500
PARTISAN REVIEW
powerful husband, by the routine - immutable as the movement of
the spheres - oflunches and dinners . (In our home - a meal is always
a comet!) She helps me secretly, hiding it from her husband, whom,
as aJew and a lucky man , I - in whose home everything but the soul
has frozen and nothing save books has escaped destruction - natu–
rally cannot help but irritate.
Occasionally, when they remember my existence - and I'm not
blaming them for we've known each other a short time - the actress
Z-tseva and her husband help me , she, because she loves poetry,
and her husband because he loves his wife. They brought potatoes,
and several times the husband has torn down beams from the attic
and sawed them up.
There's also R.S . T-kin, the brother of Mrs. Ts-lin, whose
literary evenings I used to attend . He gives matches , bread. Kind ,
sympathetic .
- And that's it. -
Balmont
2
would be glad to, but he himself is destitute.
(If
you
drop by, he always gives you food and drink.) His words : "I keep
feeling pangs of conscience, I feel I should help" - are already help .
People don't know how immensely I value words! (They're better
than money, for I can pay with the same coin!)
My day: I get up-the upper window is barely gray-cold–
puddles - sawdust - buckets - pitchers - rags - children's dresses
and shirts everywhere. I saw. Start the fire. In icy water I wash the
potatoes , which I boil in the samovar. (For a long time I made soup
in it , but I once got it so clogged up with millet that for months I had
to take the cover off and spoon water from the top - it's an antique
samovar, with an ornate spigot that wouldn't unscrew, wouldn't yield
to knitting needles or nails . Finally, someone - somehow - blew it
out.) I stoke the samovar with hot coals I take right from the stove . I
live and sleep in one and the same frightfully shrunken, brown flan–
nel dress , sewn in Alexandrov in the spring of 1917 when I wasn't
there. It's all covered with burn holes from falling coals and ciga–
rettes . The sleeves, once gathered with elastic, are rolled up and fas–
tened with a safety pin.
Cleaning is next. -"Alya, take out the basin!" A few words
abou t the basin - it deserves them. This is the main protagonist in
2. Konstantin Dmitrievich Balmont (1867-1942). Russian poet and lifetime friend
of T svetaeva; he emigrated to France in 1920.
