In a couple of days I will give Lucy material for ten columns (about London). I’m now a little calmer, but yesterday I was very angry and still do not understand what the matter is: please explain. I thought everything was going very well. Re-read my letters.
I sent you N. R. F. today. I sent Gallimard an advance copy of Despair (i.e. the finished book, but in bras de chemise – in a brown-paper jacket) because it turns out (I pressed him really hard) that the type-script he got some time back ... had been lost! I am also acting through their reader (Fernandez).
In the morning, when I take my bath, the cat (Zen-Zin) sits on the bath’s marble edge, his nose against the heating pipe, and at night either he or the other (Nikolay) throws the whole weight of his body against my door, trying to thrust it open, so you get the impression an impatient and obnoxious man is forcing his way in.
I love you, my darling. Here I meet two kinds of ladies: those who quote me excerpts from my books and those who ponder the question whether my eyes are green or yellow. I have gathered lots of the good and likeable over this month and a half, but several buckets of vulgarity as well. The more I know I. I. and V. M., the more I love them.
My darling, come soon! I can’t live without you any more. And my little one, my little one ... How wonderful that is – about ‘you’re smiling’!
Greetings to Anyuta – who never writes to me.
My love!…
V.
____________________
[APCS]
[postmarked 14 March 1937]
TO: 22, Nestor str., Berlin – Halensee, Allemagne
[Paris]
I will write a long one tomorrow.
My love,
What an enchantment he is in the dark little coat, and you have a nice smile too, my priceless happiness. No special news, I am writing my piece. ‘Music’ has gone to Candide. ‘Despair’ has been handed on (besides Gallim.) to yet another – Ergaz’s – publisher. I am in a rush now because today’s Sunday and I want the postcard to leave before one. My joy, come soon, come soon! It seems at last that we’re going to Roquebrune. Everybody recommends going straight through Strasbourg. Think about that! Find out about the ticket! We should certainly buy a tub, if only a little one for the little one. Yesterday I went to Aldanov’s play avec les Kokoshkins. My darling, what you write about Italy and Abbazia is, alas, absolutely impossible. What would the trip alone cost us, and I have to be near the capitals. In a day or two I’ll give Lyusya in my own words ten commissions or thereabouts. All is well, I am expecting you soon. For R you have to go through Menton. I am going to visit Mme Chorny – also about the boarding house. The widow of Sasha Chorn[y].
I love you, my own.
Poor Zamyatin! I was there for the carrying out of the body.
V.
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[ALS, 4 PP.]
[postmarked 15 March 1937]
TO: 22, Nestor str., Berlin – Halensee, Allemagne
c/o Fondaminsky, 130, av. de Versailles
[Paris]
My love, my darling,
You make me anxious and cross, – what sort of a sentence is this, ‘is it worth my travelling before your return from London?’ Since (if I go at all, – for I’ll go only if a reasonable profit from the evening or evenings is fully guaranteed) I’ll be in London only during the fourth week of April (and no longer than four or five days – and I’ll stay either at the Sablins’, or at Haskell’s, both of whom have invited me), your arrival would be delayed for another month, right? (This ‘right’ shows how cross I am with you). And since at the end of May I’ll give my French lecture here (which will be called ‘Lettres de femmes et femmes de lettres’), then, perhaps, we can postpone till June as well, can’t we? (crosser and crosser). Now listen.
I have just been to the very nice Maria Ivanovna Chorny and (in case I don’t get a completely positive reply from Roquebrune which should come if not today then tomorrow) she and I have decided this: on Thursday she is going to her La Favière (it’s at Lavandou station, Var) and offers to set us up at a boarding house she knows well (with central heating, by the way), a bit higher up, in a wonderful little town, among pine woods, Bormes, for April (it’s a quarter of an hour by autocar from there to the beach), since it’s nicer there in the spring than right by the sea. Full board should cost no more than 60 fr. nous trois. And then: in May she is leaving and offering us, if we like it, her little house (two rooms, two terraces, a garden) in La Favière (and this is right by the beach – so it’s an ideal place for little ones). I think that this is all very seductive. So – if we decide on Bormes – I suggest the following: you and the boy take a ticket from Berlin to Toulon via Strasbourg (a 2nd class sleeper from Strasbourg) – which will certainly work out much cheaper than through Paris – and on Thursday, April first (a funny date, but what can we do) I’ll meet you at the station in Toulon along with several podalirius (I’ll arrive there on the same day as you) and from there, for 8 francs, an autocar will take us to Bormes. If I leave for a week at the end of April, then Maria Ivanovna has already promised to look after you. (She will write to me about the boarding house as soon as she arrives – so I can decide everything by the 23rd of this month).
