Jacob's Ladder

by Ludmila Ulitskaya

  Well, those are the details you requested. Also exhaustive, it seems.

  Tell Genrikh that I love him just the same as I always have and as I always will, no matter what he does or where he gets accepted, whether he writes to me or not—none of that has the slightest bearing on the deep affection and tenderness I feel for my son, who is also my friend. Let him study wherever he sees fit; he will always be my pride and joy.

  Goodbye, my dear friend and wife; be strong and good. The motto of our life is: “The times of unhappiness will pass.”

  I embrace you, my dear. J.

  OCTOBER 12, 1934

  My sweet, dear, wondrous wife!

  Your letters are arriving regularly—the long one with your description of women’s matters, and the postcards—everything has arrived.

  (1) How have you prepared for the winter? Why hasn’t the glass in the windows been repaired? Have you seen any mice? Why don’t you try to get rid of them when I’m not there? When I was there, I managed to drive them out completely—remember, I caught about forty of them, and after that they disappeared. Genrikh has to take my place, in large as well as small matters. I beg him to take over this task for me.

  (2) When you happen to mention your past literary commissions, you always speak of them very warmly and positively. But now that they are offering you the possibility of devoting yourself to writing completely, you beat the retreat—“I want to have a profession; that isn’t a profession.” Incoherent and puzzling. It will give you more leisure time, and more satisfaction. Please, elaborate on your position. And send me some of your writings that are ready for publication, or something that has already appeared in print.

  (3) Why did you need to join a Party-history study circle? All you have to do is read a book about it. All these little “rehashing” groups of the Party-history variety are unbearably boring and dreary, and a waste of time. I recommend you stay away from the group; just learn about it on your own if you must.

  (4) About my health—you often ask about it. I am as strong and healthy as a longshoreman. I stopped smoking. I exercise in the morning. My hands are clear; the eczema has disappeared once and for all. I never considered it necessary to share all the details with you, but now I find I need to tell the history of my condition. When I was combing my memory, I realized that I had experienced the first symptoms in 1913. I had it treated by the doctor for the first time in 1917 in Kharkov. The disease spread, and I tried very hard to have it cured: X-ray treatment in Kiev; and, in 1924, Asya Smolkina referred me to the National Institute of Physiotherapy, for a course of d’Arsonval’s electrotherapy treatment. After that, I consulted neurologists (I was under Dovbnya’s care for a time—half a year). Then I had a relapse and was treated by Dr. Nechayev, using hypnosis again—to no avail.

  In Stalingrad, I also received treatment, which didn’t work. But I found a good skin doctor there who recommended the simplest treatment of all: tar, diluted in a special way. However, the tar stained my papers when it dripped off my fingers. At that time, the cure almost succeeded. For the first three months in prison, I was completely healthy, but then I suffered a relapse, and there was no tar. It grew very bad. But since I arrived in Biysk, the symptoms of my “leprosy” have disappeared. I sleep like a baby. There is no itching. And so, after twenty years of illness and constant treatment, stubborn and unrelenting, I have achieved my goal. I have been cured, in part by the Dovbnya method, and in part by the Zoshchenko method—that is, experimenting on myself. I realized long ago that your very presence is the best medicine for me, that you free me from this illness. And not in a physiological sense, but in a more elevated one!

  How long we have lived apart from one another! As it turns out, such a long period of abstention is not only possible, but not terribly difficult. Very occasionally, I lapse into physical unwellness, but usually I am fine. Because I live a rich intellectual life, there is certainly a transfer of energy, and sublimation takes place.

  During the past three or four weeks I have read:

  Eddington. Relativity Theory of Protons and Electrons. A book on physics. I copied out the whole book.

  Shklovsky. Theory of Prose. I copied the book.

  Kataev. Time, Forward!

  Articles in journals on animal husbandry.

  A Course in Animal Breeding. (I gave up.)

  A book of poems by Bryusov.

  Several issues of the magazine The Frontiers of Science and Technology.

  Sasha, Rayechka’s husband, sent me the Eddington, for which I am deeply grateful. It’s an astounding book. I devoured it. I don’t understand everything in it, but I have understood enough to be enthralled and excited by it. It’s impossible to paraphrase it, to sum it up. It’s also hard to characterize the boldness of the physicists (Einstein, Dirac, et al.), their fearless thinking.

  Shklovsky’s book is good in another way. He’s also a sharp thinker. And I don’t understand everything he writes about, either. I can’t achieve sufficient “defamiliarization”! When I met him in person, he didn’t strike me as such a deep thinker. I didn’t recognize him for what he is!

  I work quite intensively, but even so the days and evenings are not packed absolutely full, and valuable minutes fall through the cracks.

  The stack of books on my desk that I want to read keeps growing. The books enter my room by the ton, but their residue is nearly as light as air. If it takes three hours to read a book, to reread it and take copious notes on it takes another five. It’s a finicky, arduous method, but the results are worth it.

