Letters to Véra

by Vladimir Nabokov

  My good friends and admirers are boors. Nothing to be done. But the optimist from Danzig is charming. Mother has caught a cold. She’s in bed today. I am afraid it’s bronchitis or flu. Her mood is awful. And that’s understandable. It’s no fun anyway, and now the cold as well. Her seventh since the autumn. In the morning Kirill and I went to the Commissariat, where we filled out some form where you figure as well (as they say in Czech), zhonka. I think this is generally called ‘registering’. On Monday, they will extend my visa till Wednesday. That’s charming. And here’s my second poem. The first one (the very first) was published in Vestnik Evropy or Russkoe Bogatstvo, I don’t remember. Don’t remember the year either. I think in ’16, winter. From Russkaya mysl’ of, ’17. It is very touching.

  WINTER NIGHT

  The silence in the winter moonlight night

  seems the steady breath of the heavens.

  In the air, the charm of pallid light.

  Blessed by a lunar radiance,

  the avenue, the field, and the wood slumber.

  Springy skis sweetly squeak,

  and my long blue shadow tags along.

  Lindens sleep like black ghosts in a row,

  sad, strange, hoar-frosted.

  The moon softly lights the snowdrifts.

  The regally round white flame

  looks on the field, on its snowy smoothness.

  From behind naked bushes, I frighten a hare.

  Disrupting the smoothness with its triple footprints,

  it disappears. And silence again.

  I traverse the field – boundless –

  kissing the crystal frosty air.

  The sky is radiance, the earth silence.

  In this hush of death and sleep

  in my soul, clearly, I sense immortality.

  V. V. Nabokov

  All of this is very weak, but the entire magazine is also very weak, with some translations from the Norwegian, a novel by Mme Tyrkov, The Plunder, and such woman-writerish lines as:

  An elegant page with a smile of a fawn,

  a delicate page is going off to war.

  Mother has just taken her temperature: 38.2° C. Flu, evidently. It’s very gloomy here today. Don’t forget to tell me about ‘Lips to Lips’. I stay until Wednesday, for the sake of the rhyme.

  ____________________

  [VÉNAF]

  [18 April 1932]

  [TO: Berlin]

  [Prague]

  So, I’ll come the day after tomorrow, on Wednesday. Today, Kirill will find out the exact time my train arrives. We were again in that vile institution, where three boorish officials were idly smoking. My passport’s still there. I will have to go and pick it up on Wednesday morning, and it will, probably, have some kind of a stamp. A loathsome and pointless affair. I am very sorry I started this process in the first place, but Mother was worried, thinking that they would turn me around at the border. She’s feeling a little better today, but her fever’s lingering. The other day, I re-read my translation of Alice in Wonderland. There are two or three places rendered well. I remember I was in a great hurry and made a few grammar mistakes. The illustrations are awfully vulgar. A wretched book.

  Yesterday that idiot Petkevich got mad at the child for knocking over a cup and gave him a hard smack. Olga wept, repeating: ‘I’d rather you thrashed me.’ Evgenia Konstantinovna says this isn’t the first time. A gloomy philistine. ‘Children should fear their father.’ A starched collar and dirty feet [nails?]. But I wish you could see the baby. He is tender, quiet, thoughtful. Shakhovskoy, who caught several rare butterflies over the summer with Fyodorov, wrote to me yesterday. Let’s meet, he said, at the ‘Hearth’. A normal rendezvous here. Olga found out about this and flew into a wild rage. I told her that if this was so unpleasant to her, then, of course, I wouldn’t meet him. What can I do?

