Letters to Véra

by Vladimir Nabokov

  ____________________

  [VÉNAF]

  [18 November 1932]

  [TO: Berlin]

  [Paris]

  It seems we will, after all, go to Pau for a few months. Amalia Osipovna and I wanted to go to visit this lady right away, but Fondik insisted that first, before accepting her offer, we find out who she is. So far we have found out that she is married to a Swede, Aschberg and not Amber, as I wrote, and she is not a relative of the Berskys, but their acquaintance, that her name is Olga Nikolaevna, that she is very, extremely, likeable, and that she has been nursing the thought of having us live in her castle for a long time. I am now at the Café de la Paix, where I am waiting for Aldanov, who has also promised to make enquiries. Then we will go to her, probably tomorrow, and I’ll discuss everything. It would be, I think, not bad if we went there in January or at the beginning of February with the idea of first spending about two weeks in Paris and returning to Paris again in June, say, or going to Grasse or Saurat as well, and in the autumn, to Paris. I will write an ode for her, as Nika does. All of this is very amusing. Rausch has got hold of Kyandzhuntsev’s companion, and it turns out that even the place of ticket-collector there is already taken. Tomorrow I am at Roche’s. He told me the other day (yes, he was at my evening) that there’s a hope of placing an excerpt from Luzhin in a newspaper. I must go to Ergaz’s, too, about the translator.

  ____________________

  [VÉNAF]

  [Letter 2, 18 November 1932]

  [TO: Berlin]

  [Paris]

  I found out from the Thompsons today that you called, but I happened to mix everything up and could not be with them on Wednesday. I think I won’t be able to hold out and I’ll call you. I’ve arranged things with the lady en question. I’ll call on her tomorrow at half past three together with the saintly Amalia. I’m afraid that I’ve rather taken you aback with this trip, but I’m taken aback myself. And in any event I’ve firmly decided to accept her offer if there’s nothing reprehensible in doing so. But I’ve generally relied on Fondik and Aldanov, who advise me to take the offer. I have placed The Eye. It will come out from Petropolis and Sovremennye zapiski. I have just spoken to Chertok. I’ll add ‘Pilgram’ to it. And I was at Gallimard today, too. I took back Glory. All of them there are very obligingly waiting for my stories, but, alas, they’re also flirting terribly with the Soviets.

  Yesterday I dined at Aldanov’s, and then had to go to the Rausches’. He invited two masons, Sheremetev and Obolensky. There were only four of us, but I, without hesitation, expressed all of my individualistic ideas and left early, having escaped their masonic enticements. The approach of poor Koka (who, by the way, is absolutely certain that sooner or later he’ll convince Dastakiyan to hire him as head of the cinema), took this form: ‘Don’t you have any unresolved issues? It just can’t be that you’re not troubled by certain questions of a spiritual order.’ I answered that I didn’t care about such questions, and the masons looked at me, wide-eyed. No doubt this was embarrassing, that is, no doubt, Koka had told them with the same emphasis with which he talked about his cinematographic dream, developed and realized at one light touch, told them that look, gentlemen, Sirin would be there, and he’s very interested in the masonic movement. He wants to join it and so on. And I was constantly turning the conversation towards the hockey match I was at on Wednesday night when you called. It was wonderful, we sat right by the ice, the Swedes were playing, and during intermissions Sonja Henie danced on the ice. As a matter of fact, I am describing Rausch in such a detail and not without relish, because I have a secret idea of reworking him, turning him into a story. Very tempting.

  I am sitting in a café. I’ll have a hot chocolate, and from here will leave for dinner at the Shklyavers’. ‘The whole city’ has been talking about my evening. Even an epithet beginning with a ‘g’, then ‘e’, then ‘n’, has reached me, so I’m puffing up, as the young Dostoevsky puffed up. The review in Poslednie novosti was written by Adamovich! And the one in Vozrozhdenie is Mandelstam’s. Tsvibakh is offended because I have not thanked him for the interview. Today was again an awfully long day. I was at Poslednie novosti. Zamyatin didn’t draw even a quarter of the audience there was at my evening. All in all, even old-timers don’t remember … I’m ashamed to write about all this, but I want you to be in the know.

