Jacob's Ladder

32 From the Willow Chest

Family Correspondence

(1916) MIKHAIL KERNS TO MARUSYA

I. D. Sytin Company

Editorial Offices

The Dawn Weekly Illustrated Journal

48 Tverskaya Street, Moscow

Tel.: 5–48–10

OCTOBER 16

Dear Marusya,

I was very worried when I didn’t hear from you, and only found out today that my worries were not groundless: Jacob has been drafted. I’m sure that my strong and courageous little sister will endure this trial with dignity. I also believe, unconditionally, that everything will turn out well. I know that we will all one day be together again, joyful and proud. Listen, Marusya, you must prove my hopes in your own life. Do not be anxious or afraid. All will be well. I think that your family has already paid its debt to this war—with the death of Genrikh, whom I never met. But I witnessed what a blow it was to Jacob. They are all very talented, your Ossetskys; but Jacob said that Genrikh could have become a truly great thinker. I believe that this war will soon end and we will be together again, and little Genrikh will live up to his name.

I’m feeling half crazy, not knowing what is going on in your life right now, which only adds to Shura’s and my sense of alarm. I’m writing from the editorial offices; Shura is in the sanatorium. She is feeling much better. She sends you kisses.

Marusya, please, send us word that you’ve received this letter. Otherwise, if the already infrequent correspondence doesn’t arrive, I’ll be at my wits’ end.

As I’m writing, we’ve heard the most wonderful news about the war. They say that the major Allied powers have decided to surround Wilhelm and bring him to his knees once and for all. So Jacob is sure to return home soon.

What does Genrikh say? Wah-wah?

Write me about everything. I send you endless hugs. Papa, Mama, write me!

Have everyone write me.

Your Mikhail GREBENKA, POLTAVA GUBERNIYA–KIEV JACOB TO MARUSYA

OCTOBER 8

The train car had no coal or flour. It was an ordinary freight train, like 400,000 others. Cold. No one was there to hold me close, and the person sleeping next to me stank. I got up, found a spot near the single dim lantern (only one for the whole car), and started to do some calculations. We have been married for thirty-four months, and how many days out of these months have we spent together? Half of them? No, even fewer! We can count them up by our letters. But, without engaging in such petty accounting, we can say that for twenty-seven months the two of us were together, and for the last seven of those months there were three of us. It’s a miracle of miracles to see that Genrikh’s little ear is mine, and his gray eyes are yours, and his hair grows like mine, in a spiral on the top of the head, and his fingers are yours, long, with short nails … Over time, other traits will emerge—of your brothers’, and mine, in particular my dear brother Genrikh, whom no one on earth will ever be able to replace for me.

I kiss all the Ossetsky lips. J. KHARKOV–KIEV JACOB TO MARUSYA

OCTOBER 12

Hello, little one. We’ll begin this new period in our lives with this Letter No. 1. And so—a separation again; and again letters and more letters … The one good thing in all of this is that there are pen and paper within reach. You and I will write a lot of them now. It’s the best kind of self-reflection, catching all our weakly flickering thoughts in passing. If we can’t kiss each other, the only thing left is this self-reflection—and the thoughts we can share provide some comfort.

… In the reading room at the Public Library.

I kiss you, little one, on your hands and forehead. And Genrikh—on his little foot! October is here, and the steady, needlelike rain outside soaks you through and through. Yesterday I wandered around town, and spent piles of money. I came back to the barracks loaded down with purchases, which the other soldiers viewed with deferential curiosity. When I laid all the shining, pretty objects and leather supplies out on the clean bed, I felt like an accomplished household manager.

The other day I bought Rubakin a new book, apples, and shoe polish for kid-leather boots.

The library I’m now writing from is large and comfortable. There are many books, including books in foreign languages. The subscription fee for the library is merely five kopecks a month. In the library, a lady asks me: “Are you borrowing the books for yourself? Aren’t they sending you off to war soon?” There are only women working in the library—old women, young ladies, girls.

One day, I had quite a “woman’s day.” In the morning, I saw a crowd of prostitutes on Banny Lane. During the afternoon, I read a feuilleton by Doroshevich about women (I even shed some tears). And in the evening, there were the wholesome, pure ladies in the library, and the stories Garkovenko tells me that awaken horror.

My little one, I am filled with such pity for the poor bodies of women, I have no words to express it. What they do here with this work of art I cannot begin to describe to you. I have strong nerves, I have grown accustomed to many things in military service—but I couldn’t bear what I heard in these stories.

Doroshevich wrote about a woman who was visiting a soldier. It’s not an unusual story, but it was difficult to read about this class of people who are so united by common work, trust, and a common bed.

