Trivia:
(1) The piano imagery doesn’t work. If the “upper lid of the piano is the height of Tretyakov,” he is very small of stature—a regular dwarf.
(2) “His gesture is fluid, his thought lightning-quick” (!)—and immediately Pushkin comes to mind: “His eyes / Shine. His face is terrible. / His movements are quick. He is magnificent. / He is like divine thunder.”
If I were to write a critical essay on the writer, I would do it differently. The path of the writer is a social phenomenon, and not individual. In this case, the author himself is a matter of secondary importance. I would take a single idea of the author’s (if he has any ideas at all), and I would adopt it as the title and central thesis of the essay. I would talk about the author (if possible without evaluation) only as an example of this idea.
The essay would then be devoted not to the writer but to his ideas, and it would be independent of the writer himself. What is the governing idea of this writer? That in our time “life is more important than literature, writing is a side effect of the deed.” “In the beginning was the Deed,” then the word appeared—this is how he sums up the time we live in. What are the deeds of Tretyakov himself? His own deeds are small, insignificant, and he does not write on a grand scale, by any means. And his own point of view (“literature as the refuse of life”) is not checked against life itself, and doesn’t ring true; it doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Literature is a self-justifying value.
Then the essay would be more “finished,” and it would have a general thesis; its claims would be independent of second-rate examples. These are the thoughts that your essay suggests to me.
Nevertheless, in spite of my remarks, it is an essay of a very high order. Yesterday I read Our Achievements, but it was no more than dull, inartistic daubing. Written not with a pen but with a spade, a stirring rod, a housepainter’s brush—a disgrace. I know the one who appears alongside you and writes such a vapid essay about Paris. During a difficult moment at the end of the twenties, I fed him a meal of my paltry crumbs. Then it turned out he didn’t deserve this.
Your writing is the best in the issue. If there are any good minds on the editorial board, they should not let someone with your talents slip away. Reading your article was a real feast for me. Write, write—write and don’t stop. Stay strong and active.
I kiss you and shake your hand,
with a literary greeting,
with a spousal greeting,
with a friend’s greeting.
AUGUST 1, 1936
… I received all the postcards you sent. Thinking about our correspondence during the recent past, I realize that our separation has had palpable results. Soon we will have been apart for six years, and I have sorely missed your closeness and the friendship of my son. We are separated by miles and years, and other less notable but still real divergences of paths. Divergence of paths, and the difficulty of mutual understanding.
For the time being, I have felt this in your letters; perhaps you have sensed the same in mine?
There are questions you refuse to answer. If I insist, I get a short reply: Don’t be anxious or nervous, be patient. It is difficult to survive in ignorance. I understand how much effort is required of both of us in order to reconnect again, to find our former selves in those we have now become.
Our next reunion is approaching. I’ll be honest with you: I am apprehensive about how this meeting will go. You write me that when we see each other again I will find you and our son just the same as when I left you, and there is no need to be anxious. But nothing ever returns to the same place, and I know that a great deal has changed, though I can’t really envision how. I am trying to solve this puzzle, to anticipate the future, though I admit I’m as yet unable.
Your letters, in fact, are very cold and informative, but in your last letter you suddenly gave vent to reproaches that had built up over the years. The pain scorched me when I read it. Can’t we accept one another with “open hearts”?
For me, Genrikh is a sphinx, a mystery that is unlikely to afford me a happy surprise when it is uncovered. All of this I now have to consider, to think and feel through, and I must prepare myself for it.
Marusya, I love you deeply. I am no longer young, but I am not ashamed to repeat the words of our first meetings. At our age, such words are often avoided. The emotional expressions of our youth are now absent in our letters, and have been absent a long time—those sweet intimacies that filled our correspondence at one time in the past.
Please send me a picture of you. It’s silly to say you’ve aged, you’re no longer attractive. I’m not interested in a picture of a fresh young beauty. I need your picture, a picture of you exactly as you are now. I’ve aged, too—by as many years as you have. Send me a picture.
I’ll end this letter with the refrain that always fits the bill—but I hope it sounds fresh this time.
I kiss you. Deeply and tenderly, as I did in those moments when I wanted, and was able, to reverse your bad or sad mood. I embrace you—“along every line”—if you remember what this once meant to us. J.
SEPTEMBER 26, 1936
It’s rather difficult for me to write just now, dearest one! You ask me whether I know anything yet. No, not yet, but what usually happens is that everyone who has served his term here gets a passport and a free train ticket to any destination he wishes. It will probably be the same in my case. It’s up to the Moscow police whether they will allow me to live there and give me a residence permit. Most likely, they will not. Actually, this depends on random local circumstances. Gerchuk, my old friend, went to live in Moscow after his term of exile, and has been living there a long time; other friends of mine are not given permission. In any event, I’ll come home for a few days and decide what to do after that.
I’ve never been confronted with so many unknown factors in my life as I am now. Nothing in the future is clear to me—neither my legal status, nor even my family circumstances. I’ll have to do a new inventory of the household goods—what remains, and in what condition is it?
But, for the time being, I’m busy with trivial predeparture matters. I bought a suitcase, had my shoes repaired, had trousers made, and finished my dental work. I need to reread my archive and bring it up to date. The time of accumulating knowledge is past; it is time to bring things to fruition.
OCTOBER 2, 1936
Dear friend, I’ve just been listening to a concert performed by Oborin that was broadcast on the radio from Novosibirsk. The headphones are on a long cord, so I can move around the room wearing them, walking from one corner to another. Whenever they broadcast a long concert, I listen and sew at the same time. The whole concert I spent repairing my trousers. My memory carried me back to the past, to those distant years when I first heard these pieces. There is so much sadness in the remote depths of my past. But I don’t wish to dwell on that now, but on something else—on how music has defined our relationship. Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff introduced us to each other. Schumann brought us closer together, and other composers seduced us. It’s rare that I hear a concert that doesn’t bring back such warm memories. Yesterday, I listened to Schubert’s “Der Doppelgänger,” today Oborin played Schubert/Liszt’s “Barcarolle,” Liszt’s “The Hunt” étude, and Schumann’s Carnaval. I listen to broadcasts from Moscow of guest appearances of the Ukraine Opera, that same Kiev opera theater from which I received my musical education in the twelfth row of the balcony for thirty kopecks a ticket.
I recall with gratitude the people who helped awaken my musical tastes, and try to trace that chain of events that alienated me from music. How sad it all is.