  The story of the castle in Pau is too good to be true. It automatically decides the question of our moving to France. It’s hard to write about Amalia and Fondik’s attitude to me without tears. She herself fills up my bathtub, she’s set up a special table with toiletries, with talc, eau-de-cologne and a wonderful soap ready for me. This is just one of a thousand examples of their unheard-of kindness. I often find Zen-Zin in my bed: warm, cosy, charming. Tomorrow’s another hard day. Heaps of meetings. Well, I must go to the Shklyavers’.

  ____________________

  [VÉNAF]

  [21 November 1932]

  [TO: Berlin]

  [Paris]

  I’ve started a whole new orgy of things to do and meetings, so I simply didn’t manage to write to you yesterday. Listen, it’s all settled. We’re invited to Pau from the end of January or the start of February till June. And after that, Grasse. The thing is, we have to be in Berlin for Christmas, if Mother is coming. And in the beginning or the middle of January I want to be in Paris for when my books come out. Absolutely between us, in your little ear: I want to be in Pau precisely from February to June, because it corresponds to our stay, in the past, in Le Boulou and Saurat. And for me, you see, it’s important to compare on a day-to-day basis the emergence of these or other butterflies in the east of the Pyrenees and the west. Voilà. So take a room for us for a month, close to Anyuta. I’ll bring 300 marks. Besides, on Wednesday morning I’ll deliver, after sending a telegram (oh no, I haven’t forgotten), the first chapter of Despair to Poslednie novosti, and from Berlin I will send them a story, which I won’t have time to finish here.

  Amalia Osipovna and I visited Mrs Aschberg. She is rather corpulent, fortyish, smartly dressed, agitated and uttered a few stupidities (to use an expression of Anyutochka’s, whom I kiss on both cheeks and on the little forehead). Her husband, a Swede, is dead. The castle is near Perpignan, where Uncle Vasya’s castle was: there’s a coincidence. Two hours’ drive from Biarritz. She has a summer cottage there, where we will go off to, too. She herself is going away to Italy. All in all, she is rather likeable, but very bourgeois. She’s learning to sing, coloratura. Amalia Osipovna has invited her for tea on Thursday. Of course I was very, very polite. I thanked her and said when we would come. In my opinion, this unforeseen stroke of luck has already completely justified my trip. Why are you so worried about the stories? I’ve written to you that they’re being translated and, when they’re ready, they’ll offer themselves to journals. On Wednesday evening I’ll be at Ergaz’s with Gabriel Marcel. An excerpt from Luzhin will appear in one newspaper to which Denis Roche has an ‘in’. Grasset, Plon and Gallimard are waiting for Despair. A little conversation about K.Q.K., Glory, and The Eye.

  I repeat to you, it would be impossible to do more than I’m doing. I’m now going for lunch with Kaun, the American. He’s got my books and is very happy. I won’t talk to Saba about Rausch any more. I’m taking your advice into consideration. We’ll send Despair to Berlin. Conversations are going on through Mme Struve, the wife of Pyotr Berngardovich, whom I’ve visited, about my evening in Belgrade: we will need to fix a date. In the last few days I’ve seen Roche, the Rausches, Natasha, Sergey, Ergaz, the Kyandzhuntsevs and others. And here’s something funny: I’ll bring you two long letters full of terrible curses against me from the abominable Mlle Novotvortsev. It’s madly funny.

  [VÉNAF]

  [22 November 1932]

  [TO: Berlin]

  [Paris]

  Not long now till we see each other. I’m off now to a party at Ergaz’s, with Marcel and the Kuprins, and I’ve just been signing books for three hours, 24 copies, and wr
iting addresses, sitting at the rather sweet Kovarsky’s. I’m starting to get terribly tired again. This morning, I ran to the post office, wrote to Belgium, since they still won’t give me a visa. But if they don’t give it, I’ll simply go with a transit visa. Then I had a restaurant lunch with Berberova, and now, before Ergaz, I have to find time to drop in on the Struves on the way.

  Kovarsky told me that I’ve already earned 600 francs for Glory, but that the money hasn’t come in yet, although 300 copies have been sold, which they consider very good. And actually my other books have woken up too. For some reason, everyone here loves K.Q.K. That’s funny. Just think, in a month or a month and a half we’ll already be packing for Pau. Yes, yesterday I went to the Slonim translation office. I said I’d give them a three-month option for the English K.Q.K., but I’ll do this once I’m in Berlin, because I’m afraid to confuse things. They want it badly. It seems there’s a possibility of an English edition. Thank you for Camera. Last night I was at the Volkonskys’. The beau monde was there, and later we played petits jeux, and I was in my element. These days, I’m not managing to write to you very well, I’m constantly on edge, already dreaming of our quiet Berlin. I saw Sergey yesterday afternoon. We had a very calm and even warm chat. Tomorrow I’ll send the wedding telegram and will try to catch Sonya. I must go.

