Jacob's Ladder

by Ludmila Ulitskaya

  Her mother called her to dinner. Marusya refused to budge. Her father, wiping the metal dust off his hands with a clean rag, called her, too, but she shook her head. Just looking at the chicken soup brought on nausea. The smell alone, which wafted in from the back room, made her feel sick.

  “Fine, just stay here, then. If someone stops in, call me.” Her father sat in the shop nearly without a break, afraid to miss a customer.

  As soon as her father left, the bell over the door tinkled. Marusya put her journal down on the pile of books that had amassed around the armchair over the past week and opened the door. A woman in a heavy wool coat trimmed with velvet stripes entered. She wore an elegant hat that looked like a cylinder with wings, something that wasn’t worn in Kiev, or in any other city as far as Marusya knew. Marusya let the woman in and invited her to sit down and wait for a moment so she could call her father.

  While Marusya was gone and her father was washing his hands, the lady examined the pile of books lying on the floor next to the chair. She wasn’t interested in The New Journal for Everyone; but the cover of another book caught her eye. Was it possible that this frail young girl was reading, in French, the recently published book by the fashionable author Romain Rolland, La Vie de Beethoven?

  The woman directed this question to the aging watchmaker, who appeared a few minutes later.

  “That is my daughter, a book lover.”

  The clock the woman had brought in for repair was of course that round gold Omega, one of the first models, so familiar to the watchmaker. They struck up a conversation. Madame Leroux turned out to be Swiss herself. Her parents were from the Upper Jura. Like Pinchas, she had left her native parts long ago; but just the mention of the names of rivers and valleys gave them both pleasure. During their lively conversation, the watchmaker opened the back panel of the clock and, placing a round piece of glass in a frame made of bone on his eye, like a monocle, extracted a trifling screw with his tweezers. Then he rummaged through his desk drawer and found one just like it. The watch face was missing a single tiny stone. Pinchas asked what color the stone had been.

  “It was red,” the woman said. “They’re all red.”

  Pinchas nodded. He’d have to order the stone from Switzerland; he didn’t have a supply of ruby splinters on hand.

  The book lover who had shunned chicken soup glided into the workroom like a silent shadow. The visitor, losing all interest in her clock, turned to the young lady.

  “Do you read French? Do you like the book?” she asked in French.

  “Yes, very much.”

  “Do you like Beethoven?”

  Marusya nodded.

  From this moment began that new life Marusya had been longing for. After conversing with her for ten minutes, Madame Leroux, secretary of the local Froebel Society, director of a public kindergarten under the society’s guidance, invited her to visit their exclusive organization. In January, a week after her birthday, Maria (Marusya) Kerns started her first job—as an assistant teacher in a recently opened school for children of poor parents and domestic workers. In the autumn of the same year, she entered the newly opened Froebel Courses at Kiev University. She became a Froebel Miss, a “children’s gardener,” as they were called.

  3

  From the Willow Chest

  The Diary of Jacob Ossetsky

  (1910)

  JANUARY 6

  I was sick for more than a week, sicker than I’ve ever been in my life. For several days it felt like it was all a dream. Suddenly Mama would show up with a cup of tea, and Dr. Vladimirsky and some others I didn’t recognize, some of them very nice. But always, in back of them, was someone very dangerous, even terrifying. I can’t describe it; even recalling it is unpleasant. From time to time, I felt like I was in some sort of dark, flat space, and I realized I had died. I feel that if I don’t write this down it will all evaporate, disappear into oblivion. But there was something enormously important there—about my life in the very distant future. I envy writers; I just can’t find the words.

  JANUARY 10

  I’ve started reading again. Voraciously. I was starving for books the whole time I was sick. Now I’m reading the biologists. I’ve read all the Darwin that Yura brought over for me.

  (Karl Snyder, Picture of the World in Light of the Natural Sciences.

  Troels-Lund, Cosmology and Worldview.)

