The Diary — 1919

Twelve days (since December 21) that I am languishing again here, in Petrograd. They have been bustling days: no time to sit down and write my diary. The whole time has been spent in trying to procure some food, and at the same time being hungry just the same, actually starving. A fear has come over me: no more bread is being issued. In the Public Diner the fare is scanty. At home we cook unchangeable sluggish barley with no butter. In the morning and in the evening I feel nauseated. On the streets one sees people staggering like shadows. The heads of some of them are covered with ulcers, caused by lack of fats in the diet and frost in homes. It is told that in the hospitals people are dying from starvation by the dozens – anemia of the intestines. I had hoped to leave for Dubrachok a week after my arrival here. I long to be there hoping to find there salvation. Instead, on arrival here, attending a meeting on the subject “Art and the Proletariat”, I was carried away by the subject and wrote a report, presenting it at the following meeting a week later. It became the cause of a little scandal...

At the meetig I saw Maria Lvovna (my cousin sculptress). I was shocked by her looks: eyes dead, face pale, swollen. They say that is the second stage after losing weight from starvation: man becomes bloated!

All day today was spent either standing in line at the Cooperative, or in running from the little stove to the Public Diner and so being able only by snatched moments to attend to the packing of things in my studio and the rest of the apartment. It is a sad occupation – this liquidation of one’s life at Chernishov Pereulok – as if salvaging things after a death...

On the whole I am feeling quite rotten. A strange weakness...Is it from all the work, I wonder, or packing things in my studio and in the rest of the rooms, or from the poor food? This morning we drank black coffee and ate nothing. For dinner we had hoped to eat to our fill at the Public Diner on the 6 tickets that Kolya’s pupil had promised us. But when she came for the lesson, she brought only 2 tickets. We dragged ourselves to the Diner at the “Kontan” and got there half of an eighth of bread, fish soup and pickled herring each, one cup of black coffee with a piece of hard candy. Then we went to another Diner by the Blue Bridge where late comers are taken care of. We got into line just to find out that dinners are to be served there beginning only tomorrow. After the salty fish our thirst was tremendous. We stopped at Kolya’s pupil for a bottle of kerosene (4 rubles). Then entered a beer shop and drank some substitute beer (4 rubles a bottle). Longingly looked at some suspicious looking pastry, size of an inch, price 5 rubles. We went on: I went to the third Diner where they served a “plat du jour” – beef cutlets (from what meat?!) 12 rubles a portion and a glass of tea. (only 2 glasses of glass ware for the entire Diner). While I drank the tea three ladies were standing in line watching me blow on my tea. Kolya went to the Dimanis for dinner. Coming home – darkness and not a drop of water in the faucets for 24 hours already. We lighted the end of a candle, poured kerosene into the lamp and lighted it. From different pans and kettles we gathered leftover water. It did not fill the samovar. Just the same, we heated it with shavings. We drank tea with saccharine and citronine (krendel in imagination). Talked about the superiority of Berenovsky cakes over those of Weber. We read the paper that was promising increased rations of oats for the Christmas holidays. And now we are sitting in Kolya’s room, the only heated one, and are feeding ourselves spiritually. Between the business of these days I have finished packing and tomorrow I shall start bustling about to get my ticket for Tarusskaya (stop of train for the Dubrachok estate). I wrote a long letter to Natasha under No. 1, January 1, 1919 new style. Am taking advantage of the Domanis Mother and Daughter, going via Finland to Kiev.

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. My God, what a sad Eve! How I regret that I did not get for Christmas to Dubrachok. The only consolation is that because of it, Kolya’s not going to be alone. I wonder if I will get to Dubrachok for New Year’s. Rumor has it that on the railroads something terrible is going on!

Yesterday I wrote to the Zabelins the following letter:

My honorable and dear Antonina Nikolaevna and Nicolai Ivanovich: Tomorrow is Christmas Eve – the eve of a holiday, regardless of all else. And then is followed by the old “New Year” with the traditional New Year’s hopes and best wishes! Friends, acquaintances shake hands, smile, congratulate each other, express their good wishes – everything as it should be during the “joyful” days of Christmas and the New Year! And so will I too be glad, smile and express my good wishes. It does not matter that my joy is as dim as my room lighted only by a small bit of candle, since we have no electricity, kerosene, nor any other lighting means, and though my smile resembles more a grimace and my “good wishes” sound like a mockery!

Nevertheless, am sending you my greetings – greetings from a doomed one. “Ave Cesar Moriturite Salutante”! Translated into Russian means: “May you, my friends, live in plenty, - you are greeted by a hungry one”! On what else can a citizen of the Great Northern Commune concentrate his mind and feelings? All his thoughts issue from an empty stomach and are directed toward one ideal, the only bright spot of his constant, but, alas, useless dreams, - to EAT! May you, my dear ones, live in plenty, not just now but forever and ever! While I, during the last two weeks here, have lost all strength the fat and happy disposition that I had stored up while with you in the charming atmosphere of your “cure-all” home, have succumbed to Petrograd’s treacherous work! I walk like a shadow from one cooperative to the other, I freeze while tied up in queues....and all without success; our holiday menu is the same as that of every day: oats instead of bread and some dried fish in the communal Diner. On the Eve of the Holiday “Peace on Earth and Goodwill among men” people look at each other like wolves, spiteful from huger, and for any morsel are ready to jump at each other’s throats.

My only consolation I find is in the remembrance of your peaceful home! There is, I dare say, a place in this world and people who live there calmly and peacefully, cozily, by well-heated fireplaces, inwardly warm, and without the torturing pain of an empty stomach! There is a Christmas tree at your house today, a real one, a big one, with children and their happy voices, with their carefree world strange to all the vulgar “political moment” that surrounds them. How I would like to rejoice with you both, instead of sitting in a bare, unheated apartment, often without water and without light. It were better to forget oneself among the surrounding of wellbeing of others than to be left in one’s deserted nest and to be watching the vegetation of one’s son, his terrible moral depression, his great artistic powers squandered on trifles, one worries over securing food, and on lessons in a rather stupid “workingman’s home.” Just the same, your kind invitation to visit YOU for the holiday and to see in the old New Year with you, as tempting as it is, I could not accept.

All my longing is for my family. At the same time I shall not be able to be with them tomorrow. They will observe Christmas without me, in vain looking forward to the arrival of the Grand-dad bringing gifts for the little grandson. May God help that the bureaucratic scorpions let loose their grasp and let me leave during the next few days. And so, am leaving for the Tula district until spring. In the spring, if you permit, I shall be with you again. Should you wish to make me happy, write me a few lines about yourselves, the children, about your warm and cozy home life!”

A sad day! Kolya and I are sitting in an empty, cold, desolate apartment. I feel so painfully today all the destruction, and of being forsaken. I feel so sad, so grieved, hurt as if I was in the solitary confinement, and as if a heavy weight is hanging over me! I drive away these thoughts and reminiscences, but they keep assailing me because it is Christmas - the holiday of Peace on Earth and Good will among Men! A Holiday of family coziness, children’s joys and grownups’ happiness surrounded by the children and their voices. It is little Victorushka’s holiday, that of little Kiril, that of little Ksenya, passed on when 5 years old. It is the holiday of my four children, grown up now. Not so long ago they were little and danced around the Christmas tree that we had decorated with sweets and toys, in deeply peaceful, carefree happy times!

Kolya and I woke up late and did not hurry to get up, since we did not expect anything good and joyful from today. We knew there would be no holiday-table set in the dining room, no steaming samovar, tasty coffee, cream, butter, krendel, rolls, and all kind of other delicacies, also no Mother sitting at the samovar with the rest of the family sitting around the table – no holiday atmosphere, but only chaos, dirt, and vacancy. At 11:00 am Kolya began to grind the barley-coffee and I began to light the little stove. Suddenly – the telephone! The Dimanis are calling us, asking us to have coffee with them! What a miracle! Naturally we accepted, got ready and left.

This was certainly a nice thing for the holiday. We found a holiday-table set, warmth, samovar, good coffee, milk, white bread, butter, cheese and ham. Of everything a little, but respectable. And for a minute sadness left the heart. Madame Dimanis is very kind to us but this is because she needs us too: She is storing many of her items in our apartment to save them from being requisitioned. Also Kolya will live in her apartment so as to reduce her floor space allotment. There is no goodness without egoism! By having invited us for coffee she was excusing herself from not serving Kolya dinner (she herself was invited by friends for dinner). Just the same, she asked us how we shall eat beside the Diner, where one can get nothing but dirty stuff. I said I got two pounds of pork but without any vegetables. She then gave us 16 potatoes and advised us to make some soup. After taking two candelabras (to save them from being requisitioned), we went home. I started to busy myself in the kitchen. Made fire in the stove, and by the way, roasted some barley and oaten coffee, while Kolya went to two Diners with 4 tickets (2 our own, 2 from others). He ate in the Diner two dinners and brought home two dinners. But, goodness sake, what dinners they were: from one Diner the sour cabbage soup was all water, herring with onion; from the other also all water with liverwurst awfully salted, pickled with cranberries that nauseated. I was busy in the kitchen until 4 o’clock, then came Kolya. I ate the dinner he brought, then we drank coffee that I had just roasted, with saccharine and yesterday’s kissel (a kind of jello dessert) made of oats. In the evening we shall eat the soup made from pork and we will drink tea. Just now we retired into Kolya’s room – the only heated one - and to distract ourselves by reading Pushkin. But that only deranged me more! I see always Mamulya, Nadya, little Kiril! I think what are now doing Natasha, Karlusha, Little Victor. Where is Sonya and what is she doing?...And how everyone must suffer from such a holiday of the Birth of Christ.

The sum of today’s holiday eating cost us: 4 dinners from Diner, 15 rubles; 2 pounds of pork, 70 rubles; 2 pounds of potatoes, 16 rubles. In all 101 rubles!

My bustling is drawing to its conclusion, i.e., departure from delightful Petrograd, though progressing with turtle’s steps. Every affair of a citizen of the “freest” Republic depends on such a mass of formalities, of special resolutions, clerical delay, as has never yet been practiced in any tyrannical government set-up. To get a permit to leave and then to return to Petrograd, I have visited more than ten offices during a week and still can’t see the end of all the torture. For instance, in order to buy in the shop a tablet with a cloth cover one has to get first a permit from the “Soviet Public Management”! In the meantime our life goes on as usual: we practically starve, then grow angry, as we did yesterday, and go buying provisions on the market to the sum of 70-100 rubles; but to carry these purchases is no problem. In all we bought two pounds of meat, some turnips, carrots, soup-greens, potatoes, a small enigmatic-looking can of pork-goose fat (45 rubles), which when used for frying exudes a nasty and sickening odor!

Thus yesterday was a day of cooking. The kitchen stove was lighted, soup was made for two days, pretty good too, potatoes were boiled for the coming day, oats with their husks was cooked for kisel (kind of jello) or for pancakes, but since neither one or the other succeeded it went into the garbage pail. Oaten and barley coffee was roasted in the oven and before we knew it the day was gone. To add to it yet, Kolya’s dinner at the Dimanis and mine at the Diner – we feel satisfied. With the approach of evening we read a book by Durnovo: Thus Spoke Christ. We were so carried away by this remarkable book that we did not notice the passing of time until the clock struck 3:00 in the morning.

Today, according to the old style, is the Eve of the New Year. It is exactly 12:00 midnight. I was going to write down a greeting to the New Year, welcome it, even though without champagne, and stomach somewhat empty, and in loneliness, when suddenly (with the last strike of twelve) the electricity went out! Some welcome! We each, Kolya and I lighted the end of a candle and are just the same welcoming the New Year while sitting in an unheated room. I have not gotten away to this day – always some handicaps, troubles, disappointments. Kolya’s arrangements regarding his move to the Dimanis apartment is meeting all kinds of failures. At first Anna Andreevna was all for his moving into her apartment, promising all kinds of blessings regarding Kolya’s food and other comforts, and then suddenly last night changed it all. We can certainly detect in this bourgeois individual by her behavior an extreme egoism, materialism, slyness, and a virtuosity in knowing how to take advantage of people for her own use and disregard for their interests when there is no longer need of them and they can be replaced by others who can prove to be more useful! This has produced on us a very depressing effect, and has made me very uneasy regarding arrangements for Kolya. To stay for him alone in our apartment without any help is almost impossible. However, regardless of all our despondency we can still laugh and ironically speak of the so visible tactics of Anna Andreevna!

There are in the air rumors again of a coming change, of the end of some ultimatum, of great armies approaching some fronts, of whole armies having been wiped out, of the arrest of some “high official”, the murder of another, etc. Yesterday Kolya played publicly, in a collective concert in the “Worker’s Hall”, formerly the Army and Navy Club. He was prepared to play a Beethoven Sonata, but when he saw the assembled kind of “public”, and had heard the numbers and character played by other performers, he did not feel like playing the Beethoven, but instead plunged by impromptu into a Chopin Ballade that he had not played since summer. He got through it boldly though not flawlessly, but for the occasion, excellently enough. For this musical enlightenment of the proletariat he received 100 Kerenskys (paper money under Kerensky’s regime).

We walked home. It was still early. We bought from our neighbor 2 pounds of pork for 70 rubles, fried part of it and consumed it......Yes, I forgot to mention: before the “concert” Kolya bought in order to keep up his courage, ten Zephyr cigarettes in the Fair on Nevsky, for 7 rubles and 50 kopeks.

Yesterday, on the 20th, I arrived at last here, in the country, where from now on begins my idleness. I left Petrograd on Wednesday the 15th. That means the trip here took five 24-hour days. (normally it would take 3 ½ hours) And my God, what a horror it was! From 3:00 in the morning, on Wednesday, Kolya and I took turns standing in line on the Nevsky Prospect, at the International Office of Sleeping Cars, and only because of such efforts (by the way I almost froze my feet), we succeeded in getting a “sleeping place”, First Class, as far as Moscow for 120 rubles. But 9:00 in the evening we were already at the railroad station, but the train left with a great delay, so I let Kolya go home (from that moment I parted with him for a long, long time) since he was greatly tired, the railroad station was very cold, and there was no food in the dining room. As far as Moscow all went well. But in Moscow the trying experiences began. From the Nilolaevsky Station to the Kursky Station the isvoschik charged 40 rubles. In the Kursky Station – a million people. I checked the baggage and ate at the refreshment bar a hasty snack for 40 rubles. To get into the train and to get a ticket to Tarusskaya Station was absolutely hopeless. I decided to travel in the morning with the local train as far as the town of Serpuhov (25 versts from Tarusskaya 1 hour travel), and then trust luck!

Therefore I went to a nearby hotel to spend the night. I was given a dirty room, infested with bedbugs and unheated. No tea, no food. I laid down undressed, covered myself with my fur coat. At 7:00 in the morning I walked to the ticket office. The line was enormous! I did get my ticket but did not get to continue my travel because the check room where I had left my baggage was closed, it being cleaned and disinfected and therefore closed from midnight till 4:00 in the afternoon. Contagious typhoid fever had broken out. So I went to Uncle Dodo (my brother Adolf, nicknamed “Dodo”), whom I found in the process of dressing and preparing the morning coffee. I stayed with him two days and two nights. I was fed well. He and his friend Vronsky have organized a kind of working commune without any servant. At high cost they are getting the most necessary products (prices somewhat less than those in Petrograd). Through Uncle Dodo and Mr. Grushetsky I began trying to get either a seat in some delegations’ coach or get a man who would help me to get a ticket, to find me a seat with the baggage in a coach and accompany me as far as Tarusskaya. I offered as much as 200 rubles for it.

But no, all these hopes and troubles proved in vain. Sunday morning, at seven o’clock I went to the station. The town was dark and empty. Only in the churches morning services were held before a handful of worshipers.

At the station I found already a big crowd before closed doors. Distribution of numbers was going on for the person’s turn in line. At 4:00 pm there would be a roll call for the formation of a line in front of the ticket office which will be opened at 8:00 pm. My number was 142, so I went back to Uncle Dodo after having bought from a peasant woman two bottles of milk for 20 rubles. At Uncle Dodo’s we drank coffee with milk; then we went to visit Uncle Karl Medtner, whom we had not seen for a long time. He looked well, regardless of his almost 75 years, of all his adversities, a cold apartment, loss of his wife Aunt Sasha, etc. We lost much time on our walk there. The streets were crowded owing to the passing of a military procession and demonstration with music, as a protest of the murder in Berlin of Liebknecht and Rosa Luxembourg.

On our return I began to hurry. We drank coffee, cocoa, ate potatoes. I was provided with bread for the trip and I left for the station where I arrived fifteen minutes before the opening of the doors. Here I had a little luck. I met an acquaintance in the crowd who slipped into my hand an order that entitled me to a ticket out of the line. I rushed to the window, but tickets were given only as far as Serpuhov. I hesitated only three seconds and took the ticket to Serpuhov. The train was leaving at 4:15. A quarter of an hour only was left to gather up my things, to check the baggage and to crowd myself into the coach. And thus, in spite of the big crowd I was able to do it with the help of two porters for 50 rubles.

The trip to Serpuhov was uneventful. But in Serpuhov I encountered a desperate situation: my baggage was heavy and there was no help. Crammed in tightly I the midst of my luggage I stood at the station for about 2 hours not knowing what to undertake. At last I spied a porter. I had thought to hire a horse and sleigh even if it would cost 100 rubles. But to drive 25 versts at night with the ammunition I had would be too risky. The porter suggested that I should take the local (in other words the freight train). This I did, boarding it at 9:00 pm. The train did not start until 5:00 in the morning arriving at the Tarusskaya station at 7:00 am. That means I sat 10 hours in the dark on my luggage, amidst dung, packed with people. I was chilled to the marrow and was sure to catch the death of a cold! In Tarusskaya it was still dark. I wanted to rest up in the Chikinov tavern. But the Chikinov had long ago been already ruined and had vanished. At 8:00 am a peasant happened to come along with his horse and sleigh. I talked him into taking me along for 30 rubles. Fortunately the weather was calm. The morning moon was shining through the mist. In the east was appearing the first blush of sunrise. I tried to recognize the road that I had never seen in winter, but finally I did arrive at my nest. Drove up to the front door and knocked. The domestic opened the door. It was warm inside. And there was Mamulya in her belted warm overcoat. She was already heating the little stove. She welcomed me joyfully, but also full of great anxiety: Kirilchik (3 year old son of Nadya) is very ill! Nadya is absent; she is in Moscow on business connected with her work. The day passed in going over the things I brought, in talk, in making sleeping arrangements. The sight of the child is pitiful. He has a severe case of measles. The doctor’s assistant has been in.

This is my fourth day here – a day of terrible suffering. It has been determined that Kirilchik has not the measles but the worst form of scarlet fever! And so we two, Mamulya and I are treating and nursing him without a doctor, without any medicine, lacking all comforts, and all this in the absence of his mother who regardless of our telegram, is still away, while death threatens her child every minute. Sometimes an assistant physician comes in from Koshkino (village two versts away). He left an inhaler and some homemade remedy. I took advantage of a chance (we have no horse) and went to the station yesterday to see about the hay that was confiscated from us. I was not successful. From there, taking advantage of another chance, I rode to Malahovo (the dispensary). Stood in line for a long time. Did not see the doctor, who is not on its staff, but a woman assistant who gave me some medication: an iodine salve for the throat and valerian drops to be taken internally!!! From Malahovo I went back to the station on foot! From there I rode home with a fellow traveler, for 20 rubles.

Both assistant-doctors promised to come today but none came so far. Mamulya is exhausted, has not slept for several nights; Nadya is still away....The child has all the threatening symptoms: convulsions, drowsiness, ulcers, numbness of tissues, foul odor from the mouth, heavy breathing with his head thrown back, eyes closed, temperature over 104 for the eighth day already!.....At the same time he would let no one do anything for him, keeps wriggling, moaning with teeth clenched and apparently in great agony. Today he has been refusing even milk.

I go daily after milk to the nearest village, 1 verst away. Am given out of charity three cups, the people having no milk for themselves. Beside taking care of the sick we are having trouble with providing heat, busy gathering wood, shavings, and in spite of it, it is cold, smoky, and dark from 5 o’clock in the afternoon till 10 o’clock in the morning. We are suffering at the same time for the child, waiting every minute for his mother. Why doesn’t she come? Will she find her child still alive?

The night was a nightmare. We hardly slept at all. Helplessly busying with the child. His tossing, moaning, delirium, outcryings, the sound of gurgling in his throat, difficulty breathing, sometimes no breathing at all and his calls of “mama” and “baba” – all this created such horror and despair at our inability to help!.....Then the worst horror: when we tried to use the inhaler and when, in order to give him only a teaspoonful of milk, we wrestled with him – at his dying hours. He does not want the compress nor any medicine, throws everything off himself and tosses from side to side; we were afraid he would fall off the bed. Horror and despair while Nadya is still away. In the night we had to heat the stove, the temperature was 47 (F) in the room; 14 below zero (F) outdoors. In the morning we had to heat the little stove again. Then finally, at 10 o’clock in the morning, Nadya arrived....poor girl....At first she could not see her son. But then all three of us went in. The child hardly recognized his mother. Just then the sun appeared, bright, brilliant. The child appeared improved somewhat and our spirits rose.