  [VÉNAF]

  [25 November 1932]

  [TO: Berlin]

  [Paris]

  Well, tomorrow Nikolay and I are going to Feux croisés, and the day after tomorrow, early in the morning of the twenty-sixth, I leave for Belgium. I anticipate being unbelievably exhausted. A reading that same night, and then a reading again the following night. On Tuesday, I was at the Struves’. I saw Yu. Yu., whose face has narrowed and who has grown dark (hair, eyelashes), but is still as mechanically talkative as ever. In the last couple of days, yesterday, I think, Gleb gave a lecture about me at the University of London. Four children, and the wife of Aleksey Petrovich, who looks very much like Gleb, has three. Do you know who she is? A Catoire. A musician, a cousin, and a childhood friend. From there I went to Ergaz, where I found Marcel, who’s extraordinarily like Aykhenvald, but much younger, and – en route – the Kuprins, and Sergey, who gives Ergaz English lessons. The Kuprins speak almost no French. He’s terribly nice, an elderly little peasant with narrow eyes. When we went outside later, the night was warm, just drizzling, everywhere yellow, brown, and still-green leaves were glistening on the pavement in the light of a street-lamp. He said to me: ‘But what a marvellous – and short – thing life is.’ Yesterday, on Wednesday, I was at his place again, but I lunched with the Thompsons. He is charming, just a fraction gaga. He went out for wine and brought back a bottle of red roughly wrapped in newspaper. He walks carefully and quietly, thrusting his face forward. Such a good, quiet smile. We sat at the table opposite each other, talking about French boxing, about dogs, about clowns, and about lots of other things. ‘Ahead of you, there’s quite some road.’ By the way, he spoke about Jews in a somehow amazingly profound way – hard to convey this. But his daughter Kisa is rather unpleasant, a little actress with eyelids smeared in ultramarine, eyes like Ural gems, and a ‘let’s-talk-about-me’ smile. Incidentally, Amalia Osipovna liked this expression so much she has been repeating it all the time. From there I went to Poslednie novosti.

  1936

  ____________________

  [APCS]

  [postmarked 22 January 1936]

  TO: Berlin – Halensee, Allemagne

  4, rue Washington

  [Brussels]

  My adorable love, all went well (true, my journey was somewhat marred by the torturous talkativeness of a tailor from Kovno who got so friendly he offered me a foot-long kosher sausage as a present). It’s morning now, I had a wonderful sleep. I just can’t tell you how sweet Zina is. There’s a cat sitting on each central-heating stand, and a twenty-day-old wolf puppy whining in the kitchen. And how is our puppy, I wonder? It was strange to wake up today without the little voice walking past my door in your arms. My dear love, it’s awful to think that you’ll be even more tired now. Somehow this pen’s too thick. I am fighting an acute desire to smoke. Tell Anyuta I send her a kiss. The sandwiches were beautifully packed. If there were no time change, I am not sure by how much exactly, he would now be back from his walk and would be sticking out his hands. Today there’s the Pen-Club affair. On the 27th I read in Antwerp. Zina thinks there is no need to have a performance for the students. And how’s he stomping and banging without me? I feel great. You packed everything marvellously. They were very interested in my shoes at the border. My love and happiness, my dear eyes, my life!

  V.

  ____________________

  [ALS, 2 PP.]

