{"id":97498,"date":"2016-04-28T14:49:03","date_gmt":"2016-04-28T18:49:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=97498"},"modified":"2016-04-28T15:09:04","modified_gmt":"2016-04-28T19:09:04","slug":"my-first-visit-to-an-editorial-office","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/04\/28\/my-first-visit-to-an-editorial-office\/","title":{"rendered":"My First Visit to an Editorial Office"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Teffi.<\/p><\/div>\n

Nadezhda Lokhvitskaya, born in Saint Petersburg in 1872, used\u00a0Teffi as her nom de plume. (\u201cIt sounds like something you\u2019d call a dog,\u201d she wrote, explaining that she wanted \u201ca name that was incomprehensible, neither one thing nor the other \u2026 best of all would be the name of some\u00a0fool.\u201d) In prerevolutionary Russia, she was renowned\u00a0for her satire. To celebrate two new editions of her work<\/a>, here\u2019s a 1929 piece in which she\u00a0remembers her \u201cfirst steps as an author.\u201d \u2014Dan Piepenbring<\/em><\/p>\n

My first steps as an author were terrifying. I had never, in any case, intended to become a writer, even though everyone in our family had written poetry from childhood on. For some reason this activity seemed horribly shameful, and should any of us find a brother or sister with a pencil, a notebook, and an inspired expression, we would immediately shout out, \u201cYou\u2019re writing! You\u2019re writing!\u201d<\/p>\n

The guilty party would begin to make excuses and the accusers would hop around, jeering, \u201cYou\u2019re writing! You\u2019re writing!\u201d<\/p>\n

The only one of us above suspicion was our eldest brother, a creature suffused with sombre irony. But one day, when he was back at the lyc\u00e9e after the summer holidays, we found scraps of paper in his room covered in poetic exclamations, and one line repeated over and over again:<\/p>\n

\u201cOh Mirra, Mirra, palest moon!\u201d<\/p>\n

Alas! He, too, was writing poetry.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This discovery made quite an impression on us. And who knows, it may even have influenced my older sister Masha\u2019s choice of pen name. When she became famous, she adopted the name \u201cMirra Lokhvitskaya.\u201d<\/p>\n

My own dream was to become an artist. I had even, on the advice of a businesslike friend from kindergarten, written this wish down on a piece of paper, chewed it a little, and thrown it out of the window of a train. My kindergarten friend assured me that this was a \u201cfoolproof \u201d method.<\/p>\n

When my older sister began to publish her own poetry after leaving college, I sometimes went with her to the editorial office on the way back from school. My nanny would come, too, carrying my satchel of schoolbooks.<\/p>\n

And while my sister was sitting in the editor\u2019s office (I don\u2019t remember now what journal it was, but I remember that the editors were Pyotr Gnedich and Vsevolod Solovyov), Nanny and I would wait in the outer room.<\/p>\n

I would sit a little way away from Nanny, so that nobody would guess that she was accompanying me. I would assume an inspired expression, and imagine how everybody\u2014the delivery boy and the copy-typist and all the would-be contributors\u2014would take me for a writer.<\/p>\n

The only thing was, the chairs in the reception were inconveniently high, and my feet didn\u2019t touch the ground. However, the inspired expression on my face more than made up for this handicap\u2014and for my short dress and school pinafore.<\/p>\n

By the age of thirteen, I already had some literary works under my belt. I had written some verses on the arrival of the Tsaritsa and on the anniversary of the founding of our school. These latter\u2014hastily composed in the form of a high-flown ode\u2014contained a stanza for which I was later made to suffer a great deal:<\/p>\n

\n

And may for future generations
The light of truth shine, like a sun,
In this great shrine of education,
For many, many years to come.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

My sister tormented me for a whole year over that \u201cgreat shrine of education.\u201d If I pretended I had a headache and wasn\u2019t going into school, she would immediately start up a chant: \u201cNadya, Nadya, why aren\u2019t you going to the great shrine of education? How can you bear the light of truth to shine without you?\u201d<\/p>\n

And then, when I was sixteen or seventeen, I wrote a comical poem called \u201cThe Song of Margarita,\u201d and, without showing it to anyone, of course, I decided to take it along to the journal Oskolki<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The editor of Oskolki<\/em> was Leikin. At that time he was already very old and in poor health. And he did, in fact, die soon afterward.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I went to the editorial office. It was terrifying. Particularly when I was on the staircase, about to ring the bell. The door was small and dirty. There was a smell of cabbage pie, something I can\u2019t abide. I rang the bell\u2014and thought, \u201cQuick! Run away!\u201d<\/p>\n

