When my older sister began to publish her own poetry after leaving college, I sometimes went with her to the editorial office on the way back from school. My nanny[2] would come too, carrying my satchel of school books.
And while my sister was sitting in the editor’s office (I don’t remember now what journal it was, but I remember that the editors were Pyotr Gnedich and Vsevolod Solovyov),[3] Nanny and I would wait in the outer room.
I would sit a little way away from Nanny, so that nobody would guess that she was accompanying me. I would assume an inspired expression, and imagine how everybody—the delivery boy and the copy-typist and all the would-be contributors—would take me for a writer.
The only thing was, the chairs in the reception were inconveniently high, and my feet didn’t touch the ground. However, the inspired expression on my face more than made up for this handicap—and for my short dress and school pinafore.
By the age of thirteen, I already had some literary works under my belt. I had written some verses on the arrival of the Tsaritsa[4] and on the anniversary of the founding of our school. These latter—hastily composed in the form of a high-flown ode—contained a stanza for which I was later made to suffer a great deaclass="underline"
My sister tormented me for a whole year over that “great shrine of education”. If I pretended I had a headache and wasn’t going into school, she would immediately start up a chant: “Nadya, Nadya, why aren’t you going to the great shrine of education? How can you bear the light of truth to shine without you?”
And then, when I was sixteen or seventeen, I wrote a comical poem called “The Song of Margarita”, and, without showing it to anyone, of course, I decided to take it along to the journal Oskolki.
The editor of Oskolki was Leikin. At that time he was already very old and in poor health. And he did, in fact, die soon afterwards.
I went to the editorial office. It was terrifying. Particularly when I was on the staircase, about to ring the bell. The door was small and dirty. There was a smell of cabbage pie, something I can’t abide. I rang the bell—and thought, “Quick! Run away!”
But then I heard a scrabbling sound from behind the door. Somebody was taking the chain off the hook. The door opened a crack, and an eye peeped through. Then another eye. Then the door opened the rest of the way.
“Who do you want?”
It was a very thin, elderly lady with an Orenburg shawl worn crosswise over her chest.
“I’ve co-come to-to see Leikin.”
“Sir isn’t here yet,” said the lady. “Come in. Sit down and wait. He will be here presently.”
She ushered me into a tiny room and went away. From there I could see another room, also rather small, with a writing desk and, above it, a stuffed bird.
I waited a long time. Occasionally the lady would come back and, stroking the front of her shawl with her bony hands, would whisper, “Just a little longer. He won’t be long now.”
Then I heard the doorbell. A stamping of feet, a coughing and a wheezing. I could make out the words:
“Who?”
“What?”
“Eh?”
“Why?”
“For me?”
“Damn!”
Then the wheezing stopped, and once again the thin lady came in and said in a nervous whisper, “Sir still needs to warm up.” Then she went out again. I sat and thought how awful it was to lead a literary life.
Once again, the thin lady came in, and, clearly feeling sorry for me and hoping to cheer me up, she whispered, “Sir still hasn’t quite warmed up.”
Such a kind woman! I wanted to put my arms around her neck, so that we could weep in each other’s arms. She went out again. Oh heavens! I so wanted to leave! But I didn’t dare leave now. Here she was again, “All over now. He’s done.”
At first I didn’t realize what she meant. For a moment I thought Leikin had died. I got to my feet, horrified.
“Don’t fret yourself,” said the lady. “Sir will see you now.”
I frowned, then stepped forward. After all, he wasn’t going to kill me. In an armchair, in front of the stuffed bird, sat a thickset, crook-shouldered, apparently cross-eyed man with a black beard. He seemed very gloomy.
“To what do I owe the honour of this visit?” he asked, not looking at me. “What do you want?”
“Poetry,” I mumbled.
“What poetry?”
“‘The Song of Margarita’.”
“Eh? I don’t think we’ve ever had that here. Can you give me a clearer idea of what you mean?”
“I wrote it. Here it is.”
He held out his hand, still not looking at me. I thrust my sheet of paper into it.
“Well?” he said.
“What?” I asked.
“Well—goodbye. You’ll be able to read the answer in our ‘post bag’.”[5]
A month later, I read in the Oskolki “post bag”: “‘The Song of Margarita’ has nothing to recommend it.”
This was my first step as a writer. Later, by way of a secret triumph over that angry (albeit by then deceased) editor, I managed to get it printed no fewer than four times, in a number of publications.
Though, I think, had I been an editor myself, I wouldn’t have printed it even once.
Part II
STAGING POSTS
LIZA
The three of us were sitting together: I, my sister Lena, and Liza, the priest’s daughter,[1] who used to come to our house to have lessons, and compete with us to be seen as the most diligent and obedient pupil.
Today there were no lessons and we were not allowed to play. Today was a solemn, anxious day—Holy Saturday.[2]
We had to sit quietly, not bother or pester anybody, not fight, and not fidget or kneel on our chairs. Everything was difficult, complicated and extremely disagreeable. The shadow of pain and mortification hung over the entire day.
Everyone was busy, irritable, in a hurry. Our governess with the red blotches on her cheeks was running up a blouse for herself on the sewing machine. Huh! As if it made any difference to her pockmarked nose. Nanny had gone into the big girls’ room to iron pinafores. My elder sisters were sitting in the dining room, decorating eggs. They greeted me in their usual way: “The very last person we want in here! Won’t you take her away, Nanny?”
I tried to stand my ground but promptly knocked over a cup of paint with my elbow, and, with the assistance of Nanny, who came bustling in, was returned to the nursery. And in the midst of this debacle I found out that our parents wouldn’t be taking us to church that evening for the Easter Vigil.
I was so furious I didn’t even cry. I just said sardonically, “We get dragged along for confession all right. They take the best—and leave the worst for us.”
Despite my brilliant rejoinder, the enemy prevailed; we had to retreat to the nursery.
2
Typically a peasant woman employed first as a wet-nurse to a baby and then kept on as a household servant. Often she was more deeply involved with a child’s life than its mother.
4
Nadezhda Lokhvitskaya studied in the Liteiny Girls’ School in Mokhovaya Street, St Petersburg. The school celebrated its twentieth jubilee in 1884. The Tsaritsa would have been Maria Fyodorovna, wife of Alexander III.
5
Journals of the time often had a “post bag”, a section where authors of manuscripts submitted for approval were publicly offered advice and criticism.
1
When Teffi was a child, her family—like many upper-class Russian families—spent each autumn and winter in St Petersburg and each spring and summer in their country estate. In their case, this was Teffi’s mother’s estate, in Volhynia, in what is now Western Ukraine—a remote and exotic area at this time even for Russians. The children saw little of the families of other landowners, most of whom were Poles, and had more contact with ordinary villagers. Teffi appears to have been the fifth child in the family and to have felt closest to Lena, her youngest sister.
2
For Orthodox Christians, the day before Easter Sunday—the day Christ descended into Hell—is a day of fasting and mourning. The last service of the day, the Easter Vigil, reaches its climax at midnight, with the celebration of Christ’s resurrection.