Letters to Véra
Page 35
I am terribly upset by your letter – and perhaps I should have calmed down first and then written to you. I’m insanely afraid that you’ll offer me yet another ‘plan’. Don’t do that. Make every effort to travel to Czechoslovakia after all – that is for Mother – but, most importantly, get the visa and the tickets for the south.
I am bored and gloomy. ‘Flowers do not please me …’ – I am waiting for the final reply from London, since I still don’t know where and when I will read. I wrote to Altagracia long ago. Have spoken with writers about copyright – and already reported to you about that. I did write to Putnam asking them to reply in more detail about publishing in a journal – and most importantly that it should be done right away. I will congratulate Thompson. I have written to Mme Chorny without binding us, and she herself also told me that she did not want to bind me without showing the house, and that she would rent it extremely cheap. The summer will cost (6–7 months) maximum ten thousand, t o u t c o m p r i s, or more likely cheaper, and half of that I will certainly earn by writing so that not all the little centimes will go on that.
I read parts of your little card (about the move – terrible! I can imagine …) out loud to Ilyusha and Zinzin and they said they understood now who writes my books for me. Flattered? I love you, my own one – and please don’t be jealous of the ‘society’ life I’m leading here. People are very nice to me. Here we go: two refugees from Russia have arrived and are talking loudly, emphasizing all their ‘os’, with Aleks. Fyod. in the next room – about the price of bread, Stakhanovites, etc. How can I write a play? My darling, how much I’d give for you and my boy to come in right now. My little curly one! Please write to me quickly. Life is working out excellently, but you’re still full of doubts (the tip of the pen has worn down, that’s how much I’ve been writing). And again – Avksentiev has come in and is talking on the phone over me. No one there, which means that he’ll pop back in five minutes. The young people are talking with relish about the new steamboats ‘The Decembrist’ and ‘Lenin’, while Kerensky’s asking ‘what is the local people’s mood?’ They reply: ‘like a wolf’s’. Sparrows are singing wildly in the garden, which has just turned green. I love you. If I write you short little letters it is because I feel myself empty, despondent and out of my sweet element, as well as not knowing how to manage my time. Avksentiev came back – and got an answer. They’ve told me about one gentleman who gulps down my work, and then, to alleviate the hangover, reads Leskov.
My darling, it is not a very nice letter, I’m afraid, but I am madly anxious about everything – your journey, and the boy, and your health ... Tomorrow I am at Maklakov’s in the morning about the identité. And you, my darling, stop worrying yourself. Yes: we definitely need the tub, Mme Chorny has the sea but no bath. In a day or two I’ll write to the pension, when I know exactly when we’ll meet. Maybe before the 8th? I love you, my life.
V.
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[ALS, 2 PP.]
[postmarked 7 April 1937]
TO: 21, Osnabrückerstr., b/ Prof. Geballe,
Berlin – Wilmersdorf, Allemagne
c/o Fondaminsky, 130, av. de Versailles
[Paris]
My love,
I resolutely refuse Belgium. I do not understand what’s going on, why you are suggesting plans to me, one more ridiculous than the other. What’s this nonsense that Var is more expensive and its climate worse than some kind of speculative, unheard of (how on earth will Zina ‘search for it’, I wonder) Belgian resort. The place in the south, which I proposed, is an ideal place for children (by the way, in the summer there it is cooler than in Nice) and, in general, for the weak and exhausted; the trip (i.e. that ‘extra’ we will have to pay compared with the travels around Belgium – that hideously grey and cold country) costs an utter trifle; and there, in the south, we will live first not at Mme Chorny’s (with the tub), but higher, in the Bormes pension (Hôtel Beau Soleil with a bath). If – let us suppose – you knew today a specific treatment place in Belgium (like Fran-bad), and had a visa and could leave tomorrow – then OK, as a stage on the way south (i.e. the same combination as Czechoslovakia), it might have been fine, but since a month would go by just finding such a resort, it’s simply not worth talking about. I dare say that by May 1st I’ll be done with London, so I beg you to leave for Toulon by that date. Darling, that is really my last word.
