MARINA TSVETAEVA
201
"So you invited her to your Christmas tree? How kind of you."
"Yes, and she didn't come, and we've been expecting her now
for the last two weeks. My daughter wrote to her (thoroughly
disregarding the fact that the letter, written only that morning, could
in no case, even the most alive, have expected to receive an answer
by this time-so far away was this morning from now)-my
daughter wrote to her and received no reply. What is wrong with
her?"
"Mais elle est morte! - Et vous ne l'avez pas su?"
* * *
"The 23rd, l'avant-veille de Noel. The evening before she ran
all about, up and down, rien que son petit chiUe sur les epaules.
"Mais vous allez prendre froid, jeanne, voyons!" Et je lui tirais les
manches sur les mains. She kept buying things. The next day she
was supposed to go to her sisters."
"But the evening before, the 22nd, our children, and this lady,
the mother of the little boy, visited her. Yes, yes, it was the 22nd.
She invited all her pupils, she danced...."
"I didn't know anything about that. When, what time was it?"
"About four, and they left around seven. She was very excited.
She wouldn't let them go without dancing. The next day? I don't
understand anything."
"Yes, the 23rd, in the morning. From a hernia-a malignant
tumor. Well, she never wanted to wear a truss, because then she
would have had to go to the doctor, and they-well, you understand
me-she didn't want to. A long-standing hernia. You mean, coming
here, you didn't know anything? Then please forgive me-de vous
l'avoir annonce si brutalement."
"Then it's been a month since she died?"
"A month, today in fact. You say that she danced? Perhaps
that's what did it. Dances - with a hernia. And no bandage . ..."
"But how did she die? Was anyone with her?"
"No one, she was completely alone. About three o'clock her
cousin dropped by-she sometimes helped her dans son petit
menage, and jeanne had given her the key the night before - she
knocked, no one answered, so she went in and she saw her. She was
lying across the bed, completely dressed in her hat and gloves, ob–
viously ready to go to a lesson - she still had one lesson to give before
leaving- the last one. Cette pauvre jeanne! Sixty-four years old - ce
