Jacob's Ladder

by Ludmila Ulitskaya

  There, now! Try to do the same, Marusya. And your attire! You must deck yourself out, Marusya. Unkempt, unclean clothing has a dispiriting effect, which we’re sometimes not even aware of. And don’t skimp on money.

  I kiss you—everything, everywhere. I kiss your knees (on the sides, and in back, where it tickles).

  NOVEMBER 22

  My dearest, has Papa already told you everything he could about me? I was so happy to see him. In the first moments when he came to the cinema to see me, I turned around and tried to recollect this familiar face. I stared at him for several long seconds. I only recognized him when I had reviewed everything in my thoughts—who he was, how he could have appeared at this moment, and why he might have come. We very soon finished sharing the most urgent matters with each other, and switched to exchanging random information. The conversation became somewhat stilted after that.

  I was so glad he visited, and had to fight back the tears when we were parting the next evening in front of his hotel. We embraced heartily, started to walk away, then turned back for another hug. I felt his soft mustache against my face, and that in particular made me want to cry. My throat was tight the whole way home.

  I inquired about everything, but I somehow couldn’t formulate any sensible questions about you.

  “So—is Marusya cheerful, does she laugh?”

  “Yes, yes…”

  “And … does she look pretty in her new hat?”

  “Yes, very pretty.”

  Papa talked about Genrikh with such affection and sweetness. Always resorting to the same words and expressions, he tried to describe how he plays and has fun, how he walks, how Genrikh recognizes him already, how he’s afraid of the bath … He only betrayed the depth of his sadness and loss one time, when he said, “Your Genrikh will be just like mine.” These were the first words about his son I have heard him utter since Genrikh died. I thought Papa was a dry, sober-minded man. In fact, he’s just not used to sharing his feelings with other people. But you and I convey every little thing to each other. About you he said, “I wouldn’t advise Marusya to take on a second (morning) lesson; it will exhaust her.”

  On occasion, your letters make me especially proud and happy—when you tell me how well your teaching is going, about your self-control and endurance. There’s no better feeling for me than knowing that you respect yourself. It seemed like your lot in life that although most of the people around you hold you in high esteem, you constantly underestimate yourself. Apparently, you are outgrowing this moral malady. I congratulate you and am glad for you.

  I think nonstop about you and your visit. These are my feelings about it: I can’t endure being apart from you until May. I await your arrival, not for Christmas, but before the holidays. I no longer have any shame. I think only about my love for you, endlessly, over and over again.

  I love you, Marusya. Even when I turn fifty, I will love you just as deeply as I do now. I have thought about how, for loving spouses, love is limitless. Until the very end of their conjugal life, their shared path, their spiritual and emotional intimacy can be amplified physically. (Maupassant understood this very well. No one is as sympathetic toward older women as he is in his writing.)

  This seems to me to be completely healthy and normal. When we reach this age, we will love each other and treat our bodies, bearers of our love, with the same tender solicitousness. The beauty of line and silhouette, the suppleness of muscles and skin, and our youthful health will all be gone. But we won’t mind!

  So, Marusya, did you take on the morning lesson after all? If you did, please let me know—is it too exhausting for you? You promised me you would take care of your health; what are you going to bring me? Will I really be hugging the same little slip of a thing? I want more of you. Promise me there will be more of you for me when you visit.

  Kisses for Marusya, good woman and love of my life.

  I await your arrival impatiently.

  J.

  DECEMBER 2

  It gladdens me when our correspondence gets out of whack because of your upcoming visit. I’ll try to write often, but please don’t worry. I know all your silly thoughts, and I often love those even more than your wise ones. You can’t sleep at night, you have visions of me in penal servitude, at war, in prison … I promise that when we see each other I will infect you with my calm equanimity and composure. First I will prove to you that all is well, and then I’ll show you how calm I am about it.

  I’m looking for a better hotel nearby. If they won’t allow me to spend the night, I’ll have to settle you in a dubious furnished room among people who are colorful but not very pleasant.

