Jacob's Ladder

by Ludmila Ulitskaya

  But people don’t hang themselves, so that must mean that there is sense in our day-to-day matters. So you ought not to think about death.

  These thoughts seemed so resonant, so well constructed in my mind, but when I put them down on paper they sound naïve and half formed, simply childish. But I know what I want to say. A person has died—so, right away, everyone should just forget about that person. I once said that when I am on my deathbed I will tear up all my photographs, my papers, and I’ll ask my children not to talk about me. I’ll forbid them to wear mourning garments.

  We must hasten and push forward the processes that time sets in motion anyway.

  In general, the entire past, everything you can’t bring back, is terrible and oppressive. Life rushes by at an extraordinary pace.

  “Life is but a moment.” This is why we can’t allow memories to poison the present, the only thing that has meaning. What could be more fleeting than time?

  NOVEMBER 8

  There are times when I positively can’t stand my parents. It usually happens when I talk seriously to them. When I don’t see them for a while, I start to miss them. Once, I was telling an acquaintance about my father, and I talked so much that I almost started weeping; I was choked with tears. But now it’s even unpleasant to me that I have to have dinner with them. We are complete strangers, yet I am for some reason dependent on him for my survival. When we have to go somewhere together (which I try always to avoid), I begin to jabber and to spew all kinds of nonsense so as not to say nothing at all. He takes no interest in me whatsoever; he doesn’t respect me, or my convictions and habits, at all. Yet he loves me all the same, most likely. A strange kind of love!

  I feel that I get angry and annoyed with them, for the most part because of trivial things. A lot of the time, my only fault is that I tell them things I shouldn’t; I goad them into discussions that don’t convince them. Now I find I talk to them less and less.

  I sometimes love Mama, but I don’t respect her at all. It’s terrible, in fact. Like strangers coming together and nagging at each other, spoiling one another’s lives, and all the time living at someone else’s expense. And Papa works like an ox. But from the outside it looks like life as “a happy family.” The worst thing of all is that I’m starting to feel that, sooner or later, I’ll end up with the same sort of life, the same sort of family.

  No, it’s not true, that can’t happen to me! I firmly believe this.

  NOVEMBER 9

  Rodenbach. Bruges-la-morte. Art that feeds on death, rooted in death. It’s horrible. I shouldn’t think about it.

  Two years ago, Grandfather died. His death didn’t affect me in the least.

  Recently, I was holding little Rayechka on my knee. She’s weak, sickly; her pale, pretty face is sensitive and thoughtful. I thought about her dying. It seemed to me that I was walking through the room, holding the dying Rayechka in my arms. Suddenly I understood that moment when you press a cold little corpse to your chest and you feel an overwhelming powerlessness to stop the life that is ebbing away.

  As I write this, I get a lump in my throat, just remembering … Rayechka is in the other room now, singing a little song about a mosquito.

  The best thing would be to yank out the whole place in your heart that belongs to the dying, to cross it out of your memory, to forget about love. To forget!… Impossibly difficult; but necessary!

  On the other hand, why should a person force his feelings? Time itself will smooth out all the bumps and wrinkles of experience. A person wants to weep, to grieve, to complain about the unjustness of fate. Wants to give himself over to memory, like he wants to dream about tomorrow …

  Something in my soul is restless. I have a vague feeling of oppressiveness, that something has to happen …

  And in Astapovo, Tolstoy is lying peacefully, washed and dressed in a clean shirt. His face is full of peace, absolute peace.

  Probably solemn, as well. Listening to the babble of the whole world around him.

  NOVEMBER 10

  In church. A funeral service. Thoughts about religion visit me these days, and about glory and fame—fame, in particular. Reason suggests its uselessness, but with my emotions I passionately, intensely desire fame. Fame, the most paltry of all things, devoid of all inner meaning. Andrei Bolkonsky—that is, Tolstoy—pondered this. The vanity and insignificance of “human love.” But I want people to shout my name at the crossroads; I want them to praise me, to admire and adore me.

  I know very well that if I achieved this, I would soon be disillusioned. All famous people attest to this. Tolstoy, Artsybashev, Chekhov, etc. I know that fame is about external trappings, but inner emptiness. It is accompanied by deprivation, unpleasantness, and bitterness, in particular the hardship of a lack of solitude, constant company. And I know that fame is nothing before the largest thing in life—death (as Artsybashev put it). He spoke so warmly and eloquently about the poet Bashkin: “Before the dying face, before the chest growing ever stiller, the last spasmodic breaths—how paltry, how trivial my own fame seemed, my name, my literary merits.”

  My reason accepts all of this, but my heart wants to see “J. Ossetsky” printed in bold letters above an article in the newspaper. It’s trivial and pathetic, but I still want it.

  Evening of the same day. Study some music theory.

  I ride in the trolley, standing on the back platform, staring out at the road.

  Evening. The trolley races along, and the tracks, gleaming and spinning swiftly away, lay themselves down neatly in two strips. This is a moment I recall very vividly.

  It was then that I felt especially urgently the rush of time, the leap of seconds …

  Just now, you were on that particular spot—you look back, and it’s several feet, several blocks, finally several versts behind you.

