Vladimir Nabokov: Selected Letters 1940-1977 Read online

  Twice a week I travel far out of town for the whole day to Wellesley, a women's college where I give two courses (for four hours straight). That wears me out even more than the museum. Thus I have only Saturday and Sunday left for my literature. I shall definitely send you what I have written during this period but there are certain "buts": let me figure a few things out—I have to be very careful with my writing hand, and your health concerns me too.3 What you say about your little one is perfectly adorable—I especially like the little animal game. What a joy that you are well, alive, in good spirits. Poor, poor Seryozha...!4

  If it were possible to transplant you over here, I think that after struggling along for a year or so you could find something. Your type of profession, diploma, etc., carry a lot of weight here. How do you envisage such a move? You with your child and husband, or Rostik5 and E.K.6 as well, i.e., do you associate the latter with the former—or would the three of you arrive first and would we then join forces to bring over R. and E.K.? I am agonizingly anxious to have them here....I shall never forget how we struggled to get out of black 1940 Paris, what nightmarish difficulties they caused us (straight out of Invitation), the agonizing procedure of collecting money for the tickets, the 40 degree fever Mityenka had the day of our departure—we bundled him up and set out, and Yosif Vladimirovich7 (who later died over here) and Aunt Nina8 (who died last year in Paris; Nik. Nik.,9 on his way home from the funeral, was hit by a car and killed) saw us off. In New York, Natasha10...met us and put us up at her place; then we went to the Karpoviches' farm in Vermont; then I worked all winter (gratis) at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and wrote reviews for a magazine. Then I was invited to lecture by a certain university enticed by my having once translated Alice in Wonderland into Russian. Then I was invited to Stanford University in California, and here things got a bit easier. Brains and talent are highly valued over here (and you have them).

  Today I was a professor (it is Tuesday), am very tired, and am not writing clearly, but I'll write again soon. It is evening, Mityenka is in bed, Véra is reading to him (Gogol's "Terrible Vengeance"). Did I write you that I have gained a huge amount of weight, and have begun to look like Apukhtin?11

  Dearest, I embrace you, and I am confident that we shall see each other. Regards to your husband.

  Your V.12

  TO: THE REVEREND GARDINER M. DAY1

  CC, 1 p.

  8 Craigie Circle

  Cambridge 38, Mass.

  21st December 1945

  Dear Sir,

  I regret to inform you that Dmitry cannot comply with your request to take part in a collection of clothing for the German children.

  I sincerely endorse the idea of help and forgive—in regard to our enemies. In my opinion, however, this rule can only stand if what we give comes from depriving ourselves, not from depriving our friends.

  Since this country has not enough to feed and clothe the children of both our allies and our enemies, I consider that every item of food and clothing given the Germans must necessarily be taken from our allies, who not only have begun suffering at a time when the Germans were having a very good time, but who, moreover, suffered for a just cause.

  When I have to choose between giving for a Greek, Czech, French, Belgian, Chinese, Dutch, Norwegian, Russian, Jewish or German child, I shall not choose the latter one.

  Very sincerely yours,

  TO: KIRILL NABOKOV

  1945

  ALS, 2 pp.

  8 Craigie Circle

  Cambridge, Mass.

  Dear Cyril,

  I was very happy to get news from you and learn that you are safe. Almost simultaneously a letter came from Evg. Konst.1 (do get in touch with her) telling me that Sergey perished in the Neuengamme concentration camp. This is very dreadful. I am writing to Nika2 who is on a mission in Germany (X-0005 HQW S.S.B.S. Morale Division, APO 413) to try and find out something more about him—but I am afraid it is useless to pursue any glimmer of hope under the circumstances. Please let me know all you can discover in regard to this monstrous matter.

  I find it difficult to write much about my own mode of life. Taken all in all it is much the same as it had been in Europe, but I am much happier in this country than I was in France.

  Véra and Mityusha are in fine shape. He is eleven now. I work as Research Fellow at Harvard Univ. (Museum of Comparative Zoology) and also teach at Wellesley College. During these last years I have had published three books in English (A novel called The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, a biography of Gogol, and a small volume of translations from Pushkin, Lermontov, Tyutchev) and have contributed poetry and prose to the New Yorker (several poems) and the Atlantic Monthly (several stories). Most of my time, however, is taken up by scientific papers on butterflies, some of which I have discovered myself during collecting trips in Arizona and Utah.

  I am out of town at present but shall have some of my stuff forwarded to you as soon as I get back to Cambridge (a small university town near Boston) where we live.

  Keep well, write, I am tremendously happy that you have made it safe and sound through these awful years.3

  Your V.

  TO: KATHARINE A. WHITE

  ALS, 1 p. Bryn Mawr College.

  Cambridge, Mass.

