Jacob's Ladder

11 A Letter from Mikhail Kerns to His Sister, Marusya

(1910) ST. PETERSBURG–KIEV

NOVEMBER 25, 1910

8:00 A.M. (ACTUALLY, P.M., BECAUSE WHEN I WAKE UP AT 7:00 I HAVE TO LIGHT THE LAMP FOR THE NEXT TWO HOURS, UNTIL IT GETS LIGHT. OUTSIDE, IT’S STILL NIGHT.)

My dear Marusya,

You write me with indignation that the letters I write other people are more serious and filled with more details than the ones I write you. So that I can feed your curiosity and your demands (fully justified) in at least one letter, I will begin with … a description of my daily life. (Don’t be surprised by the change of ink: I’ve just managed to walk down the whole of Liteiny Prospekt, cross Semyonovsky Bridge over the Fontanka River, walk down Karavannaya Street, and along a section of Nevsky Prospekt. I’m now sitting in the offices of G. Block and Partners and continuing this letter.)

That explanation makes it seem like I must have walked five versts, but the whole trek only takes eleven or twelve minutes by foot. There are bridges everywhere you look, and many of them are terribly grand; you’ll see for yourself. (It often happens that you think you’re walking down a very broad avenue, and suddenly you realize, Oh, it’s Troitsky or Liteiny Bridge.) But to continue: until the end of October, there was sunlight—some clear, sunny days, etc.—but now I’ll be hanged if there’s a single clear patch of sky anywhere in sight! And it will stay this way till the end of February. Not one clear day to look forward to! As for the “daytime nights”—it only really gets light at 9:30 in the morning. Anyway, when it’s winter at home, is it easy to rise at 7:00 to read or write? It gets dark here at 3:00 or 3:30 in the afternoon. Well, what of it—at home we have dark, gloomy days sometimes, too. In short, it’s wrong to slander our Petersburg.

I continue: After I rise at seven in the morning (night), I light the lamp and begin my morning toilet. I have to shave regularly in S. Pb., since I want to look interesting and young (at least for the editors—there’s no one else I want to impress here). Then, at eight o’clock, Marya brings in the samovar (all this by lamplight). Marya is a sweet old grumbler who spends most of her time talking to inanimate objects: to the stove, the samovar, the lamp, the oven, the broom, etc. A slice of life—here’s a monologue. Marya (with heartfelt tenderness): “Poor little thing! Why aren’t you burning? Oh Lordy! The wick! The wick is too short. What do we do now? Eh? Oh, my little sweetie! Well, never mind, I’ll go out and buy a new wick—and then you’ll burn. You’ll burn nice and strong!”

When the doorman calls me to the telephone and stumbles over the surname, she is quick to say: “I know, I know. Since you can’t pronounce it, it has to be one of ours!”

I continue: I’m in the office at nine o’clock sharp. I used to sleep until two in the afternoon. Now I work, keep records, write verse, relate anecdotes to all the other employees—there are about fifteen of them—until five o’clock in the afternoon (evening), with a short break for two glasses of tea and a chunk of ham (quarter-pound). At exactly five, I leave to eat dinner. Now I take my meal in the renowned restaurant Kapernaum’s. I’m sure you’ve come across the name of this restaurant in literature, because it has been celebrated by many of our best-known writers. The whole of literary Petersburg eats here. (At the restaurant called Vienna, people only dine late.) Everyone frequented Kapernaum’s in their time: Dostoevsky, Griboyedov, Pushkin, Lermontov, Zhukovsky, Saltykov-Shchedrin, Sheller, Turgenev—the list goes on. I have seen Kuprin, Potapenko, Barantsevich, Poroshin, Gradovsky, Skabichevsky, Artsybashev—all the modernists, the naturalists, the cat-skinners; in short—everyone who’s anyone! I am there every day from five-thirty to seven o’clock.

Starting at seven, I begin to live with my whole heart and soul. I visit editorial boards, lectures (I never miss a single literary or scholarly talk, because the learning must go on). On Friday I was at a closed literary gathering (i.e., the public was not invited). Vladimir Sergeevich Likhachev read about sixty of his poems. They were very fine. To acquaint you a bit with the circles I now move in, I’ll mention the names of the new acquaintances I like to converse with: Batyushkov, Ovsyaniko-Kulikovsky (the very same), Bogucharsky, Vengerov, Linev (Dalin) (remember his Not Fairy Tales?), Brusilovsky, Andruson, Poroshin (the last three visit me at home), Merezhkovsky (Dmitry Sergeyevich, he’s brilliant), Likhachev, Gradovsky (my protector and friend—thrice my age; he presented me his book Two Plays with a warm inscription in it). Also I. A. Poroshin, Chyumin, oh, and I almost forgot: our darling, whom we all adore—dear Nadezhda Alexandrovna Lokhvitskaya (Teffi)—is now my interlocutor. She’s heard all about you, too. I won’t go on enumerating all my acquaintances; otherwise, you might explode with envy!