The ladies in the library represent another social layer, united not only by love, but by their common intellectual commitment. I immediately felt like writing a story about such a marvelous aging “girl” who lives her life in books, since she has nothing else to call her own. I’m determined to write it one of these days.

I’m writing you about myself, and more about myself, but all the while I’m thinking of you. You remember that I don’t like to make inquiries about things in letters. You know best what to tell me—about the state of your health, about your emotional state, about our baby boy. Who is my hope … I am here, but my fragile life is in Kiev. Remember that I always repeat this phrase, and I am always afraid. My sweet one, my own little life, be strong, keep well! I kiss my own little family. Jacob JACOB TO MARUSYA

From the Field Forces

Military Clerk Detachment

Second Reserve Sappers Battalion

OCTOBER 19

Good day, little one. Again, the days rush by, as they always do when we don’t cherish them, value them fully. I am now indifferent to the passage of time.

I’m hurrying to tell you good news: the day before yesterday, I was summoned to the battalion headquarters, where the commander-elders had learned about my musical inclinations from my files, and ordered me henceforth to join the regiment band in the capacity of flautist. Tell the others, especially Father, that my musical pursuits were not in vain—they are even required in the army. It’s not the kind of music I dreamed about before; but I never dreamed at all about a rifle and a clerk’s pen, so you might say that it’s better than nothing.

My day is organized like this: Today I got up at 6:00 a.m. The rest of the detachment gets up later. My morning ablutions are finished by 7:00. My glass is washed, and my boots are cleaned. Practice begins at 8:00. Each one takes up his instrument and plays exercises. The result is an earsplitting cacophony. The basses roar, the clarinets squeak, the French horns quack. I’m studying French. My flute is being repaired, and I’m using my time wisely. I’ve already learned not to pay attention to my surroundings. I’m making good progress, and speak much more fluently.

This is the unexpected surprise that military service has given me! But you, Marusya—watch out! In a few months, I’ll write you a letter full of compliments in French.

I like your Tartarin. After I’ve finished a lesson I read aloud, savoring every nuance of the pronunciation. I’m very happy about my studies. In the library, I borrow books on three subjects: war, history, and literature. The other day I bought Rubakin—an excellent book. Strange to think that in the field of library science there is a branch that is concerned with lively ideals, happy pastimes, and creative undertakings. He’s a good person, even though he works and writes permanently in Switzerland.

Marusya, if my letters are delayed by a few days, please don’t worry. It may happen, since it’s not easy to get them out of the barracks. KHARKOV–KIEV JACOB TO MARUSYA

OCTOBER 21

I wanted to write about the people who surround me. Today I thought about how many scoundrels there are among ordinary people. Every person has some stain on his conscience, of course. Bezpalchin, my neighbor in the barracks, laughed today when he told me how, many years ago, after spending the night with a fashionable Moscow prostitute, he stole the five rubles he had paid for her services from her stocking, and, at the same time, her silk handkerchiefs. This fat animal was so proud of his fine pranks he didn’t even blink when he told me. “We frolicked and rolled in the hay, and I still came out ahead! Ha-ha-ha!”

Another one, Garkovenko, also told me about himself (three-quarters of it lies), but I was astonished by how his strange head works, his mad cruelty and torment, the dregs of his soul.

Many of their actions are simply criminal. Others are crimes in miniature, shadows that will eventually assume concrete form. Nearly every one of them is a candidate for shackles. At the same time, they are free. They are the masses.

I thought about how prison society, the community of convicts, is no different from what we have here. It’s just that the people who are behind bars or in shackles are not so lucky. Life obligingly arranged to put favorable circumstances in their way, to supply them with a knife that was conveniently within reach. But perhaps Garkovenko will be lucky, and there will be no knife. And Bezpalchin will acquire a fortune, and will wear a bowler hat and vote for candidates to be elected to the State Duma.

But there, behind bars, it’s the same society, the people are just the same. They lose their wits once—and then continue as before. They are the same ordinary fellows they were before they got down on their luck.

All of these people are from the city’s lower strata, the petite bourgeoisie. In the detachment there is another category of people—peasants who are fresh from the land, who do the dirty work. They are simpler, more honest, have stronger morals.

My first sergeant is particularly amusing. He received another letter from his wife, and read it to me in full. “My Dear Kuzichka,” she writes, “I kiss your lips fervently.” Then she makes observations about running the household, very sensible and detailed. He is proud of her, her efficiency, her good grammar, her ingenuity. They correspond frequently. They have a warm, understanding, healthy relationship.

I’m writing during band rehearsal. We’re learning to play a medley from Glinka’s A Life for the Tsar. Our band has improved somewhat. We have taken on new musicians.