  Thoughts on Darwinism: The theory of the evolution of organic life suggests to me a kind of fundamental axis, surrounded by myriad bifurcated branches. Representatives of the existing animal world are arranged around the tips of the branches. We don’t know all of them from the central axis, since the transitional species don’t live long. Having fulfilled their purpose (so to speak)—i.e., having served as a phase toward another species—they disappear.

  The most intriguing problem is to place the human being in this scheme. Is he just a transitional step on the way to something else (for example, Nietzsche’s Übermensch), or does he occupy a place on the tip of the branch, which would account for his relative youth as a species?

  Just now an answer to this problem has occurred to me. If we breed some animal that reproduces very quickly—for example, one of the lower organisms or protozoa, or bacteria—then, after a time, we may have hundreds of generations, and according to the law of evolution, the last ones may differ radically from the first. Observing how many generations must pass to produce a distinction, knowing how much time is necessary for one generation to become extinct and succeed in passing on its life to another, we might deduce the relationship between the origins of life and the stage when distinctions will emerge.

  This relationship may be applied to humans, to discover when such distinctions could have emerged, or might do so in the future, thus making it possible to determine a person’s place in the taxonomy of existing and previously existing species.

  This little theory of mine follows from the fact that I presuppose a direct correlation between the age of the human species and the culmination of a phase after which he can pass on life to something else.

  Now, having written this, I am already questioning it. Even as I was writing the last page, I already knew that when I finished the “theory” I would have to refute it. Darwin proved only the law of evolution of organic life, attaching to it an explanation: natural selection. Darwin stopped short of including humans in this process. It was Thomas Huxley who did that, acknowledging that the closest relative of the human being is the ape.

  As a matter of fact, this isn’t true. Darwin often repeats: “The origin of humans from some species of lower animal is irrefutable. The monkey evolved from the same ancestor.”

  The biogenetic law of Ernst Haeckel states that the “ontogeny, or the growth of the embryo, schematically recapitulates phylogeny, or the history of development of the species.”

  Asexual reproduction, or parthenogenesis, or reproduction without participation of males and their spermatozoa, is widespread in nature (drones, for example).

  If the spermatozoa could be artificially emulated, their role, most likely, would come down to a shove, a push, given to the female egg. Both artificial coercion and chemical manipulation work in this way.

  On the other hand, we also know of several cases of so-called merogony, or the independent development and reproduction of the spermatozoid. Thus, the process of fertilization turns out to be only one of the ways nature achieves the goal of reproduction, including in higher animals. If I didn’t want to study music, I would study biology. It’s the most fascinating branch of science I’ve read for a long time.

  But music is more important to me!

  JANUARY 15

  By now, I’ve already started to love my journal and the pleasure of writing.

  I’m already finishing my first volume of the Complete Works of J. Ossetsky.

  I’ll begin the second volume with even greater enthusiasm than the first.

  It’s quiet around me …

  I opened the window a cra
ck—the sparrows are chittering away, and my heart feels calm, a bit sad—I have a feeling of satisfaction after making notes in my journal. And, somehow, sadness about the unknown future …

  Today I went outside for the first time since my recovery.

  FEBRUARY 1

  How weak man is! I have, it would seem, principles, my own worldview, and some notion of freedom, and of sexual morality. But it only takes a single glance at the décolleté of a washerwoman and I feel a rush of blood to my heart (yes, my heart), I can’t see or think straight, and something draws me to her …

  When she disappears, I am well again, except that my hands tremble slightly. It is outrageous that I can’t keep myself under control. I’m sure that a woman would just have to wink at me and I’d run after her like a puppy; I’d forget Ellen Key, and Tolstoy, and Jules Payot.

  What contrasts! After this, I sit and read Ellen Key. To fortify my nature—most likely that same nature that tomorrow will start chasing after a washerwoman.