How’s the visa? See to the ticket a week before. I want an absolutely precise answer from you. To scramble after some unknown god in the back of beyond in Abbazia or Italy (where it won’t be so cheap at all if we don’t know what’s what (– and if we start to find out, spring will pass, and summer, and two winters and eight more springs)) when it would be too far from here and from London anyway! In any case – whether we go to Roquebrune (it’s near Menton) or Bormes (I am beginning to write like Chernyshevsky), you and the little one are leaving for Strasbourg no later than 30-III (and this is no longer a suggestion, my darling, but a statement).
I met with Wallace and gave him ‘A Dashing Fellow’ and ‘Spring in Fialta’ for Zurich. Send ‘The Doorbell’ to Vienna – the rest are too long. Or not – I’ve forgotten – how many pages are there in ‘Chorb’? If ten or eleven, then it’d work. Send it, and I’ll write to him. There’s no point applying to Vinaver 1) I have enough people there thinking about me 2) he is rather repellent.
My poor tired little tim. You’ll rest well and recover this summer. I love you, I’m waiting for you.
To Pavel I wrote only that, they say, Victor was paid that much and he can now submit his things only on the same conditions: all this was done under Ilyusha’s strong pressure.
‘Eidel’ is correct, and ‘repos’ is correct, too. It is wonderful, that you managed to send the collar to Mother! Why is Anyuta so stubborn in her silence – and is she planning to come to Paris? There were very few people at poor Zamyatin’s funeral. He died from angina pectoris. Aldanov’s play is far from bad, although local beaux-esprits rail against it terribly. The fifth performance will have a full house, and it’s already playing in Prague and Riga. My writing’s not coming easily. As soon as I receive an answer from ‘Candide’ I’ll translate another short story. Ergazikha had to correct almost nothing. Tell Anyuta that her teeth are real – I learned this from the lady dentist she goes to. In general she seems, on a very close inspection, the most timid and modest little creature. Both my Irinas are also very nice. Today I am having dinner at the Aldanovs’. Yesterday five of us went to the cinema: Ilyusha, V. M., Sherman, and Colonel Likhosherstov (about whom I wrote you back in 1933 – one of the most charming people on earth). I have been to Antonini’s for pancakes. I see the Kyandzhuntsevs, the old man, the Tatarinovs. This essentially rather idle life has quite palled with me. I’ve sent the books to England. My Greek is better since every day I spend an hour lying naked under the mountain sun, while the doctoress sits chastely facing the window and entertains me with intelligent conversation. People are tremendously nice to me, I must say.
You know what I would like now: to embrace you, my happiness, kiss you from your lips to your little feet, my darling, my life ...
&
nbsp; V.
____________________
[APCS]
[postmarked 17 March 1937]
TO: 22, Nestor str., Berlin – Halensee, Allemagne
c/o Fondaminsky, 130, av. de Versailles
[Paris]
My darling, my love,
Had a reply from Roquebrune (two rooms and full board for three for 70 fr.), but we can find cheaper, – and on the whole Bormes is better, so we’ll have to wait for a definite answer from there.
I went to the Pushkin exhibition yesterday. The day after tomorrow I have a meeting with the editor of Le Matin. I’m translating ‘Breaking the News’ into French. The play’s creaky.
Maklakov reports that the processing’s going well and will be finished soon. I’m meeting with Lyusya tomorrow. My darling, I can’t do without you any more ... thrushes are singing marvellously. Davydov (the traveller), whom I have been seeing here, says that a nightingale is a shallow soloist – coloratura, variety shows – but a thrush has a real soul and through its song tells about all it has seen in its flight. C’est gentil?
Kisses for you, kisses for my little one. My love!
V.
[AL, 2 PP.]
