Letters to Véra

by Vladimir Nabokov

  Greetings to Anyutochka!

  We would certainly need a tub!

  ____________________

  [ALS, 2 PP.]

  [postmarked 24 March 1937]

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

  [Paris]

  My love, how funny and nice that we’ve written the same date. Yes, that’s what I will be thinking, that it’s postponed for just two weeks, since I’m going to London anyway in the second half of the month. But I feel horribly lonely, sad, and fed-up, my dear sweet-love. I am sick of being both busy and idle – of the ladies, of living in full view, of my own b o n s m o t s, of conversations about me. There is one joy: my Greek, thanks to the intensive light treatment, has almost disappeared (it’s gone completely from my indecently tanned face), and now it’s strange and creepy to recall how I suffered – bodily, from the monstrous itch (sometimes I simply thought I was losing my mind) never stopping for a minute (I slept through the itching) for two months – and no less in spirit, from constant thoughts about my bloody underwear, blotchy mug and the scales pouring down on the carpet. Only the sun – artificial, and better still, southern – can defeat this idiotic illness of mine. And the main thing: I didn’t even have anyone to complain to. My sweet joy, how impatiently I want to see you – and my little one, my little one ... Yesterday I was at Aleksey Struve’s and patted on the head his very sweet, impish six-year-old son. I have more free time now, but somehow it’s falling apart; the play’s inching along. Sofia Grigorievna Petit is offering me a job, which, of course, I’ll take: a translation of a French book into English. I am expecting responses from Candide, Michel, Lausanne (Matin), Paulhan, Gallimard. Soon I will have to sit down to write the French talk. I am translating ‘Breaking the News’ for ‘Nouv. Lit.’ I received a long and sweet letter from P. N. M. (with an attached typewritten report of who gets what in the newspaper) with an offer of publishing six hundred lines a month at ninety a line. Two days ago I gave them ‘The Present’ (i.e. a little ‘Gift’– or a present to the newspaper: that’s what I called the episode about Yasha. Witty?). Sovrem. zap. comes out at the end of the month. I’m waiting for final news from England about my readings there. My dear darling, I am sending you this letter too by air, so that you don’t have another day without a letter, since I keep miscalculating. Try, my happiness, to get to Czechoslovakia no later than the tenth, – or there’ll be too little time for treatment. We will go to London by winter. I think that we could put the linen and books at Mme Morevsky’s – she offered – but it’s even simpler here, at Ilyusha’s, plenty of space, and he offered himself. Rostovtsev isn’t here yet. I’ve written to all the others. I am looking after les petits gros chats. I think that with luck Victor will manage to earn more, and the room and chow for one for the whole summer will be paid for by the columns in P. N. I repeat, that in that sense our perspectives are on the whole very rosy. Avgust is coming here in a day or two. Yesterday I went to the ministry about your French visa: there Eidel kicked up a fuss because he had been written down as guarantor when he was the one receiving the application. My fault, sorry. The visa has been sent to you, and pick it up without fail before you leave. And think whether you shouldn’t buy the ticket from Prague to Toulon right then. The more I think, the more reckless it seems to me to leave France for the summer, so I am pleading with you (and you know doctors ‘hold on to’ you at such resorts) to be in Toulon on the 8th.

  Tomorrow, it seems, my little friend is arriving. Had meals (alas!) been not as seductive (not in the gastronomical but in the economic sense, for eating at Ilyusha’s makes me feel utterly uncomfortable – not so much because of the money but because of the bother it causes V. M-ch, who always tries to prepare something especially lush and tasty when I’m home), I would have declined all invitations, locked myself up and written. It’s cold today, but in a spring way, and I love you. Try to arrange the typing of Inv. to a B. My darling, we can’t do without a tub, keep it with you for what we discussed. Answer me about Putnam. Don’t forget Filippov – regarding Tegel. I wrote to Mother that I’ll hardly come, but I’m arranging the visa. I love you – and please, don’t change the plans any more. Has the boy grown up? Don’t forget – soccer. I am kissing you, kissing both of you. My tenderness ...

  V.