At 3:00 am our Kirilchik died. From the night before we were at his bedside, doing all we could to save him – using the inhaler, cleaning his mouth, lubricating the throat, trying to pour some milk into his little mouth. We wore him out and ourselves still more. Toward the end of all our ministrations and in spite of his resistance he began to grow weaker and weaker. When we laid him down his breathing became more frequent, more interrupted, hardly audible at times. But the pulse appeared good. His mournful moans, calls for “Mama”, “Baba”, became weaker, more incomprehensible. Still, we continued to hope. His mother and his Babushka took turns beside him. And then I fell asleep. Nadya too began to fall asleep. Babushka was with Kirilchik at his last moment of life... and his mother too caught this last moment.

Gone was the light of our home!....In great agony died Kirilchik. For Mamulya and me the terrible night of December 14, 1893 repeated itself, when our unforgettable little Ksenya died. This was 26 years ago, but we remembered it as if it had happened only yesterday. She too had suffered horribly and died of the other fatal illness – dyptheria. And her illness also started here, in Dubrachok. It also was winter and snowing. She even resembled little Kirilchik – was chubby and bright, though older than he at the time. And near her were also Mamulya, I, and domestic help like near Kirilchik until his mother arrived...

Evening...Nadya has gone to the Strahovo village to order a grave in the churchyard. Mamulya has made a wreath from the branches of a fir tree...she found some berries on the briar bush and wove them into the wreath. He loved these berries; he would always wander somewhere to get them and then eat them. I will make a sketch of him by the lamp while he is still with us and before they will take him away and bury him.

Yesterday we, Nadya and I, were making drawings of Kirilchik until my fingers grew stiff. We tried to heat the room but had no luck. The wood was damp and the fire died out. After supper we went to bed. Nadya lay down dressed and with her fur coat on. We awoke at 7:00 in the morning with the temperature at 43 (F) in the room.

It is midday just now. Bright sunshine. Nature has put its finest white vestments covered with shining diamonds. Kirilchik has left it all. His shell has still his features: the little nose, forehead, hair and eyebrows, as if alive.

I walked to the village after the daily bottle of milk, but no longer for Kirilchik!

Two last loads of hay have been taken away. Our hay. The tovarischi (comrades) needed it. They did not care that because of it we had to send our horse to strangers to be fed. Just the same, we treated the drivers to tea and for that they left us the remaining ½ of a load of the hay.

Nadya and Mamulya are busy padding and lining the little casket that was made of old boards. They are trying to make it beautiful while weeping, recalling constantly Kirilchik’s words, exclamations, gestures. It is heart-breaking.

Mailed to Kolya letter #2.

Today is my birthday...It is a sad day. An hour ago they carried Kirilchik away. We awoke at 4:00 in morning, it being unbelievably cold – 42 degrees (F). Mamulya hurried to light the little stove. She and Nadya slept with their clothes and fur coats on. I awoke with a feeling of a cold. Making a sketch of Kirilchik in a cold room and the trips to the frozen toilet did it. We brought the temperature up to 50 degrees, succeeding only to increase the smoke (we are without wood, and brushwood creates only more smoke). The smoke gets into the eyes, anguish gnaws at the heart! I was congratulated on my birthday; we drank coffee with biscuits, and then busied ourselves with the last duties for Kirilchik. The village horse and sleigh arrived. We covered the child with a veil, placed the little wreath with him, then covered the casket and carried it out to the sleigh. Nadya as a driver, Mamulya behind. I joined them and rode as far as the village (after milk). I did not risk going farther owing to my cold. I felt ill. At the crossroads I followed them with my eyes, the two heart-broken women with their dear little corpse. I recalled Perov’s painting....

Now I am at home. It became very quiet. The soul and gaiety of our home are gone. Before me are my three sketches of Kirilchik and his things are all around...all that is left.

They returned from the funeral yesterday all frozen and starved. After eating they fell asleep immediately. I got them up for supper at 8:00 pm. Nadya appears to be ill. And I have a sore throat. The rooms are full of smoke, the chimneys seem to be stopped up. No real wood can be had. No one from the village wants to come to saw it and Gryusha can’t do it by herself. We have to get along with brushwood which smokes more than gives heat. Today they will come to disinfect the premises. Thereafter we shall leave for the Strahovo village. There will be a new beginning.

Nadya left last night. She left with a fellow traveler who happened to go as far as Tyapkino (village on the way to Strahovo); from there she hoped to find somebody to take her to Strahovo.

She left without eating properly. Mamulya gave her some meat and pancakes to take along, while I forgot to give her saccharine...I regretted it so much. Nadya herself would never have asked for it...she is so modest. She would have left without taking anything! We felt more lonely and sad after her departure.

I woke up at 6:00 this morning with the feeling of having caught a bad cold, of a difficulty in breathing. Never before has my organism been exposed to such extreme experiences, to such changes, from warmth to cold. Under four layers of blankets, coat, and fur coat, the body felt warm, while the head was exposed to a temperature of 43 degrees (F) during the night. Then one has to go to a part of the house with the freezing temperature. A few more such experiences and I feel I shall come down with tuberculosis or some other such disease. If we could only get away to Strahovo! How Mamulya can stand it all is a marvel!

My head is full of ideas, plans, of starting some intellectual work while my physical condition is bad. A strange weakness. I am mostly annoyed by a state of vegetation....I hardly can wait to go to Strahovo. Life has narrowed down, has been forced into some hole, a small impasse, a blind alley. Here we sit already only two of us. Mamulya and I eyes glued to the little stove in the corner – trying to keep ourselves a little warm in this cold, senseless existence.

The sun is shining. Apparently it has been shining for a week already. But it does not fill us with joy.... My thoughts keep going back to other places, to other times...Moscow, Arbat....There is sunshine too...but how different; it is brilliant; it warms. The muddy snow and ice are thawing, forming rivulets, in places almost rivers. People everywhere, sleighs, droshkies hurrying. This is life, joy....It is the eve of Easter. Everyone’s arms are full of parcels. And what delicacies everywhere, what a variety of merchandise – in the market, shops and stores! You have never seen the likes of it!

And then my thoughts go back to Nice: our marriage there. Then back to Petrograd – the celebration of Natasha’s wedding. The tables in the studio breaking down from loads of food – zakouskies, pastries, fruit....How beautifully dressed was everyone, and how happy we all were! And now, what has become of you, Natashenka? Does your heart ache at the thought of us? You can’t imagine how we have aged, how disorderly we have become and how we subsist on bread and potatoes only. How sorrowful we are not hearing from you for over a year now, even longer – so it seems. I have lost all count! You cannot see our tears or feel our heartaches! You don’t even know that we have buried Kirilchik....

The anguish of the “animal” that has been driven into a dirty hole has lately grown somewhat less. In the physical sense the situation has become more bearable: 1) The weather is warmer, temperature outside 14 degrees (F); 2) My cold is better; 3) All chimneys have been thoroughly cleaned by Ivan Elizarov, whom we had called. This should have been done long ago. Five buckets-full of soot were carried away. The kitchen stove chimney was completely choked up. No wonder there was no draught, no heat, only smoke that smothered us. Mamulya constantly blamed the stove while I kept insisting that the stove was a good one. Any good thing, if neglected can be ruined. Well, all stoves are now in good order. The only thing we now lack is good firewood. We are waiting for someone from the village who will be willing to come and work for us.

Just now I am all alone here. Mamulya left for Strahovo to give a singing lesson – a horse and sleigh had come for her. Nadinka came from Strahovo yesterday. She wants us to move immediately there. She says it is light, warm and more cheerful there. But it is impossible for us to do so at one. In the first place, we must find a caretaker for Dubrachok, then shut up the house. Otherwise everything will be carried away. Nadya spent the night with us. Early in the morning, before daylight, I began heating the little stove. At 9:00 am, at sun’s first rays (the sun has been shining daily) I went to the village after milk. We had hardly finished our coffee when Mrs. Ushakova (our neighbor) arrived to take Nadya to the station. We needed provisions, the mail, etc.

Then came Grusha’s sister and Mamulya let Grusha go home with her, to Velegovo (a distant village) giving orders to bring back meat, pork, butter, vegetables and other things. So all are gone now. Mamulya and Grusha will not be back before tomorrow. Nadya will stop in on her way back from the station. Thereafter I will be all alone – through the evening, the night and half day of tomorrow. A little desolate, grim...however that is nothing. I will be busy taking care of the cow, the chickens and the stoves.

Mailed letter #3 to Kolya.

The sun is shining again. It has been much warmer, also humid, for two or three days. But now the temperature is again on zero. We are getting ready for the move to Strahovo, but know not how best to shut the house, how to protect it from burglars and from thieves. Also what to take with us and what to leave. A letter came from Yuri (Sonya’s husband). It contains news of Sonya, in Kiev. Things are in bad shape with her. The relatives there have shown very little interest in her. She suffers want; is cooped up in a small room for which she is unable to pay. She works in some kind of Ministry for almost nothing, sings in the Vladimir Cathedral while suffering from a throat infection. She suffers also because she has no music, nor books or even underwear. Yuri sent her 1,000 rubles from himself (Government money) and 500 rubles he took from Kolya. We have been wondering whether she has been able to locate the Annikova and Delone relatives from the mother’s side.

Bolshevism is gaining strength in Russia, in spite of the general discontent because of hunger. Well, why not Bolshevism? Were it not for all the suffering from hunger, Bolshevism is perhaps the unavoidable stepping stone from capitalism and the bourgeois system to anarchism? As a matter of fact, communal living is already anarchism. So we shall await its coming, profess and preach its religion.

I read Trotsky’s speech in memory of the slain Liebknacht and Rosa Luxembourg, and I was astonished to detect in it soft, tender notes of a cultured person. That means Trotsky is a cultured man?! I have never seen nor heard him, but I have always imagined him as a wild, disheveled individual on the podium, with bloody hands, roaring, uttering horrible curses and blasphemies, instigating ruin and death, beating with his fists everything about him, stamping his feet...and suddenly here – Trotsky is expressing his thoughts in sincere, heartfelt words, exhibiting his culture thereby! Does it mean that Bolshevism is not altogether bloodthirsty?

Tomorrow morning we are moving to Strahovo. High time. It is becoming impossible to stay here any longer. Grusha has left for home. Old Babushka Agrafena, as a caretaker, is a poor help to us. She can hardly take care of things in her own little hut – will she take good care of our cow? So far she has been trying to extort from us one thing after the other. She is away just now. I am alone again. Mamulya has gone to Strahovo. I have cut some wood, walked to the village for milk, heated the samovar and am sitting in these two rooms among dirt and chaos due to the impending move. I should like to read or write.

Such an insignificant move, as that from Dubrachok to Strahovo, but how hard it was! It wore me out completely. Mamulya, on the contrary, though busier than I was, did not break down. In Dubrachok yesterday and today we were busy with the heating up to the last minute. I cut wood from the thickest birch logs found somewhere in the laundry-shed. From the twigs I cut sticks for the little stove, took care of the cow. Then walked to the village through the deepest snow after milk. The temperature is slightly below freezing point and a heavy snow had fallen. Wearing a coat, walking was hard, and I felt even hot going up the hill. It wore me out. The horse and sleigh from Strahovo arrived at noon, but we could not leave because the old woman had not yet come. Finally we sent off the baggage with the sleigh, but ourselves stayed behind waiting for the old woman. The situation became tragic: bread and all food had been sent away. There was nothing to eat, nothing to lay on and nothing to heat with. Mamulya finally scraped together some flour and managed to make pancakes, frying them without butter or fat on that little stove (brought from Petrograd). We heated it with splinters. We ate the mess and drank hot water with milk and saccharine. And we began to wonder whether we should not have to crawl into the basement after some potatoes, staying on in Dubrachok. But at last the woman appeared, though as usual, with her doubts and her refusal to take on the watch. We were obliged to give her more provisions and more things. Finally we locked all doors and shutters and left.

And here at last we are all together in Strahovo, in a large house with thick heavy walls, with well-heated stoves. From all the weariness and my weakness and the feeling of warmth and coziness and having Nadya near – who busied herself about us – I became emotional and, embracing Nadichke, I wept....

The ordeal of moving is not yet over. We thought we could at least relax in this new place and forget all troubles and confusions of Dubrachok. We slept well our first night here and we awoke in a good mood when suddenly Agrafena, the same old woman, appeared from Dubrachok, with a formal refusal to be watchman! Can you imagine!? She talked all kinds of nonsense. She is simply crazy and has no conscience. This puts us in the most difficult situation. It means that Nady must go to Dubrachok the first thing tomorrow morning and find in the village another watchman. And she must immediately bring the cow here, to Strahovo, also hay. Otherwise the cow will be let to die of hunger, will be carried away! Worries and troubles and again such complications!

Letter #5 mailed to Kolya. We are living in a small room. I hardly go out. It seems to me I have all I need, everything that interests me. I need nothing more. The main thing – there is warmth and coziness. I have been cold ever since fall. I have the feeling as if being in no danger, as if looking out of a little window of a high tower, looking into a boundless distance, watching what’s going on there. More truly, sitting here as if waiting for something to happen.

In an old little book of my mother’s, “Buch der Lieder Heine” (Book of Songs Heine), which I remember from my childhood days and loved much. I find an inscription in my handwriting, made in 1880 (text is in German): “For happiness it is better that man destroy within himself all illusions than allow illusions to destroy him”. Then, in 1910, 30 years later, I added: “Illusions are the happiness of man” and “The deceptions (illusions) that exalt us is more gratifying than ignorance of ignoble truths”. Why such a change in thought after 30 years? What a sober and rationalistic outlook in youth, while such tendency to fantasy, irrationality, to the beyond, and mysticism during maturity and old age? Now, 9 years later, I hold firmly and wholeheartedly to this irrational and fantastic point of view. What cannot be attained by reason becomes accessible by intuition. It’s the genuine and true essence of man’s worth, the value of his life. It’s the link of man, of this infinitesimal small and frail human being, with the spirit of God, the inseparable part of God. How come I did not understand this in my youth? Did I imagine that man is capable of penetrating the divine depth of his being, of explaining the infinity of mysteries, of subjecting them to his rationalizing mind leaving nothing to the illusions? What a naïve youth I was! Or did I have too much faith in man’s intellect, in science and at the same time not feeling at all the vastness of the “mystery”!

All this is ridiculous: this “Hearth”, this “club”, these youngsters, the bustle and fuss, as if doing something of importance. There is good will, but little system, small knowledge, skill. There is also real earnestness, but poor results! Mainly because the whole thing is badly organized! My days pass rather strangely. Never in all my life have I spent them thus. We get up....then I walk back and forth in our room, then I read some, write some, eat a snack, read some again, eat again – not too much, but enough and all this to the accompaniment of the noise from the nearby “Hearth”, making any concentration impossible. Just the same, there is a desire to be doing something. Something worthwhile, something big. But what and how? I am beginning though to do something (what, I do not yet know myself), something with the local district of the Board of Education.

Letter #6 sent to Kolya.

We have moved into another room with a view into the garden. It’s farther away from the “Hearth” and less noisy. A queer room: a small square with windows, between two of which there is a large mirror in a gold frame and a marble table attached to its front. But the floor is uneven. The place has a strong odor, it having been used as a cholera dispensary. The bench by the stove is all creased. Nadya has installed herself in the room next to ours. Its walls and ceiling have been burned by a fire, but she has covered it all with draperies.

I have made a reckless deal: sold myself to do some social work. Instead of living here unnoticed, I drew attention to myself by the Commissars and Instructors and have already received an invitation to teach something. In a “report” to the Department of the District Board of Education, I exploded by expressing my very advanced ultra revolutionary convictions as well as my enlightened projects. It means that I have to prepare myself now to lecture on the native country’s history.

Well, it happened!....There was a draught from the windows and from the floor....Lavatory is in the “icy” place...We went after milk, climbing the hill against the wind!....Nadya rode to the station after provisions, then to Tarussa (small town on the other side of the Oka River, about 6 versts from Strahovo. 1 verst equals 2/3 of a mile) – for the rehearsal of “Othello”. She looked like an icicle on return! And now she is in bed with temperature of 104; mine is 101... What’s the matter with us? Have we typhoid fever, smallpox, or the Spanish flu?... Perhaps typhoid since the whole village is down with it.

Mama wrote Kolya letter #7.

As of now it appears that we have the “Spanish Flu.” Masha, our domestic, is also sick in bed in the kitchen. The door into the kitchen is next to my bed. I hear Mama passing through it every minute – nursing the three of us, preparing dinner, heating the samovar, giving enemas, taking our temperatures. I can hear Masha moaning and retching. My temperature is already normal, but Nadya’s is still high. She looks bad – her eyes are sunken, her cheekbones protrude sharply. Though I am feeling better, I am still very weak and I look like a decrepit old, old man. My eyes, only, show life and strength.

During the last days of our illness I read to Nadya much of the writings of Durnovo and of Berdyaev, their philosophy. We were much captivated by it. We were especially carried away by the description of Christ’s teachings – of overcoming our earthly limitations, by working on ourselves and freeing our mind, in order to realize an understanding by controlling our conscience.

In Berdyaev’s writings we enjoyed especially his metaphors on “sex and love”, of the heavenly, divine Aphrodite, of the individual, free and ideal love in contrast to the tribal, impersonal, lawful love! In other words, Nadya and I had plunged into the sphere of ideals and spirituality. Then, when we grew tired of reading and talking, we laid the book aside and abandoned ourselves to ravishing visions: tables covered with sparkling tablecloths, and on them – coffee, cream and the fanciest pastries – kulichi, krendeli, kaladhi, pirojki, etc. (oven-baked delicacies) and on top of it all – sweet butter, all kinds of cheeses and caviars. Or we visualized tables richly set for breakfast, dinner, supper, describing it all animatedly to ourselves, savoring at the same time every morsel, every swallow!

Yes, it was to come, any hour (but this “hour” has lasted now 3 years already – how much longer is it to last?) These beautifully sparkling tables are now our cherished dreams, “ideals”. Are we to be blamed that owing to the social revolution, while spiritual values have been fulfilled, the material blessings, on the contrary, have taken on another-world abstractness and an all-conquering mystical delight!

What is especially degrading and outrageous is the labor that is beyond one’s strength, the all-absorbing worry, connected with the satisfying of one’s basic needs of nutrition. And the worst thing still is the fact that in spite of it all, this need remains unsatisfied! The normal order, the normal conditions of life have been by the last years’ events, turned upside down!

What has been established now is the complete opposite from what it was supposed to accomplish. It has overthrown our Russian social revolution that was in advance universally! Such unexpected, fatal results can discredit, dethrone, kill any heroic impulse! What kind of change in the name of liberty is this, if this liberty has brought the people from one slavery to a worse slavery?

Concentration of all thoughts, worries and the tremendous labor toward one goal – nutrition – is the most typical slavery. Only the hard labor convicts get their food (and this always scant and poor) for the hard labor they do. A free people, a free citizen should get the nutrition easily, freely, unnoticeably, in order that his intellectual and physical activity can proceed without interruption. Only under such conditions can his work be free and creative. A dinner, any kind of dinner, is it a peasant’s cabbage soup and buckwheat gruel, or a city dweller’s dinner at home, or a luxurious restaurant dinner, or a festive Nameday dinner, should be made available to everyone according to a man’s needs, means and taste. And should not be the result of the labor in the kitchen by himself. The kitchen should not exist for the partaker of the meal, it spoils his appetite, while the worry about preparing it is humiliating to him.

As a matter of fact, the proper way to solve the whole social question would be a complete change of its set-up, change of its labor system and its results into a kind of “magic” service. But this is possible only by introducing into life the principle of division of labor in the perfect form. And this is possible only when the circumstances permit a complete guarantee of full freedom in the development of man’s profession, only then can man’s work become truly creative and socially useful. No labor is too heavy, unpleasant, humiliating or dangerous in professional work that is performed freely and only under such conditions can it attain perfection.

The cook in the kitchen, for instance, if he is a professional, is not a servant to the visitor in a restaurant, but an artist in his job. But he becomes a servant and a labor-camp worker immediately when the normal conditions in his job are interrupted. Such as – lack of water in the faucets, forcing him to go with buckets after water to the river; or if there are no products in the market and in order to get the necessary food he must climb, with bags on his back, to the top of a railroad car for meat, potatoes, flour, etc. not to mention the risk such excursions can become to his life. Into such labor-camp conditions all Russia has now fallen. And the conditions necessary for a normal life and, what’s worse yet, the mutual activity of the different separate professions has been destroyed.

