I am healthy, eating plenty, taking my vitamins, and read newspapers more than usual now the news is getting rosier. St Paul is a stupefyingly boring city, only owls at the hotel, a bar girl looks like Dasha; but my apartment is charming.
Fisher (who is somewhere near now and will probably be here tomorrow) has somewhat taken me aback with the news that in Galesburg there will be not two lectures but one, i.e. I will earn only 50 dollars there. The level of the intelligentsia here is significantly lower than in eastern universities, but everyone is very sweet and appreciative. It’s now around five. At 6.30 I am having dinner at Turck’s. Tomorrow I will find out about the train to Galesburg since it looks as if I will need to go back to Chicago and from there to Galesburg: something is mixed up in our schedule (I can also get to G. by changing local trains, without making a detour to Chicago – but that seems longer – in short, I will find out).
I love you, my darling. Try to be cheery when I come back (but I love you when you’re low, too). If it weren’t for the two of you – I have felt this perfectly clearly – I’d have gone to Morocco as a soldier: by the way there’s a heavenly lycaenid in the mountains there – Vogelii Obthr. But how much more than this I would like now to write a book in Russian. The hotel is cotton-wool, rain outside the window, a bible and a telephone book in my room: for the convenience of communication with the heavens and the office.
V.
[ALS, 1 P.]
[11 November 1942]
TO: 8, Craigie Circle, Cambridge, Mass
Wednesday
11–XI–42
Galesburg
4 p.m.
My darling,
I arrived here this morning – with a swollen upper lip after the icy wind in St Paul. My lecture there in front of the audience of 900 people – Commonsense – went out on radio. Here is a small poem that I wrote:
When he was small, when he would fall,
on sand or carpet he would lie
quite flat and still until he knew
what he would do: get up or cry.
After the battle, flat and still
upon a hillside now he lies
– but there is nothing to decide,
for he can neither cry nor rise.
I’ve been put up here in a charming hotel–some wonderful golden-brown panels and lots of interesting g a d g e t s. I am buying the third newspaper today. Why are you not writing to me, my love? The university that I have just looked over is very pleasant. I’ll talk there tomorrow evening. I want to be home, for a long time.
V.
MY SWEETHEART, MY JOY!
[AL, 1 P.]
[postmarked 7 December 1942]
TO: 8, Craigie Circle, app. 35, Cambridge, Mass.
[Farmville, Virginia]
Monday
My sweetheart,
I love you. Honours College has turned out to be charming and unusually elegant – in short, everything was very pleasant. In New York I managed to do everything I wanted. Saw Moe, and it became clear that Barbour is his closest friend. ‘Well, you must be a jolly good man if Tom Barbour took you!’ It all turned out wonderfully well. Pierce took me to drink whisky, and we spent two hours in literary chit-chat. ‘I keep getting letters telling me that you are my find of the season.’ (This flatters me much less now.) Saw Natasha who took me and an Armenian lady – whom you appear to know – to the cinema. An utterly trite Soviet film. Saw Aldanov to whom I had sent Zenzinov and Frumkin, and besides them there were the Kovarskys and Mansvetov with his poetess wife. Saw Dasha – took her out to a restaurant – she was awfully sweet and talkative. Saw Hilda – she won’t take any money at all. Saw Comstock, Sanford, and Michener, who turned out to be a very nice young man (I discovered that it was he and not Comstock who made those magnificent drawings for me). I needed to prepare and draw the genitalia of my Lysandra cormion, but I found out that together with all other ‘types’ she had been transferred to the Entomological Institute fifty miles from New York. The next morning (a Saturday) she was brought to me from there, and I worked on her to my heart’s content. Yesterday I arrived here after a killer of a trip. Had supper at Prof. Grainger’s in an unheated country home in a pine forest and then was driven to a warm comfortable hotel. I have overslept – must get up quickly, goodbye, my love. Kisses for my Miten’ka.
1943
____________________
[APCS, 1 P.]
[postmarked 15 April 1943]
TO: 8, Craigie Circle, Cambridge, Mass
[New York]
My beloved darling – so: 18 years today. My joy, my tenderness, my life!