  1-I-1946

  Dear Mrs. White:

  Thanks for your charming letter. I do have a story for you—but it is still in my head; quite complete, however; ready to emerge; the pattern showing through the wingcases of the pupa. I shall write it as soon as I get rid of my novel, i.e. in a couple of months.

  Rebecca West's account of the trial of J. was admirable.1 So was Irwin Shaw in the last issue.2 So was a very funny critique by Gibbs (mimicking a very good story by Thurber).3

  I think I shall come to N.Y. at the end of next week.

  Very sincerely yours

  V. Nabokov

  I (and my son) enjoyed hugely your husband's last book.4 I have admired his art ever since his red barn cast that blue shadow (in Harper's?)

  TO: ELENA SIKORSKI

  ALS, 2 pp. Elena Sikorski.

  Cambridge, Mass.

  24 February 1946

  My dear Elenochka,

  It was very sad to learn of your operation. Write me quickly how it all went.

  Love at the closing of our days

  is apprehensive and very tender.

  Glow brighter, farewell rays

  of our last love in its evening splendor.

  Blue shade takes half the world away:

  through western clouds alone light is slanted.

  O tarry, O tarry, declining day,

  enchantment, let me stay enchanted!

  The blood runs thinner, yet the heart

  remains as ever deep and tender.

  O last belated love, thou art

  a blend of joy and hopeless surrender.

  Do you recognize this?1

  I traveled to New York (to speak on the radio about Gogol) and came back with influenza, but now I'm all right. I weigh 195 pounds—I don't know how much that is in poods.

  It is snowing, and the weather here is rotten. The bathroom window is covered against drafts with a piece of Father's white robe with the light-blue stripes, which he used to wear in 1921 and 22. Mityushenka is blissfully immersed in the colored funnies2 in today's (very fat, Sunday) Boston paper. Everything you write about the most lovable little man3 is charming. It's so good to be in contact now.

  Nika4 writes that in Paris he was invited to Marshal Zhukov's box.5 I am snowed under with various work, am doing too many things simultaneously, and would like to retreat into a little lair and work on my novel. I embrace you, my dearest, and hope your husband is feeling better.

  Your V.

  Give me some advice: I am quite unable to judge from here how much help E.K. needs for her and Rostislav to manage. The packages arrive so undependably—perhaps money transfers might be better? I could send something (15–20 dollars a month). That is about what I spend on th
e packages. Surely it is impossible to buy what I send for that money, and many things are not available at all. When the packages do arrive, they of course make life a lot easier for her. Advise me what to do. Maybe it should be one-half money and one-half merchandise? We have also bought Rostik a suit and a sweater—probably that would be prohibitive in Prague, wouldn't it?6

  TO: ELENA SIKORSKI

  ALS, 2 pp. Elena Sikorski.

  Cambridge, Mass.

  14 May 1946

  My dear Elenochka,

  It was sad to read about your operation. I thought the book I sent would get there in time for your convalescence, but apparently it has fallen behind schedule.

  Thanks for the information about E.K.'s needs. That's how we'll do it, then.

  The last page you copied was no. 48 ("cloud" and "whisper to me," etc.). I treasure your charming letters in a special folder. How I'd like to have a look at the "warm" little lion cub!

  I have been included for the second time in Best American Stories. The other day the Harvard library made some phonograph recordings of my voice—several poems.1 I've been spending a lot of time lately on a long and terrifying novel,2 and hope to finish it in a month. It is a little along the lines of Invit.[ation] to a B.[eheading] but for bass voice, as it were.

  Mityushenka is doing well at school. But we don't like Saturdays and Sundays, for he takes off somewhere on his bicycle, and plays and fights with the neighborhood kids. He just came back, threw his baseball mitt and bat into a corner, and rode off again.

  Véra has gone out to post three letters and now there will be another. I generally stay in bed on Sunday.

  When I'm done with the novel I'll get going on a detailed autobiography, something I have long wanted to write.

  Oh, how I would like to send you certain of my recent Russian poems, but it's not possible—my hand is a little sore, and I cannot copy them.3

  Keep well, my dearest, and a handshake to your husband.

  V.

  Tomorrow is our wedding anniversary—21 years, if you can believe it.4

  TO: ELIZABETH MARINEL ALLAN AND MARUSSYA MARINEL

  ALS, 1 p. M. Juliar.

  8 Craigie Circle

  Cambridge 38, Mass.

  22 May, 1946

  Dear Marussya and Lisa,

  This paper is quite undescribably lovely. Thank you!

  I want you to know that I have just now finished an enormous, difficult novel1 that I have been writing for three or four years. Its general atmosphere resembles Invitation to a Beheading but is even more catastrophic and jolly. I don't know yet who will publish it, but it is a great relief. I repose like a brand-new mother bathed in lace, with slightly damp skin, so tender and pale that all the freckles show, with a baby in a cradle beside me, his face the color of an inner tube.

