Page:Knight (1975) Past, Future and the Problem of Communication in the Work of V V Khlebnikov.djvu/11

3 and his tendency to range artistically over the entire time-span of human existence on earth.

A strong atmosphere of literacy and learning seems to have characterized the Khlebnikovs' home. Perhaps to the future poet in his early years, the intellectual pressures seemed too strong. Viktor Vladimirovitch was taught to read at the age of four, and instructed in drawing and languages while still only a young child. The family possessed an enormous library containing (amongst other things) the works of Spencer, Diderot and Kant. Later, Khlebnikov would yearn "for a bonfire of books"—and would single out in particular Kant.

In 1903 Khlebnikov went to Kazan university. His studies here—in accordance with the inclinations of his father—were in physics and mathematics. The student struck others as unusual. He apparently experienced extraordinary difficulties in communicating. Although he could write, he was so shy that to others it almost seemed that he was incapable of speaking at all. An acquaintance recalls:

I got to know Khlebnikov in Kazan, eighteen months or two years prior to his departure to St Petersburg. At that time he was a natural science student and often stayed at our place. He was shy, modest, keeping almost no acquaintances, virtually without friends at all. We were very probably the only family with whom he felt he could just be himself. He used to come every day and sit down in a corner, staying all evening without uttering a word. He would just sit there, wringing his hands, smiling