Letters to Véra

by Vladimir Nabokov

  At the meeting, Struve spoke, as well as Kirill Zaytsev, Kartashev (he speaks wonderfully, with tight-shut eyes, with amazing force and imagery), Florovsky and Fondaminsky (who was terribly agitated: they had got at Novyi grad), with great spirit. And I, of course, was preoccupied not so much with the substance as with the form. I spoke to Lolly Lvov and to Zaytsev, to Pyotr Ryss, to a Russian journalist Levin, who, remember, used to exclaim ‘I tell them in black and white’, and I sat next to Berberova. She has wonderful eyes that seem enlivened and glazed in an artificial way, but she has an absolutely terrible promontory of rose flesh between her two big, wide-spaced front teeth. She told me that Felsen and another classmate of mine, I’ve forgotten his name, have found some lucrative business for me, almost an office job. Next Tuesday, I’ll see them at her place. This all finished rather late, I barely made it to the métro. When I was leaving, Struve was yelling across the hall with a huge ridiculous gesture: ‘Ivan the Terrible was scum, scum.’ And Kartashev, in his speech, said about Tolstoy the thinker: ‘A fool and a coachman.’

  I fell asleep right away (I can’t read before sleep now, sleep takes over), and this morning went to see Milyukov who lives right near me. A cheery old man, lots of papers on his desk, a piano, a radio, he is very polite and has promised to do all he can for the success of my reading. He didn’t ask a single word about Mother, and I didn’t say anything, either. I wrote very late yesterday, lying in bed after midnight, and the concierge has just woken me up: it’s half past nine. At half past twelve there’s the American Club, then Lukash, then Fayard, then Mlle Klyachkin. After Sergey left, I went to N. R. F., where Paulhan saw me right away and was very pleasant, promised to find out where things stand with Glory, and we agreed I will send him two or three short nouvelles for Nouvelle Revue Française. Oh, yes, by the way, I don’t have ‘Music’. How come? Where is it – not at Esther’s or Anyuta’s? If you find it, send it here. Meanwhile, I will be translating my ‘Terra Incognita’ for Nouvelle Revue Française, I want to do it and I will. Paulhan is small, swarthy, he looks like the owner of Teryuz. We talked about Glory, which goes on sale tomorrow, about its distribution, and about Camera Obscura. He will send me a copy of the agreement here in a day or two. I’ll see him all the same, I have to go to sign copies of Glory. He’ll send out twenty-five of them.

  From there, I went to Aunt Nina’s and saw Muma there. Aunt Nina is 72 years old, but she has kept her great liveliness and cheerfulness, while Nikolay Nikolaevich looks like a hearty old English Colonel. I brought her a copy of Glory, she’d already read it in Sovremennye zapiski. From her, I went with Muma to the Rausches’. They, especially he, have a reputation for being the kindest people on earth. They are touchingly sweet, I will definitely move in with them when Nika rolls up. He is great friends with Don Aminado. I recited poems, the young lady – plain, with braids, Mme Rausch’s daughter from her first marriage – read out her productions to me: moon, birches, thunderstorms, waves. And Muma’s last name is Zapolsky. He’s a singer, now with the Russian opera in Italy. I stayed at Rausch’s till half past twelve, went to sleep late. Time to get up.

  ____________________

  [VÉNAF]

  [2 November 1932]

  [TO: Berlin]

  [Paris]

  Natasha and Ivan arrive on Friday, and I’ll move to the Rausches’. Write to me at their address. It’s morning, I’m lying in bed, drinking coffee brought by the concierge. Yesterday I told Fond that I had been to the Kyandzhuntsevs’. He said that Bunin’s a great friend of theirs. Neither Saba nor his mother has changed a bit, but the sister I wouldn’t have recognized. Beautiful eyes, but she’s very plain. And they were so nice, so sweet, they know everything I’ve written down to the last line, and they remember you. I felt as if I’d just recently, the other day, been to see them on the Liteyny. On the wall there is a portrait of the elder brother, the one who died. Saba went to his room, rummaged around, and returned with long poems that I sent to him in Kislovodsk from St Petersburg on October 25 of 1917, i.e. on the first day of the Soviet era. I will certainly copy them for you. They know heaps about me, even the scene with Spiresco. Someone had told them: ‘He, i.e. I, has such shoulders, such biceps’, – so they thought a giant would come in. I’m having lunch with them on Saturday. Now there was a pleasant meeting.

