And never does this impotent pity, this
useless commiseration toward human suffering die within them ...
For example ..."
Platonov looked over all the persons sitting with a slow gaze, and
suddenly, waving his hand despondently, said in a tired voice:
"However ... The devil take it all! To-day I have spoken enough
for ten years ... And all of it to no purpose."
"But really, Sergei Ivanich, why shouldn't you try to describe all
this yourself?" asked Yarchenko. "Your attention is so vitally
concentrated on this question."
"I did try!" answered Platonov with a cheerless smile. "But
nothing came of it. I started writing and at once became entangled
in various 'whats,' 'which's,' 'was's.' The epithets prove flat.
The words grow cold on the page. It's all a cud of some sort. Do
you know, Terekhov was here once, while passing through ... You
know ... The well-known one ... I came to him and started in
telling him lots and lots about the life here, which I do not tell
you for fear of boring you. I begged him to utilize my material.
He heard me out with great attention, and this is what he said,
literally: 'Don't get offended, Platonov, if I tell you that
there's almost not a single person of those I have met during my
life, who wouldn't thrust themes for novels and stories upon me,
or teach me as to what ought to be written up.
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