In Stalingrad, I also received treatment, which didn’t work. But I found a good skin doctor there who recommended the simplest treatment of alclass="underline" 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.