I spend a lot of time with the German couple, Emilia Werner and her very kind husband, Richard, who did me such a kind turn when we were all traveling here together. They are simply good, good people. Emilia is very maternal, and Richard is an exceptionally dear man. They make fine company for us. Genrikh and I get on beautifully together. He is a delight. We can be proud of ourselves, Jacob: we have a remarkable son. “In all the world, I have only two favorite people: you and Papa. I am very happy here in Sudak. But not completely, because Papa’s not here.” That’s what he said. If you could only see how easily he leaps and hops about in the mountains. How kindly disposed other people are to him, because of his winning ways. They even think him attractive! That is the power of a winning personality.
Tomorrow we are going to Koktebel with Braslavsky. Max Voloshin’s dacha is in Koktebel, and many people vacation there. A gliding competition is being organized. Someone will come to fetch Braslavsky in an automobile, and he invited Genrikh and me to go along. Our boy is over the moon at the prospect of this outing.
Mar.
AUGUST 12
I read sixty pages about Anatole France. And you are right—the disease put out its tentacles and began to wring out the nerves … I don’t understand. I don’t want to understand. Anatole France is dear to you? To me—no. He is the son of a country that has been eaten away by syphilis and thoroughly ravaged—how can I possibly care for him? Love? Yes. Without love there is no life. But what Anatole France is promoting has nothing to do with love. It can only be described by a crude, unprintable word. France’s love is the underside of love. The back entrance of love. I don’t need that. I don’t want that kind of love. I don’t want that kind of love for those who are dear to me. I don’t want my sexual organs, wisely located in my nether regions, to take the place of my head, to strangle my heart. I will not allow the lower to govern the higher.
“Passion … sultriness … convulsions of lust.” France’s passion, convulsions, are what any rooster experiences. I read somewhere that at certain moments a rooster’s feet begin convulsing uncontrollably. And this is what makes life worth living, according to his words? Only to seek out this kind of passion in life—everything else is trivial? It is Anatole France himself who is trivial and banal.
Devoid of character, devoid of ideology or principle, stuffed with the superficial brilliance of minds of millennia, a talented singer, rehashing the same songs that have been sung before by others, over and over, ad infinitum. A talented literary sensualist. Of what use is he to me? He’s gone. Never mind. Others will come to take his place, new ones. They must answer our questions. I have no doubt that there are powerful experiences in life outside the sexual sphere. Lenin’s Mausoleum on Red Square proves that a man lives not by the phallus (or penis) alone.
I am writing you in a state of agitation, because I have failed to receive any letters from you. The five-day rule in correspondence has been transgressed mightily by you. The postal service is not to blame. Everyone else is getting mail on a regular basis. The letters don’t go astray; they simply never get written. Or is all your time taken up with an “old” lady, or a young one? I write and write … Do you even read my letters?
I won’t write you another word. I am thoroughly disenchanted, and hurt to the bottom of my soul. If my recovery comes to naught, if my health suffers as before, I’m not to blame. Another week has passed. No letters. The mailman delivers reams of letters to everyone else—but not to me.
Goodbye.
Yes. I am beyond vexed.
AUGUST 24
Jacob! My life … Not a word from you in ten days. During all these days and nights, I have been preoccupied with a single idea. I cannot, and must not, hide it. We have never consciously lied to one another. I will say everything that is on my mind. My heart could not rest easy after I left Moscow. Anxiety continued to torment me. Clarity of thought eluded me, and I was haunted by a specific, unappeasable fear: I’m afraid for myself, and I’m sorry for you.
I don’t quite know how to put this. I have lost faith in words and explanations. Numbers are stricter, more exacting. My last letter was neither a reproach nor an accusation, just the burning pain of an injured human life. When I first found out that you desired other women, I instinctively felt that it was the end. Life became a slowly unfolding torment. I fully comprehended your state of mind, and tried to reconcile myself to it. Your hands and lips wandered away from me, and were drawn to others, caressed others, your eyes delighted in others; and I stood as an obstacle, a stubborn obstacle, in your path. You struggled in me with yourself, and with me. And a clear and powerful certainty took root: Jacob doesn’t love me anymore. I cannot fill him, complete him, anymore. I am not strong enough to fend off the images of others, to counter the attraction to others. And the meaning of love, its power and happiness, consists in the fact that, in loving one person, you are liberated from others, from attraction and longing for them. I am no longer a source of that peace for you. Neither of us is to blame for this. Believe me—I do not blame you with even so much as a sliver of my soul. And a difficult life “through common memory of the past” has begun for us.
You defended Freud—I hated him; you were enamored of Jung, with his psychology of the unconscious—I cursed him. And that’s how it was with everything. We both struggled not so much for our own ideas, but for our own personal happiness.
I have a weak will and a weak resistance system. My character began to spoil, my personality to disintegrate. I began to blame myself for everything in life. And, truth to tell, this had never been the case before. I made my way in the world on my own strengths. I was never overwhelmed by fear or confusion. Unhappiness oppressed me. Yes, I began to blame myself, because I instinctively felt guilty toward you.
You write that you have “withstood” temptation, that you have not betrayed me. Well, what of it? Did that make things easier for either one of us? No. You have suppressed the temptation, and so have I, and now we both feel suppressed. Neither you nor I know how to make or accept sacrifice. What you wrote about “simple souls” is empty posturing. Anyone who is importuned by demands from all sides, as I am, becomes nervous, irritated, unhappy. I don’t blame you and do not want to punish you. I am not an avenging angel, but a severe judge—of myself alone. I cannot, I am not able, to accept the sacrifices you bring. They are useless to me.
Now, it seems, you are struggling with yourself, tormenting yourself. Why? You will never forgive me for this, you won’t be able to help punishing me for it; and still, at night, the images of your betrayal will haunt me, because it is in your blood, in your very existence. I experience everything that is in you with exceptional clarity and intensity. You say that you would tell me absolutely everything. I can also tell you absolutely everything about yourself.
You plead with me: Be my mother, my sister, my helpmeet. I cannot. I am a woman. And if our bond in love is destroyed, I am not capable of anything else beyond it. I do not blame you for your sexual desires. Please do not blame me for mine. You are, for me, a man. Beyond this, everything loses value and meaning. You are attracted by youth and beauty, and the attraction is powerful. This is your right. You did not love me for beauty, but fell out of love for me for lack of it. I cannot live beside you if I am not attractive to you as a woman, if I don’t bring you joy through my way of dressing, my body, my kisses. I want to be loved. This is my right. It is not a demand. It is a necessity. Without this I cannot live, nor can you.