I’m going into town today, and I hope to find a letter from you …

I’m having a suit turned. They say it will work very well. The tailor suggested I unpick all the seams myself. Today I took the trousers apart. I wasn’t making much headway on my own, so I invited Aleyinikov to lend me a hand. After that, it went faster. He said, “Doing things together is always better than doing them alone—working, even sleeping.” My ears are greedy for that folk wisdom about the bed.

I kiss you, my little Marusya.

OCTOBER 24

In the past few days, I have been quite busy with domestic affairs. Now my boots have been repaired, my cap altered, and my suit turned. I look very snappy and spiffed up; everything fits well. I want you to look neat and tidy, too. Have you bought yourself a dress, or a new hat yet? Hurry up!

I’m reading many interesting things. In Russian Notes, No. 8, I found the next installment of a fascinating women’s novel. I read several lines over and over again. It’s The Horsewoman by Brovtsyna. There are many observations about love. Some of them coincide with our own experiences, and others are curious in the ways they contradict our relationship.

I received perfumed letters from you, but I send one to you that reeks of kerosene. Someone is always coming up and grabbing the lamp in order to smoke, and one of them spilled kerosene on the letter.

Two weeks from now, our band will start to play for a cinema house, and on Sunday, twelve people are invited to play for a wedding. The musicians will be sitting in an entrance hall, and will play all night long. Toward morning, they’ll get to eat the leftovers from the table. It’s a good thing the entrance hall is tiny and cramped; only twelve musicians will fit into it, and I won’t have to be among them.

Now I’m going to write about what interests you most of all—the woman questions. As one might have expected, this concerns me deeply. Two and a half years of married life has trained my male body to expect certain things. It’s not a trial, and not at all painful, just a small, constant inconvenience—but it’s as though my entire psyche is tied to a leash, and that is the worst thing.

The mind doesn’t follow its well-trodden path of scholarly interests and logical thought, but keeps turning back on itself. Out of habit, I rush to read a new issue of a magazine, and note with surprise that I impatiently seek out stories with tempting descriptions of women, that what I look for in literature reflects the preoccupation of my heart. For the first time, I neglected to read a scholarly article on economics. And the other soldiers’ stories only concern illicit street-corner love. When a lady of the night approaches me on the street, I hasten my steps.

I’ll tell you one more thing. In a moment of frustration and impatience—well, you know what happens next. You know all about it. And it felt disgusting and unclean. Love shouldn’t have to stoop to this! Please don’t be angry about my frankness. I always tell you everything.

Because it’s true that a woman is monogamous; that’s the way it should be. But why should a man be allowed to do whatever he wishes, at any time? Why is he endowed with so much superfluous energy and all-enveloping ambition? All-enveloping in both the figurative and the literal sense. I know that I’m speaking about one of the fundamental and more mysterious incongruities of nature. Nature was mistaken in arranging things this way. Your body has already gone through so much pain, and will be subject to more. Your body is constructed in a rather inconvenient and messy way; and my body does not take account of its own soul, and sets out boldly in any direction it wishes. It shouldn’t work that way! God should have employed a better architect and adviser.

OCTOBER 30

Marusya, my life has become as hectic as it is around exam time. I’m awfully busy, and always have more work than I can ever finish. I haven’t studied my French in a week. But I have news: I’m organizing a choir among the musicians of our detachment, and the conductor is—me! I’ve been dreaming about the conductor’s baton for many years now, and it has fallen into my hand, just by chance. The choir will be large—about thirty people. They have a great deal of artistry, though little experience or knowledge. But I am very hopeful that self-assurance and equanimity on my part will help. I thought up a strategy the day before yesterday. I bought some sheet music and a tuning fork, just to keep up appearances. For two days, I couldn’t get them together at the same time to rehearse, but you should see how impatient the detachment is: Why is there no rehearsal? We get out of the baths at nine o’clock; can we sing at night? They snatched up the sheet music and started to study it on their own. This evening is my debut. We’re beginning with “Come On, Boys!,” “The Broad Dnieper Roars and Moans,” “Heave Ho, Lads!”—both Ukrainian and Russian songs … “A Life for the Tsar.”

My work with the band is giving me marvelous training in music. It develops the ear, and increases, deepens, my grasp of music. I write now in spurts. Now they’re playing “When They Killed the Little Bird’s Mother,” and I have some free time. So I’m using it to write you. The band has achieved a lot already, and the repertoire is large. They play much better than before. Still, sometimes the band sounds like an organ—all the instruments sounding at the exact same volume. Every day they learn some new part. “The Peasants’ Chorus” from Prince Igor. I think when the band has learned it I’ll study it with “my” choir as well. Today is my debut! What will it be like?