To a professional there is no such thing as heavy labor, because he possesses the technical knowledge and habits of his profession and because he has adjusted himself to his profession and acquired its methods. In his work there is nothing unpleasant. To kill a chicken, for instance, is to me the most forbidding act, causing me the worst suffering, while to a butcher, who kills livestock all day long, such an act is not upsetting to his excellent well-being. I faint when I see an open bleeding wound; a surgeon, on the other hand, experiences the greatest joy, that of an artist, when he operates. To a professional, danger does not exist, or he has learned to overcome it by training. A bee-keeper, for example, is not subject to the sting of a bee, having become careless to its danger; the latter simply does not exist for him. The same is true also in the case of sanitary workers, or fliers, etc. And the work of a professional cannot be humiliating also, because it is performed willingly and is accepted as creative toward its objective, i.e., toward the general good. A bacteriologist does not feel humiliated when he digs into the bowel evacuations for the purpose of analysis. The idea of degradation depends on the general moral concepts and these are subject to change. Lastly, if one or another professional job would definitely be found degrading, dangerous or over powering, it should be radically changed or substituted by means that would make the job a normal and safe one – by a new mechanical invention for accomplishing the job.

It’s lively. Interesting and great things are in the air, interesting people! Yes, I feel the return of strength. Still too early to leave the stage and bury oneself in the jungle of retirement like a useless invalid!

There is one thing that interests and puzzles me: how to explain the great difference which exists between me and my children – Nadya, Kolya, and Sonya – in the realm of esthetic perceptions, i.e., the difference being not so much in esthetic tastes as in the capacity – power to perceive esthetic values. What they find charming I too find equally charming. But there are many things that give me great pleasure which leave them indifferent. In other words, the field of esthetic subject mater is much more limited in my children than in me.

I find some reasons and explanations for it: I have many literary traditions, traditions in general. I have lived through much, tied to the past epochs that have found reflection in art. They don’t have these traditions. Some specimens of art (especially in literature) are dear to me, because of personal memories and because they recall the forms, spirit, style of the dear old past.

Besides, the style of the past is simpler, more naïve than the present one, and my education having been based on it, the foundation of my esthetic perception is simple and more naïve, while their esthetic foundation was from the beginning influenced by the refinement of art, that of the “fin de siecle.” I have retained therefore the flair for the simple and have added to it the appreciation for the refined also. They, on the contrary, possess only the latter, not at all the first, or if they do so, they find it only in the genial, eternal examples, unrelated to the epoch. For instance, I, reread the other day a good old book, Pissemski’s “Thousand Souls,” with great pleasure. Nadya showed some interest in it at first, but put it aside soon, picking up instead the translated poems of Baudelaire. Their taste is perhaps even narrower than I have surmised. Of all the genial and greatly talented works, but which are not related to the “contemporary spirit,” they would find uninteresting, I think, and they would not read them at all. Such are for example the works of Heine, Schiller, Goethe, in other words, the whole Western Romantic School. These authors should be read in the middle of the last century and read in their original tongue. What an endless world of beauty has been lost to my poor children.

Yesterday finally arrived the authority!!! We have waited for her the whole last week. We wanted so badly that this Cecily Ilynishna, would come then and see the “Hearth” in action, how efficiently it has been run, how harmoniously and artistically it has been conducted by Nadya and Mama. But she did not come then, but had to appear yesterday, just when all were sick and the “hearth” was inactive. As a matter of fact why did she come at all? To see how the “hearth” works? Is that what interests her? – She had to establish her standards and had sent the regulations a week ago without consulting Nadya to find out when they would suit her.

She had to come in person to break up the smoothly running work and dismiss Nadejda Dmitrievna (Mama), having decided the latter “a priori,” under the pretense that she is too old, too much on routine, and therefore altogether useless. I could not take it and during her authoritative garrulousness I exploded and gave her my “mind.” For that she naturally began to hate me. Well, the “nut was too hard for her teeth to crack,” (a Russian form of speech). It made her more stubborn: it hurt her ego. She insisted to bring in Panna Yadwigha, saying that her collaboration with Nadya would be ideal, while Nadya’s work with her Mother would be one-sided (narrow). The conversation lasted from 5:00 pm until 2:00 am. She drank our tea, ate our kasha with our milk and bored me to death. She spoiled my mood for the rest of the night and for the whole day today. It hurt me for Mama’s and Nadya’s sake. However, she mellowed some today, permitting Mama to assist as a volunteer, or a non-state worker. I despise her!

The weather is ideal, the temperature outdoors is 47 degrees (F). The snow is thawing fast. I take care of the cow, bringing her water and hay, while the water from the roof runs down my back between the neck and shirt. It is time apparently to put aside the valenki (knee-high felt boots) and put on shoes and rubbers which I did not wear for a month and a half!

Nadenka has been corresponding with her husband. In her melancholy and depressed frame of mind she seems to be nursing the dream of another child, repeating over and over the same old phrase she did in the beginning of her first pregnancy: “a child gives meaning to one’s life, otherwise life is empty and meaningless.” Does this mean to begin all over again?! Life has apparently taught her nothing!!! That she should have the maternal instinct is very natural. But she lacks self-criticism, the ability to evaluate things, events, and circumstances, as well as her own strength – this is very sad. She follows exclusively her instincts, not even her feelings, because......

(here a whole page is torn off in the original)

.....Instead her reasoning should be: “Even if I myself should be earning something, it would not be sufficient in the first place, and secondly, I would have to leave the child to some unknown care and it will be worse than was Kyrilchik with his Babushka. I can see now that Sokolov (her husband) will never be able to do his duty, to provide for his family. Ridiculous his mailing me 100 rubles – it speaks eloquently for him! No, I am wiser now and since I cannot establish conditions necessary for maintaining a family, I shall regard the bringing into the world of children as a sin and a crime.”

This is, I imagined, how Nadya would reason, but alas, not so – she continues only to repeat her phrases that she did before her marriage, as if nothing so terrible has happened since, but what did happen – was very normal!!

Not in vain have I felt for the past days a strange uneasiness, a hazy longing for distance, the feeling that I am a stranger here, superfluous, idle, and as if somewhere there is work waiting for me!

Yesterday and today all at once we received a number of letters and telegrams from Sonya in Kiev, and Kolya in Petrograd. We were glad to learn of Sonya’s success in her singing career, that she had at last found her place in life and that her work has restored her spirit and courage.

But Kolya has stunned us with the news of his departure (escaping no doubt from being drafted into the Red Army) to Kiev or Odessa, with Yuri. His saying “the four of us” puzzled us. Who are the others? – it remains unknown. We figured that by today they must have left Petrograd already. This means that I must hurry to Petrograd to look after the apartment and its contents that have been left to the mercy of fate.

A frightful prospect – this moving from here to Petrograd! Mamulya and I have decided to get into this battle together.

By the way, the exhibition season is approaching and I could participate by exhibiting the Zabelin portraits. Besides, Kolya mentioned a purchaser for my paintings...in other words, it’s necessary to go. But how shall we manage not to perish from hunger there and on the way? And how and when shall we return here. To get back here is also necessary, especially for Mamulya regarding the affairs in Dubrachok. To leave Nadichka alone here is also not desirable!... What is to come?

All those nearest to me have been scattered by the wind! As if all of them have been carried away on the big road by the tide, while we, i.e., Nadya, Mamulya and I have been by-passed, have gotten into a blind alley, an impasse, side-tracked by the great tide, left here unnoticed and relatively secure. Then suddenly Kolya’s letter and his telegram, his departure for the South, and we are, as if by some force pushed out of the alley onto the big road, into the whirlpool...

Here, there is at least some illusion of peace, country stillness and if only partly, we are well-fed! It is quiet, the roosters crow, the cows moo, one can hear the snow thawing and the water rippling in the brook. Nature is shining with its virginal beauty and makes one forget all the Sovdeps, requisitions, queues, and all other signs of contemporary life....And now, in a few days, I and Mamulya shall be leaving it all.

Yesterday came the local teacher from Alexin. He brought us 4 gr. of saccharine (40 rubles), and a strange notice in the name of Panna Yadviga with an order to leave for “over there,” not mentioning whereto, for a new job, a place where a kindergarten is being opened! That is after her determined wish to direct the local “Hearth” here with Nadya. All this is so incomprehensible, that it makes one surmise that there must be a letter coming that has not yet arrived, which will explain it all in detail. Who then will be the second worker in Strahovo?

The teacher brought also interesting news that beginning today all railroad communications will be discontinued for almost a month and that the mail will be brought only once a week, by the military train. All this is done to bring bread from the South, where millions of poods (1 pood equals 36 pounds) of it has accumulated and has begun to rot, while people in the Central and Northern part of Russia have been dying of hunger!

All is clear now: Panna is leaving for Yakovlevo while Nadya is to stay here, nominally alone, the pretext being that the number of children has diminished on account of spring floods. As a matter of fact, Tsitovskaya is counting on Mama’s assistance, as second director. She writes to Nadya that your mother will assist you, though she does not appoint her officially. She offers Mama the job of giving the children singing lessons an hour each day, for 150 rubles a month, but officially she cannot appoint Mama before summer, she writes. We were enraged by this wily trick, this exploitation of another person’s labor. I answered by an explicit, detailed letter. Nadya copied it and mailed it to Alexin. We exposed in it Tsitovskaya’s whole political scheme with emphasis on the fact that if Mama is needed as assistant director, what she actually has been from the time the “Hearth” was founded, she should now be officially appointed as such. Otherwise her status as a non-state worker is oppressing to her. Let Tsitovskaya come out with the truth. Why does she want Mama’s services but is not appointing her properly. If it is a matter of money, let her say so.

I brought today from the village much milk and cottage cheese. The chickens begin little by little to lay and we have been “feasting” though without meat.

March is about over, but the weather is as if we were in the thick of winter. Yesterday there was such a strong wind I thought I would be blown away or would catch the death of a cold, when I went to the village after milk. And what a heavy snowfall! All windows are frozen up. But the sun has been shining brilliantly for days now. I stretched the canvas on the frame and perhaps shall begin painting something!

Yesterday I received two letters: one from Uncle Dodo in Kiev, the other from Mme. Dimanis in Petrograd. Uncle Dodo received my letter with the insured letter for Natashanka enclosed. He praises the life in Kiev – it is better than that of Moscow. Sonya is in the class of Eugenia Ivanovna!! (Eugenia Ivanovna Zbrueva is a well-known opera star, wife of Uncle Dodo.) She is well thank God, and well fed, though she has lost her position. It is not known how she manages. Yuri and Kolya had not yet arrived in Kiev. But I have just read in the Moscow paper that with the establishment in Kiev of the Soviet regime, prices soared immediately!...that a pound of bread which had cost 4 rubles, costs now 20 rubles, and that produce and merchandise have immediately disappeared from the market. The Soviet Army is winning battles on the Odessa front!

Mrs. Dimanis’ letter sounds quite tranquil in spirit. She writes that life in Petrograd is not dangerous and it is expected that there will be a change toward still better conditions. Our apartment thus far is all right. She advises me to come and take care of it. Prices are outrageous. I really do not know what to do! Shall try and arrange affairs by letter and go nowhere until after Easter.

Today is Natashanka’s birthday, yesterday was Sonya’s birthday. Only God knows how far they are from us and from each other. In their honor Mama baked a pirog from rye flour with kasha. I do not know how she did it without butter, but it turned out to be unusually delicious. I marked this day by beginning to paint the head of a little girl who lives below us. I have not worked since December, i.e., three months, and again I have that familiar sensation of a burning, as if all inner effort is striving toward one point, toward this strike of a brush, this image, with the passionate desire to produce something, which though still hazy, appears at the same time vividly before the inner eyes! It is a wonderfully pleasant sensation...and then the sight and smell of colors, palette, brushes! No, indeed, it is still too soon for me to leave off!!!

We are in the midst of a real winter, having heavy snowfall every day. Though the thermometer stays close to 32, it is not thawing. Going after milk, I walk across the frozen little river. In a few days, alas, there will be no milk given out. The time is before easter and the milk is being saved for cottage cheese and sour cream. While we are going to be without these products, that means also without a “paska.” Our cow still has no intention of being delivered by a calf! I continue to feel greatly anxious and am in a very depressed mood! There is no news from Kolya, nor from Sonya or Natasha! What is going on in Petrograd is also unknown. The question of the amount of rent for the apartment remains unsettled. Rumors are contradictory again. It is said that the French have declared war on Germany and on the Bolsheviki!... Si non e vero....

Today we sent by mail some biscuits and bread to Moscow, to Zoe (cousin on Mama’s side). She, her mother and children are starving! She wrote us a most terrifying letter... the children are wasting away. We would like to bring one or both of them here, but how can it be done?

Though our room is far away from the “Hearth,” its racket can be heard from 9:00 in the morning till 2:00 in the afternoon. Mama and Nadya are hardly able to manage the 35 little “savages” and are overtired. Nadinka is beginning to feel that this job has become a burden.

It is a dull Sunday. My stomach has been aching all night and all day today. It is caused by the bad smoked horse-meat sausage. We were tempted by its low price – 12 rubles a pound. And here I am lying in bed with a warm cover over my stomach. One must be careful – since any treatment is impossible now; no medications can be had, nor can one follow any diet. All that can be gotten is black bread, potatoes, and milk!

It is evening and I feel a little better. Just now I have experienced not an insignificant pleasure, but it left me with a strange feeling of madness and anguish: Polenova (daughter of the artist, Polenov - their estate adjoins Strahovo), brought us some music last night: all of Chopin, Schumann, and of other composers. And Nadinka, though with fingers out of practice, browsed through all this splendor and it seemed as if a gentle breeze had brought in another world, a world of beauty so long unheard of! It seems to me, if life could be lived over again from its beginning, I would have devoted myself to music! I don’t think that all those gentlemen playing different instruments and even having made for themselves a “name,” are made of a different fiber than I am made of. I think I would have been better than the majority of them!

It’s bad! Stomach continues to ache! All this because just recently I thought that it has been a long time since my stomach has been aching. By that I threw a spell on it! That is the way it has always been with me! Am keeping hot bandages on my abdomen, but it gives me only slight and brief relief. And Mamulya has only 5 capsules of Castor Oil left....I have grown weak in general and the heart is troubling me.

On top of it – another disaster: In Dubrachok the door was broken in and the house entered! We have expected this. It would have been strange if this had not happened. The house stands alone in the wood, without a caretaker and all around are people that are thieves! Sure, - they are Communists (“what is yours is also mine!”) – “glory and pride” - “advanced people, bearers of the world’s new ideas!”

Just now Mamulya and Nadichka have left for Dubrachok; I am alone.

Well, it was what could be expected. Our home was stripped clean! They carried away several loads: the last of the hay from the barn, linens from the chest of drawers and the trunks, dresses, even hats, dishes, a new dozen of knives and forks, tools, hatchets, dolls, and....over 5 poods of rye flour and oats. All by breaking in.... Yes – also mattresses and one folding iron bed. I am surprised that they did not carry away also the grand piano and the portable stove. But they will yet come for it and then go to work on the roof and the wall beams.

I mostly pity things which belonged to Natasha, Victorik and Kyrilchik....And also the rye flour. My ladies spent their whole day and Mamulya went there again today, bringing back all she could carry of what was yet left by the thieves.

My heart is seriously worrying me. Such frequent irregular and strong heart beats. It frightens me! It was especially bad yesterday, in the absence of Mamulya and Nadya. I must say that the word “fright” is incorrect; it does not express my true feeling. On the contrary, I have no fear and I am ready to meet my end with full resignation and calmly. What worries me only is that it may be accompanied by much physical suffering.

I am spending a bad night. Such terrible pains in my abdomen, forcing Mama to get up, to awaken the servant-girl and heating the samovar and to ake hot compresses on my abdomen...in other words, it is bad! Cold applications on my heart, hot applications on the abdomen! The only treatment I can get! And all the time thoughts of my children go incessantly through my head – of Natahsa and little Victor, of Sonya, of Kolya...I may never see them again...I must at least write them something.

For Sonya.

“Mein schooner Stern!” - “my beautiful star” (a song by Schumann) – You are all to me in these three words! And you have merged yourself entirely, in my imagination, into this song of Schumann’s, into its ecstasy, its words!! Do you remember when you sang this song last summer in Dubrachok – how deeply it affected me? Ever since I call you in my mind “Mein Schoner Sterm.” And whenever you will sing this song, remember me, your old father with his turbulent, exalted soul! “I shall not die thus altogether, but my greater part, freed from its mortal shell will live” – it is you, Sonya, who will live!.... You, who with your singing have reincarnated what is best in me, what has lived in the innermost of my being, but what I myself could not express.... “Mein Schoner Stern!” Live on, sing, be happy! Perhaps as some spirit I shall be close to you, shall hear your singing, observe your living, sharing your joys and lifting up your sorrows so that you may ever shine like a brilliant star! But if there are no spirits, if with my last breath all will end for me, then to bid farewell to life will not be so hard, for I will be conscious that this life has been filled for me with beauty, that “Mein Schoner Stern” did glow in it and I had heard its incomparable familiar sounds!

Just received an express telegram from Kiev with the following contents:

“IVANOVO, TULA REGION, STRAHOVO, STEMBER. - FROM THE INNERMOST HEART I AM GREETING YOU, THE PARENTS, WHO GAVE US SONYA.”

No signature. We split our heads over this absurd telegram. Then we decided: Sonya gave her concert. After the concert there was a drinking bout and her admirers in their revelry lost their heads and in that state sent this “compliment”... Perhaps this is not so: at least it does mean something very pleasant. But how strange, that Kolya does not mention his arrival at the place?

I am still no better! The stomach gives me so much trouble, but more so the heart. It keeps beating wildly in my breast, then stops ominously in its work, as if ready to go on strike! Outdoors, however, it’s spring! Warm, sunny!... in the garden, dark patches are already visible around the trees and also on the sloping hills. While the birds are simply going wild! So much joy, so much young life!

Mama is giving me rice gruel and soft-boiled eggs, and, I believe, intends to bake biscuits from white flour left over from small savings that had been reserved for Kyrilchik.

(Here two pages have been torn from the original.)

Spring!... And in the heart it is spring! And into my sick body it has breathed life and a new strength! Am sitting in front of a wide open window. The sun is shining brightly and it warms. The snow during the last few days has vanished altogether, only in some ravines it can still be seen. Mama and Nadya are washing, ironing, cleaning as before a real holiday. Unexpectedly I received yesterday from the Alexin-Soviet an offer to assume the responsibility of organizing an Art Studio in Alexin and of directing its work!! This was an answer to my proposal made already a month ago in which I offered to organize a Studio in Strahovo. This proposal, written in high revolutionary style, impressed apparently the Alexin-Soviet and inspired respect for my person!!

Well, why not? It is very good. I agree in principle to accept it and after Easter holidays shall make with Mama a visit to Alexin. If the Soviet will not look at this undertaking too narrow-mindedly, I shall set it up along a broad and interesting line. I shall lay the foundation for an Art Museum, for a Library, Reading Room and Studio – in the spirit of a liberal Workshop. I shall expect to be sent to Petrograd and get from the Kuindji Society and other places there, some paintings, good photographs, reproductions, ouvrages, and publications; will take some of my own works, and establish thus a base for an excellent Art Institute which in spirit and principle must become an esthetically-cultured education for its students, whoever they are – bourgeois or proletariat, laborers or non-laborers, young or old...For me the word proletariat does not exist, least of all as a dictatorial power in endeavors of cultural education!

From Kiev, after the famous telegram “Who gave us Sonya,” not a word.

Christ is Risen!

The great holy holiday has come. All day long a frenzied bell-ringing. But the weather is damp – and the spirit is not too bright, as it usually is on this day! Just now it is quiet in our room. Mama, reposing in her white dress, is asleep after the Easter dinner, after all the household cares of the past days of the Passion Week and after standing through the night Church Service. Nadya and Masha (our servant-girl) have gone for a walk up the hill where the village young girls in their bright kerchiefs are frolicking and swinging while I am sitting here, writing and wondering how it all happened – that we three of us here in the dullest of places are observing Easter in such unusually squalid surroundings!!!?? It would seem the situation could not be worse – living conditions and all the innumerable misfortunes.

But regardless of it all, Mama managed to set up an “Easter table” with colored eggs, God knows how she colored them – with onions, paper, and even with potassium permanganate, and with ink... And she had baked three kulichi (Easter holiday bread), one of which from the real white flour! This flour, some butter and sugar Mama had saved for this holiday almost a whole year. And there were flowers on the table, skillfully made of paper... And a pashka (Easter delicacy made of cottage cheese, eggs, butter, sugar, and vanilla). And the dinner was for us an unusual one: soup of pork (this little piece of pork was saved by Mama like a relic). For the second course we had boeuf stroganov and for the third course a jello made of dried fruit and dried strawberries, drinking it all down with milk. With our soup we had curd cakes made of black flour from the village that Masha had sacrificed for us!...

