From Moscow Notes, 1919-20

I'm writing in my attic — I think it's the loth of November — since everyone started living by the new calendar I don't know the dates any more.

I know nothing of S. since the month of March, the last time I saw him was January 18,1918, how and where —someday I'll say, right now I don't have the strength.1

I live with Alya and Irina (Alya is six, Irina is two years and seven months) on Boris and Gleb Lane across from two trees, in an attic room which used to be Seriozha's.2 There's no flour, no bread, under the desk there's about twelve pounds of potatoes, the leftovers of a bushel "loaned" by our neighbors —that's the entire pantry! The anarchist Charles took away Seriozha's "eleve de Breguet" antique gold watch — I've gone to see him a hundred times. At first he promised to return the watch, then he said that he'd found a buyer for it but had lost the key, then that he'd found a key for it at Sukhareva but had lost the buyer, then that fearing a search he'd given it to someone else to keep, then that it had been stolen from the person he gave it to for safekeeping but that he was a rich man and wouldn't bicker over such trifles, then, turning nasty, he started to scream that he couldn't be expected to answer for other people's things. The upshot: no watch, no money. (That sort of watch goes for 12,000 now, i.e., fifty Ibs. of flour.) The same thing happened with the baby scales. (Charles again.)

I live on donated meals (children's). Not long ago the wife of the shoemaker Gransky —a thin, dark-eyed woman with a pretty, long-suffering face — the mother of five children — sent me a lunch ticket and a little "doughnut" for Alya through her oldest daughter (one of her girls had left for camp). Mrs. G-man, our neighbor on the floor below, sends the children soup from time to time and today forcibly "loaned" me a third thousand. She herself has three children. Small, gentle, worn down by life: by the nanny, by the children, by a powerful husband, by the routine —immutable as the movement of the spheres — of lunches and dinners. (In our home — a meal is always a comet!) She helps me secretly, hiding it from her husband, a Jew and a lucky man, whom I — in whose home everything but the soul has frozen and nothing save books has escaped destruction — naturally cannot help but irritate.

Occasionally, when they remember my existence — and I'm not blaming them, for we've known each other a short time — the actress Z-tseva and her husband help me, she, because she loves poetry, and her husband because he loves his wife. They brought potatoes, and several times the husband has torn down beams from the attic and sawed them up.

There's also R.S. T-kin, the brother of Mrs. Ts-lin, whose literary evenings I used to attend. He gives matches, bread. Kind, sympathetic.

And that's it.

Balmont would be glad to, but he himself is destitute. (If you drop by, he always gives you food and drink.) His words — "I keep feeling pangs of conscience, I feel I should help" — are already help. People don't know how immensely I value words! (They're better than money, for I can pay with the same coin!)

My day: I get up —the upper window is barely gray—cold—puddles — sawdust—buckets — pitchers — rags — children's dresses and shirts everywhere. I split wood. Start the fire. In icy water I wash the potatoes, which I boil in the samovar. (For a long time I made soup in it, but once it got so clogged up with millet that for months I had to take the cover off and spoon water from the top — it's an antique samovar, with an ornate spigot diat wouldn't unscrew, wouldn't yield to knitting needles or nails. Finally, someone — somehow — blew it out.) I stoke the samovar with hot coals I take right from the stove. I live and sleep in one and the same frightfully shrunken, brown flannel dress, sewn in Alexandrov in the spring of 1917 when I wasn't there. It's all covered with burn holes from falling coals and cigarettes. The sleeves, once gathered with elastic, are rolled up and fastened with a safety pin.

Cleaning is next. "Alya, take out the basin!" A few words about the basin — it warrants them. This is the main protagonist in our life. The samovar stands in the basin because when the potatoes are boiling it splashes everything around. All the garbage is thrown into the basin. The basin is carried out during the day, and at night I rinse it out in the backyard. Without the basin —it would be impossible to live. Coals-sawdust— puddles . . . And the stubborn desire to keep the floor clean! I go for water to the G-mans by the back stairs: Pm afraid to run into the husband. I return happy: a whole bucketful of water and a tin can! (Both the bucket and the can belong to others, mine have all been stolen.) Then the wash, dishwashing: the dishpan and the primitive pitcher with no handles, "the playschool one," in short: "Alya, get the playschool ready for the washing!" Then the cleaning of the copper mess kit and the milk can for Prechistenka St. (an enriched meal from the patronage of that same Mrs. G-man) — a little basket containing the purse with the lunch tickets —a muff— fingerless mittens —the key to the back entrance around my neck—and I'm off. My watch doesn't work. I don't know what time it is. So, having mustered the courage, I ask a passerby: "Excuse me, could you please tell me approximately what time it is?" If it's two o'clock— I feel heartened. (Come to think of it, what is die present tense? Feel heartening? Doesn't sound right.)