I dreamt of you this night. I saw you with some kind of hallucinatory clarity, and, all morning long, have been going around in a sort of cloud of tenderness for you. I felt your hands, your lips, hair, everything – and if I’d been able to dream such dreams more often, my life would’ve been easier. You are my love.
I am going to Marcel Thiébaut’s today. Yesterday I sat with Benois and Somov at Dobuzhinsky’s: such a sweet man. Write to me, at last, have you received the visa? Victor sent his mother the fourth copy yesterday – in all one thousand two hundred pages of Czech translation over these two months.
I am preparing an excerpt for P. N. ‘The Present’ was a great success. Tomorrow, it seems, ‘Sovremennye’ is coming out.
I cannot tell you how your mental spinning around Central Europe torments me.
Greetings to Anyuta. Really, she could somehow write to me.
I kiss my little one. I kiss you, my love.
V.
[APCS]
[postmarked 9 April 1937]
TO: 21, Osnabrückerstr., b/ Prof. Geballe,
Berlin – Wilmersdorf, Allemagne
c/o Fondaminsky, 130, av. de Versailles
[Paris]
My love and my darling, of course, I’m very happy for Mother’s sake if you go to Czechoslovakia after all. Good luck, my darling. But you know what, tell me in your next letter the doctor’s diagnosis, in detail. I can imagine how exhausted you are, my darling, and how overstrung, but believe me, you will get much better over summer and you’ll get a good rest. I’ll be with the little one every moment, and I’ll write at night. Regarding the passport: you don’t realize at all that my position is exceptional and that I haven’t to bother about ‘récépissés’ etc. as other people [do]. I told Rodzyanko and Maklakov about your worries: they are ridiculous, my darling. I am afraid it’s your cousin’s panicky influence. What I am getting here, by the way, is p e r m i s d e s é j o u r p e r m a n e n t. Please, do not think any more about it!
‘Pilgram’ has gone to Revue de Paris, ‘Musique’ to Candide, ‘Outrage’ to Mesures, ‘Spring in F.’ is promised to Nouv. Lit.
There’s a letter from Putnam, he is trying to place ‘English associations’ in a journal. Last night, I had dinner at Bromb.’s. The play is definitely not working, I’ve destroyed what I’ve written. I love you, my sweet one and am terribly anxious about your health, especially given that my boy is nervous and wild. Hold out just a little bit more, and everything will be fine. It’s wonderfully warm. I am now going to Lefèvre then to Yablonovsk., Sergey. My darling ...
V.
[ALS, 2 PP.]
[postmarked 12 April 1937]
[Paris]
TO: 21, Osnabrückerstrasse, b/ Prof. Geballe,
Berlin – Wilmersdorf, Allemagne
c/o Fondaminsky, 130, av. de Versailles
[Paris]
My sweet happiness, I’m still not sure whether you’re going to Czechoslovakia, but now I hope passionately that you will. Your last letter was lovely.
I have sent Bourne a list of 25 names and addresses (of English critics and writers) to whom he should send the book as soon as it comes out. I compiled the list with the help of Budberg and Struve, from whom I have finally received a sensible letter: most likely, I’ll go to London on the 20th. Besides the English evening, I’ll also arrange a Russian one, again at Sablin’s. The book has already been sent to Altagracia, but I’ll discuss copyright again with people who know and then will write to him, although I already wrote to him clearly at the time what Bourne had told me. I’ve already received a little letter f
rom Thompson in response to my congratulations. A very sweet invitation from Mesures to lunch on Wednesday. Yesterday I was at S. Yablonovsky’s, had dinner at the Tsetlins’, in the evening was at Berberova’s, with Dobuzhinsky, etc. The last two days, my love, I have been working diligently on the arrest of Chernyshevsky, which, under the playful title ‘The Reward’, I must dictate to Mme Kovalyov today and send to P. N.