I have spent a very pleasant evening with Zyoka who has not changed a bit, except his nose is bigger – and lacquered. The doctor gave the affidavit (5 doll.) Then we went to Bunny’s, other people arrived there, too, and Zyoka was completely overwhelmed. Now rushing to the museum, and from there to A. I kiss my boy. Adore you.
V.
1944
____________________
[APCS, 1 P.]
[5 June 1944]
TO: 250 W 104, app. 43, New York City
[Cambridge, MA]
5–VI–44
My darling,
I’ve spent two days without going out, writing, feeding on Roquefort and oranges. I have written eleven pages of my novel. If the i n s p i r a t i o n continues, I’ll finish it before you get back. The page-proofs of Gogol and the milkman’s bill have arrived. It’s now Monday’s morning, I’m going now to the museum. Fresh out, windy. Write how everybody is.
My Mityushen’ka, write me also when you can, my sweet, my f l y i n g f o r t r e s s.
I kiss you, my dears, greetings to Anyuta and Lyusya. Very much.
V.
[ALS, 1 P.]
[5 June 1944]
TO: c/o A. Feigen, 250 W 104 Street, New York City
8 Craigie Circle
Cambridge
Monday,
5–VI–44
5 p.m.
I am sending you, my darling, two bills, which evidently need to be paid. I have just got back from the mus. and found your and Mityusha’s little postcard – saying that the operation will be on Wednesday. I can’t wait for more information.
Had lunch at Wurst. H. with Carpenter. Loveridge greatly appreciated Mityushen’ka’s letter.
Now I’ll lie down and write.
I’VE THOUGHT UP A NEW AEROPLANE!
[ALS, 4 PP.]
[6 June 1944]
TO: c/o A. Feigin, 250 W. 104,
app. 43, New York City
[Cambridge, MA]
6–VI–44
My dear darling,
Yesterday was a day of extraordinary adventures. It started when, in the morning, the minute I was getting ready to go to the museum (with a tennis racket, since I’d arranged to play with Clark at 4.30), T. N. called, very agitated – she’d driven the sick M. Mikh. down from Vermont, and meanwhile the Dobuzhinskys had arrived and couldn’t get into their house, since no one was at home (the Dobuzhinskys dropped out of view among the tribulations that followed, as you’ll see in a moment). I agreed with her that after tennis I would drop in to check on M. Mikh., and left for the museum. Around one in the afternoon, still just as healthy and energetic, I had lunch at the Wursthaus, where I had Virginia ham with spinach and drank a coffee. I returned to my microscope around two. Exactly at 2.30, I suddenly felt an urge to vomit, had barely time to run outside – and there it began: an absolutely Homeric retching, bloody diarrhoea, spasms, weakness. I don’t know how I got back home, where I crawled along the floor and poured myself out in the waste basket. Somehow or other I found the strength to call T. N., who summoned an ambulance, which took me to the truly horrendous hospital where you’d been with Mityushen’ka. An absolutely helpless brunette tried to pump my stomach through my nose – I’d rather not recall that – in a word, I asked, writhing from the spasms and retching, for them to take me quickly somewhere else. T. N., realizing that the doctor was there, drove m
e to their place. By then I was in a state of complete collapse. This doctor, very sweet (I don’t remember his name), immediately made all the arrangements himself and himself drove, and carried, me to the hospital where you’d been. There they placed me in a ward with a terribly and raucously dying old man – and because of the groans I couldn’t get to sleep. They poured a bottle of salt solution into my veins – and today, although the diarrhoea’s still carrying on this morning, I feel great, am awfully hungry – and want to smoke – but they’re giving me only water. I’m being looked after by a Dr Cooney.
He has just been here, the diarrhoea has stopped, he said I can be discharged the day after tomorrow, on Friday. They have just given me food for the first time (5.30) – and rather strangely, at that (but you know this): risotto, bacon, canned pears. I didn’t eat the bacon. I’m writing you this because I am afraid that some misunderstanding might happen – I’m terribly worried about the little lad’s surgery – how strange that today (Wednesday) we are both in hospital. A silly story, but all in all I am absolutely healthy now. I won’t mention the living conditions here. Clean, but terribly noisy. I have been transferred to a public ward. Enfin. I dined in a very pleasant open gallery where they rolled me out and where I smoked my first cigarette.
