THE BOOK OF POEMS IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY ... - TopReferat
THE BOOK OF POEMS IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY ... - TopReferat THE BOOK OF POEMS IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY ... - TopReferat
THE BOOK OF POEMS IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY RUSSIAN LITERATURE: KHODASEVICH, GIPPIUS AND SHVARTS Sarah Clovis Bishop A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE FACULTY OF PRINCETON UNIVERSITY IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY RECOMMENDED FOR ACCEPTANCE BY THE DEPARTMENT OF SLAVIC LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES June 2004
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<strong>THE</strong> <strong>BOOK</strong> <strong>OF</strong> <strong>POEMS</strong> <strong>IN</strong> <strong>TWENTIETH</strong>-<strong>CENTURY</strong> RUSSIAN LITERATURE:<br />
KHODASEVICH, GIPPIUS AND SHVARTS<br />
Sarah Clovis Bishop<br />
A DISSERTATION<br />
PRESENTED TO <strong>THE</strong> FACULTY<br />
<strong>OF</strong> PR<strong>IN</strong>CETON UNIVERSITY<br />
<strong>IN</strong> CANDIDACY FOR <strong>THE</strong> DEGREE<br />
<strong>OF</strong> DOCTOR <strong>OF</strong> PHILOSOPHY<br />
RECOMMENDED FOR ACCEPTANCE<br />
BY <strong>THE</strong> DEPARTMENT <strong>OF</strong><br />
SLAVIC LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES<br />
June 2004
UMI Number: 3119375<br />
Copyright 2004 by<br />
Bishop, Sarah Clovis<br />
All rights reserved.<br />
________________________________________________________<br />
UMI Microform 3119375<br />
Copyright 2004 ProQuest Information and Learning Company.<br />
All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against<br />
unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code.<br />
____________________________________________________________<br />
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© Copyright by Sarah Clovis Bishop, 2004. All rights reserved.
Abstract<br />
At the turn of the twentieth century, the Russian symbolists began to pay<br />
consistent and particular attention to the organization of their individual poems into<br />
integral collections. In this dissertation, I examine the organizing principles behind three<br />
post-symbolist books of poetry.<br />
My first two chapters deal with texts from the first half of the century: Vladislav<br />
Khodasevich’s Way of the Grain (1920; 1921; 1927) and Zinaida Gippius’s Radiances<br />
(1938). The third chapter addresses a more recent work: Elena Shvarts's The Works and<br />
Days of the Nun Lavinia (1987). In all three instances, the poets consciously and<br />
deliberately approach the construction of their books. Khodasevich rewrites his book<br />
twice, fundamentally changing it in the third edition. Gippius breaks away from her<br />
earlier chronologically organized “diaries” and creates a final summational book. Shvarts<br />
publishes the poems of a fictional character, thus creating a novel in verse, of sorts.<br />
In identifying the organizing principles underlying each of these individual books,<br />
I draw on previous scholarship on the Russian lyric cycle—a form often distinct from the<br />
book of poems but one that raises similar questions of composition and influence. The<br />
formal approaches proposed by Ronald Vroon, I.V. Fomenko, and M.N. Darvin to the<br />
poetic cycle can be applied to the book of poems as well: close attention to titles,<br />
subheadings and epigraphs; framing of opening and closing poems; repetition of key<br />
words, phrases and images; similarity or juxtaposition of formal features such as meter;<br />
marked non-chronological ordering of poems.<br />
iii
In my conclusion, I pose the question of tradition, juxtaposing Shvarts's 1987<br />
work to Khodasevich's and Gippius's in an attempt to describe how the conception of the<br />
book of poems has changed over the course of the century.<br />
iv
TABLE <strong>OF</strong> CONTENTS<br />
Abstract<br />
iii<br />
Acknowledgements<br />
vi<br />
Introduction: The Book of Poems 1<br />
Chapter One: Vladislav Khodasevich's Way of the Grain 7<br />
Chapter Two: Zinaida Gippius's Radiances 82<br />
Chapter Three: Elena Shvarts's Works and Days of the Nun Lavinia 140<br />
Conclusion 198<br />
Bibliography 204<br />
v
Acknowledgements<br />
When I arrived at Princeton, I never imagined that I would end up taking a formal<br />
approach to Russian poetry—I had no idea what such a thing was. I would like to thank<br />
the faculty of the Slavic Department for introducing me to many new ways of thinking. I<br />
am grateful to Olga Hasty for her wonderful classes on poetry, to Caryl Emerson for a<br />
humane (if painful, at the time) introduction to literary theory and its application to all<br />
types of literature, and to Charles Townsend for the maze of Czech grammar and the onestem<br />
verb system. Thanks also to Professors Ermolaev and Chances for their insight into<br />
Soviet and post-Soviet writing, and to Natasha Reed and David Freedel. I cannot<br />
imagine a more supportive environment in which to learn and write.<br />
Particular thanks, of course, go to my advisor, Michael Wachtel, for his generosity with<br />
both his ideas and time. Even when it took me months (sometimes approaching years) to<br />
send him new material, he would respond with thoughtful comments within days, if not<br />
hours. Such a combination of kindness, practicality and intelligence is rare—I feel very<br />
lucky to have benefited from it.<br />
I would also like to thank the community of Slavic graduate students at Princeton who<br />
challenged me intellectually and became great friends in the process. I am particularly<br />
grateful to Anne and Grady Caswell Klein, Julia Zarankin, Cole Crittenden, Sharon<br />
Lubkemann Allen, Brian Stimmler, Inna Mezhdibovskaya and Maryl and John Hallett. I<br />
owe my dissertation topic to my friend Mirande Bissell and my current job to Luda and<br />
Jim Lavine. Thank you!<br />
I have also been fortunate in my relationships outside of Princeton. At Wellesley, I<br />
would like to thank Tom Hodge, Adam Weiner and Alla Epsteyn for their support and<br />
patience with this project. Tom and Adam were kind enough to read and comment<br />
extensively on my Khodasevich chapter, and Alla was a great help in moments of<br />
linguistic crisis. I would also like to thank Jim Kodera for his insight into the Buddhist<br />
features of Shvarts's book.<br />
Thanks also to Stephanie Sandler who welcomed me into her seminar on contemporary<br />
Russian poetry at Harvard and aided me greatly in my study of Shvarts. Special thanks to<br />
Elena Shvarts, herself, who kindly answered questions about her work in several email<br />
correspondences.<br />
Finally, I would like to thank the home front. Immeasurable thanks to my parents who<br />
have supported me throughout all of my endeavors. I am very grateful for all of the<br />
opportunities they have given me. And, most importantly, thanks to my husband Eric<br />
who was truly there from start to finish (along with our faithful cat Rudy and a certain<br />
undercover agent). I couldn't have done it without him.<br />
vi
Introduction: The Book of Poems<br />
“You have a book in you,” said Charents, listening to M.’s<br />
poems about Armenia. (This was in Tiflis—in Erivan he would<br />
not have dared to come see us.) M. was very pleased by these<br />
words: “Perhaps he’s right—I may really have a book in me.”<br />
A few years later, at M.’s request, I took a sheaf of his Voronezh<br />
poems to Pasternak, who, after looking at them, suddenly spoke<br />
of the “miracle of a book in the making.” With him, he said, it<br />
had happened only once in his life, when he wrote “My Sister<br />
Life.” I told M. about this conversation and asked: “So a<br />
collection of verse doesn’t always make a book?” M. just<br />
laughed.—Nadezhda Mandelshtam, Hope Against Hope (New<br />
York: Atheneum, 1970), p. 190.<br />
The Russian book of poems, 1 in Mandelshtam’s conception, is a relatively recent<br />
phenomenon. Well into the nineteenth century, poets compiled their poems<br />
chronologically, grouped them loosely according to genre, or paid no attention at all to<br />
their arrangement. Tiutchev, for example, never took part in the organization of his<br />
poems into books. Batiushkov left such work to his friend Gnedich. While some<br />
scholars point to Pushkin’s alexandrines of 1836 as part of the first consciously<br />
constructed modern cycle of verse, 2 the first generally acknowledged “book of poems,”<br />
Baratynsky’s Сумерки, appeared in 1842. 3<br />
In a period when most collections were titled<br />
simply “Стихотворения” or “Собрание сочинений,” Baratynsky’s title, which reflects<br />
the consistent mood of the book’s poems, and his singular subtitle “Сочинение Е.Б” (as<br />
against Сочинения) immediately point to a new kind of intentional unity. While Fet’s<br />
collections show a similar type of thematic organization, it was not until the advent of the<br />
1 In this dissertation, the phrase “book of poems” will specifically refer to a consciously constructed poetic<br />
book, typical of the twentieth century. It will be contrasted to “collection” and “compilation."<br />
2 David Sloane, Aleksandr Blok and the Dynamics of the Lyric Cycle (Columbus, Ohio: Slavica, 1987), 26-<br />
39.<br />
3 See Ronald Vroon, "The Renaissance of the Lyric Cycle in Russian Modernism: Sources and<br />
Antecedents," in Zyklusdichtung in den slavischen Literaturen. Beiträge zur internationalen Konferenz,<br />
Magdeburg 18.-20. Marz 1997, ed. Reinhard Ibler (Peter Lang, 2000), 567-8.<br />
1
Symbolist movement that Russian poets paid consistent and particular attention to the<br />
organization of their individual poems into integral collections.<br />
Ronald Vroon has claimed Balmont’s В безбрежности (1895) as the first book<br />
of poems to constitute a closed, unified sequence. 4<br />
Bryusov quickly follows with Chefs<br />
d’oeuvre (1895) and Tertia vigilia (1900). In the introduction to his 1903 book Urbi et<br />
Orbi (1903) Bryusov explicitly addresses the new conception of a book of poems:<br />
Книга стихов должна быть не случайным сборником разнородных<br />
стихотворений, а именно книгой, замкнутым целым, объединенным единой<br />
мыслью. Как роман, как трактат, книга стихов раскрывает свое содержание<br />
последовательно, от первой страницы к последней. Стихотворение,<br />
выхваченное из общей связи, теряет столько же, как отдельная страница из<br />
связного рассуждения. Отделы в книге стихов—не более как главы,<br />
поясняющие онда другую, которых нельзя переставлять произвольно. 5<br />
The compositional principles outlined in this book, tremendously popular and influential<br />
in its time, quickly became accepted guidelines for the majority of the symbolist poets. 6<br />
One poet particularly excited by Urbi et Orbi, Aleksandr Blok, took these<br />
principles to a new level, organizing his entire life’s work into a “trilogy of<br />
incarnation”—a three volume Собрание сочинений which forms the lyric biography of<br />
the poet. This trilogy was conceived well before the majority of the poems that were to<br />
go into it had been written. In his 1911 introduction to the collection Blok describes the<br />
basic structure the trilogy was to take:<br />
Тем, кто сочувствует моей поэзии, не покажется лишним включение в эту и<br />
следующие книги полудетских или слабых по форме стихотворений; многие из<br />
них, взятые отдельно, не имеют цены; но каждое стихотворение необходимо<br />
для образования главы; из нескольких глав составляется книга; каждая книга<br />
есть часть трилогии; всю трилогию я могу назвать «романом в стихах»; она<br />
4 Ibid., 576.<br />
5 V.Ia. Briusov, Sochineniia (Moscow: Khudozhestvennaia literatura, 1987), vol. 1, 493.<br />
6 A.V. Lavrov, "Briusov," in Russkie pisateli 1800-1917: biograficheskii slovar' , vol. 1, (Moscow:<br />
Sovietskaia entsiklopediia, 1989), 334.<br />
2
посвящена одному кругу чувств и мыслей, которому я был предан в течение<br />
первых двенадцати лет сознательной жизни. 7<br />
Boris Pasternak’s 1922 book, Сестра моя—жизнь, has also been described as a<br />
novel. Tynianov compares it to a “diary in verse with precise place-names and dates.” 8<br />
Read as an integral whole, its poems, complete works of art in and of themselves, provide<br />
a narrative account of a specific love affair and journey. This specific story, Katherine<br />
O’Connor argues, is universalized by its poetic form, turning the seemingly simple<br />
narrative into a metapoetic statement. 9<br />
Extremely influential for both Pasternak’s<br />
contemporaries and later poets, Сестра моя—жизнь provides an important model for<br />
the twentieth-century Russian book of poems.<br />
In my dissertation I will not focus on this emergence of the book of poems.<br />
Instead, I will analyze three twentieth-century examples, all of which appeared after the<br />
importance of a book’s organization had been explicitly and widely discussed. 10<br />
My first<br />
two chapters deal with texts from the first half of the century: Vladislav Khodasevich’s<br />
Путем зерна (1920; 1921; 1927) and Zinaida Gippius’s Сияния (1938). The third<br />
chapter addresses a more recent work: Elena Shvarts's Труды и дни Лавинии, Монахини<br />
7 Aleksandr Blok, Sobranie sochinenii v 8 tomakh, vol. 1 (Moscow: Khudozhestvennaia literatura, 1960),<br />
559.<br />
8 Katherine Tiernan O'Connor, "Boris Pasternak's My Sister—Life: The Book Behind the Verse," Slavic<br />
Review 37, no. 3 (September 1978), 399.<br />
9 See Katherine Tiernan O'Connor's excellent book, Boris Pasternak's My Sister—Life: The Illusion of<br />
Narrative (Ann Arbor: Ardis, 1988).<br />
10<br />
By 1915 Briusov's Urbi et Orbi pronouncement had become common currency in literary discussions. In<br />
his review of Blok’s “Стихи о России” Georgii Ivanov writes: Когда читаешь «Стихи о России»,<br />
вспоминается слова В-ия Брюсова о книгах, которые нельзя перелистывать, а надо читать, «как<br />
роман». V. Enisherlov, Shtrikhi sud'by (Moscow: Sovremennik, 1980), 174. Fyodor Sologub, who had<br />
paid little attention to the organization of his early books, giving his wife and Briusov free reign in<br />
selecting and ordering the poems, shows a heightened attention to the composition of later works, perhaps<br />
swayed by the carefully constructed works of other symbolists. In the introduction to Лазурные горы, the<br />
first volume of his 1913 collected works, he writes: Стихотворения, собранные в этой книге, написаны<br />
в 1884-1898 годах; но далеко не все стихотворения тех лет помещены здесь. Выбор обусловлен<br />
желанием сохранить некоторую общность настроения. Стихи расположены в порядке, который для<br />
внимательного читателя покажется не случайным. Хронологический указатель напечатан в конце<br />
этой книги. Fyodor Sologub, Sobranie sochinenii, v. 1 (Saint Petersburg: Sirin, 1913), v. 1, opening pages<br />
(unnumbered).<br />
3
из ордена обрезания сердца (1987). In all three instances, the poets consciously and<br />
deliberately approach the construction of their books. Khodasevich rewrites his book<br />
twice, fundamentally changing it in the third edition. Gippius breaks away from her<br />
earlier chronologically organized “diaries” and creates a final summational book. Shvarts<br />
publishes the poems of a fictional character, thus creating a novel in verse of sorts.<br />
In identifying the organizing principles underlying each of these individual books,<br />
I draw on previous scholarship on the Russian lyric cycle—a form often distinct from the<br />
book of poems but one that raises similar questions of composition and influence. The<br />
formal approaches proposed by Ronald Vroon, I.V. Fomenko, and M.N. Darvin to the<br />
poetic cycle can be applied to the book of poems as well: close attention to titles,<br />
subheadings and epigraphs; framing of opening and closing poems; repetition of key<br />
words, phrases and images; similarity or juxtaposition of formal features such as meter;<br />
marked non-chronological ordering of poems. A larger formal question asked of the<br />
poetic cycle—to what extent the individual poems lose their autonomy within a larger,<br />
contextualized whole—is equally applicable to the book of poems. 11<br />
Much of the cycle scholarship pertains to the historical origins of the lyric cycle.<br />
Scholars disagree as to whether it emerged only in the latter part of the nineteenth century<br />
or whether it has roots as far back as the eighteenth century. 12<br />
This debate does not<br />
directly affect my work since first, I am not focusing on the historical background of the<br />
book of poems, and second, the debate specifically concerns the cycle rather than the<br />
complete book of poems. Baratynsky’s Сумерки is generally accepted as the first<br />
11 See Edward Stankiewicz, "Centripetal and Centrifugal Structures in Poetry," Semiotica 38, nos. 3-4<br />
(1982): 217-42, and Ronald Vroon, "Prosody and Poetic Sequence; Proc. of 1987 Conf. at UCLA" in<br />
Russian Verse Theory, ed. Barry Scherr (Columbus, Ohio: Slavica, 1989), 473-490.<br />
12 See David Sloane, Aleksandr Blok, and Ronald Vroon, "Renaissance."<br />
4
example of a consciously constructed Russian book of poems. It is important, however,<br />
to be aware of the huge popularity of the cycle at the turn of the century. Beginning with<br />
Bal’mont’s В безбрежности and Bryusov’s Chefs d’oeuvre in 1895, the period that<br />
some claim as the origin of “genuine” lyric cycles, almost all major volumes of lyric<br />
poetry are composed of cyclic groupings. Thus, the cycle plays a major role in the<br />
organization of the early twentieth-century book of poems.<br />
In order to explain the prominent role of the cycle at the turn of the century, Z.G.<br />
Mints looks to the mythopoetic nature of the younger generation of symbolists. She<br />
claims that in some cases the cycle has become "the functional equivalent of a 'poemamyth'"<br />
(своебразный функциональный заместитель «поэмы-мифы»). Its potential for<br />
generating plot mimics the myth’s narrative dynamic. 13<br />
Vroon echoes this notion of<br />
myth creation, arguing that symbolist cycles are often expressions of historiographic<br />
models that allow current events to take on epic proportions. 14<br />
Vroon argues that such<br />
cycles are non-narrative, 15 but he appears to equate narrative with a chronological<br />
representation of events. I explore a more expansive narrative tendency in the book of<br />
poems, perhaps best captured in the Russian term “последовательность”—a progressive<br />
movement over the course of the cycle or book of poems. Vroon clearly identifies this<br />
progressive element in Blok’s and Voloshin’s “non-narrative” historiographic cycles.<br />
13 Z.G. Mints, "O nekotorykh «neomifologicheskikh» tekstakh v tvorchestve russkikh simvolistov," in<br />
Tvorchestvo A.A. Bloka i russkaia kul'tura XX veka: Blokovskii sbornik III. (Tartu: Uchenye zapiski<br />
Tartusokogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta, 1979), vol. 459, 77.<br />
14 Ronald Vroon, "Cycle and History: Maksimilian Vološin's 'Puti Rossi'," Scando-Slavica 31 (1985): 59-<br />
61.<br />
15 Ronald Vroon, "Cycle and History: The Case of Aleksandr Blok's Rodina," Slavic and East European<br />
Journal 28, no. 3 (Fall 1984): 340-1.<br />
5
Other critics who have discussed the role of narrative in lyric cycles have<br />
distinguished plot types or outlined spatio-temporal schemes. 16<br />
Rather than trying to<br />
create my own narrative typology, I attempt to address the issue of narrative within the<br />
context of the second generation of symbolist poets—the poets, particularly Blok, who<br />
solidified a place for the lyric cycle and the book of poems in the Russian twentiethcentury<br />
tradition. To what extent do the books I consider follow a “poema-myth” model?<br />
To what extent can they be read as spiritual diaries or biographies of the poet, and, by<br />
extension, his or her time? Is some form of narrative necessary to create a successful<br />
book of poems? Does each of the books under consideration contain narrative elements?<br />
Are they the dominant elements? How does a narrative thrust affect the autonomy of the<br />
individual poems contained in the book?<br />
In my conclusion, I pose the question of tradition. I have chosen to focus on<br />
books from distinct time periods—the twenties and thirties and the eighties. While just a<br />
tiny sampling of the tremendous poetic output of the past seventy-five years, this<br />