In the morning came the priest with the Icons. We “received” the Icons in our crowded room, as Icons are “not permitted” in the “Hearth.” It all seemed so degrading and humiliating. From the back I could see how frayed the priest’s vestment was, how dirty, with the cross on it half off and hanging loose. He could not fix it even for the holiday!... This half-loose cross symbolizes all the darkness, barbarism, all savagery of our people! It is so obvious that all this indifferently religious service is performed only to get money... and this in separate donations: for the priest, for the Icons, for the plate... Well, how in the world is it possible for them not to hanker after money, when the cost of living is so high, and the Church is now separated from the Government – donations are the only source that is left to them.

Beside the priests, of course, no one else looked in on us this day. There is no one who could visit us. Just the same we attired ourselves and dressed up for each other. Mama even pinned on her regalia – the St. George Medal for courage and the Gold Medal for zeal, but then took them off and put them on the table with the face that has the image of the unfortunate Nicholas (the late Tsar) – down. Afterwards we visited Kyrilchik’s grave. With great grief did the nearest to him visit it!... On a slope of a hill, between two pine trees of a poor country churchyard, in a clay depression lies our dear little child!

In grief, with bitter resentment we then dragged ourselves home to our dark room. “Everything in this world, the good and the evil is given to a man according to what he deserves, but according to some yet unknown but logical laws, which I shall not even try to point out, though at times it seems to me I dimly sense them.”....(Turgenev, in “King Lear” of the Steppe”)

The Strahovo theatrical troupe gave a performance yesterday. The stupid play and a complete lack of acting! Considering even that there was no leader (it is the first time that I saw a peasant-theater), I find that it is too soon for the proletariat to perform on the stage. On the other hand the dance of two teenagers, to the accompaniment of a harmonica, astounded me. It was almost an artistic performance, and showed what our proletariat is able to do.....

Before the entertainment a peasant-Bolshevik made a political speech on the present political situation. He too exhibited what the proletariat can do! My God! What a speech it was! But all sat still and listened to him a full hour! Evidently the speech was made according to orders from above and also according to a laid-out program. Its meaning was as follows: - the regime of the Bolsheviki is at the peak of perfection. The power of the Bolsheviki is indestructible and is growing ever stronger. There is trouble only on the Eastern front because of Kolchak. He did succeed to break through. But the danger is past, since he has been forced back 100 versts. A Kolchak victory is unthinkable, however should he succeed, - beware of it – no one will be spared. He will destroy everybody, even the children!

The Menshiviki workmen are in revolt, the intelligentsia is working poorly for the peasant-workers Republik. Let them know, all of them, that we shall have no mercy with them! We, Bolsheviki, are strong and we shall not relinquish our power, thereby guaranteeing our freedom! Such was the content of the speech. Its form was rather classical. Tonight there will be another performance, but it will be by the Koshkinsky troupe. I wonder if there will be another speech?

At the same time it is rumored that the Red Army is in full retreat !?

Well, the second performance took place: it was a much better one, as a matter of fact, not at all bad. First a comedy, then a farce. And it was acted fairly well...Indeed, the proletariat is very, very capable; one thing only is undoubtedly lacking – a cultural training and a good director. But there is much that can be done with these people. Just the same, it must be repeated for the hundredth time, in spite of all Lunacharskis, in nothing can I see a “pure proletarian” idea. This “purely-proletarian” ideology is a “purely-intelligentsia’s“ invention.

This morning the cow finally obliged and gave birth to a calf. The “infant” is called “Dochka” (little daughter). She was brought into the house and placed in the room next to ours. I can hear her stamping. Though not yet dry, she stands on her feet, although not too firmly. We expect another addition to our family: Zoya is planning to bring to us her oldest boy. How only is she going to make it from the station to our house? The road is still swampy, the peasants are still not using it and there are no coachmen at the station. Zoya cannot walk with the child!

From Kiev still no news after that silly telegram!

On Sunday, May 4th I shall go to Alexin and make the following statement there:

“The tasks and organizations of the Alexin Art Studio. From the moment Russia was freed from the oppression of the old, pre-revolutionary regime, she gained the far-reaching right toward a liberal cultural development. This right and the possibility of cultural development that is now open, is the essence and value of the victory won. And the whole merit of the revolution is in the opportunity of realizing this right, this duty – now and in the time to come. Therefore, all public institutions, and especially the educational ones, must have one goal in mind – the cultural education of the people. It is not necessary to talk about the quality or the program of this culture: the very meaning of the word “culture” expresses the growth of the most progressive ideas. Progressive ideas are the natural, the hereditary property of the true culture, and are not dependent on changes of conditions because of the different political parties. Culture is above parties. Culture in itself is the source of ideas and opinions that must unite all parties. Therefore all cultural-educational institutions must be above parties and must stand on an independent foundation. However, such an independent stand can be realized by these institutions only under conditions that are truly free of all prejudices and conditions of the old, worn-out pre-revolutionary time. And such liberation from the old traditions and old routine can naturally not be achieved at once. A great effort is necessary for it by the representatives themselves – of the educational endeavor – and on the other hand, by a patient and well-disposed attitude on the part of the top leaders. It will be necessary to review the entire construction of the educational system, of all educational relationships, and then find the means of agreement as to the present needs."

“The whole cultural problem of the moment is in reestablishing the balance between the material and the spiritual worlds that had been upset. The revolutionary struggle has naturally pushed into the first rank the material and utilitarian aspects as the first necessities. With the beginning now of more normal living conditions it is important to revert to the spiritual culture, which alone can bring into the material world a noble and spiritualized foundation. Without spiritual culture the whole material world loses its real meaning, and its most brilliant victories become the source of mutual hostility and moral savagery. Without cultivating the spirit, the most advanced liberal slogans become only outer signboards that cover up the same old sins."

“In order to achieve the best social relationships in line with the present needs of the social and personal life, cultural education must move in three directions: the scientific-technical, the esthetic, and the ethical. However these goals are not three different specialties, they must complement each other. Therefore, an Art Studio must not only teach how to draw, but must in a broader sense also develop an esthetic ability and esthetic world-wide outlook. The system of the Studio must be based on two principles: discipline and freedom. Though seemingly opposite, they are in reality narrowly connected: - on one side a strict discipline of scientific method and of formal order. On the other side – limitless freedom of individual creativity, based at the same time on a free and voluntary self-restraint, which is in the end true discipline."

“As an organization the Studio must represent a working commune. Into its composition must go: a Workshop for artistic work, an Art Library, a Reading Room and an Art Museum, i.e., a collection of works of art and of reproductions of characteristic works of art. The detailed plan of the organization can be worked out according to local conditions and in agreement with the local members of the Public Education.”

With the advent of the month of May, this wonderful spring month that possesses the magical force to regenerate everything and all, we too feel as if aroused to new activity. I began painting a large canvas in the still-bare linden tree park. Nadya, apparently overtired from her work at the Hearth, has grown irritable, has gotten into a discord with Mama and announced that the Hearth bores her, that she is ready to quit her work and go to Dubrachok, where she will live by herself and do the plowing! Only with difficulty did I succeed in convincing her that no matter how insupportable the Hearth has become to her, it nevertheless represents a firm ground; while in Dubrachok she will not have anything even to eat, and as to her work there, that is virtually an impossible thing. Regarding her disagreement with Mama, it is a thing where both are wrong; they must change their attitude toward each other, as in their personal life, and especially in the field of their work. Thank God, they both have come to their senses and now, with the coming of May, are exhibiting new and fresh energy.

We celebrated the First of May at the Hearth in the midst of a crowd of children. The weather was beautiful. Nadinka took advantage of the three-day holiday “the Workers’ Holiday,” and with the teachers left for Alexin to make merry. She returned yesterday in excellent spirits. Everybody in Alexin, even the Sovdeps, gave her a warm welcome, fulfilled all her wishes and pretensions, paid her salary (close to four thousand) which the Soviet owed her and which, regardless of all her writings, she could not collect. I am apparently expected there, so Mama and I shall go there today after dinner.

There were also the following happenings: we went to Koshkino, visited the Ushakovs (the former owners of the Koshkino estate), living now in a small house. We found at home only Natashenka and Misha, as well as the Olga’s baby – a walking picture! Natasha too is beautiful and devilishly appetizing – especially interesting in her is the combination of naïve modesty and the somewhat sensual expression of face, especially of the mouth!... But of special interest was the visit to the Koshkino Enlightenment Circle. One of its members was found at home, at tea, among a large family – rich (made a six thousand contribution). Instead of sugar they ate deliciously smoked apples! We found the rest of the member actors at work – daubing the wall of the shed with clay mixed with straw – two sons and the old father. Their sister, Sonichka, a magnificent “match-maker,” bare-footed, robust, and carrying on her shoulders a huge basket full of sand. We invited all members to come to the theater room in the Ushakov mansion. They tidied themselves up and all came.

And here took place my connection with the Circle and the beginning of that influence on these people (all very friendly and earnest). I have longed for some time. I would like to raise them culturally, place them on the road toward true culture, which is above politics, goes beyond Marxism, has for its goal a spiritual depth. In other words I would like for them to understand, to sense what true culture is. I was given a “standard” copy of a code of rules that had been sent from Alexin, one that had been sent to all similar circles. I reworked it considerably and with my corrections will take it to Alexin. The code is a formal, general plan. Its best point is that there shall be no interference in anything. Much more important educationally are the inner rules or precepts which I am reworking for the Koshkin Circle.

Another happening: a telegram, an answer from Sonya in Kiev. “Kolya has left for Odessa. Sonya.” Thank God! This means that all is well. But the sad thing is that there is not a single letter from Kiev and that my last registered one was returned to me today. Zbrueva has not been found, neither at her private address, nor at the Music School address. Where are they?

Well, we have been to Alexin! We left on Sunday the 4th, and we returned yesterday, Wednesday the 7th. The first night we spent in Tarussa, at the Vinogradov’s, who did not show any special pleasure at our spending the night with them. In the evening we visited Lydia Alexandrovna Zolotuhina, whom we had met on the street with the Molchanov’s, but when we called on them (they are living together) only Lydia Alexandrovna appeared, while the Molchanov’s were eating and drinking in the adjoining room and during our hour-long visit never did they come out. Only when we were leaving did they come into the entrance hall, apparently pleased that our visit had caused them no trouble. Then we went to see the Miller family – three sisters, the husband and child of one of them. All were crowded in two small rooms. They had been turned out not only from their estate, but were also deprived of their apartment house in Tarussa, in which only the two small rooms were left to them. The Millers showed much more friendliness toward us. The following morning we went to the wharf, leaving the Vinogradov’s early (while they were still asleep). It was very cold and windy. The steamer was overcrowded. Mama squeezed herself into the general ladies’ cabin where, as she usually does, she entered into conversation with the passengers. From one of them she learned that in the adjoining cabin was traveling the Sovdep from Alexin who was the man in charge of the business for which I was going there. She managed to bring us together. He turned out to be a very young man, intelligent, a great enthusiast, somewhat of a braggart, but a big shot in Alexin. We spent the rest of the journey in his cabin, drinking “coffee,” i.e., a pale liquid, eating our own lunch, talking about the future Studio and the present political situation. He, Ivan Nikolaevich Popov (son of a landowner) had been a liberal, like the rest, a Social-Democrat, but since, has embraced Bolshevism and Communism. But regardless of the party, he is not narrow-minded and is even flirting some with the intelligentsia. On the subject of my having been invited to come to Alexin, he straightforwardly said: “Don’t be bashful in monetary resources, - organize your undertaking on a big scale.” As a beginning, all this sounded certainly well.

Once in Alexin, we did what Popov had advised us to do. We rented a room in a Soviet Hotel, and we acquired cards which gave us the right to eat in a Soviet Diner. Thereafter we experienced endless roaming on the terrible pavements and sidewalks, chasing from one end of town to the other because no one could tell us the exact location of the Town Hall, of shops, bakery, the Department of Public Education, and where is the Diner. But good luck was with us in the Department of Public Education. I was welcomed there as one who had been expected for a long time. There also happened to be Litvinov. He too is an artist and the husband of Vera Alexeevna (who has been to our house in Strahovo). She had asked Nadichka to tell us that we should go from the wharf directly to their house, to lodge there and have our meals with them. Litvinov was indignant when he learned that we had taken a hotel room where one can catch typhoid fever or any kind of nasty germ, he said. He insisted on our cancelling the reservation and moving over to them. We were more than glad to leave the filthy place with its signboard “Soviet Hotel.” With Litvinov and one of the Department’s Assistants, we then went to the “Pine Grove,” for me to choose the building that I would consider suitable for the Studio. The site in the Pine Forest on the banks of the Oka-River was ideal. Large dachas (summer houses) all boarded up were scattered all about. I liked one that had attached to it a smaller building, that would be used for my personal needs. We put off the decision until the next day, after inspecting it once more after the boards would have been removed. From there we crossed the Oka-River and rode to the Litvinov’s, where we were warmly welcomed and where night accommodations and a supper awaited us. But here, following all the conversations and impressions, I decided to drop the whole matter and stay for the summer in Strahovo. Litvinov, however, persuaded me the following day not to do it. So, I made up my mind to make rather high demands, regarding the material conditions, with a salary of 4-3 thousand a month. We agreed that Litvinov would write to me after a consultation with the Department’s officials as to what could be expected of them. The thing that disturbed me is that I would be living in Alexin alone. But then I had the idea of establishing myself with the Litvinov’s, at their Dacha. He goes home only on Saturdays (owing to a rather mountainous road). The Litvinov’s are exceptionally likable people. Now I am awaiting his letter. During our return I suffered great abdominal pains caused by that terrible Alexin bread. With difficulty did I drag myself home, the six versts, from the Oka to Strahovo! But after a good night’s rest, thank God, the pains disappeared.

Our success in Alexin I attribute in great measure to the impression Nadichka had made on everybody there. They were all “crazy” about her, the Litviov’s and all the Sovdep officials. They dream to have her move there with Mama, in the capacity of musicians at the local “Conservatory,” where only some poor amateurs are teaching now.

Alexin is a pretty miserable little town – were it not for its natural, wonderful picturesque setting, it would be worth nothing. And it seems to me, that regardless of all the endeavors of its “authorities” and all the expenditures, nothing that would be appropriate can be established in Alexin, i.e., a true cultural center for the District! For instance for my “Academy” they offered me for the winter –two rooms at the Public House which in itself is nothing but a wretched dark hole. Some Academy it would be!

There are rumors again that the Kolchak armies are advancing from the East. Popov definitely acknowledged that the Soviet Regime will not withstand the pressure on the fronts more than two or three months, which means that by the month of August the tune will somewhat clear up: either – we them, or - they us!

Not a line from Kiev!
Also, no letters from Petrograd!

Early this morning, at 4:00 am, we saw Nadinka off for Alexin with my letter to the Department of Public Education, in which I stated the necessary conditions for a “Studio” and my personal conditions, i.e., how much salary I wish to receive. Since mail service is so unreliable it is better to dispatch an important letter by an express messenger, the most primitive way! Another reason for her going is to have her buy two pounds of sweet butter at the market, at 100 rubles a pound. For this trip Nadichka attired herself in some kind of skirt, but on her feet she put on cord-slippers of her own manufacture.

I am going today to Koshkino, to the meeting of the Circle. I shall present to them the Code’s projects. I would like to work out for them a “decree” in which I would sum all the problems, not the formal ones, but those of one’s inner state that are the real ones – a program of spiritual culture, to which, as a matter of fact, little thought has been given.

Last night a great anguish came over me: I saw my present life in all its ugliness as in a bag and all misfortunes at once flooded my memory. The loss of Kyrilchik, as well as Ksenichka, the wanderings in unknown spaces of all whom I love, and I began to feel indignant against the higher power that disposes of the fate of men in this miserable world. How poorly it is managed! The most average man would have made, in accordance with his ideals, a better world. So after this how is it possible to regard this directing “higher power” as the “supreme ideal?” Even my ideal is much higher.

“While property is in the hands of capitalists, any democracy will be only a hypocritical, concealed bourgeois dictatorship. Then all speeches on universal voting, on the people’s will and universal equality of voters, will be nothing but a fraud because there cannot be equality between exploiters and the exploited ones, between the owners of property and capital, and the contemporary hired slaves!” - Lenin

At the meeting of the Koshkino Circle I became convinced how remote these people still are from an earnest and penetrating approach to their cultural problems. Except for 5-10 individuals, they are still quite uncivilized and are not even showing an interest for participating in the undertaking. All their exterior and inner life and all their demands and ideals can be summarized by the old familiar formula: “bread and circuses.” However this small group does give hope for the possibility of inoculating them with the beginnings of true culture. This group belongs to the more or less well-to-do. They are living well. After the unsuccessful meeting, I, Olga Vasilyevna Polenova and two or three more persons were invited to the home of the Nikitins. A large clean room, straight chairs, armchairs, a buffet, flowers, etc. We were served coffee with milk, three glassfuls each, flat cakes, eggs, and home-made lenten sugar. I shall try to broaden and deepen the cultural work of this Circle. It seems to me that the Polenov’s look at this work only from the standpoint of the theater!

Nadichka returned from Alexin without butter, thought there was butter in the market. The rest of my affairs are progressing: she had delivered my message to the Department of Education, after having decided with Litvinov to insert the amount of 4000 rubles as my monthly salary.

One of these days Tsitovskaya may be expected here. It will be fun to observe her after she learned that Mama had reported in Alexin her “intrigues” at the Hearth.

Yesterday was a day of a great event: I churned almost a pound of butter from sour cream. There is so much more milk now that we are drinking it without any shame, and we are eating cottage cheese and are in general subsisting quite well! The calf moos and stinks in the adjoining room. The mornings continue to be cold.

Just received a postcard from Yura, in Kiev. At last!....Thank God, all are well there. That silly telegram about “given us Sonya,” was sent by Yura, Nina and someone else, on Sonya’s birthday and, as we had rightly surmised, while under the influence of a merry-making mood! Zbruyeva is in Kiev apparently; why my registered letter was returned, as if “not found at the given address”, is unknown. There was another letter from Mrs. Dimanis. She urges me to come to Petrograd, otherwise I shall be ousted from the apartment! It will be necessary to install some one in the apartment without acquaintances and free of charge! Well, it will depend on Alexin. If an agreement is reached, I shall arrange to be sent to Petrograd on a mission.

Sonya’s Kiev address is: Bolshaya Podvalnaya 13, apt. 2. They are thinking of moving soon to Vinnitsy! I wonder why?

Day before yesterday the mother of the local school teacher, Zolotuhina, died of typhoid fever. The epidemic is not over.

Yesterday my sister Emilie and Alexei Petrovich arrived in Dubrachok and sent us a note asking for the keys to the house. They are occupying in the meantime the keeper’s house. They had traveled for five days from Ryasan province, were terribly tired, but they looked well. I went to see them, saw the room where Kyrilchik died – first visit there since that catastrophe! Such terrible chaos, destruction and dirt! We established some order and they moved into our house, God be thanked for their coming! We shall no longer tremble for the well-being of Dubrachok. Since everything is being carried away now and windows being broken by rock throwings. But how will they manage without help, with all the field and garden work?

From Alexin no answer yet regarding my “conditions”....

I wrote yesterday and today 35 pages in answer to Loeve, on the subject of Christ!

Signs of Progress in the New Russia:

Complete absence of solidarity among the peasants. – A peasant died today of typhus; he lay there dressed with his boots on... with no one to help, to undress him. His wife had died earlier. Two sons are in the hospital – only a small boy was left. In times past, everybody would have come to help him, also in the house, in the field and garden, but not now – oh, no!

The Koshkino Cultural Educational Circle had arranged in its theater (in a confiscated dacha) benches made from boards that had been broken off from somebody’s fence!!! I am a member of this Circle and want to suggest renaming it – instead of “Cultural-Educational” call it “The Burglary-Merry-making.”

What is going on in all the Commissariates, in all the Soviet institutions, beginning with the Kremlin and Smolny and ending with the District – and Village Soviets! What is going on in the Soviet Food Stores and other shops, what is going on in all Russia, from one end to the other, - it is one horror! It’s a continuous, solid open swindling organization, - a veritable nightmare!

Commissar Ushakov of the Kremlin gives his nephew, a pupil of a Public School, an order, written according to all rules, for a carload of soap. The nephew sells the soap to a speculator, making thereby 10 thousand rubles; he then squanders it in company of some girls (co-education), driving a Soviet automobile, drinking cognac, and vodka. The same Commissar puts a stamp of approval on a falsified order for 10 poods of chocolates and bonbons from “Einen” (an exclusive brand) for the same nephew, who takes the merchandise to a friend, also a pupil of the Public School, after he too had falsified the order. However, the second friend deceives the first one and gives him nothing of the booty. The Commissar’s nephew who lost the gain in this deal of 75 thousand rubles, arrests his disloyal friend with the help of his uncle, after spying on him with the militiamen at the home of an acquaintance. The result: “probably a shoot-out.” To the nephew’s question – why do not the Soviet authorities stop by force this profiteering at the “Suhareva” (tramp’s market), the uncle replies: “You fool, can’t you understand that the “Suhareva” is the Soviet trade! The merchandise from Serpuhov and other factories go to Moscow, but only a very small part of it gets to the Cooperatives, the rest is sold to the speculators – wholesale dealers, and gets to the Suharevka. But even here the speculators are treated according to the new rules of Soviet honesty: - from time to time, the merchandise is snatched from them by Suharevsky’s raids and sold either to the same or other profiteers! When the speculators who have been cheated complain to those who sold them the merchandise, they get for an answer: “We have nothing to do with it. It is another organization that has taken merchandise from you!

