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 November), 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.