[postmarked 19 March 1937]
TO: 22, Nestor str., Berlin – Halensee, Allemagne
c/o Fondaminsky, 130, av. de Versailles
[Paris]
My darling, my life, my dear love. I forbid you to be miserable, I love you and ... there’s no power in the world that could take away or spoil even an inch of this endless love. And if I miss a letter for a day it’s only because I absolutely can’t cope with the crookedness and twists of time I’m living in now. I love you.
Now down to business. I think it’s crazy, this plan of yours. Both Fondaminsky and Lyusya, whom I have just seen, think the same. But do as you want and according to your – airmail – response, I’ll write to Prague. First of all: if you need some special treatment (and you could have written to me about this in more detail), which one can receive at a special Czech resort (and here too you could have spelled things out more), then, of course, there is nothing to discuss – we must go there. But if you simply need to rest thoroughly and recover, then we won’t find a better place than Bormes – and any doctor would tell you that. Secondly: do you seriously think that this would cost us less than life in the Bormes pension (and 60 fr. for three avec tout confort is cheap, everyone says that!). Thirdly: after all I’ve arranged with French publishers and journals – not to mention friends, who can help me in this way or that – it’s utterly absurd to go that far off again (and in any case who goes to a Czech resort in April!). Apart from its being extremely complicated to get visas, I don’t have a carte yet, and what is more I have to settle the trip to England. One thing is definite: I prefer to write to England that the trip is postponed (if there is no other way) to not seeing you for yet another month – and will write, if it does stand in the way – and yet I do not see how it could all be set up if we were to go to Czechoslovakia on the first. The only sensible reason for Czechoslovakia is Mother, but I think that in any case it would be cheaper if I went there myself for a week. After all the efforts to get settled, it is rather hard on me and everyone – Fondaminsky included – for you to decide suddenly to go to a Czech resort where we will be again cut off from the world, where it will be cold, expensive and unpleasant. Now let’s do this: if you decide after all to do as you write, then reply to me immediately and, so be it, I’ll accept your decision and telegraph Mother right away to arrange the visa, so we can meet in Prague on April 1st. But I tell you absolutely decidedly that in May we must be in Favières (re-read my letter) – since I don’t want to get stuck in Czechoslovakia, and it will, very likely, come to just that.
Worst of all is that you have already written to Mother about the visa! This is terrible ... Your plan has quite upset me. You should have thought about this earlier. I am convinced that in the south (for I’ll be with the boy continuously, till you’re thoroughly rested) you will recover – unless it is something special, that one can treat only in Czechoslovakia.
I love you, my only love. Answer quickly. Kiss the little one. I will send another little train.
I am hurrying terribly, to send it by air today.
____________________
[ALS, 2 PP.]
[postmarked 20 March 1937]
[TO: Berlin]
[Paris]
My darling, my happiness,
Yesterday I sent you an airmail reply, and I’m now writing to augment it. The more I think about it and consult with others the more ridiculous your plan seems. (And at the same time it’s unbearable for me to think that Mother’s peace is en jeu, – and that, all in all, according to some higher – or inner – law we should – in spite of everything – see her, show her our little one – it’s all such torture, that I simply can’t bear it – it’s a sort of unending strain on the soul, but there’s nowhere to lie down –). So do think over all I’ve written, all my reasons. Really after all this enormous effort spent on establishing a living link to London and Paris, must we scratch everything and go to the Czech backwoods where (psychologically, geographically, and in every way) I shall again be cut off from the sources and opportunities of earning a living? Because from there, we won’t get ourselves out to any south of France, while my London trip at the end of April will become impossibly complicated. I assure you that at Bormes it’ll be peaceful and restful for you, and there are doctors there who are no worse. Come to your senses, my darling, and decide. Because if you go on like that I shall simply take the next train to Berlin – that is, I will come after you, which will certainly be neither smart nor cheap. I find it hard to explain to you how important it is that we don’t lose touch with the shore to which I have managed to swim, to put it figuratively but accurately – for, really, after your letter I feel like a swimmer who’s being torn from the cliff he has reached, by some whim of Neptune, a wave of unknown origin, a sudden wind, or some such. I beg you to consider all this, my love. In a couple of days I should receive a letter from Mme Chorny. And on the first of April we shall meet in Toulon. Incidentally, I am not particularly interested in the butterflies of that department – Var – since I’ve already collected there and know them all, – so I will be with my little one all day and will write in the evenings. And in May we’ll find something cheaper. I think this time common sense is on my side. (To one thing I shall definitely not agree: to put off our meeting for another month. I can’t be any longer without you and the little one.)