  You remember I wrote to you about someone called Pletnyov. After he met Elenochka (they work at the library together), he said to her about me: ‘Haughty, English type’. He is offended because I prefer Joyce to Dostoevsky and don’t like Leskov. But she also says that Raevsky gets some kind of celestial expression on his face when he mentions my name. Tomorrow morning he and I are going to see a collection of fossil insects, or, rather, of the casts they’ve made. Following our good old Westphalia custom, I dropped a lamp the other day, and it had a cardiac arrest. I thought Seryozha would come, but there was a letter from him today, saying he couldn’t. He has to economize. In other words, evidently, his boyfriend has to economize. Crisis. His boyfriend is a thickset, rather plump, forty-year-old man. Seryozha, when he was here last time, showed photos. And here’s yet another poem for you: ‘I hear a sudden cry of pain! There is a rabbit in a snare…’ That’s a poem by James Stephens, but I won’t copy it out.

  I’ve decided not to take part in any more soccer matches, I’ll only train. Funny: Kirill has just come in with letters from you and Anyuta and with Poslednie novosti with Camera. I’ll have a talk with Olga’s scoundrel, as we call him here. Camera has to be sent today. Not a word from Mulmanovich. I shan’t mislay Anyuta’s letter. The Union won’t perish if I don’t read out Pushkin’s ‘Faust’. That’s what Hessen should have been told. And if he thinks I intended to give a talk, then he’s wrong.

  ____________________

  [VÉNAF]

  [19 April 1932]

  [TO: Berlin]

  [Prague]

  Meet me at 10.25 p.m. tomorrow, Wednesday, at the Anhalter station. You know, we shouldn’t have started that Dresden affair. They prefer to arrange the evening for this Saturday and so on. And although I feel sorry to disappoint them (the letter, let me repeat, is extremely cordial, with a promise of a warm welcome and lavish hospitality), I will not go to Dresden. All in all, this has turned out rather silly. This morning I was at the museum again. I saw the charming casts of dragonflies, cicadas, ants, centipedes, as well as insect mummies in transparent amber. Mother, in general, is better. Thank God, no asthma. Last night, because Kirill was away, I helped Evgenia Konstantinovna wash the kitchen.

  ____________________

  [VÉNAF]

  [13 October 1932]

  [TO: Berlin]

  [Kolbsheim]

  You have a letter from Lisbet. Nothing interesting. And I have one from Fond, who will be back in Paris on the 14th or 15th. Everything here’s just the same. But the weather! … A story’s ripening. You took that nail file with you after all. Kiss Anyuta and greetings to Dita. From Paris my letters will be long.

  ____________________

  [VÉNAF]

  [15 October 1932]

  [TO: Berlin]

  [Kolbsheim]

  I’m forwarding you a letter I got today from Ullstein. They are taking ‘The Doorbell’. Call Kreul, tell him I’m in Paris. Talk to doctor Jacob. Agree to the abridgement. That translation is a corpse anyway, you can hack it without regret. Only I don’t know who should do the abridging. Kreul’s letter is very nice.

  Now, the second thing. Nika has put me in touch with a leading local bookseller, Hertz, who is on friendly terms with Grasset and Fayard. He’s very ‘interested’ in me. He’s promised to work something out. And in fact, he and his other book friends have founded a society of bibliophiles, which orders from the publisher a hundred extra de luxe copies – selected books for Alsace book-lovers. And he has promised to choose one of my books. And moreover to organize the advertising, to put up my portrait and a manuscript in his shop window, and so on. A foreign writer is exactly what he needs. By the way, he is asking for reviews. We should send him Nouvelles littéraires, but first I want to find out when my books are coming out. Send Nouvelles littéraires and also the one from Mesures here, to Nika. He’ll pass it on. Besides, I urgently need the main points of my agreements with Grasset and Fayard. Write, I beg you. I am afraid to get all mixed up. I’m going to Paris tomorrow, on Thursday I’ll be there (terrible pen) at 8 p.m. I have received a comparatively cheerful postcard from Mother. She asks me to see Seryozha,
who’s now in Paris.