  [APCS]

  [postmarked 26 March 1937]

  TO: 22, Nestor str.,

  Berlin – Halensee, Allemagne

  c/o Fondaminsky, 130, av. de Versailles

  [Paris]

  My love, the boy isn’t sick, is he? I had a dream along those lines – you know, a holey dream with a shadow. I am getting into rhythm with this postcard, so – enough aeroplanes. A little pussy comes to visit our cats, affectionate, blue-grey, she whimpers sweetly: no response. I have drawn that to Jeanne’s attention. She, with a sigh: ‘nos messieurs sont aussi comme ça …’ Tonight I’m going to the poets’ evening, tomorrow I’m having dinner at Princess Tsitsianov’s, the day after tomorrow is the première of Teffi’s play. Denis Roche has finished his translation of ‘Spring in F’. I have given two excerpts from the autob to Kogan for America and Holland. He hopes, besides, to place there The [Door]Bell, Passenger and Chorb. I had lunch at Mme Tatarinov’s today and will have dinner at Aunt Nina’s. I love you, I am beginning to derive a certain pleasure from the thought that Mother will see our boy, and that you will get better at F. Write to me: what did the doctor say exactly? And what will happen to the boxes of precious butterflies, the spreading trays and the pins? I will write to Anyutochka in a day or two – no, I won’t write: I’m cross at her for her stubborn silence. I spoke with Lyusya on the phone, I’ll see him. I cannot tell you, how I love you and miss you.

  V.

  [APCS]

  [28 March 1937]

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

  c/o Fondaminsky, 130, av. de Versailles

  [Paris]

  My darling, my love, I haven’t had anything from you for three days. Today is the 28th, the fifteenth anniversary. I reminded P. N. about this in good time – but those philistines are invulnerable and have done nothing to mark it today (but then – they printed ‘The Present’ – and I am already preparing the next camouflaged excerpt). I am having a very ‘society’ Easter: yesterday was the première of Teffi’s (horrendous) play, today I am having tea with Gr. Duch. Maria Pavl. at the George V, then a meeting with Bar. Budberg, then dinner with Vilenkin at the Windsor Hotel. But from Monday I’ll lock myself up and write the play. I love you, my sweet one. I saw Zyoka for a moment this morning, he gave me what you’d asked him and told me how our little one, eyelashes lowered, mighty pleased and dreamy, was waiting for the automobile. I received a request from Chekhov in England to write a play for him ‘which would reflect social and moral conflicts’. Upon a very close inspection Bunin turns out to be simply an old vulgarian – while Zaytsev, on the contrary, improves. Without you I am furiously bored – and dream about the trip to London as the next stage. My puss, don’t write to me again, for God’s sake, about some Italy or Belgium. I already have a written agreement about everything with Mme Chorny. Had a very pleasant conversation with the editor of ‘Le Matin’. Love you!

  V.

  [ALS, 2 PP.]

  [postmarked 30 March 1937]

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

  c/o Fondaminsky, 130, av. de Versailles

  [Paris]

  My love, what’s going on, this is the fourth day I’ve had no letters. Is the little one well? Yesterday I took in my arms the three-year-old, red-locked, thoughtful-naughty nephew (also Dmitri and also called differently) of B. Budberg – and it reminded me to tears ... What an amazing toy store there is on Champs-Élys. – can’t be compared to our Czech ones – such trains! (‘le plus rapide train du monde des jouets’ with a ‘speed’ locomotive and marvellously made dark-blue carriages). I know that there are a thousand chores, but still, write more often!

  Denis Roche
is translating ‘Spring’ excellently, it will be ready soon: yesterday he and I discussed various difficult spots. Budberg, however, has not coped with the translation, so either ‘The Ret. of Chorb’ will be included in the collection, or I will translate ‘Spring’ myself (or Struve – ‘Pilgram’): it must be submitted no later than in August. Putnam liked the autob-y very much, and everyone recommends agreeing to their launching it as a ‘serial’ in a journal. I’ll probably agree to it. Otherwise – the pace will be lost; and the size of the thing terribly complicates its publication as a book. It was she again (Budberg) who suggested to me today a meeting with Aleks. Tolstoy, but I will probably not go. Maria Pavlovna is a little lady with a cigarette and laryngitis; she kept ringing for tea and could not get it – on account of Easter. I spoke with her about lectures in America, she promised to help. Once somewhere remote she went butterfly hunting with Avinov. About Nika and Natasha she said that they were nice, but snobs – and this expression, coming from her, acquired a Proustian charm for me, while in relation to them, it took on a fresh and frightening power. I had dinner with Vilenkin who is now actively involved in arranging the evening in London and promoting my book. (By the way, absolutely indirectly I have learned that ‘Luzhin’ is having a big – they told me ‘phenomenal’ – success in Sweden.) Tomorrow I will be seeing Alma Polyakov and Mme Sablin. Today I am having dinner with six writers at some patron’s house. ‘The Present’, which came out two days ago, turned out more than three hundred lines long – four hundred and twenty. Excellent. I’ll call the next excerpt ‘The Recompense’ – and also squeeze in more lines than I have been allocated. Ah, my happiness, how I long to see you ... It is entrancing to think about May. Zyoka says that he has grown even better-looking. Victor has lately, i.e. in one month, spent, all the same, more than 200 fr. In a couple of days I will be going to see Fayard, Lefèvre (Nouv. Litr.) and Thiébaut (Revue de Paris).