The doctor says it was bloody colitis caused by food poisoning.
T. N. has visited me, she says that they haven’t worked out what’s wrong with M. Mikh., some kind of an allergy. She brought the mail.
The New Yorker (which hasn’t received the story yet) is offering me 500 dollars for an option, i.e. for me to show them everything first.
In short, the bacilli had taken me for the invasion beach.
Don’t come here under any circumstances: I’ve recovered.
How is my little boy? My dear! I love you both.
V.
____________________
[APC, 1 P.]
[postmarked 8 June 1944]
TO: c/o A. Feigin, 250 W 104, New York City
[Cambridge, MA]
Thursday
My dear darling,
I’m worried, I’m waiting for news!
I’m completely well today. Will write you a long letter about my funny hospital impressions as soon as I get out of here. This’ll happen tomorrow. I’ll probably spend the night from Friday to Saturday at the Karpoviches’.
I had haemoraginal colitis. Today, my bowels moved, I ate a lot, everything is well, I am thinking the novel through. How’s my little boy? T. N. was a great help, and Carpenter was awfully touching.
Love you.
____________________
[APCS, 1 P.]
[9 June 1944]
TO: c/o A. Feigin, 250 W 104,
New York City
[Cambridge, MA]
Ward A. Friday
9–VI–44
My darling, I was so happy to find out that the operation went well. I will write to Dynnik as soon as I can get to an inkpot. I am leaving this weird place tomorrow morning (Saturday) and will spend the night at the Karpoviches’. I am completely healthy, today for the first time they allowed me to take a stroll down the gallery. I’m a little weak, but nothing serious. Write to me as soon as you can how Mityushen’ka is. I’ve been very worried about him. The doctor advises me to sue the restaurant. And the name of the doctor who brought me here is Magentanz. I think I have written to you that White is offering 500 for an option. I replied to her. Today is generally a much happier day. I kiss my little cloudy one. And you, my joy. Do not worry, everything’s fine.
V.
____________________
[ALS, 2 PP.]
[11 June 1944]
TO: c/o Miss A. Feigin, 250 W 104,
app. 43, New York City
8, Craigie Circle,
Cambridge, Mass.
Sunday
9–VI–1944
My love,
It was a great comfort to hear your resonant little voice on the phone. I feel unbearably bored without you and my little one. These few days have completely exhausted me physically, but in terms of i n s p i r a t i o n everything is going very well. Today’s the first time my stomach has really worked properly, and if it weren’t for the weakness in my loins, I’d feel excellent.
The public ward was utter bedlam. There was an endless unruly din consisting of the following elements:
1) the zoological sounds of an incessant radio set
2) the wheezes, groans, and roaring of the seriously ill
3) conversations across the whole enormous ward by the healthier, with guffawing and strolling around
4) the incredible noise produced by a sixteen-year-old idiot helping the nurses, the institutional fool. He grimaced, stomped, howled, deliberately banged every dish, cracked jokes – and imitated the moans of some of the old men who were in particular anguish, thereby arousing general goodhearted laughter.
The nurses constantly tried to pull open the curtains of my coop and got angry saying that since all the other curtains were pulled, my poor tabernacle was spoiling the general look of the ward. By the end of my stay I was in such a state of exasperation, that when on Saturday morning I saw from the gallery (where I had gone out for a smoke) T. N., who’d come for me, I jumped out through the fire-escape as I was, in pyjamas and a dressing-gown, rushed to the car – and we were already moving off, when the absolutely enraged nurses ran out – but they couldn’t stop me.
Here I have been given Sergey’s room, and I only got up today to have some tea with the Dobuzhinskys when they turned up. I don’t know exactly what will happen next. Tomorrow Carpenter will drop by, he wants to take me to Lexington, but I still can’t move at all. Here’s what happened to him. That awful day when I was crawling out of the museum he wanted to escort me, but I refused. That evening he called; and of course having got no answer became worried and again came from Lexington to Cambridge, tried to force his way into our apartment, and didn’t know what to do.
