Letters to Véra

by Vladimir Nabokov

  Eastman’s Russian, très soviete, wife: Elena Vasilievna Eastman (née Krylenko, 1895–1956), painter and graphic artist, sister of Nikolay Vasilievich Krylenko (1885–1938), devoted Bolshevik, member of the central committee of the Communist Party (1927–34) and organizer of mass terror campaigns and political show trials.

  Daily Times: Possibly the Los Angeles Daily Times (as it was once known); or perhaps VN, confused by the distinction between the daily London Times and the Sunday Times, had in mind the New York Times.

  Evgeny Shakh: Evgeny Vladimirovich Shakh (1905–?), poet, member of ‘Perekryostok.’

  ‘A Bad Day’: ‘Obida’, written in Berlin in the summer of 1931, pp 2–3, published in Poslednie novosti, 12 July 1931, and in Sog.

  ‘Perfection’: ‘Sovershenstvo’, written in June 1932, published in Poslednie novosti, 3 July 1932, and in book form in Sog.

  Lena: VéN’s elder sister, Elena Massalsky.

  Maria Vasilievna’s daughter and Koka’s son: Maria Obolensky and Aleksandr Nikolaevich Rausch von Traubenberg (1909–65), son of Nikolay Rausch (family nickname Koka) by his first marriage to Olga Aleksandrovna Eveling (1885–1928, divorced in 1915).

  Letter 2 of 8 November 1932

  imagine … a revolution in Berlin: In the German general elections of 6 November 1932, the National Socialist Party lost 34 seats in the Reichstag but the Communist Party gained 11, which must have seemed alarming to the Russian émigré community in Paris.

  Blackborough’s: Unidentified.

  Vanya: Ivan, Son of Nicolas and Nathalie Nabokov.

  Muma: Maria Zapolsky.

  [I don’t know what]: VéN’s words.

  his wife: Lyubov’ Shlemovna Levinson (née Sharf).

  Krymov’s wife’s type: Berta Vladimirovna Krymov, wife of Vladimir Pimenovich Krymov (1878–1968), Russian entrepreneur, publisher and writer.

  the thin little Mlle Levinson: Maria Andreevna Levinson (1914–?).

  Vadim Andreev: Vadim Leonidovich Andreev (1903–76), writer, one of the organizers of the Union of Young Poets and Writers in Paris; the son of the writer Leonid Nikolaevich Andreev (1871–1919).

  Letter of 10 November (?) 1932

  Sergey, his boyfriend, and Natasha: His brother Sergey, Sergey’s partner Hermann Thieme, and Nathalie Nabokov, wife of his cousin Nicolas.

  a new story: Apparently not completed.

  ‘Je veux lire en trois jours’: ‘Je veux lire en trois jours l’Iliade de Homère’ (‘I want to read Homer’s Iliad in three days’, 1560), from Les Amours: until he finishes reading, Ronsard wishes for no interruptions from anyone, even the gods – unless someone should come from his Cassandra.

  Nika: Nicolas Nabokov.

  the idiotic advertisement: For Podvig (Glory) in book form (Paris: Sovremennye Zapiski, 1932).

  Letter of 11 November 1932

  Elkins: Boris Isaakovich Elkin (1887–1972), lawyer, and one of the founders of the Berlin publishing house Slovo, and his wife Anna Aleksandrovna.

  Revue de Paris: French literary magazine, founded 1829.

  a King, Queen, Knave, but by another author: Perhaps Un roi, deux dames et un valet (Paris: L’Illustration, 1935), a play in four acts by François Porché (1877–1944).

  Giraudoux: Jean Giraudoux (1882–1944), French novelist, essayist, playwright and diplomat.

  Sainte-Hélène, petit île: Mark Aldanov, Sainte-Hélène, petit île (Saint Helena, Little Island) (Paris: Povolozky, 1921); Albéric Cahuet, Sainte-Hélène, petit île (Paris: Fasquelle, 1922).

  Otsup: Nikolay Avdeevich Otsup (1894–1958), poet and critic, brother of Aleksandr Otsup (Sergey Gorny).

  Zaytsevs: Boris Zaytsev and his wife, Vera Alekseevna Zaytsev (née Oreshnikov, 1879–1965).

