At this point, the whole conversation ceased to interest Marusya. She took a bite of her bread and swallowed the still-warm tea. “You simply don’t understand. You can’t, because you yourself are from a bourgeois family. Let’s not talk about it anymore.”
But now Jacob was wounded to the quick. He was indeed from a bourgeois family. His father owned a mill, a ferry that plied the Dnieper, some sort of grain trade, a banking office … and it was his father’s wish that he would eventually manage all these eggs, distributed among so many baskets, in order to provide for the family and ensure its continued prosperity. Jacob was bored by it, and even, for some reason, ashamed of it. Music was what truly interested him, it was the life he yearned for; but his father’s condition was that he only pursue music as a caprice, a whim, a diversion. Jacob saw no way of escape from these paternal demands and prejudices.
Jacob took away the tray, and Marusya was left alone. She was overcome with despair. Why had she talked that way, why did she think she had to bring up Marx? Why this outburst at such an inappropriate moment? She had ruined everything! Everything! What must he think of her now? She stood by the window, her forehead resting against the pane.
He returned quietly, making sure the door didn’t give him away, and put his arms around her, kissed the back of her neck, then turned her around and kissed the place on her throat where the clavicles meet. All the wounding words and thoughts disappeared in both of them. They gave themselves over to the joy of touch, and they built their house of love in the darkness and depths of the body.
When it was almost evening, Jacob walked her home. They walked in silence, because what they had experienced couldn’t be put into words. Jacob embraced Marusya next to the entranceway to her house.
“Husband and wife?” he asked, to make sure.
“Husband and wife,” she replied. “But for now it’s our secret.”
“But I feel like telling everyone I meet. That you’re my wife.”
“Not now. Why should we? We know, and that’s enough.”
In the intimate shared language that nearly every couple indulges in, they called this night, the first night of their marriage, “Lustdorf” for the rest of their life together.
Their honeymoon lasted until the end of August. The Ossetskys returned from the dacha in Lustdorf on the 29th, and on the same day Marusya boarded a train for Moscow. This time, she was traveling alone, with a small suitcase given her by her cousin Lena and a basket of provisions prepared by her mother for her to eat along the way. Jacob, slender, handsome, and nattily dressed, accompanied her to the station. Marusya felt proud that she had such a wonderful husband, and that the passengers were staring at them, most likely thinking, What a lovely pair! They exchanged a protracted grown-up goodbye kiss. Write me! Write me!
17 From the Willow Chest
Jacob’s Notebook
(1911)
AUGUST 29
I came back home from the station. The house was filled with a hubbub and din, children racing around, sunburned and pretty, things being cleaned and put away everywhere. In the kitchen it smelled like food cooking; something sizzled in the frying pan. For a month and a half, the house had been ours—Marusya’s and mine—we were so used to being here together, just the two of us. Every moment was so weighty. Now it has ended, and today the house has returned to its noisy existence, so far removed from my own. No, it’s not really alien to me—but I have witnessed a rehearsal of my own future together with Marusya, and it is wonderful. Rayechka and Eva pushed two armchairs together to make a bed. Rayechka put her favorite toy dog and doll in it; but I see Marusya sitting in the armchair reading a book, by the green light from the lamp. Marusya looked pale, but it suited her. My wife.
Today, at the station, she was so poised, so lovely, that I almost felt flustered. I looked at her as though through someone else’s eyes—this young woman in a light, loose-cut blouse, with an elegant neck and facial features, a supple figure, harmonious, her cheeks a bit hollow, long shadows, huge eyes, gray, stern. Such perfect slenderness, so womanly, without a drop of artificiality—my wife.
It’s good that she’s going away. I need time to process my emotions and experiences so I can make new plans for my life. Papa is paying for my studies at the Institute, and at the conservatory. I’ve already finished my German classes, so that expense is gone. I can’t tell him I have a wife yet, while I’m in this position. I will be forced to continue to accept help from him, but I’ll have to provide Marusya with her most basic needs. I’ll advertise my services as a tutor in the newspaper. I can help pupils prepare to enter the gymnasium: mathematics, geography, history, German. Piano lessons—for beginners. I have to think up an announcement that doesn’t sound like the cry of a drowning man. If I get even three private students, I’ll be able to send at least twenty rubles to Moscow; forty if all goes well.
I’ll speak with Yura, Verzhbitsky, and Filimonov about tutoring.
I have to admit that my intentions to do independent reading and study this summer came to naught. I didn’t manage to read even half of what I set out to do.
Papa brought me a letter from Genrikh from Heidelberg. He describes his summer trip through Switzerland and Italy. It is mainly addressed to Papa, just a few lines to me, but very important ones. He completely affirms the ideas I expressed in my letter to him. He says he’ll help me. He’s the noblest person I’ve ever known in my life.
SEPTEMBER 2
Yesterday something horrific happened. The terrorist Bogrov wounded Stolypin in the municipal theater, in the intermission of the opera Tsar Saltan. It was Mordka (Dmitry) Bogrov, an anarchist. Papa is acquainted with his whole family; his father is a barrister. They live on Bibikovsky Boulevard. I know where their house is, since Papa once took me with him to deliver some German documents, to help translate them. I’ve seen this Mordka-Dmitry on several occasions. A pathetic man. He graduated from the First Gymnasium. He was good friends with my cousin David. It’s hard to predict what kinds of political consequences will follow if Stolypin dies from his wounds. Most likely, the authorities will become harsher and more punitive toward all sectors of society. Reforms will be halted immediately, and the economy may also react to the event by ceasing to develop. I don’t see a single positive outcome of this in the near future.
SEPTEMBER 12
Stolypin died of his wounds a week ago. Today they announced that Bogrov was executed. I’m not sorry for him—such a public murder at the opera is an outrage, an abomination! How can one kill in the presence of music! But one is filled with horror that in the twentieth century, in an enlightened empire, an execution by hanging can be carried out, like in the Middle Ages. That’s what is most horrifying! Undoubtedly.
SEPTEMBER 14
Marusya’s letters affect me perhaps even more strongly than her presence. Each time a letter arrives, I want to rush to the station and take the next train to Moscow. I close my eyes and it’s easy to feel her near me physically, right here, where she really was not so long ago. I fall asleep, and wake up right away. And can’t get to sleep again. From longing. Tonight I reread Chekhov. Poor, poor thing! What unhappy relations he must have had, one would think, with women. How clearly that is revealed in his stories. I couldn’t fall asleep for a long time, because I kept trying to devise other plots, contrary notions—about the courage and decisiveness of women, about their sacrificial nature. Nekrasov was the only one in Russian literature who was able to describe this, when he wrote about the Decembrist wives. But not even in Tolstoy can one find a positive image of the modern woman. There are a number of charming young ladies, but no truly active women. Strangely, Pushkin sensed this better than anyone. During a time when education for women simply didn’t exist—they learned the ABC’s from the local priest, along with household management—Pushkin envisioned the character of Tatiana Larina, who had only this scanty education but had such a strong sense of her own worth! This is what Pushkin wanted to say, I think.