The route: to the kindergarten (Molchanovka St. 34) to drop off the dishes — along Starokoniushenny Lane to Prechistenka St. (for the enriched meal), from there to the Prague cafeteria (with the shoemakers' tickets), from Prague (the Soviet one) to the old Generalov store —to see if by chance there's bread on sale — from there back to the kindergarten to pick up the lunch — from there — along the back stairs, with pitchers, bowls and cans hanging from me — not a finger free! and fright in the bargain: has the purse with the lunch tickets fallen out of the basket? ! Along the back stairs — homeward. Straight to the stove. The coals are still smoldering. I blow on them. Warm them up. All meals go into one pot: a soup that's more like kasha. We eat. (If Alya has been with me, the first order of business is to untie Irina from the chair. I started tying her up after the time she ate half a head of cabbage from the cabinet when Alya and I were out.) I feed Irina and put her down for a nap. She sleeps on a blue armchair. There's a bed, but it won't go through the door. I boil coffee. I drink. Smoke. Write. Alya writes me a letter or reads. About two hours of quiet. Then Irina wakes up. We heat up the remains of the mush. With Alya's help I fish out the potatoes stuck at the bottom of the samovar. We —either Alya or I —put Irina to bed. Then Alya goes to bed.

At 10 o'clock the day is over. Sometimes I chop and saw wood for tomorrow. At 11 or 12 I am also in bed. Happy with the lamp right next to my pillow, the silence, a notebook, a cigarette, and sometimes — bread.

I write badly, in a hurry. I didn't write down either the ascensions to the attic — there's no staircase (we burned it) — pulling myself up on a rope —for firewood, nor the constant burns from coals, which (impatience? embitteredness?) I grab with my bare hands, nor the running about to secondhand stores (has it been sold? ) and cooperatives (are they selling anything?).

I didn't write down the most important thing: the gaiety, the keenness of thought, the bursts of joy at the slightest success, the passionate directedness of my entire being — all the walls are covered with lines of poems and NB! for notebooks. I didn't write down the trips at night to the terrible icy depths —to Alya's former playroom —for some book, which I suddenly have to have, I didn't write down Alya's and my abiding, guarded hope: wasn't that a knock at the door? Yes, someone must be knocking! (The bell hasn't worked since the beginning of the Revolution; instead of a bell —there's a hammer. We live at the top and through seven doors we hear everything: every scrape of someone else's saw, every stroke of someone else's axe, every slam of someone else's door, every sound in the yard, everything, except knocking at our door!) And —suddenly—someone's knocking! —either Alya, throwing on her blue coat, made for her when she was two years old, or I, not throwing on anything — head downstairs, groping, galloping, first past the staircase with no banister (we burned it), then down those stairs — to the chain on the front door. (Actually, you can get in without our help, but not everyone knows it.)

I didn't record my eternal, one and the same — in the same words! — prayer before sleep.

But the life of the soul—Alya's and mine — grows out of my verse — my plays — her notebooks.

I wanted to record only the day.

*

Alya and I.

Alya: "Marina! I didn't know how many people there were with such wonderful names! For example: Dzhunkovsky."

I: "He's the former governor-general of Moscow(?), Alechka."

Alya: "Aha! I know — the governor. That's in Don Quixote — the governor!"

(Poor Dzh-sky!)

*

I tell a story:

"You see, there was an ancient old woman, not at all silly. A dried flower —a rose! Fiery eyes, a proudly set head, she used to be a cruel beauty. And it's all still there — only it's ju-ust about to disintegrate . . . A rose-colored dress, splendid and terrible, because she's seventy years old, a rose evening cap, delicate slippers. Under her sharp heel a taut, tightly stuffed satin pillow — also rose-colored — a heavy, dense, squeaky satin . . .And so, at the stroke of midnight —her granddaughter's fiance appears. He's a little late. He's elegant, gallant, handsome — a camisole, a sword . . ."

Alya, interrupting, "Oh Marina! — Death or Casanova!"

(She knows the latter from my plays, Adventure and The Phoenix.)

*

"Alechka, what do you think the last word should be in Grandmother?* Her last word—rather, breath! — after which she dies?"

"Of course-Love!"

"True, true, only I thought perhaps: Amour."

I explain the difference between a concept and its incarnation: "Love — is a concept, Amour—the incarnation. A concept—is general, round, the incarnation — is sharp —upward! everything toward one point. Do you understand?"

"Oh, Marina, I understand!"

*A play that I didn't finish, and lost.

"Then give me an example."

"I'm afraid it won't be right. They're both too airy."

"It doesn't matter, go ahead. If it's not right, I'll tell you."

