pasternak we forget everything but Pasternak….

There is no man who does not understand Mayakovsky. Where is a man who fully understands Pasternak? (If there is such a man he is not Boris Pasternak)….

It is unbearable to read Pasternak for a long time due to the great (mental and visual) effort, as when you look through highly ground lenses, which don't fit the eye (where is that eye which he fits?). (p. 529)

The effect of Pasternak is equal to the effect of a dream. We fall asleep, we fall adream, we get under a dreamfall. We don't understand a dream, we stand under its flow. When we understand Pasternak we understand him in spite of him, by-passing his meaning (which exists and which he tries to clarify for us). We understand him through his intonation, through the inflection of his voice, which is always precise and clear. We understand Pasternak the same way animals understand us. We don't know how to speak Pasternak's language just as he doesn't know how to speak ours. But both languages exist, both are articulate and comprehensive. The only difference is that they exist on two different levels of evolution. They are separated, pushed apart. The only bridge is inflection. I will add, the more Pasternak tries to clarify, to elaborate, the more he piles up one subordinate clause on top of another, the more obscure he makes the meaning. (The structure of his sentence is always correct and is reminiscent of German philosophical prose fiction of the early part of the last century.) There is obscurity of the condensed, and there is obscurity of the expanded. In his case—I have in mind in some of his prose passages—there is the double obscurity of his poetic condensation and his philosophic expansion. In expansive prose, such as lectures, for instance, there must be deluded passages (inspiration is running dry), that is, expansion must be a result of reiteration and not at all of clarification: of one image by another and one thought by another. (p. 530)

[If] Pasternak is translated into prose, there will be Pasternakian prose, the realm which is by far darker and more obscure than his verse's. For the obscurity which is inherent in verse itself and therefore is legalized by us there, in prose is laid bare, unsheathed by the magic of verse and turns out to be precisely the obscurity of the essence, unexplained and unclarified by verse. For lyric poetry, let us not forget, clarifies the obscure and covers the obvious. (p. 531)

[The] main reason for our non-understanding of Pasternak lies in us. We humanize nature too much. For that reason, in the very beginning, when we are not adream yet, we don't recognize anything in Pasternak's world. Between the thing and us stands our (or rather, someone else's) notion of it, our habit, which overshadows it. In between is our, i.e., someone else's, bad experience with this thing, and all commonplaces of literature and experience. Between us and the thing is our blindness, our wretched and wrecked eye.

Between Pasternak and the object there is nothing. That's why his rain is too close and pounds on the roof (of our heads) harder than the one from a rain cloud to which we have become accustomed. We didn't expect rain from a page of a book, we expected poems about rain. So, we say—This is not rain!—and—This is not verse!—while rain the drummer drums on our heads. (pp. 531-32)

Pasternak is only an Invitation au voyage of self- and world-discovery. He is only the point of departure, he is a where-from, he is our runway, our sail-off. There is just enough room for a take-off. We don't slow down at Pasternak, we are slowed down over Pasternak. Above the line of a Pasternak poem there is a very thick triple aura of possibilities, those of Pasternak, of his reader, and of the thing itself. Pasternak comes true above his lines. Reading Pasternak is reading above the line. It is a perpendicular reading and a parallel reading. You stare more than you read. Taking your eyes (thoughts, steps) off the page you go under the inducing spells. One might say, the reader himself writes Pasternak.

Pasternak is inexhaustible (p. 532)

Pasternak is incapable of [melody] because he is overloaded, oversaturated, but mainly he is too private. There is no place for a melody in Pasternak. (p. 541)