An aunt of this nephew who, after having left her husband and taken up with a Commissar, opened at the Suharevka a large pavilion where they do business in perfumes and soap, clearing daily three thousand rubles. She has already saved a million, by selling a bottle of perfume at 200 rubles, a cake of soap at 50 rubles, bought, as a rule, by Red Army men and by certain females who insist on particular scents and well-known brands!

The lucky nephew, who has such distinguished relatives, is seriously considering to go into this business, having set for himself the goal of bringing up his gain to twenty million. This would mean a capital of one million rubles, counting each kerenki (Soviet paper money) worth one ruble. “For,” he says to himself, “taking everything into account, there is in me honor and nobleness, after all, and when a change in the regime will come, I shall return to a legal work and honest earnings. I imagine, however, that with a million in my pocket I shall not want to enter the Engineer’s School as I had thought of doing before the October Revolution. However now I would be a fool not to take advantage, as others do, of the opportunities of snatching off for myself some part of that “public pie” that everybody has fallen upon and torn into pieces.”

This nephew has told that his School has been combined with a Female Public School, made co-educational, i.e., half of the boys have been moved into the Female School and half of the girls into the Boys School. The result: end of all study and a complete debauchery. In the 6th grade there is one boy who sits surrounded on all sides by girls. In this particular class it somehow turned out to have five boys to forty girls, and through the study session the boys are pelted from all sides by notes from the girls. In the basement of this building has been organized a sort of club, where the boys and girls can spend their time together instead of being in the classroom. It is always crowded and there is always drunkenness and corruption. One mother complained to the director that her 15 year old daughter had been raped in the presence of witnesses. The case was brought before the Pupils’ Court. The plaintiff, the accused and the witnesses were called. During the testimony of the witnesses the accused began to abuse and revile the plaintiff, the latter broke into hysterics....The accused was dismissed from the School. After a few months, however, he was readmitted. The same court presided over another case, a similar one. But in this case both, accused – he and she, protested. They did not deny the misdemeanor, but claimed mutual love, freedom, and abused the court. The case was dismissed.

One pupil-speculator has regular drinking bouts with girls at his home. He escorted one of the girls home one night and since he had a long way to return home and the hour was late – almost morning, - the girl asked him to spend the night in her apartment. “I have an extra couch in my room,” she said.

In the face of it all, the teachers keep repeating to the boys: “Girls must be looked upon not as sex-creatures, but as comrades (tovarishchi)!”

Early this morning Mama and Nadya left for Alexin, to attend a business meeting regarding the Hearth. They had to go on foot as far as the river Oka, and carry quite a heavy suitcase (provisions for 3 days and bed linen). Nadya had made for herself a sarafan for this trip. They had hardly left and I had hardly dressed myself and eaten breakfast, when suddenly – here was Zoya and Boris! I was very glad to see them, though sorry they came when the hostesses were absent! The boy is sweet (4 years old) and not too skinny. Zoya, as usual, very nice, young and also not too poorly looking. Just now they are taking a rest after having eaten. They had a sleepless night. I wonder how Nadya will manage, having assumed this new obligation!

The weather is beautiful.

I took a walk with Zoya and Boris. She told me of having learned to know her father. After living without him for 25 years, she has become acquainted with him only now. She confessed that this was due because of my letter. I had written her that in times of distress and tribulations, drawing near one’s father must be a necessity and Zoya’s duty for the sake of her children, that she had no right to deprive them of their grandfather since fate had deprived them of their father.

Toward evening one of the “Sovdeps” of Alexin arrived unexpectedly, with the authority of concluding with me the terms of our negotiations. We came to a final conclusion. They agreed to all my conditions, only instead of 4000 rubles a month they offered 3000. We compromised on 3500. Now I shall have to go to Moscow and, if possible, also to Petrograd, in order to get the material for the Studio.

I fed the Sovdep with kasha, eggs, bread and coffee. We talked a good deal about the present conditions in Soviet Russia. He appeared to be a very intelligent and bright individual, not at all a Bolshevik. He slept at the Hearth on a couch. I gave him Mama’s pillow and cover. Early in the morning, after drinking some milk, he left to the Oka. In Alexin he will pass on to Mama and Nadya the news of Zoya’s arrival and, I hope, at least one of them will return soon. And so, I have entered service! Never before have I ever served! Was always a free bird, all my life, for 56 years! Now I have sold myself!

I went yesterday with Zoya and Boris to Koshkino, to the Ushakov’s. We happened to arrive at the Koshkino Theater at the time of rehearsal. The acting was poor, though some showed talent. But they have no guidance, not the least of it. They read as they chance to feel. Natasha Ushakova is charming in her directness and looks picturesque with her water-nymph eyes, sensuous mouth, and for her fifteen years – she has a great store of temperament!

News has trickled through that Petrograd is on the brink of collapse; the allies are in Gatchina already. This means I shall not get there! What will happen my apartment and my property there??!

I subsist on bread, milk, eggs and butter.

I devised a special dinner today. By chance, I had bought from a moujik in Behovo six pounds of fish for 60 rubles. With Mama’s help I made a fish soup (uha) and as a second course we had the boiled perch with sauce made of butter and eggs. We left enough of either for Mama and Nadya. In the evening, Zoya, Boris and I went to meet them. We sat for a long time at the edge of the Strahovo forest but in the end did not get to meet them! I wonder why? Was there no steamer going? Or did something detain them in Alexin? What news will they bring regarding Petrograd?

I went yesterday to Dubrachok. Emily and Alexey Petrovich are starving. But they are themselves to be blamed for it. It is all because of their lack of action. They have some kind of manufactured goods that could be exchanged for food.

I wanted to acquaint my sister with my memoirs and check on some events that, as the eldest, she should remember better. But to my surprise she showed no interest at all in her childhood. And then, when I read to her the first lines of my memoirs where it says that the Stember’s were descendants of Jews from Libau, she asked me to stop, as this fact is an unpleasant subject to her! (Alexey Petrovich sat in the same room)!! So pettily prejudiced has my sister Emilie become!

Another thing surprised me when she mentioned incidentally that our mother had left a diary that covered quite a long period of time. How little she valued this fact if she never had mentioned it to me, nor had she taken the trouble of reading it herself! For some unknown reason this document came into the hands of Karl Petrovich Medtner. And he too did not deem it his moral duty to let us children know of the existence of their mother’s diary!

I shall be going to Moscow in the next few days and I shall claim this diary! Last night Mama and Nady finally returned from Alexin. The found Zoya still here. The meeting in Alexin had lasted four days from morning till night.

Well, I want to write my diary, at the same time I want to drink tea, while Mama asks me to heat the samovar! Our domestic help has gone home to Koshkino, to someone’s funeral (they are dying daily). Mama has been cooking, Nadya is knitting cord-slippers. There arose a disagreement as to what color pompoms to use on them. Boris sits and keeps digging his finger in something. Zoya left in the morning! I cleaned the balcony in anticipation of Emily’s visit. But she does not come. Must be afraid of the thunderstorm. They have been living in Dubrachok for nearly two weeks now and not once did they come to see us, while we have been in Dubrachok five times. At the same time they are badly in need of many things; somehow they just can’t get going. Such people! But at last they did come. We drank tea on the balcony, with flat cakes with butter, and ate cottage cheese with milk. Mama scolded Aunt Milya for their inaction and lack of energy...Aunt Milya cried and said they could leave Dubrachok any time...Mama later regretted her words.

Today is Hearth-day again. There are not many children, but Boris was frightened even by the few. He is sitting on the floor behind the door, from where he is bashfully, though with curiosity, peering out at them. These are the last days of our trouble with the Strahovo Hearth. The fact is that Nadichka has conquered the hearts of all the ”Sovdeps” in Alexin and they want without fail to get there both Nadya and Mama for a good salary – to teach singing and piano at the Alexin Conservatory. The contracts are due here in the next few days already! And so there will be another change in our fate! Their place here will be taken by two young fellows from the village who went through a two-month course in Moscow. I can imagine how they will manage things at the Hearth!

The linden tree Park is in leaf and has taken on a friendlier, summer look. The weather is wonderful. But the stubborn absence of rain is threatening the harvest. The ground in the vegetable garden is as hard as a rock. Now we all are interested in “soil!” In the villages they are lifting up the icons. (During the drought the icons are carried to the fields where the prayers are offered, beseeching God to send the rain and save the crop.)

From the two teachers who arrived in Alexin today, we learned that Petrograd is occupied by allies! This, as it seems, is official. They added that the allies have advanced already 30 versts toward Moscow! Somehow I cannot believe them! Still, it can be. Nothing can surprise us! I intend to go to Moscow day after tomorrow, but just now I am resting and am jotting down all kinds of “ideas:” a report on the subject of Tsitovskaya’s dismissal, another on the subject of the struggle against the thievery that is going on among the children at the Hearth, in the vegetable and other gardens....Nadya has been to Dubrachok; she took Aunt Milya three measures of potatoes that she had exchanged in the village for 10 arshin of cotton goods.

My second registered letter to Zbruyeva in Kiev was returned to me yesterday. From Yuri came a postcard and again containing such incomprehensive news that informs us of nothing and only aggravates us. The Stembers and the Zbruyevs appear to have mistreated Sonya, and especially Kolya, very badly. Sonya has suffered “humiliations”.... What does this mean? Were there any misunderstandings, or does Yuri exaggerate? Not a word about Kolya, and not a word also from Kolya himself! Sonya is stubbornly silent. Yuri sends only postcards. The only good news in his correspondence is in the postscript: “We eat plenty.”

Yesterday there was also a big letter from Uncle Medtner – an answer to my letter of long ago, concerning the death of Aunt Sasha (Medtner’s wife). They all had read my letter and had been moved by it. Even Kolya (composer) Medtner added to his father’s letter a few lines. I shall without fail go now directly to my uncle in Gnezdnikovski Pereulok. It will be very pleasant. I shall see them all.

Interesting that this letter had arrived in Ivanovo Post Office on April 25, but was delivered in Strahovo only on May 30!

I just boiled two dozen eggs for my trip to Moscow, for which I had paid 120 rubles, instead of 40 kopeks, the former price.

Early yesterday morning I went with Mama on our horse Kopchik to the station. On the way we stopped in Dubrachok to see Emily and bring her some things from Strahovo. I was struck by the picture of beauty, coziness and luxury of verdure of our surprisingly appealing Dubrachok! And what an aroma! At the gate a flowering wild apple tree, the lilies, pear and cherry trees – all blooming and so fragrant! I felt like staying there and not going on to the filthy Moscow! At the station we got into an abusive argument with the “Soviet” regarding the confiscated saddle and all their incorrigible hooliganism.

On the platform we met Karasov with Maria Nikolevna Kramer (a 16 year old pretty young girl with beautiful teeth) and the Baronova with her sister. They all were also going to Moscow. As the train was approaching and I caught sight of it, I gave up hope that I would be able to get on: the roofs, the brakes and the locomotive – all were swarming with people! At the last moment we nevertheless managed to climb up on a roof. And so we all settled down together. Riding this way was very exciting (for the first time in my life) and fun, but the wind was so strong on top that it was impossible to sit. I was forced to lie down, propped up closely against the backs of the ladies! Nevertheless I caught a cold. But we did arrive safely after all.

In Moscow I took a trolley car from the station, but it was so jammed and I was so crushed that I got out at Chotny and took izvoschik (cabdriver) to Gnezdnikovski Pereulok, for 40 rubles.

But what a disappointment! On Medtner’s door was a notice requesting that all letters and telegrams be left with the dvornik (yard-man)! It meant that there was no one in and that I must now drag myself to Zoya in the Malaya Nikitskaya! Before leaving though, I luckily decided to see the dvornik to find out since when my Uncle has been gone. It turned out that he was at home, but that the only way one could get to him was from the back courtyard. And so, I found him together with the old Maria Karlovna (his late wife’s sister) but with no domestic help!

I stayed with my Uncle 4 days. He and Maria Karlovna made a sad inpression on me. He himself appeared to be sprightly and interested in lofty ideas, but in his daily life he has become childish. It seems that not only hunger and the general outward collapse, but mostly the loss of his wife, who had kept the house and had nursed him, have thrown him off the track. His household is in a state of ruin. In his eating habits he has become ridiculously gluttonous. He is eating constantly and much, buying whatever he happens to see, spending 6,000 rubles a month. At the same time he eats it all himself with a childish egotism, giving nothing to the hungry Maria Karlovna except 10 rubles for her meals at the Diner. But all the housework he piles up on her shoulders, carelessly throwing about everything, dirtying endlessly the dishes, offering her no help in anything, such as making the bed, emptying the chamber pot, and bucket under the washstand, - leaving it all to her! And he is always displeased and always in a bad humor! With me he was very agreeable. We talked a great deal, reminisced, read....But he tyrannized me with his constant and detailed accounts of worries about the food and about all other petty daily squabbles, repeating it over and over every day and using forever the same words and expressions!

During the first days he consumed ¾ of my provisions – bread, eggs, milk and cottage cheese. Then he ate his own food, under my nose, and after eating it all up, he would say, “Perhaps you too wanted some?”

The same attitude he had toward his daughter Sonya, who after the death of her Mother, had taken on all the hard housework and the care of her Father. The food he bought he ate himself. What they were getting for the three food-cards he divided in half: to himself one half, and to Sonya and her son also a half! Sonya wore herself out trying to please him, doing alone all the housework, while he kept shouting, demanding, sticking his nose into everything. Trying to control everything. When Sonya would cry after such “scenes,” he would beg her forgiveness in the evening, but the next day it would start all over again.

I slept on the sofa, on a hard lumpy pad, without a pillow. My air cushion was no help, and sleeping was uncomfortable. My Uncle had sold all pillows and everything else.

Besides these reasons, I slept badly because I generally was not feeling well at all. Ever since my arrival in Moscow the old pains in the region of the stomach had started again. They became so severe during the day and night that I could stand it no longer and went to see the doctor (one Zoya knew). After a careful examination Dr. Pechersky announced his irrevocable diagnosis: stones in the liver, or maybe ulcers in the stomach! Stones – for sure. He prescribed some medicines, which I got from the pharmacy only today – after 3 days! The next day I went to another doctor – Mme Razumova (who has treated all the Medtner’s). After her careful examination, her unalterable diagnosis was: all caused by the heart. No stones, no ulcers. She prescribed a number of different medicines. I did not mention Pecharsky to her, but today, when I will go to her again, I will tell her about the Pecharsky’s “stones!”

Yesterday I did not feel well at all, especially after a long walk with all my things that I carried from my Uncle to Zoya, where I decided to move. I felt a great weakness.

Zoya and Aunt Sonya (Mama’s sister) welcomed me very warmly and immediately fed me. That was fortunate since all the Diners were closed and I risked going hungry at my Uncle’s. The second blessed thing was Zoya’s going to Tverskaya after my medicine, I myself simply was unable to go. From the very first dose of medicine by Razumova I felt much better. And I slept (in Zoya’s bed) excellently. It proves what (aside from medicine) an atmosphere of sympathy and sincere well-wishing that I found here can do.

However I can observe also here in the mutual relationship of Aunt Sonya and Zoya the eternal and common transgression that banefully ruins life: severing and tarnishing the important with unimportant; the great with the small and petty; the blindness of man toward his own faults and merciless attitude toward the faults of his fellow-man. Such manifestations are very oppressive to an outsider - they lower his spirits, affect also his physical well-being, which otherwise would be heightened if surrounded by an atmosphere of harmony and peace among the people living together.

My affairs are not progressing well. During the 6 days I practically did not succeed in accomplishing anything! Causes: 1) ill health; 2) difficulty of transportation; 3) almost complete absence on the market of materials; 4) the dreadful red tape and absurd organization in all institutions.

Today I shall dine at Kolya Medtner’s. It gladdens, but also frightens me in view of the imminent strain, because of my weakness.

Yesterday I went first to Dr. Razumova – it being nearby. I told her about the “stones and ulcers.” But she remained unshaken in her own diagnosis. She permitted me to eat everything, except things that would cause swelling of the stomach, also no saccharine. Feeling relieved I then walked from Kudrino to Devichye (to Kolya Medtner). I arrived feeling well and felt also well when I returned in the evening home.

With Kolya Medtner I spent the entire time in the most interesting conversation – he is the most fascinating and charming individual. Just now he experiences a great drama being unable to devote himself entirely to creative work on a big scale (a symphony)! But at the same time what evenness of temper, what philosophical wisdom, what complacency and flexibility in his attitude toward the prosaic duties laid on him by the household, by the absence of domestic help, and generally by all the privations of life under Communism!

I conversed with him without interruption from 2:00 in the afternoon until 10:00 in the evening! Talking appeared to be to him some sort of necessity!

Verochka (his niece), regardless of her married status – is a downright little “porkling.” Her husband is a modest, mediocre young man. On the same morning Elena (Verochka’s Mother – wife of Medtner’s brother) had returned from Rostov, after having been on the road for 2 ½ months. She has not changed – is as she always has been – a well fed “piggie.” She had much of interest to tell; the Denikin armies are pressing heavily from the South. As they gain ground, these “Whites” are robbing and beating the Jews. The Reds are running in panic. While on the streets of Moscow, bulletins are announcing victories by the Reds! That’s how history is written!

Apparently because of these “victories,” today no bread nor potatoes can be had neither on the market, nor in any food store! The day passes under the sign of hunger! The situation is becoming tragic; for many days now no bread has been issued on food-cards! Somehow I did manage to wind up my affairs. But in getting a permit to leave the City – there occurred some kind of a delay. At the Commissariat a big crowd of delegates has been hanging around and waiting for almost three weeks! The order refusing train travel to private citizens has so disorganized all business that the issuing of any permit even to delegates is apparently beyond all possibility! I shall go there tomorrow morning; it would be good to leave tomorrow – it’s becoming frightening here!

It is touching to see how Aunt Sonya and Zoya are sharing the last they have with me! Though I have been buying some things myself, like milk and vegetables, but bread and other things they have been dividing with me out of their own quite meager supply!

In the conversation with Kolya Medtner we differed in some of our points of view: Kolya thinks that “form” is an essential condition of life and a daily necessity to the spirit. In this I certainly agree with him. But suffering at this moment from the destruction of the forms of our life, he regrets the old order that had preserved the forms of life. In this he falls into a great error: because not every form of life will and can satisfy our spiritual need!

Taking one fact of a form of life (as well as of a form of art) it does not yet mean that it has any merit and has therefore the right to existence. The destruction of any unworthy form is a great good and responds more to the need of the spirit, than its unfailing preservation! Yes, I think that only an unworthy form is destructible. And the more perfect the form, the more durable and indestructible it is!

The genuine, organic and high qualities of a form are capable of change only in their organic life – by evolution, by development.... And this process (more inner than exterior) cannot be violated or interrupted by force. After reaching the highest point of their development, the forms proceed to their natural decline and can be subjected to an exterior shock, which to some degree hastens the process of decay, but to overthrow a sound form (even if only materially) no exterior human force can do and least of all a barbarian force.

On the other hand the forms of life and of art by the process of their decline and degeneration do reach the state of full decay and become a wrecking corps. And if there is still some invisible force within the wrecking corps guarding it, - to break this criminal force by means of a revolution – is a great good!

After endless waiting at the Lyceum (Committee of Public Education) I finally received the permit for departure, and this morning (there was a moderate crowd of people) I received a ticket in the International Sleeping car, 2nd Class, - as far as Tula, for 70 rubles. Am leaving at 11:00 pm tonight. It’s time, or I’ll be eating up the rest of my money. Expenses for food continue to climb. On the first day I spent about 20 rubles, then more, at last 60 and 100 rubles, and today already 200!

At “Ohotny” (Central Market in Moscow) everything can be had, and the merchandise is excellent, but in order to buy enough products for a decent family dinner, one would have to spend more than 1000 rubles.

I bought books of the modern German mystic Rudolph Steiner, discounted (critically) by Emil Medtner (philosopher, brother of Composer Medtner) in his book “Meditation on Goethe,” for which in turn, he was “slapped” by Andrey Bely, who wrote a whole book on the subject.

I arrived here from Moscow quite uneventfully. About 9:00 in the evening I bravely walked from Nikitskaya Str. To Kursky Station, carrying my heavy suitcase. On the Tvarskaya, however, I felt it was too much for me and I hired an izvoschik for 160 rubles. In the International Sleeping Car two persons had to occupy one berth. One gentleman above had to share his berth with a girl – delegate!!!