… Now I lead the rehearsals like an experienced precentor. I’ll quote Pevsner, who didn’t sing but watched from the sidelines: “I was absolutely struck not by how the choir sang, but by the appearance and bearing of an ‘authentic’ conductor that you had. When you raised the baton, both you and they looked as though at any moment now a choir of angels would begin to sing.” It’s impossible to imagine a greater compliment than this. Something as trivial as getting the choir to prepare to begin singing demanded careful consideration. Our conductor let the choir get out of hand—before beginning, he tapped the baton many times, until they grew quiet. I took a different tack. I didn’t strike the baton unnecessarily. When it was time, I tapped it three times, quickly raised both my hands, and watched them expectantly, until I knew I had commanded their attention. At that very moment, the electrical current of the baton is released, and we begin. Yesterday I made several mistakes, but I didn’t let it show; on the contrary, I railed at the bass singers! Until I have established a solid reputation, I can’t afford to make mistakes.

In short, it was marvelous. I kiss you, my darling, again and again.

You know, Marusya, I often kiss you in my letters; but passing them on through you to Genrikh seems awkward. They’re different kisses …

NOVEMBER 10

In the Chrysanthemum Cinema, there is a poster announcing a moving picture with an accompanying brass band. The brass band is us. The foyer is long, empty, cold. Cinema posters line the walls, one after the other, advertising films with names like The Bloody Batiste Handkerchief, The Wheel of Hell, The Capture of Trebizond, The Dashing Merchant, and Hurricane of Passion.

We sit at the end of the foyer and play in the intermissions, as well as to comedies and travelogues. For five minutes we play, then have a break for ten minutes. And on and on. By about nine, you begin to feel a bit tired. By ten, you start looking at your watch. The last march—and everyone begins to pack up the music and the instruments. Weary and irritable, we hurry home as fast as we can to a dinner of cold soup, and then to bed.

Twice a week, I’m free. When you come to see me, I probably won’t have to perform at the cinema at all.

Here, not far from the barracks, there is a second-class hotel. I’m afraid you’ll have to stay there. Don’t forget to take care of your passport. But when…?

Name a day—it will be easier for me to wait. It would be most convenient either before Christmas, or after. We have a busy playing schedule during Christmas, and it’s harder to get away.

I keep forgetting to write you about the diaper you packed with my clothes. When I was unpacking the things, I thought it was a scarf, but then I recognized it and suddenly got very excited. How is he now, our Genrikh? I won’t recognize him at all when I come home.

Today I’m not playing. I’m resting, and every second, I’m aware that I’m not playing in the cinema. The day before yesterday I played there as well—piano accompaniment to the films. Finally, I’ve become something of a cinema pianist.

NOVEMBER 16

I received your letter. I’m very happy to hear about your new job, but also a bit anxious. How unpleasant it could be if they refuse you! The fee was quite a sprightly one. My compliments. I just want to advise you on one point. Besides knowledge and skill in a subject, you must know how to “shine.” In your case, you should do some smart advertising. Make journals, calendars, weather reports, and hang them on the walls, pasting things to huge pieces of paper, etc. This not only decorates the room, but inspires more respect for your profession. This is not only necessary for the child: you need to talk to the mamas and stress how important it is. They are frequently not very far ahead of the children in their development.

Have you seen how a wise doctor behaves when they call him in to minister to a dying person? They no longer believe in his scientific knowledge, but only in his wizardry, his scientific wizardry. This is why people love doctors with eccentricities. A wise doctor issues a long list of petty instructions. Move the bed, put the head of the bed thus and the foot of the bed so, cover the patient with a different blanket, take the clock out of the room, and many other things. Everyone attending the patient is busy. Little by little, the doctor accomplishes his main goal: to raise the sinking spirits of the patient and the patient’s loved ones, and to assure himself that he is powerless to do anything else.

There, now! Try to do the same, Marusya. And your attire! You must deck yourself out, Marusya. Unkempt, unclean clothing has a dispiriting effect, which we’re sometimes not even aware of. And don’t skimp on money.

I kiss you—everything, everywhere. I kiss your knees (on the sides, and in back, where it tickles).

NOVEMBER 22

My dearest, has Papa already told you everything he could about me? I was so happy to see him. In the first moments when he came to the cinema to see me, I turned around and tried to recollect this familiar face. I stared at him for several long seconds. I only recognized him when I had reviewed everything in my thoughts—who he was, how he could have appeared at this moment, and why he might have come. We very soon finished sharing the most urgent matters with each other, and switched to exchanging random information. The conversation became somewhat stilted after that.

