Letters to Véra

by Vladimir Nabokov

  I had dinner at a milk bar, it’s now 10 o’clock, I’ll finish writing and go to bed, I’m collapsing from fatigue, while the sounds of the city through my window are as insolently unfamiliar as before – I’ll go and search tomorrow, it can’t be that not a stone is left standing from the past!

  I’ve written five postcards: Grinb., Budb., my aunt, Bourne, Mme Gavronsky. Tomorrow a few more. Will call Zhdanov and Gubsky in the morning. Will probably drop in to see Sablin. As for copyright – I’ll find that out. A charming letter from Mme Chernavin, I’ll be with them on Saturday. What precisely should I talk about with Heath? Write me! If I offered ‘The Defence’, then I’d have to give him a French copy, but I don’t have one. Lyusya has received everything (and knew perfectly well that he would) and isn’t going to L. for the time being. I brought books from Lolly for Gleb (‘Tair’ won’t take ‘Invitation’, but offers to buy ‘The Gift’ instead, even if one chapter appears in ‘Sovr. zap.’– but only one. Let’s think about that.) Give Ridelius ‘The Leonardo’ or no, rather, ‘The Adm. Sp.’: there’s an extra copy in the trunk. Will draw a little train some other time, I’m tired. Radio Belge hasn’t invited me yet. I love you, my dears. The letter’s turned out boring, but I am terribly exhausted. My darling, my dear love!

  V.

  ____________________

  [APCS]

  [postmarked 22 February 1937]

  TO: 22, Nestor str., Berlin – Halensee, Allemagne

  [London, Notting Hill]

  My darling, I am writing with gloves on, but burn this anyway, since I’ve caught a chill, am struggling successfully with the flu. Today at the Northerners, I will read in the thick blue jersey. By the way, the dinner jacket has turned out very well: I dined in it yesterday with the Thompsons and Sir Dennison Ross and his wife, we discussed lectureship possibilities, but all this is not serious. Molly has given me an excellently corrected ‘autob.’ and now I’m hurriedly transferring her corrections to my copy, so as not to be left without anything. After lunch with her, I rushed to see Struve (distances here are appalling, but seats in the underground are moelleux), saw the three children dog, cat, Yu. Yu., very plump but thin in the face. I wrote down the surnames of everyone I’ll be meeting at the parties that have been set up.

  It is windy and expensive here. I’m dreaming of France.

  My hat (which lost all its shape after the first Paris rain) arouses astonishment and laughter, and my scarf trails along the pavement, having become, though, thin as a tape measure.

  Don’t worry about my flu, everyone here has colds. I’m living very comfortably. Love you, my darling. And I kiss him on his little temple. Greetings to Anyuta.

  V.

  ____________________

  [AL, 2 PP.]

  [postmarked 22 February 1937]

  TO: 22, Nestor str., Berlin – Halensee, Germany

  52, Kensington Park Rd

  [London]

  My love, my happiness,

  I’m already better today, my temperature fluctuates around 36.6–37, I’m lying very comfortably in bed. The very sweet Savely Isaak. appeared with lunch, fruit, thermometer and an offer to relocate to their place, but I declined the latter. I had to put off a few things today; I think tomorrow I’ll be going out already. But last night it was terrible: full of quinine, whisky, port, with a high fever and a rasping voice, in a cold hall, I forced myself to read (‘Fialta’ and ‘Breaking the News’), although it was an enormous success (but no big crowd, about a hundred). Gleb spoke superbly about me for half an hour – intelligently, imaginatively and articulately. During the night I ‘tossed in delirium’.

  Budberg telephoned me today that Wells is summoning me to lunch. By the way: having thought it over I chucked out one phrase about him in my thing, which I still don’t know how to name: I’ve spent the entire day transferring the corrections to my copy, have just finished; it’s now half past nine at night, the terrible silence of Sunday – but suddenly somebody whistled and, still whistling, hopped, to judge by the shadow of sound, on a bicycle that side-tracked my hearing – and that whistling and the auditory glimpses (all of that instantly) at once, as in the Proustian formula, have resurrected the England of my youth, completely!

  If there’s no invitation from Long tomorrow, I’ll phone there. I have arranged to be at Sablin’s at twelve. Baykalov is unpresentable and evidently not very bright. He was supposed to call me today about the result, but for some reason hasn’t. At the soirée I saw Tatyana Vasilievna, Mrs Haskell (a trimmed down Mme Aldanov), Flora Solomon (Kerensky’s ex-girlfriend) and many other not so interesting people (like, for example, the inevitable Wolf).

  The young Tsetlin a découché, so I am completely alone here. In the pantry there are all sorts of unexpected goodies; I make forays there.

  I talked to Grinberg today about possibilities here. He understands and wants to help. In a day or two he’ll take me by car to Cambridge, we’ll talk there with his and my former professors.