  And, please, do not be afraid, ever. I will write often before you come, so that you don’t start to expect you’ll find me shaven-headed, with shackles on my hands.

  Instead of worrying, please bring me some sheet music, anything that takes your fancy. That’s the entire list for you. (And also Händel’s suite.)

  I have just finished reading Rolland, and I wanted to share a few thoughts with you about him, and about you and me. He is a Frenchman, and all those devastating generalizations about the French hold true in part for him, too. That spirit of cultural prostitution and senseless destruction has affected him to no small degree. He dethroned Paris, but it was necessary to build something in its place. I paid close attention to how he took apart the great buildings stone by stone. When the eternal city lay in ruins like a dismantled house, I thought: Now, perhaps, he’ll begin to construct a new, more magnificent, more profound work of art out of the same stones. He says (and I remember the words clearly) that France lives, and, somewhere, those primordial streams of popular consciousness that feed an entire nation must exist. That they do exist, no one knows better than Rolland; but that he has not found his way to them, no one knows better than Rolland’s reader.

  All you see are crude features and unsightly mugs everywhere in his work. For God’s sake, where are the people? This is why I felt bereft and unsatisfied after I put down the book. I hope I’ll find what I was seeking in the subsequent volumes. He looks for real people in the lower orders of the urban population. This is still a thorny issue, by the way. I believe very strongly in his statement that “people live by something.” I would call this idea “historic-statistical religion”: when many people, a whole nation or group, believe in something for a long time, or have been occupied with a common task, you can be certain that this common task has not been harmful, that it is benign, and that things are as they should be. When I heard this idea expressed for the first time, I was astonished by its exceptionally wise attitude toward life. And you are the one who expressed it! During a romantic meeting, in the first moments of heady delight of two souls approaching each other.

  Those were delightful moments (Marusya, in our old age we will certainly have something to recall about our youth). From that moment, that bond that is worthy of as much admiration as love, but is much more difficult—the bond of sincerity, the complete melding of two thinking minds and two feeling hearts—was created between us.

  Do you remember what you said? Simple but wise words—if that’s the way it is, that means it’s needful, it’s some sort of human mending of a divine mistake. From that day, I began developing the idea I now call “historic-statistical religion.” To rise above our epochs, to rise above people who surround us, to observe how these people live according to the generalizations they have created, and then to derive laws of life and morality from these observations.

  But the main thing is not to stop respecting oneself. You taught me this, and now I’m teaching you. This is the fundamental law of our happiness. Fate has bestowed a unique happiness on us. To love and at the same time to respect each other is a rare and fortunate combination, don’t you agree?

  DECEMBER 3

  Evening, in the barracks. I’ve just taken a moment’s rest from the score I’m writing. I think I’ve already told you that I’m orchestrating “The Northern Star” by Glinka for our brass
band. Today I showed it to the conductor. He found a few mistakes and inaccuracies, but ultimately praised it. My musical development is proceeding by leaps and bounds. I am very proficient in the brass band; it’s a pleasant enough ensemble, but not easy to play with. When I get to work with a symphony orchestra, I will know all the brass instruments to perfection. And they are the most difficult part of the orchestra.

  When the score is finished, I’ll write you about how the rehearsal goes. I’ll still have time to send you a letter before your departure.

  The news in the papers about the offer of a truce made me excited at first, but I soon calmed down and recovered my ability to think soberly. And thinking soberly means schooling yourself in pessimism. There will be no peace now.

  I finished the new issue of The Modern World magazine. In this issue, No. 9, there is an article that I want us to read together. It was written by someone, a very intelligent person, most likely an eminent scholar, who signed his name with just one letter: S. It expresses my own thoughts in a scholarly and cogent manner. The way my worldview takes shape is strange. Things seem to transpire somewhere in the depths of my soul, at the boundaries of consciousness, almost unnoticed. A process is under way that seems to be completely independent of my brain. I ponder, and my thoughts rearrange themselves there, and sooner or later these deep thoughts rise up out of obscurity, and it seems that I have known them all along. These are thoughts about aristocracy and elitism, about the liberal bourgeoisie, about slavery, about the historical development of the idea of freedom.