I was so glad he visited, and had to fight back the tears when we were parting the next evening in front of his hotel. We embraced heartily, started to walk away, then turned back for another hug. I felt his soft mustache against my face, and that in particular made me want to cry. My throat was tight the whole way home.

I inquired about everything, but I somehow couldn’t formulate any sensible questions about you.

“So—is Marusya cheerful, does she laugh?”

“Yes, yes…”

“And … does she look pretty in her new hat?”

“Yes, very pretty.”

Papa talked about Genrikh with such affection and sweetness. Always resorting to the same words and expressions, he tried to describe how he plays and has fun, how he walks, how Genrikh recognizes him already, how he’s afraid of the bath … He only betrayed the depth of his sadness and loss one time, when he said, “Your Genrikh will be just like mine.” These were the first words about his son I have heard him utter since Genrikh died. I thought Papa was a dry, sober-minded man. In fact, he’s just not used to sharing his feelings with other people. But you and I convey every little thing to each other. About you he said, “I wouldn’t advise Marusya to take on a second (morning) lesson; it will exhaust her.”

On occasion, your letters make me especially proud and happy—when you tell me how well your teaching is going, about your self-control and endurance. There’s no better feeling for me than knowing that you respect yourself. It seemed like your lot in life that although most of the people around you hold you in high esteem, you constantly underestimate yourself. Apparently, you are outgrowing this moral malady. I congratulate you and am glad for you.

I think nonstop about you and your visit. These are my feelings about it: I can’t endure being apart from you until May. I await your arrival, not for Christmas, but before the holidays. I no longer have any shame. I think only about my love for you, endlessly, over and over again.

I love you, Marusya. Even when I turn fifty, I will love you just as deeply as I do now. I have thought about how, for loving spouses, love is limitless. Until the very end of their conjugal life, their shared path, their spiritual and emotional intimacy can be amplified physically. (Maupassant understood this very well. No one is as sympathetic toward older women as he is in his writing.)

This seems to me to be completely healthy and normal. When we reach this age, we will love each other and treat our bodies, bearers of our love, with the same tender solicitousness. The beauty of line and silhouette, the suppleness of muscles and skin, and our youthful health will all be gone. But we won’t mind!

So, Marusya, did you take on the morning lesson after all? If you did, please let me know—is it too exhausting for you? You promised me you would take care of your health; what are you going to bring me? Will I really be hugging the same little slip of a thing? I want more of you. Promise me there will be more of you for me when you visit.

Kisses for Marusya, good woman and love of my life.

I await your arrival impatiently.

J.

DECEMBER 2

It gladdens me when our correspondence gets out of whack because of your upcoming visit. I’ll try to write often, but please don’t worry. I know all your silly thoughts, and I often love those even more than your wise ones. You can’t sleep at night, you have visions of me in penal servitude, at war, in prison … I promise that when we see each other I will infect you with my calm equanimity and composure. First I will prove to you that all is well, and then I’ll show you how calm I am about it.

I’m looking for a better hotel nearby. If they won’t allow me to spend the night, I’ll have to settle you in a dubious furnished room among people who are colorful but not very pleasant.

And, please, do not be afraid, ever. I will write often before you come, so that you don’t start to expect you’ll find me shaven-headed, with shackles on my hands.

Instead of worrying, please bring me some sheet music, anything that takes your fancy. That’s the entire list for you. (And also Händel’s suite.)

I have just finished reading Rolland, and I wanted to share a few thoughts with you about him, and about you and me. He is a Frenchman, and all those devastating generalizations about the French hold true in part for him, too. That spirit of cultural prostitution and senseless destruction has affected him to no small degree. He dethroned Paris, but it was necessary to build something in its place. I paid close attention to how he took apart the great buildings stone by stone. When the eternal city lay in ruins like a dismantled house, I thought: Now, perhaps, he’ll begin to construct a new, more magnificent, more profound work of art out of the same stones. He says (and I remember the words clearly) that France lives, and, somewhere, those primordial streams of popular consciousness that feed an entire nation must exist. That they do exist, no one knows better than Rolland; but that he has not found his way to them, no one knows better than Rolland’s reader.

All you see are crude features and unsightly mugs everywhere in his work. For God’s sake, where are the people? This is why I felt bereft and unsatisfied after I put down the book. I hope I’ll find what I was seeking in the subsequent volumes. He looks for real people in the lower orders of the urban population. This is still a thorny issue, by the way. I believe very strongly in his statement that “people live by something.” I would call this idea “historic-statistical religion”: when many people, a whole nation or group, believe in something for a long time, or have been occupied with a common task, you can be certain that this common task has not been harmful, that it is benign, and that things are as they should be. When I heard this idea expressed for the first time, I was astonished by its exceptionally wise attitude toward life. And you are the one who expressed it! During a romantic meeting, in the first moments of heady delight of two souls approaching each other.