"Music is a concept, a voice the incarnation." (Pause) "And also: glory is a concept, a heroic deed —the incarnation. But Marina, how strange! A heroic deed is a concept, but a hero is the incarnation."

*

"Alya! What a wonderful thing —dreams!"

"Yes, Marina, and also: a dress ball!"

"Alya! My mother always wanted to die suddenly: to be walking along the street and suddenly, from a building under construction — a brick would fall on her head! And that would be it."

Alya, slightly amused: "No, Marina, I don't really like that idea, a brick . . . Now—if the whole building fell down!!!"

*

Alya, before going to sleep:

"Marina! I wish you the best of everything on earth. Maybe: of everything left on earth . . ."

*

If I get through this winter I'll really be fort comme la mort— or just morte — without fort— with an e muet on the end.

*

Grocery stores now resemble the windows of beauty salons: all the cheeses — aspics — cakes — not a whit more alive than wax dolls. That same, slight terror.

*

Oh, "Wahrheit und Dichtung"! And I stop, for in this cry there is as much rapture as dissatisfaction. Goethe wanted to convey the history of his life and his development simultaneously, but they didn't blend for him. Whole places seem pasted in: "hier gedenke ich mit Ehrfurcht eines gewissen X-Y-Z" — and so on for dozens of pages in a row. If he had woven these "treffliche Gelehrte" into his life, forced them to come into the room, move about, speak, there wouldn't have been such a diagrammatic feeling (calculation) in places: a person gets it into his head to thank everyone who contributed to his development — and so he lists them. It isn't boring —everything is significant, but Goethe himself somehow disappears, you can't see his black eyes anymore . . .

But then —Lord!—the walks, as a boy, through Frankfurt —the friendship with the little Frenchman — the incident with the artist and the mouse —the theater —the relationship with his father — Gretchen ("Nicht kiissen, ist 's was so gemeines, aber lieben, wenn's moglich ist!") their nocturnal meetings in the cellar — Goethe in Leipzig — the dance lessons — Sesenheim — Frederika — the moon . . .

Oh, when I read that scene with the disguise, my heart trembled because — it was Frederika and not me!

The coziness of that almost peasant house —the pastor —playing at forfeits — reading aloud . . .

Because of all this I couldn't manage to get out of bed at all today: just didn't feel like living!

*

How I would have raised Alya in the 18th century! Buckles on her shoes! Clasps on the family Bible! And what a dancing instructor!

*

Nowadays, probably because of the axe and the saw, there are far fewer enfamts d'amour. For that matter, only the intelligentsia saws and hacks. (The muzhiks don't count! Nothing affects them!) And the intelligentsia has never been noted for either enfants or amour.

*

Not long ago at Smolensky Market: a buxom peasant lass—wearing a fabulous shawl crisscrossed, her gait from the hips — and a little withered spinster—a spiteful old hag! A wrinkled finger stuck into the girl's high bosom. An ingratiating whisper: "What's that you've got there? A piglet?"

And the girl, pulling her shawl ever tighter around her, haughtily: "Three hundred and eighty."

*

Now today, for instance, I ate all day long, though I could have written all day long. I really don't want to die of starvation in 1919, but even less do I want to make a pig of myself.

*

By nature I can't abide surpluses. I'll either eat something or give it away.

Just so it wouldn't seem so terrifying, one could imagine things this way: a loaf of bread doesn't cost 200 rubles, but 2 kopecks, as it used to, but I don't have those 2 kopecks — and never will.

And the Tsar is in Tsarskoe Selo as always — only I'll never go to Tsarskoe Selo, and he — will never come to Moscow.

*

Good Lord! How many Nozdrevs there are in Russia these days (who hasn't defamed whom and how, who hasn't bartered what for what!) — Korobochkas ("and how much are dead souls going for in the city now?" "and how much are female mannequins going for at the market now?": me, for instance) — Manilovs ("The Temple of Friendship" — "The House of the Happy Mother") — Chichikovs (a born speculator!). But there's no Gogol.3 It would be better the other way around.

*

Just as rare are those —what's his name? the one with the Armenian surname, idze or adze, from Part II, so irreal that I can't even remember his name!

*

Alongside our ignoble life — there is another: ceremonial, incorruptible, immutable: the life of the church. The same words, the same movements — everything as it was centuries ago. Outside time, that is, outside the treachery of change.

We don't remember this often enough.

*

"No longer laughing."

(The inscription on my cross.)

*

I've taken the year 1919 in somewhat exaggerated terms — the way people will understand it a hundred years from now: not a fleck of flour, not a speck of salt (clinker and clutter enough and to spare!), not a speck, not a mote, not a shred of soap! —I clean the flue myself, my boots are two sizes too big—this is the way some novelist, using imagination to the detriment of taste, will describe the year 1919.