I have looked through and sent off the final page-proofs of Gogol. Looks very elegant. Barbour has arrived. Mikh. Mikh. is feeling better, but he’s very sourish. The doctor says that I absolutely must file a complaint against the restaurant. I love you very much. I must confess there was a minute when I was lying there with no pulse thinking some rather funny thoughts. I wish you had seen the burly policemen summoned to Craigie by T. N. and wanting to know ‘who is this woman?’ and ‘what poison did you take?’ When do you get back? I adore you.
V.
MY DEAR ONE, HOW ARE YOUR LITTLE BELLIES? LOVE YOU BOTH!
____________________
[ALS 1 P.]
[postmarked 13 June 1944]
TO: c/o A. Feigin, 250 W 104,
New York City
8, Craigie Circle
Cambridge
My darling,
Yesterday, and just now, I crawled up to our apartment with difficulty, thinking that there would be a little letter from you, but there wasn’t. The Russian departments we wrote to have replied very amiably and in great detail. I am forwarding you a bill from Grosya and a letter from Lisbet. My loins have grown terribly weak, I’ve been dragging myself as if up a hill. Tomorrow (Wednesday) I will move back home, and on Friday I will probably go for the weekend to the Carpenters. The Karpoviches are leaving for Vermont.
I still do not know any details about the operation, what the hospital is like, when you’re planning to come back, or anything. I did stop by at the Wursthaus yesterday, and although I didn’t intend to say to them anything offensive or damaging, a row erupted from the first words, thanks to the owner’s rudeness, since, apparently, this was not the first complaint about his wretched ham. Tomorrow I think I’ll drop in to the museum.
Kiss Anyuta, greetings to Lyusya. And write to me, my dear love.
V.
MY DARLING, CAN YOU LAUGH ALREADY?
1945
____________________
[APCS, 1 P.]
[postmarked 9 February 1945]
&nb
sp; TO: 8 Craigie Circle, Cambridge, Mass.
[Baltimore, MD]
My darling,
I’ve just got here – at 1.30, with a delay because of the storm. The trip was very comfortable. They got me a room at the Lord Baltimore Hotel also in Baltimore. Not a great sleep. Now I’m going to lunch. Warm and foggy here, no snow at all, chocolate servants, a marvellous bristly shower.
And how is Miten’ka? How is Miten’ka? Ideal, isn’t he?
Love you.
V.
____________________
[APCS, 1 P.]
[postmarked 10 February 1945]
TO: 8 Craigie Circle, Cambridge, Mass.
[Baltimore, MD]
My darling,
The lecture went very well. A charming school with a charming directress. Music is taught by one Mrs Bush, from Riga, who speaks Russian exactly like her namesake in ‘The Gift’ (‘I interest me for Russian language’). In a few minutes I’ll leave for New York. And how is Mityushen’ka, how is the little one, is he still ideal?
Love you.
V.
1954
____________________
[ALS, 1 P.]
[18 April 1954]
TO: 101 Irving Place, Ithaca, New York
Eldridge Hotel, Lawrence, Kansas
HUTSON HOTELS
18–IV–1954
6.30 p.m.
My beloved darling,
I’ve just arrived, now the Russian and the German profs are coming to pick me up.
I didn’t sleep at all – so much rocking and tossing – but the berth was very comfortable. The p a r l o u r c a r was also all right, but the conductors, with nothing to do (all the trains were empty), turned on the radio. The hotel here is so-so, one needs to press for water, a showerless bathroom. Sticky heat, butterflies.
I love you very much. Has Mityushok phoned, I w o n d e r.
V.
[ALS, 2 PP.]
[20 April 1954]
TO: 101 Irving Place, Ithaca, New York
Eldridge Hotel, Lawrence, Kansas
HUTSON HOTELS
Tuesday, 20–IV–1954
10.45 a.m.
Letters to Véra Page 47