selection of books begs the question of how the conception of the book of poems has<br />
changed over the course of the century. Does Shvarts approach the book of poems<br />
differently because of her fuller awareness of twentieth-century tradition? Or are<br />
Khodasevich and Gippius, having witnessed the advent of the book of poems and already<br />
writing after the importance of its form had been firmly established, even more conscious<br />
of their approach to the book?<br />
16 See Sloane, Aleksandr Blok, 43-60, and L. Liapina, "K voprosu tipologii liricheskikh tsiklov (liricheskii<br />
tsikl v poezii Bal'monta)," in Materialy XXVI nauchnoi studencheskoi konferentsii (Tartu 1971), 61-2.<br />
6
Chapter One: Vladislav Khodasevich's Way of the Grain<br />
Throughout his career, Vladislav Khodasevich paid very close attention to the<br />
construction of his books of poems. In the foreword to the 1914 edition of his second<br />
book of verse he writes, "В «Счастливый домик» вошло далеко не все, написанное<br />
мною со времени издания первой книги моих стихов. Многое из написанного и<br />
даже напечатанного за эти пять лет я отбросил: отчасти как не отвечающее моим<br />
теперешним требованиям, отчасти—как нарушающее общее содержание этого<br />
«цикла»." 17<br />
Here, Khodasevich sets out his two primary criteria for a book of poems:<br />
first, it performs an autobiographical function, allowing the poet to express his "current<br />
needs" at a certain point in his artistic and spiritual development; second, it adheres to a<br />
"general content," perhaps thematic, perhaps formal, which creates a sense of organic<br />
wholeness throughout the "cycle." 18<br />
The autobiographical aspect proves particularly important in Khodasevich's early<br />
work. In a draft of an ultimately unpublished introduction to his first book of poems,<br />
Молодость (1908), Khodasevich already recognizes the collection as an<br />
autobiographical reflection on the first stage of his conscious life—a stage which the<br />
writing of the book has completed: Чувствую ясно, что какая-то полоса в моей жизни<br />
17 Vladislav Khodasevich. Stikhotvoreniia (Leningrad: Sovetskii pisatel'/Biblioteka poeta, 1989), 367.<br />
18 N.A. Bogomolov recognizes the importance of such “general content” by claiming unity of mood as the<br />
primary organizing principle of Khodasevich’s poetic books. N.A. Bogomolov, "Zhizn' i poeziia<br />
Vladislava Khodasevicha" in Russkaia literatura pervoi treti XX veka (Tomsk: Vodolei, 1999), 96. He<br />
highlights Khodasevich’s attention to “current needs” by describing the books as distinct markers in his<br />
poetic biography: Для Ходасевича вообще издание книги было событием. Литературоведы пишут о<br />
том, как много для поэтов ХХ века значит само это понятие «книга стихов». Она не складывается<br />
произвольно, по прихоти самого автора, а является отражением целого большого периода его<br />
развития, выливается в повесть о жизни. И Ходасевич был одним из тех поэтов, для которых книга<br />
составляла важнейшую ступень творческой биографии. Его путь можно представить как<br />
восхождение от одной книги к другой, причем каждая из них являлась замкнутым и<br />
самодостаточным феноменом. Совершая круг внутри сборника, душа поэта замыкает его с тем,<br />
чтобы, на миг прервав сквозное развитие, перейти к следующему этапу, к следующей книге. Ibid.,<br />
86.<br />
7
кончилась. Она длилась не долго. Какие-нибудь четыре-пять лет протекли с тех<br />
пор, как мое существование стало сознательно. Но эти годы навсегда останутся в<br />
моей памяти овеянными синим светом сумеречной печали, закатной боли. 19<br />
Unified by a common mood of "twilight sadness" and "sunset pain," the book provides an<br />
enclosed poetic memory of Khodasevich’s youth. Молодость thus emerges not as a<br />
stream-of-consciousness poetic diary of the past few years, but rather as a consciously<br />
organized book of poems.<br />
With Счастливый домик the tendency towards selective organization becomes<br />
more apparent, both with the published introduction quoted above, and with the division<br />
of the book into three titled sections: "Пленные шумы," "Лары," and "Звезда над<br />
пальмой." Khodasevich’s closest friend of this period, Muni (a pseudonym for the poet<br />
Samuil Kissin), outlines the overall structure of the book in a 1914 unpublished review of<br />
both Счастливый домик and Akhmatova’s Четки. In differentiating the two books,<br />
Muni opposes the fatedness of Akhmatova's diary-like design to the logic of<br />
Khodasevich's rationally conceived "biography":<br />
Книга Ходасевича не только жива органически, но и обладает слаженностью по<br />
разумному плану созданного творения. Книга Ахматовой, на первый взгляд,<br />
обладает только органической жизнью…Ее цельность есть цельность человеческой<br />
жизни—не биографии, а действительной жизни…Четки—это день за днем. И не<br />
Ахматова, пассивная и знающая, а судьба ткет в этих днях свой узор. 20<br />
For Muni, "biography" involves the poet’s conscious aesthetic organization of real life<br />
material. In Счастливый домик Khodasevich creates a biography for himself, selecting<br />
and ordering emotions and events within the walls of his happy little home—the clear<br />
19 Khodasevich, Stikhotvoreniia, 361.<br />
20 Samuil Kissin (Muni). Legkoe bremia (Moscow: August, 1999), 163.<br />
8
orders of his book. Akhmatova’s Четки, on the other hand, is fatefully driven by a<br />
stream of unfiltered "быт." Her biography can only be created for her.<br />
While Muni admires the harmony and order produced by Khodasevich’s rational<br />
plan, he is uncomfortable with the degree of rationalization involved. At the beginning of<br />
the review, he describes the book’s plan as "логичен до сухости." Both Khodasevich’s<br />
and Akhmatova’s books are "намеренно скромные, смиренные, быть может, даже<br />
слишком." 21<br />
Akhmatova’s because the poet has no aesthetic control over the flow of<br />
real life, Khodasevich’s because he has too much. Muni appears to crave a more<br />
creative, transformative poetic biography—one that would more fully synthesize life and<br />
art. Such an ideal "biography" recalls the symbolist concept of жизнетворчество (life<br />
creation) in which the poet strives to organize aesthetically not only his art, but also his<br />
behavior, the ultimate goal being the fusion of life and art. 22<br />
In his article "О символизме," Khodasevich claims that because of this close<br />
relationship between life and art (теснейшая и неразрывная связь писаний с жизнью),<br />
it is essential to study the symbolists in light of their biographies—both as individuals<br />
and as part of a larger symbolist collective: У отдельных авторов многое, если не<br />
почти все, может быть понято только в связи с хронологией их, и не только их,<br />
творчества. И наконец, едва ли не все наиболее значительное открывается не<br />
иначе, как в связи с внутренней и внешней биографией автора. 23<br />
Such a statement<br />
invites the same approach to Khodasevich himself. While born late to the symbolist<br />
21 Ibid., 160. Emphasis, mine.<br />
22 For a discussion of zhiznetvorchestvo, see Paperno's introduction in Irina Paperno and Joan Delaney<br />
Grossman, eds., Creating Life: The Aesthetic Utopia of Russian Modernism (Stanford: Stanford<br />
University Press, 1994), 1-11. See also Khodasevich's 1928 "Konets Renaty," the first chapter of his<br />
memoir Nekropol', in Sobranie sochinenii v chetyrekh tomakh, (Moscow: Soglasie, 1996-7), vol. 4, 7-18.<br />
23 Vladislav Khodasevich, "O simvolizme," in Sobranie sochinenii v chetyrekh tomakh, vol. 2, 175.<br />
9
movement, he did manage to "breathe in its air, when that air had not yet dissipated, and<br />
symbolism had not yet become a planet without an atmosphere." 24<br />
Like the symbolists,<br />
Khodasevich leaves traces of his own biography within his work. In his early work he<br />
imitates decadent symbolist models, pursuing the ideal of жизнетворчество through his<br />
mystical friendship with Muni and filling his poetry with pessimistic images of barren<br />
fields, decline and violent death. 25<br />
His understanding of the relation between biographical and literary fact begins to<br />
change, however, in the years following his first book, Молодость. According to David<br />
Bethea, Khodasevich's adoption of "Bryusov's bio-aesthetic genre, his willful blurring of<br />
the boundaries separating art and life, slowly yielded to Pushkin's subtle transformation<br />
of raw experience into the finished poem, his desire to keep out of sight all that was too<br />
narrowly personal or self-regarding." 26<br />
Bethea links this process of maturation to<br />
Khodasevich's study of Pushkin and his epoch and finds its first poetic traces in the late<br />
(1913) poems of Счастливый домик. 27 The change becomes much more evident,<br />
however, in Khodasevich's third book, Путем зерна, published in three distinct forms:<br />
twice as an independent book (1919/1920; 1921) and later as part of his collected works<br />
(1927). The changes made between the first and second editions are relatively small. 28<br />
Khodasevich includes six new poems in the 1921 edition, five of which had been written<br />
24 Ibid., 173. The original Russian reads, "я же успел еще вдохнуть его воздух, когда этот воздух еще<br />
не рассеялся и символизм еще не успел стать планетой без атмосферы."<br />
25 "В моей стране," the opening poem of Молодость and an exemplary "decadent" poem, will be<br />
discussed below.<br />
26 David Bethea. Khodasevich: His Life and Art (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), 72.<br />
Bogomolov also discusses this tendency of Khodasevich to generalize the personal: Его стихи теснейшим<br />
образом соприкасаются с событиями биографии поэта, претворяют их в события генерального мифа<br />
о жизни поэта вообще, любого поэта. N.A. Bogomolov, "Zhizn' i poeziia," 82.<br />
27 Bethea, Khodasevich, 92-102.<br />
28 According to Khodasevich, the first edition, ordered in huge quantity by Gosizdat, ended up hidden away<br />
in warehouses of the Moscow Soviet. The second edition reached an actual public audience. Vladislav<br />
Khodasevich, Sobranie sochinenii (Ann Arbor: Ardis, 1983), vol. 1, 298.<br />
10
since the time of the first publication, and he excludes one poem, "Авиатору." The<br />
changes between the second and final edition, however, are fundamental. He excludes<br />
seven poems and adds four new ones. He drops the dedication, included in both the first<br />
and second editions, "to the memory of Samuil Kissin" (Muni). Perhaps most<br />
significantly, he chooses to open the book with the title poem, "Путем зерна," instead of<br />
with “Ручей," the opening poem of the earlier editions.<br />
As I will argue throughout this chapter, all of these changes support a move away<br />
from the highly emotional and personal poetry of Khodasevich's youth to a more<br />
removed, epic viewpoint. The first and second editions seem to be written at a critical<br />
biographical juncture. In struggling to bring together his youthful experiences and his<br />
newfound maturity, Khodasevich provides an account of his journey ("путь") from the<br />
depths of decadent despair to a hopeful, universal truth. In the third edition, Khodasevich<br />
breaks entirely from his youth. He publishes it as the first book in his 1927 Собрание<br />
стихов, discarding and effectively disowning his previous two books. The final edition<br />
appears seven years after its first publication—years filled with vast biographical change,<br />
most significantly Khodasevich's emigration and the writing of his two final books of<br />
verse, Тяжелая лира and Европейская ночь. 29<br />
reflects an immediate psychological journey. 30<br />
In its new form, Путем зерна no longer<br />
Khodasevich has stepped outside of his<br />
biography and created a more comprehensive view of a common human struggle. Some<br />
29 Тяжелая лира was first published in the end of 1922. Khodasevich published a reworked version in<br />
1923. A slightly expanded final version was included in the 1927 Собрание стихов. Европейская ночь,<br />
first published in the 1927 Собрание стихов, never appeared as a separate volume.<br />
30 David Bethea claims that "Khodasevich's poems nearly always tell the story of 'where he was'<br />
psychologically at the moment of writing." Bethea, Khodasevich, 92. The final edition of Путем зерна,<br />
however, reflects Khodasevich's psychological state at the time of publication. No longer struggling with<br />
the immediate inspiration of the individual poems, he is able to reorganize them in a more distanced, less<br />
personal way.<br />
11
personal elements, of course, remain, but in the form of the new book they take on a<br />
universal quality.<br />
In this chapter I will demonstrate this change in the book's overall conception by<br />
first discussing Khodasevich's placement of the title poem in the different editions. I will<br />
then address the connections between the early editions of Путем зерна and his early<br />
poetry and biography, specifically his second book, Счастливый домик, and his<br />
relationship with the poet Muni. Finally, I will examine the changes in the second and<br />
third edition, arguing that Khodasevich's choices to add and remove poems all support his<br />
journey away from the personal toward the universal.<br />
"Путем зерна"<br />
The title of Khodasevich's book comes from his 1917 poem "Путем зерна":<br />
Проходит сеятель по ровным бороздам.<br />
Отец его и дед по тем же шли путям.<br />
Сверкает золотом в его руке зерно,<br />
Но в землю черную оно упасть должно.<br />
И там, где червь слепой прокладывает ход,<br />
Оно в заветный срок умрет и прорастет.<br />
Так и душа моя идет путем зерна:<br />
Сойдя во мрак, умрет—и оживет она.<br />
И ты, моя страна, и ты, ее народ,<br />
Умрешь и оживешь, пройдя сквозь этот год,—<br />
Затем, что мудрость нам единая дана:<br />
Всему живущему идти путем зерна.<br />
The sower makes his way along the even furrows.<br />
His father and grandfather walked along these same paths.<br />
A grain gleams in his hand like gold,<br />
But into the black earth it must fall.<br />
12
And there, where the blind worm breaks its path,<br />
It will die and germinate in its destined time.<br />
So too does my soul go the way of the grain:<br />
Having gone down into the darkness, it will die and be reborn.<br />
And you, my country, and you, her people,<br />
Will die and be reborn, having made your way through this year.<br />
Since a single truth is given to us:<br />
Every living thing must go the way of the grain.<br />
Bethea rightly claims that this poem colors and organizes the final edition of Путем<br />
зерна, creating a cyclical pattern for the rest of the lyrics to follow—a movement through<br />
darkness and death to light and rebirth. The poems which come after "Путем зерна" are<br />
characterized by doubt and uncertainty—they describe the darkness out of which the<br />
grain will, in the end, be reborn in the final poem of the book, "Хлебы," a joyous<br />
description of breadbaking. "From first to last Khodasevich seems to say that the seed<br />
placed in soil has a purpose—it is to become the loaf that nourishes." 31<br />
This poem did not, however, open the first two editions, but instead appeared late<br />
in the book, in between the poems "Золото" and "2-ого ноября," a description of<br />
revolutionary Moscow. Bethea briefly mentions this change of position in a footnote but<br />
does not explore Khodasevich's reasons for making it other than to say that he apparently<br />
felt that the poem served better as a frontispiece than "Ручей," the poem which originally<br />
opened the book. In fact, Khodasevich's decision to open the book with "Путем зерна"<br />
reflects a new conception of the entire book. 32<br />
In the first two editions of Путем зерна,<br />
31 Bethea, Khodasevich, 139. By showing that it is this general movement of the lyrics as opposed to strict<br />
chronological ordering of the poems that defines the shape of Путем зерна, Bethea argues that the book is<br />
deliberately composed by Khodasevich as a unified work of art. Ibid., 142.<br />
32 Ibid., 138, n.66 Bethea also mentions the exclusion of several doubtful, anxious poems from the opening<br />
pages of the book in the final edition. He suggests that Khodasevich may have removed them because they<br />
were too close in manner to his earlier work, yet they, in Bethea's view, provide further evidence of the<br />
13
Khodasevich’s lyric persona is not fully convinced of the potential for rebirth at the onset<br />
of writing. Instead, he comes to this conclusion over the course of the book. We witness<br />
his path from despair and doubt to a shaky, tentative hope. The early versions of the<br />
book present Khodasevich's personal, biographical struggle at the time of writing, a time<br />
when he was moving beyond his mystical youth yet still reeling from the death of his<br />
friend Muni and everything that he represented—the decadent disavowal of the everyday<br />
world, the symbolist dream of a complete unification of life and art. By contrast, the<br />
final edition of Путем зерна is framed by the a priori knowledge of and faith in cyclical<br />
rebirth. The outcome is never in doubt, and the book thus follows the pattern established<br />
in the title poem, rather than discovering this pattern. The result is a more epic view of<br />
the poet in general, as opposed to the highly personal, specifically autobiographical lyric<br />
voice of the early editions.<br />
overall structural metaphor of the book. Later in the chapter, I will try to show that these poems were<br />
excluded because they are too personal and too closely related to Khodasevich's youth. They no longer<br />
served the larger view of the reconceived final edition of Путем зерна.<br />
In her study of Muni's poetry Inna Andreeva more directly addresses how the book changes from the first<br />
to final editions. By removing the dedication to Muni and several poems directly related to him<br />
("Авиатору," "Уединенье," "Рыбак"), and by choosing to open the book with the title poem, Andreeva<br />
claims that Khodasevich changed "not the composition, but the conception: the center of the plot became<br />
a lyric hero who makes his way, bearing a cross with his people and his country." (Автор менял не<br />
композицию—концепцию: центром сюжета становился лирический герой, проходящий со своим<br />
народом и страной крестный путь.) Kissin, Legkoe bremia, 368. Andreeva sees the first edition as an<br />
unceasing argument between Khodasevich and Muni over the very nature of life: В сущности каждая<br />
строка, каждое стихотворение здесь обращено к другу, с которым поэт ведет непрекращающийся<br />
разговор, спор о судьбе и значении культуры, истории, жизни человеческой, о природе разрушения,<br />
смерти и конечной победы жизни над смертью. Ibid., 272-3. Andreeva sees Khodasevich as holding a<br />
clearly established position within this argument—a position founded on the biblical formula of the title<br />
poem “Путем зерна”: “Так и душа моя идет путем зерна:/Сойдя во мрак, умрет—и оживет она.” (cf.<br />
John 12:24: "In very truth I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains that<br />
and nothing more; but if it dies, it bears a rich harvest.") Andreeva contrasts Khodasevich’s conviction that<br />
the world will be reborn—that the seed will break through the earth—to Muni’s decadent vision of the end<br />
of an epoch. While I agree with Andreeva's general statement (that the final version of the book transforms<br />
a personal journey into a more epic one), I think she gives too much weight to the role of Muni in Путем<br />
зерна. While his relationship with Khodasevich serves as an important subtext, it does not define the<br />
structure of the entire book.<br />
14
"Путем зерна," "Золото," and "2-ого ноября "<br />
The poems surrounding "Путем зерна" in the first two editions support the initial<br />
reading of the title poem as a step along a path of personal discovery, rather than an<br />
already adopted worldview. "Золото," the poem which precedes it, serves almost as a<br />
first draft for "Путем зерна"—a testing out of the cyclical idea of death and rebirth and<br />
of the belief in the imperishability of the soul. While in "Путем зерна" Khodasevich<br />
expands this notion to encompass an entire nation, in "Золото" he deals with it purely on<br />
an individual level:<br />
В рот—золото, а в руки—мак и мед;<br />
Последние дары твоих земных забот.<br />
Но пусть не буду я, как римлянин, сожжен:<br />