  Remizov: Aleksey Mikhaylovich Remizov (1877–1957), writer, artist and literary critic.

  Lolly: Lvov.

  Mme [Mlle?] Rachmaninov: Either the composer’s wife Natalia Rachmaninov or one of his daughters, Tatyana or Irina.

  Pohl: Vladimir Ivanovich Pohl (1875–1962), pianist and composer, one of the founders and professor at the Russian Conservatory in Paris, and his wife, Anna Mikhailovna, née Petrunkevich stage-name Yan-Ruban, (c. 1890–1955), concert singer. VN first met them on the estate of Gaspra in the Crimea, where his family lived in 1918–19. Vladimir Pohl tried to interest young VN in mysticism; VN’s poem sequence ‘Angels’ is dedicated to Pohl (written 1918; published in Gorniy put’ (Berlin: Grani, 1923); one poem, ‘Arkhangely’ (‘Archangels’), was selected for Stikhi, pp. 14–15). In 1919, Pohl set to music VN’s poem ‘Dozhd’ proletel’ (‘The Rain Has Flown’, 1917): VNRY, pp. 138, 143–4, 152–6; Z. A. Shakhovskoy, ‘V. I. Pohl’ i ‘angelskie stikhi’ Vl. Nabokova’, Russkii almanakh / Almanach russe, ed. Z. Shakhovskoy, René Guerra and Evgeny Ternovsky (Paris, 1981).

  Portnovs: Unidentified.

  Yulia: Yulia Struve.

  Raisa: Tatarinov.

  writing a story: Possibly abandoned, or the beginning of ‘The Admiralty Spire’, which nevertheless seems to arise out of VN’s meeting with and letters from a former girlfriend, Mlle Novotvortsev (see letters of 16 and 21 November 1932, below), and which he was working on when he left Paris (see letter of 21 November 1932, below).

  Saurat: The village in the Ariège, France, where VN and VéN spent late April–late June 1929.

  Ruban … upset about the little ears: Possibly a reference to Bonzo, the little flop-eared dog who was the subject of a worldwide craze in the 1920s and early 1930s and who inspired the popularity of ‘Cheepy’, a cartoon guinea-pig whose cute humanized images begin in the cartoonist’s mind with thoughts of vivisection, in Nabokov’s Camera obscura. See BB, ‘On the Original of Cheepy: Nabokov and Popular Culture Fads’, The Nabokovian, 63 (Fall 2009), pp. 63–71.

  uncle Zhenya: Baron Evgeny Aleksandrovich Rausch von Traubenberg (1855–1923), first husband of VN’s aunt, Nina Dmitrievna Kolomeytsev.

  Yurik: Baron Georgy (Yury, Yurik) Evgenievich Rausch von Traubenberg (1897–1919), son of E. A. and N. D. Rausch von Traubenberg, VN’s favourite cousin (see SM, especially Ch. 10).

  Maria Vasilievna: Maria Rausch von Traubenberg.

  Koka’s son: Aleksandr Rausch von Traubenberg.

  Letter of 12 November 1932

  the novel: His new novel, Otchayanie (Despair), still not completely revised in its later sections.

  ‘A Dashing Fellow’: ‘Khvat’, a short story written between 20 April and 5 May 1932, published in Segodnya, 2 and 3 October 1932; in book form in Sog.

  Yu. Yu.: Yulia Yulievna Struve.

  Lizaveta: Lisbet Thompson.

  won’t finish my story for Tuesday: That is, for his public reading.

  Mme Teisch: Unidentified.

  Letter of 14 November 1932

  to the point where he arrives from Prague: Ch. 1 and part of Ch. 2 of Despair.

  no hard signs: The Fondaminskys may have been using a typewriter already adhering (unlike émigré publications) to the Soviet orthography which, after the reform of 1918, eliminated four letters as ‘unnecessary’. The hard sign was not eliminated, but Ъ (yer), which looked similar, was.

  Siverskaya: A town near St Petersburg, on the river Oredezh, close to the Nabokov estates.

