To my father new clothing was not happiness, but misery, if not catastrophe.

"Papa, it's time for you to have a suit made. Yours, you know..."

"It still serves the purpose. It's strong and doesn't have a single hole."

"But the color..."

"Can't be otherwise after five years of wearing. Live to my age—you'll find out that that length of time doesn't beautify us either."

"But even so, Papa, why couldn't you order a new suit?"

"Why, when I like this one? And if other people don't like it, let them not look. And all in all—who's going to see an old professor in or out according to the clothes he wears?"

The next day he calls to my brother on the staircase:

"Andrei,1 listen, Andrei, you remember the address of my friend, Volodin the tailor, don't you? I've decided all the same to have it turned."

"What?!"

"To have the jacket turned."

"Better buy yourself a new one!"

"Buy, buy... you're used to that. You haven't known want from the cradle. But I got my education on pennies and I'm not used to throwing out something that can still serve a purpose."

Understand me: it wasn't stinginess.

More accurately—it was. Stinginess in the superlative degree.

The stinginess of a son of poor parents, who was reluctant to spend on himself what they, who had labored to the last breath, didn't have to spend on themselves.

Hence—stinginess that revealed filial respect.

The stinginess of a former poor student whose expenditures today seemed somehow to take something away from today's poor students.

Hence—fidelity to his own youth.

The stinginess of a field hand, who knows with what labor the land bears money.

Hence—fidelity to the land.

The stinginess of an ascetic, for whom everything is superfluous for his body-self and everything is too little for his spirit-

self, an ascetic who has made a choice between thing and essence.

The stinginess of every person busy with a job, who knows that any expenditure is first of all an expenditure of time.

Hence—stinginess: economizing on time.

The stinginess of every person who has lived by the life of the spirit and to whom simply nothing is needed. (Leo Tolstoi's renunciation of all earthly blessings was not a "whim" but a necessity because it is much more complicated for a writer to manage an estate than to give it away.2 Because an ordinary, unvarnished table is more needed than a polished writing desk with a multitude of drawers full of superfluous things that clutter up the head first of all. Wagner's3 partiality for luxurious furnishings in life was always more of a riddle to me than his genius.)

Hence, stinginess: spirituality.

(It's no accident that I am familiar with all these forms of stinginess—I inherited them from father among much else! If I were to win a million tomorrow, I would buy myself not a mink manteau,4 but an honest coat in sheepskin fur of the simplest manufacture, the kind the peasants of Russia all wore. Sheepskin, not astrakhan. A warm coat that wears well and doesn't provoke either envy, or awkwardness, or gnawings of conscience.)

The stinginess of a giver, finally: you must be stingy so as to be able to give all around.

For he gave all to the last, for his last breath was an act of giving, was regret that there weren't a few years of life left to spare for the rebuilding—at his own expense on the tripartite salary of a professor, director and trustee—of the museum columns that the critics deemed too slender in proportion to their height.

... And how many poor students, poor scholars, poor relatives he supported!

But we add a note: his generosity was thrifty in trifles. When, for example, he would hand a student two hundred roubles for a trip to Italy, he would not forget to specify: "And go to the station by streetcar, it's ten times faster and ten times cheaper than in a cab; the streetcar is five kopecks, but the cab is fifty!"

The chief blow to father's "stinginess" was dealt by the uniform. By the uniform of a Guardian of Honor (the title he was given for the creation of the Museum). By the uniform that can't be turned, seeing as it doesn't exist yet. That must be newer than new, for it is covered with gold embroidery:

"Yes, but it's going to cost me seven hundred roubles!" Such was father's answer to our congratulations for his new title.

"Is it really true that you have to pay for a title?"

"Not for the title - no. For the uniform."

"What! You'll have a uniform? Embroidered in silver?"

"If it were only in silver..."

* * * * *

Then began the fittings that passed in grave-like silence.

"Since he's the tailor, let him do the looking. It's his business!"

But within my memory, father did not once cast a deliberate glance in the mirror. Wordless fittings after which ensued a dull, bearish growling:

"Seven hundred roubles for an outfit—why that's regular robbery! Let me estimate: seventy-five roubles worth of cloth, and a hundred for the silver and gold embroidery—that's the material; and then labor, say, fifty for the tailor... oh, and another twenty-five roubles or so for lining and you've got a total of two hundred fifty—and that's a good price! Let it go, for conscience's sake, to three hundred. So where do four hundred more go? To whom?"

"But Papa, a court tailor doesn't get fifty for the labor like an ordinary one."

"Court tailor, ordinary tailor... There're only two kinds of tailor—bad and good. And for me they're all good, as long as there's a place to put your arms and legs in! Court tailor! It ends up that you're overpaying for the sound, for the word 'court'!"

* * * * *

Finally the uniform is ready and we are helping father get into the sleeves and close up all the hooks.

Exclamations of delight: "What a beautiful thing! How handsome you are in it! Just take a look at yourself!"

He casts the disoriented, suspicious glance of a near-sighted person in the direction of the mirror—so as to take his eyes away then and there.

"Handsome! Much too handsome!" And, repeating his habitual refrain: "Spending seven hundred roubles on myself! Shame and dishonor!"

"Well then, it's not on yourself, it's for the museum, Papa!"

He, on the alert:

"Wait, wait, wait... what did you say?"

"For the museum. To honor your museum. Your new museum—with your new uniform. A marble museum—with a gold uniform."

"You have your mother's eloquence. She could do anything with me—using words."

"But really, this isn't words, Papa. It's—well, you'll see with your own eyes. The white staircase of the museum and up above, between two columns, there you are. In blue, silver, gold... Just look at what a lovely thing the embroidery is! Leaves... little branches..."

"If only it weren't gold!"

"But really, it's—hardly gold at all. That's it—just a shade of gold, hardly noticeable, even a little bit greenish. A modest, noble look!"

"Well, yes, it doesn't seem blinding. But to look like such... an icon!"

And, with a sigh:

"If it really is for the museum..."

1936

1. Andrei Ivanovich Tsvetaev (1890-1933), affectionately called Andryusha, was Tsvetaeva's half-brother. Varvara Dmitrievna Ilovaiskaya, Professor Tsvetaev's first wife, died shortly after giving birth to Andrei in 1890. Through his mother and grandfather, Andrei was due to become independently wealthy (see "The House at Old Pimen"). Close to one another in age, Andrei, Marina and Asya were childhood playmates. Andrei's adolescent years, however, took him to different schools and he did not accompany his stepmother and half-sisters on the trip abroad from 1902 to 1906.

2. Tsvetaeva refers here to Tolstoi's renunciation of his role as owner of his estate, Yasnaya Polyana, and of the foreign royalties on his books. Tolstoi's attitude towards his property changed after his moral crises of the late seventies.

3. Richard Wagner (1813-1883), the well-known composer of The Flying Dutchman, Tannhauser, Lohengrin, and the cycle of four operas, The Ring of the Niebelung.

4. French. "Coat."