Хочу в земле вкусить утробный сон,<br />
Хочу весенним злаком прорасти,<br />
Кружась по древнему, по звездному пути.<br />
В могильном сумраке истлеют мак и мед,<br />
Провалится монета в мертвый рот...<br />
Но через много, много темных лет<br />
Пришлец неведомый отроет мой скелет,<br />
И в черном черепе, что заступом разбит,<br />
Тяжелая монета загремит,—<br />
И золото сверкнет среди костей,<br />
Как солнце малое, как след души моей.<br />
Иди,—вот уже золото кладем в уста твои,<br />
уже мак и мед кладем тебе в руки.<br />
Salve aeternum<br />
Красинский<br />
Go—we are already placing gold in your mouth,<br />
we are already placing poppy and honey in your<br />
hands.<br />
Salve aeternum.<br />
Krasinskii<br />
Into your mouth—gold, and into your hands—poppy and honey;<br />
15
The final gifts of your earthly cares.<br />
But let me not be burned like a Roman:<br />
I want to taste the earth's fetal dream,<br />
I want to sprout with spring grass,<br />
Circling along the ancient, celestial path.<br />
In the dusk of the grave the poppy and honey will decay,<br />
The coin will vanish into my dead mouth…<br />
But after many, many dark years<br />
A mysterious stranger will unearth my skeleton,<br />
And in my black skull, broken by the spade,<br />
A heavy coin will rattle—<br />
And gold will gleam among my bones,<br />
Like a little sun, like a trace of my soul.<br />
Common features of "Золото" and "Путем зерна" are immediately obvious. Formally,<br />
both poems are written in rhyming iambic couplets: "Путем зерна" is written in<br />
alexandrines; "Золото" alternates between iambic hexameter and pentameter. Both<br />
poems share a striking number of words and images: the gold coin gleams in the black<br />
skull of "Золото"; the grain, destined for the black earth, gleams like gold in the hand of<br />
the sower of "Путем зерна." The poet's body ("Золото") and the grain ("Путем зерна")<br />
will, after death, germinate (прорасти) and create new life. Each will follow the "way of<br />
the grain"—circle along the "ancient and celestial path." Khodasevich treats the grain<br />
and the gold coin as symbols for the poet's soul which, in both poems, will be renewed or<br />
rediscovered after death. In "Путем зерна," however, Khodasevich extends the<br />
metaphor of the grain beyond the individual soul to the soul of a nation. He turns the<br />
personal experience of "Золото" into a collective, national journey.<br />
16
According to Khodasevich's notes "Золото" was written on January seventh, 1917<br />
in the space of ten to fifteen minutes: "Никогда ни до этого, ни после, не писал так<br />
легко. Это в сущности «экспромпт»." 33 While the epigraph comes from the Polish<br />
tragedy "Iridion" which is set during the fall of the Roman empire under Emperor<br />
Elagabalus, Khodasevich's poem predates the fall of the Russian empire. He is concerned<br />
with individual, rather than national fates. In the opening couplet the poet describes a<br />
ritual applied to others (твоих земных забот), 34 but the poem quickly becomes personal.<br />
The "я" of the poem asks to be treated not as a Roman, a member of a national culture,<br />
but as an individual with strong personal desires (Хочу...Хочу.) His body will follow the<br />
inescapable natural path of decay, in turn fertilizing new life. His skeleton, however, will<br />
remain and eventually be rediscovered along with the gold coin in his mouth—a trace of<br />
his everlasting soul.<br />
By directly following "Золото" with the title poem in the first editions of Путем<br />
зерна, Khodasevich appears to reapply the notion of death and reemergence of an<br />
individual life, which came to him so naturally and quickly in early 1917, to the<br />
aftermath of the events of October 1917. He equates the golden grain not only with the<br />
poet's soul, but also with his entire nation. Over the course of the poem Khodasevich<br />
moves from the impersonal "он" of the sower, through the "я" of the poet's soul, to the<br />
incorporation of the "ты" of his country and people into the ultimate "мы" of the final<br />
stanza. All of Russia will follow the way of the grain.<br />
This collective, historical nature of "Путем зерна" is further emphasized by the<br />
poem Khodasevich chooses to follow it in the first editions: "2-ого ноября," a<br />
33 Khodasevich, Sobranie sochinenii, vol. 1, 311.<br />
34 The gold coin is most likely a reference to the ancient Greek custom of putting a coin in the mouth of the<br />
deceased to pay his way across the river Styx.<br />
17
description of Moscow on the eighth day after the October revolution—the first day of<br />
relative peace in the city. The city residents emerge from their solitary basements onto<br />
the streets gathering in small groups, waiting together in long lines, crowding together on<br />
the sidewalks on their way to visit relatives and friends ("брели,/Теснясь на тротуарах,<br />
люди. Шли проведать/Родных, знакомых, близких: живы ль, нет ли?") On his way<br />
home after seeking out his own friends, the poet encounters two people, a carpenter he<br />
knows and an unknown child. Both encounters cause the poet to step outside of the<br />
historical tragedy which surrounds him and to recognize the more universal truth of the<br />
"way of the grain." Through a window the poet sees a carpenter finishing a coffin:<br />
Я постучал в окно. Он обернулся.<br />
И, шляпу сняв, я поклонился низко<br />
Петру Иванычу, его работе, гробу,<br />
И всей земле, и небу, что в стекле<br />
Лазурью отражалось. И столяр<br />
Мне тоже покивал, пожал плечами<br />
И указал на гроб. И я ушел.<br />
I knocked on the window. He turned around.<br />
And, having taken off my hat, I bowed low<br />
To Petr Ivanich, to his work, to the coffin,<br />
And to all the earth and to the azure sky<br />
That was reflected in the glass. And the carpenter<br />
Also nodded to me, shrugged his shoulders<br />
And pointed at the coffin. And I left.<br />
With simple gestures and no words the poet and the carpenter acknowledge their<br />
common plight. This acknowledgement starts at a local level—the poet bows to Petr<br />
Ivanich—but gradually grows to encompass the death which surrounds them (symbolized<br />
by the coffin) and its place in the natural order of the world. The poet bows to all the<br />
earth and to the sky, seen here simultaneously. It is by appreciating the constant elements<br />
of a balanced natural world that he and his people will make their way through their<br />
personal and national tragedy.<br />
18
Closer to his home, the poet encounters a group of children playing loudly. One,<br />
however, sits alone on a stone with hands spread wide, looking up and quietly smiling:<br />
Но, заглянув ему в глаза, я понял,<br />
Что улыбается он самому себе,<br />
Той непостижной мысли, что родится<br />
Под выпуклым, еще безбровым лбом<br />
И слушает в себе биенье сердца,<br />
Движенье соков, рост... Среди Москвы,<br />
Страдающей, растерзанной и падшей,—<br />
Как идол маленький, сидел он, равнодушный,<br />
С бессмысленной, священною улыбкой.<br />
И мальчику я поклонился тоже,<br />
Как-будто поправляя шляпу… 35<br />
But, having looked into his eyes, I understood,<br />
That he was smiling to himself,<br />
At that incomprehensible thought that is born<br />
Beneath a convex, still browless forehead<br />
And he was listening to the beating of his heart,<br />
To the movement of juices in his body, to his growth… In the middle of Moscow,<br />
A struggling, torn apart and fallen city—<br />
He sat, indifferent, like a little idol,<br />
With a senseless, sacred smile.<br />
And I bowed to the boy also,<br />
As if adjusting my hat…<br />
Again the poet discovers a sign of the grain's way—a child who, oblivious to his<br />
immediate surroundings, recognizes and takes pleasure in the palpable life of his growing<br />
body. Even amidst the devastation of revolutionary Moscow new life continues to thrive.<br />
In the final edition of Путем зерна, Khodasevich separates the title poem from<br />
"Золото" and "2-ого ноября," making it the book's opening poem. Distanced from<br />
"Золото," "Путем зерна" takes on a more independent, authoritative quality—instead of<br />
simply developing the previously explored theme of the cycle of death and<br />
rebirth/rediscovery, it now introduces this idea as the structuring element for the entire<br />
book. In its new position, "Путем зерна" is still able to inform a reading of "2-ого<br />
35 This line was excluded from the final edition of Путем зерна.<br />
19
ноября," but the historical context of "2-ого ноября" no longer penetrates "Путем<br />
зерна." The title poem relies exclusively on its dating, 1917, for its connection to the<br />
revolution.<br />
This diminishing of the historical relevance of "Путем зерна" grants other<br />
aspects of the poem more prominence. Bethea has noted the poem's metapoetic nature:<br />
the introduction of Khodasevich as a sower-poet following in the tradition of his poetic<br />
ancestors. The first words of the poem contain a pun on his name: Проходит сеятель. 36<br />
He follows the paths taken by his father and grandfather (his poetic forebears) along even<br />
furrows. As Khodasevich would have been well aware, the Latin word versus means<br />
both "furrow" and "line of verse." 37<br />
Thus, Khodasevich opens the final edition of his<br />
book by announcing his arrival as a mature poet.<br />
This poem opens not only the final edition of Путем зерна, but also<br />
Khodasevich's entire Собрание стихов from which he deliberately leaves out his first<br />
two books, Молодость and Счастливый домик. Thus he introduces "Путем зерна" as<br />
the first poem of his "first" book of poetry—taking the place initially held by "В моей<br />
стране," the first poem of Молодость. "Путем зерна" provides a clear contrast to, even<br />
polemic with "В моей стране," a poem about the futility of sowing, the barrenness of his<br />
country's dead land:<br />
Мои поля сыпучий пепел кроет.<br />
В моей стране печален страдный день.<br />
Сухую пыль соха со скрипом роет,<br />
И ноги жжет затянутый ремень.<br />
36 Sergei Davydov first alerted Bethea to this pun. Bethea, Khodasevich, 139, n.66.<br />
37 Bethea, Khodasevich, 138-139. In addition to the metapoetic qualities of the poem, Bethea also<br />
acknowledges its function "as a frame for the events of the Revolution" (139), but, as I am trying to argue,<br />
the final edition of the book, separated by a decade from the events of the revolution, seems less tied to<br />
biography and history than its earlier incarnations.<br />
20
В моей стране—ни зим, ни лет, ни весен,<br />
Ни дней, ни зорь, ни голубых ночей.<br />
Там круглый год владычествует осень,<br />
Там—серый свет бессолнечных лучей.<br />
Там сеятель бессмысленно, упорно,<br />
Скуля как пес, влачась как вьючный скот,<br />
В родную землю втаптывает зерна—<br />
Отцовских нив безжизненный приплод.<br />
А в шалаше—что делать? Выть да охать,<br />
Точить клинок нехитрого ножа,<br />
Да тешить женщин яростную похоть,<br />
Царапаясь, кусаясь и визжа.<br />
А женщины, в игре постыдно блудной,<br />
Открытой всем, все силы истощив,<br />
Беременеют тягостно и нудно<br />
И каждый год родят, не доносив.<br />
В моей стране уродливые дети<br />
Рождаются, на смерть обречены.<br />
От их отцов несу вам песни эти.<br />
Я к вам пришел из мертвенной страны.<br />
Strewn ash covers my fields.<br />
In my country harvest day is sad.<br />
With a creak the plow digs up the dry dust,<br />
And the taut belt burns our legs.<br />
In my country there are no winters, no summers, no springs,<br />
No days, no dawns, no light blue nights.<br />
There autumn reigns all year long,<br />
There exists a gray light of sunless rays.<br />
There the sower senselessly, stubbornly,<br />
Whining like a dog, dragging himself along like a pack animal,<br />
Tramples seeds into my native land—<br />
The lifeless crop of paternal fields.<br />
And what is there to do inside your hut?<br />
Sharpen the blade of a dull knife<br />
And gratify the frenzied lust of women,<br />
Scratching, biting and screaming.<br />
And the women, in their shameful, whorish game<br />
21
Open to all, having exhausted all their strength,<br />
Become pregnant onerously and tediously,<br />
And every year they give birth, without bringing their children to term.<br />
In my country deformed children<br />
Are born, condemned to death.<br />
From their fathers I bring you these songs.<br />
I came to you from a dead country.<br />
The central images of "Путем зерна" are already found in this 1907 poem. In the third<br />
stanza of "В моей стране" Khodasevich introduces the sower, seeds, and fathers' fields<br />
which will appear again in 1917. In this country of Khodasevich's youth, however, there<br />
is no cycle of seasons—no chance for rebirth after a period of death. Instead, the land<br />
languishes in the permanent grayness of autumn. The sower uselessly plants lifeless<br />
seeds—the product of his father's fields. Here a tradition of dry dust and despair is<br />
carried on from one deformed generation to another, rather than the fertile tradition of the<br />
poetic forebears of "Путем зерна." The fathers of "В моей стране" bring different,<br />
decadent songs filled with images of decline, death and sexual perverseness.<br />
Noting the poem's dedication to Muni, Andreeva has posited a polemical<br />
relationship between "Путем зерна" and "В моей стране," but she limits her<br />
interpretation to a discussion of Khodasevich and Muni. She claims that the central<br />
images of "В моей стране" are adopted from Muni's poetry, and that Khodasevich<br />
responds to Muni in "Путем зерна" by rejecting these images of death and barrenness. 38<br />
The poem seems, however, not so much an answer to Muni as to Khodasevich's own<br />
early poetry, and decadent, mystical youth. 39<br />
In the book Путем зерна as well as in its<br />
38 Kissin, Legkoe bremia, 311-13.<br />
39 John Malmstad suggests this in his note to "В моей стране": Любопытно, что здесь в третьей строфе<br />
впервые появляются в стихах Ходасевича образы повторены позднее в стихотворении "Путем<br />
зерна" из его третьего, одноименного сборника, также посвященного Муни. Возможно, что в этом<br />
22
title poem, Khodasevich breaks away from this youth, claiming his new poetic beginning<br />
as the discovery of the true way of the grain.<br />
In an attempt to understand this break with his past more fully, I will now turn<br />
briefly to Khodasevich's early period. After first providing some background information<br />
on his mystical relationship with the poet Muni, I will discuss the connections between<br />
the first two editions of Путем зерна and Khodasevich's early work and biography.<br />
Muni<br />
Khodasevich met Muni in the end of 1905, and within a year they were virtually<br />
inseparable. Muni served as a witness to Khodasevich’s divorce from his first wife,<br />
Marina Ryndina; Khodasevich was practically a member of Muni’s extended Briusovian<br />
family (Muni married Briusov's younger sister Lidia in 1909). Khodasevich later would<br />
write of Muni as one the most important and dearest people in his life. 40<br />
In his 1926 memoir of Muni, Khodasevich remembers their years together (1905-<br />
14) as a time infused with symbolism: В горячем, предгрозовом воздухе тех лет было<br />
трудно дышать, нам все представлялось двусмысленным и двузначащим,<br />
очертания предметов казались шаткими…Каждое событие, сверх своего явного<br />
смысла, еще обретало второй, который надобно было расшифровать…Таким<br />
образом, жили мы в двух мирах. 41<br />
Khodasevich recognizes their own agency in<br />
creating this double world: «Символический быт», который мы создали, то есть<br />
более позднем стихотворении Ходасевич полемизирует со своей декадентской молодостью.<br />
Khodasevich, Sobranie sochinenii, vol. 1, 280.<br />
40 “Он [Андрей Белый] один из самых важных людей в моей духовной биографии и один из самых<br />
дорогих мне людей вообще. Он—да поэт С.В. Киссин (Муни), умерший в 1916 г.” John Malmstad,<br />
"A. Belyi i P.N. Zaitsev: Perepiska," in Minuvsheе: Istoricheskii al'manakh 13 (Moscow-St. Petersburg:<br />
Atheneum-Feniks, 1993), 218.<br />
41 Khodasevich, Sobranie sochinenii v chetyrekh tomakh, vol. 4, 69.<br />
23
символизм, ставший для нас не только методом, но и просто (хоть это вовсе не<br />
просто!) образом жизни,—играл с нами неприятные шутки. 42<br />
The worst of these “jokes” was Muni’s suicide in 1916. Khodasevich remembers<br />
Muni as unable to appreciate anything outside of their created symbolist world: Все, что<br />
лежало за пределами этой нашей жизни, с ее символическим обиходом,<br />
воспринималось Муни как докучная смена однообразных и грубых снов. 43<br />
When<br />
sent to serve in World War I accompanying hospital trains, Muni was separated from the<br />
cultural, intellectual, and spiritual world of his Moscow circle. Unable to bear the<br />
“пошлость” that surrounded him, he shot himself on March 22, 1916. 44<br />
Khodasevich took Muni’s death very badly. Already suffering from tuberculosis<br />
of the spine, he experienced insomnia and hallucinations, at one point imagining, along<br />
with his wife Anna Ivanovna Chulkova, that Muni was with them in their apartment. 45<br />
Khodasevich spent the summer following Muni’s death in Koktebel, recovering from his<br />
illness and beginning work on a collection of Muni’s poetry, including an introductory<br />
article.<br />
While Khodasevich succeeded in publishing a selection of Muni’s poems in<br />
“Понедельник” in 1918 46 and a cycle entitled “Крапива” in “Беседа” in 1923, 47 both of<br />
his attempts to publish a complete volume failed. It is important to note, however, when<br />
and how he hoped to release the book. First, in 1918, he arranged with the Moscow<br />
publisher “Альцион” to issue Легкое бремя, the title Muni had apparently chosen<br />
42 Ibid., 70. Emphasis, mine.<br />
43 Ibid., 74.<br />
44 For more information on the end of Muni's life, see Kissin, Legkoe bremia, 345-61.<br />
45 Ibid., 362.<br />
46 Ibid., 271. It is not entirely clear to what extent Khodasevich was involved in this publication.<br />
47 Ibid., 167.<br />
24
himself, 48 alongside the first edition of Путем зерна. Andreeva has pointed out the<br />
natural pairing of these books: both carry biblical titles which suggest a personal<br />
approach to life; Khodasevich explicitly recalls Muni in his dedication and in plots and<br />
lines taken directly from Muni’s poetry and fiction. 49<br />
It seems as though Khodasevich<br />
wanted to provide two forms of remembrance to Muni simultaneously—one in Muni’s<br />
voice, one in his own, still pained and confused by Muni’s death. The project fell<br />
through, however, and Путем зерна was published alone by “Творчество” in the end of<br />
1919 or beginning of 1920.<br />
Khodasevich tried again in 1921, this time agreeing with the Petersburg publisher<br />
“Эрато” to release Легкое бремя along with a new edition of Молодость. Both books<br />
were to appear in identical covers and format. 50<br />
Now, he pairs Muni’s book not with a<br />
memorial to Muni, but rather with a memorial to his own youth and to his early decadent<br />
poetry. In his introduction to the revised Молодость, Khodasevich writes:<br />
Чтобы кто-нибудь не заключил […] будто в теперешнем виде книга мне<br />
представляется хорошей, —скажу прямо: нет, это очень слабая книжка, и мила<br />
она мне не литературно, а биографически. Она связана с дорогими<br />
воспоминаниями. Ее заглавие, когда-то звучавшее горькой иронией, стало<br />
теперь точным обозначением: да, это моя молодость, то, с чего я начинал. Есть<br />
в ней отзвуки той поры, когда символизм еще не сказал последнего своего<br />
слова, когда для некоторых, особенно таких юных, каков был я, он еще не<br />
застыл в формах литературной школы, а был способом чувствовать, мыслить и,<br />
более того, —жить.<br />
48 In his memoir of Muni, Khodasevich writes: Жизнь была для него «легким бременем»: так он хотел<br />
назвать книгу стихов. Khodasevich, Sobranie sochinenii v chetyrekh tomakh, vol. 4, 74.<br />
49 Kissin, Legkoe bremia, 272-3.<br />
50 Ibid., 273.<br />
25
Unfortunately, with the failure of the small, private publisher, not only were the books<br />
left unpublished, but Muni’s manuscript along with Khodasevich’s introductory article<br />
were lost entirely. 51<br />
Khodasevich's final attempt to memorialize Muni was successful. In 1926 he<br />
wrote the sketch "Муни" which was later included in his book of memoirs, Некрополь<br />