  FEBRUARY 15

  Today I decided to speak to Papa about my further studies. I’ll graduate from the Commercial High School in the spring, and want to study music. I was too impassioned about it last time; I understand that now. Papa listened to me with complete indifference, as though he had made up his mind long before, and it was final. He said I had to enter the Commercial Institute, and agreed to pay for my further musical studies only if I enrolled in the university. This conversation was very unpleasant to me. Precisely because of the money. Whatever he talks about, it all comes down to materialism, to money.

  APRIL 7

  I read The Chronicle of My Musical Life by Rimsky-Korsakov. It made a strong impression. Now I desperately want to perform with real talent, to go to Petersburg to be around talented people. I want to be a talent myself. While I was reading, I started believing I could embark on that path. Maybe in five or six years I’ll laugh at these dreams of mine …

  APRIL 11

  Music lessons. A new teacher, Mr. Bylinkin. It feels as though I didn’t know anything before. It’s ANOTHER kind of music altogether! I began to hear it completely afresh. Up until now I’ve been playing all WRONG!

  APRIL 19

  Beardsley has an illustration for Chopin’s Ballade (op. 47).

  APRIL 20

  Today I discovered something that I have already managed to disprove.

  Because of how a piano is tempered, the same notes in the higher and lower registers are not in unison. Thus, for the C in the contra-octave, C-sharp will be in unison in the four-line octave, not C. Just now I hit upon the following idea: continuous C octaves played in the contra-octave.

  On top of it, a short melodic pattern played around the C in the four-line octave—a consonantly sounding chord. Then the pattern—without change—moves downward toward the three-, two-, one-line octaves. Then it continues down to the small, great, and finally the contra-octave.

  The small error grows, and in the contra-octave already turns into dissonance.

  One might call it “the gradual transition of consonance into dissonance.” Very interesting idea!

  You can actually do all kinds of “tricks” with piano temperament.

  APRIL 24

  I could never live alone. I love company. Only in company do I feel alive, happy, witty.

  I cannot imagine myself without society around me. I dream about a group of people, a society, where I am at the very center.

  In my heart of hearts, I dream of being raised up on a stage, to the people’s cries and applause. All around there are frock coats, ribbons, bare shoulders … seas of flowers … But without society?

  “Gentlemen, you cannot imagine how hard it is when a man has nowhere to go. A man needs to have someplace to go to.” Even Dostoevsky, the gloomiest, darkest of writers, speaks about the pain of loneliness, through the words of Marmeladov. Even such a giant among men as Dostoevsky feared the horror of loneliness!

  I become afraid. The picture of a man sitting alone in a dark room—this is what fills me with fear. Now I’m writing in a comfortable room after my lessons. I’m thinking about how I’m going to visit some girl students from the women’s college. My heart warms at the thought. Yet someone else might be sitting in a room, alone with his thoughts …

  I’d like to go to him, to take him gently by the arm and lead him into society, to make him start talking. I would tell him how he makes his own life difficult and absurd … but I have no skill, no dexterity, no strength to accomplish this …

  MAY 11

  Why don’t they write études, exercises, for the orchestra? It is especially necessary for “melding” all the sounds to form a particular “orchestral” tone.

  Ilya just proposed that I join his circle and present a piece on art. I still don’t know whether I’ll accept the invitation, but I am considering it. I have a very interesting idea for such a piece: “Description of the Contemporary Musical Moment.” It seems to me that what characterizes the current moment is a longing for strength, for power … And, when it comes right down to it, not only in music …

  JUNE 19

  Listening to Glière’s quartet. In a sense, there is a parallel between newer trends in visual art—pointillism, impressionism—and modern music. In painting, there is haziness, lyricism, and, the main thing, something ineffable, a lightness. A picture covered in points and strokes seems to be covered with a light veil of air. In music, there is polyphony, complexity, also an indistinct lyricism, as well as that same elusiveness.

  It is, naturally, a good thing that these parallels exist.

  This means there is an idea, a theoretical basis, common to all art forms.

  Now I want to write, to write a great deal.

  They are playing vivace, the third movement …

  They finished the scherzo, a small, elegant part.