But then I heard a scrabbling sound from behind the door. Somebody was taking the chain off the hook. The door opened a crack, and an eye peeped through. Then another eye. Then the door opened the rest of the way.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho do you want?\u201d It was a very thin, elderly lady with an Orenburg shawl worn crosswise over her chest.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve co-come to-to see Leikin.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSir isn\u2019t here yet,\u201d said the lady. \u201cCome in. Sit down and wait. He will be here presently.\u201d<\/p>\n

She ushered me into a tiny room and went away. From there I could see another room, also rather small, with a writing desk and, above it, a stuffed bird.<\/p>\n

\n

Above the desk, a stuffed bird
gawps at the editor without a word.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I waited a long time. Occasionally the lady would come back and, stroking the front of her shawl with her bony hands, would whisper, \u201cJust a little longer. He won\u2019t be long now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then I heard the doorbell. A stamping of feet, a coughing and a wheezing. I could make out the words:<\/p>\n

\u201cWho?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEh?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDamn!\u201d<\/p>\n

Then the wheezing stopped, and once again the thin lady came in and said in a nervous whisper, \u201cSir still needs to warm up.\u201d Then she went out again. I sat and thought how awful it was to lead a literary life.<\/p>\n

Once again, the thin lady came in, and, clearly feeling sorry for me and hoping to cheer me up, she whispered, \u201cSir still hasn\u2019t quite warmed up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Such a kind woman! I wanted to put my arms around her neck, so that we could weep in each other\u2019s arms. She went out again. Oh heavens! I so wanted to leave! But I didn\u2019t dare leave now. Here she was again, \u201cAll over now. He\u2019s done.\u201d<\/p>\n

At first I didn\u2019t realize what she meant. For a moment I thought Leikin had died. I got to my feet, horrified.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t fret yourself,\u201d said the lady. \u201cSir will see you now.\u201d<\/p>\n

I frowned, then stepped forward. After all, he wasn\u2019t going to kill me. In an armchair, in front of the stuffed bird, sat a thickset, crook-shouldered, apparently cross-eyed man with a black beard. He seemed very gloomy.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo what do I owe the honor of this visit?\u201d he asked, not looking at me. \u201cWhat do you want?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPoetry,\u201d I mumbled.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat poetry?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c \u2018The Song of Margarita.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEh? I don\u2019t think we\u2019ve ever had that here. Can you give me a clearer idea of what you mean?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI wrote it. Here it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

He held out his hand, still not looking at me. I thrust my sheet of paper into it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell\u2014good-bye. You\u2019ll be able to read the answer in our \u2018post bag.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

A month later, I read in the Oskolki<\/em> \u201cpost bag\u201d: \u201c \u2018The Song of Margarita\u2019 has nothing to recommend it.\u201d<\/p>\n

This was my first step as a writer. Later, by way of a secret triumph over that angry (albeit by then deceased) editor, I managed to get it printed no fewer than four times, in a number of publications.<\/p>\n

Though, I think, had I been an editor myself, I wouldn\u2019t have printed it even once.<\/p>\n

Originally published in 1929.\u00a0Translated from the Russian by Rose France.<\/em><\/p>\n

Reprinted from\u00a0<\/em>Tolstoy, Rasputin, Others, and Me: The Best of Teffi<\/a>, available next week\u00a0from New York Review Books.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nadezhda Lokhvitskaya, born in Saint Petersburg in 1872, used\u00a0Teffi as her nom de plume. (\u201cIt sounds like something you\u2019d call a dog,\u201d she wrote, explaining that she wanted \u201ca name that was incomprehensible, neither one thing nor the other \u2026 best of all would be the name of some\u00a0fool.\u201d) In prerevolutionary Russia, she was renowned\u00a0for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":972,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4393],"tags":[22115,22119,457,20513,13158,22114,14546,22118,22117,447,448,22116,7479,22113,22112,16922,75,9909],"class_list":["post-97498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-first-person","tag-22115","tag-editorial-offices","tag-editors","tag-kindergarten","tag-memories","tag-nadezhda-lokhvitskaya","tag-offices","tag-oskolki","tag-prerevolutionary-russia","tag-russia","tag-russian-literature","tag-russian-writers","tag-satire","tag-teffi","tag-tolstoy-rasputin-others-and-me","tag-twenties","tag-writing","tag-youth"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nTeffi: My First Visit to an Editorial Office<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The brilliant Russian satirist remembers becoming a writer.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/04\/28\/my-first-visit-to-an-editorial-office\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"My First Visit to an Editorial Office by Teffi\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"April 28, 2016 \u2013 Nadezhda Lokhvitskaya, born in Saint Petersburg in 1872, used\u00a0Teffi as her nom de plume. 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