  From there, I rolled on to Berberova. She’s very likeable, but so thickly literary, and she dresses terribly. I met Felsen at her place, we talked only about literature, and soon I began to get sick of it. I haven’t had such conversations since my grammar-school years. ‘And do you know this? And do you like him? And have you read him?’ Terrible, in a word.

  ____________________

  [VÉNAF]

  [3 November 1932]

  [TO: Berlin]

  [Paris]

  Thursday

  There are all kinds of things to be sorted out. Yesterday afternoon I was at the Rausches’, (I’ll be staying with them from tomorrow), and at Fond’s, who is busily occupied with distributing my tickets. I went with him to Aldanov’s, where we ran into a Californian professor who turned out to be a Russian Jew, Khodasevich, Vishnyak, Zaytsev and one of Aldanov’s relatives, through whom Aldanov wants to set you up at Hachette, but I have no idea whether you want it. The Californian has become very interested in my work, he’s read some, and he invited me to lunch with him on Monday. Aldanov evidently invited everyone on his account, but it turned out no one talked to him. At first we discussed whether Bunin would receive the Nobel Prize and then, and up till the very end of the evening, a heated argument started up about the contemporary era and youth, in which Zaytsev uttered Christian banalities, Khodasevich literary banalities, and my very sweet and saintly Fondik very touching things of a social nature. Vishnyak from time to time threw in a phrase steeped in robust materialism, and Aldanov and his relative kept silent. I, of course, put into play my little thoughts about the non-existence of eras. Poor Aldanov was awfully glum, apparently he’s being roughed up in the corridors of opinion. The press does not dare to [scold him], although in Vozrozhdenie Khodasevich put the knife in – took him to pieces for The Cave. In a little aparté Aldanov told me that his literary career, so they say, is over, that he’s decided to stop writing and so on. Zaytsev invited me round. He has strange sunken cheeks and very prominent eyelids. Chukovsky wrote about him once that all of his heroes sleep a lot and in detail. I was too late for the métro and walked with Fondaminsky to Passy. He blamed himself and others that we hadn’t asked the Californian a single question. It was awkward. I’ve got a letter here from Kulisher that the percentage is being raised to seventy-five and they have an exceptional advertising campaign, but they want me to come not on the 20th but on the 26th. On the 20th, Mme Damansky is arriving there. There was some kind of a mix-up; true, I answered them only the next day, but they’d asked for it immediately. I don’t know whether I should agree to it now, especially since I don’t know your plans and I don’t know what to do with myself that week, from the 21st to the 29th. I don’t want to spend it in Belgium at all, and in general I don’t want you to go there. To hell with Belgium! Today’s the interview in Poslednie novosti, written in a terrible style. Terrible vulgarity, and all beside the mark. And why my poor little coat had to suffer so much, I don’t know. It’s not all that bad, really. Especially nice is this little expression ‘funny’, in the sense of ‘spare me’.

  I had lunch today near the Luxembourg garden with Sergey and his husband. The husband, I must admit, is very pleasant, quiet, absolutely not the pederast type, with an attractive face and manner. But I felt somewhat awkward, especially when one of their acquaintances, a red-lipped and curly-headed man, approached us for a minute. From there, I went to Rossiya i slavyanstvo. Lolly again recalled the story with Tair, he invited me over. I’ll have to go, it seems. That very Mme [Mlle?] Rachmaninov, it appears, will be there. Now I am sitting in a rather wretched little café, since I’m not far from Marcel’s locale, where I need to be at 5. A
nd it’s 4 now. Not worth going home. In the evening I’m at Benois’s. I don’t know whether I’ll write to you tomorrow. I’ll be moving, and there’s tons to do.

  ____________________

  [VÉNAF]

  [3–4 November 1932]

  [TO: Berlin]

  [Paris]

  Thursday night

  I’ve become very good friends with Gabriel Marcel. It turns out he has an excellent knowledge of my things, he has read K.Q.K. in German, he knows the storylines of my other three novels, terrible compliments and all that, and he absolutely wants K. Q. K. to come out in French. He is in charge of the foreign section at Plon, and says that when I was offering my things to them, they were going through a hard time and were wary. We arranged that in a day or two I’ll have dinner at his place with others, including, by the way, the author of Œil de Dieu. Tomorrow I’m having dinner at Supervielle’s with the Paulhan couple, and Grasset. The day after tomorrow, I – but why should I tell you all this if you think I’m doing nothing. Their refusal to publish Glory was not unexpected to me, alas, I knew but kept it quiet that their reader was the nasty Pozner, and Ehrenburg’s evidently close to them too.