  I’m impatient for your train to arrive. Soon, soon, my little one, I will embrace you.

  DECEMBER 6

  Your letter made me so happy, so glad that in an instant I forgot about the long wait and about my weariness. In it I read the joy of life, the joy of creation, and the joy of a person who receives the appreciation she well deserves. I am happy about your clever work. (You’ve always been my clever girl!) Don’t forget to buy the sheet music for all the dances you performed in the Courses. It’s so strange and sad that I (who so believe in you) have until now never seen you dance in captivating, passionate abandon. I only saw you in the children’s dances, The Lament of the Grecian Girl, briefly in Pierrette, and Poem of Ecstasy.

  But I am patient. Our hour has not yet come. It still awaits us, as does that home where our boundless happiness has already been prepared for us. This home will be comfortable and warm, with a large library. The doors won’t squeak when you open them, and the bathtub will be covered with enamel bas-reliefs, and the bed will be wide.

  And creativity must reign everywhere … in the study, in the nursery, in the bedroom. Every corner of the house is good. And a remarkable woman walks around from room to room—one of only ten in the whole of Europe.

  Marusya, buy me some English books in Kiev that I can’t get here. English Books for the Russian Reader, published by Karbasnikov, second series—all the books except Wilde’s The Happy Prince and Other Tales. Now I have to hurry to play. Marusya, please spoil me some more with more happy, smiley letters like the last one.

  DECEMBER 7, 2:00 A.M.

  I have just returned from the officers’ club. We played for the gentlemen officers and their ladies. It was interesting to observe from a distance. The girls who waited to be asked to dance, the “wallflowers,” were very touching. You should have seen how one of them bloomed, how her eyes shone, when some scrawny specimen of an officer finally invited her to take a turn on the dance floor. He may not have been much to look at, but he was still a man, for all that. I felt very sorry for the girls.

  At the beginning of the evening, there was dancing for the soldiers. That was where it was fun to play! You know that every note pierces the soul of the dancers, and shakes them down to their toes. There were chambermaids, cooks, fine ladies “in hats.” In a soldier’s slang, a “hat” is a lady with pretensions. On the one hand, he is attracted to her; on the other, he is critical of her airs and graces. He can’t choose between the hat and the headscarf.

  I so want to read with you, to study the world together.

  Yesterday I read a bit of Maupassant in French, and decided to postpone my studies until we are together again. Will you help me work on my pronunciation?

  I’m going to bed. I’m sleeping away my last bachelor nights … I kiss your shoulders. Jacob

  DECEMBER 20

  Dear Marusya! I’m writing from the barracks, where I’ve come to get chocolate and bread.

  You will be leaving in a few hours. My heart is aching, but I’m trying to keep myself in check.

  We do make a curious pair, don’t we: the happiest and the unhappiest on earth. In happy moments we believe in the first part of the formula, and in unhappy moments the second.

  Today we’re unhappy, and there isn’t a drop left of the happiness we’ve been feeling.

  JACOB TO MARUSYA

  DECEMBER 30

  Everything is as it was, but a

  Strange silence reigns …

  And at your window, the dark

  Mist of the street sows fear.

  —Alexander Blok

  Here, no strange silence reigns. Everything is as it was. I received your letter, and so the sweet old papery bond between us has sprung up again. You—a letter; me—a letter; a letter—a vessel of joy; a letter—a tear of sorrow. Everything as it was.

  Still, I feel better—I’ve become calmer and more self-assured, like I was in the good old days. I don’t hurry to get anywhere, I have no expectations (since I don’t have your arrival to look forward to anymore). I’m motivated to work. I hope all of this holds true for you as well, my dearest friend.