  I love you, my darling. This paper, its format, marshals thoughts well and guides my style. If I don’t sit down to the second chapter of ‘The Gift’ soon, I’ll burst. What is my little one up to? I sometimes dream of him, but he’s quite unlike himself. Why hasn’t Anyuta answered my letter? I am longing for you, as soon as I get back to Paris I’ll send you a visa and perhaps a ticket for the Nord-Express, ne t’en déplaise. I’ve written from here to Ilyusha, Rudnev, Mme Tsetlin. For some reason they don’t understand me well at the post office. The rapidly ascending and just as rapidly (like an iron waterfall) descending staircases at the underground stations are very amusing.

  So, my darling, now I will check it – and go to sleep. Thirty-six point nine.

  Write to me, my dear love.

  ____________________

  [ALS, 1 p.]

  [24 February 1937]

  [TO: Berlin]

  [London]

  Notting Hill

  24–II–37

  My dear love, I’ve recovered and developed incredible energy. On Monday morning, I was at Sablin’s. I had lunch with him (his wife is sick), we talked about everything. I’d got hold of and have given him a few more addresses for tickets. The reading is scheduled for the 28th. From there, I went to Solomon’s office: she is a former publisher herself and with ‘enormous connections’ in the ‘publishing world’. She gave me something ‘from the circle of your admirers’. So the book will turn out rather long: eighty-four pages already, counting Lyusya’s articles and The Northerners’ three little pages. In the evening I was at the Grinbergs’: his mother is leaving – on Saturday, I think – for Berlin and will bring the little train, tell the boy. My autob is being read now not by Thompson’s readeress (I thought better of it), but by Frank Strawson (through Flora). On Tuesday, I lunched at Wells’s, à trois (there also was a wonderful Irishman there, with bright yellow in his beard, a red face, and a grey crew-cut, a classmate of Joyce’s and for that reason talking very amusingly about all those hints at the details, understandable and known only to those like him, hidden in ‘Ulysses’s’ hold). The lunch was very animated and successful, in a remarkable mansion. Here too (as everywhere) I talked about a lecturing-job. From there (ah, I could’ve described lots, but I’m in a terrible hurry, must run again) I went to the Chernavins’ (he, in a dressing gown, was drawing a salmon skeleton), then came home, where I changed into the tux and went with Struve to Mme Ridley (née Benkendorf); we had dinner there (tell Zyoka that my left-hand neighbour was Asquith’s daughter), and then people gathered, about fifty, for my reading. I read the first chapter of ‘Despair’ and the little sports chapter from Autob. – and they all were very pleased. Huntington (Putnam) and a literary critic from the Observer, Leslie Hartley, were there. The former has asked for the autob to read; I’ll probably give him my second copy. Budberg was there. My God, I must dash! I was at Long’s this morning, everything is perfectly all right. The book comes out on April 8th. I’ll get it on Friday. My darling, I don’t want
you to be left without a letter, I’ll finish off the details tomorrow.

  I love you, my dear darling.

  Just got your dear letter, luftpost.

  V.

  ____________________

  [ALS, 8 PP.]

  [postmarked 27 February 1937]

  TO: 22, Nestor str., Berlin – Halensee, Germany

  52 Kensington Park Rd.

  Princess House

  [London]

  My dear love, my sweetheart,

  all strings, all springs are being pulled and pushed to get a lecturing job. I’m seeing thousands of people. In comparison with my wild activity here Paris seems a holiday, trifling. And the London underground is hell, even if well-organized, I have to spend around three hours every day underground, including the bother of the elevators and escalators.

  But first let me add a few touches to my last hurried letter. Wells: he invited me to a banquet at the Pen-Club with the participation of and a presentation by ... Maysky, – so to my regret I had to refuse it, but this connection with the club is established. Budberg, a stately, unflappable lady with the remains of – hardly a former – beauty (is that clear?) – is his mistress: so they say.

  Long: the translator has received (they sent it today) forty-five; out of this three will go to Molly. Mr Bourne (of whom, by the way, the very nice Claude Houghton, whom I saw today, reports very well) turned out to be an old man with a charming smile, very friendly and attentive (but has refused to raise to a pound). The book is coming out on April the eighth (and probably I’ll come back here for then for a day or two to give a paid English soirée – there’s already discussion about this). He plans lots of publicity. Even the galley-proofs will be sent to some people, such as Garnett, Hartley, Nicholson, Wells, and so on. As for ‘Camera’, only nine hundred and seventy copies have been sold, and we have to reach two thousand to cover the advance. He can take a copyright for America, but then, if after four months they don’t buy the book there, anyone can publish a pirate edition. So that option’s out. He says that my American agent should not worry: if the book will be set (typeset?) there, it’s fine. We parted good friends; but I don’t want to publish with them any longer: everyone advises me against it.