  But, altogether, it’s complex. I like this composer, Glière.

  He creates a heady mixture of the Russian style with modernism.

  The Russian melody alternates with its striking absence.

  The fourth movement begins with an Oriental theme.

  This quartet develops in the most complex possible way.

  A decadent treatment in the Eastern theme, on the violin.

  Here is something strange. Some sort of new, sinister touch or flavor.

  And again the Russian melody.

  AUGUST 4

  “Where words fall short, music begins. Impotent in conveying an act of will, music can, with deep intensity, reveal the inner state of a human being, expressing pure emotion.”

  AUGUST 20

  I haven’t written in over two weeks. Many things have come to pass. I started the Commercial Institute, and, most important, the music conservatory! My dream came true! I managed to do it.

  I’ve got so many plans for this year—they would fill an abyss!

  I’ll study music very hard. At Christmas there will be five exams to pass, and in May another four. I’ll also take some classes in German. I’ll be at the university for four whole years. Everything I need for “real life,” with a residence permit. After that, it’s goodbye to music, and pedagogy, and to travel … All I’ll have to look forward to is working as a lousy bank clerk—with an annual bonus. Little by little, you plod away, until you realize it’s too late to quit your post … If I give up music as well, I’ll die. There are times when I live completely in dreams, when I retreat from everyday reality altogether. There is a great deal of Rudin and Peer Gynt in me …

  I’m afraid that, through my own weakness, I’ll never realize a hundredth part of my dreams.

  NOVEMBER 5

  A terrible day. Tolstoy has died. I’m now completely calm, and I even feel comforted to recall how, half an hour ago, I was standing in the darkened entrance hall, sobbing into my handkerchief, and terrified that someone would notice me. After the tears, my heart was less heavy. Truly, one pours out grief through tears.

  They’re selling little pamphlets on the stree
ts. My chest constricted; somehow I felt scared, and I walked past the people reading the pamphlets with a sinking heart. The rain pours down, slow, stupefying, inexorable.

  In the window of a store was a large portrait of Tolstoy, and a little piece of cardboard next to it: “Died November 4, 1910.”

  I came home. Shall I tell them? No, I won’t.

  Whenever you get a piece of news, your first thought is: I have to hurry and tell others! But I won’t say anything at home.

  Even though the world, the whole world, is grieving, I’m constantly thinking of myself. I heed my own thoughts, sympathize with my own grief, think about the sad expression on my face.

  In Odessa, Genrikh is probably crying, too. Lying in bed, crying. My closest friend, my elder brother. It’s a pity that he’s not here with me.

  I’m standing by the table, and the rain is pouring down. I can’t hold it back: “Mama, Tolstoy is dead.” I couldn’t stop myself from crying, and I ran out into the dining room, into the front hall, and cried my heart out … But they understand nothing.

  I wonder to myself: Is this a general law of some sort? Or is it our personal family tragedy? Why can’t my parents—good, loving people—understand how we live, what we live by? Why do they understand neither my feelings nor my ideas? Will I really be the same way when I grow up? And will my children look at me with indignation and think: “Father is so good and loving, but I have nothing to talk to him about. He’s buried in his own concerns, his own world, boring and dull”? No, that can’t happen to me! I have given my word that I’ll try to understand my children’s lives, even share a common life with them. But I still don’t know—is it even possible?

  NOVEMBER 5

  Tolstoy isn’t dead! He’s alive! A message was sent to the whole world by telegraph that he had died, but it turns out the message was false!

  NOVEMBER 7

  Yes, Tolstoy has died; only it happened today, November 7, at 6:00 a.m. I (again, I!) received the information with absolute calm. My grief was already spent beforehand …

  At one time, I said the following: Death is such a terrible thing that it’s best not to think about it at all. Someone who thinks constantly about death will probably see no meaning in life, not just in the larger sense of life, but in the sense of our small, day-to-day matters. A person like that might as well go hang himself.