26.08.1914. Yalta.
My dear, you haven't written for such a long time that I started to have bad and sad dreams, especially at night. They all disappeared at one glance at the address you had written in your hand.
Will such an accident happen and you will be taken to war? What will happen to your sisters and your brother? Isn't there a law against calling on a single breadwinner?
My father is already at the national team site, and although he is an officer, I still think it is ridiculous and inexplicable that this kind, timid, shy and shy person who has suffered from shyness all his life will try his best to kill other people and that for all of us it has become the most important thing in the world. My brother is going to volunteer, and my aunt, who was a sister of mercy during the Russian-Japanese war, is going to the front the other day.
When will this madness finally end? For some reason I am sure that this is the last war in Europe. But how do we instill in mankind the consciousness of all the meaninglessness of this atrocious massacre? However, what can we say if we still have the death penalty in a thousand-year-old culture!
... I just read in the newspaper that classes in St. Petersburg will start on time, students are exempt from military service. This is not much consolation to me. Everything depends on the course of the war - and I am mortally afraid that you will be taken sooner or later.
I want to leave Yalta the other day. All this brilliant southern fairy tale annoys me now. And my lessons are almost all gone, and the maintenance here is expensive.
I kiss you warmly, my joy, my happiness.
Your Lisa.
15.09.1914. Yalta.
A few more sluggish days, and I am in Kazan. And the tireless dream is already there! I am pleased and frightened by our meeting. No, I am glad. I know you love it when I am happy.
26.09.1914. Wagon 357. M.-K. Railway.
- Who are you? The ship's feeder.
- Where is your ship? - The whole Earth.
- Is the steering wheel yours? - In the heart, here.
- Blue Sea? - The whole mind.
- All of it? Good and near Evil?
- Strongly every oar.
- A wharf? - A dream. - A beacon? - A dream.
- Achievement? - Completeness.
- Flood, and then?
- Desert width is a delight to everyone.
- Sweetness, sleep, and in reality?
- I am floating in an unguarded state.
(Balmont)
In these poems, which I, God knows why, every minute muttering, parted with you at the station, suddenly burst into the next dialogue between the neighbor and me:
- Are you going to be from Murom?
- No, I'm not.
- Otkeli?
- From the Volga.
- You're lying, I saw you in Murom.
- Pra, no.
- Oh, you're lying! What, are you going to be a maid?
- Can you see Razi?
- Yes, that's the way it is.
And so on.
Goodbye so far, my endless joy.
16.10.1914. St. Petersburg.
Kostik, why don't you write? I look forward to your letters every day, every hour. I study hard. I settled in the old apartment: Geslerovskiy, 19, apartment. 24. I live alone, because Shura, not assuming that I will come, settled down with another the students. No lessons, no luck. But I am not discouraged. Not without reason that I was still called "Lizken-Neunyvai" in the boarding house! If you think about coming here for Christmas, don't you dare write to me about it.
22.10.1914. St. Petersburg.
You're right, the war has confused, tied up everything and everything and really put its heavy, shameful seal on our century. If I consider this war "liberating", it is not for me. For me, it is disgusting and hopeless.
Your letter came at the same time as the students' call. I know you are not subject to this instruction. Still, my heart falls when I deploy a newspaper with these terrible, endless lists of victims: "Eternal memory, eternal glory.
Have you undoubtedly read in the newspapers about student demonstrations? I learned the details - and I am outraged. Although only a small group, namely the white-lasted lining, was salting, but the shadow fell on the entire student body!
Honey, don't worry about me. This month I will hold out, and maybe I will get settled there. I have money so far. I'm studying. I signed up for nursing courses, but classes will probably not begin soon.
Do you ask, how is Shura? She sends her regards. She has a Kuzya.
10.11.1914. St. Petersburg.
Time is racing forward, some events in a chaotic whirlwind take over from others. And what a strange thing is human nature! Previously, the spirit was breathtaking from this speed, but now it seems as if you are getting used to it, and less and less often comes bewilderment, overwhelmed by horror. Life, this "va-bank", as futurist Marinetti said, is going its course, and different Igor Severyanins write ridiculous but sincere poems to justify it.
I have never been to museums or theaters for this visit, but I couldn't stand it, so I went on duty to the People's House and for a few days I went to amazingly successful performances. The day before yesterday I was on Bohemia with Lipkovskaya. I did not like the opera at all, or even the atmosphere, despite the fact that it was entirely with the scenery taken from "Musical Drama". But Lipkovskaya alone compensated for the lost time! But yesterday I went there for a patriotic concert "Art to warriors". There was all the light of St. Petersburg, all the foreign envoys. Before they sang the Russian anthem with the choir and orchestra, then Baklanov sang the French anthem - and all this against the background of live paintings. Then we read the best forces of drama, shouted: "Hurrah for the soldiers! - etc. Messengers answered with short speeches. The audience was raging, especially the gallery, where there were up to a thousand students. But the ballet drove me crazy. Two stars like Karsawina and Kshesinska danced - they were incomparable, and I refuse even to praise them, because words are not enough to convey this magnificence. In St. Petersburg, the audience is patriotic, the daily training camp, and they donate without being stingy. In general, unanimity in everything, and this whirlpool of today's events is breathtaking.
At such a time, you don't want to read anything but newspapers. But, having missed the poetry, I still read Rabindranath Tagore's "The Gardener", "The Song of Gaiavat" in a beautiful translation by Bunin, Anna Akhmatova, who particularly impressed me with her freshness, simplicity and depth.
The other day, looking for lessons, I ran into two heinous proposals that made me feel nauseous and weak. But I know you don't like it when I complain. So from now on I will only complain about the infinity of our separation.
It snows outside the window, and if you look at these soft snowflakes falling endlessly, your head starts to spin. And she, poor, already spins when I think about you. The fact is that I can't live without you at all. It wouldn't be a bad thing for you to guess about it someday.
To be continued...