  What a chatterbox I am! If there’s someone to listen to me, I’ll talk till the cows come home, only to regret it later. Why should I tell everyone how I dream of a career as a conductor?

  Tolstoy says … Oh, apropos of Tolstoy: today the newspapers are reporting on the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Pirogov. And about Tolstoy, there were only two articles. Tomorrow there will be just one, and the day after tomorrow, just a chronological note—and on the first page of the news there will be a piece on the anniversary celebration of the Kiev railroad stationmaster.

  Yes, this is how it will, and should, be. Time smooths out all memories and ushers in new events.

  Newspaper articles bring this into sharp focus.

  It’s a bit sad …

  NOVEMBER 20

  I think that Osip Dymov describes dreams better than anyone. He knows how to talk about that elusiveness, and that feeling you have in the morning in bed when you feel sad after a dream you’ve already forgotten.

  Sometimes after you’ve just woken up, there’s an inkling of something you can’t quite recall, something you dreamed about.

  I’m studying German now. I finished reading a story and leaned back in my chair, realizing that I just finished the lesson. A pleasant sensation … a light dream … I wake up and remember that it had several different scenes, with different characters, different events, but I remember only one scene, in the lobby of a theater, a woman is unbuttoning several buttons on her bodice …

  I don’t remember any of the rest—no details, not a single word, nothing in specific …

  I remember only that it was very pleasant … I found a description of gymnastic exercises for two-year-old children: throw a few pillows on the floor and force the children to roll around on them. The children will expend a great deal of effort trying to get off of them. I have to play this game with Rayechka. I think she’ll like it. It’s movement as an educational approach. Movement is a natural part of learning, but this exercise develops the capacity.

  NOVEMBER 22

  Recently, I’ve been very productive. Like never before. I’m now studying many subjects and doing well in almost all of them. A month from now (it’s No
vember), I will take three exams at the Commercial Institute: statistics, political economy, and the history of political economy. I already know the statistics; I’m studying now for polit. econ. I study German for one hour every day, and am making great progress. Every day, I play for about three hours. Twice a week, I attend music lessons (two hours each time), and twice a week, lessons in music theory. The only thing I don’t get to do is read every day.

  … Things are actually very fine at the moment … so fine it almost feels strange—I don’t know what else I might need.

  I have everything I need, I’m studying what I want to study … except for the lack of someone who would be as happy about everything as I am myself. That’s true enough. Right now I don’t have a real friend (age, ethnicity, “sex” are immaterial).

  DECEMBER 1

  I’ve just come home from the theater, from Khovanshchina. I came home and wanted to write … I listened to the first act with great attention; I nearly always listen closely to the first acts in performances. I paid attention to the unfolding of the plot, to the different performers, and especially to the orchestra, the conductor.

  It seems to me that the Russian style in music is monotonous and wearisome. But Glinka is unsurpassed. Even Rimsky-Korsakov, who has written heaps of Russian opera, called himself a “Glinka-ist.” Still, Khovanshchina is quite middle-of-the-road … though there are a lot of dramatic episodes in it. The music is always calm and unhurried, even monotonous … One wants to hear some outburst of energy, some tragic passion, but that is lacking.

  During the intermission, I noticed a young girl. She was sitting near me. I liked her very much. I couldn’t concentrate on the last act; I was thinking about her. I felt sad that I liked her so much, and that she didn’t even know, that I would never see her again, and—this was the worst thing—that I would soon forget what she looked like. I stared at her, trying to memorize her face. In the middle of the act, she started coughing uncontrollably. This alarmed me. I had already suspected she might have weak lungs. I became very sad. She had such a nice face, even beautiful. She wore a blouse with a large white collar, and a blue tie. It suited her very well. There were two disgusting students with her.

  When I try to resurrect the image, I see that it’s already very pale and blurry, and will soon fade away altogether.

  On the way home, I felt angry with myself. I remember dozens of faces I see in passing, on the street, on the trolley, but I am already forgetting this particular sweet face.

  Just now I started dreaming: I’m walking down the street, and I run into her. She is alone (definitely alone). I go up to her and introduce myself; then we go together to the theater … I just imagined what I would say to her at that moment …

  If I see her on the street … I’ll immediately recall her face and remember it for a long time. If only I could run into her.

  I sat down to write about something else, and saw the last line I had written: “If only I could run into her.” The thought already seemed stale and old. Today I’ve only thought once about that young lady, in the morning. That was the only time.

  Recently, I’ve started being aware, truly aware, of my own happiness. Truly, I have everything I need. I have music, my studies, a clean room, a new suit, a good coat to wear, Beethoven’s sonatas … What else do I need?

  If someone were to give me twenty rubles right now, I wouldn’t know what to do with it. Of course, I could spend it: I’d buy sheet music (which I can’t play), I’d buy a harmonium, or something. I could “make an effort” to spend it. But I have no strong urge, no strong desire—just small desires, bordering on vulgarity (and I have money—enough to go to the theater, at least).

  I’m sitting in my room now, studying German.

  I brought a cup of tea into the room for myself. When I drink tea, I am enveloped by a feeling of peace, comfort, and … domesticity.