  Lyussya: ‘Lyussya’ was the nickname of Nabokov’s first love, Valentina Evgenievna Shul’gina (1900–?), the ‘Tamara’ of SM, whom he met near his family’s country estate, in the Siverskaya area, in the summer of 1915. She had three sisters, Natalia, Anastasia, and Irina. After the Revolution she lived in Poltava.

  Sofia Pregel: Sofia Yulievna Pregel (1894–1972), poet.

  Shaykevich: Anatoly Efimovich Shaykevich, pen-name Ash (1879–1947), lawyer, theatre critic, screenwriter, musician, and one of the organizers of the Russian Romantic Theatre in Berlin (1922–6).

  Gurdjieff: Georgy Ivanovich Gurdjieff (1868?–1949), occultist, psychoanalyst, organizer of a dance theatre that performed in Paris (he wrote music for the performances).

  Raspu
tin-like: VN compares Gurdjieff to Grigory Efimovich Rasputin (1869–1916), a notoriously licentious Russian Orthodox ‘healer’ and spiritual adviser to Tsar Nicholas II and his wife, Tsarina Aleksandra.

  Spanish artist: Francisco Goya (1746–1828).

  Mrs Evreinov: Anna Aleksandrovna Kashin-Evreinov (1898–1981), actress and writer.

  Je veux qu’on se voit: Fr. ‘I want us to see each other.’ Her novel Khochu … (I want …) was published in Paris in 1930.

  Gringoire: Right-wing French political weekly, founded in 1928, notable for its high-quality literary pages. VN cannot have known at this point of the newspaper’s anti-semitic bent.

  Plaksin: Boris Nikolaevich Plaksin (1880–1972), former state councillor and jurist, memoirist and occasional poet.

  Yuzya Bilig: Unidentified.

  dreamer. […]: VéN: ‘And so on, I am skipping this.’

  teiglach: Jewish honey and nut cookies for Rosh Hashanah.

  Aleksandr Fyodorovich: Kerensky.

  Letter of 16 November 1932

  Saba: Savely Kyandzhuntsev.

  gentilhommish: From Fr. ‘gentilhomme’, a gentleman.

  tuxedo … shirt of the same provenance: Savely Kyandzhuntsev had lent VN a tuxedo and silk shirt.

  Aleksandr Fyodorovich: Kerensky.

  Mme Veryovkin: A friend of the Nabokovs in the late 1920s (in VéN’s words), otherwise unidentified.

  Sergey: VN’s brother.

  Natasha: Nathalie Nabokov.

  Mit’ka Rubinstein: Dmitry Lvovich Rubinstein (1876–1936), merchant, lawyer and patron of the arts.

  ‘To the Muse’ … : ‘K muze’, Rul’, 24 September 1929; ‘Vozdushnyi ostrov’, Rul’, 8 September 1929, and Stikhi; ‘Okno’, Nedelya, 5 May 1930, and Stikhi, translated as ‘The Muse’, PP, p. 57; ‘Budushchemu chitatelyu’, Rul’, 7 February 1930, and in Stikhi under the title ‘K nerodivshemusya chitatelyu’ (‘To the yet unborn reader’); ‘Pervaya lyubov’, Rossiya i slavyanstvo, 19 April 1930, and in Stikhi; probably ‘Sam treugol’nyi, dvukrylyi, beznogiy’, Poslednie novosti, 8 September 1932, and in Stikhi; ‘Vecher na pustyre’, published untitled, Poslednie novosti, 31 July 1932, and in Stikhi with a dedication to VN’s father, as also in VN’s translation, ‘Evening on a Vacant Lot’, PP, pp. 68–73.

  Mlle Novotvortsev: Otherwise unidentified.

  old Avgust: Kaminka.

  One lady I don’t yet know: Olga Nikolaevna Aschberg, wife of Olof Aschberg (1877–1960), a Swedish banker and leftist sympathizer whose banks helped the Bolshevik government in the 1920s. VN is obviously not yet aware of the origins of their wealth.

  Demidov’s wife: Ekaterina Yurievna Demidov (née Novosiltsev, 1884–1931), deceased wife of Igor Demidov, deputy editor of Poslednie novosti.

  Letter 1 of 18 November 1932

  Berskys: Unidentified.

  her castle: Not the Château du Bois du Rocher at Jouy-en-Josas, near Versailles, which Aschberg also owned.