Those were delightful moments (Marusya, in our old age we will certainly have something to recall about our youth). From that moment, that bond that is worthy of as much admiration as love, but is much more difficult—the bond of sincerity, the complete melding of two thinking minds and two feeling hearts—was created between us.

Do you remember what you said? Simple but wise words—if that’s the way it is, that means it’s needful, it’s some sort of human mending of a divine mistake. From that day, I began developing the idea I now call “historic-statistical religion.” To rise above our epochs, to rise above people who surround us, to observe how these people live according to the generalizations they have created, and then to derive laws of life and morality from these observations.

But the main thing is not to stop respecting oneself. You taught me this, and now I’m teaching you. This is the fundamental law of our happiness. Fate has bestowed a unique happiness on us. To love and at the same time to respect each other is a rare and fortunate combination, don’t you agree?

DECEMBER 3

Evening, in the barracks. I’ve just taken a moment’s rest from the score I’m writing. I think I’ve already told you that I’m orchestrating “The Northern Star” by Glinka for our brass band. Today I showed it to the conductor. He found a few mistakes and inaccuracies, but ultimately praised it. My musical development is proceeding by leaps and bounds. I am very proficient in the brass band; it’s a pleasant enough ensemble, but not easy to play with. When I get to work with a symphony orchestra, I will know all the brass instruments to perfection. And they are the most difficult part of the orchestra.

When the score is finished, I’ll write you about how the rehearsal goes. I’ll still have time to send you a letter before your departure.

The news in the papers about the offer of a truce made me excited at first, but I soon calmed down and recovered my ability to think soberly. And thinking soberly means schooling yourself in pessimism. There will be no peace now.

I finished the new issue of The Modern World magazine. In this issue, No. 9, there is an article that I want us to read together. It was written by someone, a very intelligent person, most likely an eminent scholar, who signed his name with just one letter: S. It expresses my own thoughts in a scholarly and cogent manner. The way my worldview takes shape is strange. Things seem to transpire somewhere in the depths of my soul, at the boundaries of consciousness, almost unnoticed. A process is under way that seems to be completely independent of my brain. I ponder, and my thoughts rearrange themselves there, and sooner or later these deep thoughts rise up out of obscurity, and it seems that I have known them all along. These are thoughts about aristocracy and elitism, about the liberal bourgeoisie, about slavery, about the historical development of the idea of freedom.

I’m impatient for your train to arrive. Soon, soon, my little one, I will embrace you.

DECEMBER 6

Your letter made me so happy, so glad that in an instant I forgot about the long wait and about my weariness. In it I read the joy of life, the joy of creation, and the joy of a person who receives the appreciation she well deserves. I am happy about your clever work. (You’ve always been my clever girl!) Don’t forget to buy the sheet music for all the dances you performed in the Courses. It’s so strange and sad that I (who so believe in you) have until now never seen you dance in captivating, passionate abandon. I only saw you in the children’s dances, The Lament of the Grecian Girl, briefly in Pierrette, and Poem of Ecstasy.

But I am patient. Our hour has not yet come. It still awaits us, as does that home where our boundless happiness has already been prepared for us. This home will be comfortable and warm, with a large library. The doors won’t squeak when you open them, and the bathtub will be covered with enamel bas-reliefs, and the bed will be wide.

And creativity must reign everywhere … in the study, in the nursery, in the bedroom. Every corner of the house is good. And a remarkable woman walks around from room to room—one of only ten in the whole of Europe.

Marusya, buy me some English books in Kiev that I can’t get here. English Books for the Russian Reader, published by Karbasnikov, second series—all the books except Wilde’s The Happy Prince and Other Tales. Now I have to hurry to play. Marusya, please spoil me some more with more happy, smiley letters like the last one.

DECEMBER 7, 2:00 A.M.

I have just returned from the officers’ club. We played for the gentlemen officers and their ladies. It was interesting to observe from a distance. The girls who waited to be asked to dance, the “wallflowers,” were very touching. You should have seen how one of them bloomed, how her eyes shone, when some scrawny specimen of an officer finally invited her to take a turn on the dance floor. He may not have been much to look at, but he was still a man, for all that. I felt very sorry for the girls.

At the beginning of the evening, there was dancing for the soldiers. That was where it was fun to play! You know that every note pierces the soul of the dancers, and shakes them down to their toes. There were chambermaids, cooks, fine ladies “in hats.” In a soldier’s slang, a “hat” is a lady with pretensions. On the one hand, he is attracted to her; on the other, he is critical of her airs and graces. He can’t choose between the hat and the headscarf.