  I adore you, it’s very hard to live without you, please write me soon. It’s 3 o’clock now, I am going to see the doctoress, then will try to write for an hour or two. Love you, my life ...

  V.

  ____________________

  [ALS, 2 PP.]

  [postmarked 2 April 1937]

  TO: b/ Prof Geballe, 21, Osnabrücker Str., Berlin

  c/o Fondaminsky, 130, av. de Versailles

  [Paris]

  My darling, strange to write to you to this new – and visually non-existent – address. How nice that our little one is all right. Next time I will send him another little train. It is impossible to get the permit immediately, things move at their own lawful pace, we can’t speed them up, God willing I’ll get it before the London trip, otherwise I will have to trudge to Eidel for a return visa. Boring and bothersome. I’m really starting to feel oppressed, the enervating charm of Paris, the divine sunsets (on the Arc de Triomphe, a fragment of the frieze suddenly comes to life – a pigeon taking off), the charm and the idleness, the outlines of time are wobbly, I can’t write, I’m desperate for solitude with you and for Vlad. Mikhaylovich in the next room not to bother the wailing, lurching, mewing radio. I am quite fed up with things. We had a pleasant little party the other day, what can I say: tra-la-la, Aldanov in tails, Bunin in the vilest dinner-jacket, Khmara with a guitar and Kedrova, Ilyusha in such narrow trousers that his legs were like two black sausages, old, sweet Teffi – and all this in a revoltingly luxurious mansion (‘they have white furniture’ – Tatyana Markovna told me beforehand, enraptured), besides I had not taken the trouble to find out the hosts’ name, and only when I got there did I recognize the mug of Mme Grinberg and her son; the first thing I said: ‘And where is my Oxford Book of Poetry?’ After dinner everyone – especially the ladies – had a bit too much to drink, Vera Nikolaevna me faisait des confidences hideuses and, as we listened to the blind-drunk Khmara’s rather boorish ballads she kept saying: but my life is over! while Kedrova (a very sharp-eyed little actress whom Aldanov thinks a new Komissarzhevskaya) shamelessly begged me for a part. Why, of course, the most banal singing of ‘charochka’, a lonely vase with chocolates, the hostess’s wail (about me): ‘oh, he’s eating all the chocolates’, a view from the picture window onto the skeleton of the growing exhibition and the moon. C’était à vomir. Bunin kept impersonating my ‘arrogance’ and then hissed: ‘you will die alone and in horrible agony’. A Mme Persky, a fat vulgar baba, lay on the shoulder of poor Ilya, who was desperately glancing at me and asking for some water to be brought to her, while people explained to him that it wasn’t a fainting fit but a swoon of delight. And all of that – because they need money for the theatre. Infecte.

  They have announced Sov. zap.’s next issue, with ‘The Gift’ in pride of place. Lifar seems to have taken offence at me because I didn’t agree to give a lecture for nothing at his exhibition, but asked for a thousand. But then here’s what I did, with great pleasure – wonderful revenge: there was an evening at Las Cases, a poetry reading, for the secret benefit of the very sick Terapiano (who once, if you remember, took to me in the foulest manner in ‘Chisla’) and I volunteered to read verse there (I read ‘Inconnue de la S.’).

  I have been to the cinema, to Aunt Nina’s with a crowd of women, to the Zaytsevs’, to the Kokoshkins’ (often), to the Kyandzhuntsevs’ and so on. The little purple sun continues to help me: I have completely recovered in that respect. My love, I can’t even imagine now what you are doing at the moment since I don’t know your new surroundings ... My darling, my darling, go to Czechoslovakia as soon as you can – and whatever you do go first of all to show yourself and the little one to Mother. It’s now almost ten p.m., I’ll go out and post the letter, then go to bed. No one understands why I have such a tan: they suspect a clandestine trip south.

  In the next few days there should definitely be responses from the French journals. It’s awful to think how tired you must be from all your efforts, my poor little one, my happiness!

  V.

