xt73n58cjz4s https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt73n58cjz4s/data/mets.xml  Thomas Merton 1958-10-23 This letter is from collection 75m28 Thomas Merton papers. archival material 75m28 English  Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Thomas Merton correspondence Letter from Thomas Merton to Boris Pasternak, October 23, 1958 text Letter from Thomas Merton to Boris Pasternak, October 23, 1958 1958 1958-10-23 2023 true xt73n58cjz4s section xt73n58cjz4s Trappist P .O .
Kentucky.

October 23,1958.

My Dear 'Pastemak:

What a great joy it was to receive your two letters. It has given
me much food for thought, this bare fact of the commuication between us:
at a time when our two cOunt'Iies are unable to comunicate with one another
seriously and sincerely, but .spend millions communicating with the moon...
N0, the great business of our: time is this: for one man to find himself in
another one who is on the other side of the world. Only by such contacts
can there be peace, can the sacredness of life be preserved and developed
and the image of God manifest itself in the world.

Since my first letter to you I have obtained and read the book pub-
lished by Pantheon, and it has been a great and rewarding experience. First
of all it has astounded me with the great mnrber of sentences that I myself
might have written, and in fact perhaps have written. Just one example at
random: I an bringing out a book oh sacred art in which one of the theses
is practically this "All genuine art ressembles and continues the Revela-
tion of St Hahn". This is to me so plain and so 'obvious that as a result I
have seriously questioned the claim‘pf the Renaissance to have produced much
genuinely religious art...But enoughpi‘ the small details.

The book is a world in itselffa sophiological world, a paradise and
a hell, in which the great mystical figures of Yurii and Lara stand out
as Adam and Eve and though they walkfin darkness walk with their hand in the
hand of God. The earth they walk upon is sacred because of them. It is the
sacred earth of Russia, with its magnificent destiny which remains hidden
for it in the plans of God. To me the most overwhelmingly beautiful and m3
moving passage is the short, tranquil section in the Siberian town where
Yurii lying in the other room listens through the open door to the reli-
gious conversation of Lara and the other woman. This section is as it were
the "eye" of a hurricane-- that calm center of a whirlwind, the emptiness in
which is truth, spoken in all“ its fulness, in quiet voices, by lamplight.
But it is hard to pick out am; one passage. All. through the book great
waves of beauty break over the reader like waves of a newly discovered sea.
Through you I have gained a great wondering love for the Urals (here I cannot
mm accept your repudiation of the earlier books, where I first discovered
this.) The train journey to the east is magnificent. The exciting and
rich part about the partisans is very interesting. Of course, I find in the
book too little of Uncle Nikolai and his ideas-- this is my only complaint
and perhaps it‘ is unjust, for his ideas speak in everything that happens.

Am I right in sunnising that the ideas in. this book run closely para-
llel to those in Soloviev's Meani a of Love? There is a great similarity.
Bpth works remind us to fight our way out of complacency and realize that
all our work‘remains yet to be done, the work of transformation which is the
work of love, and lobe alone. I need not tell you that I also am one who has
tried to learn deeply from Dostoievsky's Grand Ifiquisitor, and I am passiona-
tely convinced that this is the most important of all lessons for our time.
It is: important here, and there. Equally important everyt'mere.

Shall I perhaps tefl you how I know Lara, where I have met her? It is

 

 2
a simple enough story but obviously I do not tell it to people-- you are

the fourth who knows it, and there seems to be no point in a false discrete—
ness that might restrain me from telling you since it is clear that we have
so very much in comon.

One night I dreamt that I was sitting with a very young Jewish girl

of fourteen or fifteen, and that she suddenly manifested a very deep and pure
affection for me and embraced me so that I was moved to the depths of my soul.
I learned that her name was "Proverb" , which I thought very simple and beau-
tiful. And also"I thought: "She is of the race of Saint Anne". I Spoke to
her of her name,and she did not seem to be proud of it, because it seemed that
the other young girls mocked her for it. But I told her that it was a very
beautiful name, and there the dream ended. A few days later when I happened
to be in a nearby city, which is very rare for us, I was walking alone in the
crowded street and sud ienly saw that everybody was Prevent and that in all
of them shone her extraordinary beauty and purity and shyness, even though
they did not know who they were and were perhaps ashamed of their names--
because they were mocked on account of them. And they did not know their
real identity asithe Child so dear to God who, from before the beginning,
was playing in His sight all days, playing in the world.

Thus you are initiated into the scandalous "secret of ,a monk who is
in love with a girl, and a Jew at thathne cannot expect much from monks
these days. The heroic asceticism of the past is nomore. ‘

I was so happy that you liked the best parts of Prometheus, and were
able to tell me so. The other day I sent you a folder with some poems
which I do not recommend as highly spiritual, but ”perhaps .yOu might like
them as poems. Yet I do not insist on this difision between spirituality
and art, *for I Edd: think that even things ‘that are not patently spiritual
if they 'come from the heart of a spiritual person are spiritual.'l‘hat is
why I do not take you too seriously when you repudiate your earlier mitings.
Tmie, they have not attained the stature of the latest great work, but they
contain many seeds of it. I am deeply moved for instance by the florist's
cellar in Safe. Conduct which, like everything else in life, is symbolic. You
yourself. have said it; ’ . °, w , '-

' I shall try to send you a‘ book. of him," the Si? offJonaS-,~ which is
autobiographical and has things in it about the monastic life which might
interest you. Perhaps New Directions can send you one or other book of my
verse, but mypoems are not very good. " . . -» .-

,So now I bring this letter to a close. It is a joy to x-rrite to you, and
to hear from you. I continue to keep you in my prayers, and I remember

you. every day at Mass. Especially I shall say for you one of my Christmas
Masses: on that day we have three Masses and one of them may be, applied for
our own intentions. Usually we haveitogsay Mass for some stranger. But one
of my Christmas Masses will be especial present foryou. I was going to
say a Mass on All" Souls Day (New; 2,) for, alliyour friends whohad died
especially in all the'tmubles recounted in,_ the book. I was not able to
arrange this ,-but I will do so some other time, I do not know when. I
will try to drop you a line and let you know.

Meanwhile, then, with every blessing, Irpclaspvyour handin’ warm
friendship, my dear Basternak. May the Most Holy Mother of God obtain for
your soul light and peace and strength, and'may her Holy Child be your
joy and your‘protection at all times. ° ”-

Faithfully yours in Christ