Page:Knight (1975) Past, Future and the Problem of Communication in the Work of V V Khlebnikov.djvu/36

28 good way of getting some of his work into print. In any event, he turned up one day at the magazine's office, and-far too shy to say anything—fled away after leaving an exercise—book in Kamensky's hands. After some mathematical formulae on the first page and some first lines of unfinished poems on the second was a "stream of consciousness" prose-piece entitled "The Sinners' Temptation" and consisting largely of neologisms. Kamensky printed it. He later recalled in his memoirs that Khlebnikov "literally jumped with joy when I brought him the journal with the publication of his 'Sinners' Temptation'."

The work went unnoticed, but it was appreciated by Kamensky, perhaps because of its freshness and air of child-like innocence, lightness and enchantment. In the swift flow of sounds and fairy-tale images there was certainly none of the morbidness, gloom and soul-searching of so much Symbolist poetry of the time. The title was misleading: there was no sinner and no temptation in the work.

Kamensky took an interest in Khlebnikov and introduced him to the artist and composer Matyushin (whose description of Khlebnikov's oddness we have noted). Kamenev had met Matyushin some months earlier at "The Impressionists" art-exhibition. Matyushin's wife was the poetess Elena Guro. The couple had already for two years known two brothers, David and Nikolai Burlyuk, to whom Khlebnikov was also introduced. In this way, Khlebnikov got to know an alternative—albeit less prestigious—artistic circle in the very months when he was coming into closest contact with the "Academy of Verse". We have seen already how Khlebnikov drifted from Ivanov's group, particularly after "Apollo" had failed to publish Khlebnikov's "Zverinets". As Khlebnikov felt more and more out of place at Ivanov's