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A wide library hall in the House of Culture. The left side is occupied by shelves with books, carelessly stacked in various positions. On the right - wide windows that cover the entire wall and make the hall bright and conducive to peace and reflection. In the corner, a ceiling-high philodendron, whose wide leaves seem to have consciously turned towards the sun to remind them of their distant tropical homeland. At an oblong table, the two opponents sit and leaf through books and magazines. They have left the neighboring hall, where a report on poetry is being read. Yankov. (With a smile). We are completely calm here. No one will disturb our conversation. As you know, writers are afraid of the word "bibliotheca". For them, it is something like a book museum, a tomb of names worthy of respect, but suffocated by literary incense. Gorano v. (With bitterness). How easily a writer can fall behind the times! His era opens its doors wide, and he has grabbed hold of some dogma and clings to it like a blind man to a stick! I recently came across the court case of Giordano Bruno before the court of the Inquisition. As a faithful son of the Catholic Church, Bruno recognizes the dogma of the "Trinity of God", recognizes it "a priori", as a verbal exercise, but, he says, it has nothing to do with the infinity of the universe and the innumerability of the worlds". He calls the holy fathers "a constellation of pedants who, with their ignorance, arrogance and rudeness, would drive Job himself out of patience". Scholasticism is for him a "shell for souls", instead of a "grain of knowledge". Yankov. (Laughs). What is to be done! The great man is always ahead of his time. Goranov. No. There is something else here. Such is pedantic thought. It is lazy, sectarian, and lacks flight. That is why I divide writers into two types: sectarians and artists, i.e. creators. Sectarians cannot be creators because of their sectarianism, they lag behind in their development, they arrive at the airport of history when the jet machine of time has long since taken off.

We are walking down the street with a critic friend of mine and talking about the theater. He is a great aesthete, a convinced communist and loves talented works of art. A woman comes towards us. Suddenly he stops, looks at her carefully and when she has passed us, he exclaimed: - What a beautiful woman! - Her nose was a bit big - I object, - and... her forehead seemed to be low... - It doesn't matter - he objects. - In general, she gives the impression of a beautiful woman. - Look - he says, turning after her - what a graceful head, a slender figure, beautiful legs... A stunning beauty!.. A woman with atmosphere! Aesthetic.. 7 I could not object further, because he understood women. I fell silent. And suddenly some resentment flickered in my heart. - And why do you, the critics, when making an ideological and artistic assessment of a given work of art, not evaluate it precisely like this, by its overall, spontaneous impact on the reader or viewer, and only then note its weak points? My friend was very resourceful, biting, and replied with subtle irony: - It depends on the author.