  Grasse or Saurat: Towns in south-east and south-western France, respectively: Grasse (Alpes Maritimes), popular with Russian émigrés; Saurat (Ariège), where VN and VéN had spent time in 1929 – VN writing and collecting butterflies.

  Letter 2 of 18 November 1932

  The Eye: The collection Soglyadatay (The Eye), which, as eventually published (Paris: Russkie Zapiski, 1938), would consist of the novella ‘Soglyadatay’ and a number of short stories, some at this point not yet written: ‘Obida’ (‘A Bad Day’), ‘Lebeda’ (‘Orache’), ‘Terra Incognita’, ‘Vstrecha’ (‘The Reunion’), ‘Khvat’ (‘A Dashing Fellow’), ‘Zanyatoy chelovek’ (‘A Busy Man’), ‘Muzyka’ (‘Music’), ‘Pilgram’ (‘The Aurelian’), ‘Sovershenstvo’ (‘Perfection’), ‘Sluchay iz zhizni’ (‘A Slice of Life’), ‘Krasavitsa’ (‘A Russian Beauty’), ‘Opoveshchenie’ (‘Breaking the News’).

  Petropolis and Sovremennye zapiski: Sovremennye Zapiski as a publishing house (it published the book versions of Podvig in 1932 and Kamera obskura in 1933). In fact, only VN’s next novel, Otchayanie (Despair), would be published by Petropolis (Berlin: Petropolis, 1936). The collection Soglyadatay would not be published until 1938 by Russkie Zapiski (as a publishing house rather than a journal allied to Sovremennye zapiski).

  Chertok: Lev Chertok, bookseller and publisher; in 1921–8, one of the senior staff at the Berlin publishing company Grani; also worked at the publisher Dom Knigi in Paris.

  Sheremetev: Count Dmitry Aleksandrovich Sheremetev (1885–1963), mason from 1922, member of the ‘Astrea’ lodge, founder of the ‘Golden Fleece’ lodge, and master of the ‘Northern Lights’ lodge.

  Obolensky: Prince Vladimir Andreevich Obolensky (1869–1950), politician, member of the Central Committee of the Constitutional Democratic party in 1913–16, and member of the Supreme Council of Russian Masons.

  Dastakiyan: Savely Kyandzhuntsev’s business partner, otherwise unidentified.

  Sonja Henie: Norwegian world champion ice-skater, later a Hollywood movie star (1912–69).

  Dostoevsky: Dostoevsky’s head was famously turned by the fulsome praise for his first novel, Bednye lyudi (Poor Folk, 1846)

  review in Poslednie novosti … by Adamovich: Unsigned, ‘Vecher V. V. Sirina’ (‘V.V. Sirin Evening’), Poslednie novosti, 17 November 1932, p. 3.

  Mandelstam’s: M., ‘Vecher V. V. Sirina’ (‘V.V. Sirin Evening’), Vozrozhdenie, 17 November 1932, p. 4.

  Letter of 21 November 1932

  our stay … in Le Boulou and Saurat: In 1929. See VN, ‘Notes on the Lepidoptera of the Pyrénées Orientales and the Ariège’, Entomologist, 64 (November 1931), pp. 255–7; reprinted in N’s Bs, pp. 126–34, and VNRY, pp. 288–90.

  the first chapter of Despair to Poslednie novosti: ‘Otchayanie’, Poslednie novosti, 31 December 1932, pp. 2–3.

  a story: Apparently ‘Admiralteyskaya igla’ (‘The Admiralty Spire’), Poslednie novosti, 4 June 1933, p. 3, and 5 June 1933, p. 2.

  Her husband … dead: Incorrect: Olof Aschberg did not die until 1960.

  uncle Vasya’s: Vasily Rukavishnikov.

  excerpt from Luzhin: From the French translation of The Defence, La Course du fou. Unlocated and perhaps not published.

  Mme Struve: Antonina (Nina) Aleksandrovna Struve (née Heard, 1868–1943).

  Natasha: Nathalie Nabokov.

  Sergey: Nabokov, VN’s brother.