  The academic year ends in a few days and I shall be able to have a rest. Yesterday I went to see the doctor, who found me overworked. I really want to see you.

  Yours,

  V. Nabokov2

  TO: KENNETH D. MCCORMICK1

  CC, 1 p.

  Cambridge, Mass.

  22nd September 1946

  Dear Mr. McCormick,

  I am writing you to explain a few things about my next book.2 This will be a new kind of autobiography, or rather a new hybrid between that and a novel. To the latter it will be affiliated by having a definite plot. Various strata of personal past will form as it were the banks between which will flow a torrent of physical and mental adventure. This will involve the picturing of many different lands and people and modes of living. I find it difficult to express its subject matter more precisely. As my approach will be quite new, I cannot affix to it one of those labels of which we spoke. By being too explicit at this point I should inevitably fall back on such expressions as "psychological novel" or "mystery story where the mystery is a man's past", and this would not render the sense of novelty and discovery which distinguishes the book as I have it in my mind. It will be a sequence of short essay-like bits, which suddenly gathering momentum will form into something very weird and dynamic: innocent looking ingredients of a quite unexpected brew.

  I am certain that I could complete this book in about 1½–2 years. Our frank and friendly talk has made a very pleasurable impression upon me. I greatly appreciate your interest in my work. You have discerned, I believe, its permanent value. From this point of view SOLUS REX3 (I shall probably change the title) is a perfectly safe bet. On the other hand, my previous Russian experiences (I am the author of some ten books in Russian) have proved to me that only after one work is published am I freed from its obsession and can attack my next one with real vigor and appetite.

  Sincerely yours,

  TO: ALLEN TATE1

  CC, 1 p.

  Cambridge, Mass.

  13 October 1946

  Dear Allen,

  An unexpected thing has happened: they do want the book. They want to buy SOLUS REX and also an option on the novel I am writing now.2 But the advance they offer to pay for SOLUS REX ($1.500) does not seem to indicate that they are sufficiently interested to make a good job of it.

  Before answering them, I wish to discuss the matter with you. If Holt can make me a better offer concerning SOLUS REX, I shall be glad to consider it. There is, of course, the question of those passages that seemed to you obscure. Could you give me in your letter one sample of the kind of thing you have in mind? This does not mean that I shall not come over to New York for a personal discussion. I could come next Saturday, the 19th, if this is convenient to you.

  And here is another suggestion. I have been thinking lately that if I could give up teaching (as I do now in Wellesley) and could devote all my time to writing, I would complete my new novel within 1½ years or so and would also finish a volume of short stories. Do you think that Holt could be interested in signing an agreement with me along these lines (concerning the three books: Solus Rex, the new novel and the short stories) allowing a sufficient yearly advance to take care of me and my family of two, while I attend to the business of writing?

  Very sincerely yours,

  TO: FREDERICK STARR1

  CC, 1 p.

  8 Craigie Circle

  Cambridge 38, Mass.

  22nd October 1946

  Dear Mr. Starr,

  I have just returned to Cambridge from a trip to New York and found here your very kind letter of October 18th waiting for me.

  The more I think about this matter, the more convinced I become that I am not the right man to address your audience. I fully share your opinion that a war with Russia would have been a terrible and unnecessary disaster, but I do not think that unless we face boldly all the facts, this country can evolve a sincere and constructive international policy.

  On the other hand, while I feel certain that there is nothing in my lecture that could have come in conflict with your purposes, I do not like the idea of having to speak under any restrictions whatever, for this would give me the sensation of having deliberately undertaken to dissimulate part of the truth and thus of somehow deceiving my audience as to my true attitude. I therefore suggest in the friendliest manner that my engagement to address your Society be cancelled.

  I am sorry you did not write me about it all at an earlier date, before my name was announced on your program, and while you still had a long time to find another lecturer. But considering the great number of Russian scientists and writers now living in New York, I feel sure that you will have no difficulty in finding the right sort of man.

  Very sincerely yours,

  TO: MUCIO DELGADO1

  CC, 1 p.

  8 Craigie Circle

  Cambridge 38, Mass.

  17 November 1946

  Dear Mr. Delgado,

  Thank you for your letter.

  The Editorship-in-Chief is even more attractive to me than administrative work. It would, however, interest me to know how independent I should be in my selections and decisions. If possible, I would like to know who is goin
g to be Head of the Department and what would be the exact separating line between his authority and mine.

  As to the salary, I am afraid that $7,500 would be the minimum I could accept. Since I sent in my application there has been a very large increase in prices. I have also found out that moving to New York must cost much more than I had thought.