  Write me about Genrikh. I don’t demand that he write me back (I’ve already reconciled myself to the fact that he won’t), but tell me how I should understand it—is it a sincere and principled decision, or just a strategy required by external circumstances? Is he interested in my life? My letters? What glider accident? What is the goal of these studies, if he does not plan to become a pilot? Where is he working? What is he reading? Does he keep a diary? Sometimes I reread the letters he wrote me in the Stalingrad prison.

  I embrace you, my sweet friend, with a strong Siberian hug.

  J.

  NOVEMBER 15, 1934

  I’m still thinking about why you took up Gogol. It’s not customary to do that sort of thorough preparation for writing a newspaper article. Have you not tried to submit this piece to the journal instead? The article must contain some central idea that I have not been able to fathom yet. You must find it. Maybe this idea would work: Writers die, but their work survives in the coming epochs; it also ages, and dies, and is then resurrected. The Revolution re-envisioned and recarved not only the present, but also the past—all of history, literature, and bygone epochs.

  All the extremists from the past were revived and came to life again—the ones who perceived and felt things very intensely. This is why Turgenev and Goncharov receded, whereas Gogol and Dostoevsky seemed to return to us. People began to read and study them more. Their rich and saturated forms spoke to us. The Revolution likes what is hot, what shouts and screams, and it refuses to tolerate what mumbles and prattles, what is lukewarm. Only Tolstoy speaks for all time.

  All of this concerns the form. Now, as regards the content:

  Gogol’s world is the greatest foe of the Revolution: the provincial petite bourgeoisie. What Gogol described is not as cruel as Gorky’s town of Okurov; it’s just a limitless bog. He gathered up all the most painful phenomena of Russian history, experienced them himself, and held them up to view for the entire Russian people, with astonishing power and insight. He created an image of surprising precision, and at the same time conveyed the hopelessness of his world. What to do about it? Gogol doesn’t tell us. The Revolution supplied the answer: destroy it, don’t leave a single stone standing. In this way, the theme will become topical.

  It’s evening. Still, I began rereading Evenings at a Farm near Dikanka and completely forgot about my analysis—of course, the main thing about Gogol is his divine use of language.

  JACOB TO
GENRIKH

  NOVEMBER 17, 1934

  My dear boy, your letter crossed in the mail with mine—the one in which I took you to task for your silence. Everything in your letter makes me happy. Of course, instead of reading about the November celebrations of the Revolution, I would have preferred to read about you personally—still, it was a fine letter. I would like to note that it’s the first letter without a single grammatical error. A big milestone for us both—author and reader alike! You have scaled the grammatical heights and reached the top.

  Your choice of a future path, I think, should lie in the direction of a technical school. I still haven’t completely understood why you decided to drop out of school if they didn’t expel you. The factory apprentice school is certainly out of the question. Tell me in greater detail about your technical school and the Workers’ University—send me the curriculum for both of them, if you can. Only by comparing them can you really decide. The technical school is better because it belongs to the Aerohydrodynamic Institute. The Workers’ University could suddenly decide to assign you some very narrow specialization, and you’d end up not knowing how to cope with that. The technical school is better, but find out more about it. Tell me how you intend to get accepted there. Who will give you a recommendation? And where is it easier to get admitted?

  I bought you a suit and a coat of light summer cloth. I’m trying to find someone who will be able to pass the package on to you.

  I have learned how to darn socks and mend sheets and underwear. I want very much for you to learn how to do this, too. When you learn how, you will start to be very careful with things. You won’t allow a single large hole to appear, and you’ll repair your underwear as soon as it starts to show wear and tear. Let me know how you manage with it.

  Do you take cold sponge baths in the morning? I do, every day. And I often do exercises to the radio. I play volleyball when I can …

  You don’t say much about Mama. I know there’s been some conflict, if only a small one. You should tell me about it. Who are your friends? Tell me about them, and what their interests are.

  I press your hand warmly.

  Your J.

  JACOB TO MARUSYA

  NOVEMBER 25, 1934

  You ask about my household affairs. I’ll tell you. First, I buy commercial bread, not subsidized. You can buy it here easily now; there’s no standing in line. It used to be hard to come by. When there are interruptions in the supply, I have a stash of dried bread that the landlady made. There was such a shortage recently, and I ate dried bread from my sack of provisions for a whole week. When it was almost gone, they opened the bakery. Now I’m building up a supply of dried bread again. Moreover, I was given eight kilos of flour at work, and this will also become part of the emergency supply, in case of shortages. I eat in the House of Workers’ Education. The first course costs 60–80 kopecks, and the main dish, with meat, costs 1.50 to 1.80 rubles.

  I’ve been working in the Butter Trust for nearly a month already, and I still haven’t received my salary. They promise to give it to me tomorrow. I eat breakfast and lunch at home—bread with the same butter they give me at work. All in all, I eat quite well. I still don’t have any electricity. I’m waiting for them to give me my pay.

  My room is very warm. I’m sitting here writing you wearing only a shirt. The windows in Biysk are made without any ventilation panes, but I have an air vent in the wall. After an evening of work by the light of the kerosene lamp, the air is very bad. It will be much better with electricity.