  Letter of 22 November 1932

  the Kuprins: Aleksandr Kuprin and his wife, Elizaveta Moritsovna Kuprin (née Heinrich, 1882–1942).

  600 francs for Glory: From the sales of the edition of Podvig (Glory) published by the Sovremennye Zapiski publishing house on 6 November 1932.

  Slonim translation office: The Agency for Placing Foreign Translations of Books by Russian Writers (‘European Literary Bureau’).

  Volkonskys: Possibly at the home of Irina Volkonsky (née Rachmaninov).

  petits jeux: Fr. ‘parlour games’.

  Sonya: Sofia Slonim, VéN’s sister.

  Letter of 25 November 1932

  Feux croisés: A lecture in the series (‘Crossfire’) organized by Gabriel Marcel, in association with the international literary book series of the same name that he directed for the Paris publisher Plon. See letters of 5 February and 4 March 1937.

  Yu. Yu.: Yulia Yulievna Struve.

  Aleksey Petrovich: Aleksey Petrovich Struve (1899–1976), bibliographer, antiquarian, brother of Gleb Struve; his wife was born Ekaterina Andreevna Catoire (1896–1978).

  Kisa: Ksenia Aleksandrovna Kuprin, stage-name Kissa Kouprine (1908–81), actress and painter; she would return to the USSR in 1958, where she helped organize the Kuprin Museum in Narovchat.

  1936

  Postcard postmarked 22 January 1936

  Zina: Zinaida Shakhovskoy.

  our puppy: Their son, Dmitri Vladimirovich Nabokov (1934–2012).

  Letter of c. 24 January 1936

  Date: No envelope; VéN has added later ‘ca. 20–I–36’, but this must follow the preceding letter.

&nb
sp; they ‘honoured’: At the Belgian Pen Club (Brussels) reading mentioned in the previous letter.

  Elli: A nanny for DN, apparently, and pregnant (see letter of 21 February 1936).

  P. de Reul: Paul De Reul (1871–1945), professor of English at the University of Brussels, literary historian and critic.

  book about Swinburne: L’Œuvre de Swinburne (Brussels: R. Sand, 1922).

  Magda: VN’s friend Magda Nakhman-Acharya.

  René Meurant: René Meurant (1905–77), poet and translator.

  Charles Plisnier: Charles Plisnier (1896–1952), Marxist Belgian writer.

  Paul Fierens: Paul Fierens (1895–1957), art historian and critic, professor at Liège University, poet. In 1945, he would become Curator-in-Chief of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts (Musée Royal des Beaux-Arts) in Brussels.

  art critic: VN drew a two-pointed arrow, connecting ‘Paul Fierens’ to ‘critic’.

  Franz Hellens: The Belgian novelist, poet and critic, whom VN was to have met but did not, in Paris in 1932.

  Zack: Léon (Lev Vasilievich) Zack, pen-names Chrysanth, M. Rossyansky (1892–1980), artist and poet.

  Mme Roland: Manon (Marie-Jeanne Phlippon) Roland (1754–93) and her husband, Jean-Marie Roland de la Platière, supported the French Revolution as Girondists. She was executed during the Reign of Terror.

  ‘Liberté, quelles crimes …’: Madame Roland is famous for crying, as she stepped up to the guillotine, ‘O Liberté, que de crimes on commet en ton nom!’ (‘Oh Liberty, how many crimes are committed in your name!’).

  Brisson: Jacques (Jean) Pierre Brissot (1754–93), a leading Girondist.

  Prof. Frank: Semyon Lyudvigovich Frank (1877–1950), philosopher, theologian and psychologist. After Frank’s father died, his mother married Vasily I. Zack, by whom she had Lev.

  ‘il a cinq ans …’: Fr. ‘He’s five – or more?’ In fact DN was only twenty months old.

  Bois: Fr. ‘wood’.

  ‘Mlle O.’: ‘Mademoiselle O’, VN’s memoir about his French governess, his first narrative written entirely in French, Mesures, 2:2, 15 April 1936, pp. 145–72, trans. VN with Hilda Ward, Atlantic Monthly, January 1943), and revised as Ch. 5 of Conclusive Evidence (New York: Harper & Bros, 1951) / Speak, Memory (London: Victor Gollancz, 1951).