The world around Kharms had emptied. His writings were filled with hopelessness. After the Great Terror, the Great War was looming, and before the start of the Winter War, Kharms received a draft notice.
We are perishing — God, help us (April 9).
According to the oral testimony of Panteleev, recorded by M. Meilakh, Kharms arrived at the military enlistment office several days late and explained that he had been holding the draft notice upside down the whole time and thought he was supposed to come not on the 26th, but on the 95th day. After that, he was sent for an examination at the Psychoneurological Dispensary, Vasilievsky Island, 12th line, building 39. There he underwent a medical commission to assess his fitness for military service. He did not want to serve. "If the state is likened to the human body, then in case of war, I would like to live in the heel," Kharms wrote.
Before the commission, he warned his wife Marina: "What you see in the hospital must remain between us, don’t be surprised by anything." All the doctors determined that he was fit. The last was a psychiatrist — a woman who had been observing him before. The door to the office was ajar, and Marina could hear what they were saying inside. Here is how she recalls it:
"How do you feel?" "Wonderful, wonderful." "Well, everything is fine." She was already writing something in the medical record. Sometimes, though, I heard him coughing: "Hm, hm... hm, hm..." The doctor asked: "What, are you feeling unwell?" "No, no. Wonderful, wonderful!.." She herself opened the door wide for him, he came out of the office, and when our eyes met, he let me know that he was passing with this doctor too. She stood in the doorway and saw him off: "I am very glad, comrade, that you are healthy and that everything is fine with you now." Dania replied to her: "That is very kind of you, thank you very much. I am also absolutely sure that everything is fine." And he walked down the corridor.
Suddenly he somehow stumbled, raised his right leg bent at the knee, shook his head: "Eh-eh, hm, hm!.." "Comrade, comrade! Wait," said the woman. "Are you feeling bad?" He looked at her and smiled: "No, no, nothing." She, already frightened: "Please, come back. I want to check myself, to see if I was mistaken. Why did you twitch like that?" "You see," said Dania, "there is this white bird, sometimes it — it happens! — flutters — prr! — and flies away. But that’s nothing, nothing..." "Where did this bird come from? And why did it suddenly fly away?" "Simply," said Dania, "it was time for it to fly — and it fluttered," and his face was radiant. The woman returned to her office and signed his exemption. When we went outside, I was shaking all over and sweating."
However, the dry certificate issued by the neuropsychiatric dispensary of the Vasileostrovsky district contradicts the expressive account of the writer’s wife. It states that citizen Yuvachev-Kharms Daniil Ivanovich was under examination from September 29 to October 5, 1939.
During the stay, the following was noted: delusional ideas of invention, relationships, and persecution. He considered his thoughts "open and external" if he did not wear a bandage or ribbon around his head, showed fear of people, had compulsive movements, and repeated what he heard. He was discharged without changes.
In other words, the white bird was only the final stroke of the master. Diagnosis: schizophrenia. On December 3, four days after the start of the Winter War, Kharms was exempted from conscription.
Source: http://www.d-harms.ru/library/daniil-harms-zhizn-cheloveka-na-vetru8.html
