So, Marusya, did you take on the morning lesson after all? If you did, please let me know—is it too exhausting for you? You promised me you would take care of your health; what are you going to bring me? Will I really be hugging the same little slip of a thing? I want more of you. Promise me there will be more of you for me when you visit.
Kisses for Marusya, good woman and love of my life.
I await your arrival impatiently.
J.
DECEMBER 2
It gladdens me when our correspondence gets out of whack because of your upcoming visit. I’ll try to write often, but please don’t worry. I know all your silly thoughts, and I often love those even more than your wise ones. You can’t sleep at night, you have visions of me in penal servitude, at war, in prison … I promise that when we see each other I will infect you with my calm equanimity and composure. First I will prove to you that all is well, and then I’ll show you how calm I am about it.
I’m looking for a better hotel nearby. If they won’t allow me to spend the night, I’ll have to settle you in a dubious furnished room among people who are colorful but not very pleasant.
And, please, do not be afraid, ever. I will write often before you come, so that you don’t start to expect you’ll find me shaven-headed, with shackles on my hands.
Instead of worrying, please bring me some sheet music, anything that takes your fancy. That’s the entire list for you. (And also Händel’s suite.)
I have just finished reading Rolland, and I wanted to share a few thoughts with you about him, and about you and me. He is a Frenchman, and all those devastating generalizations about the French hold true in part for him, too. That spirit of cultural prostitution and senseless destruction has affected him to no small degree. He dethroned Paris, but it was necessary to build something in its place. I paid close attention to how he took apart the great buildings stone by stone. When the eternal city lay in ruins like a dismantled house, I thought: Now, perhaps, he’ll begin to construct a new, more magnificent, more profound work of art out of the same stones. He says (and I remember the words clearly) that France lives, and, somewhere, those primordial streams of popular consciousness that feed an entire nation must exist. That they do exist, no one knows better than Rolland; but that he has not found his way to them, no one knows better than Rolland’s reader.
All you see are crude features and unsightly mugs everywhere in his work. For God’s sake, where are the people? This is why I felt bereft and unsatisfied after I put down the book. I hope I’ll find what I was seeking in the subsequent volumes. He looks for real people in the lower orders of the urban population. This is still a thorny issue, by the way. I believe very strongly in his statement that “people live by something.” I would call this idea “historic-statistical religion”: when many people, a whole nation or group, believe in something for a long time, or have been occupied with a common task, you can be certain that this common task has not been harmful, that it is benign, and that things are as they should be. When I heard this idea expressed for the first time, I was astonished by its exceptionally wise attitude toward life. And you are the one who expressed it! During a romantic meeting, in the first moments of heady delight of two souls approaching each other.
Those were delightful moments (Marusya, in our old age we will certainly have something to recall about our youth). From that moment, that bond that is worthy of as much admiration as love, but is much more difficult—the bond of sincerity, the complete melding of two thinking minds and two feeling hearts—was created between us.
Do you remember what you said? Simple but wise words—if that’s the way it is, that means it’s needful, it’s some sort of human mending of a divine mistake. From that day, I began developing the idea I now call “historic-statistical religion.” To rise above our epochs, to rise above people who surround us, to observe how these people live according to the generalizations they have created, and then to derive laws of life and morality from these observations.
But the main thing is not to stop respecting oneself. You taught me this, and now I’m teaching you. This is the fundamental law of our happiness. Fate has bestowed a unique happiness on us. To love and at the same time to respect each other is a rare and fortunate combination, don’t you agree?
DECEMBER 3
Evening, in the barracks. I’ve just taken a moment’s rest from the score I’m writing. I think I’ve already told you that I’m orchestrating “The Northern Star” by Glinka for our brass band. Today I showed it to the conductor. He found a few mistakes and inaccuracies, but ultimately praised it. My musical development is proceeding by leaps and bounds. I am very proficient in the brass band; it’s a pleasant enough ensemble, but not easy to play with. When I get to work with a symphony orchestra, I will know all the brass instruments to perfection. And they are the most difficult part of the orchestra.
When the score is finished, I’ll write you about how the rehearsal goes. I’ll still have time to send you a letter before your departure.
The news in the papers about the offer of a truce made me excited at first, but I soon calmed down and recovered my ability to think soberly. And thinking soberly means schooling yourself in pessimism. There will be no peace now.
I finished the new issue of The Modern World magazine. In this issue, No. 9, there is an article that I want us to read together. It was written by someone, a very intelligent person, most likely an eminent scholar, who signed his name with just one letter: S. It expresses my own thoughts in a scholarly and cogent manner. The way my worldview takes shape is strange. Things seem to transpire somewhere in the depths of my soul, at the boundaries of consciousness, almost unnoticed. A process is under way that seems to be completely independent of my brain. I ponder, and my thoughts rearrange themselves there, and sooner or later these deep thoughts rise up out of obscurity, and it seems that I have known them all along. These are thoughts about aristocracy and elitism, about the liberal bourgeoisie, about slavery, about the historical development of the idea of freedom.
I’m impatient for your train to arrive. Soon, soon, my little one, I will embrace you.
DECEMBER 6
Your letter made me so happy, so glad that in an instant I forgot about the long wait and about my weariness. In it I read the joy of life, the joy of creation, and the joy of a person who receives the appreciation she well deserves. I am happy about your clever work. (You’ve always been my clever girl!) Don’t forget to buy the sheet music for all the dances you performed in the Courses. It’s so strange and sad that I (who so believe in you) have until now never seen you dance in captivating, passionate abandon. I only saw you in the children’s dances, The Lament of the Grecian Girl, briefly in Pierrette, and Poem of Ecstasy.
But I am patient. Our hour has not yet come. It still awaits us, as does that home where our boundless happiness has already been prepared for us. This home will be comfortable and warm, with a large library. The doors won’t squeak when you open them, and the bathtub will be covered with enamel bas-reliefs, and the bed will be wide.
And creativity must reign everywhere … in the study, in the nursery, in the bedroom. Every corner of the house is good. And a remarkable woman walks around from room to room—one of only ten in the whole of Europe.
Marusya, buy me some English books in Kiev that I can’t get here. English Books for the Russian Reader, published by Karbasnikov, second series—all the books except Wilde’s The Happy Prince and Other Tales. Now I have to hurry to play. Marusya, please spoil me some more with more happy, smiley letters like the last one.