Today, in fact, the doctor was supposed to perform an experimental operation on me (to draw blood from one of my veins and to inject it in the other), but ‘the students’ (as Aleks. Fyod. calls Ilyusha and V. M.) are strongly dissuading me; besides, my Greek is getting wonderfully better from the sun. Yesterday I corrected proofs of my article about Amalia Os. On Tuesday, Sovr. zap. should come out.
On the morning of April first, celebrating this day religiously, I said to the ‘students’ that the evening before, at the Zaytsevs’, they had told me that at night, while Bunin was partying, someone had robbed his apartment. The news spread very quickly, and the same day a reporter from P. N. set off for the – very angry – Ivan. It seems he has taken offence at me, when everything became clear. I don’t see what’s so offensive about this.
My darling, I love you, I love you, I love you! I kiss my ‘person’, my little one ... I will get rid of all the conférences by May fifth. On the eighth, we will meet in Toulon. How green everything is here, how warm, what grey pants I have from London for seven and sixpence!
I love you, my only happiness.
V.
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[APCS]
[postmarked 14 April 1937]
TO: 21, Osnabrückerstr., b/ Prof. Geballe,
Berlin – Wilmersdorf, Allemagne
c/o Fondaminsky, 130, av. de Versailles
[Paris]
My love, I am tired of worrying about your trip to Prague – come what may, let destiny decide, but almost as much as I dream of seeing my little one, I dream of Mother seeing him. Regarding your little paragraphs: 1) we will manage 2) before renting the cabin we will, in any case, live at the pension for a while 3) the heat in those parts is considerably milder than in, say, Nice. Regarding A: ‘Despair’ has been sent to him; besides, he will get another copy at once when it comes out. I won’t get to London before the 25th. I’m in full contact with Struve, letters are flying back and forth. The publication of D e s p a i r is already announced in the Engl. newspapers. I dictated Chernysh all morning long today. At the last moment, I declined the operation I wrote to you about, and besides, said it was you who asked me not to do it: because I had gone too far with it, the doctor was rather looking forward to that experiment. It’s pouring, the trees are getting greener before my eyes, I love you. A little over three weeks left. I’m almost afraid of the intensity of that happiness. Zenzinov finds my Chernysh, as before, ‘disgusting’. Maybe I will stop by at the old man’s tonight – it seems he is offended at me, and Zyoka too. Tomorrow I will have lunch with Paulhan and the lady editor of ‘Mesures’. I physically sense your fatigue, my darling, and endlessly, inexpressibly, chestnuttily love you.
V.
____________________
[ALS, 2 PP.]
[15 April 1937]
TO: 21, Osnabrückerstrasse, b/ Prof. Geballe,
Berlin – Wilmersdorf, Allemagne
c/o Fondaminsky, 130, av. de Versailles
[Paris]
My life, my love, it is twelve years to-day. And, today, ‘Despair’ has come out and ‘The Gift’ is in S. Z.
