Ivan Belousov’s educational work was, of course, socially useful; but Marusya’s work with children of the same proletariat that Ivan was trying to enlighten was much more in keeping with her own notions of the social good.
When he returned home for Christmas, Mikhail found that his little sister had grown up into a young woman, both intellectually and physiologically, and he was somewhat abashed. His former teasing, playful demeanor toward her was no longer appropriate, and there was even some tension in their relations at first. He was used to having his sister hang on to his every word, but now she showed an independence of thought and judgment, and a discomfiting sharpness he was seeing for the first time. He was no longer her idol. She didn’t go into raptures about his poetry, which he no longer wrote for domestic amusement, but with unremitting earnestness.
She insulted her brother with concise, withering critiques of his poetry: It’s not Blok. It’s not Nadson. It’s not even Bryusov. It was also vexing that this provincial girl, whom he had coached and tried to instruct since childhood, was studying, in his absence, without his guidance, the most important science of all—learning itself.
With Mikhail’s arrival, the house livened up. Even old Kerns—who was deeply affected by the banishment to Siberia of his eldest son, from whom they received only smatterings of news—grew more cheerful. He was a silent presence at the evening gatherings of friends, and was visibly pleased at the young people’s arrival. In addition to Mikhail’s old friends Ivan Belousov and Kosarkovsky, there were new faces, too. A guitar came to replace the all-but-destroyed piano. It was a poor substitute, but the musical repertoire of the guests sitting around the table changed with it, and there was more singing. There was nothing they didn’t sing—Jewish songs, Ukrainian songs, Russian love songs …
Mikhail bought Marusya tickets to the theater and the philharmonic, five tickets at a time—balcony tickets, it must be said, but this made Marusya very happy, because she could invite her cousins or her girlfriends. Mikhail’s generosity was lavish, and every one of his visits home was like a holiday. Perhaps the only thing that put a damper on these visits was a sense of injured annoyance that arose in her each time: in the capital, Mikhail was moving in social circles that seemed to be populated by semi-celestial beings, and he was in ecstasy over them. For many years, Marusya kept one of his letters from that period. She showed him the letter only years later, during one of their deep ideological disputes, as evidence of his vanity and propensity for idle chatter and name-dropping.
Self-impressed and opportunistic. That’s what he is! Marusya thought angrily. My brother is just like Khlestakov, in Gogol’s play, The Government Inspector. The letter was preserved in the willow chest, together with the other correspondence that Marusya had intended to sort through. But she never got the chance.
11 A Letter from Mikhail Kerns to His Sister, Marusya
(1910) ST. PETERSBURG–KIEV
NOVEMBER 25, 1910
8:00 A.M. (ACTUALLY, P.M., BECAUSE WHEN I WAKE UP AT 7:00 I HAVE TO LIGHT THE LAMP FOR THE NEXT TWO HOURS, UNTIL IT GETS LIGHT. OUTSIDE, IT’S STILL NIGHT.)
My dear Marusya,
You write me with indignation that the letters I write other people are more serious and filled with more details than the ones I write you. So that I can feed your curiosity and your demands (fully justified) in at least one letter, I will begin with … a description of my daily life. (Don’t be surprised by the change of ink: I’ve just managed to walk down the whole of Liteiny Prospekt, cross Semyonovsky Bridge over the Fontanka River, walk down Karavannaya Street, and along a section of Nevsky Prospekt. I’m now sitting in the offices of G. Block and Partners and continuing this letter.)
That explanation makes it seem like I must have walked five versts, but the whole trek only takes eleven or twelve minutes by foot. There are bridges everywhere you look, and many of them are terribly grand; you’ll see for yourself. (It often happens that you think you’re walking down a very broad avenue, and suddenly you realize, Oh, it’s Troitsky or Liteiny Bridge.) But to continue: until the end of October, there was sunlight—some clear, sunny days, etc.—but now I’ll be hanged if there’s a single clear patch of sky anywhere in sight! And it will stay this way till the end of February. Not one clear day to look forward to! As for the “daytime nights”—it only really gets light at 9:30 in the morning. Anyway, when it’s winter at home, is it easy to rise at 7:00 to read or write? It gets dark here at 3:00 or 3:30 in the afternoon. Well, what of it—at home we have dark, gloomy days sometimes, too. In short, it’s wrong to slander our Petersburg.
I continue: After I rise at seven in the morning (night), I light the lamp and begin my morning toilet. I have to shave regularly in S. Pb., since I want to look interesting and young (at least for the editors—there’s no one else I want to impress here). Then, at eight o’clock, Marya brings in the samovar (all this by lamplight). Marya is a sweet old grumbler who spends most of her time talking to inanimate objects: to the stove, the samovar, the lamp, the oven, the broom, etc. A slice of life—here’s a monologue. Marya (with heartfelt tenderness): “Poor little thing! Why aren’t you burning? Oh Lordy! The wick! The wick is too short. What do we do now? Eh? Oh, my little sweetie! Well, never mind, I’ll go out and buy a new wick—and then you’ll burn. You’ll burn nice and strong!”
When the doorman calls me to the telephone and stumbles over the surname, she is quick to say: “I know, I know. Since you can’t pronounce it, it has to be one of ours!”
I continue: I’m in the office at nine o’clock sharp. I used to sleep until two in the afternoon. Now I work, keep records, write verse, relate anecdotes to all the other employees—there are about fifteen of them—until five o’clock in the afternoon (evening), with a short break for two glasses of tea and a chunk of ham (quarter-pound). At exactly five, I leave to eat dinner. Now I take my meal in the renowned restaurant Kapernaum’s. I’m sure you’ve come across the name of this restaurant in literature, because it has been celebrated by many of our best-known writers. The whole of literary Petersburg eats here. (At the restaurant called Vienna, people only dine late.) Everyone frequented Kapernaum’s in their time: Dostoevsky, Griboyedov, Pushkin, Lermontov, Zhukovsky, Saltykov-Shchedrin, Sheller, Turgenev—the list goes on. I have seen Kuprin, Potapenko, Barantsevich, Poroshin, Gradovsky, Skabichevsky, Artsybashev—all the modernists, the naturalists, the cat-skinners; in short—everyone who’s anyone! I am there every day from five-thirty to seven o’clock.
Starting at seven, I begin to live with my whole heart and soul. I visit editorial boards, lectures (I never miss a single literary or scholarly talk, because the learning must go on). On Friday I was at a closed literary gathering (i.e., the public was not invited). Vladimir Sergeevich Likhachev read about sixty of his poems. They were very fine. To acquaint you a bit with the circles I now move in, I’ll mention the names of the new acquaintances I like to converse with: Batyushkov, Ovsyaniko-Kulikovsky (the very same), Bogucharsky, Vengerov, Linev (Dalin) (remember his Not Fairy Tales?), Brusilovsky, Andruson, Poroshin (the last three visit me at home), Merezhkovsky (Dmitry Sergeyevich, he’s brilliant), Likhachev, Gradovsky (my protector and friend—thrice my age; he presented me his book Two Plays with a warm inscription in it). Also I. A. Poroshin, Chyumin, oh, and I almost forgot: our darling, whom we all adore—dear Nadezhda Alexandrovna Lokhvitskaya (Teffi)—is now my interlocutor. She’s heard all about you, too. I won’t go on enumerating all my acquaintances; otherwise, you might explode with envy!