I’m blossoming like an aromatic country burdock. I now read my poems only to other writers and poets, the literati. I have only read once to the public at large—“In the Watchmaker’s Shop” and “Night Visions” (news—“enormous success,” as they write sometimes on posters). I write a great deal, and talk, and feel I’m sprouting wings in the region of my ribs. My poems have been accepted in: The New Journal for Everyone, Education, The Lively Word, The World, and The Dale, among others. Not bad for a start. Some editors give me the same honorarium they give Roslavlev and Dyadya Fedya: forty kopecks a line. I’ll be a millionaire by February. For now, I’m in debt. I don’t know whether I’ll get clear of it by New Year’s. And fifty rubles of my current salary is nothing to sneeze at … But don’t worry, Marusya, I will earn the money for your tuition with my literary labors. It’s not all for Mark. Oh yes! “At the Mirror” will appear in Theater and Art. I moonlight now and then for Averchenko (Satyricon). A ruble here and a ruble there—it all adds up.

You say Mama is angry that I don’t write. If only she could put herself in my shoes, she’d understand—I’m so busy I don’t even have a spare second. Besides, when I write to you, I see everyone before me and I’m talking to all of you. Explain this to them, please!

I think that with this letter you’ll be “pleased” for the time being.

Write to me on thin paper in small script. I’ll send you stamps at some point. What’s going on at home? Are you freezing to death? Lord, it’s so painful to me to think about the daily hardships, about the frost in the rooms, etc., etc.

On Friday, I will go to the Society of Writers and Scholars, where Gradovsky is reading (he was supposed to read last Friday but took ill, so Likhachev read instead). I’m always there on Fridays.

In fact, Friday is the best day of the week for me, because on that day I float in clouds of “chimera-like propensity” (as dear Ivan Ivanovich Marzhetsky says) and bask in the presence of my radiant literary family. I think I already told you that I received a personal pass to the St. Petersburg Literary Society, and it was suggested I put myself up for nomination. I hemmed and hawed (for show), but my heart was singing. Toward the New Year, I will be selected—for my name is printed (this is the custom) and distributed to all members, to find out whether anyone can point to any of my sins. Then they “announce” me at two consecutive meetings, and only after that is it put to the (secret) vote. It’s something like the ancient feudal custom of bestowing knighthood on someone. I am somewhat timid and apprehensive about the whole thing, because I haven’t made any special contributions yet to literature. Nevertheless, the future is cloudless and bluey! (I think this is a neologism … “bluey”!) I love new words—“speedupping,” “twinx,” “itaksigranstal,” “pokomopstkzhopaktotepel…” I love the “sonorous and impure spirit.” In short, I am a modernist. (I have a dramatic poem called “I am a Modernist” for which I would have myself flogged. In any event, I’ll send it to you.) As a companion piece to the poem “Book,” I wrote a poem called “Newspaper.” It will pass. Where it will end up I don’t know, because I have to think long and hard about it first. I only know that not a single newspaper would ever print it.

How’s Mama? Is it possible that even now she’s bustling about the stove? This makes me so unhappy. You can’t imagine how much I want you to be able to live well, to be warm and carefree. Oh, how I long to be a leading light! If not for the fame, then for money. It’s all one! I have one poem called “To the Gourmet.” You must read it. You’ll see how much truth it contains.

Go to Ms. Nelli and give her my regards; kiss Anya-Asya-Basya-Musya-Dusya-Verusya, and all our cousins, who don’t rhyme. Greetings to Boomya. Don’t forget. Why didn’t she respond to my letter? Now I don’t remember; I think I wrote her. Tell Nelli that I’ve become good friends with a Polish writer named A. Nemoyevski. Has she read him? Tell her that a certain gentleman who was sitting with us at the Editorial Board and didn’t say a word to anyone for three days (I thought he was a Brit) turned out to be a Pole, and when I started talking to him in Polish, he nearly threw himself on my neck and kissed me (he’s our Warsaw agent) and wouldn’t let me out of his sight after that. Here I don’t hesitate to speak Polish like a natural-born … Turk! I make tons of mistakes, of course.

I still have a lot to tell you, but that’s all for today. I do everything in extremes!

If need be, write me at poste restante, or c/o G. Block and Partners, 62 Nevsky Prospekt.

I receive several newspapers and journals. I buy books.

There are many pretty blue eyes here—but none of them are dear to my heart.

I have spent four hours writing this letter! I’m exhausted. That’s enough.