MARCH 20, 1913
The living conditions here are by far the best. I have my own room, where I’m completely free from obligations, and a lot of time for my books.
My duties are the following: at nine in the morning, I sort the mail from the post office, write dispatches and reports, orders, and memoranda. At ten o’clock, the battalion commander arrives and signs everything, and then leaves at twelve. After that, I’m completely free. In the evening, I go to his apartment with a report, and that is the end of it until the next morning.
He gets all the mail first, then sends it to me. I sort it through and send it on to the company commanders. So you can rest easy. The battalion commander never opens anyone’s mail, of course, not least mine.
In short, my duties are light. It will continue like this until the summer training camps, and then we’ll see.
I received the Yiddish and German books.
I read the books in Yiddish with enormous pleasure. In particular Sholem Aleichem. It’s amazing how fluently I can read Yiddish. I opened it to the first page—not confident at all that I could. I read it through, then the second page, and the third, and the whole book; and then the next book. In short, thank you, Papa, for making me take lessons for two years with that unbearable Reuben. He actually taught me a thing or two, despite boring me to death. I haven’t been able to open the German books yet. They’ll have to wait until next week.
Here everything is very conducive to writing letters. I’m not joking. I don’t have to write on a footlocker, but I get to write at a real desk. I don’t have to sit on my bed pushed up against the wall, but on a real stool.
I can actually complete all my tasks in the Battalion Office in a good two hours. Yesterday, however, I sat until five-thirty with an intelligent expression on my face. No one asked me what I was doing, though, and I just carried on with my own affairs. YURYUZAN–MOSCOW JACOB TO MARUSYA
MARCH 22, 1913
This has nothing to do with real soldiering. A clerk is a blue blood. Illiterate soldiers (and they do exist in our fatherland) come to me and ask me to write them a nice letter. At first I thought they were talking about the handwriting. No, they want it to sound beautiful and expressive. The poor human soul—it wants beauty, but has received no training in it. It’s very touching, really. Maybe I should go to a country school and work as a teacher …
I’ve gotten into the swing of things here now. I am very much the clerk: I take an interest in the affairs of the regiment, and I never talk to anyone about my wife. And it seems that I’ll soon begin to study seriously. I’m in the mood for it now. It’s often that way—suddenly you feel confidence in an action you have yet to take.
My life as a soldier is better than it has ever been. The only thing I lack is my wife. After reflecting on that thought, I changed my mind. My wife is an actress. Her place is in the acting studio and on the stage, and not leading a dull life with a clerk in the Ural Mountains. YURYUZAN–KIEV JACOB TO HIS PARENTS
MARCH 23, 1913
The battalion commander is very kind to me. I teach a lesson at his home (I’m helping his son prepare to enter the officers’ corps). I “nobly” refused payment for the lesson. The fact of the matter is that Mitya (the son) is so ill-prepared, I have to cover the material for the entire curriculum at a regular schooclass="underline" mathematics, Russian, and German. I’m not sure whether he’ll be accepted into the corps. In addition, the requirements for the program are not entirely clear to me.
After the lesson with Mitya last week, I was waylaid. The lieutenant colonel came into the nursery, where we were having the lesson, and invited me to stay to dine. I considered declining, then accepted the invitation out of curiosity. I went downstairs into the large dining room—like a banquet hall, but decorated and furnished in a provincial country style. It was a dinner party, and there were many guests. The twelve chairs they had were not enough, so they had to fetch two kitchen stools to accommodate everyone. The guests were the local beau monde—mostly officers and their wives, the director of the gymnasium, not a pleasant sort, and one more person, who appeared to be quite cosmopolitan. This turned out to be Mr. G. Papas, and it was the first time since I left home that I have conversed for a whole evening with a European, of the caliber one doesn’t even come across that often in Kiev. He is a highly educated economist. And it would have been interesting for you to talk to him as well. He has very original ideas, something in the spirit of Taylor, whom I’ve told you about. They subject management itself to scientific study and discover the laws that govern it and must be taken account of in managing it. YURYUZAN–MOSCOW JACOB TO MARUSYA
MARCH 30, 1913
I received the bundle of newspapers (including Footlights, and the postcards—they all arrived). The parcel took ten days to get here. There is a lot written about your studio. A startling cacophony of opinions. Some brilliant, others weak and incompetent. And, of course, the latter are wrong. Besides, one should always keep in mind the old adage: It’s far better when critics diverge in their opinions; it means an author has been consistent with himself.
In what does the freedom of theater lie? In the absence of a consistent method of staging. For The Fair at Sorochyntsi they chose naturalism, for Beatrice they choose, for instance, decadence. Perhaps this is possible—not having one consistent personality. The individuality of an actor consists in the absence of any individuality. Today Shylock, tomorrow the Mayor.
I’ve struck up an acquaintance with the local priest, and very fine person, Father Feodosy. He’s interested in music. He’s a widower raising two sons, and he asked me to tutor his elder son in German. I wouldn’t have felt confident enough in English or French, although I know them pretty well. Reading is very good for developing language skills. I agreed to the lessons, and received compensation I wasn’t counting on. I’ve already been to their home twice, and got to play the harmonium after the lessons. It made me very happy, and very sad. I’m lagging so far behind. How hard I’ll have to work to catch up!
MARCH 31, 1913
I’m reading Childhood and Adolescence. Sometimes I was overcome with terrible longing for you—I wanted to talk to a true friend, the only true friend of my life. I recalled some memories from childhood, dreams I had—all those things you can only confide in the person you feel closest to.
Why do we so love Tolstoy, you and I? Besides all his other merits, Tolstoy has taught both of us the importance of sincerity. There is nothing more difficult; that’s my belief, which I have formulated for myself definitively over the past few days. Carlyle considered sincerity a hallmark of genius.
No one surpasses Tolstoy in this regard, it would seem. And in this lies his pedagogical significance. The next logical premise is that this is why he brings people together. What unites people, if not sincerity?
It seems that you didn’t receive my last letters. Some of them I sent without registering them (with only one stamp, that is). Evidently, they went missing. Well, I kiss you. I kiss your hands tenderly.
I have a strange relationship to human hands. It’s a feature in a person that means a great deal to me, because I prize them so highly. People I love have many beautiful traits and features that I would forgo—but not the hands. The eyes, brows, hair can all change, as far as I’m concerned, as long as the hands remain the same. And provident nature agrees with me. It guards this feature carefully. The hair falls out, eyes grow rheumy and dim, the body ages—but the hands stay the same. They get covered with tiny wrinkles, but the shape remains constant. MOSCOW–YURYUZAN MARUSYA TO JACOB