  [c. 24 January 1936]

  [TO: Berlin]

  [Brussels]

  My dear love, they ‘honoured’ two others along with me, a Portuguese and a Peruvian, who, as soon as everyone had gathered in a touchingly ugly hall decorated with golden ivy, got out little papers and fired away in catastrophic accents. After which I said my three bare little sentences. Then they treated us to sweet wine, like Russian Orthodox communion wine. But I did meet wonderfully pleasant and interesting people. Now he is walking with the imperturbable Elli. I met, for example, P. de Reul, whose book about Swinburne I remembered well (Magda brought it over, when I was sick), several poets: René Meurant, Charles Plisnier, Paul Fierens, and later that night we had a reception at the home of the art critic of Gringoire, who said that, unfortunately, Franz Hellens could not come over because Zack is now painting him. A chandelier from Rome, with blue, pink and plain-ice pendants: very sweet, but possibly OK if diluted with sparkling water, – while Fierens’s wife, Odetta, showed us a glass medallion belonging to her great-grandmother, Mme Roland (‘Liberté, quelles crimes …’) who was executed. I love you, my darling. Traces – palaeontological – of hairs remained on the glass, at one stage they’d been in the medallion, but were removed by the virtuous daughter of Mme R for moral reasons: they were hairs from her lover, Brisson, who also died a celebrated death. And suddenly with the unfinished portrait and the artist Zack in walked Hellens, an ageing gentleman with a remarkable, rather raptor-like clean-shaven face, and we immediately ‘hit it off marvellously’ (as Anyutochka – a kiss for her – puts it). He is married to a Russian, works as a librarian at the Parliament. And Zack turned out to be the brother of … Prof. Frank: very unexpected. In general the conversation was lively and varied, in a way I haven’t been part of for a long time. Of course I passed around the photo of our boy, and the mistress of the house remarked: ‘il a cinq ans – ou plus?’ The next morning I went for a walk with Zina in the local Bois, in the afternoon looked over ‘Mlle O.,’ and in the evening Meurant and Plisnier visited, and again the conversation was about the arts, with forays into all the neighbouring districts. To avoid later embarrassments (as happened with my letters from Paris – when I re-read them) I now and henceforth absolutely refuse to quote all the direct and indirect compliments I receive. Zina has waged such a campaign here for ‘C. O.’ and ‘Course du F.’ that Fayard and Grasset should bow down at her little feet – where I’ve long been, because she’s indescribably charming. How light and obedient their little puppy seems – yesterday he dived head-down in my side pocket where he got stuck, having burped a little blue milk. My joy, the shoes are fabulous. Please write me soon – I am here till the 28th.

  At first I was put up in a large room, but yesterday a new tenant, a Persian, moved in there. The first thing he did was to place on the table a framed portrait of Greta Garbo – c’est tellement typique. As for me, I have moved to a no less cosy room under the roof – and sleep wonderfully. I have just sent Kirill news of my arrival. They say he’s studying well – Zina completely pulls him apart, then puts him back together again: the sloppy attitude of course is still there, and the girls, and the muddle, and the giddiness – in other words, all his little traits, but still she maintains that he’s studying. Walk
ing through the park (where the trunks are just as green as the lawns), I told Zina everything I had to about the Peltenburg misses. P. N. reported that the Pen Club put on a lunch for me, but that’s not true. Zina’s husband and father-in-law are awfully sweet, – the husband Svyatoslav = Svetik (which is weird for me to utter, isn’t it?) is also a Tenishev boy: he has now taken up writing a novel, showed me some excerpts, and it’s not bad at all.

  I will write to Mother and Fondaminsky from here. The servant here, Boronkin, has a melancholy face but he’s very nice, fusses over the puppy and cooks wonderfully. I keep looking at babies – all the carriages here are on thick tyres. I woke up yesterday en sursaut utterly certain that my little boy had got into my suitcase and I had to open it up at once or he’d suffocate. Write me as soon as you can, my love. Boings, boings, boings against the highchair footstep in the kitchen each morning. I feel new words hatching there without me. Tell Anyuta that when, after the first conversation, the Persian left (to move in at night) without paying in advance, Zina exclaimed: if Mama been in my place, she would have twisted the money out of him so he didn’t even notice. Remind me, you know, to tell ‘Sovr. zap.’ that I would like to write a little piece about ‘Yakor’.’ I speak French with suspicious lightness and eloquence. Don’t know how my ‘Mlle’ will go down today – I’m afraid it’s long and boring. The very kind Aleksandr Yakovlevich isn’t here yet, but I’ll meet him in Paris and write to you all about him. It’d be nice, you know, to live here – a beautiful silence after our garages, a big garden outside the window, sparrows tickle one’s ears all morning and sometimes a blackbird joins in – and those are the only sounds. The bathroom has that meekly and hopelessly dirty look all bathrooms have. Kisses, my dear love. I’ve stepped back a little from the picture and see it better, and see how pretty you are. Write me soon, my life.