(1936). It seems telling that the writing of "Муни" should coincide with the compiling of<br />
Khodasevich's 1927 Собрание стихов and the final edition of Путем зерна—the<br />
version which excludes the dedication and much of the poetry directly linked to Muni.<br />
Khodasevich replaces the larger, poetic remembrance with a relatively small nonfictional<br />
account of his past. Apparently at this stage in his life he prefers to address the<br />
personal and the biographical outside of his poetry, in the genre of memoir.<br />
Links between Путем Зерна and Счастливый Домик<br />
The first two editions of Путем зерна contain clear links to Счастливый<br />
домик—links which are lost in the final version of Путем зерна, suggesting a distinct<br />
move away from the poetry and worldview of Khodasevich's youth. The early editions of<br />
Путем зерна and all three versions of Счастливый домик open with a dedication to the<br />
poet Muni. In the case of Счастливый домик, the dedication belongs to the first section<br />
of the book, "Пленные шумы." Khodasevich's first book of poetry, Молодость, opens<br />
with the poem, "В моей стране," also dedicated to Muni. Thus, over the course of his<br />
first three books of poems, Khodasevich progressively dedicates the opening poem,<br />
opening section and entire book to Muni. This progression shows the increasing weight<br />
51 Kissin, Legkoe bremia, 166. It was only in 1999 that the first comprehensive collection of Muni's verse,<br />
edited by Andreeva, was published.<br />
26
Muni (or, in the case of Путем зерна, his memory) carries in each book. The constancy<br />
of this opening feature is broken in the 1927 edition of Путем зерна in which<br />
Khodasevich eliminates the dedication. Not only is he distinguishing the third edition<br />
from earlier editions of Путем зерна, but also from his earlier books—the books of his<br />
decadent youth.<br />
"Ручей" and "Элегия"<br />
Khodasevich more specifically ties the first two editions of Путем зерна to<br />
Счастливый домик with his choice of opening poems: "Элегия" (СД) and "Ручей"<br />
(ПЗ). Both "Элегия" and the first stanza of "Ручей" were written in the summer of 1908<br />
at Khodasevich's family dacha in Gireevo. Both poems begin with the imperative<br />
"взгляни," and each describes a rushing stream (ручей). In "Элегия" the stream is part<br />
of a potential, idyllic scene:<br />
Взгляни, как наша ночь пуста и молчалива:<br />
Осенних звезд задумчивая сеть<br />
Зовет спокойно жить и мудро умереть,—<br />
Легко сойти с последнего обрыва<br />
В долину кроткую.<br />
Быть может, там ручей,<br />
Еще кипя, бежит от водопада,<br />
Поет свирель, вдали пестреет стадо,<br />
И внятно щелканье пастушеских бичей.<br />
…<br />
Страна безмолвия! Безмолвно отойду<br />
Туда, откуда дождь, прохладный и привольный,<br />
Бежит, шумя, к долине безглагольной...<br />
…<br />
See how our night is empty and silent:<br />
The pensive network of autumn stars<br />
Calls [us] to live quietly and die wisely,—<br />
To descend lightly from the last precipice<br />
Into the gentle valley.<br />
Perhaps, a stream there,<br />
27
Still seething, runs out of a waterfall,<br />
A reed-pipe sings, a colorful herd is visible in the distance,<br />
And the cracking of shepherds' whips is heard.<br />
…<br />
Land of silence! Silently I will go away<br />
To the place from which the rain, cool and free,<br />
Rushes, noisily, to the speechless valley…<br />
…<br />
Here, as in many of the poems in the section "Пленные шумы," Khodasevich writes of<br />
the border between two worlds—the descent from the last precipice (of life) into the<br />
gentle valley (of death). He imagines different possibilities for this valley, the first being<br />
a typically pastoral scene with reed-pipes and shepherds. The scene, however, is not as<br />
contained and predictable as one might expect. It includes a stream which, still seething,<br />
links the valley to the agitated realm of life—the waterfall. The lyric persona plans to<br />
leave the silent valley and return to this waterfall—to the noisy source of the rushing rain.<br />
He refuses to live and die quietly.<br />
The poem ends with a reevaluation of the quiet valley:<br />
Но может быть—не кроткою весной,<br />
Не мирным отдыхом, не сельской тишиной,<br />
Но памятью мятежной и живой<br />
Дохнет сей мир—и снова предо мной...<br />
И снова ты! а! страшно мысли той!<br />
Блистательная ночь пуста и молчалива.<br />
Осенних звезд мерцающая сеть<br />
Зовет спокойно жить и умереть.<br />
Ты по росе ступаешь боязливо.<br />
But perhaps—it is not gentle spring,<br />
Nor peaceful rest, nor rural quiet,<br />
But a rebellious and living memory<br />
That this world breathes—and again before me…<br />
And again you! ah! that thought is terrible!<br />
The brilliant night is empty and silent.<br />
The twinkling network of autumn stars<br />
Calls [us] to live and die quietly.<br />
28
You step timidly on the dew.<br />
In the final, demarcated stanza, Khodasevich echoes the opening lines of the poem, but<br />
he does not provide a tidy circular structure. The idyllic version of the valley is replaced<br />
by a volatile memory of an unidentified "ты." The logical progression of the poem is<br />
broken by the sudden, unexpected appearance of an addressee, signaled by the<br />
conjunction "но" followed by several negatives. Ultimately, the reader and the lyrical<br />
persona are unsure of what awaits them. The valley and its border remain unfathomable<br />
and terrible.<br />
In the first stanza of "Ручей," Khodasevich provides another description of a<br />
stream—again a roaring, rushing, living source:<br />
Взгляни, как солнце обольщает<br />
Пересыхающий ручей<br />
Полдевной прелестью своей,—<br />
А он рокочет и вздыхает<br />
И на бегу оскудевает<br />
Средь обнажившихся камней.<br />
See how the sun captivates<br />
The drying stream<br />
With its noontime charm—<br />
It roars and sighs<br />
And at a run grows scarce<br />
Among the bared stones.<br />
While "Элегия" begins by asking the reader to observe an empty night, the first lines of<br />
"Ручей" beckon the reader to look at the noonday sun. The border of death, imminent<br />
but ultimately inscrutable in "Элегия," lurks somewhere in the future of "Ручей." The<br />
stream is drying out and growing scarce among the stones already bared by the sun's<br />
captivating charm. Khodasevich's choice of the word "рокочет" both expresses the<br />
stream's noise and suggests its inevitable fate (рок)—dessication and death. For now,<br />
29
however, it still retains vibrant signs of life—it roars, sighs, and runs. 52<br />
As in "Элегия"<br />
and "Пленные шумы" as a whole, the border between life and death is contemplated but<br />
ultimately unpenetrated.<br />
"Ручей":<br />
Eight years passed before Khodasevich wrote the second and final stanza of<br />
Под вечер путник молодой<br />
Приходит, песню напевая;<br />
Свой посох на песок слагая,<br />
Он воду черпает рукой<br />
И пьет—в струе, уже ночной,<br />
Ничьей судьбы не прозревая.<br />
Towards evening a young traveler<br />
Comes, humming a song;<br />
Laying his staff onto the sand,<br />
He scoops up water with his hand<br />
And drinks—in the already nighttime stream,<br />
Not seeing clearly anyone's fate.<br />
When Khodasevich read this poem to Viacheslav Ivanov, Ivanov guessed right away that<br />
much time had passed between the writing of the first and second stanzas. 53<br />
This<br />
intuition seems based on clear contrasts between the two stanzas. The poem shifts from<br />
the bright noontime sun of the first stanza to the calm of approaching evening. The<br />
poem's opening imperative, "взгляни," which calls on the reader to observe the dying<br />
stream, is neatly juxtaposed to the closing phrase, "не прозревая," which reports the<br />
traveler's failure to see. Even the pattern of masculine and feminine rhymes is reversed<br />
between the two stanzas.<br />
The most significant change in the second stanza, however, is the introduction of<br />
the young traveler. His youth is juxtaposed to the stream's apparent age/nearness to<br />
52 Khodasevich describes the stream as "running" in both poems: "на бегу" in "Ручей"; "бежит" in<br />
"Элегия."<br />
53 Khodasevich, Sobranie sochinenii, vol. 1, 300.<br />
30
death. Unlike the stream, the traveler is not yet threatened by death. Still young<br />
(молодой), he enters the scene as evening approaches (под вечер). The stream,<br />
however, has already reached its nighttime phase (в струе, уже ночной). The traveler's<br />
youth and immaturity are similarly contrasted with the lyric persona's clearer, wiser<br />
perception. The traveler remains unaware of the significance of the stream—its symbolic<br />
representation of a life cycle. Instead he views it simply as a place to drink, and, by<br />
taking a drink, he unconsciously contributes to the stream's dessication. While the<br />
traveler is unable to recognize the consequences of his drink (the gradual diminishment<br />
of the world around him), the poet does. The image of the traveler placing his staff on<br />
the sand emphasizes his responsibility—the dryness suggested by the word посох acts<br />
upon the moisture suggested by песок. The poet acknowledges the traveler's role calmly<br />
and implicitly. This attitude is distinct from the frenzied tempo of the first stanza and the<br />
questioning, confused tone of "Элегия." In the intervening eight years he has come to a<br />
clearer understanding of death and a new sense of responsibility.<br />
Khodasevich's choice of the word "путник" emphasizes the importance of the<br />
traveler and "Ручей" to the book as a whole. The title Путем зерна suggests that the<br />
book will describe a journey (путь), and the first poem already introduces a traveler, still<br />
in the early stages of his journey. Nowhere else in the book, aside from the title poem<br />
and the closely related "Золото," are the words "путь" or "путник" invoked. In "Ручей"<br />
Khodasevich sets the traveler on his way, perhaps intending over the course of the book<br />
31
to show his growth from an unseeing youth to a mature poet, conscious of his effect on<br />
the world. 54<br />
Andreeva has read "Ручей" as an allegory: the stream, captivated by the midday<br />
charm of the sun that in turn dries it up, can be read as an image of Muni, seduced by the<br />
power of a symbolist dream, gradually losing his power to survive in the world. The<br />
traveler singing his song and drinking from the stream can be read as Khodasevich,<br />
writing his poetry and taking from Muni without thought of the consequences—Muni's<br />
fate. 55<br />
Completed two months before Muni's suicide, the poem is not a direct response to<br />
Muni's death, but it could reflect the deterioration in Khodasevich's and Muni's<br />
friendship. Khodasevich's choice of the phrase "не прозревая" to describe the traveler's<br />
inability to see suggests his own failure to devote himself fully to the symbolist<br />
worldview that Muni had so thoroughly adopted. "Прозреть," a key word for the<br />
symbolists, signifies a kind of transformative vision—the ability to "see through" the<br />
everyday world and perceive its higher, symbolic meaning. 56<br />
By 1916 Khodasevich had<br />
left behind the mystical life-work (жизнетворчество) of his youth. Muni, however, had<br />
not, and Khodasevich sensed the danger of Muni's remoteness.<br />
By 1919/1920, when the first edition of Путем зерна was published, this danger<br />
had been realized, and Khodasevich felt tremendous guilt over Muni's suicide. He was<br />
also struggling to reconcile his decadent youth with his more Pushkinian present, as<br />
witnessed by the proposed publications of Muni's and his own earlier works alongside<br />
54 The title "Путем зерна" is unique in its focus on movement and progression. Khodasevich's other<br />
books have largely static titles, limited to a particular time or place: Молодость, Счастливый домик,<br />
Европейская ночь.<br />
55 Kissin, Legkoe bremia, 368.<br />
56 See Michael Wachtel, Russian Symbolism and Literary Tradition (Madison: University of Wisconsin<br />
Press, 1994), 50-1.<br />
32
Путем зерна. By choosing "Ручей" as the book's first poem, he addresses both of these<br />
issues.<br />
"Ручей" immediately follows the book's dedication, "Памяти Самуила<br />
Киссина," suggesting that it can be read as a remembrance of Muni. Muni's own<br />
reaction to the poem also supports such a reading. When Khodasevich read it to Muni<br />
two days before he left Moscow for the last time, just a few days before his suicide, Muni<br />
replied, "ну, валяй, валяй в антологическом духе. А мне уж не до того." 57<br />
Apparently Muni heard only a pithy, epigrammatic stylization with no substance—no<br />
relevance to the burning question of existence. Considering this harsh reaction, it seems<br />
strange for Khodasevich to place it immediately following the dedication unless he meant<br />
to emphasize its potential allegorical meaning—a meaning which delves precisely into<br />
the nature of Muni's existence.<br />
The poem has more to offer, however, than a strict allegorical correspondence<br />
between Muni and the stream. Its very construction suggests a bridge between<br />
Khodasevich's youth and new maturity: the first stanza, written in 1908, recalls the<br />
opening poem of his previous book; the second stanza, written in 1916, displays a ripened<br />
poetic consciousness. In "Ручей" Khodasevich places these stanzas/time periods side by<br />
side—contrasted, yet part of a whole.<br />
The significance of "Ручей" changes considerably in the final edition of Путем<br />
зерна where its placement and final line are altered. When Khodasevich decided to open<br />
the book with the title poem, he demoted "Ручей" not just one position but two, placing it<br />
after the poem "Слезы Рахили" which it had originally preceded. "Слезы Рахили" is<br />
based on a biblical quotation: "Lamentation is heard in Ramah, and bitter weeping:<br />
57 Khodasevich, Sobranie sochinenii, vol. 1, 301.<br />
33
Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more"<br />
(Jeremiah 31:15). A lament, the poem describes the tremendous burden of grief carried<br />
by the whole nation in the face of war. The collective, national voice of "Слезы Рахили"<br />
and its biblical reference complement the tone and biblical subtext of "Путем зерна."<br />
The poem seems to describe one point along the "way of the grain"—the period of<br />
absolute despair when the seed lies dead in the black earth. It will take a generation for<br />
the country to emerge from its sorrow and provide proud, glorious accounts of its brave<br />
forefathers. For now, only the inconsolable tears of Rachel are an adequate expression of<br />
the nation's plight. (Пусть потомки с гордой любовью/Про дедов легенды<br />
сложат/...Ах, под нашей тяжелой ношей/Сколько б песен мы ни сложили—/Лишь<br />
один есть припев хороший:/Неутешные слезы Рахили!) Notably, the poem, dated 5-<br />
30 October, 1916, addresses the grief suffered during the first world war, not during the<br />
revolution. "Путем зерна" and "Слезы Рахили" are linked not by a specific historical<br />
moment, but by a universal cycle of death and rebirth, despair and hope, grief and joy.<br />
This increased emphasis on the universal over the personal or biographical in the<br />
final edition of Путем зерна is played out in the final version of "Ручей" as well.<br />
Khodasevich changes the last line of the poem to read "Своей судьбы не узнавая"<br />
instead of "Ничьей судьбы не прозревая." He excises the verb прозреть along with all<br />
of its mystical, Symbolist connections, and he changes the focus from another's fate to<br />
the traveler's own fate. Thus the potential of an allegorical reading (with Muni as the<br />
stream) is greatly lessened; instead, a global reading is encouraged. In failing to<br />
recognize the stream as a symbol of the natural cycle of life and death, the traveler is<br />
failing to understand his own place within this cycle. While young and vibrant now, he<br />
34
too will follow the path of the grain and the stream, ultimately dying and making way for<br />
new life.<br />
"Рыбак" and "За окном—ночные разговоры"<br />
Muni's story "Летом 190* года" provides another significant link between<br />
Счастливый домик and the first editions of Путем зерна. It inspired a poem in each of<br />
Khodasevich’s books: “За окном—ночные разговоры” in Счастливый домик, and<br />
“Рыбак” in Путем зерна. Khodasevich’s decision to separate the two textually linked<br />
poems was not dictated by chronology. He placed “Рыбак,” written in 1919, near the<br />
beginning of the first two editions of Путем зерна, later removing it from the 1927<br />
edition. Khodasevich could easily have included “За окном” (1916), in the first edition<br />
of Путем зерна as well—the book contains several other poems written in 1915 and<br />
1916. Instead, however, he chose to add it to the second edition of Счастливый домик<br />
(1921), making it the latest poem included in the book. One of only two poems added to<br />
Счастливый Домик, 58 it occupies a prominent position—the opening poem of the final<br />
section, “Звезда над пальмой.”<br />
Khodasevich's deliberate, chronologically independent placement of the two<br />
poems is better understood when the poems are read in the context of "Летом 190*<br />
года"—a story which revolves around the Romantic theme of двойничество (doubling),<br />
central to Muni's and Khodasevich's youth. The story opens as a slightly disjointed firstperson<br />
narrative. The hero, as yet unnamed, has isolated himself in the countryside,<br />
grateful to escape social requirements and happy to be living with neither passions nor<br />
58 The other is "Акробат," to be discussed below.<br />
35
idylls (Слава Богу, здесь—никаких страстей и никаких идиллий 59 ). It soon becomes<br />
clear, however, that he is not entirely stable. He includes a strange “pharisaical” prayer<br />
in which he thanks God that he is not a sighing, tearful girl visiting the country<br />
(слезливая дачница), not a little stream, a little storm cloud or a little star, but he himself<br />
(я не струйка, не тучка, не звездочка, а я сам) (120). He writes fairy-tales for his niece<br />
in his spare time and quotes one, “Рыбак” (the basis for Khodasevich’s poem), which he<br />
will never send to her—it is too disturbing and confused. By the end of the first section,<br />
the hero acknowledges that he has taken on a new name, a name of a calm, rational<br />
person: Aleksei Vasil’evich Pereyaslavtsev:<br />
Жизнь мою—жизнь Алексея Васильевича—я знаю очень подробно, твердо<br />
знаю мои планы, ценю свой ровный характер, неприхотливость, и уважаю<br />
всех моих знакомых, за исключением покойного Александра Никитича<br />
Большакова, умершего, к величайшему его счастью, в апреле месяце 190*<br />
года, в Москве. (123)<br />
My life—the life of Aleksei Vasilievich—I know very well. I know my plans<br />
thoroughly, I value my even character, my unpretentiousness, and I respect all my<br />
acquaintances with the exception of Aleksandr Nikitich Bol'shakov who died, to<br />
his great fortune, in Moscow in April of 190*.<br />
In the second section Pereyaslavtsev explicitly acknowledges that this Bol'shakov<br />
is his previous self. Disgusted with his tender, ecstatic (восторженный (125)) past, he<br />
has created a double for himself, discarding Bol’shakov for the lucid, even-tempered<br />
Pereyaslavtsev. His tone is anything but clear and composed, however. He is afraid of<br />
Bol’shakov—afraid that he will return, especially after he receives a note addressed to<br />
Aleksandr Nikitich from Grace, a woman from his past who is planning to visit him. In<br />
an act of desperation, Pereyaslavtsev “wakes up” Bol'shakov in the middle of the night to<br />
talk to him.<br />
59 Kissin, Legkoe bremia, 119. All subsequent quotations from the story are taken from Legkoe bremia.<br />
Page numbers will be noted in parentheses in the text.<br />
36
The third section is written from the perspective of an acquaintance of<br />
Bol'shakov’s who is notified of Bol'shakov/Pereyaslavtsev's apparent suicide by<br />
drowning. Along with Grace and Melentiev, the owner of the estate where<br />
Bol'shakov/Pereyaslavtsev had been staying (purportedly modeled on Khodasevich 60 ),<br />
this acquaintance tries to decipher Bol'shakov/Pereyaslavtsev and his reasons for suicide.<br />
Parallels between the story and Muni's own life are immediately apparent. Like<br />
his hero, Muni created doubles for himself throughout his life. Part of the reason his<br />