Long writes me that Kernahan (a famous critic) to whom he sent ‘Despair’, wrote back: Reviewers who like it will hail it as genius ... Those who don’t like it, will say that it is extremely unpleasant ... It is meant, I assume, to be the work of a criminal maniac, and as such is very admirably done, and so on. Silly but flattering on the whole. Besides that he forwards me an enquiry from a publisher in America which I’m sending to the Old Grace.
My dear love, all the Irinas in the world are powerless (I have just seen a third one at the Tatarinovs – the former Muravyov). You should not let yourself go like that. The eastern side of my every minute is already coloured by the light of our meeting soon. All the rest is dark, boring, you-less. I want to hold you and kiss you, I adore you.
Don’t forget the tub (or should I buy one here?). I gave the books to Lyusya yesterday. Had lunch at Petit’s, with Aldanov, Maklakov, Kerensky, Bernadsky and my two. Write me in detail what the doctor said. I love you beyond words.
V.
____________________
[ALS, 2 PP.]
[postmarked 21 March 1937]
TO: 22, Nestor str., Berlin – Halensee, Allemagne
[Paris]
My darling, my love,
I’ve sent you two airmails and am waiting impatiently for an answer, but today’s Sunday already, and there’s still nothing. I love you. I continue to insist that my plan is the reasonable one.
I am afraid, my love, that you’v
e again been left for two days without a letter, but this happened because two days ago I sent an airmail, waited for a reply yesterday, and today am sending this by regular mail – and, besides, – it’s Sunday. It is already hard for me to grasp the happiness of seeing you and my little one. My darlings ...
I got a reply from P. N.: he agrees very magnanimously to pay Victor ninety-three centimes per line – for some reason pointing out that Remizov receives eighty. I will give (passing them off as short stories) two little excerpts from ‘The Gift’ a month. C’est toujours cela.
The publisher Putnam, to whom I offered the autob, writes (after all kinds of compliments) that they are deciding not to publish it in book form. ‘On the other hand there is a possibility that parts of it might be (I am writing in bed – hence the early-medieval perspective of my handwriting) published in a literary magazine. If you would like to have me do so, I should be glad to consult an agent about such a plan.’ Write to me quickly whether I should agree to that or pass the manuscript on to the next publisher in line (Duckworth – and if they decline, too, – then Heinemann).
I have been to the Conciergerie, looked over it all. Very good and terrible. The bench on which Maria Antoinette sat while waiting for the fateful cart. The nauseating resonance of the stone slabs. Gorguloff was the last to sit there.
My happiness, I must get up, go to the mountain sun, then lunch at the Tsetlins. I can’t tell you how bored I am with my ‘society’ way of life. I love you. Depending on your letter I may call you on the phone – all this torments and bothers me terribly – and, most important: Mother ... Write sooner, my darling, my dear one.
V.
____________________
[APC]
[postmarked 22 March 1937]
TO: 22, Nestor str., Berlin – Halensee, Allemagne
[Paris]
My love, the whole thing is a dreadful disappointment, but if this is really necessary for you, then, of course, go. You will get better and Mother will see my little one – well, I will concentrate my thoughts on these two situations. To be another month without you (and without him) – it’s a kind of nightmarish nausea and a burden, I don’t think I can stand it. Don’t write anything to Mother, but today I have already been to Maklakov, through whom I can get a Czech visa (tomorrow I will file an application at the consulate) without the necessity of troubling Mother. My darling, what am I to do? Had you been able to swear to me that on May 8th you would come from Prague to Toulon (i.e. if you made of this date something inviolable, like the sunrise) then I would have thought: should I give up the English trip (20-IV) and the reading in Paris (6-V). Raisa guarantees V. V. a thousand. My love! I will ‘fix’ the visa in any case, and then we’ll see. I’m rather nonplussed now. Business is going well. I’ll write next time. I’m in a hurry. Victor tells me he can count on six hundred a month in P. N. It would be unwise to quarrel. Now I’m worried about your health. Yes, my dear love, go to F. I am writing to Mme Chorny that we are taking her little cottage from early May! I adore you and the baby!
Letters to Véra Page 33