  By the way, Roche told me that Plon’s translation of Shmelyov’s The Sun of the Dead was absolutely swamped by criticism, thanks to Soviet influence. Intrigues, intrigues, intrigues, as Maman Rouge used to say. I have just returned from a very pleasant evening at Benois’s, lots of artists, I sold four tickets there. I am running around all day long, my tongue, red as a slice of ham, hanging out, and you say to me: ‘Blunderer’. The fact they sent the letter to Berlin is their fault and not mine. Paulhan doesn’t have a direct connection with Gallimard, but he has promised me to make enquiries. I couldn’t demand more. I have decided to go to Brussels; I’ve had no news from Strasbourg. To tell you the truth, I am not keen to go there. All this would have to be arranged over again, the books will come out only in January, and then it’s too tedious. I’ve got mighty tired, after all, and I want to write. Mme Damansky is already here, congratulate me, there’s one I won’t be losing any time over. My poor tattered time.

  ____________________

  [VÉNAF]

  [5 November 1932]

  [TO: Berlin]

  [Paris]

  I’m already on such a footing with Paulhan that I can give a story to him at any moment, but for that I need that story, that is, a translation of it. Beside Nouvelle Revue Française, I have free access both to Candide and to Nouvelles Littéraires, not to mention other newspapers. Everyone here is connected to each other in one way or another, but, I repeat, I have to have the translations. Denis Roche, in principle, has promised me to translate, but he is too busy at work now. Mme Ergaz has been sick all this time. I will be at her place on Monday and offer her ‘Music’ to translate. I have begun to translate ‘Terra’ myself. I’ve written to Mme Lvovsky at last. Tomorrow I am at Levinson’s, and there too I’ll set something going. I can’t do more than I’m doing. I began to write a story, but I have absolutely no idea if I’ll finish it by the 15th. Yesterday I had dinner with the Paulhans. She’s a woman of the simplish-socialist type, not very likeable, unbelievably dressed, in a short and, I think, knitted dress, but I did talk a lot to him, about literature. He wants to read Glory, but how he will read in Russian is unclear. I’ll try to find out whom I should forward Glory to from Gallimard. Supervielle is as charming as before, we call each other cher ami. On Monday as well I’ll have lunch with Kaun, and in a day or two I’m meeting Bradley. I’ll also meet Evreinov at the Rausches’, and I’ll stay in Paris, in any event, till 23rd – 24th, because the evenings in Antwerp and Brussels are on the 26th and 27th. Nika thinks, correctly, that it’s premature to advertise in Strasbourg a book that will come out only in January, so for the meantime the evening there won’t happen. I think we ought to move here. And for that, go to the embassy, request a visa, talk to Wilhelm or Piquet. They gave you their recommendations for your getting a permis here till the first. And I will talk about this too to Maklakov, although there are jobs around with Russians, for instance, or with Armenians, where one can get by without a permis. And I could look up lodgings for us, and so on. Let me repeat, I do not want you to work, so I am giving this plan less attention. But, once again, I’m not going to insist on your coming. After all, this is all hard to resolve, so let everything be as you suggest. I will return to Berlin on the 28th or 29th, we will rewrite Despair, and in January we will move here. I have moved to the Rausches’, where I’m awfully uncomfortable. I sleep in the living room, at night they straggle around the entire apartment, there is no place to put up my towel in the bathroom, and so on. But they are infinitely sweet, so never mind.

  Yesterday I had lunch at the Thompsons’ and then went to see Avgust Isaakovich and Tsar Boris. Today I had lunch at the Kyandzhuntsevs, who bought 250 francs’ worth of tickets from me. I’m not living off that money, of course. There’s more from Fond, too, and tomorrow Vishnyak will give me some from Sovremennye zapiski. I spend very little. Everyone is surprised. I’ll read ‘Music’. Now I am going to see Natasha home. This evening I will write, if I can find a nook. I haven’t borrowed money anywhere, this is all literary money. It’s noisy here, hard to write. I am simply astonished at the multitude of things and connections I’ve done and set up on my own.