poetry went relatively unnoticed is due to the fact that he signed the few poems he<br />
published by multiple names: Muni, Samuil Kissin, and Aleksandr Beklemishev. 61<br />
These names served not merely as different pseudonyms, but as different identities. In<br />
his memoir, Khodasevich describes Muni’s attempt in 1908 to transform himself entirely<br />
into the fictional creation of Beklemishev: Месяца три Муни не был похож на себя,<br />
иначе ходил, говорил, одевался, изменил голос и самые мысли. Существование<br />
Беклемишева скрывалось, но про себя Муни знал, что, наоборот, —больше нет<br />
Муни, а есть Беклемишев, принужденный лишь носить имя Муни «по причинам<br />
полицейского, паспортного порядка». 62<br />
In "Летом 190* года" Pereyaslavtsev makes<br />
a similar claim: "Я, Переяславцев, имею свои привычки, свое лицо, свою душу. Я<br />
только живу по паспорту Большакова, но его нет!" (125). It appears that Muni wrote<br />
"Летом 190* года" at approximately the same time he took on the persona of<br />
Beklemishev (1907-8). The story was, in fact, recommended for publication under the<br />
60 Ibid., 186.<br />
61 N.A. Bogomolov, "Muni," in Russkie pisateli 1800-1917: biograficheskii slovar', vol. 4 (Moscow:<br />
Bol'shaia Rossiiskaia entsiklopediia, 1999), 149.<br />
62 Khodasevich, Sobranie sochinenii v chetyrekh tomakh, vol. 4, 76.<br />
37
"pseudonym" A. Beklemishev. 63<br />
With this story, Muni carried out a magnificent<br />
symbolist act—he melded art with life. This fictional portent of his own suicide (eight<br />
years prior to the event) carries to the extreme the notion of life-creation<br />
(жизнетворчество).<br />
Muni, however, did not maintain this “двойное существование” until his death.<br />
Khodasevich put an early end to it by revealing Beklemishev’s identity in feigned love<br />
poems from his own fictional creation, Elizaveta Maksheeva. Already in 1908,<br />
Khodasevich recognized the danger of Muni’s identity games, and, by the time of his<br />
memoir (1926) admitted his own share of responsibility for Muni's death. While he was<br />
never fully taken in by Muni's identity play, he participated in it willingly: мы жили в<br />
такой внутренней близости и в ошибках Муни было столько участия моего, что я<br />
не могу не винить и себя в этой смерти. 64<br />
In the years between "Летом 190* года" and Некрополь, Khodasevich explored<br />
the theme of двойничество in his poetry. With "Рыбак" and "За окном…" he created<br />
two poems which act as doubles for each other—each revealing a different side of<br />
Bol'shakov/Pereyaslavtsev and ultimately Khodasevich's own transition from decadent<br />
youth to maturity as reflected by the placement of "За окном" in Счастливый домик<br />
and "Рыбак" in Путем зерна.<br />
Khodasevich's poem "Рыбак" is a poetic rewriting of the inserted skazka in<br />
Muni's story: 65<br />
63 Akhramovich's letter recommending the story for publication was most likely written before the fall of<br />
1908, when Beklemishev's poems began appearing in Русская мысль. Kissin, Legkoe bremia, 185-6.<br />
64 Khodasevich, Sobranie sochinenii v chetyrekh tomakh, vol. 4, 77.<br />
65 Muni's skazka also finds a resonance in Khodasevich's "Элегия" discussed above. After the description<br />
of the stream, the poem offers an alternative vision of the valley of death—an ancient fisherman sitting on a<br />
barren shore, oblivious to the poet's steps.<br />
Иль, может быть, на берегу пустынном<br />
38
Рыбак (сказка)<br />
Я старик, я—рыбак, и потому не могу объяснить многого из того, что делаю.<br />
Зачем я хочу выудить солнце с неба?<br />
Привязываю к тончайшей крепкой лесе острый английский крючок,<br />
наживляю самой большой звездой и закидываю мою удочку в небесное море.<br />
Мелкая рыбешка—звезды—вертятся вокруг моего лунного поплавка. Но<br />
мне их не надо. Я хочу поймать солнце.<br />
И каждое утро оно клюет. Я осторожно вывожу его на поверхность и целый<br />
день вожу на крепкой лесе. Но я не могу его вытащить: оно такое тяжелое.<br />
И каждый вечер солнце срывается у меня с удочки, заглотав звезду и<br />
крючок.<br />
Скоро у меня не останется ни звезд, ни крючков.<br />
Берегитесь! — будет темно.<br />
[I am an old man, I am a fisherman and therefore I cannot explain a lot of what I do.<br />
Why do I want to catch the sun out of the sky? I tie a sharp English hook to a very thin,<br />
strong line, I bait it with the biggest star I have and cast my rod into the celestial sea.<br />
Little fish—stars—hover around my lunar bobber. But they don't interest me. I want to<br />
catch the sun. And every morning it bites. I carefully bring it in onto the surface and all<br />
day I play it on the strong line. But I can't land it: it's so heavy. And every evening the<br />
sun breaks away from my rod, having swallowed the star and hook. Soon I won't have<br />
any stars or hooks left. Beware! It will be dark.]<br />
Рыбак<br />
Песня<br />
Я наживляю мой крючок<br />
Трепещущей звездой.<br />
Луна—мой белый поплавок<br />
Над черною водой.<br />
Сижу, старик, у вечных вод<br />
И тихо так пою,<br />
И солнце каждый день клюет<br />
На удочку мою.<br />
А я веду его, веду<br />
Задумчивый и ветхий рыболов,<br />
Едва оборотясь на звук моих шагов,<br />
Движением внимательным и чинным<br />
Забросит вновь прилежную уду...<br />
Or, perhaps, on the deserted shore<br />
A pensive, decrepit fisherman,<br />
Barely turning around to the sound of my steps,<br />
With an attentive and orderly movement<br />
Casts again his diligent rod.<br />
39
Весь день по небу, но—<br />
Под вечер, заглотав звезду,<br />
Срывается оно.<br />
И скоро звезд моих запас<br />
Истрачу я, рыбак.<br />
Эй, берегитесь! В этот час<br />
Охватит землю мрак.<br />
I bait my hook<br />
With a flickering star.<br />
The moon is my white bobber<br />
Over the black water.<br />
I sit, an old man, by the eternal waters<br />
And quietly sing like this,<br />
And the sun bites every day<br />
At my line.<br />
And I reel it in, I reel it<br />
All day along the sky, but<br />
As evening approaches, having swallowed the star,<br />
It breaks away.<br />
And soon my store of stars<br />
I, the fisherman, will use up.<br />
Hey, beware! At that moment<br />
Darkness will envelop the world.<br />
Khodasevich retains the basic plot line and much of the lexicon of Muni's inserted<br />
skazka: each day an old fisherman 66 catches the sun on his star-baited hook and pulls it<br />
across the surface until the sun swallows the star and falls back down into the water.<br />
Both the song and the fairytale end with the threat of darkness—the fisherman senses that<br />
he will eventually run out of hooks and stars. Khodasevich's poem, however, lacks the<br />
psychological quality of Muni's tale. Muni's narrator, incapable of understanding much<br />
of what he does, constantly questions himself, his actions and motivations. By contrast,<br />
Khodasevich's lyric persona sings along quietly, providing no psychological or emotional<br />
66 According to Andreeva, Muni's fisherman resembles Avvushka from Bely's "Северная Симфония."<br />
Kissin, Legkoe bremia, 186.<br />
40
comment. He straightforwardly reports his actions within a steady iambic meter, 67 lulling<br />
the reader with his song and creating a sense of security—a sense which is suddenly<br />
disrupted by the warning of inevitable darkness. The fisherman appears to have no<br />
control over and thus no responsibility for the fated darkness. Muni's fisherman,<br />
however, is openly desirous—he wants only the sun, not simply stars, and he races<br />
through his supply of bait because the sun is too heavy for him to pull out of the water. It<br />
is his self-acknowledged passion that brings about the darkness.<br />
Muni's skazka, while presented by Pereyaslavtsev, appears to stem from<br />
Bol'shakov. When Pereyaslavtsev proclaims his new name, he mentions that he reverts<br />
to his old name only in letters (usually stories) to his niece: только в письмах к<br />
племяннице я—дядя Саша (123). The hesitating tone, the grand desire but inability to<br />
capture the sun recall Pereyaslavtsev's complaints about Bol'shakov—his failure to carry<br />
through with his many passions, his acknowledgement of his own weakness (125). In his<br />
poem, Khodasevich transforms this voice of Bol'shakov, already a sympathetic character<br />
in comparison with Pereyaslavtsev, into a more mystical, idealized figure. By<br />
eliminating Bol'shakov's psychological dismay, he relieves his fisherman of<br />
responsibility and blame. The darkness seems destined, fated for no real purpose.<br />
Khodasevich has claimed Bol'shakov's words—the "truer" words, closer to the "real"<br />
source than Pereyaslavtsev's—and made them purer, more innocent.<br />
By contrast, Khodasevich's poem "За окном—ночные разговоры" adopts the<br />
voice of Pereyaslavtsev:<br />
За окном—ночные разговоры,<br />
Сторожей певучие скребки.<br />
67 The steadiness of this typical balladic meter is due to the rhyme scheme. All masculine rhymes ensure<br />
that the iambic pulse never breaks.<br />
41
Плотные спусти, Темира, шторы,<br />
Почитай мне про моря, про горы,<br />
Про таверны, где в порыве ссоры<br />
Нож с ножом скрещают моряки.<br />
Пусть опять селенья жгут апахи,<br />
Угоняя тучные стада,<br />
Пусть блестят в стремительном размахе<br />
Томагавки, копья и навахи,—<br />
Пусть опять прихлынут к сердцу страхи,<br />
Как в былые, детские года!<br />
Outside the window—night conversations,<br />
Melodious scrapers of watchmen.<br />
Let down the thick curtains, Temira,<br />
Read to me about seas, about mountains<br />
About taverns, where in the heat of argument<br />
Sailors cross knives.<br />
Let the Apaches burn the settlements again,<br />
Chasing away the stout herds,<br />
Let shine in their headlong sweep<br />
Tomahawks, spears and Indian knives,—<br />
Let fears surge to my heart again,<br />
As in the old, childhood years.<br />
In these first two stanzas Khodasevich's lyric persona, like Muni's hero, isolates himself<br />
from the world of everyday reality—the thick curtains are let down to block out the<br />
nighttime conversations. He calls instead for stories of violent adventure, a call which<br />
provides the poem's most direct resonance with "Летом 190* года." Immediately<br />
following the inserted skazka in Muni's story, the narrator explains that he is having<br />
trouble sleeping at night—he dreams of fires and women. He, like Khodasevich's<br />
persona, wishes to lose himself in exotic tales of Indian violence:<br />
Это все оттого, что жарко, или оттого, что в моей жизни нет никакой<br />
внешней фабулы. Нужно ее изобрести. Непременно очень сложную,<br />
запутанную, с частыми неожиданными событиями, требующими<br />
находчивости и энергии. Какой-нибудь краснокожий мексиканский роман с<br />
игорными домами, вероломными кабальеро, влюбленной индианкой.<br />
Благородные мустанги падают от усталости в пампасах. Чингахгук<br />
42
раскуривает трубку. Апахи похищают белых девушек. Потом—месть,<br />
груды золота и скальпов!<br />
It's all because it's hot, or because there's no external plot in my life. I'll have to<br />
invent one. It'll have to be very complicated and intricate with frequent<br />
unexpected events requiring resourcefulness and energy. Some sort of redskin<br />
Mexican novel with gaming-houses, treacherous caballeros, and a love-struck<br />
Indian girl. Noble mustangs fall in the pampas from exhaustion. Chingachgook<br />
takes a draw on his pipe. Apaches kidnap white girls. Then—revenge, heaps of<br />
gold and scalps!<br />
Critics have noted this textual connection 68 but have not elaborated on the poem's relation<br />
to the larger context of Muni's story. Both Khodasevich's lyric persona and<br />
Pereyaslavtsev want to plunge into the intricate fiction of a bad Western full of Apaches<br />
and violence. These adventures will rid them of earlier selves—will create new identities<br />
and new worlds in which to live. They will arouse the purely sensational fears of old,<br />
childhood days, not the complicated psychological battles experienced by Bol'shakov.<br />
The third and final stanza of Khodasevich's poem encapsulates Pereyaslavtsev's<br />
desire to escape his tender, passionate adolescence filled with romantic songs and affairs:<br />
Я устал быть нежным и счастливым!<br />
Эти песни, ласки, розы—плен!<br />
Ах, из роз люблю я сердцем лживым<br />
Только ту, что жжет огнем ревнивым,<br />
Что зубами с голубым отливом<br />
Прикусила хитрая Кармен!<br />
I am tired of being tender and happy!<br />
These songs, caresses, roses are imprisonment!<br />
Ah, of roses I love with my deceitful heart,<br />
Only the one that burns with a jealous fire,<br />
The one that with her blue-tinted teeth<br />
The crafty Carmen bit!<br />
Khodasevich's lyric hero feels trapped in romantic clichés (songs, caresses, roses), yet he<br />
suggests that these clichés may be truer than his new, cold character with his deceitful<br />
68<br />
See N.A. Bogomolov's commentary in Khodasevich, Stikhotvoreniia, 382-3 and Andreeva's in Kissin,<br />
Legkoe bremia, 186.<br />
43
heart. His frenzied tone and hatred for all things tender and happy recall Pereyaslavtsev's<br />
self-hatred, or more accurately, hatred of Bol'shakov. He buried Bol'shakov along with<br />
his stupid passion, with his love (Я похоронил его с его глупой восторженностью, с<br />
его любовью (125)). Like Pereyaslavtsev, Khodasevich's persona takes pleasure only in<br />
the violent ends of others—others as remote and exotic as American settlers and Carmen.<br />
Khodasevich published "За окном…" in "Утро России" in February 1916,<br />
shortly before Muni's suicide. He chose to republish it in the second edition of<br />
Счастливый домик (1921) rather than the earlier first edition of Путем зерна (1919-<br />
20). This decision suggests that Khodasevich associated the Pereyaslavtsev voice with<br />
his youthful, more decadent poetry and biography. The poem is irresponsible, and, in<br />
light of Muni's suicide, cruel. Still he feels it is significant enough to add to his second<br />
book. The symbolist experiments with двойничество and жизнетворчество are too<br />
important to ignore. By 1919, when he wrote "Рыбак," Khodasevich realized the danger<br />
of these experiments. He returns to the original self—to the voice of Bol'shakov, the<br />
"true" side of the double—and relieves the fisherman/Bol'shakov/Muni of his<br />
psychological struggle and thus his responsibility. The final darkness in Khodasevich's<br />
poem is thus bleaker than in Muni's skazka—it is entirely hopeless, inevitable, fatal.<br />
Khodasevich excised "Рыбак" from the 1927 edition of Путем зерна, severing<br />
ties to Muni, to his previous book, and to his youthful symbolist experiments. He<br />
gradually turned to an entirely different form of двойничество—a potentially positive<br />
form. Instead of escaping outside of himself to create a new identity, he struggled with<br />
the split between body and soul within himself. While the first edition of Путем зерна<br />
seems more heavily weighted towards frustration with this split ("В заботах каждого<br />
44
дня," "Сны"), the later editions emphasize successful moments (“Эпизод,” “Вариация”)<br />
in which the lyric persona achieves a complete separation of body and soul. These<br />
epiphanies enable the soul to observe and contemplate its earthly self from a higher<br />
plane. I will discuss these poems in more detail when I address the changes made to the<br />
1921 edition of Путем зерна. Here I suggest that while Muni's experiments with<br />
двойничество were driven by an inability to deal with the “real” world, Khodasevich’s<br />
gradually prove helpful in synthesizing the spiritual and the physical realms—in finding a<br />
way to live. "Рыбак" has no such helpful attributes. With its bleakness and<br />
hopelessness, it no longer belonged in Khodasevich's reconceived book.<br />
Changes to the 1921 edition of Путем зерна<br />
The second edition of Путем зерна is very close to the first—Khodasevich adds<br />
six poems, all but one written after the publication of the first edition, and he eliminates<br />
one. Of the six new poems, only two remain in the final edition of Путем зерна:<br />
"Вариация" and "Дом." In this section of the chapter I will show how these two poems<br />
fit organically into the final version of Путем зерна. Khodasevich acknowledges the<br />
"way of the grain" in each of them, expressing a hopeful understanding of the universal<br />
cycle of death and rebirth. By contrast, the new poems later excluded from the final<br />
edition ("Газетчик," "Как выскажу моим косноязычьем," "Сердце," and "Старуха")<br />
are mired in the personal despair and anguish more typical of Khodasevich's early poetry.<br />
In 1921 Khodasevich was suffering through one of his worst periods of furunculosis. His<br />
physical and emotional pain is reflected in these tormented, cynical poems—poems<br />
which, once separated from his immediate biographical circumstances, no longer find a<br />
place in the more wide-reaching final edition of Путем зерна.<br />
45
"Вариация"<br />
In the 1921 edition of Путем зерна Khodasevich continues to pay close attention<br />
to the overall structure of the book. Rather than simply lumping together the six new<br />
poems, he places them strategically throughout the book. This conscious placement is<br />
most explicit with the 1919 poem "Вариация," a lyric variation of the blank verse<br />
narrative, "Эпизод" (1918), which precedes it:<br />
Вновь эти плечи, эти руки<br />
Погреть я вышел на балкон.<br />
Сижу, —но все земные звуки—<br />
Как бы во сне или сквозь сон.<br />
И вдруг, изнеможенья полный,<br />
Плыву: куда—не знаю сам,<br />
Но мир мой ширится, как волны,<br />
По разбежавшимся кругам.<br />
Продлись, ласкательное чудо!<br />
Я во второй вступаю круг<br />
И слушаю, уже оттуда,<br />
Моей качалки мерный стук.<br />
Again these shoulders, these hands<br />
I went out onto the balcony to warm.<br />
I sit, but all the worldly sounds<br />
Reach me as if in a dream or through a dream.<br />
And suddenly, utterly exhausted,<br />
I swim: where, I myself do not know,<br />
But my world widens, like waves<br />
In expanding circles.<br />
Continue, sweet wonder!<br />
I step into the second circle<br />
And I hear, already from over there,<br />
The measured creak of my rocking-chair.<br />
46
Khodasevich explicitly mentions the relationship between the two poems in his notes to<br />
"Вариация": Август, в Москве, после того, как накануне случилось вторично, но не<br />
так отчетливо, как в Гирееве на террасе, утром. 69<br />
In both poems the lyric "я"<br />
experiences what the anthroposophists dubbed a "separation of the ethereal body"<br />
(отделение эфирного тела 70 )—the soul separates from the body, enabling the poet to<br />
observe his physical, earthly self from a higher plane.<br />
While tremendously different in form ("Эпизод" is a 77 line poem 71 written in<br />
blank verse; "Вариация" consists of three quatrains in iambic tetrameter), the poems are<br />
tied together by several elements. The beginning of "Вариация" echoes the conclusion<br />
of "Эпизод" (lines 68-77), a description of the lyric persona's return into the physical<br />
world:<br />
Снова<br />
Увидел я перед собою книги,<br />
И маску Пушкина, и снова за окном<br />
Услышал возгласы. Мне было трудно<br />
Вновь ощущать все тело, руки, ноги...<br />
Так, весла бросив и сойдя на берег,<br />
Мы чувствуем себя вдруг тяжелее.<br />
Струилось вновь во мне изнеможенье,<br />
Как бы от долгой гребли,—а в ушах<br />
Гудел неясный шум, как пленный отзвук<br />
Озерного или морского ветра.<br />
Again<br />
I saw before me my books,<br />
Pushkin's death mask, and again outside the window<br />
I heard voices. It was difficult<br />
To sense again my whole body, hands, feet…<br />
Just as, having discarded the oars and come down onto the shore,<br />
We feel ourselves suddenly heavier.<br />
Again exhaustion flowed in me,<br />
As if from long rowing—and in my ears<br />
69 Khodasevich, Stikhotvoreniia, 311. The event described in "Эпизод" took place in Gireevo.<br />
70 Ibid., 310.<br />
71 The poem was shortened by one line (#69) in the 1927 edition. In this discussion, I will refer to line<br />
numbers according to the first two editions of Путем зерна.<br />
47
An unclear noise rumbled, like the captive echo<br />
Of the lake or sea wind.<br />
The fourth full line of this excerpt ("Вновь ощущать все тело, руки, ноги…") is<br />
recalled in the first line of "Вариация" ("Вновь эти плечи, эти руки"). In both cases,<br />