  One more thing. I got an offer from Brussels to come to read something, but the conditions don’t appeal much. The Club of Russian Jews is organizing the reading, but it’s Natasha’s sister, Mme Malevsky-Malevich, who has written to me. She advises me to make a contre-proposition of 50% and travel there and back. Or a straight 75%. Apart from them, the Antwerp Russian circle has invited me. I’ll write to her today. Will make this very counter-offer. My arrival in Brussels will have to coordinate with the reading in Strasbourg, about which Nika will be talking more to Hertz. And in general this all needs to be timed for my return from Paris. By the way yesterday, when I was in Strasbourg, I had my hair cut and my watch fixed. There was a huge poster featured prominently inside a tram car: ‘Société Protectrice des Animaux’. Which means we got upset for no reason.

  Meanwhile, as I’ve been writing, it turns out that the head of the bibliophiles I mentioned will come to dinner on Thursday night, so I will go to Paris on Friday morning. An awfully businessy letter. Sunny today, and one battered Io basking on a battered aster. Such a wretched razor, if you happen to remember, please send me another in a letter, otherwise shaving is torture.

  ____________________

  [VÉNAF]

  [17 October 1932]

  [TO: Berlin]

  [Kolbsheim]

  First, so I don’t forget. The old lady’s name is Mme Maurice Grunelius. In accordance with your request I will cross the streets in Paris very carefully, when I get there on Tuesday. I got a very nice letter from Denis Roche. He thanks me for my praise. Will be happy to meet me and so on. I think you didn’t understand the photograph of Mungo and the snake. You see Mungo, or rather Mongoose, always kills the snake. It’s his passion, duty and nature. In general, he’s a very sweet and gentle little animal, but when it comes to snakes he turns furious, and then he celebrates his victory with a little dance. Inspiration’s not coming. I’m afraid I won’t write anything before I get to Paris. It’s very cold here. You know, I seem to have misplaced Lisa’s letter, but there was nothing important in it, was there? I’ll look for it again. The Gruneliuses had a neighbour over for dinner. She asked a lot about you. I save mice, there are lots in the kitchen. The servant catches them: the first time she wanted to kill one, but I took it and carried it out into the garden and set it free there. Since then, all the mice have been brought to me with a snort: ‘Das habe ich nicht gesehen.’ I’ve already set free three of them this way, or maybe it was always the same one. It’ll hardly have stayed in the garden.

  I don’t understand why Mother’s not writing. It’s unbearable how much I want to sit down to write a story, but it’s not all ripe yet. I am also thinking about the French of Russian noblemen, ‘Ne parlez pas devant les genS’, Bibliothèque Rose, governesses, French poetry. I read, that is, re-read, Aleksandra Fyodorovna’s letters to the Tsar. On the whole, awfully touching. They loved each other so much, but from the political point of view … By the way, you have probably read, lying prone or semi-prone on Anyuta’s couch, about Blok in Poslednie novosti, about his letters. Did you know that Blok was of Jewish origin? A soldier Bloch in Nicholas’s army. That pleases me mightily. I’ll do all I can in Paris. Kiss Anyutochka.

  [VÉNAF]

  [22 October 1932]

  [TO: Berlin]

  [Paris]

  The road from Strasbourg to Paris was absolutely enchanting in its picturesqueness. The hills are covered with rusty-red-and-green foliage. Curly like mignonette. I arrived at 5 p.m. Settled into Nika’s small but charmingly comfortable apartment. I shaved, changed, went to a café, called Fondaminsky from there, and at half past seven I was already at his place. Zenzinov was there, too, but his wife was out. Then Kerensky arrived, looking like an old but still hearty actor. He speaks loudly, stares through a golden lorgnette that he presses to his left eye. We sat down and talked. A committee is being set up (Fond, Zenzinov, Aldanov and others) to organize my reading.