  [APCS]

  [postmarked 4 April 1937]

  TO: c/o Prof. Geballe, 21, Osnabrücker Strasse, Berlin, Allemagne

  c/o Fondaminsky, 130, av. de Versailles

  [Paris]

  My love, have you received the French visa? When are you going to Prague? Answer, my darling. I am writing from a not very comfortable position on the couch. Yesterday I saw Lyusya and Bromb. They were sitting on the terrace of a café, yellow and sad. They asked about Anyuta’s plans, but I know nothing. A wonderful morning now, early, everything is motionless in blue milk, and the sparrows are singing all at once. My darling! I am going to a soccer match today with the Kyandzhuntsevs. How is my little one? To take him in my arms, to smell him, to kiss him – these are such heavenly sensations that I can even get palpitations. One more month. Write, my happiness, and answer the questions. I wrote heaps of letters yesterday, but the play’s recalcitrant. I love you dearly, I kiss you.

  V.

  ____________________

  [ALS, 6 PP.]

  [postmarked 6 April 1937]

  TO: 21, Osnabrücker Str., b/ Prof. Geballe,

  Berlin – Wilmersdorf, Allemagne

  c/o Fondaminsky, 130, av. de Versailles

  [Paris]

  My darling, your muddle-headedness is absolutely killing me. What’s really going on? Forgive me, my happiness, but honestly, this won’t do. Couldn’t you figure out the currency question in advance? In the next letter you’ll probably write to me that you are staying very peacefully in Germany, in a Bavarian resort. I cannot tell how utterly depressing it is (and yet you reproach me for thoughtlessness). It will be a terrible blow for Mother if now after all the plans and troubles (all for nothing, nothing ... ) you do not go to Czechoslovakia. I knew we shouldn’t have started any of this; and had you listened to me then you would already be sitting peacefully in Bormes. And now you write to me that you’ll decide something or other ‘in a couple of days’? What, precisely? And why these repeated and pointless confusions about what means we can count on? I have wri
tten to you about everything absolutely accurately and precisely and you must know perfectly well what’s what, if you’ve read my letters. As I wrote to you, we’ll stay first for a few days at the pension in Bormes, so as to take Mme Chorny’s little cottage later, if we like it. If not, we’ll find another place with no trouble, with her help. What’s the matter, why does this perfectly simple plan cause you such indecisiveness, while the most difficult and absurd (as it turns out) journeys through Czechoslovakia seem pleasantly doable? My love, you have still not written to me for example whether you have received the French visa. Do it at once, please. By the way: my doctor, Kogan-Bernstein (the saintliest of women and an excellent doctor who gives me light treatment daily for an hour, which anywhere else would have cost a hundred francs per session, rather than nothing), says that Franzen[s]bad mud baths are perfectly replaceable – and even more than replaceable – by electric baths, which she would have administered, and she wittily decries the predilection for German-Czech spas. My darling, it is unfair (as I have already written to you) to talk of my thoughtlessness. I cannot write to you more than what Flora S. has told me about a six-month sojourn in England – you know it’s impossible to produce an exact estimate – but she’s a reliable and responsible person – everyone knows that. But let’s not look that far, so don’t you worry, but concentrate our thoughts on your arrival now in Toulon (of course you should buy the ticket there from Berlin). For God’s sake, write to me at last exactly when and where you are going. Most importantly – I absolutely cannot be any longer without you – this half-existence, quarter-existence – is starting to get too much for me – and without the air which comes from you I can neither think nor write – I can’t do anything. Our separation is becoming an unbearable torture, and all of these constant changes of mind and the ambivalence and swings and uncertainty you have (when everything is so wonderfully simple) only intensify the torture. No, I cannot work in this setting: a day interrupted by going out three or four times isn’t a work day for me, you know that well, but when I do settle down to write, it’s either Kerensky dictating nearby in his hysterical voice, or the radio, or Ilyusha’s guests, –not to mention the telephone, which rings every minute. On the other hand, had I not been a dinner guest, I’d have spent much more than I’m spending – while I manage to spend mere trifles. Today I had lunch at the Tatarinovs’, this evening I’ll be at Dobuzhinsky’s, yesterday I had dinner at a restaurant with the Rodzyanko couple and P. Volkonsky, the day after tomorrow there will be lunch at Mme Polyakov’s and dinner at Bromberg’s, and so on, and so on, and during the day there are trips to Nouvelles Littéraires, Revue de Paris, Candide, with their exhaustingly polite conversations. I beg you, my love, do not direct at me any more of these childish reproaches, je fais ce que je peux – and, after all, our future here has been arranged, if we decide not to go to London: with lessons alone I can easily find enough for us to live on, that’s in the extreme case, if nothing else worked out, but help and possibilities come from everywhere – I think you absolutely cannot imagine the atmosphere towards me here.