Ristat i sten

Vid Rigabukten. Lånat foto.

I novellen "The inscription on the boulder" berättar Konstantin Paustovskij om en dag vid Rigabukten men också om en författares dilemma när det gäller att tolka en text. Att skriva är ett kall, säger Paustovskij, och det får aldrig vara en mekanisk process.

"What pushes a writer to his sometimes tormenting but wonderful work? First and foremost the call of his own heart. The voice of conscience and trust in the future do not allow the genuine writer to live on this earth like a barren flower without giving people in generous measure the whole vast and varied canvas of the thoughts and feelings of his very mind. That person who has not added even a little perspicacity to the sight of others cannot be called a writer.
A person does not become a writer only from the call of his heart. The voice of the heart is most often  heard in our youth when nothing has yet clogged or thorn to shreds the fresh world of our feelings.
Then come the years of maturity, and we hear more clearly something other than the invocatory voice of our own heart, a new and more powerful call- the call of our times, of our people, of our humanity"