  ____________________

  [VÉNAF]

  [8 November 1932]

  [TO: Berlin]

  [Paris]

  I’m carrying on yesterday’s letter. Kaun, who has been, by the way, to Gorky’s and to Bunin’s, wants to take Luzhin, K. Q. K. and Glory to America to the publishers he’s connected with. He doesn’t know Camera. I’d like him to take it, it in particular, but I don’t know whether we have a complete copy that we can send to him. Remember that we definitely have to send the ending of Camera to Ergaz, too, that is, minus what has been published already in Sovremennye zapiski. Besides, he has already got and will be taking with him ‘Chorb’, i.e., all the stories except ‘Chorb’. He seems very businesslike and pleasant. He’s already placed some books by Osorgin. Aldanov is conducting negotiations with him as well. A small, quiet person, elderly, with a trimmed moustache, in a tennis shirt. I met Max Eastman in his room at the hotel. He’s a very well-known American poet and translator. Remember, Bunin asked me to find him? I have also met Eastman’s Russian, très soviète, wife, and he himself is a half-communist, a Trotskyite, a huge, tanned man with wonderful, absolutely white hair, he looks like a cockatoo. Then Kaun and I went to a restaurant for lunch, and he took a picture of me, as I’ve already written, and we arranged to meet again. This is important: call Slovo, get them to send Luzhin and K. Q. K. to him, and maybe the German K. Q. K. as well, to the Daily Times. You mustn’t put it off, because he plans to leave by the end of this month. From him I went to see Ergaz. She seems charming, and it turns out that she is so well provided for that she needs absolutely no honorariums, and, if I understood her correctly, she will give me her 45% back and, in general, is ready to translate my stories for free, but now, because of Camera, she cannot do it, although she is ready to correct someone else’s translations and suggests, recommending him highly, Evgeny Shakh (an old acquaintance), to whom I’ll give 40–50%. This, of course, relates only to the two stories I’ve given her (‘A Bad Day’ and ‘Perfection’, but not ‘Music’, as I had misinformed you, I think). Since then I’ll make a rough draft myself, and she’ll do the rest, or all of it, when she finishes Camera. She’s a very obliging lady with huge connections through her rich lawyer-businessman husband. She suggests to me that she can go straight to the minister for your permis, which is almost guaranteed to come through. She has very elegant furniture and, imagine, she is acquainted with Lena but she says that they do not see eye to eye. Something unpleasant happened between them. In a couple of days, probably Wednesday, I’ll have dinner at her place with Gabriel Marcel and other people. As you see, total success on this side, and it’s nice, by the way, that she has o
ffered to pay me 1,000 francs right now. I think I’ve already written about that. Send me a list of people I have to send Glory to. Do it without delay. You know, such a touching little thing. Next to me there now lies, neatly wrapped, your little brown dress with its colourful scarf. You, my little muddle-head, forgot it in Kolbsheim, and I picked it up just now from Natasha, where I had lunch. I told them to send it – you’ll get it soon. I’m free this evening, I would have written, but, unfortunately, Koka’s son has arrived, I’ll be sleeping in the same room as him. All this is awful. So it’s noisy here, and I am thinking of going out briefly with someone. I’ll call the Thompsons now, I’m dining with them on Friday. Tomorrow I’ll be at Kovarsky’s (we need to send some people Glory) and I’ll see Sergey. I’ll see Evreinov on Saturday. You know, I am mighty tired of all of this. They are playing billiards here, it’s noisy, I had a hot chocolate.

  Goodbye …

  ____________________

  [VÉNAF]

  [Letter 2, 8 November 1932]

  [TO: Berlin]

  [Paris]

  I had a letter today, and I’m no longer cross. Things are coming along rather well, details below. This is not ink, but diluted lilac, to put it kindly. Please, be careful, don’t go out walking. Here they already imagine that there’s a revolution in Berlin. I will find out when to apply for the visas, and will apply. In any case, in a day or two I’ll be at Blackborough’s. I don’t remember whether I wrote to you that on Saturday I had lunch with the saintly Kyandzhuntsevs, that he was having his tuxedo altered for me, and so on. In the early evening I went to Natasha’s, their fat German maid occupies one room, and Natasha and Vanya another. So that, in fact, there’s nowhere to sit and it’s quite a jumble. She and I went to a café in Montparnasse, and popped into some show booths, threw wooden balls; if you hit a particular point, a half-naked girl, turning upside down, suddenly falls out from the bed. In general harmless, except the girl has to lie in bed for hours before the eyes of all.