All night long I philosophized with my vis-à-vis, a very smart but desperate materialist – modern style. Of course, I mercilessly gave him my mind. At day-break we arrived at Tarusskaya Station. It was cold. I bought from some slut a bottle of milk for 10 rubles. Wanted to take shelter in the Tea-house, but all its windows had been broken, it was draughty and no tea could be had that early. I did not wait for any “occasion,” but decided to walk to Dubrachok (5 versts from the station). It was cold, windy, and soon it began to rain. I carried my baggage either on the shoulder or on the head. I was drenched, chilled, worn out, but in spite of it, I reached Dubrachok feeling hale and hearty.

At Aunt Milly’s I rested, drank tea, and then with Alexei Petrovich drove Kopchik to Strahovo. At home a surprise was awaiting me: we had as guest Vladimir Feodorovich Litvinov, member of the Alexin Soviet. I made my report of my mission to him. He did not hurry back to Alexin, but stayed two more days, leaving only this morning.

It became obvious during these days that he was divorcing his wife and was going to marry Nadichka! This happened in June, 1919 during the 13th, 14th and 15th! Nadichka wanted to go with him, in order to make a final choice on a dacha for us, since we are to move to Alexin day after tomorrow. But at the last moment we learned that Litvinov couples only one room in his dacha and that the downstairs and the upstairs are entirely free. This is the dacha, then, that we shall occupy. One can assume almost that Nadichka is already married, though Litvinov has not yet divorced his Vera Alexeevna!

Another surprise: A postcard from Sonya in Kiev, at last! They’re staying in Kiev, and so it was in vain that I had mailed my registered letter to Vinnitsa. Kolya had left by way of Odessa for Serbia, where he intends to live in some monastery, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. The Father Superior had invited him and had offered him all the comforts for work! Sonya mentions only in a few words. All this puzzles us. Kolya himself so far does not write. We learned indirectly, from Uncle Dodo and Aunt Varya, that Sonya is pregnant! All this reaches us in hints and riddles, without a detailed letter explaining their real affairs! Aunt Varya (Mamulya’s friend) is in Petrograd. She is doing well and is surprised that we keep staying in the country; she is calling us to Petrograd. She is selling her old dresses and other odds and ends for thousands of rubles – to buy food!

Here we are, in Alexin! It was a terrible beating for the 3-4 days that we had to take! It would seem a trifling matter to move from one camp to another, but it turned out to be one great connection and confusion; we had to carry almost everything on our own shoulders! Many things we sent to Dubrachok: the calf, the sitting hen with her eggs, a month-old steer bought for 1300 rubles, etc. – Many things we took from Dubrachok: utensils, mattresses, etc. Everything that was to go to Alexin we loaded on two wagons! To all this bustle were added annoyances and complications: - nobody would agree, even for money, to lend us wagons! At first they would consent, then, at the last moment, take back their word. Finally we succeeded to persuade someone to lend us one wagon for 250 rubles. The other wagon is ours. Masha (our domestic) too kept quibbling, would agree to go with us, then refuse; she finally feigned “cholera,” that settled her refusal. We had to beg the Baba Agrafena to drive to Alexin, at least the wagon with the cow. At last everything was settled. We started loading the wagons at 4:00 in the morning. The wagon that had been promised for ourselves was also refused us, just when the time came to leave!... Nadichka ran all about the village with no success – while the time was passing and the steamer on the Oka was not going to wait for us! At last we thought of hiring the watchman of the Hearth, with his pair of horses. For a good sum of money (40 rubles up to the Oka) he exerted himself and got us to Tarussa in 20 minutes. It was a mad drive; it surprised me that we arrived whole, ourselves and the baggage. For instance the butter-churn which I held in my arms!

Thank God all ended well. The steamer itself was 1 ½ hours late, owing to fog. Because of shallow water we approached the shore before reaching the Alexin pier, and exactly opposite the villa in the Pine Grove that had been chosen for the “Studio!” We climbed on the steep shore with our baggage. Crawled through the only opening of the locked villa - a broken window. We settled down, arranged some things, laid out the food.....Late in the evening arrived the wagons with their load, all wet because of the rain. The cow, the chickens, horses and the men – all exhausted and hungry. With our arrival the weather changed and became beautiful. Everyone was feeling wonderful. The villa is large! What a pleasure to have one’s own room! A whole wing of three rooms was allotted to Nadichka and Vladimir Feodorovich Litvinov. Divorce from Sokolov (Nadya’s first husband and father of Kyrilchik) was formalized in ½ hour. It took the same time to formalize Litvinov’s divorce from his wife, since agreement was mutual. And so, Nadya is now married and has her “own nest,” what her soul had longed for and what Sokolov had not given her.

Affairs are moving slowly, as a matter of fact, they’re not moving at all. At the Department of Public Education everybody is very friendly but there is so little sense in everything. According to the announcement the Studio is to open July 1, also the “Conservatory” as to printed notices; however, essentially , nothing has yet been done. For the third day since our arrival I have not been able to get the keys to the doors. No furniture, no easels have yet been ordered, though I had given my sketches for them two months ago already. No order for materials has yet been sent to Moscow. There is no water bucket. The water-carrier did bring a barrel full of water, but left, taking it with him!.... There is no firewood, no help. And such trouble with the cow! I myself watched her all last night. Today Nadya drove her to the herd at 4:00 in the morning, but by noon they came to tell us that our cow had strayed away from the herd walking toward town; others said into the woods. In other words there is no cow!... I looked for her, others have now gone to look for her – what fun indeed!

Yesterday was held the first Consultation Meeting at the “Conservatory.” Without much ado, the question of new courses was taken up, such as “Listening to Music.” Mme Stember announced that in Moscow this project had fallen through; to that her husband, the Artist Stember, can bear witness. I was immediately asked to appear before the Meeting. I told them of the Moscow Musicians’ struggle against this absurd project, which had been introduced by a certain Mrs. Brusov. That started a debate which disclosed a hopeless diletantism of all these heads, the superficiality, the noise and clamor of all these undertakings!

Nadya has been chosen to the “presidium.” How loud all this is, and how... empty!

The cow has not yet been found! It’s already 10:00 pm. I am going out to look for her.

The cow was brought home by someone late last night, after Mama had walked all over town and its surroundings, causing her to become ill. And today the same story was repeated all over! We began paying the shepherds big money. As a result, a shepherd’s helper has just driven the cow home from town!

I have made the acquaintance of the professors of the local “Conservatory” – four young brothers, very sympathetic, but zealous Scriabinists. They’re living in the dacha next to ours. I was there till 5:00 in the morning – talking and arguing.

Our domestic life is still not in working order. No help, no firewood, no furniture, no water bucket. We’re eating at the Soviet Diner (here in the Pine Grove), besides drinking milk and eating bread.

I am beginning to get used to Vladimir Feodorovich, as to a member of our family. He is socially a likable young man, modest, accommodating, is moderately cooperative in the work of our small community. All would be well, but for one thing that worries me – his health. His thin face, deep sunken eyes, impart a vague feeling of fear, as to the durability of his living force....

We still have no help and the domestic bustle tires us!

I have received my first salary, 3500 rubles, for the term of May 16 to June 16, though it seems to me I have done nothing yet! However, this is not my business, but that of the Administration, the attitude of which toward everything is a most indifferent one. It seems as if all these undertakings are for making a show only, while the real interests are centered on obtaining food and on one’s personal well-being – just as of old. I met Vera Alexeevna on the town-square. We both were glad to see each other. She asked me to come over and see her today – wants to have a long talk with me. There is indeed much to talk about.... If only there were a boat to cross the Oka... her dacha is right opposite ours, only it is hidden from sight by trees. Otherwise I must take a long walk through town and across the bridge. I shall await the return of our neighbors, the Shchedrins; they have a boat.

In the meantime Vladimir Feodorovich is instilling in me and in Mama more and more of a fear by his terrible looks. He seems to be wasting away in our very sight. The honeymoon is apparently having a devastating effect on him. But Nadya has only stupid answers to my and Mama’s words; she does not realize, or does not want to realize the danger of consumption in her husband! She astonishes me! In her nature, in her spiritual and mental make-up there is something deeply fatalistic!

I crossed the Oka by boat. I talked with Vera Alexeevna. She is happy. She spoke of Vladimir Feodorovich with warm feeling, feels sorry for him because of his consumption. Is sorry also for Nadya, for whom she has a great liking. She wants to enter my Studio – to study drawing and painting. I returned home late, walking across the bridge and through the town. It was dark, fantastic, not a soul to be seen. In the Pine Grove I suddenly came upon our cow! I drove her home, but at home she would not enter the stall. I kept endlessly chasing her around the house. Finally she ran away into the meadow, to the Oka. I looked for her in vain, and so did the family. The cow never did come home.

At 4:00 in the morning I went out again in search of her. Sunrise, fog along the river...not a soul around... and I, with a milk pail, in wet shoes, chilled... walked in all directions, along the meadow, in the woods, but nowhere could find the cow. At about 5:00 Nadya finally found her in someone’s courtyard and milked her... And just now she suddenly appeared and, as if nothing had been amiss, she walked into the stall all by herself!!

Perhaps because I have never “served” before, I am astonished at the great indifference of my “colleagues” in the Department of Public Education. This seems to be an eternal weakness of people in “Government Service,” aside from the kind of regime, whether a Government of the Tsars or that of Bolshevists – it’s all the same!... Until I myself found carpenters, etc. absolutely nothing had been done. Because of some pine trees in front of the Studio windows that darkened the Studio, a whole war broke out between two Departments. However in the forest the cutting of the trees is going on with the condescending attitude of the “Authorities,” and here they are causing obstacles, because they are not at all interested and concerned with the needs of the Studio.

Yesterday I talked again to the Director of the Alexin Conservatory – Konstantin Mihailovich Shchedrin, who had finished last year the Moscow Conservatory in composition and who is an ardent Scriabinist. Here is a type of contemporary musician, mentally and spiritually undeveloped, not artistic, whose whole baggage consists of “aptitudes,” inclinations of obtaining skill and modernistic narrow-mindedness. His “enthusiasms” for Scriabinism agree with the narrow-minded rationality in world outlook. In vain did I waste time and words, thinking to arouse in him or implant in him a broader comprehension of music, its deeper, more mystical aspect, - hopeless!... Otherwise he is very likable, though a considerably vulgar individual. A leader of the Public Music School!... A composer !! I made one more final attempt: I gave him Berdyaev’s book – The New Religious Consciousness and Sociality, – a book on mysticism.

My chat with Vera Alexeevna, who was so sincere, well-wishing, who appeared in my eyes so honorable – had as a consequence a heap of ugliness! The subject of talk was concern for Vladimir Feodorovich’s health. I had mentioned it to Mamulya, who spoke of it to Nadya, while Nadya in her don-quixotic bluntness blurted it out to Vladimir Feodorovich! As a result, Vladimir Feodorovich, with a kind of irritableness, began to brush aside the least symptom of his ailment, as if an ailment has something disgraceful, offensive in it. To my remark to Nadya that she should not pass on to Vladimir Feodorovich the doctor’s words, she reacted with a flood of the worst, the most foolish, impertinences, such as, that I am always spoiling her happiness, and why am I talking to her about her new husband’s ailment, that all this is nonsense, etc.

It is a repetition of what was the case regarding Sokolov, i.e., I am an enemy, I am looking for something to spoil her happiness!! Such hopeless stupidity cannot be found, I suppose, anywhere else in the world! To think that all the experience of life has not given Nadya, if only a drop more wisdom. No doubt, she does not see even now how right I was in every word and attitude regarding Sokolov, though by now she herself, must have found out his real worth!

Yesterday I attended with Mama the first amateur performance (a play by Ostrovsky). 24 rubles wasted! The public – the most “provincial,” even worse. However, among all kinds of ugliness, there was one beauty, Russian type, and one beauty Cavalieri’s type. (Cavalieri – a famous Italian belle) Another little beauty came to me yesterday, to be “looked over,” something like Olga Goedike (Medtner’s cousin, also a beauty). She is the daughter of a former police captain. I shall paint her.

I mailed today a letter to Sonya, in Kiev. Another letter to Zoya, in Moscow, with the offer to take back Boris, since it is impossible to keep him here any longer. There is no one here to look after him and he protests against even the smallest independency. He refuses to go to the Hearth and demands to be constantly waited on, as if we were his nurses, maids. Nadya, who as a matter of fact, herself invited him, ignores him altogether!

Yesterday Nadya and Vladimir Feodorovich were officially married by Commissariate procedure. In honor of it Mama prepared a festive dinner: shchi (sour cabbage soup), meat with mustard, horseradish, potatoes, sweet butter, salted cucumbers, soaked apples, flat cakes, bread, and a holiday pastry cake, made from real white wheat flour with strawberries! On top of it all, also milk.

The Studio still does not take shape. The partitions are finally taken down. Now the walls and ceilings are being whitewashed after a hard fight about it. The furniture is not ready yet and the sending to Moscow for the art materials is stubbornly delayed.

Yesterday was the opening of the Assembly of the Teachers of Public Schools of our district. I am spending there whole days and arrive at interesting conclusions from what I hear there!

At the Assembly I projected to oppose Volkova’s report in which she expounded the ideology of the School of Labor, according to its newest ideas of the notorious “experimental pedagogy.” I pointed out that this ideology is one-sided, is based on materialism, making of the students materialists and egoists, that it overlooks the whole domain of spirituality, intuition and idealism. To the physical beginning of education in their ideology I opposed the spiritual intuitive; to the actual – the passive, which receives impressions from the realm of art, poetry, etc. In other words, I pointed out the fact that man, so unlimitedly rich in his physical, psychical, spiritual and mystical endowment, cannot be forced into the narrow framework of materialism, hence education must extensively widen its framework in spite of the directives and limitations of the newest fashionable pedagogy, which has resulted in a materialistic viewpoint of life. In other words – education is an art, not a business, and the educator, if he is an artist in his work, must listen more to his inner voice.

Today, after four days of uninterrupted sitting in the hot Theater Hall, listening to tempestuous debates, the Assembly came to an end with the singing of the “Internationale.” As a result, I’ve obtained a precise and clear idea of the psychology, ideology and of some of the representatives of the ruling Communist Party on one hand, and of the intelligentsia represented by the teachers – on the other hand. The conclusions from this is helping me to understand my own ideology!

The weather has been beautiful ever since we’ve been here. But my mood has been in general rather strange: my situation of getting a salary of 3500 rubles a month and not doing anything is wildly unaccustomed to me. Although I still have a feeling of being at a job, as all the others are – arguing, trampling, bustling and all of it as of no avail. However it is all important and great. But the impression seems to be as if the “bosses” and actual masters have departed and all of us, the minors, quickly undertook things to do and are hurrying to put all affairs in a right way, but with no success, and yet we are kept busy, while inside the depth of our unconscious there is an awaiting of the return of the bosses! God forbid! And how queer: the mind says God forbid, but the soul longs nevertheless for something from “the other shore”... Perhaps only for bread?... And maybe not bread (man does not live by bread alone), but for some wave of idealism and spirituality and such forms of life which would conform to this idealism and this spirituality?... Yes, no doubt so. But will the bosses, returning from the “other shore” give us all this? - I fear that with the exception of bread they won’t give anything! It may be that the Bolsheviki, in spite of all their materialism, doctrinism and contempt for humanity, are more capable to gradually restore life with all its spiritual rights and demands!

The “concert” of the Shchedrin brothers took place yesterday. My God, what pretentiousness and what wretchedness! I sat there and I suffered. And I thought of Nikolai....But how impossible to even think of such comparison: these are phenomena too different in their very nature!

Yesterday also I visited comrade Volkova (I came upon her unawares; she was in a morning robe, was unkempt and barefoot). I read to her all my notes and unexpectedly found the “instructress” of the Communist School, (based on the religion of materialism) in full sympathy with my idealistic viewpoints, founded on a mystical and aesthetic world outlook!

How unstable is the religion of materialism among the intelligent people, if one succeeds just for a moment to turn their thoughts away from “politics.”

At last the easels were delivered to me, as well as the rest of the inventory for the studio. In a few days I shall begin painting the pretty blonde and I shall open the classes.

Zoya has arrived in order to take away Boris. She is very thin, is worn out from overwork and insufficient nourishment. No bread at all has been issued in Moscow for 20 days already! We feel very sorry for Boris, but in our living conditions and his unyielding, cranky disposition, it has become impossible for him to stay with us any longer! Zoya herself understands this.

Day before yesterday I had an interesting conversation with Muralov, (our principal District Chief). I wrote a report on the subject of that Meeting, emphasizing mainly the Marxist ideology that Muralov himself defended at the Meeting. Instructor Tokarev debated with him at the Meeting. The subject, however, was only alluded to. I would like to continue it. Two world views have come face to face – the idealistic and the materialistic – the hottest and most fundamental issues of the present tine.

As to my report, I felt that it would be advisable before presenting it to any audience, to acquaint Muralov with its content, whether he would not find it counter-revolutionary? Muralov, however (I brought him home and Mama treated him with supper), looked at it broadly and tolerantly and proposed to arrange a debate. But at the same time, in a prolonged conversation he tried to contradict all my statements, though naturally he did not succeed and only revealed his extreme narrow-mindedness and non-radical world outlook. In view of such a contradictory stand and absence of a common ground between us, I began to hesitate whether to accept the challenge of a debate, but after reflecting on it for two days, I changed my mind and after reworking some statements according to new data, I decided to oppose Muralov in the debate. I think I shall thereby infuse into the relationship between the intelligentsia of Marxists and of non-Marxists a new current of thinking, which will be unusual for this hole of provincialism.

I received a postal card from Sonya: they have there a hard life, have not found any employment and are living by borrowing. Their meals are often scanty. They begin to talk about settling also in Alexin. In answer I sent them immediately 1000 rubles and wrote that I would be happy to arrange for them something here and to help them in whatever will be in my power. That proposition has to be considered. But why do they write only post cards? It is so undetailed and leaves the most important matters obscure. It is strange and not good, such secrecy and alienation, while I am bombarding them with registered letters. Sonya saddened me very much by telling me that my letter to Natasha of March 5, is still unmailed, since there is no communication with New York! How terrible! When will all this end?

I have opened my class in painting with one pupil, the local “teacher of drawing.” And myself began painting the pretty blond. Besides, am very busy with my report for the coming debate with Muralov (the local General-Governor).

I reached the limit! The last pair of socks is worn out! I’ve worn them a long time, always hoping for a miracle to happen, for getting new ones. But that miracle never happened and today, having after a long hesitation, decided to give my feet a bath and change their wrappings, - I found myself before an unsolvable problem; the last dirty shreds of socks I’ve thrown away and picked off the hard-grown crust of skin, - with feet now clean and dry, I sat in front of the basin filled with dirty water and wondered – what shall I wrap my feet in now?... Suddenly flashed a brilliant thought – to wrap my feet in handkerchiefs!!! Victory! Eureka! Alive again!

I checked the Household Expense Book and found that the four of us, besides private expenses and dinners at the Diner, - had spent 5268 rubles i.e., 1317 rubles per person.

From July 22 I have begun regular work at the Studio. There were 4 people. Mostly youngsters. Grown-ups 5-6 persons. I’ve been observing them carefully.

One must stamp out memory!....Think of nothing!....Ignore the past, and what still remains from the past, recall no one to mind...as if nothing ever existed!...Live only for the moment....Chew the crust, suffer for no one, regret nothing, not worry about anything!! – If only this were possible!

There are moments when a great anguish overwhelms me. And when I think of all the people, of happenings, of things – all dear to me, - I simply know not how to escape from it...

I received a letter from Uncle Dodo, from Kiev. Two words only about Sonya: she exists by borrowing, is not working. Apparently is also not singing – how sad!! Not a word about Nikolai .... The situation is becoming tragic!

I saw Kolya in my dream. He was ill and I wept over him....Not over his being ill, but over the wrecked meaning of his life.

There is someone here who is already undermining me. Some “artist” who prepared a report to the Dept. of Education in which he pointed out that I belong to some German School, that as a “portrait painter” I can not satisfy the aesthetic requirements of the people, that all in all, it is necessary to have a School, something like the “Stroganov” one: of Applied Art, of Ceramics, etc....

It’s true, I have just now only very few drawing pupils, 10-14 in all. Reason – hay-harvest!

Our household is again in disorder! The second domestic help turned out to be worse than the first: a thief and lazy. She left day before yesterday, went home to the village and has not shown up since. Nadya has to milk the cow at 5:00 in the morning, but at noon the cow remains not milked. Mama is carrying all the workload in the kitchen. On top of it, this is the Nameday of Vladimir Feodorovich. Mama is trying to bake and to prepare something. I went to town, to the market, but brought home nothing but bread. Raspberries, all mashed, are 15 rubles a pound. Second-hand shoes with new soles cost 1800 r.

