“We don’t think so,” we answered. “We don’t think any people want war, but we don’t know.”

He said, “Apparently the only voice speaking loudly in America against war is that of Henry Wallace. Can you tell me what his following is? Has he any real backing among the people?”

We said, “We don’t know. But this we do know, that in one speaking tour Henry Wallace collected in paid admissions an unprecedented amount of money. We do know that this is the first time we have ever heard of that people paid to go to political meetings. And we do know that many people were turned away from these meetings, because there was no place for them to sit or stand. Whether this has any emphasis on the coming elections we have no idea. We only know that we, who have seen a little bit of war, do not favor it. And we feel that there are a great many people like us. We feel that if war is the only answer our leaders can give us, then we indeed live in a poverty-stricken time.” And then we asked, “Do the Russian people, or any section of them, or any section of the Russian government, want war?”

At that he straightened up, put down his pencil, and said, “I can answer that categorically. Neither the Russian people, nor any section of them, nor any section of the Russian government, wants war. I can go further than that—the Russian people would do almost anything to avoid war. Of this I am certain.” And he took up his pencil again and made round doodles on his pad.

“Let us speak of American writing,” he said. “It seems to us that your novelists don’t believe in anything any more. Is this true?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Your own most recent work seems to us cynical,” he said.

“It is not cynical,” I answered. “I believe one job of a writer is to set down his time as nearly as he can understand it. And that is what I am doing.”

Then he asked questions about American writers, about Caldwell, and Faulkner, and when would Hemingway have a new book. And he asked what young writers were coming up, what new people. We explained that a few young writers were beginning to emerge, but that it was too soon to expect them to come out. Young men who should have been practicing their trade of writing had spent the last four years in the service. Such an experience was likely to shake them very deeply, and it might take some time for them to comb out their experience and their lives, and to settle down to writing.

He seemed a little surprised that writers in America do not get together, do not associate with one another very much. In the Soviet Union writers are very important people. Stalin has said that writers are the architects of the human soul.

We explained to him that writers in America have quite a different standing, that they are considered just below acrobats and just above seals. And in our opinion this is a very good thing. We believe that a writer, particularly a young writer, too much appreciated, is as likely to turn as heady as a motion-picture actress with good notices in the trade journals. And we believe that the rough-and-tumble critical life an American writer is subject to is very healthy for him in the long run.