  In the last issue of New World, there is an excellent article about a modern family in Germany. You would relish reading it as much as I did. It addresses all the issues that especially interest you, and the approaches of all the various schools of German educational ideologists are cited here, too. Among them you will find many who share your own views. It will be especially interesting for you to discover these faraway kindred spirits.

  The article contains a long bibliography on this issue (in German). Read Kellerman as soon as possible, for advice about further reading.

  I will send you this issue. There are many things I could add to what the author has said. The article gave me an interesting idea—to write a book about women’s labor in various countries. If you would like to take up this theme, I am ready to offer you my secret co-authorship.

  I read your review in Our Achievements about the partisan collection. I would like to see a more detailed explication of the book itself. Reviews seldom inspire one to read a book; they often end up as substitutes for a book, and for this reason should be more detailed and exhaustive.

  I embrace you, my marvelous friend. J.

  JANUARY 30, 1935

  Yesterday I received your letter of January 22 about Genrikh’s illness. His heredity isn’t bad, so his body will be able to cope with it. Our financial situation will improve, and with it his diet. I’ll be sending you butter now every month—eight or ten pounds of it. I already sent you two shipments: one on January 16 with ten pounds, and another on the 26th with four. I’m afraid the first shipment might get lost in the mail: it was not registered, and I had to send it without declaring the value. The second will reach you: I sent it registered with a declared value of sixty rubles. If I get a notice that it has been received, I’ll send you the next shipment. I have sixty rubles set aside for the next one. As of the beginning of February, I’m going to be working as the choir director at the social club. I requested two hundred rubles. They apologized, but could only pay me one hundred, saying they would supplement it in some other way. I tentatively agreed. I think I’ll be earning what I am worth. In addition to the butter, I can still send you a hundred rubles a month. With this support, I think we will be able to help Genrikh recover very quickly from his illness. Write me and tell me what condition the butter is in when it reaches you. Altai butter is considered to be the best. Tell me what kind you like most—sweet, salty, or clarified.

  I already wrote you that nothing came of the English lessons. I was told that whoever had given permission for the classes later withdrew it. But how wonderful it would have been to give a language course in the library!

  My monthly budget breaks down like this: Dinner is expensive (three rubles a day). Bread costs one ruble a day, and the rest of the food for one day costs another ruble. Thus, about 150–160 rubles a month go for food. The room is twenty rubles; heating, twenty rubles. The wash, bathhouse, kerosene, and other incidentals come to about thirty rubles a month. It all adds up to 220–230 a month. My salary is supposed to be 350, but in fact it is 310.

  Tell me about where you eat, where Genrikh takes his meals, how much lunch costs, what kind of nourishment you are getting.

  I’ve started taking a keen interest in history. I’m reading a wonderful book by Mehring: The History of Germany. I regret that I didn’t discover this book years ago. I delight in every line. In his analysis of the Middle Ages, the papacy, and Christianity, there is an enormous breadth of generalization.

  My incidental reading is four volumes of the tiresome Jean-Christophe, the curious French writer Giraudoux (that is who Olesha takes his cues from), Masuccio Salernitano (a contemporary of Boccaccio), and Schopenhauer on the essence of music. Interesting, but somehow fails to elaborate on some very important points.

  I work on my story “Man and Things.” It’s expanding, much to my chagrin. It’s already nearly a novella, about forty or fifty pages. The work is going very slowly. I polish word by word, phrase by phrase. Every day I read it ten times over—no, countless times. The plot has already assumed its final shape; now I need to work on the details, the characters, who must be revealed in passing, through precise, incisive traits. The erotic scene came out very well, I thought.

  Adieu. When will I finally get word that you have received the butter? I can’t wait. J.

  FEBRUARY 8, 1935

  You write that my political evolution estranges me from you, that the fissure that has been present all these years is deepening. That is
because we cannot have a deep and serious conversation. I await the time when we can converse and be together again, not only in letters but in person. I would be able to allay many of your anxieties. You understood me wrong when I said that there was no sense in attending the Party-history study circle. If you have decided to take up that study, you by all means should. There is nothing wrong with that. There cannot ever be anything wrong in learning new things. The current level of teaching is not up to par, in my opinion. I could be wrong, of course. When you begin to study, write and tell me whether it is interesting.

  Forty-five years old is nothing! Now it is already clear that even at sixty-five I will be the same person I am today. With the years, you mature, your capacity for work increases, and, to be honest, you become smarter. We’ll live to be at least seventy.

  … books on literature. Four volumes of Kogan. The History of Modern Russian Literature. I took it only because of Bryusov, who has become a beloved poet of mine, but I ended up reading the whole book. I am learning a great deal that I should have learned long ago. Kogan’s study is not deep, but extremely packed with material and even ideas that he has evidently borrowed from others.

  And Lunacharsky’s On Literature and Art is lying on the table, waiting its turn. I try to keep myself in check—otherwise, I would have another enormous stack of books about natural history, about physics. Nonetheless, The History of the Continents (about geography) is already on my desk, waiting to be read. History will occupy me at least until spring, or maybe even summer. I’m in the Middle Ages, and there is still Russian and modern history to go. I’m in a terrible hurry, as though I don’t have much time to live, or as though exams are coming up. And from every book I read, something remains in my notes.