They walked along the peaceful Mariinsko-Blagoveshchenskaya Street and conversed for the first time. In some strange way, their talk unfolded almost without verbs, a single recitation of names and sighs, inhales and exhales, and occasional interjections: Tolstoy? Yes! The Kreutzer Sonata? No, Anna Karenina! Oh yes! Dostoevsky? Of course! Demons! No, Crime and Punishment! Ibsen! Hamsun! Victoria! Hunger! Nietzsche! Yesterday! Dalcroze? Who? No, never heard of him! Rachmaninoff! Ah, Rachmaninoff! Beethoven! Of course! Debussy? And Glière? Magnificent! Chekhov? Dymov? Korolenko! Who? Me, too! But The Captain’s Daughter! What happiness! Lord! Unbelievable! Never before anything like it! Jewish? Sholom Aleichem? Yes, the house next door! No, Blok, Blok! Nadson? Gippius! Never read her! Oh, but you must, you must! Ancient history! Yes, the Greeks, the Greeks!
This was how they walked to the Botanical Garden. Then Marusya remembered that she had to go back soon, that she needed to go to Bolshaya Zhitomirskaya, because her lecture was starting soon and she would be late. He laughed and said that it was already too late for him, he had missed his altogether, and that today was the happiest day of his life, because what he had only guessed at had come to pass, and a thousand times better than he had guessed it might be … They didn’t part until evening. They walked around the entire town, and came out at the Dnieper, and passed some time in St. Sophia Cathedral.
Yet again there was the same recognition, the coincidences in the very depths of their souls, of their most secret and elusive thoughts. And where? In church! Who can you tell about it? It’s a mystery! Maria! The Child! Yes! I know! Be quiet! Impossible! Yes, my Nikolai! Nikolai! I sometimes turn to him! Oh yes! No, what baptism! No! Why? It’s a connection! Well, naturally! Never! Abraham and Isaac! Horrible! But the cross! But the sign! But blood! Yes! Me, too! And the fresco? It’s my favorite! Very favorite! Musicians! Yes, but the bear! Of course! Of course! The hunt is marvelous! And these musicians! Minstrels and clowns! This dance! King David?
He was handsome in a special way—not a way that appealed to everyone, but he was handsome to her. She liked his heavy chin with its dimpled cleft, and his neat mouth, determined, without any youthful plumpness, and you could see that, though he shaved closely, if he let his beard grow it would be coarse and thick. His eyes were clear; his face was pink with health; and even in his uniform you could tell he was broad-shouldered and narrow-waisted, with no extra flesh anywhere, absolute masculine clarity and definition.
She was more than beautiful—infused with spirit! Her lacy wool shawl barely concealed her sunken cheeks; there was nothing superfluous in her features, carved by a gifted sculptor, or, rather, etched by an engraver or an artist—Beardsley, perhaps. Slightly muted tints, pastel, lighter than air. Air—that was her element! No flesh and bones, nothing weighty—angels are made of such stuff as she is! Yes, angels …
The next day, they met again. Marusya told him that soon she would be graduating from the Froebel Courses, and she already knew what she wanted to continue studying. She told him everything she knew about the great dancer and her protégée, and about the rhythm that no one hears, in which is the key to everything, because outside this rhythm there is no life. You have to know how to catch the rhythm, and you can learn how to do it. It doesn’t matter what path you choose, but without this pulse, without the grand metronome, nothing is possible. And these years of study were only a preparation for what she was now ready to devote herself to … Precisely, only this!
Yes, yes, I understood that very well when I was still a child. I was sick with tonsillitis, and I was standing by the window with a bandage around my throat, and I was counting the falling autumn leaves, and I knew that the pain was echoed by each falling leaf that touched the ground. I couldn’t explain it to anyone, and you’re the first one I’ve ever known who is able to understand it … Not Mama, of course … Oh no, not Mama … She’s not at all … Yes, yes … They’ll never understand … Although their love, yes … But such understanding … Such oneness … And music? Music! That’s where the metronome of life is! The pulse! The meaning!
Every day, they walked through the city hand in hand, spending every spare moment together, and Jacob was happy and somewhat overwhelmed by this abundance of happiness. Marusya was happy, too, but also scared that it might all suddenly disappear. They discussed this as well, but he assured her that they would hold on to it, preserve it, and that she could count on him, put her faith in him, because he had had everything he might need in life except her. Now that they had found each other, it was all so simple. They lived on neighboring streets … Yes, Rachmaninoff, of course, Rachmaninoff!… It would be criminal not to hold on to the golden fish, the firebird, because everything had acquired meaning, a significance that was missing up until now. Now it had become clear why the world needed music, and all the sciences, and all the arts, because without love everything loses all meaning. Now the meaning was obvious, and not limited, but general, and pedagogy wasn’t isolated from life, it was invented precisely for the purpose of teaching people to be happy—and statistics, and political economy, and mathematics, to say nothing of music, were meant for one thing only, and that was to generate happiness.
Several days later, having covered versts of city streets in the town where they were both born, while walking along the beautiful river in which they had both gone swimming as children: Do you not agree, Marusya, that the word “river” should be masculine, as it is in German: der Fluss? Well, like our word “stream” … “Dnieper”—even the name is masculine, is it not? Not like “Volga,” which is feminine … They skipped up the hills and down through the flats of the ancient city, showing each other their favorite places, growing so intimately acquainted with one another that there didn’t seem to be any more room for delving into each other’s souls. And this was such an unequivocal preface to a supremely happy future life that even kissing was frightening, as though it might scare away the still greater happiness that awaited them. Nonetheless, at night, Jacob, sprawled out on his bed, hugged his pillow tight and promised himself that tomorrow he would kiss Marusya. But tomorrow he backed down, afraid to shake her trust in him, to offend her by introducing something lowly into their high-minded, noble friendship. Marusya waited and prepared herself for this new step in their relations, but did nothing to hurry the event.
It was still early in the year 1911; the end of February arrived. Their happiness was undiminished, and even put out new shoots, fresh green leaves. This major year, 1911, picked up definition and speed at a dizzying pace. At the beginning of March, Jacqueline Osipovna said that she had exchanged some letters with Ella Ivanovna Rabenek, who was inviting Marusya to come to Moscow for an audition, for the classes in plastique danse flore—movement and dance. Marusya, feeling a lump forming in her throat—her whole life, this lump appeared at moments of strong emotion, through the heightened functioning of the thyroid gland, as a doctor would explain to her many years later—said she would go, no matter what.