metasketching by Zoshchenko

At Night from Before Sunrise . . .

On my pillow lie some letters to the editor of The Red Gazette. They are complaints about mismanagement in public baths. These letters were given to me so that I could write a feuilleton. I look the letters over. They are helpless, comical. But at the same time they are serious. Very much so.

They discuss a human concern of no little importance-- baths.

I draw an outline and begin writing.

Even the first lines amuse me. I laugh. I laugh louder and louder. I finally guffaw until the pencil and pad drop from my hands.

I write again. And again my body shakes with laughter.

No, later on when I'm recopying the story, I won't laugh like that. But the first draft always amuses me uncommonly.

My stomach hurts from laughing.

My neighbor is knocking on the wall. He is a bookkeeper. He has to get up early tomorrow. I'm keeping him awake. Today he's pounding with his fist. I must have waked him up. It's annoying.

I shout, "Excuse me, Pyotr Alekseyevich . . ."

I turn to my writing pad again. Again I laugh, this time burying my face in a pillow.

In twenty minutes the story is finished. I'm sorry I wrote it so fast.

I go over to my desk and copy the story in a beautiful, even hand. While copying, I go on laughing softly.

But tomorrow, when I read the story aloud in the editor's office, I won't laugh. I'll read it gloomily and even morosely.

It's two in the morning. I go to bed. But I can't fall asleep for a long time. I'm thinking over themes for new stories.

It begins to grow light. I take a bromide to fall asleep.