I have sent the money to pay for the Apartment and a letter to Ida Gustavovna Voinova. (Mother of Olga and Charles)

The weather is damp and it is drizzling. It’s rather dark in the Studio! No doubt the pretty Smirnova will not come, though I have begun painting her interesting little head .... There were only six students in the class....

The Bolsheviki are brilliantly successful on all fronts. If only they would be victorious soon, so that Life could become in some way normal again.

I was gladdened by receiving a notice of a registered letter from Zabelina.

It turned out that the registered letter was my own to Zabelina, returned because it was not claimed by the addressee!

Yesterday I received at once two very upsetting letters: Emily writes from Dubrachok a very desperate letter: they are starving, they are unable to cope with the garden work, they are unable to get anyone to cut the grass in the fields. Wolves are getting at the calves, etc.

The other news is even worse: Mme Dimanis writes that the entire building at Chernishov Pereulok is being evacuated. The last day is set for August 1st (tomorrow)! But the letter was written on June 14 and I received it only yesterday! She is urging me to come to Petersburg immediately to defend my right to the Apt., and then they will move into it! I was struck as if by thunder. I had just sent the money, 250 r. for the month of August.

I came home from the Post Office with this news and we decided to send telegrams: to the People’s Commissariate, to the office of the building, to Mme Dimanis, and one more to the People’s Commissariate from the local Branch of Public Education here in Alexin – all with petitions of postponing the evacuation of the Apt. for a month, owing to my work here in organizing a Public Art Studio. We succeeded in all. The attitude in the Dept. of Education was sympathetic. Thus it happened what I had been fearing for a long time. This means a trip a week from now to Petersburg, to defend my right to the Apt., or to break up everything, to sell or move .... We shall go together of course, Mama and I.

Today Voldemar and Nadya have gone to Moscow, for 4-5 days. As soon as they return we shall leave – to torture, to hunger, and to great moral suffering in seeing our nest devastated and looking at things that hold memories and must now be disposed of!

I received today at last a detailed letter from Sonya. But from Kolya still no news!! Sonya’s life is not too bright. Yuri has no job. She herself earns something by singing in a choir of 15, pupils of Zbrueva, who herself makes public appearances. Sony is anemic and has a nervous throat condition. The doctor advises not to pay any attention to it. She gives one lesson daily to a certain Ivanova (pupil of Zbrueva), at whose house Sonya has dinners and who provides Sonya with money. Zbrueva is very kind; she has obtained scholarships of 1500 r. per month for some of her pupils, but not for Sonya!! Sonya feels a certain estrangement on the part of Zbrueva, some jealousy, because of Nina (Zbrueva’s daughter) and of her pupil Ivanova.

A few days ago the Theater here presented a play “The Little Viper,” written by Commissar Ryshkov. The principal part was played by Saphailova, the same blond beauty that I am now painting. She was charming to the extent that her complete lack of acting talent was forgiven her. Ryshkov himself excellently played the old voluptuary.

Besides the blond Saphailova, I am now painting also a brunette, the extremely pretty Smirnova. And at the Theatre I saw right under my nose, in the first row, a striking Jewess – a summer resident. Mama found out where she lives. I want boldly to call on her today yet. Hope she will not drive me away! In all, there are three models now, one better than the other. Alexin has still other subjects for painting, but they are for the future, after our return from Petersburg.

Often I recall our Kyrilchik. And when I do so I can’t hold back my tears; when alone, I sob outright! I only need remember that suffering little face, those calls of “Baba,” the closed eyes, the gurgling sound in his throat, that twisting of his little body in its final struggle, the final collapse of his heroic efforts and then the end – when an outcry of indignation rises within me against that devil who destroyed Kyrilchik! Devil! Damned be he a million times!

Yesterday I went to the villa in which the beautiful Jewess lives. I saw her at a distance, her hair loose .... As I was nearing the villa, she approached the railing of the balcony and adjusted her robe. I was already at the point of wanting to pass by, when suddenly I turned abruptly toward her. She looked at me surprised. I said, “As a matter of fact, I have come to see you.” “To see me?” she replied with astonishment, “if so, enter please!” At the same time she opened wide her robe, revealing the whole breast, clear to the navel. Even the robe itself was a most transparent one. I entered and immediately obtained her consent to pose for me. The same evening she came to our house, stayed a long time, drank tea. She is a Moscow actress; has an impending contract, a debut at the Korsh Theatre. She is coming today for her first sitting. In fact, she is not at all a beauty, but she is astonishingly attractive at some angles. She says that when she saw me walking, she knew I was coming to see her! ....

My literary writings are having a big success here. I read my “Songs Without Words” and “Without the Past” and gave them to read to Ryshkov and Schedrin. They both sincerely were thrown into ecstasy. That stirred up my own enthusiasm and I was seized with a desire to write another two stories: “A Model” and “Till Called For.” - themes on which I was contemplating for quite a while. I also am tempted to work over “Without the Past” .....

The most outstanding of leaders of the English Social-Democracy – Gaindman, does not believe in the creative power of a class represented by a Socialistic Party. “Socialism,” says he, “has been formed everywhere not by the artisans and workmen themselves, but always by the educated people of the class standing above them....”

Tonight we had a visit. I was awakened by the domestic whispering to me that a robber is intruding upon the young masters! The door to the cellar is already broken and stands ajar .... Mama got up. I dressed myself and we stepped out into the yard. The robber has actually broken the lock at the cellar and carried away a chunk of spoiled meat – the only thing that was there. He also broke the lock on the door to the chicken-coop, but none of the chickens were stolen. The he climbed through the window to Litvinovs. Voldemar heard the squeak of the floor planks in the adjoining room and called to the “comrade,” who immediately retreated, seizing only a mirror, which next morning was found under the window in the grass. After this we naturally could not sleep .... What impudence to intrude upon inhabitable premises! I went today to the Dept. of Public Education asking to be given some armament and demanding also that the measures should be taken for the protection of the Studio.

Today it is raining all day! How lucky that Mama did not hide in the cellar the leg of lamb bought yesterday for 500 rubles, but left it in the house!

I have received another letter from Mrs. Dimanis. My apartment so far has not been disturbed, but she nevertheless advises me to come immediately. There are rumors that the evacuation of Petrograd is imminent! I don’t know whether this will be in my favor, or to my detriment. In any case I must hurry my departure. Inoppurtunely, I had to get a head cold and a cough!

Am reading an interesting book: “Anarchism” by Borovoy. It certainly is a doctrine that appeals to me the most. However, it commits the same error as do all social-political doctrines: it is trifling. It endeavors to solve all problems, but at the same time, there remains something it does not solve, it avoids something, does not introduce it, but ignores it, and therefore, in its essence, everything remains unsolved!

Borovoy states outright: “The eternal, natural antimony of things, between individuality and society – cannot be solved...” And this is certainly correct: This antimony cannot be solved by any of these futile theories, not even by the most ideal one – the theory of anarchism.

But if one were to introduce into this system the religious principle, faith and aspiration toward self-improvement instead of the notorious axiom of “animal egoism” – the insoluble would be resolved and all the antimonies would disappear at once. Self-improvement, as an act of absolute freedom, must be the foundation in the existence of an anarchaic community, it must be the method of life. It is only necessary to acknowledge and to establish this method and it will not be necessary then to solve the question of maintaining life’s forms. Such absolutely infallible forms can most certainly never be found. And this method is the most important substance of Christ’s teaching. All these theories engage in contradictions and do not see that all these antimonies are solved by the wonderful, simple teaching of Christ. I speak, of course, of Christ’s authentic teaching, of its depth, which only now, after 2000 years, is beginning to reveal itself in the mystical philosophy, having vegetated for 2000 years in the fallacies of history.

Saturday morning the 16th, I, Mama and our domestic, dragged ourselves with my baggage along the Oka River shore to the landing pier. The going was very difficult, baggage heavy, and it was muddy and windy. All the same we made it, not by foot but by a boat hired for 35 rubles. To drag my baggage onto the steamer would be impossible without the help of the accidentally met peasant from our neighboring village. Thus began the trials of my journey. Sunshine alternated with pouring rain. On arrival at the pier of the Serpuhov Bridge, there, sure enough, was no carriage promised me by an acquaintance. I had to take an open cart without a seat and ride in the rain along a terrible pavement, to the Serpuhov Railroad Station, for 200 rubles. Arriving there at about 8:00 pm I found the Station jammed with people waiting for the train to Moscow due in at 5:00 am. I thought I would sit it out inside, in spite of a carbolic acid smell, - a disgusting perspective. But it appeared desirable compared with what really happened. After an hour all the people inside the Station, about 200-300 women, children and their bags were driven out in the cold, wind and rain...and had to stick it out from 9:00 in the evening till 11:00 in the morning, i.e., 14 hours....I tried to get inside the tea-house, but it was so overcrowded, so suffocating that I preferred to stay outside, and I kept walking during these 14 hours along the station building, on the side protected from the wind. Naturally it was also difficult to get inside the train with all the baggage. I did not get a seat and had to stand; but even that was difficult: there were feet, feet everywhere ....

On arrival in Moscow my experiences with the baggage were most distressing: to check it would have cost too much, so I carried it as a “hand parcel,” trying to make it appear not heavy. On foot I made it to the Nikolaevski Railroad Station (to continue my journey to Petrograd) – and finally got a man for 100 rubles who carried my baggage.. At the station it turned out that all 1st and 2nd class tickets for that day had been sold. Then I decided to go to Aunt Sonya and Zoya for the night, in order to get the first thing in the following morning a ticket in the Sleeping Car of the International Train to Petrograd. But my decision was a wrong one: I should not have left the station, but should have shown my mandates and gotten into line for the 3rd class. I did that the following day since no tickets were issued for the Sleeping Car to the transient passengers. I had thus lost 24 hours and traveled to Petrograd on Monday, August 18, in the 3rd class. The train was overcrowded to the point that few could lie down. However, the night passed unnoticeably, thanks to two Latvian Red Army soldiers and a sedate-looking young girl (a history teacher). With them I spent half of the night and all morning in hot dispute and discussion on political subjects.

I succeeded in defending the Apartment and the Studio. However they are still counting on one or two rooms. It will be necessary therefore to move all furniture and belongings from the 2 rooms and also from the dining room (passage) and kitchen and lock it all in the Studio and bedroom. What perplexes me is the “Bechstein,” Kolya’s concert piano.

I saw Varvara Nikolaevna (formerly very well to do). She is full of energy and optimism and is astonished that we are not living in Petrograd, exchanging for food all kinds of our odds and ends.

Yesterday I was at Varvara Nikolaevna’s and from the conversation with her and some friend of hers, I became convinced once more how strongly the deep-rooted bourgeois mentality is embedded in the mind of a certain class of the population! The ideas of Communism, Socialism and even of the generally liberal Equality of Rights, has not touched their minds in the least degree! The whole change has resolved itself in them only as a personal misfortune .... It seems to me that this middle bourgeois layer of society is the most savage and uncultured one!

I visited the Kuindji Society; - same people, same conversations; I was welcomed warmly.

Visited the Dimanis on the Island. They drink, they eat and are eagerly awaiting the change, clinging to every, often foolish, rumor. Toosya is entering the Conservatory, is writing verses, composing music to them, is planning to take lessons in elocution and in plastics! ... Incorrigible! I stayed too long there yesterday, was carried away by political and philosophical discussions and by endeavoring to instill in Toosya common sense ideas. I advised her to drop all versifying and composition and to plunge into contemplation and study of the great works of art, adding that otherwise she will remain what she now is: a ridiculous and pitiful blank spot.... Because of all these conversations I missed all buses and steamers – and had to walk home, together with Toosya’s friend, a rather pretty young girl, more modest than Toosya, but also more shallow.

We covered these 9-10 versts in almost absolute darkness and in a drizzling rain. I arrived home at 1:00 am, not too tired with the feet dry.

I am now bustling about, visiting an endless number of offices, to obtain the right of getting into line to purchase a ticket for departure. Besides, I am busy selling old books. So far I have sold 4200 rubles worth. This is not much if one only thinks that if one enters a coffee shop, drinks a cup of coffee with two tarts, it costs 150 r !!!

September is here already! After yesterday’s August heat and sultriness, today suddenly September weather has come: it is gloomy and cool.

Yesterday on Sunday, I visited once more the Dimanis, on the Island. They’re truly very kind people. I arrived at their house at 5:00 after waiting at the Summer Gardens, in the heat, for 2 ½ hours. (One steamer only goes to the Islands per day.) At tea Anna Andreevna served me a huge plate of buckwheat porridge!!! At 7:00 we had dinner. It was good! We had veal!

But the best thing – were the Dimanis themselves, especially he – direct, frank! We talked again about the evils of the day, and about the Christian idea. They had begun reading Durnovo’s “Thus Spoke Christ.” Little by little they are assimilating the book. In exchange for the Durnovo book he presented me the Andrey Bely’s brochure “At the Pass,” and with a malicious smile made me read a page. “What rubbish” said he! However, I like this “rubbish” and began almost to analyze it, to explain its meaning to him ....

I returned by steamer and admired those lovely Nevki (small affluents of the Great Neva River) – the like of which cannot be found in any European city – as well as the hundreds of immersed barges, a picture of the horrible destruction – the like of which also cannot be found in any European city.

Day before yesterday I returned from my trip to Petersburg. I’ve been away exactly 3 weeks. What diversity of impressions! Those nightmarish travels, there and back, those contacts with people, such different types, that I met in Moscow and in Petersburg, as well as on the way. With Dimanis the pleasant relations have been strengthened. Toosya read to me her poetry and I read to them my literary writings: “Songs Without Words,” and “Without the Past.” We talked a great deal about what we read, as well as about the contemporary political and philosophical ideas. They value apparently my intellectual and moral influence on Toosya. She herself is evidently submitting to this influence willingly. We plan to correspond – a perspective I look forward to with much interest. While walking to the pier, at the last moment, I defended Toosya against her father who, while worshipping and spoiling her, does not restrain her wisely and forces some pedantic regime on her. She wanted to go with her friend to Petersburg, to an evening of a music-dance party; it was with much difficulty that I persuaded her stubborn father to let her go. Toosya was very grateful to me and while standing for a long time on the pier, she waved her kerchief, as she watched apparently with regret the steamer glide away toward Petersburg with me and her friend. God knows when I shall see these people again....If ever, it will be no doubt in entirely different circumstances. The correspondence with Toosya will be of interest to me. She is not stupid and she is talented, but in many respects she has taken the wrong path – already; it will be an interesting task to lead her away from it.

I reached Moscow luckily in the International Car. Although the place I first had was in the corridor, but for 100 r. the conductor gave me an entire upper berth in the coupe where I had a good sleep. The trials began at the Kurski Station. To get inside the train with the baggage, to sit, stand, hang on, jammed in with other people, so that even breathing was almost impossible, and to be in this position for 6 hours – was a nightmare! I moaned aloud, and when I began a feeling of losing consciousness I sank down to the floor on top of people’s feet, knees and backs! In Serpuhov I sat on the platform with my baggage in the dark for about 3 hours. Then, by chance, I was driven by some “private” horse and buggy for 240 r. through the dark and sleeping town to the Oka. At the bridge with a crowd of about 300 people we had to wait until daylight, since no crossing of the bridge was permitted during the night. The steamer was already at the landing on the other side. But all these people and myself had hardly crossed there when we saw the steamer taking off (!), paddling away almost empty! ....However it turned out not to be the steamer which makes its regular run between Serpuhov and Kaluga, but the Kashirski steamer going to the rescue of the steamer from Kaluga that got mired in shallow water at Draki, 12 miles away. The whole crowd of people started running to Draki – trying to overtake the big steamer. But I and 5-6 other people all loaded with heavy baggage, stayed behind, by the bridge. We watched the early sunrise, followed by a heavy fog, and soon thereafter by bright sunlight....A number of people carrying bags were walking in all directions in search of potatoes, cabbage, apples. Among them were peasants, laborers, domestics, railroad men, some of the intelligentsia, all types of young girls, ladies, old people, - all coming from Moscow, anxious to fill their bags. They were buying here also milk, apples, cucumbers, and having their snacks. I stayed at this landing from 3:00 in the morning of Friday till 5:00 in the morning of Saturday! For two successive nights I did not sleep at all. During the day the people began to gather gradually. Among them I saw an old man walking with a young girl. With difficulty did I recognize in him Anton Antonovich Grabye, from whom I used to order frames for my paintings. He has greatly changed since I saw him last 5-6 years ago, has become decrepit. His 14 year old daughter, Ludmilla, I found very charming. With them I killed the time. We went to the village, entered the tea-house, then walked from hut to hut, asking for milk, but did not get any. Common hardships in traveling draws people together. Both of them were also exhausted, especially Ludmilla. We bundled her up and put her to sleep. I gave her my inflated cushion and treated her to apples. At 3:00 in the morning (after an unending crushing in line), we were at last permitted to get on board and everybody started struggling for a soft seat. The First Class was immediately filled to overflowing. The Grabye’s arrived late, but I had managed to fight off a place for Ludmilla next to mine and carried her over above the passengers’ heads. All this went on by lighting matches. When all were finally packed in, it became pitch dark. At first little Ludmilla leaned her head against my shoulder, but when I placed the cushion on my knees, she dropped her head on it and immediately fell asleep. I stroked her cheek and it seemed to me that she was feverish, but this was only owing to the stuffy air and her exhaustion. We started off at day-break. At Draki all passengers were left out at the most inconvenient, steepest spot of the shore, and we were rushed on foot 4 versts to the mired Kaluga steamer at the other end of the shallow bank. With my heavy baggage I too began to climb – nobody was willing to help me! Grabye and his daughter, because they were traveling light, were almost the first to run away.... But vainly was I scrambling up: a sailor agreed to take my baggage and take me, and some 10-15 invalids back to the same steamer on which we just arrived. We reached the big Kaluga steamer at the same time as those who came on foot. The two steamers exchanged passengers. Ludmilla ran to meet me, to help me with the baggage. We climbed to the upper deck. The weather was beautiful, the view of the shore land picturesque. Grabye plunged into reading my book “Anarchy” while I took Ludmilla downstairs to have tea and treated her to plums and candy. We brought tea for the old man in a bottle.

In Tarussa I bid farewell to them. They walked along the shore toward the ferry. The father walked, limping badly, his daughter was skipping happily. They were on their way to the Polenova for 2 days, in order to go through all the nightmares again on their return to Moscow, where little Ludmilla will exhaust herself by standing in lines, and doing her household chores. Poor little one, such a sweet girl! How lovely she was in the midst of nature, in the rays of the morning sun, and how pitiful she will be in hungry Moscow!

In Tarussa “Comrade Alexander” (a student, son of the priest) seated himself next to me and up to Alexin replaced the company of the pretty little Ludmilla, with those two heavy braids, bushy eyebrows, and her innocent chatter – such strange contrast to her serious, dreamy eyes! Comrade Alexander as before, looked ridiculous in his frayed clothes...somewhat like a criminal or an ascetic. Just the same, he is interesting. And also in his conversation – in which there is a mixture of cynicism and high idealism. On the way to Alexin we struck shallow water three times more and were forced to get out on the shore.

At home I found the household in confusion: the domestic help had quarreled with Mama, or Mama with her, and she left. Now we are milking the cow ourselves, i.e., Mama is doing it with her aching hands, since Nadya has categorically refused to do it, though not from drinking the milk. And thus I am immersed now in household affairs: heating the samovars, going to the market, helping with the cow.... The Studio is neglected, but I hope it will be possible to regenerate it.

While in Petersburg I learned from Nic. Richter that Kolya has left Odessa and with his friends has gone not to Serbia, but to Novorossisk!

Today is Mama’s Name’s Day, as well as Nady’s, Sonya’s, and that of many relatives and friends, of all Veras, Lubas and Nadyas.