*

My room. —I'll leave it some day surely. (?) Or, upon opening my eyes, I'll never ever see anything other than the high window in the ceiling — the basin on the floor — clothes on all the chairs — the axe — the iron (I sharpen the axe on the iron) — and the G-mans' saw.

*

People, when they do visit, only irritate me: "You can't live like this. This is horrible. You need to sell everything and move."

Sell! Easy to say! I liked all my things too much when I bought them — and therefore no one buys them.

The year 1919 has taught me nothing about practical matters: neither thrift nor abstinence.

I take —eat —and give away bread as easily as if it cost 2 kopecks (now it's 200 rubles). And I have always drunk coffee and tea without sugar.

*

Is there presently in Russia —Rozanov is dead —a genuine thinker and observer who could write a genuine book about hunger?4 About a person who wants to eat—a person who wants to smoke —a person who's cold — about a person who has but does not give, about a person who has nothing and gives; about the formerly generous —turned stingy, about the formerly miserly—turned generous, and, finally, about me: a poet and a woman, alone, alone, alone — like a lone oak— a lone wolf—like God — amid the many plagues of Moscow in the year 1919.

I would write it — if it weren't for the romantic flourish in me — my nearsightedness — all of my idiosyncrasies — which at times prevent me from seeing things as they are.

*

Oh, if I were rich!

Dear 1919, it is you who has taught me this cry! Before, when everyone had plenty, I still managed to give; and now, when no one has anything, I can't give anything, except my soul — a smile — sometimes a bit of kindling (out of frivolity) — and that's too little.

Oh, what a field of action exists for me now, for my insatiableness for love. Everyone bites at this bait —even the most complex —even I! At the moment, I for one definitely love only those who give to me — who promise and don't give —it doesn't matter!—just as long as they sincerely (and maybe not sincerely—who cares!) want to give for a minute.

By whim of hand and heart, this sentence, and therefore the whole meaning, could have turned out differently and it would also have been true:

Before, when everyone had everything, I still managed to give. Now, when I have nothing, I still manage to give.

All right?

*

I give, like everything I do, from a sort of spiritual adventurism—for the smile — mine and the other's.

*

What do I like about adventurism? The word.

*

Balmont —in a woman's crisscrossed Scottish shawl —under the covers — frightful cold, steam rising like a stake — a plate of potatoes fried in coffee grinds nearby:

"Oh, this will be a shameful page in Moscow's history! I'm not talking about myself as a poet, but as a toiler. I've translated Shelley, Calderon, Edgar Poe . . . Haven't I been sitting with dictionaries since I was 19 instead of going out and having a good time and falling in love?! And I'm starving —in the literal sense. Only death from starvation awaits! Idiots think hunger — is the body. No, hunger — is the soul, the whole weight of it falls directly on the soul. I'm oppressed, I'm suffering, I can't write!"

I ask for a smoke. He gives me his pipe, and orders me not to distract

myself while I smoke.

"This pipe requires a great deal of concentration, so I advise you not to talk, since there are no matches in the house."

I smoke, that is, I draw with all my might —the pipe seems stopped up — i/io of a drag comes through with every draw — for fear it will go out I not only don't talk, I don't think— and — after a minute, relieved:

"Thank you — I've had enough!"
Moscow, Winter 1919-20

"Cherdachnoe (Iz moskovskikh zapisei 1919-1920)" was first published in Sovre-mennye zapiski, no. 26 (1925). This translation first appeared in Partisan Review 53, no. 4 (1986): 499-508.

1: I know nothing of S. Sergei Efron.

2: I live with Alya and Irina. Tsvetaeva's daughters, Ariadna Sergeevna Efron (1913-75) and Irina Sergeevna Efron (1917-20). At the end of November 1919, Tsvetaeva placed her daughters in a children's home in the Moscow suburb of Kuntsevo, hoping that they would receive more food she could provide them. Alya soon contracted malaria, and Tsvetaeva brought her back to Moscow in early January, where she nursed her with the help of her friend V. A. Zhukovskaya and Vera Efron, her sister-in-law. Irina died at the children's home in early February 1920, apparently of starvation or malnutrition. See Karlinsky, Marina Tsvetaeva, 81-82, and Anna Saakiants, Stranitsy zhizni i tvorchestva (1910-1922) (Moscow, 1986), 213-21.

3: But there's no Gogol. All the names mentioned in the preceding paragraph are characters in Gogol's novel Dead Souls.

4: Is there presently in Russia —Rozanov is dead. Vasily Vasilevicll Rozanov (1856-1919), writer and philosopher. Rozanov knew Ivan Vladimirovich Tsvetaev, the poet's father, and wrote his obituary. Tsvetaeva, who had read Rozanov, wrote to the philosopher in 1914 after her sister, Anastasia Ivanovna, began a correspondence with him.