I so want to read with you, to study the world together.

Yesterday I read a bit of Maupassant in French, and decided to postpone my studies until we are together again. Will you help me work on my pronunciation?

I’m going to bed. I’m sleeping away my last bachelor nights … I kiss your shoulders. Jacob

DECEMBER 20

Dear Marusya! I’m writing from the barracks, where I’ve come to get chocolate and bread.

You will be leaving in a few hours. My heart is aching, but I’m trying to keep myself in check.

We do make a curious pair, don’t we: the happiest and the unhappiest on earth. In happy moments we believe in the first part of the formula, and in unhappy moments the second.

Today we’re unhappy, and there isn’t a drop left of the happiness we’ve been feeling. JACOB TO MARUSYA

DECEMBER 30

Everything is as it was, but a

Strange silence reigns …

And at your window, the dark

Mist of the street sows fear.

—Alexander Blok

Here, no strange silence reigns. Everything is as it was. I received your letter, and so the sweet old papery bond between us has sprung up again. You—a letter; me—a letter; a letter—a vessel of joy; a letter—a tear of sorrow. Everything as it was.

Still, I feel better—I’ve become calmer and more self-assured, like I was in the good old days. I don’t hurry to get anywhere, I have no expectations (since I don’t have your arrival to look forward to anymore). I’m motivated to work. I hope all of this holds true for you as well, my dearest friend.

Immaturity is having a serious attitude toward trivial matters, and to those sincere concerns that trivial matters awaken. Immaturity is an unconscious feeling by definition. As soon as an adult becomes aware of his childishness and tries to continue playing the role, he instantly turns into an affected, unpleasant creature. But unconscious childishness is enchanting. When you see an adult ice-skating, or peering at the ornate handle of an umbrella (your father), or simply smiling all of a sudden, without rhyme or reason (my father), you begin to understand that you have stumbled upon some extraordinarily precious feature in the chaos of everyday life, and you take delight in it.

Today we had another military outing. It’s very cold outside, but there is no greater pleasure than these happy processions. In the letter that got lost, I wrote that the outing is like a whole symphony of experiences in a mass of healthy young bodies. The mood gets transferred from one person to another, and conquers even the most solemn and cheerless souls. When music plays (we are the ones playing it; I play it), the whole mood takes on a rhythmic embodiment. Children rush out from all the courtyards; kitchen maids with galoshes pulled up over their bare legs exchange smiles and laughter with the soldiers, who look at them like a pack of hungry wolves.

Today, during the outing, I had some thoughts about Chekhov. They ran like this. The newspapers bemoan the fact that Moscow is losing its authentic Moscow character because it is overrun by refugees (read: Jews), who are corrupting the Russian language. The paper claims that people regularly mispronounce words, speak with rising intonations when they should be falling, and vice versa … I think that all this nostalgia and mourning for the past, what we read about in The Cherry Orchard, has no basis in real life. All that remains is a vestige, a sort of aesthetic mist enveloping everything.

I am no Lopakhin, but Lopakhin is closer to me than all the other dying people. He’s the only character who is truly alive. But he was conceived as a comic hero! And it is, in fact, a comedy. Chekhov sees the inhabitants of the manor as satirical archetypes. But if that is the case, then Lopakhin is the only person with real agency among them. It’s the death knell of the past, but in mild, comedic form. Yet Stanislavsky staged it as drama: the beautiful manor house with columns, the beautiful suffering of its starry-eyed inhabitants. Chekhov doesn’t laugh; he smiles wanly at the cozy world, the world he himself belongs to, and this is his parting smile. Not because he knows that he will die soon, but because he knows that this world won’t outlive him by very long. Let them hack down the flowering trees—I know that poor, flimsy houses will spring up on crooked little lanes and alleys surrounding the factory. Suffering will increase, the family structure will crumble, but there will be one more step toward consciousness, toward conscientiousness. Whether the next step in the struggle will be taken doesn’t interest me. The greatest evil is impoverished humanity, filthy, uncultured, uncomprehending. And the price we pay for acquiring consciousness is usually centuries of suffering and bloodshed. But it is worth the price.

It seems to me that Chekhov anticipated this. He felt contempt for the old world, but he feared the new one. The suffering of the cherry-orchard keepers is precious, prettified. The other kind of suffering—naked, anguished, hungry, but active, dynamic—transforms itself into something unprecedented and new, which will surpass all the utopias of the first socialists, from Sir Thomas More to Tommaso Campanella, which were conceived and elaborated long before Marx. I think that a hundred years from now, when human culture will have achieved an unprecedented level, theaters will view Chekhov as the greatest monument to a vanished world. But his plays are an indispensable step for achieving something higher, something better.