Change in the weather! Throughout September the days were beautiful, fair, and warm. Today it’s raining. Fall has come! We are in the Pine Grove still, while the Music School has been moved to town already. The Studio is in some decline. Yesterday the Ryshkov’s moved into their winter apartment. Their dacha (summer house), next to ours is boarded up! We are the only ones left here, plunged in household bustle. From 5:00 on in the morning Mama and I are busy tramping through the woods and meadows after “Mashka” the cow, milking her, cutting wood, carrying water, heating the samovar. At 9:00 Vladimir Feodorovich makes his appearance, sits down to a ready breakfast – tea and boiled eggs. At 11:00 Nadya emerges. Mama is more than busy all day, wearing herself out between the kitchen work and in dragging herself to the Music School, which now is in town. I keep busy with household chores from early morning on – I go after bread to town, and while there I keep looking for a winter apartment. We’re very late in this respect. There is available a little house that’s offered us; it’s mostly uninhabited. It needs rebuilding stoves and getting one more room from the neighbors, - then four of us can live there. But when can it all be done? Just now (9:00) I am hurrying off to town on this very business. We have just had our coffee!!!! A gift from the Ryshkov’s, the kindest people (from a parcel sent them by their son from the front): two brewings of coffee, two brewings of tea and some kind of grits! The coffee we just enjoyed we had saved especially for this day. Yesterday there were some preparations in the kitchen and today Mama is getting ready to bake and cook something. A chicken was butchered! In spite of all such grim circumstances of existence, I am abandoning myself to my inner life: am carried away by sketching Galya Ryshkova, a fair, purest type of a blond – a charming personality too, with inner depth. She poses willingly and I sketch willingly. I have done her head with charcoal twice already. Am sketching also Konstantin Schedrin, to her great delight. I have finished painting the pretty Smirnova and dream of painting the beautiful Zoya. She sits in a bakery shop shearing cards. They all belonged once to the former Alexin Bourgeoisie, now they are Soviet employees. Am also concerned about the coming exhibit, October 13 (rural-cultural), at which I was asked to exhibit the works of my Studio pupils. And I am preparing for the same time a report on the subject of art, it does not matter what, just so it’s a public report. All right, I shall have a report – I shall describe to them the true big moment regarding the aims of culture!!! – the way I understand it. I wonder whether they will like it! At the same time I am engaged in thought with my “novel” which has been partly written during the last weeks. Extremely interesting thoughts.

Am interested also in my correspondence with Toosya Dimanis and with A.N. Sustinova. Galichka Ryshkova has proved to be a good graphologist. After studying my handwriting, she wrote a long analysis of my character, in many points amazingly correct. Still more remarkably correct she analyzed also Voldemar’s character, it being less complicated, she said. In return I analyzed her character on the basis of physiognomistics, and I foretold her a rather sad destiny.

Am repainting Nadya’s last year’s portrait – very successfully. There are rumors that Crol has been taken, that General Shkuro is approaching Tula. Our Pine Grove is overfilled with soldiers. All day and night there are campfires, burning fences and window frames, and boiling on them potatoes that have been stolen from the town’s vegetable gardens, to the amount of 500 poods! (1 pood = 40 lbs.) We have been advised to keep the cow in her stall at night, otherwise the soldiers will eat her! These soldiers (looking like tramps) are the remnants of the army defeated by Denikin! ... Rumors, rumors !!

I received a letter from N. Sustinova and I answered her. Perhaps this correspondence will give me material for my novel!

I go about thinking of the subject and plan for my “report” ordered by the Dept. of Education. Everybody says to touch on the subject only in general and not necessarily be frank. But I maintain that this is nonsense! Who has nothing to say, has no business to get on the platform! At this time of revolution every address and report should be revolutionary. Yesterday, while talking with Schedrin and others, a thought came to me, as to what and how to say and report. – I shall debate and rebel, and still I shall not be taken for a counter-revolutionary, because I shall stand up for the people, for the young brotherhood, for liberating it from the power of darkness.

At last we have domestic help again! God be praised! Now it’s possible to devote myself to personal matters. I shall begin writing the report.

I have begun painting Galya’s portrait in color. As a matter of fact she is not beautiful, but she is devilishly interesting to paint. Am making the third portrait of her and I shall make more as many as one likes!

Yesterday Vladimir Feodorovich left for Tula, for the front.

Voldemar returned from Tula after having obtained the fantastic post of a “sapper” in Alexin !!!

Our winter apartment, consisting of two cold rooms is being altered for us. The large room is being divided into two parts. The cooking stove has been built in the smaller part; the fireplace also has been rebuilt. Left is the white-washing of the walls (over the dirty wallpaper) and of the ceiling. Then we can move in!

I was concerned about the cow. Where to get hay? Fima, the domestic, is turning out to be very good! Mama feeds her well and pampers her.

Have almost finished Galya’s head. The general opinion is that I have painted her more beautiful than she really is. But if they could only see her in that pose, that light, with that expression of her deep, dreamy and intelligent eyes, the lovely nape of her neck, her lips, chin and her marvelous shoulders, the delectable little folds on the neck, that pure coloring of a true blonde, and if at the same time they could enter into my skin, my psychology, they would say that I have portrayed her very badly and that I have imparted almost nothing of what constitutes her charm. Nadya and I have decided – jokingly - to have Kolya marry Galya.

It’s raining. It began raining during the night. The first gloomy day. It’s nasty!

Today is the Feast of Intercession of the Holy Virgin – according to the Old Calendar. A holiday atmosphere pervades also the communistic Alexin. And a feeling of serenity is felt in our home.

But beginning on October 11, for 4 days, something extraordinary took place in our household. Mama got into a quarrel with Vladimir Feodorovich, or Vlad. Feod with her. And what a quarrel! It almost brought about a complete break. It was decided not to live together anymore. But it turned out that V.F. was not deeply discerning nor determined, and on the fourth day he exhibited suddenly good behavior and there was not even a hint anymore of a “break!”

I went to the Exhibition. Stopped for Ryshkova, but only Galya joined me. From the Exhibition, i.e., its dirty courtyard, we took the long way home through the field along the Oka River. It was a charming walk with the charming Galya.

I am being teased regarding Galya, especially by Mama, who is apparently even angry and accuses me of being in love with Galya! I reciprocate by saying that indeed I am fascinated by her. The last days I have been lucky – I keep meeting Galya! I sketched three portraits of her and am planning to have Kolya marry her. Mama became alarmed as if the wedding has been set for tomorrow already. She finds that Galya is no good for anything, that there is a hole in her neck, that she is painted and smeared all over with cosmetics, that her eyes are sheepish, her teeth black, that she waddles when she walks, that she is sickly, hardly keeping body and soul together. Even Nadya defended her, especially as to her teeth and health.

All these days I have been busy preparing my lecture that I am to deliver next Sunday. At the same time, I am rushing about seeing all sorts of people from whom the moving into our winter apartment depends. We continue to freeze in our summer dacha No. 5, in the Pine Grove, without heating or kerosene, getting light only from the small icon-lamps. I go to bed at 8 and get up with the first rays of sunshine.

Just had dinner. Mama and Nadya have left for their meeting and I am going to Ryshkova, will see Galya. I’ll take to her the portraits of her that I drew for her.

We are still living in the Grove and are freezing. But the weather is fair and there has been no frost yet. Mama is keeping warm on the Russian stove and I keep fire in the fireplace. We still have trouble with the apartment. The part of the wing that had been set apart for us is being accommodated accordingly. A cooking range has been built into the kitchen, and while a partition was being constructed, we had the idea to ask the authorities to arrange so that the Studio would be located in the same wing with our living quarters, provided we would be given possession of the entire wing. This idea was approved and the order issued to evict the neighbor and give me the right to occupy the entire wing. However actually it turned out that not only were we not given the entire wing, but the part of it which at first was assigned to us as our living quarters, has to serve now also as the Studio!!!

I kept cursing and rushing about. At last it seems, we shall succeed in having the Litvinov’s move into the main building (with the front on the street) where the Hearth is located. This was made possible because Nadya had the idea of offering to teach in the mornings the children of the Hearth.

Tomorrow is my lecture. We have posted large and small announcements.

And so, yesterday my lecture took place. It was a nightmare! I began late owing to the absence of any audience. After an hour only a considerable number of the public began arriving. I telephoned Muralov. He promised to come, and I kept waiting. Finally I began in his absence. Soon after however, he arrived with his wife. The public consisted almost exclusively of the intelligentsia. All listened very attentively and apparently the lecture made a very good impression. Though 9/10 of it they, of course, did not understand. The nightmare began at its conclusion. Following an energetic applause, Muralov stepped forward to raise some questions and objections. I tried to tell him to do it in writing, that I would then answer him at another session. But Muralov insisted on doing it right then. And he DID !! He ignored 99% of my lecture’s real content, i.e., its substance, and commented only on the 1/100 part of it, and this abstractly as a Marxist theoretician. Like an orthodox Marxist, he began by amplifying and defending that part of my lecture that especially had touched him, while I had thought and expected that Muralov, as the Chief of the local government, and its first citizen, guarding the population’s interests, would touch upon its main problem, i.e., the question of cultural-artistic education and the immediate plans for the local cultural organizations .... But not me: that part did not interest him at all. Instead he talked for a whole hour about the abstract Marxist theory, the relationship of matter and “spirit!” ... This reply produced a passionate response on my part, also on the part of Tokarev, who too was aroused by Muralov’s “parallelism.” Then several more brawling orators of the meeting stepped forward who have understood absolutely nothing of my lecture. They all shouted and I outshouted them all.

Today I made a point to see Muralov. I expressed my regret that 99/100 of my lecture was lost while the 1/100 part brought about the heated disputes. He answered that in his comments he mentioned he was in perfect accord with the business part of my lecture. I told him that this “accord” was not enough for me, that I had expected from him, as from the chief of the government, a more energetic support of my report’s realistic proposals.

I suggested that he publish my lecture as a small brochure with an addition of his reply and my conclusion. Naturally Muralov refused such an arrangement that would be to his disadvantage and suggested that I should publish in the local paper, in the feuilleton section only, the business part of my lecture. But that does not suit me at all. I now want to make a report of my lecture to the Dept. of Education, also of the debates it caused, and propose them to materialize my realistic project by establishing in Alexin a Committee of Cultural-Artistic Education.

Hurrah! At last I obtained a decision from Muralov himself that I am to be given a third room. I had made a plan, a draft of the wing and presented it to him, showing clearly how impossible it would be to arrange in two rooms the Studio and living quarters for myself with my wife and a domestic! The neighbor Ananiev’s complaint regarding my solicitation was denied. However he is not being evicted from his two small rooms, therefore Nadya and Voldemar must find lodging for themselves somewhere else and come for their meals to us. We stopped at the trade-school, where in its office is an interesting girl-accountant, Anna Nikolaevna. Voldemar tried to draw me away, to go to the Dept. of Education, but I did not follow him, but asked An. Nik’s permission to stay with her. When we were left alone I asked her to pose for me. After some mannerisms on her part I obtained her full consent. She is very good looking, is stately, graceful, in the style of Brullov’s portraits in the thirties! It’s good luck!

After all, frost did catch us still in the dacha! And on this first day of frost we had to move into our winter apartment. It was dreadful! We did complete the moving only toward the evening. I began immediately to make fire in the stove, but did not succeed to get much warmth. In a terrible chaos and in darkness we had to arrange our beds and get supper. Nadya and her husband went to their place, three doors away where they had acquired a room in a very respectable house. Fima (the domestic) slept next to the Studio, near the stove. Without Mama, who left several days ago for Dubrachok, the whole move went off badly! Many milk pots were broken, salt – the invaluable treasure, was spilled all over the ground. The chickens and the cow are not at all pleased with their new home!

We ate dinner in the new apartment. Fima has gone back to the dacha after the rest of the things. Nadya made a fire in the Russian stove and prepared a meat dinner. Mama’s room, next to the kitchen, is the warmest and cleanest room. There stands also the dinner table. In the Studio and in my room the temperature is 5 degrees. It’s true; the extra windows have not yet been installed, the stoves are not dried out yet, the wood is still damp. Nevertheless I am glad that we are at last settled, that I have my own room, and that there is as yet hope to be working in the Studio! The windows will be puttied up tomorrow. It’s hellish frost and wind. I fear for Mama; she will catch cold and will be over-tired! It’s a week already since she has been gone.

The windows are being puttied up. The Studio is full of frozen cabbage and unpacked things. Yesterday I went after the cabbage and carried it in a huge basket on my back!! The first snow is falling today! The cow remains in the stall and is starving. She was given some cabbage leaves. I shall go to the neighbors and borrow hay. The rooster disappeared! The oil for the icon-lamp was spilled during the move!! The water-closet is cold and befouled to the last degree!! “The condition of the water-closet is the standard of people’s culture.” Well, the Ananyev’s – owners of the house – are rich people and are supposed to have some education!!

Fourteen days have passed...And so much unpleasantness has been experienced! Mama has returned from Dubrachok, and except for the most necessary things, she has brought nothing! Aunt Milya’s household turned out to be in such a sad condition that there was nothing to bring. No hay, no potatoes, no rye ... Mama was worn out, her return trip took 2 days and she came back in a bad mood. First of all, she blamed everybody regarding her room in which the dinner table had been placed. That angered her most. She refused to occupy the “best room “ just because there stood that fatale dinner table. Then Nadya and Voldemar offered to exchange rooms with them: they would give Mama their mezzanine room, 3 doors away, and they would take her room with the dinner table, and that Nadya would take over the household work. To me this combination seemed wild and full of possible trouble. But Mama took hold of the thought, so I kept silent. However, after the first night in the mezzanine, Mama discovered that it was cold there, the thermometer only registering 7 degrees, and she announced that she would come back to her own room (with the dinner table). In the meantime, Nadya and Voldemar had decided that they liked Mama’s room and they began assuring her that the room in the mezzanine is not at all cold, that Mama had probably not closed the chimney properly. Voldemar promised to carry the wood there himself and to bring up the temperature to 12 degrees. But on the following day the thermometer pointed only to 6 ½ degrees.

After this, Voldemar began feeling ill and the wood had to be carried to mezzanine by the pregnant Nadya, who tried to heat the stove and prove to Mama how warm it could be, in order to hold on to Mama’s room (with the dinner table). However, all her efforts were in vain, the thermometer continued to stand at 7 degrees. The atmosphere grew tense and threatened to break into a quarrel...

Then I decided on a heroic action: I proposed placing the table in my room, a room much smaller than that of Mama’s....But just then, quite unexpectedly, opened a comforting perspective to settle this difficult situation: Voldemar, who had gone to Tula yesterday, on returning announced that he is being transferred to the Staff in Tula and that Nadya had decided to go with him.

Thus the disputable Mama’s room is being vacated and is now at her full disposal. – Hurrah!!!

But just the same I feel very, very sad to see Nadya leave for Tula! All are now scattered, all have flown away, to diverse places. Nadya alone remained with us, and now she too is leaving, and we are left alone, - I and my wife, like 30 years ago, and it seems as if all and everybody we had created during the 30 years, had not been existing at all. But then we were young, we were full of hope, of creative strength......while now...

I had proposed in my lecture the friendly cooperation among the cultural workers in the Dept. of Public Education. The authorities approved this thought, and since then two meetings have taken place under my chairmanship. But some cultural workers are very much displeased. The Schedrins are furious and raging. They crave only one thing – to be left alone, - and they will continue to “pull the wool over people’s eyes.” Yesterday another stormy meeting took place and again under my chairmanship. Matters begin to take a good turn.

(5 sheets of the original Diary are missing here.)

...Schedrin kept repeating my own words, kept forcing himself in an open door and revealed himself to be exactly the kind of “dissenter” I mentioned in my lecture, that with such – one should not argue. The public was on my side, with the exception of 3-4 individuals of his own party. In all, I got the impression that scientific lectures have no place here. That one must speak altogether differently: - take a better consideration of the position and the method of debating of the Communists themselves. There also must be brought more originality into the lecture.

There is before me a letter from Emily that only now I can answer. She writes about all kinds of horrors in their life in Dubrachok and claims as if it were our fault that they lack hay, wood, sleighs, rubbers, valenki, and kerosene...

It is Voldemar’s second week in Tula, yet he has not written a single word to Nadya. We learned indirectly that the Staff is being moved from Tula, almost as far as Tashkent or Saratov. Voldemar’s silence is suspicious. It means he is petitioning to remain in Alexin, and until this question is solved he is refraining from giving any details. Our hearts, mine and Mama’s, feel that this “amiable man” will return here to continue living with us, under the same roof! But such a prospect is so not-alluring or, to speak frankly, inadmissible, that we shall have to impress on Nadya and on himself the thought to make arrangements to live apart from us.

I have begun a painting, a complicated portrait of Galya with her father in a very interesting combined pose. For that it was necessary to sew together two pieces of canvas, the last ones I had left... Tomorrow they are coming at 11 o’clock for their first sitting.

The electricity has finally been turned on, and it’s been light for the fourth day, from 5 o’clock in the afternoon until 10 in the evening. This, as a matter of fact, is because of the Studio. The rest of the citizens are still without electricity. I shall begin my evening classes within a few days, from 5 to 7 in the evening.

We continue to be cut off from all our family. Kiev is still in the hands of the Whites, but it seems that before long it will pass over again, for the 8th time, to the Reds. Perhaps then we shall get news from Sonya and maybe also from Kolya. It is rumored (it seems for the 100th time) that negotiations with the Allies are in progress, regarding talks of peace and the lifting of the blockade. If so, then we shall immediately send a telegram to New York!

For several days it has been humid and warm weather. But glory be to Allah: I received rubbers! 25 pairs have been distributed among the teachers in town. But the rubbers are a spoilage, the pairs are split and they will hardly last long enough. The price (fixed) is 53 rubles...and yesterday at the bazaar I bought 2 boxes of matches for 100 rubles!!! We had for supper last night a very fatty meat stew (100 rubles per pound). It caused pains in my stomach and I slept badly. Also because I read Hamsun in the evening that upset my nerves – so when I put out the light I began feeling such anguish that I started to sob, thinking of Kolya, Natasha, and Sonya, recalling also Kyrillchick! I awakened even Mama! Somehow it is mostly Kolya who stands before my eyes, and it seems to me that he is in a very poor state!

I have just finished my first night class by electric light. It was grand!

At last there came a letter from Voldemar, from Tula. He has been freed from service in the Far East and will apparently continue his service in Tula. That’s good. Just so it will not be necessary to continue the intolerable existence side by side with us.

Yesterday at 5 pm my colleague – instructor in painting, Michael Petrovich Rodionov, dragged me along to the Teacher’s Meeting which has been in session since early morning. I had to do some speaking, but I did not stay unti the end, but went instead to the Ryshkovs. Chatted with Galya. Her mother was so kind to leave us talking, and took on herself Galya’s duty of heating the samovar. I left for home at 11 o’clock and what a wonder - the electricity was on!

Voldemar has just arrived from Tula, on horseback. Some days ago Nadya made the decision to join her husband in Tula and from there to go with him to his new service post in Novocherkask!

The Red Army’s engagements are progressing brilliantly. Denikin and Kolchak are defeated. We are at the point of making peace with Europe! This means that perhaps by summer there will be a definite change in the situation!

This is Kolya’s Nameday. It is sad, sorrowful, depressing!!! Where is he, what is happening to him? Is he alive? Is he well? This sadness is redoubled by the sudden departure of Nadya and her husband! They were to leave within 2-3 days, but an opportunity came up for an earlier departure – with a moujik with a horse and cart, who was leaving for Tula within 2 hours! That started the commotion: everything was cramped together – things, clothes, provisions. In a hurry Mama started to iron something, Nadya began to stuff her meager belongings into a little basket. I kept pacing the floor with tear-filled eyes.

Same Evening

They left a half an hour ago. Frost, wind, darkness! Loaded with their possessions, bundled up, they crossed the Oka for the railroad station. From there they were to travel by train in some kind of warm compartment, or in a car with a load of “wood!” We cried much bidding farewell to Nadichka. The heart was breaking! The last one has flown away from us! The dear, good Nadichka ... our little “philharmonist.”

From Nietzche:
“Why live? All is – vanity! To live is to thrash the straw, to live – is to burn itself, but still not getting warm.”

This old small talk still passes for “wisdom,” and because it’s old and emanates the odor of decay, it’s revered still more! And so, decay is ennobling too. Children can talk this way: they fear the fire because it burns. There is childishness in old books on wisdom. And he who keeps on “thrashing straw,” how dare he blame the thrashing! Such fools should keep their mouths shut! Some come to the table, bringing nothing with them, not even a good humor: and then they revile, saying – “all is vanity.” But to eat, to drink well, my dear brothers, in fact, is not a vain art! Destroy, destroy the tables of those who never rejoice!”

The last days, free of classes, I painted the Ryshkovs. Had a good sitting today. I succeeded in giving, if only by a hint, the striking expression in Galya’s eyes. There is something mournful in them.

Today is the equinox: the sun is shining only for the duration of 6 hours: from 9 am till 3 pm. It’s a noteworthy day.

Mama has gone to the market. It’s the third week that she keeps on going there to buy a goose, but cannot bring herself to the “heroic deed” of paying 2,000 rubles for it. She hesitated even when they cost 750-1,000 and 1,500 r. But we should pamper ourselves with a good meal, if only on this Holiday. We are somehow losing weight because of lack of meat and fats. Mama wanted me to come along, but I expect the Ryshkovs for a sitting at 11 o’clock.

Tomorrow a lady from the Children’s Colony (6 versts away) is due to come. I shall paint her portrait for the following fee: 1 pood (40 lbs.) flour = 5,000 rubles; 1 pood grits = 5,000 rubles; 10 lbs. of salt = 1,000 rubles; 5 lbs. of butter = 6,000 rubles; and 5 lbs. of sugar = 7,000 rubles. In all 34,000 rubles worth, according to the market price, or 22 rubles according to the old regime’s rate. I have never before painted a portrait for such a “high” and at the same time, such a low price!

(In the original 10 pages are missing)