Dribbles of Rozanov: Second Droplet

Ах, добрый читатель, я уже давно пишу “без читателя”, — просто потому, что нравится. Как “без читателя” и издаю... Просто, так нравится. И не буду ни плакать, ни сердиться, если читатель, ошибкой купивший книгу, бросит ее в корзину (выгоднее, не разрезая и ознакомившись, лишь отогнув листы, продать со скидкой 50% букинисту).
Ну, читатель, не церемонюсь я с тобой, — можешь и ты не церемониться со мной:
— К черту...
— К черту!
И au revoir до встречи на том свете. С читателем гораздо скучнее, чем одному. Он разинет рот и ждет, что ты ему положишь? В таком случае он имеет вид осла перед тем, как ему зареветь. Зрелище не из прекрасных... Ну его к Богу... Пишу для каких-то “неведомых друзей” и хоть “ни для кому”...

Когда, бывало, меня посещали декаденты, — то часу в первом ночи я выпускал их, бесплодных, вперед, — но задерживал последнего, доброго Виктора Петровича Протейкинского (учитель с фантазиями) и показывал между дверьми...
У человека две ноги: и если снять калоши, положим, пятерым — то кажется ужасно много. Между дверями стояло такое множество крошечных калошек, что я сам дивился. Нельзя было сосчитать скоро. И мы оба с Протейкинским покатывались со смеху:
— Сколько!..
— Сколько!..
Я же всегда думал с гордостью “civis romanus sum”. У меня за стол садится 10 человек, — с прислугой. И все кормятся моим трудом. Все около моего труда нашли место в мире. И вовсе civis rossicus — не “Герцен”, а “Розанов”.
Герцен же только “гулял”...
Перед Протейкинским у меня есть глубокая и многолетняя вина. Он безукоризненно относился ко мне, я же о нем, хотя только от утомления, сказал однажды грубое и насмешливое слово. И оттого, что он “никогда не может кончить речь” (способ речи), а я был устал и не в силах был дослушивать его... И грубое слово я сказал заочно, когда он вышел за дверь.

Oh, my dearest reader, I’ve been writing for a long time without a “reader”—simply because I like to. And so I publish for no “reader”…Simply, the way I like. And I will neither cry nor get angry if a reader, having bought this book by mistake, throws it into the trash-can (without cutting-open and getting to know—certainly not bending down--the “leaves,” which will be more advantageous for the bookinist, who can sell it at a 50% reduction). But, reader, I’m not being ceremonious with you—so you won’t be be ceremonious with me:
--To hell with it…
--To hell with it!
And au revoir until we meet in the other world. It much more boring with a reader that it is by oneself. He opens his big mouth and waits; what are you going to put in it? In such a case he looks like a donkey who is about to howl. Not one of the prettier sights. But God be with him…I write for some kind of “unknown friends” and sometimes “not for anyone at all.”

When some Decadents happened to visit me, I sent them, the barren things, on their way at one o’clock—but I detained the last one, the kind Victor Petrovitch Proteusky (a teacher with an imagination) and showed him to the doors…
A person has two legs: and if five of them remove their old boots, and set them down—then it seems like an awful lot. Between the doors there were so many tiny boots that I was surprised myself. It was impossible to count them quickly. And Proteusky and I roared with laughter:
--So many!..
--So many!..
I have always thought with pride that “civis romanus sum”. My table seats 10 people – with servers. And everyone is fed by my labor. Everyone near to my labor has found a place in the world. And the civis rossicus is surely not “Herzen” but “Rozanov.”
Herzen only “strolled.”
I have deep and long-lasting guilt with regards to Proteusky. He always behaved impeccably towards me, it was I who, although only out of tiredness, once said a rude and derisive word about him. And it was because he “never can finish a thought” (a way of speaking), and I was tired and didn’t have the strength to keep listening to him…that I said this rude word in his absence, when he had gone out the door.

***
What does Rozanov think about me? Why do I care what Rozanov thinks? What do I care what this hateful-crazy-genius, this 19th century philosopher thinks about me? Wiki-pedantic tells me that he starved to death in a cloister during the revolution in 1919. So he really can’t do me any harm. But that’s not the real reason why I shouldn’t care. The real reason is that Rozanov tells me in this, his first aphorism, that he himself doesn’t care what I make or take of him. The strange thing about this abnegation of the reader? He tells me that he isn’t adressing me in the form of a direct address. “I want to tell you that I don’t want to tell you anything.” A bit paradoxical? Certainly, at first glance.

Rozanov understands that his text (like his own Self) relies on an Other—a reader, an audience, and interlocutor. That is why he must address me. But Rozanov also understands that the Other for whom he actually writes (like the Other for whom he lives) is not a real reader but an imagined one. And that is why my living person doesn’t matter. The добрый читатель “dearest reader” is the fantasy that constructs the text and the читатель “reader” is me (the living, deferred, powerless real reader). I am disposable. “Dearest reader” is not.

For Rozanov, it is not factual interractions with the Other that define the Self—but the sum of all possible interractions. Thus an interraction with Proteusky, that Proteusky isn’t himself aware of, haunts Rozanov. Thus Rozanov prepares himself for every possible kind of reader (that he imagines in his mind). It is for this reason that Rozanov can write off the real reader. For him, the Other that creates the Self is always created by the Self.

So what does Rozanov think of me? Everything. Or rather, Rozanov has already thought everything possible of me. And has written it into his book. Or so he claims. So where do I regain my agency? Perhaps the only recourse I have, the only possible way to suprise Rozanov, to become a real (an not “potential”) reader, is to turn this same tactic back on its author...And so we begin to think everything about a possible Rozanov, заочно (“in his absence”). In this process, the reader becomes the Self and the author—Other. And the question “What does Rozanov think of me?” becomes relevant once again.