These days are very busy for me, though the company has holidays back-to-back. The officers invite their ladies, and the soldiers invite theirs. The soldiers seat their best girls and are particularly proud of the fine dresses their beloveds wear. The officers’ ladies survey the kitchen girls with disdain and seat themselves in the front rows with a show of refined dignity. One of the cooks utterly charmed me. She was wearing a white blouse with a very low neckline and a blindingly blue skirt, which might even have been a petticoat. How pleased she was with herself! One sees such characters only among cooks—my goodness, what she managed to do with her bust! Hilarious! The gallery, where the soldiers without girlfriends were sitting, was in very high spirits.

My English studies are proceeding apace. Today I finished “The Happy Prince” by Oscar Wilde. I liked it extremely well. I’m no enemy of apropos moral maxims. I highly recommend the story to you. It’s quite suitable for children’s classes. I’m sending along two stories for you (“The Beast Tree [The Tibetan Statuette]” by Remizov and “The Unforgiven Tree” by Teffi), for the following reason. In order to compose stories yourself, you must familiarize yourself with the folktale elements and features, turns of phrase, examples, stereotypes, allegories, and conventions that are universal for all folk or fairy tales. Ideas, plots might vary, but the core elements remain the same. In these stories, one comes across some new features. The features of Oriental tales, as well as those of exotic peoples such as Negroes, Chinese, or the Hindus, are particularly interesting. But for the most part, stories can embody their own unique laws of existence, which the author creates out of combinations of these familiar conventions.

Write me and tell me what you manage to do with these stories. (The Tibetan one can be used in its entirety, I think.)

I kiss you, my dear one!

DECEMBER 31

Hello, Marusya! The soldiers may have holidays every day now, but for us it’s double the work. But it’s pleasant work, watching, observing everything, letting my eyes wander where they will. And occasionally I see something amusing. Dmitrenko’s The Good Miller, or Satan in a Barrel. A comedy with dancing, song, and vodka. Vodka is prohibited here, but there’s still dancing and singing. And our band accompanies the singing. I enjoyed myself immensely during the rehearsals. I felt like an actor in an opera house. The barracks has a fully equipped stage. We were arranged in front of the footlights before instrument stands, as is the practice. In the center was the conductor, to his right the flautist and clarinetist, and to the left, the brass. And, as is the practice, the bandmaster signaled to the choir and the actors. And, as one might expect, they sang mercilessly out of tune, and their timing was off. Besides the performance of The Miller, a ballerina will dance for these sweet soldier boys. Today there was a tryout. There were two ballerinas, one of them rather plump, and the other with dyed hair, a sealskin coat, a sharp nose—overall, rather catlike. They dance well, but there was nothing out of the ordinary. The mazurka, the lezginka, Russian dances. The officers onstage flocked around them as men will flock around women upon whom the magic glow of the footlights casts a spell of enchantment mixed with the promise of accessibility.

The soldiers stared at them like they were seeing the Crystal Palace, like something lovely and completely distant from them, almost unearthly. The actors and actresses from The Miller huddled around the corners of the stage. The bandmaster looked on with an expression of irony, as though he had seen it all before.

Yesterday the celebration of the Eighth Company took place. I felt very happy with it. And extremely surprised by it. It was a celebration in the true sense of that word—carried out in a foreign, not Russian, way. I was happy with the way it was organized. Everywhere I looked, I noticed an attention to detail. Everything had been anticipated and well planned. It was all very clean and orderly. The beds in their barracks had been shoved into one corner and covered with a green cloth. For the guests, there was a coat check, with hangers, numbers, and a rope barrier. There was a platform constructed of dining tables pushed together and draped with green kerchiefs around the edges. Everything was spacious, comfortable; different people were assigned to take care of every eventuality. It was evident that they had rehearsed their roles. When the concert was over, people appeared with tools in hand. Within two minutes, the platform was silently dismantled, someone rushed to wipe down the tables, someone else felt the edges of the tabletops to make sure there were no stray nails sticking out—and the concert hall turned into a buffet.

We played until four in the morning. Tonight we’re going to play the whole night again. I’m just a bit tired. Tomorrow is the last holiday. All of this carries an aura of madness that no one seems to notice. Yesterday I read the papers for the last three months in the library. There are no reliable statistics, but as far as I can tell, the war has already cost at least five million lives; and it’s impossible to even estimate how many wounded there are. At least twice that number, I should think. Despite this, the Entente refused the German offer of peace. Our life, the only life we have, which promises so much to us, is unfolding against a background of unrelenting global madness …

Your Jacob