the lyric hero is intensely aware of his own physicality. In both poems he also senses<br />
utter exhaustion ("Струилось вновь во мне изнеможенье" in "Эпизод"; "И вдруг,<br />
изнеможенья полный" in "Вариация"). Thus the soul appears to experience its return<br />
to the body in "Эпизод" in much the same way that it leaves the body in "Вариация."<br />
This cyclical, repeating pattern is highlighted by the use of "вновь" in both poems. The<br />
first word of "Вариация," "вновь" refers both to the literal repeated action of stepping<br />
out onto the balcony and to the earlier experience of "Эпизод." In "Эпизод," "вновь"<br />
brings the reader back to the beginning of the poem—to the pre-episode state of<br />
exhaustion which is mirrored at the end: Изнемогая в той истоме тусклой, /Которая<br />
тогда меня томила, /Я в комнате своей сидел один…(lines 3-5: Languishing in the<br />
dull lassitude that wore me down, I sat in my room alone…). In lines 13-17 of "Эпизод"<br />
the lyric "я" first describes his surroundings (the bookshelf, death mask of Pushkin,<br />
children’s cries outside the window) which return in vivid detail once the episode is over<br />
(lines 68-70: Снова/ Увидел я перед собою книги,/ и маску Пушкина, и снова за<br />
окном/Услышал возгласы.)<br />
While at the end of "Эпизод" the poet apprehends these surroundings clearly, his<br />
first description is clouded by the onset of the episode. The sounds of the world reach<br />
him as if through thick, deep waters: …Громыхали/Салазки по горе, но звуки<br />
мира/Неслись ко мне как будто бы сквозь толщу/Глубоких вод… (lines 17-20:<br />
Toboggans rumbled down the hill, but the sounds of the world reached me as if through<br />
48
deep blue waters.) 72<br />
These lines produce another echo in the third and fourth lines of<br />
"Вариация" ("Сижу, —но все земные звуки—/Как бы во сне или сквозь сон"). They<br />
also introduce the first extended use of water and sailing imagery which fill "Эпизод"<br />
and color "Вариация."<br />
In both poems the separation of the body and soul is compared to setting out to<br />
sea, moving from the solid earth of the shore to a wider world of waves. The poems,<br />
however, are fundamentally distinguished by the final position of the lyric persona. In<br />
"Эпизод" the poet has stepped out of the boat, back onto the shore. He has returned to<br />
his previous state of exhaustion, left only with an indistinct, captive echo of the wind. He<br />
compares his difficult and painful return to that of a snake trying to crawl back into his<br />
discarded skin (lines 60-67). 73<br />
72 Khodasevich revises these lines in the 1927 edition of Путем зерна to read: …Громыхали/Салазки по<br />
горе, но эти звуки/Неслись во мне как будто бы сквозь толщу/Глубоких вод…<br />
73 Another description of this exhausting, repeated return from the pure realm of the soul to the everyday<br />
world is found in Khodasevich’s earlier poem “Сны” (1917). Here the split between the body and the soul<br />
is played out in terms of dream and wakefulness. The lyric “я” urges his soul to break away from the body<br />
in sleep—to learn how to live in another realm. The soul can maintain this freedom, however, only until it<br />
is inevitably awakened and joined again with the body in an unhappy union (нерадостный союз). The<br />
final two stanzas of “Сны” stress the harsh sameness of each waking day, alleviated only by a lingering<br />
reflection of the dream:<br />
День изо дня, в миг пробужденья трудный,<br />
Припоминаю я твой вещий сон,<br />
Смотрю в окно и вижу серый, скудный,<br />
Мой небосклон,<br />
Все тот же двор, и мглистый, и суровый,<br />
И голубей, танцующих на нем…<br />
Лишь явно мне, что некий отсвет новый<br />
Лежит на всем.<br />
Day after day, in the difficult moment of awakening,<br />
I remember your prophetic dream,<br />
I look out the window and see my gray, meager<br />
Horizon,<br />
I always see the same courtyard, both hazy and bleak,<br />
And the pigeons dancing on it…<br />
The only thing I sense clearly is that some new reflection<br />
Lies over everything.<br />
49
This sense of cyclical entrapment is broken, however, in "Вариация." Unlike the<br />
circular "Эпизод," "Вариация" ends with a sense of openness and outward movement.<br />
The lyric persona is not returned to the physical world after the spiritual separation, but<br />
continues to move further into the ephemeral realm. His world is ever-widening—he<br />
steps into the second circle of waves, anticipating a third and a fourth. While aware of<br />
the earthly world (the measured cadence of his porch-swing), it reaches him from far<br />
away (оттуда).<br />
In the 1927 edition of Путем зерна, Khodasevich reinforces this hopeful<br />
development with a seemingly small revision to "Эпизод," the deletion of line 69 (И<br />
маску Пушкина, и снова за окном). As a result the final stanza begins:<br />
Увидел я перед собою книги,<br />
Услышал голоса.<br />
Снова<br />
By excising the specific details of Pushkin’s death mask and the window (first mentioned<br />
in the fifteenth and seventeenth lines of the poem), Khodasevich lessens the degree of<br />
sameness between the lyric hero’s surroundings before and after the episode. Eliminating<br />
one of the persistent uses of "снова" also weakens the first editions’ stress on entrapment<br />
and futility.<br />
In all three editions of Путем Зерна “Сны” is followed by several poems which deal explicitly with death.<br />
The lyric persona envisions his own body laid out in state ("О, если б в этот час желанного покоя") as<br />
well as the bodies of others ("В Петровском парке," "Смоленский рынок"). He tells young girls<br />
("Милые девушки, верьте или не верьте…") and even death itself ("На ходу") how close he is to dying.<br />
"Эпизод," for all of its resonance with "Сны," appears to mark a turn toward a new, more hopeful pattern.<br />
The experience of separation is complete and ecstatic in "Эпизод," whereas the escape into dream is<br />
limited and tarnished in "Сны."<br />
50
"Дом"<br />
Another hopeful poem incorporated into the 1921 edition of Путем зерна is the<br />
1919-1920 blank verse narrative "Дом." While focused on an image of destruction and<br />
decay (a house destroyed after the revolution), the poem, like "Вариация," opens<br />
outward, suggesting, in the end, the potential for rebirth. Informed by both the title poem<br />
and "Ручей," "Дом" serves as a point of transition from the more personal, questioning<br />
journey of the first editions of Путем зерна to the more confident, epic statement of the<br />
final version. 74<br />
The poem opens with a description of the ruined house. The wood of the upper<br />
story has been torn down for fuel, leaving only the "crude shell" (грубый остов) of the<br />
stone base. This skeleton is defined by its negative spaces—its emptinesses. The empty<br />
spaces of the windows (пролеты широких окон), not the still present outlines or frames,<br />
are clearly drawn (lines 7-8). Even larger gaps—perhaps the holes where doors used to<br />
stand—lead the traveler who visits the house from one emptiness into another (lines 29-<br />
30). The rooms that used to house families now contain only heaps of trash that reek of<br />
rancid cold (lines 9-10).<br />
This bleak vision of emptiness is strangely tempered by the calm voice of the<br />
speaker. He describes his frequent evening visits to the house as restful (lines 3-4). He<br />
balances the negative images of destruction and decay with a positive description of the<br />
sky and green trees of the courtyard rising up out of the ruins (lines 4-6). While the<br />
74 Michael Wachtel has discussed this poem in the context of the Russian blank verse tradition. He does<br />
not, however, consider the context of the book which contains it and as a result describes the poem as<br />
"unremittingly bleak." He associates the water imagery of the poem with the apocalyptic imagery of a<br />
destructive flood, rather than seeing it as a symbol of life and spiritual energy, a consistent feature of water<br />
in Путем зерна (see, for example, my earlier discussion of "Ручей.") Michael Wachtel, The Development<br />
of Russian Verse: Meter and its Meanings (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 101-3. By<br />
reading "Дом" in the context of the entire book, specifically the context of the structuring title poem, I will<br />
try to show how the poem in fact acts as a hopeful link in the cycle of death and rebirth.<br />
51
description is largely colored by negative images (замызганные деньги/soiled money,<br />
черный день/black (rainy) day, духота/stuffiness, мрак/gloom), the people who once<br />
lived in the house are portrayed with a similar balance. They both argue and are<br />
reconciled with each other (ссорились, мирились, line 13), they both are born and die<br />
(рождались, умирали, lines 18-19).<br />
This reciprocal pattern of human activity, once hidden behind the solid walls of<br />
the house, is now openly exposed to the casual passerby (все теперь/Прохожему<br />
открыто, line 19). Over the course of the poem, the speaker will similarly reveal the<br />
cycle of human existence—the path of the grain set out in the book’s title poem—to the<br />
reader. Darkness will give way to light, death to rebirth and regeneration.<br />
The first sign of this revelation comes with the speaker’s heightened, almost odic<br />
tone in describing the wanderer who visits the house (lines 20-31):<br />
О, блажен,<br />
Чья вольная нога ступает бодро<br />
На этот прах, чей посох равнодушный<br />
В покинутые стены ударяет!<br />
Чертоги ли великого Рамсеса,<br />
Поденщика ль безвестного лачуга—<br />
Для странника равны они: все той же<br />
Он песенкою времени утешен;<br />
Ряды ль колонн торжественных, иль дыры<br />
Дверей вчерашних—путника все так же<br />
Из пустоты одной ведут они в другую<br />
Такую же…<br />
O blessed is the one<br />
Whose willful foot steps boldly<br />
On this dust, whose indifferent staff<br />
Strikes the abandoned walls!<br />
The mansions of great Ramses,<br />
Or the hovel of an unknown worker—<br />
To the stranger they are all the same: always by the same<br />
Song of time is he consoled;<br />
Whether there are rows of ceremonial columns, or holes<br />
Of yesterday's doors—all the same<br />
52
The traveler is led from one emptiness into another<br />
Identical one…<br />
Here the pilgrim is described as blessed and free. He steps boldly, undismayed by<br />
the destruction that lies around him. His indifference comes not from a cold or cruel<br />
nature, but from a knowledge of the soothing song of time—a song which suggests that<br />
there is no lasting difference between a hovel and a palace or columns and doors. Given<br />
enough time, all of these things ultimately decay and lead to the same state of emptiness.<br />
While such emptiness seems at first disheartening, its sameness (emphasized by the use<br />
of все так же, такую же) is paralleled by the sameness of the song of time (все той же<br />
песенкою)—an eternal, consoling force. This movement from emptiness to emptiness<br />
suggests passage through a life cycle; the ruins of past life lead the living from a pre-natal<br />
void to a posthumous one. 75<br />
The pilgrim in this section recalls the "молодой путник" in the second stanza of<br />
the poem "Ручей." In both poems, the traveler is accompanied by a staff (посох) and a<br />
song. In both instances, he observes a scene of decay: the ruined house in "Дом"; a<br />
drying stream in "Ручей." But while the speaker in "Дом" admires and even envies his<br />
wanderer’s wise indifference to the natural process of decay, the narrator of "Ручей"<br />
presents his pilgrim as fatally unaware of any such process. In his ignorance, he<br />
unwittingly contributes to it by taking a drink from the evaporating stream. He does not<br />
yet understand the song of time. It is only when the young pilgrim of "Ручей" matures<br />
into the blessed, willful pilgrim of "Дом" that this song of time can be understood.<br />
After the description of the pilgrim in "Дом," the speaker's gaze follows the<br />
broken staircase of the house up to its landing, seemingly a rostrum in the sky. Above<br />
75 My thanks to Adam Weiner for this metaphorical reading of пустота.<br />
53
this shines an evening star, a "guide to thoughtful meditation." At this elevation and level<br />
of high abstraction, the speaker discusses the very nature of time and man’s place within<br />
it (lines 47-58):<br />
Как птица в воздухе, как рыба в океане,<br />
Как скользкий червь в сырых пластах земли,<br />
Как саламандра в пламени,—так человек<br />
Во времени. Кочевник полудикий,<br />
По смене лун, по очеркам созвездий<br />
Уже он силится измерить эту бездну<br />
И в письменах неопытных заносит<br />
События, как острова на карте…<br />
Но сын отца сменяет. Грады, царства,<br />
Законы, истины—преходят. Человеку<br />
Ломать и строить—равная услада:<br />
Он изобрел историю—он счастлив!<br />
Like a bird in air, or a fish in the ocean,<br />
Like a slippery worm in moist layers of earth,<br />
Like a salamander in flame—so is man<br />
In time. The half-wild nomad,<br />
According to the changing of the moons and the outlines of the constellations<br />
Already tries to measure this abyss<br />
And in inexperienced characters he notes down<br />
Events, like islands on a map…<br />
But the son takes the place of the father. Towns, kingdoms,<br />
Laws, truths—all pass. For man<br />
It is an equal pleasure to break down and to build:<br />
He invented history—he is happy!<br />
From his earliest nomadic days, man has tried to contain and quantify time in calendars<br />
and chronicles. He is content with his invention of history—a linear record of the<br />
progression and succession of families, kingdoms, laws and truths. He falsely believes<br />
that he has achieved some degree of control over time—that he has successfully<br />
measured its abyss (бездна). But an abyss is by definition immeasurable. Time’s terrible<br />
expanse (ужасный простор, line 39), its wide-open chasm (пучина, line 46) can be<br />
neither measured nor contained. It does not have an absolute beginning or end, but rather<br />
is always present as an elemental container of human life, just as air contains the birds<br />
54
and the ocean holds the fish. While the historian can not see this, the madman in the next<br />
lines (59-66) does:<br />
И с ужасом и с тайным сладострастьем<br />
Следит безумец, как между минувшим<br />
И будущим, подобно ясной влаге,<br />
Сквозь пальцы уходящей, —непрерывно<br />
Жизнь утекает. И трепещет сердце,<br />
Как легкий флаг на мачте корабельной,<br />
Между воспоминаньем и надеждой—<br />
Сей памятью о будущем…<br />
With both horror and secret pleasure<br />
The madman tracks how between the past<br />
And the future, like a clear liquid<br />
Which slips through your fingers, unceasingly<br />
Life flows away. And your heart trembles,<br />
Like a light flag on a ship's mast,<br />
Between memory and hope—<br />
That hope of the future.<br />
Moved by the terrible, passionate power of revelation, the madman recognizes the<br />
cyclical nature of time and life. While the image of clear liquid constantly slipping away<br />
through fingers suggests an eventual end to life, the final two quoted lines show the<br />
cyclical relationship of the past to the present. The madman’s heart wavers between<br />
recollection (the past) and hope (the future). This hope is described as a memory of the<br />
future (сей памятью о будущем). In order for the future to be remembered, it must have<br />
happened before—it must be part of an endless cycle of life. This cycle necessarily<br />
includes both death (the liquid of life slipping away) and rebirth (hope).<br />
In the final stanza of "Дом" the speaker returns from these abstract ruminations to<br />
the concrete site of the ruined house. An old woman approaches and begins to tear off<br />
shingles and insulation. The speaker joins her:<br />
Молча подхожу<br />
И помогаю ей, и мы в согласьи добром<br />
Работаем для времени.<br />
55
Silently I walk up<br />
And help her, and we in kind agreement<br />
Work for time.<br />
These lines, while describing the continued destruction of the house, are entirely<br />
positive—the speaker helps the old woman, they work "in kind agreement" for time. The<br />
speaker has absorbed the madman’s revelation. Recognizing the cyclical nature of time,<br />
he and the old woman hasten the destruction of the house in order to usher in the process<br />
of regeneration more quickly.<br />
The hopeful final lines of the poem reveal the very beginnings of this rebirth:<br />
Темнеет,<br />
Из-за стены встает зеленый месяц,<br />
И слабый свет его, как струйка, льется<br />
По кафелям обрушившейся печи.<br />
It grows dark,<br />
From behind the wall a green moon rises,<br />
And its weak light, like a little stream, pours<br />
Out along the tiles of the ruined stove.<br />
Out of the darkness "rises" a "green moon." The use of the adjective "green" here<br />
suggests something young, not quite ripe, yet alive and verdurous. The weakness of the<br />
light and the use of the diminutive "струйка" in the next line add to this sense of infancy.<br />
The flow of the light stream brings to mind previous associations between images of<br />
water and life: it echoes the liquid flow of life in the madman’s ruminations earlier in<br />
"Дом," and it recalls the dying stream, threatened by the pilgrim’s ignorance in "Ручей."<br />
Here, however, it is just beginning its path in full awareness of its destination. Its weak<br />
light (слабый свет) will continue to grow and strengthen until it becomes the blinding<br />
light (слепящий свет) that fills the final poem of Путем зерна, "Хлебы"—a light which<br />
surrounds the baking of bread, the final destination of the grain’s path. "Хлебы" and<br />
"Дом" are also connected by the use of the word "печь." The collapsed oven of the<br />
56
uined house in "Дом" is in full working order in "Хлебы," ready to receive the streams<br />
of future bread (струи будущего хлеба)—sure signs of new life.<br />
In addition to pointing us back to "Ручей" and forward to "Хлебы," these final<br />
images return us to the beginning of "Дом," revealing the cyclical structure of the poem<br />
itself. The rising green moon of line 73 recalls the green trees which rise youthfully out<br />
of the ruins in lines 5 and 6. This positive early image, which on first reading seemed<br />
puzzlingly at odds with the stark picture of destruction that surrounds it, now carries a<br />
clearer significance. From the very outset of the poem, the cycle of death and rebirth is<br />
implicitly acknowledged. Signs of renewal accompany signs of decay. This cycle<br />
becomes evident, however, only after a full reading of the entire poem. By the time<br />
Khodasevich repeats the adjective "green," the verb "rise" and the concept of youth or<br />
infancy, the reader has followed the traveler and the madman along their revelatory path.<br />
Further informed by the pattern established in the poem "Путем зерна," the reader can<br />
now recognize the hopeful images as the beginnings of a new cycle of life and death—<br />
another path of the grain.<br />
The excised poems: "Газетчик," "Как выскажу моим косноязычьем,"<br />
"Сердце," and "Старуха"<br />
I have tried to show above that "Вариация" and "Дом" contain elements of hope<br />
essential to the final edition of Путем зерна. By contrast, Khodasevich eliminates the<br />
four other poems first found in the 1921 edition ("Газетчик," "Как выскажу моим<br />
косноязычьем," "Сердце," and "Старуха"). In order to understand this choice, it is<br />
helpful to recall Khodasevich's introduction to the proposed 1921 revised edition of<br />
57
Молодость. At the time of the introduction, the poems in Молодость no longer meant<br />
what they did when he wrote them:<br />
многое было в них намеком на чувства, давно изгладившиеся, на события,<br />
потерявшие былое значение, а то и вовсе забытые. Вижу, что даже<br />
отдельные образы, строки, слова этих стихов имели когда-то особый, ныне<br />
затерянный смысл. И не за литературные недостатки вычеркнул я теперь из<br />
«Молодости» около пятнадцати пьес, —таких недостатков слишком<br />
достаточно и в оставшейся части, —а потому, что сам перестал понимать<br />
их. 76<br />
It seems that the four poems ultimately left out of Путем зерна similarly failed to<br />
maintain meaning for Khodasevich in 1927. Written in the haze of Khodasevich's<br />
excruciating illness, the poems provide a highly emotional account of an extremely<br />
difficult period. By 1927, however, they no longer held the same biographical relevance.<br />
