13.09.1913. St. Petersburg.
At last, I am writing to you, Kostya. I don't know where to start - so many impressions! I didn't give Shura's telegram (I don't know if I wrote to you about it, it's my best friend), because I didn't know her new address. There were no free numbers in the vicinity of the station, I was left between the sky and the ground, and my fate was shared by another pretty lady. After a while, some energetic young lady comes to this cursor and offers the following combination: without men we will not be allowed anywhere, so she will now turn to her acquaintances at the station, and everything will be arranged in the best way - for us and for them. We kindly thanked her, but refused. Finally, the Gendarmerie commander took part in us by sending her to the Women's Protection Society. We spent the night there, paying five kopecks. Finally, the next day, she found Shura.
My class only started at the ninth grade. I chose the Physics and Astronomy Department and, in order not to waste my time, I attend lectures by professors from other faculties. I listened to Plato - I like it very much. You know, Kostya, what amazes me? My indifference. Not the lack of interest, but the strange impression that all this was already in the past: I walked along these huge buildings, tall black coaches overtook me, and even this knocking of the hooves on the wooden bridge vaguely remembered me - exactly I heard it in my sleep or in my previous life. How can I not believe in the relocation of souls? I have this feeling from the first minutes in St. Petersburg.
Kostya, come for Christmas. I will be very, very happy. Of course, you don't remember me? It's not good. I send you my sincere, heartfelt greetings.
2.10.1913.
Dear Kostya, thank you for your friendly letter. I immediately started to answer, wrote it and torn it. I remembered the lesson I recently received from a new acquaintance (a very clever person): do not impose your moods on others. I will therefore write to you about my student life. I go to courses, listen to lectures, diligently do trigonometry and algebra, after the holidays I think to pass. English is getting pretty tough. I've met a group of students and, of course, female students, but I don't like them very much. They are good, honest and pretty, but their interests are very narrow. And in this respect, you do not go mad at me.
In addition to coursework, I listen to lectures on current topics. For example, Speransky's "Winners of Life". He speaks beautifully, but somehow empty. I tried to retell his lecture by Shura - and we both started laughing to the ground.
By the way, an unpleasant story happened to us: we could not pay for the room in time, the mistress refused, and had to run all over the city. Finding a room in St. Petersburg was servitude We ran for four days and finally settled in. My address: V. O., line 15, 70, block 19.
For rest, I went to the theaters with one of my friends from Sarapul. I saw in Alexandrinka "Profitable place" with Varlamov and Strelka, and in the Mariinsky Theater - "Eugene Onegin" with Smirnov, Kastorsky and Slavina, the orchestra conducted by the Napravnik himself! I was delighted - especially with Smirnov and the orchestra.
Interested and outraged by the case of Bailis. The courses for tomorrow announced a strike. We sent a welcome telegram to the defender. The university is also worried about other educational institutions, everyone is taking part in this case. We are looking forward to the decision. A truly horrible accusation is throwing itself at the whole nation. It's a disgusting process, with shameless cynicism!
Dear Kostya, don't forget me and, very, very much, very much, write more often. Shura sends her regards to you.
14.10.1913.
Cute, good Kostya, thank you for your lovely letter. Hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry! I would like you to be with me now. I cannot express on paper what I would say if you were with me now.
I go to lectures, and I am sorry: how many gaps in my preparatory education! I listen to the analysis and understand almost nothing. It turns out that I still know so little about algebra. Now I see that my interest in art has prevented me from seriously preparing for the mathematics department. And he continues to interfere. Now, for example, I will sing "Hellenic Culture" by Baumgarten. And I shouldn't have been a student of the Mathematics Department wandering around the Hermitage for hours in an almost idiotic pleasure.
St. Petersburg.
Kostya, I was in Moscow. My aunt (my father's sister), who had not seen me since I was a child, suddenly wanted to meet me. She works in the TB League, but she is as interested in art as I am. In years, but still alive, energetic, and not me, but she dragged me around Moscow. Her friend Ivan Reutov, a teacher at the Stroganov School and an art expert, was with us. We were in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, in the Kremlin, in the Church of St. Basil and in the first floor of the Tretyakov Gallery (the second, unfortunately, is being repaired). I saw Vereshchagin, which I didn't like very much, maybe because he speaks more to his mind than to his heart. On the other hand, Levitan and Borisov-Musatov couldn't get away from him positively. The "Ghosts" of the latter reminded me of my dreams - I don't remember writing to you that I dream so often that I am surprised sometimes if the night goes on without dreams? In front of a picture I like, I sort of split up - do you know this feeling? In order to deeply feel the mood of a painting, I need to look at it through the eyes of my double person. And when it succeeds, I even experience a feeling of incomprehensible happiness in front of sad works.
This feeling is joined by surprise: why do you see only rough strokes in two steps from Levitanovsky's "Evening Tone", and in ten or fifteen the picture develops so harmoniously? After all, it seemed to me that I even hear the bells ringing, coming from somewhere far away. I didn't look at other artists, I saved my impression, but in the evening I went to a debate about painting, which was organized by the group "Jack of Diamonds" at the Polytechnic Institute. Oh, my God! I've never in my life had to experience such opposite impressions on the same day. It was almost impossible to get in, but my aunt managed to get tickets with the help of Reutov, and, having made our way through a huge crowd of students who were arguing loudly with the city, we took our seats in the choirs.
The evening opened with Kulbin's report, about whom his aunt said that he, as a doctor and State Counsellor, was ashamed to be chasing fashion at the age of 44. Kulbin compared Scriabin with Picasso (!) - and proved that art should develop "spiral-shaped". Then the artist Burlyuk - clumsy, in a long jacket - announced that Rafael and Velasquez are bourgeois spirit and that they managed to pretend to be artists only because in those days, photography was not yet invented. In this place, her aunt lost her eyeglasses, and while we were looking for him, Burlyuk managed to get rid of Hellas IV century and the Renaissance. Ironical shouts were heard from time to time, but in general the audience was not very angry. But when Burlyuk began to show on the screen reproductions of the "left" paintings, in the hall began God knows that - noise, whistling, clattering. My aunt wasn't mewing, either. And indeed, the paintings - if you can call it a shapeless pile of black and white cubes or horse faces, barely guessing among some roofs - make a repulsive impression.
The noise was still going on when a slender woman appeared in the pulpit for twenty-seven years in a black, strict dress, with her hair smoothly combed, - and the silence came, because immediately it became clear that she would wait for silence, no matter how long it took her to wait. "Among the paintings that showed here David Burlyuk, two belong to me. But this is a rough rigging, against which I, Natalia Goncharova, strongly protest. The band to which I belong is called the Donkey's Tail. - It patiently waited for the laughter and repeated in a clear voice: "Donkey's tail". And our group has nothing to do with the Diamond Jacket. Unfortunately, my aunt, who was so worried that she almost fell from the choir into the amphitheater, prevented me from listening carefully to Goncharova. Meanwhile, in what she said, I came across common sense: "The artist must be firmly aware of what he is portraying, and only then look for a certain form of design. Immediately she compared the works of cubists with stone women, which I think is nonsense, if only because you can not unconditionally compare painting and sculpture. But I liked it very much. Moreover, I suddenly wanted to be like her - serious, strict and courageously convinced. I was jealous of her appearance, for the first time in my life, angry at my long legs.
(The letter is not dated)
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