Complete success with ‘Outrage’. It will appear in the May issue of ‘Mesures’, and our Victor has already received a little thousand for it. Lunch at the villa of Henry Church (the publisher of ‘Mesures’ – he’s an American millionaire with a marvellous furuncle on his nape – old, silent, with a literaturizing wife of German stock) went remarkably well. The meeting point was Adrienne Monnier’s bookshop, on the Odéon, and from there we went by car to the Churches’, beyond St Cloud (everything is green, wet, almonds in bloom, gnats swarming). They really f ê t e d me, and I was on form. Among the writers was Michaux. I hit it off splendidly with Joyce’s publisher, Sylvia Beach, a prim little lesbian, and through her I’ll be able to do a lot to promote ‘Despair’ and sort out arrangements for its French publication, in case Gallim. and Albin Mich. ne marcheront pas. After lunch, there was something like an editorial meeting of ‘Mesures’, and a woman photographer took fifteen pictures of us. There was a conversation about how we could determine the sound of plants with the help of some kind of waves. I asserted that the poplar sings soprano, and the oak bass, but Paulhan asserted much more wittily than me that, no, the oak turns out to have the same kind of voice as a daisy – ‘peut être parce qu’il est toujours un peu embarrassé’. Tomorrow I will lunch with him, Cingria, Supervielle and Michaud on Montparnasse. My darling, I love you. The story about my little one (‘for the shores’) is entrancing. Zenzinov keeps laughing at it and tells it to everyone. Your letter to Ilyusha is quite nice, my darling one. Your passport will be extended in France, as soon as you arrive. I am terribly upset that Prague has fallen through again, but I didn’t much believe it’d work out. I’m going to England for a week at the end of the month. Tomorrow at 5 I’ll be at Mme Sablin’s – settling arrangements for the Russian evening there. I won’t go in any case till the 25th; I have to let the book wander around a little, as both Budberg and Struve write. I’ve sent Long the other addresses Sylvia Beach gave me. My ‘Pushkin’ is having a very agreeable success. I’ve grown fatter, more tanned, changed my skin – but I feel a constant irritation because I have no time and place to work. Tonight, I’m having dinner at the Kyands. I’ll call the old man now.
My love, my love, how long since you stood in front of me in your prim little robe – my God! – and how much new there will be in my little one, and how many births (words, games, all kinds of little things) I’ve missed ... I wrote to Mme Chorny yesterday. My darling, see that you pack carefully, so there are no last-minute delays. How amusing – about Bardelebeness. Poor Ilf died, and somehow one thinks of separating Siamese twins. I love you, I love you.
My French stocks have risen much higher, Paulhan est tout ce qu’il y a de plus charmant and reminds me somehow – by his liveliness, his quick dark glance, his stature and his unshavenness – of Ilyusha. Greetings to Anyuta, I’m waiting for a letter from her.
I kiss you, my happiness, my tired little one ...
V.
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TELEGRAM
[15 April 1937]
[Paris]
VERA NABOKOFF 21 OSNABRUCKER STRASSE BERLIN WILMERSDORF
CONGRATULATIONS MY DEAR LOVE++
____________________
[ALS, 2 PP.]
[postmarked 17 April 1937]
TO: 21, Osnabrückerstrasse, b/ Prof. Geballe,
Berlin – Wilmersdorf, Allemagne
c/o Fondaminsky, 130, av. de Versailles
[Paris]
My dear darling,
Thank you for the little journals. Tell me, shall I send you the issue of Sovr. zap., or will it be an extra burden for your journey? Write to me definitively about the tub too: this is something absolutely necessary, bath or no bath. We can buy one here very cheaply.
I had a very pleasant lunch with my brother-writers – the French ones, bien entendu – I don’t feel great love from my countrymen; – there were about fifteen of us – and it was rather a surprise for me that everyone paid for himself – which set me back thirty francs. Supervielle (whom I’ll visit on Thursday) already looks so like an old horse – with a charming horsey smile – that I felt like giving him a large lump of sugar, all covered in strands of wool. I implored Paulhan to act on Gallimard, otherwise I don’t know où j’en suis with ‘Désespoir’. Young writers from N.R.F. A syrup of compliments for the same old Vraisemblable. An exchange of addresses.
A little countertack: M., after reading my excerpt (the arrest of Chernysh), flew into a rage, stamped his
feet and refused point-blank to publish. Ilyusha told me this today. A dilemma: should I refuse further collaboration with them or give them something else (the travels of G.-Ch., on which I’ve worked a little here). I’m inclined, alas, to the latter. But Ilya has offered me – if Rudnev doesn’t want to publish the chapter about Chern. in Sovr. zap., – to place the one chapter, on the same conditions, in the new journal, ‘Russkie zapiski’. I agreed.