  Fond had to go to a meeting of Sovremennye zapiski, and I saw him as far as Vishnyak’s. There I saw Vishnyak (a monstrous accent, Acropolis schedules, ‘let’s talk about me’), quiet Rudnev, black Demidov, and Aldanov, who now looks très en gros like Sherman. Everyone is charmingly nice to me. Camera is having an absolutely unexpected success. According to Fond, even Zina liked it. Kerensky shook my hand, held the pause, and, in a dramatic whisper: ‘Amazing’. Tons to do today. I’ll have my coffee now, then call Supervielle, write to Cocteau, then Poslednie novosti, a meeting with Aldanov, and so on. Nika and Natasha are awful darlings. They secretly gave me all kinds of tasty things for the road. There’s all I need here.

  [VÉNAF]

  [24 October 1932]

  [TO: Berlin]

  [Paris]

  The wild activity continues. I called Supervielle yesterday and will visit him today at 11 a.m. It’s very early now, a […] Proustian morning. I sent off my letter to Cocteau. It’s hard to get him by phone. The police are said to watch him to make sure he doesn’t arrange opium orgies, so his phone lets in draughts. Yesterday I had lunch at a little Russian restaurant, where they sit on stools at the bar. Then I went to the editorial office. It was simply touching how they received me. I saw Ladinsky. He’s very sweet, with a simple face. He works as a telephone boy. Aldanov and Demidov again. The three of us had coffee together downstairs. Polyakov, Volkov and so on. Then a rather pretty little lady showed up (the gaps between her protruding teeth spoil her, though), who turned out to be Berberova, and she and I went to a café. Her conversation is just a little philistine. She told me in detail about her break-up with Khodasevich. Hinted that some unruly grey eyes have turned up in his life. She said that my epigram on Ivánov was written in a special album by the ‘Perekryostok’ group, that she imagined me exactly this way, ‘with a bit of tan’. A break, I had to get up. I went home. On the way I bought some pastries and so on in a Russian store. After dinner, I went to Don Aminado’s evening. He had sent me a stage ticket. I sat with Aldanov. And the intermissions were announced by Rausch, in tails (hired, apparently, because of his tails and his title – awful), who, you remember, had come to see me. By the way, he offered me a room at his place. But the evening was nightmarishly boring. The audience exactly the same as in Berlin. The same ladies, among them Mme Adamov, who has invited me to her place. All this is very depressing. They wore us out with humour from old issues of Poslednie novosti, but of course, thank God, it was over early. This morning I began a letter to you and got two of yours. I will write a word of thanks to Frumkin. It’s good that you have given S. G. a package for Mother. I haven’t had a chance yet to see Zyoka. I am expecting news about Strasbourg and Belgium. I called Lizaveta today. We agreed I’ll have dinner with them at 7 p.m. tomorrow. I like the poems of Limousin very much. I’m carrying on with the story. So, I was at Supervielle’s this morning. He is lanky, looks like a horse. We talked about literature. He promised to introduce me on Friday to Paulhan, the editor of Nouvelle Revue Française. He was very obliging. I’ll go to him again on Tuesday morning, with Luzhin. He talked about his own work eagerly and loftily, but, overall, very attractively. I walked back from Boulevard Lannes. Very agreeable weather. Russet-blue. I had lunch at a Russian restaurant and from there moved to a café, after remembering I needed to write to Nika. When they gave me some paper, it turned out to have Rotunda on it. At 3, I called in on Fond to talk about my evening. I met Amalia Osipovna and a very amiable colonel. My darling, what a cat they have! Something perfectly stupendous. Siamese, in colour dark beige, or taupe, with chocolate paws and the tail the same. Moreover, his tail is comparatively short, so his croup has something of a little dog or, rather, a kangaroo, and that’s its colour, too. And that special silkiness of short fur, and some very tender white tints on its folds, and wonderful, clear-blue eyes, turning transparently green towards evening, and a pensive tenderness of its walk, a sort of heavenly circumspection of movement. An amazing, sacred animal, and so quiet – it’s unclear what he is looking at with