With the final edition, Khodasevich had also conceived a grander purpose for Путем<br />
зерна. The book no longer centered on his own personal journey, but rather laid out a<br />
universal path for all humanity to follow—a path which relies on the cyclicity of life and<br />
death. The entirely hopeless, pessimistic additions to the 1921 edition did not find a<br />
place along this path, therefore they no longer belonged in the reconceived final version<br />
of Путем зерна. 77<br />
One of the poems, "Газетчик," recalls Khodasevich's early, decadent poetry. The<br />
newspaper man is described as a little demon (маленький демон, reminiscent of<br />
Sologub's "мелкий бес") and a twirling, striding beast (бестия):<br />
«Вечерние известия!...»<br />
Ори, ласкай мне слух,<br />
Пронырливая бестия,<br />
Вечерних улиц дух.<br />
76 Khodasevich, Sobranie sochinenii, vol. 1, 279.<br />
77 The poems "Уединение" and "Воспоминание" which were removed from the first editions of Путем<br />
зерна exhibit a similar hopelessness and despair inappropriate to the tone and message of the final book.<br />
58
Весеняя распутица<br />
Ведет меня во тьму,<br />
А он юлит и крутится,<br />
И все равно ему—<br />
Геройство иль бесчестие,<br />
Позор иль торжество:<br />
Вечерние известия—<br />
И больше ничего.<br />
Шагает демон маленький,<br />
Как некий исполин,<br />
Расхлябанною валенкой<br />
Над безднами судьбин.<br />
Но в самом безразличии,<br />
В бездушьи торгаша—<br />
Какой соблазн величия<br />
Пьет жадная душа!<br />
"Evening news!…"<br />
Yell, caress my ears,<br />
Pushy beast,<br />
Spirit of the evening streets.<br />
The muddy springtime<br />
Leads me into darkness,<br />
But he fidgets and twirls around,<br />
And everything is the same to him—<br />
Heroism or dishonor,<br />
Disgrace or triumph:<br />
It's all the evening news—<br />
And nothing more.<br />
The little demon strides<br />
Like some sort of giant,<br />
With a loose felt boot<br />
Over the chasms of others' fates.<br />
But in that very indifference,<br />
In the soullessness of the tradesman—<br />
What a temptation of greatness<br />
Does the greedy soul drink up!<br />
59
The newspaper hawker’s indifference to his wares—the affairs of the world and the fates<br />
of other men—has nothing in common with the wanderer’s indifference in "Дом." It is<br />
based not on any greater understanding of life’s patterns (e.g. that heroism and dishonor<br />
naturally replace each other as life replaces death), but rather on cold calculation—it does<br />
not matter what he sells as long as others buy it up. His indifference does have<br />
something in common, however, with the description of man in lines 47-58 of "Дом." By<br />
"inventing history" and writing down events, haughty man believes he has gained control<br />
over those events. This control is proven false in "Дом," but in "Газетчик" the hawker's<br />
similar "greatness," his indifferent treatment of human stories typed up in the mundane<br />
genre of the evening news, tempts the speaker. The lyric "я" lacks such control over his<br />
own life—the muddy spring roads 78 lead him inevitably into darkness—but his "greedy<br />
soul" longs for it. Any attempts to achieve such greatness, however, are akin to selling<br />
himself to the devil, becoming "soulless" like the hawker.<br />
The poem "Сердце" is likewise concerned with greed. The speaker describes his<br />
heart as a bloody miser (кровавый скупец) who stores away earthly moments in a huge<br />
lead box. He seems to believe that locking them up will help him cling to life. In the<br />
final stanza he recognizes the futility of his heart’s actions:<br />
И много тяжелых цехинов,<br />
И много поддельных гиней<br />
Толпа теневых исполинов<br />
Разграбит в час смерти моей.<br />
And many heavy zecchins,<br />
And many fake guineas<br />
A throng of tenebrous giants<br />
Will steal in the hour of my death.<br />
78 Here the word "распутица" suggests a certain degree of debauchery, depravity (cf. "распутство").<br />
60
By describing his carefully stored "earthly moments" as fake and useless coins, the<br />
speaker suggests his life’s utter lack of value. Despite this worthlessness, "tenebrous<br />
giants" 79 will steal the coins anyway, sealing his death and leaving no hope for rebirth.<br />
The poem "Старуха" similarly describes a meaningless life, helplessly robbed.<br />
An old woman drags her sled through the windy and snowy streets of Moscow. Crying<br />
out to a passerby for help, she is ignored. The next day her corpse is found in the snow:<br />
Легкий труп, окоченелый,<br />
Простыней покрывши белой,<br />
В тех же саночках, без гроба,<br />
Милицейский увезет,<br />
Растолкав плечом народ.<br />
Неречист и хладнокровен<br />
Будет он,—а пару бревен,<br />
Что везла она в свой дом,<br />
Мы в печи своей сожжем.<br />
The light corpse, stiff with cold,<br />
Covered with a white sheet,<br />
On the very same little sled, without a coffin,<br />
The policeman leads away,<br />
Having pushed aside the crowd with his shoulder.<br />
Speechless and cold-blooded<br />
It will be—but the pair of logs<br />
That she was taking to her home,<br />
We will burn in our stove.<br />
After death, the old woman is robbed of her humanity, described only as a corpse. She<br />
has just one thing of value left—the logs with which she planned to heat her home. They<br />
will not warm her speechless, cold-blooded corpse, but rather they will fill the stove of<br />
the bystanders who witnessed but disregarded her struggle in the snow. The word "печь"<br />
appears in only two other poems in Путем зерна, "Дом" and "Хлебы," in which it is<br />
associated with the final image of the "path of the grain"—the baking of bread. Here,<br />
instead of providing sustenance, the stove will quickly devour stolen wood—wood which<br />
79 Note that Khodasevich refers to the hawker in “Газетчик” as a giant as well (line 14).<br />
61
could have supported a life cruelly lost. "Старуха," unlike "Дом," offers no hope for<br />
renewal or rebirth. The poem, like the old woman, leaves no lasting trace and is<br />
discarded from the final edition of the book.<br />
Perhaps the most pessimistic poem to be added to the 1921 edition and the one<br />
which most directly attacks the cyclical pattern set out in "Путем зерна" is "Как<br />
выскажу моим косноязычьем":<br />
Как выскажу моим косноязычьем<br />
Всю боль, весь яд?<br />
Язык мой стал звериным или птичьим,<br />
Уста молчат.<br />
И ничего не нужно мне на свете,<br />
И стыдно мне,<br />
Что суждены мне вечно пытки эти<br />
В его огне;<br />
Что даже смертью, гордой, своевольной,<br />
Не вырвусь я;<br />
Что и она—такой же, хоть окольный,<br />
Путь бытия.<br />
How will I express with my twisted tongue<br />
All the pain, all the poison?<br />
My tongue became a beast's or a bird's,<br />
My lips are silent.<br />
And I need nothing from this world,<br />
And I am ashamed<br />
That I am fated to these eternal tortures<br />
In its fire;<br />
That even by a proud, self-willed death,<br />
I will not break free;<br />
That even it is the same, albeit roundabout,<br />
Path of existence.<br />
This poem most explicitly addresses the physical anguish experienced by Khodasevich in<br />
the early twenties—an anguish that threatens to silence his poetic voice and which leads<br />
him to thoughts of suicide (гордая, своевольная смерть). The poem's last line, "Путь<br />
62
бытия," recalls the book’s title, "Путем зерна." Here, however, the "path of existence"<br />
is seen as a fateful trap rather than a natural pattern of life and death to be embraced and<br />
accepted. The speaker is condemned to eternal torments without any hope of relief or<br />
regeneration. Even through suicide he cannot escape his fate—he will inevitably be<br />
reborn into the same life of pain and poison. Such a bitter statement against the hopeful<br />
message of "Путем зерна" no longer finds a place in the 1927 edition of the book. In the<br />
final book Khodasevich continues to express moments of doubt and despair (e.g. "Утро,"<br />
"У моря"), but these moments never close off the potential for life and hope, and they<br />
never threaten to silence the poet.<br />
Poems added to the final edition of Путем зерна<br />
Unlike the wholly pessimistic additions to the 1921 edition, the four new poems<br />
included in the final edition of Путем зерна all support the central idea of the book—the<br />
cycle of death and rebirth set out in the opening poem. Each also reflects Khodasevich's<br />
move away from the immediate expression of his own youthful emotions to a more<br />
mature contemplation of universal questions. He places three of these poems, "Брента,"<br />
"Мельница," and "Акробат" in the fifth, sixth and seventh positions of the book,<br />
following the title poem, "Слезы Рахили," "Ручей," and "Сладко после дождя теплая<br />
пахнет ночь." In effect these new poems take the place of the excised cluster of poems<br />
originally placed after "Ручей" and "Слезы Рахили": "Авиатору," "Газетчик,"<br />
"Уединение," "Как выскажу моим косноязычьем," "Рыбак," and "Воспоминание." I<br />
will argue that one of the new poems, "Акробат," acts as a direct replacement for<br />
"Авиатору." "Брента" and "Мельница" do not respond specifically to individual<br />
poems, but rather provide a general relief from the overwrought emotion of the earlier<br />
63
group. They address a point in the past with calm, at times playful retrospection. The<br />
one poem to remain from the earlier cluster, "Сладко после дождя теплая пахнет<br />
ночь," similarly deals with the passage of time, recalling a love affair sixteen years past.<br />
In the final edition of Путем зерна it serves as a neat introduction to "Брента"—a<br />
recollection of Khodasevich's trip to Italy in 1911 and the end of his love affair with<br />
Zhenya Muratova.<br />
"Брента"<br />
In the summer of 1911 Khodasevich traveled to Italy. The trip resulted in a<br />
newfound appreciation of the Renaissance, later to find a place in his poetry, but it was<br />
largely inspired by Khodasevich's love affair with the wife of his friend, the art historian<br />
Pavel Muratov. The affair began in 1910, and Khodasevich followed Muratova, who<br />
"cultivated the role of 'infernal' woman and seemed to take sadistic pleasure in<br />
tormenting her poet-slave," 80 to Venice. The affair, which came to an end in Italy, has<br />
been viewed as the final stage of Khodasevich's personal dissipation, begun in 1908: "He<br />
drank every evening in the cafés and restaurants of Moscow, played all-night games of<br />
chemin de fer at the Circle of Art and Literature…and together with Muni, seemed to live<br />
in the oneiric atmosphere of their aimless walks and the draughts of their feverish<br />
conversations." 81<br />
The trip to Italy, split with Muratova, and sudden deaths of both his<br />
parents soon after his return to Russia created a definitive break in Khodasevich's<br />
biography. At some point during this period he contemplated suicide. He felt incredible<br />
guilt over his dissolute past and his neglect of familial duties. The poem "Брента,"<br />
80 Bethea, Khodasevich, 87.<br />
81 Ibid., 86-7.<br />
64
written over the years 1920-1923, looks back at this period—specifically the trip to Italy.<br />
The lyric persona claims that his worldview has radically changed as a result of this trip,<br />
but he does so without an emotional expression of the personal anguish experienced by<br />
Khodasevich at the time. Khodasevich writes from a distant perspective—far enough<br />
separated from the real events of his biography both to simplify and generalize them. He<br />
presents his trip to the river Brenta not as a moment of personal crisis, but as a general<br />
awakening from romantic youth to prosaic maturity:<br />
Адриатические волны!<br />
О, Брента!..<br />
Евгений Онегин [гл. 1, XLIX, 1-2]<br />
Брента, рыжая речонка!<br />
Сколько раз тебя воспели,<br />
Сколько раз к тебе летели<br />
Вдохновенные мечты—<br />
Лишь за то, что имя звонко,<br />
Брента, рыжая реченка,<br />
Лживый образ красоты!<br />
Я и сам спешил когда-то<br />
Заглянуть в твои отливы,<br />
Окрыленный и счастливый<br />
Вдохновением любви.<br />
Но горька была расплата.<br />
Брента, я взглянул когда-то<br />
В струи мутные твои.<br />
С той поры люблю я, Брента,<br />
Одинокие скитанья,<br />
Частого дождя кропанье<br />
Да на согнутых плечах<br />
Плащ из мокрого брезента.<br />
С той поры люблю я, Брента,<br />
Прозу в жизни и в стихах.<br />
Adriatic waves!<br />
O, Brenta!..<br />
Evgenii Onegin<br />
Brenta, you little red stream!<br />
How many times have your praises been sung,<br />
65
How many times have flown to you<br />
Inspired dreams—<br />
Just because your name rings,<br />
Brenta, you little red stream,<br />
False image of beauty!<br />
I too hurried once<br />
To glance into your ebb-tides,<br />
Happy and moved<br />
By the inspiration of love.<br />
But bitter was the reward.<br />
Brenta, I looked once<br />
Into your turbid waters.<br />
Since that time, Brenta, I have loved<br />
Solitary wanderings,<br />
The trickling of steady rain,<br />
And on my hunched shoulders<br />
A cloak of wet canvas.<br />
Since that time, Brenta, I have loved<br />
Prose in life and in verse.<br />
Following in the tradition of Byron's and Pushkin's romantic extolments of the Brenta,<br />
the young poet travels to the majestic river but, instead of a magnificent source of<br />
inspiration, discovers only "a rust-colored, mean little stream." 82<br />
The love which drove<br />
him there rewards him only with bitterness. His affair has crumbled, and, more<br />
importantly, his blind trust in romantic images has been broken. All Brenta can offer is a<br />
resonant name, fitting for a poetic line but perpetuating a false image of beauty.<br />
Bethea sees evidence of Khodasevich's poetic maturity in this poem—an<br />
emergence of ironic word-play which will play a central role in his later poetry. By<br />
rhyming Brenta, whose name has been glorified as resonant and ringing, with brezenta<br />
82 In his commentary to Eugene Onegin, Nabokov writes: "In a curious poem, the great poet Vladislav<br />
Hodasevich (1886-1939), a century later, described the kind of therapeutic shock he experienced when,<br />
upon visiting the real Brenta, he found it to be a ryzhaya rechonka, a rust-colored, mean little stream."<br />
Aleksandr Pushkin, Eugene Onegin: A Novel in Verse (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975), vol.<br />
2 (Commentary and Index), 186.<br />
66
(canvas), he entirely deflates the river's romantic legacy. 83<br />
In this poem he has made his<br />
move toward prose in verse. Thematically, Khodasevich has moved towards prose in<br />
life. He chooses to replace the false romantic image with details of everyday<br />
experience—the sound of steady rain, the cloak of wet canvas. Such prosaic images are<br />
distinctly opposed to the convoluted fictions his poetic persona craved in "За окном—<br />
ночные разговоры." There too, the poet is disillusioned by romantic images (Я устал<br />
быть нежным и счастливым!/ Эти песни, ласки, розы—плен!), but he chooses the<br />
dramatic and fantastic over the prosaic: Ах, из роз люблю я сердцем лживым/Только<br />
ту, что жжет огнем ревнивым,/Что зубами с голубым отливом/Прикусила хитрая<br />
Кармен! The persona recognizes his own position as false—his heart, like the Brenta's<br />
image of beauty, is deceitful (лживый)—yet he still longs for the passions and emotions<br />
of childhood days (Пусть опять прихлынут к сердцу страхи,/Как в былые, детские<br />
года!). With "Брента" Khodasevich's persona has reached a distinctly different<br />
perspective. He has bypassed the emotionally turbulent period of decadent adolescence<br />
and moved directly from a romantic youth to a prosaic maturity. "Брента" avoids any<br />
hint of personal crisis. It, like the final edition of Путем зерна as a whole, cuts ties with<br />
the volatile emotions so prominent in Молодость and Счастливый домик, instead<br />
claiming, in a calm and playful tone, a complete break from the past.<br />
"Брента" follows the poem "Сладко после дождя теплая пахнет ночь," the only<br />
poem of the otherwise excised cluster to remain in the final edition of Путем зерна. It<br />
acts as a perfect introduction to"Брента" and the general discussion of the passage of<br />
time:<br />
83 Bethea, Khodasevich, 114-5.<br />
67
Сладко после дождя теплая пахнет ночь.<br />
Быстро месяц бежит в прорезях белых туч.<br />
Где-то в сырой траве часто кричит дергач.<br />
Вот, к лукавым губам губы впервые льнут.<br />
Вот, коснувшись тебя, руки мои дрожат...<br />
Минуло с той поры только шестнадцать лет.<br />
The warm night smells sweet after the rain.<br />
The moon rushes quickly in the openings of the white clouds.<br />
Somewhere in the damp grass a corncrake cries repeatedly.<br />
Look, for the first time lips cling to cunning lips.<br />
Look, touching you, my hands tremble…<br />
Since that time only sixteen years have passed.<br />
In both "Брента" and "Сладко после дождя…" Khodasevich describes an event in the<br />
past and relates it in time to the present with the phrase, "с той поры." In the case of<br />
"Брента" he emphasizes the change that has taken place in the persona's life since the<br />
time of his visit to the river—his rejection of romantic images for prosaic details. In<br />
"Сладко после дождя…" he states how many years have passed since the time of the<br />
romantic encounter described in the poem. This announcement of the gap in time,<br />
however, comes as a surprise to the reader. The first five lines of the poem provide an<br />
account of a first kiss in vivid detail and in the present tense. The first three lines set the<br />
physical scene, and lines four and five describe the actual kiss. Lines four and five both<br />
begin with the word "вот," suggesting the immediacy of the event as if the poetic persona<br />
is pointing out the scene to the reader as it occurs. In the fifth line, however,<br />
Khodasevich introduces first and second-person pronouns—the persona is suddenly<br />
personally involved in the kiss. He is an active participant, not simply a spectator and<br />
narrator. Apparently overcome with emotion, his hands shake. The kiss appears suspect,<br />
68
even dangerous—the lips are cunning, sly. 84<br />
The line breaks off with an ellipsis, and the<br />
poem concludes with an abrupt statement of time: only sixteen years have passed since<br />
that kiss.<br />
At first, the last line appears to emphasize the immediacy of the encounter. The<br />
persona remembers the physical details and emotions of the event extremely clearly.<br />
Only sixteen years have passed—it seems like yesterday. Yet these sixteen years separate<br />
his youth, encapsulated in a frenetic kiss, from a calm, retrospective maturity. Only<br />
sixteen years have passed, yet life is completely different now. The poem, while<br />
expressing the immediate emotion accompanying the kiss, is tempered by the distance of<br />
time which separates the poetic persona from his previous self. As in "Брента," a break<br />
has been made, bridgeable only through memory.<br />
"Мельница"<br />
Khodasevich places "Мельница" (1920-23), another poem dealing with the<br />
passage of time, immediately after "Брента" in the final edition of Путем зерна. In this<br />
poem, however, he does not recall a period from his own life, but rather describes the<br />
deterioration of an agrarian scene over time—a theme which clearly resonates with the<br />
book's title poem and "Дом":<br />
Мельница забытая<br />
В стороне глухой.<br />
К ней обоз не тянется,<br />
И дорога к мельнице<br />
Заросла травой.<br />
84<br />
The description of the kiss recalls the image of the crafty Carmen at the end of "За окном…": Ах, из<br />
роз люблю я сердцем лживым/Только ту, что жжет огнем ревнивым,/Что зубами с голубым<br />
отливом/Прикусила хитрая Кармен! It also suggests a link to Muratova, a Carmen-esque figure with<br />
whom Khodasevich broke in 1911, roughly 16 years before the publication of this poem.<br />
69
Не плеснется рыбица<br />
В голубой реке.<br />
По скрипучей лесенке<br />
Сходит мельник старенький<br />
В красном колпаке.<br />
Постоит, послушает,—<br />
И грозит перстом<br />
В даль, где дым из-за лесу<br />
Завился веревочкой<br />
Над людским жильем.<br />
Постоит, послушает,—<br />
И пойдет назад:<br />
По скрипучей лесенке,<br />
Поглядеть, как праздные<br />
Жернова лежат.<br />
Потрудились камушки<br />
Для хлебов да каш.<br />
Сколько было ссыпано—<br />
Столько было смолото,<br />