  Regarding the autob: I’ve been flirting with four publishers of which kommt in Frage: Duckworth (very solid, today – at Mrs Allen Harris’s cocktail party we agreed on a reading of the manuscript) or Putnam (the latter with a slight shade of the Baroness who wants to ‘pass it on’, although I spoke with the man himself and could have given it to him directly). Two other ways would be through Strawson (Solomon) and Bigland (Thompson). Everyone very much liked what I read from the autobi at Ridley’s. I have no doubt that I will sell the manuscript, maybe not now but as soon as D. comes out. I’ve been to Aunt Baby’s who gave me a few tuyaux – including an introduction to Vilenkin (Mark) with whom I will lunch on Sunday at the Liberal Club. He, and Flora S., and Haskell, and Mme Chernavin, and scores of others are trying to find something for me. Today I visited an organization (I think Frank wrote to them), which has written everything down in detail. At Cambridge I spoke about this with my tutor Harrison and the professor of French, Dr Stewart (both have promised to do all they can), while Grinberg meanwhile talked about the same thing with three of his professors.

  I will see Pares on Monday – he’s been away for the weekend. In general, my sweetheart, there are many people troubling themselves on my behalf (for instance, there’s a project of a lectureship at a public school like Eton), but I absolutely don’t know when this will happen – maybe tomorrow, maybe in a year, it all depends on good luck – and a responsive button.

  I don’t know whether I’d like to live in London. The city itself is awful, in my opinion. But the food, for example, is magnificent, smacks of freshness and good quality. But then, everything is very expensive (but one can buy flannel pants for five shillings). Today I’ve called in to the French Consulate for a visa, they’ve given it to me for two weeks. Victor, whom I also visited at the museum, has now accumulated a hundred and twenty-nine cases of butterflies – from the British fauna. Don’t forget, by the way, to fetch mine. It is quite settled, under these circumstance[s], that we will spend the summer in the south of France. Necessary for you, the little boy and me (I don’t want to write more about the Greek, who oppresses me endlessly and whom only the sun will get rid of). And I must write 1) a play (suitable not just for the Russian Theatre but also for Kortner, who gave me this commission today) 2) a novel 3) little things in French 4) translations. I haven’t done a spot of work since I left.

  From the Consulate, where in some totally incomprehensible fashion they gave me the visa for free, I took to one gentleman (an acquaintance of Grinberg’s) a little package to be given to old Mme Grinberg (the only way to deliver it today), who’s leaving for Berlin tomorrow – so call on her on Monday, she’s at her daughter’s, Pfalzb[urger] Str[asse], 83 (I think!). The nuts are for Anyuta. Then I went to have lunch at Mrs Haskell’s, Gubsky was there too, rather likeable, a bit shabby, simple, but original. Her two-year-old little girl wouldn’t let me hold her, started crying, and I was recalling my darling, my little one: – today he’s been in my thoughts all day, on his knees, as you wrote, and drawing over my life, over all I have been doing today. My little sweetheart! By the way Gubsky told me that he had written twice to me (detailed, important letters) about the translation of ‘Camera’ (during the first raving of the translatress), but he sent them to me ... through Otto K. No wonder I never received them! He would also like to get involved in the placement of my autobi – at Heinemann’s. I’ll meet him about that again, on Sunday.

  From there I went to the organization (see above) and then to a meeting with Kortn. at Grosvenor House, but we didn’t finish our talk there, since at six I had to go to a cocktail party (see above). There was a huge crowd there, all connected to literature. At nine I had a second meeting with Kort. – this time at the Carlton Hotel. He seems to be a perfect fool, but likeable. Read me two versions of ‘Camera’ – both horrifying to my taste. An oculist cures Kretschmar, but on his return he hides from Magda that he has his sight back and, pretending to be blind, catches the traitoress red-handed. Tomorrow I’m meeting him again, to reach a final decision on the conditions. He is very optimistic – but generally talked awful rot. I’ve just (well, not exactly so, I’ve been writing for about an hour) got back home, am writing in bed.

  So this is a sample of my day – and if you keep in mind that the distances between appointments are extremely long and that during all of these talks (the party alone was quite a strain – the crowd, the sherry, let me introduce you to Mr Sirin) I had to keep cheery and upbeat, then you can imagine how tired I am. I am rather fed up with the whole business, and am desperate for peace, you, and my muse.

  I get back to Paris only on Tuesday morning. There’s no reason to stay any longer – and it’s expensive – the shillings vanish. I still keep thinking about a trip to Prague. Think about it again, my sweet! Under great secrecy old Joseph told me that Avg. Is. is going to give a share of ten thousand francs from that business he’s fussing about with my uncle to Elena Ivanovna and Victor. I don’t know.