  Immaturity is having a serious attitude toward trivial matters, and to those sincere concerns that trivial matters awaken. Immaturity is an unconscious feeling by definition. As soon as an adult becomes aware of his childishness and tries to continue playing the role, he instantly turns into an affected, unpleasant creature. But unconscious childishness is enchanting. When you see an adult ice-skating, or peering at the ornate handle of an umbrella (your father), or simply smiling all of a sudden, without rhyme or reason (my father), you begin to understand that you have stumbled upon some extraordinarily precious feature in the chaos of everyday life, and you take delight in it.

  Today we had another military outing. It’s very cold outside, but there is no greater pleasure than these happy processions. In the letter that got lost, I wrote that the outing is like a whole symphony of experiences in a mass of healthy young bodies. The mood gets transferred from one person to another, and conquers even the most solemn and cheerless souls. When music plays (we are the ones playing it; I play it), the whole mood takes on a rhythmic embodiment. Children rush out from all the courtyards; kitchen maids with galoshes pulled up over their bare legs exchange smiles and laughter with the soldiers, who look at them like a pack of hungry wolves.

  Today, during the outing, I had some thoughts about Chekhov. They ran like this. The newspapers bemoan the fact that Moscow is losing its authentic Moscow character because it is overrun by refugees (read: Jews), who are corrupting the Russian language. The paper claims that people regularly mispronounce words, speak with rising intonations when they should be falling, and vice versa … I think that all this nostalgia and mourning for the past, what we read about in The Cherry Orchard, has no basis in real life. All that remains is a vestige, a sort of aesthetic mist enveloping everything.

  I am no Lopakhin, but Lopakhin is closer to me than all the other dying people. He’s the only character who is truly alive. But he was conceived as a comic hero! And it is, in fact, a comedy. Chekhov sees the inhabitants of the manor as satirical archetypes. But if that is the case, then Lopakhin is the only person with real agency among them. It’s the death knell of the past, but in mild, comedic form. Yet Stanislavsky staged it as drama: the beautiful manor house with columns, the beautiful suffering of its starry-eyed inhabitants. Chekhov doesn’t laugh; he smiles wanly at the cozy world, th
e world he himself belongs to, and this is his parting smile. Not because he knows that he will die soon, but because he knows that this world won’t outlive him by very long. Let them hack down the flowering trees—I know that poor, flimsy houses will spring up on crooked little lanes and alleys surrounding the factory. Suffering will increase, the family structure will crumble, but there will be one more step toward consciousness, toward conscientiousness. Whether the next step in the struggle will be taken doesn’t interest me. The greatest evil is impoverished humanity, filthy, uncultured, uncomprehending. And the price we pay for acquiring consciousness is usually centuries of suffering and bloodshed. But it is worth the price.

  It seems to me that Chekhov anticipated this. He felt contempt for the old world, but he feared the new one. The suffering of the cherry-orchard keepers is precious, prettified. The other kind of suffering—naked, anguished, hungry, but active, dynamic—transforms itself into something unprecedented and new, which will surpass all the utopias of the first socialists, from Sir Thomas More to Tommaso Campanella, which were conceived and elaborated long before Marx. I think that a hundred years from now, when human culture will have achieved an unprecedented level, theaters will view Chekhov as the greatest monument to a vanished world. But his plays are an indispensable step for achieving something higher, something better.

  These days are very busy for me, though the company has holidays back-to-back. The officers invite their ladies, and the soldiers invite theirs. The soldiers seat their best girls and are particularly proud of the fine dresses their beloveds wear. The officers’ ladies survey the kitchen girls with disdain and seat themselves in the front rows with a show of refined dignity. One of the cooks utterly charmed me. She was wearing a white blouse with a very low neckline and a blindingly blue skirt, which might even have been a petticoat. How pleased she was with herself! One sees such characters only among cooks—my goodness, what she managed to do with her bust! Hilarious! The gallery, where the soldiers without girlfriends were sitting, was in very high spirits.