  The nickel-plated lamp reflects a small figure drinking tea. And it seems to me that, from somewhere up above, I’m watching the miniature person, J. Ossetsky, watching his life. He’s as tiny as can be.

  Quiet … Calm …

  DECEMBER 5

  I read some of Chekhov’s stories. He writes a great deal about women. And for the most part, it seems, pejoratively. Like someone who had suffered a great deal at the hands of women might write. I have to think more about this. “Anna on the Neck”! How Anna, sensing her power, drives Modest Alexeyevich away: “Be off, you blockhead!” It just takes your breath away. In a split second, such a reversal of character! And how she rides down the street, and her drunken father, her brothers, are described with such sympathy, but she drives right on past … “Slime” is especially horrible. What a terrifying woman. As though he is taking revenge for the fact that he himself can’t refuse her! And with a touch of anti-Semitism, too. But after Tolstoy, Chekhov is our greatest writer! There is something here I don’t understand—as though all the charm of a woman, her elegant hands, her white neck, and the curls that escape from her hairdo, are created just to awaken the basest instincts in a man. But this is not at all the case!

  * * *

  Strauss’s Sonata for Violin and Piano.

  The muted violin, the piano passages, pianissimo.

  Very pretty! Lately, because of my busy days, I’ve almost stopped dreaming. And it’s for the best! Good riddance! I think only about the most useful way to spend the day, about music lessons, about German.

  They finished the second movement—“improvisation.”

  Now for the finale.

  My most distant dreams reach only to the end of this summer, which I’m hoping to spend productively.

  The last few days have been frustrating in terms of my music. Quartet in E-flat minor.

  I read about Brahms. He died in 1897. That means that I was already seven years old when he died.

  * * *

  On symmetry:

  There is no symmetry in nature. Nature is neither symmetrical nor asymmetrical. Nature transcends it.

  Symmetry is found only where there is a human being who notices it. Only a human being notices such a phenomenon in nature: two halves that seem to resemble each other.

  Aesthetics don’t exist in nature, either. Physics, chemistry, especially mechanical physics, do exist, but aesthetics (and several other disciplines) do not. Nature has no classification, nothing significant or insignificant. All this is created by the human being.

  DECEMBER 19

  I’m sad … I’m also sad because I will now write about ordinary sensations in ordinary words.

  I just finished a book by Dymov, the saddest, the tenderest poet I’ve ever read. Even more tender than Chekhov. Why am I so sad?

  I listen to music—I feel sad because I can’t play that way, because I can’t even play my own pieces as well as I’d like …

  I look at people who are strong, and people who are beautiful, and again my heart protests: why?

  While I write this, I’m remembering Dymov’s story “Evening Letters.”

  UNDATED (LAST ENTRY OF THE NOTEBOOK)

  Perhaps it is precisely art that must proclaim what is unsubstantiated, groundless.

  There are no criteria, there is no theory of art. There is just an artist; there is no history of art, but a catalogue of paintings.

  Every person takes what he likes from art. There is no objectivity, only subjectivity.

  The art of Isadora Duncan.

  One can manage to capture the basic characteristics of modern art, but to delineate a theory that fits all epochs and media is completely impossible.

  Tannhäuser (all of Wagner).

    1. An artist’s creative output depends on his personality, his epoch, and his milieu. And the artist does not mimic his milieu, but creates an ideal version of it.

    2. The lack of criteria in art. However hard this may be for artists, and particularly critics, and the public.

    3. The character of modern creativity: longing for might, the urge to power. Rod
in, Vrubel, Wagner, Bryusov, Böcklin, Roerich.

    4. The reflection of Art Nouveau in architecture.

    5. The methods and technical means available to modern art.

    6. Modern art as a whole does not reflect what I have just described. It is only the outlines of these tendencies that are visible.

    7. The urge in modern art toward archaism, toward the Renaissance. Roerich, Somov, Benois, Borisov-Musatov.

    8. The inadequacies of this urge.

    9. Art must be contemporary. We must remember that history will understand the incomprehensible.

  10. The weak reflection of modernity in our art.

  11. The weak dissemination of art in its applied forms.

  Artists don’t like to serve industry. But this is the truest path. The Old Masters.

  In The Queen of Spades, at the moment when the old countess appears, there is a spectrum of whole tones in the orchestra.

  Faust

  6 petits préludes pour les commençants

  12 petits préludes

  ou exercices pour les commençants

  Vrubel, Botticelli

  Rodin, Böcklin, Beardsley

  Riehl, Baumbach

  Dominant chord (fifth, sixth, third, fourth)

  Read:

  Taine, Readings on art

  Jean-Marie Guyau, Art from A Sociological Perspective

  Lessing, Laocoön

  Lieber, The History of Western Literature

  Yudin, Art in the Family

  Vasnetsov. Art

  Andrei Bely, Vyach. Ivanov, The Book on the New Theater

  Wilde

  Hanslick, On the Beautiful in Music

  Woermann, The History of Art from Ancient Times

  R. Muther, The History of Modern Painting

  Gnedich, History of Art

  The New Journal for Everyone (1902)

  Chekhov, “Betrothed”