those eyes filled to the brim with sapphire water. Straight from there I called Lisbet, and when I sat down at the tea-table again, Amalia Osipovna, a plumpish old lady, very quiet and pleasant, silently handed me my letter to Stepun, about her translation of Pereslegin into English. Tableau. Stepun said that I did not know who had made the translation, and I pretended to be very surprised; everyone laughed in good spirits. So it’s all turned out well. Around five, I went to Khodasevich’s. A small, untidy, sour little apartment beyond the city limits. Khodasevich looks like a monkey or even like Acharya, and all those Hindu movements too, and jokes that aren’t very funny, and he snaps words, and all this on a rather sad lining, and he is very thin, and he was terribly nice to me. And Berberova too was at the round table with its meagre little fare. Afterwards she said to me: ‘Have you noticed how dirty it has become there since I stopped living there with him?’ Terapiano and Smolensky are pleasant young men, in the style of our ‘poets’, and they speak like them, too. From there I went for dinner at Aldanov’s. We dined à trois: his wife, corpulent and swarthy; I suddenly got drunk on two shots of vodka. Yes, I forgot, Khodasevich knows a few butterflies: Antiopa, Io, Apollo. On the whole, he’s somehow quite touching. I liked him very much, much more than Berberova. Aldanov and I had a heart-to-heart conversation about my fate, one can have an apartment in Passy, 2–3 rooms, with all conveniences, for 5,000 francs a year. He showed me a whole bookcase of translations into fourteen languages, huge and very neat stacks of reviews, the desk where he writes, the scattered pages of a draft, an unfinished page, a folder with his notes. And it’s as if he drinks in praise. Around 10, we went to Fond’s. Kerensky was there again, he appropriated my matches (now I’m suffering from not smoking), called Aldanov ‘M’sieur Aldanóff’ – a sample of his jokes – all this very loudly, – and spoke about Mussolini with a light trace of envy. The marvellous Siamese cat and the huge, fat, fat-fingered, Rutenberg, Gapon’s murderer (he hanged him). He occupied himself with picking out coins, sous and francs, from a dog-shaped piggy-bank of Amalia Osipovna’s, and Vishnyak told Aldanov, who drank in his words, what Gruzenberg had been writing about his things. And we drank wonderful tea. Anyuta will appreciate this. Tell her that I love and kiss her. Shortly after 11 p.m. I went home. I’ve become terribly tired in the course of the day and here I am lying down and writing to you. It’s already half past one, I found a match in the lining of my jacket and have had a smoke. I haven’t yet seen Sovremennye zapiski. No time. Tomorrow morning: Sergey and Milyukov. Andrey Sedykh is not Osorgin at all, as we thought, but Tsvibakh. He intends to interview me. Aldanov thinks my face looks like Osorgin’s. Neither Adamovich – he is in Nice – nor Ivánov (he is sitting in Riga and waiting for the death of Odoevtseva’s father) is here. ‘My uncle has most honest principles …’ Tomorrow, if I have time, I’ll write something in French. The Fonds very much want me to come when they have the abominable Merezhkovsky couple over. But I have told him straight that I don’t want to see them. Felsen, it turns out, is a great admirer of mine. I still need to see a thousand people. It’s raining. See how much I have written you. During the dinner at Grunelius’s, a button flew off my blue jacket, and everyone was in dinner jackets. Nika, true, compromised: a silk shirt, no waistcoat. But my button flew off, and Antoinette sewed it on. I am trying to avoid gaffes and so on, I’m gossiping within limits. Today, coming out of the metro to Supervielle’s, I asked a passer-by, ‘Where’s Boulevard Lannes?’ ‘Oh M’sieur, c’est loin d’ici, c’est tout à fait de l’autre côté, devers les fortifications.’ We were both standing on Boulevard Lannes. This is the third such case. The most terrible one was in a pub, where there was a phone, when the owner explained to me the location of the salle de vue (Aminado’s evening). He was sending me God knows where. Luckily I didn’t listen to him but directed my steps according to my maps, with Fond’s directions. I will probably read Despair to him, Khodasevich and Aldanov, and will give a chapter to Poslednie novosti after the reading, which will be on the 19th or 20th.