А теперь шабаш!<br />
А теперь у мельника—<br />
Лес да тишина,<br />
Да под вечер трубочка,<br />
Да хмельная чарочка,<br />
Да в окне луна.<br />
A forgotten mill<br />
In a remote region.<br />
No string of carts extends toward it,<br />
And the road to the mill<br />
Has grown over with grass.<br />
No little fish splashes<br />
In the light blue river.<br />
Down the creaky staircase<br />
Comes the little old miller<br />
In his red cap.<br />
He stands and listens for a while—<br />
And he wags his finger<br />
Into the distance, where smoke from beyond the forest<br />
Curled like a little string<br />
70
Over human habitation.<br />
He stands and listens for a while—<br />
And he goes back:<br />
Up the creaky staircase,<br />
To take a look at the idle<br />
Millstones lying about.<br />
The dear stones labored<br />
for loaves and kasha.<br />
However much was poured out,<br />
That much was ground<br />
And now the work is over!<br />
And now the miller has<br />
The forest and silence,<br />
And toward evening a little pipe,<br />
And a little cup of spirits,<br />
And the moon in the window.<br />
Khodasevich completed this poem on March 13, 1923. The following day he sent the<br />
"little verses" (стишки) to Nina Berberova for her parodic ladies' journal Ненюфары.<br />
Berberova recalls: "Ходасевич считал «Мельницу» стихотворением «несерьезным»<br />
и думал, что самое лучшее место для него—дамский журнал. Когда он предложил<br />
«Мельницу» «Ненюфарам», редакция вернула их ему, как слишком «трудные» для<br />
читательниц журнала." 85<br />
While too "difficult" for Ненюфары, the verses were clearly<br />
light to Khodasevich. The meter (trochaic trimeter with dactylic and masculine endings),<br />
colloquialisms (шабаш, да), tremendous number of diminutives (рыбица, лесенка, etc.),<br />
repetitions (постоит, послушает), and parallel constructions (Сколько было ссыпано—<br />
/ Столько было смолото) all contribute to the folk-song quality of the poem. There is<br />
no lyric я—the stylized narrative of the poem is related from a distant perspective. No<br />
emotion is expressed, no clear judgment is passed.<br />
85 Khodasevich, Sobranie sochinenii, vol. 1, 305. Khodasevich included the following note with the poem:<br />
Милые Ненюфары, посылаю вам эти стишки, хоть я не девочка. Я их сам сочинил, и пожалуйста<br />
напечатайте их в себе. Целую добрую редакцию. Ibid., 304.<br />
71
Within the context of Путем зерна, however, the seriousness of the theme cannot<br />
be overlooked. Khodasevich has taken an agricultural image—an idle, abandoned mill—<br />
to describe the end of a cycle of productivity. The road is overgrown with grass, no fish<br />
splashes in the river. The only sign of life left is the little old miller in his red cap. He<br />
futilely raises a finger to the city, where he is no longer needed. Left to his silence, pipe<br />
and spirits, the miller's world seems destined for oblivion. His idle millstones will create<br />
no more bread.<br />
The poem resonates strongly with Khodasevich's blank verse narrative "Дом."<br />
Both poems revolve around an observer at an abandoned, deteriorating building—a place<br />
that used to be full of bustling activity. But while there is an expectation of rebirth at the<br />
site of the house, the mill appears lost. "Мельница's" final image of the moon in the<br />
window (луна в окне), however, recalls the image of the rising green moon at the end of<br />
"Дом." Its light provides hope for a new cycle of activity—a cycle guaranteed by<br />
"Путем зерна," both poem and book.<br />
Of the excised poems, "Мельница" most closely resembles "Рыбак," a song that<br />
relates in a folk-like manner the gradual but inevitable decline of an old man and his<br />
activity—fishing for the sun. "Рыбак," however, intimates the inevitable collapse of all<br />
earthly life. Once the old fisherman runs out of stars, the cycle of night and day will be<br />
forever broken, and the whole world will be swallowed up by darkness (охватит землю<br />
мрак). "Мельница" predicts no such fate. While the miller's life may end, the life of the<br />
village in the distance will continue. Bread will come from another source, if not from<br />
him. This promise of continued life and the poem's contemplation of the toll time takes<br />
72
on human endeavor grant "Мельница" a place in the final edition of Путем зерна—a<br />
place which the fatalistic, hopeless "Рыбак" must give up.<br />
"Авиатору" and "Акробат"<br />
In the second edition of Путем зерна, Khodasevich excluded only one poem<br />
from the first edition: "Авиатору" (1914). In this poem the lyric persona distrustfully<br />
observes the flight of an airplane, ultimately calling on the pilot to fall back to earth<br />
where he belongs.<br />
Над полями, лесами, болотами,<br />
Над извивами северных рек<br />
Ты проносишься плавными взлетами,<br />
Небожитель—герой—человек.<br />
Напрягаются крылья, как парусы,<br />
На руле костенеет рука,<br />
А кругом—взгроможденные ярусы:<br />
Облака—облака—облака.<br />
И смотря на тебя недоверчиво,<br />
Я качаю слегка головой:<br />
Выше, выше спирали очерчивай,<br />
Но припомни—подумай—постой.<br />
Что тебе до надоблачной ясности?<br />
На земной, материнской груди<br />
Отдохни от высот и опасностей,—<br />
Упади—упади—упади!<br />
Ах, сорвись, и большими зигзагами<br />
Упади, раздробивши хребет,—<br />
Где трибуны расцвечены флагами,<br />
Где народ—и оркестр—и буфет.<br />
Over fields, forests, swamps,<br />
Over the bends of northern rivers<br />
You rush by in your smooth ascents<br />
Heaven-dweller—hero—man.<br />
The wings become taught like sails,<br />
73
Your hand grows stiff on the wheel,<br />
And all around—piled up tiers:<br />
Clouds—clouds—clouds.<br />
And looking at you disbelievingly,<br />
I rock my head lightly:<br />
Outline the spirals higher, higher,<br />
But remember—think for a minute—stop.<br />
What business of yours is the clarity beyond the clouds?<br />
On the earthly, maternal breast<br />
Rest from the heights and dangers,—<br />
Fall—fall—fall!<br />
Ah, come down, and in big zigzags<br />
Fall, having shattered your spine,—<br />
Where the rostrums are adorned with flags,<br />
Where the people are—and the orchestra—and the refreshments.<br />
In the first edition of Путем зерна Khodasevich placed "Авиатору" immediately after<br />
the poem "Слезы Рахили," written in 1916. After hearing this poem, a lament for the<br />
victims of war and a call for peace, Georgii Chulkov accused Khodasevich of defeatism<br />
(пораженчество). 86<br />
The lyric persona finds no glory in the legends and patriotic songs<br />
of war; instead he sees value only in the inconsolable tears of Rachel. Khodasevich did<br />
not remove or change "Слезы Рахили" in the later editions of Путем зерна, but its<br />
proximity to "Авиатору," a more cruelly defeatist poem, may have resulted in the latter's<br />
removal. 87<br />
A more likely explanation, however, seems to lie with the imitative nature of<br />
"Авиатору." Mikhail Gasparov and Inna Andreeva have both noted the poem's<br />
86 Khodasevich, Sobranie stikhotvorenii, vol. 1, 300.<br />
87 Khodasevich had made earlier disparaging comments about aviation, predicting a distinct break between<br />
pre- and post-aviation eras. He viewed airplanes as the triumph of the technical and mechanical over the<br />
spiritual and creative, and predicted the primarily destructive, military use of aviation. See his article,<br />
"Накануне," in Khodasevich, Sobranie sochinenii, vol. 2, 66-7.<br />
74
esemblance to Muni's "И вот достигнута победа" (c. 1912-1913). 88<br />
Like Khodasevich,<br />
Muni directly addresses an aviator, emphasizing the unnaturalness of human flight—man<br />
does not belong in the skies. The remarkable technical achievement of flight provides<br />
amusement for the crowds, but the plane, the "new Icarus," remains an "uninspired slave<br />
of another's dream" (бескрылый раб чужой мечты). It is trapped in its own power<br />
(Железных крыльев царь и узник [Tsar and prisoner of its iron wings]) and ultimately<br />
is scorned by Apollo, a god of artistic power.<br />
Even more strongly than Muni's poem, however, Khodasevich's "Авиатору"<br />
recalls Blok's 1910 poem "В неуверенном, зыбком полете":<br />
В неуверенном, зыбком полете<br />
Ты над бездной взвился и повис.<br />
Что-то древнее есть в повороте<br />
Мертвых крыльев, подогнутых вниз.<br />
Как ты можешь летать и кружиться<br />
Без любви, без души, без лица?<br />
О, стальная, бесстрастная птица,<br />
Чем ты можешь прославить Творца?<br />
В серых сферах летай и скитайся,<br />
Пусть оркестр на трибуне гремит,<br />
Но под легкую музыку вальса<br />
Остановится сердце—и винт.<br />
In an unsure, shaky flight<br />
You rose up over the abyss and hung in mid-air.<br />
There is something ancient in the turn<br />
Of dead wings, bent down.<br />
How can you fly and circle<br />
Without love, without a soul, without a face?<br />
88 See Andreeva's commentary in Kissin, Legkoe bremia, 178, and Mikhail Gasparov's introduction to Muni<br />
in his anthology of Silver Age Russian Poetry: Russkaia poeziia serebrianogo veka, 1890-1917:<br />
antologiia, ed. Mikhail Gasparov (Moscow: Nauka, 1993), 341. In this same introduction, Gasparov<br />
claims that Muni's poetry generally recalls Khodasevich's early poetry: Стихи Муни тоже напоминают<br />
раннего Ходасевича: пессимизм, ориентация на эпоху Пушкина и Баратынского, влияние Белого и<br />
Сологуба, для оттенения, стилизованные любовно-альбомные стихи, только немного больше<br />
мистики и быта. Ibid.<br />
75
O, steel, passionless bird,<br />
How can you glorify the Creator?<br />
Fly and wander in the gray spheres,<br />
Let the orchestra roar on the rostrum,<br />
But to the accompaniment of light waltz music<br />
The heart—and the propeller—will stop.<br />
Similarities between Blok's and Khodasevich's poems are obvious. Both open<br />
with a direct address to a plane (in the case of Blok's poem) or aviator (Khodasevich).<br />
The first stanzas of each poem describe the plane's/aviator's flight as cold and lifeless. In<br />
Blok's poem, the wings are dead and the plane hangs in mid-air. In "Авиатору" the<br />
wings are taught and the pilot's hand is frozen to the wheel. Both poets question the<br />
plane/aviator directly (Blok in the second stanza, Khodasevich in the third), asking how<br />
and why he dares to fly. While Khodasevich's hero is human, and Blok's is steel and<br />
passionless, neither belongs in the heavenly realm. The final stanza of Khodasevich's<br />
poem is a clear echo of Blok's: Blok's plane will crash to the music of an orchestra on a<br />
rostrum; Khodasevich's aviator is urged to fall near the rostrums, orchestra, and<br />
refreshments. In addition to these thematic and lexical borrowings, Khodasevich's poem<br />
is written in the same form as Blok's poem, quatrains of anapestic trimeter with an<br />
alternating rhyme scheme (although with dactylic, rather than feminine rhymes).<br />
It seems likely that Khodasevich discarded "Авиатору" because he saw it as too<br />
derivative of Blok's poem. 89<br />
The poem does not offer anything particularly new or<br />
original, but instead looks back at and imitates a symbolist model. It also lacks the bald<br />
89 Khodasevich's "Авиатору" also recalls Blok's poem "Авиатор" (1910-January, 1912) which describes<br />
the ascent and crash of a plane trying to break a world record at an air show. Blok depicts the flight as<br />
unnatural and pointless, and he shares Khodasevich's concerns about the military future of aviation. The<br />
poet asks the aviator why he chose to fly and proposes an answer in the final stanza: Иль отравил твой<br />
мозг несчастный/Грядущих войн ужасный вид:/ Ночной летун, во мгле ненастной/Земле несущий<br />
динамит? While the titles of Blok's and Khodasevich's poems are virtually shared, "Авиатору" is, in fact,<br />
much closer to "В неуверенном, зыбком полете" than "Авиатор" in terms of both form and content.<br />
76
personal emotion so typical of the poems which surrounded and took its place in the first<br />
and second editions: "Уединение," "Газетчик," "Как выскажу моим косноязычьем."<br />
The lyric hero is a distant observer, rocking his head lightly to the almost singsong<br />
rhythm of the poem. His calls for the aviator's demise lack any personal involvement.<br />
More interesting than the removal of "Авиатору," however, is its apparent<br />
reincarnation in the form of the poem "Акробат," one of the four poems added to the<br />
1927 edition of Путем зерна. While the painfully emotional and even violent poems<br />
which occupied the place of "Авиатору" in the second edition were discarded from the<br />
more sedate, contemplative final edition, the detached, almost philosophical nature of the<br />
excised "Авиатору" reemerges in "Акробат," another observation of a man hovering<br />
between earth and sky:<br />
От крыши до крыши протянут канат.<br />
Легко и спокойно идет акробат.<br />
В руках его—палка, он весь—как весы,<br />
А зрители снизу задрали носы.<br />
Толкаются, шепчут: «Сейчас упадет!»—<br />
И каждый чего-то взволнованно ждет.<br />
Направо—старушка глядит из окна,<br />
Налево—гуляка с бокалом вина.<br />
Но небо прозрачно, и прочен канат.<br />
Легко и спокойно идет акробат.<br />
А если, сорвавшись, фигляр упадет,<br />
И охнув, закрестится лживый народ—<br />
Поэт, проходи с безучастным лицом:<br />
Ты сам не таким ли живешь ремеслом?<br />
The tightrope is stretched from roof to roof.<br />
The acrobat walks lightly and calmly.<br />
77
There's a stick in his hands, he's all like a balance,<br />
And the viewers below lifted up their noses.<br />
They jostle each other and whisper, "Now he'll fall!"<br />
And each of them anxiously awaits something.<br />
On the right an old woman looks from a window,<br />
On the left there's a reveler with a glass of wine.<br />
But the sky is clear, and the rope is firm.<br />
The acrobat walks lightly and calmly.<br />
But what if, breaking loose, the acrobat should fall,<br />
And gasping, the deceitful crowd crosses itself—<br />
Poet, pass by with a neutral gaze:<br />
Don't you too live by such a trade?<br />
The first five stanzas of "Акробат" were originally written in 1914 to accompany<br />
a silhouette for the "Летучая Мышь" theater of miniatures and were included in the<br />
second edition of Счастливый домик (1921). In 1921 Khodasevich wrote the last two<br />
stanzas and published the new version in both the third edition of Счастливый домик<br />
(1922) and the final edition of Путем зерна. 90 Khodasevich's placement of the poem in<br />
the third edition of Счастливый домик is logical. He did not complete the seven-stanza<br />
version in time for the 1921 editions of either Счастливый домик or Путем зерна, but<br />
it was ready for the third edition of Счастливый домик in 1922. 91<br />
Why he chose to<br />
include it again in the final edition of Путем зерна is a more interesting question. It<br />
appears to act both as a substitute for his previously excised poem "Авиатору" and as an<br />
ideal complement to the book's title poem.<br />
In "Авиатору" and "Акробат" Khodasevich describes a person who hangs<br />
precariously above the earth—in one case supported by the taught sail-like wings of an<br />
90 Khodasevich, Sobranie sochinenii, vol. 1, 305.<br />
91 The five stanza version neatly replaces the poem "Новый год" in the second edition of Счастливый<br />
домик.<br />
78
airplane; in the other by a firm, stretched tightrope. In both poems, earth-bound<br />
observers watch his movements, hoping for him to fall. Both poems are written in<br />
ternary meters, suggesting the smooth, undulating flights of the airplane (плавные<br />
взлеты) and the calm, light step of the acrobat. Everything must be perfectly balanced to<br />
keep the plane and acrobat aloft.<br />
The poet's perspective, however, has been inverted. In "Авиатору" it is the lyric<br />
persona who calls on the aviator to fall. He is watching distrustfully from the ground,<br />
questioning the right of the aviator to break the natural order and attempt to fly. In<br />
"Акробат" the observers are playfully but derisively described as old women, drunkards,<br />
and crowds of people with noses stuck up toward the sky. They whisper in anticipation<br />
of the acrobat's demise. The poet disassociates himself from this "deceitful mass"<br />
(лживый народ) which longs to gasp at a fall, and instead aligns himself with the<br />
acrobat, comparing his craft with the poet's: Ты сам не таким ли живешь ремеслом?<br />
This rhetorical question, posed not to the subject of the poem (the acrobat) but to the poet<br />
at large, replaces the question asked of the aviator: Что тебе до надоблачной ясности?<br />
The acrobat, like the poet, has earned access to this unearthly realm. He risks his neck<br />
with each step just as the poet takes a risk with each line of verse.<br />
The association of the acrobat and the poet recalls the metaphor of the sower as<br />
poet in the title poem "Путем зерна." 92<br />
In fact, "Акробат" echoes this poem in formal,<br />
thematic and lexical ways. While written in distinct meters, the poems both consist of a<br />
series of rhymed couplets. 93<br />
This tidy form emphasizes the steadiness and balance<br />
described in each poem. In "Путем зерна" the sower walks among the even furrows<br />
92 See earlier discussion of "Путем зерна."<br />
93 "Золото" is the only other poem in the book written in couplets. Its close connection to the title poem is<br />
discussed above.<br />
79
traveled by his ancestors. Similarly, the acrobat walks lightly on his tightrope, like a<br />
perfectly balanced scale. Both poems describe a fall: the destined fall of the grain into<br />
the black earth (оно должно упасть), and, by metaphorical association the fall of the<br />
poet's soul; the potential fall of the acrobat, and, by direct association, that of the poet.<br />
More important than either fall, however, is the steady progress of the grain and<br />
acrobat along a difficult but defined route: the grain's way from death to rebirth; the<br />
acrobat's tightrope from roof to roof. Both poems emphasize this progress through the<br />
use of words related to movement and paths. "Путем зерна" is full of motion verbs, and<br />
Khodasevich repeats the word путь three times in the poem. In "Акробат" the only<br />
actions (verbs) attributed to the acrobat are walking and, potentially, falling. By contrast,<br />
the viewers all remain in one spot, sticking up their noses, crowding together, whispering,<br />
waiting, observing. The repetition of the line "Легко и спокойно идет акробат," like<br />
the repetition in the title poem of the phrase "идет путем зерна"/"идти путем зерна,"<br />
suggests that despite the harsh environment, time is passing, and the lyric hero is moving<br />
forward.<br />
This progress is most specifically highlighted by the verb проходить/пройти (to<br />
walk; to pass through). The first word of "Путем зерна," it opens up the poem and<br />
indeed the entire final edition of the book. The sower/poet walks out among the even<br />
furrows of fertile soil (Проходит сеятель по ровным бороздам). Later in the poem,<br />
Khodasevich compares the grain's way to that of his country and people who will die and<br />
be reborn, having passed through this difficult year (пройдя сквозь этот год). This verb<br />
appears in the book Путем зерна only one other time—in the penultimate line of<br />
"Акробат": Поэт, проходи с безучастным лицом. Like the poet of "Путем зерна" the<br />
80
poet of "Акробат" must make his way through, along his destined path. This strong<br />
resonance with the title poem as well as the connections to the excised "Авиатору" make<br />
"Акробат" a fitting addition to the final version of Путем зерна.<br />
Conclusion<br />
In this chapter I have shown how the final edition of Путем зерна represents a<br />
new stage in Khodasevich's poetic career. Thanks in part to its publication history (three<br />
different editions over the course of seven years), the book is distanced from its initial<br />
biographical sources. This distance allows Khodasevich to reconceptualize the book—to<br />
organize it around a belief in the cyclicity of life and death rather than an individual<br />
journey along this cycle. He breaks from the highly emotional, personal poetry of his<br />
previous books and finds a more epic poetic voice.<br />
The first two editions of Путем зерна remain linked to his early work. The<br />
opening poem, "Ручей," resonates with the opening poem of his previous book of poems,<br />
Счастливый домик. "Путем зерна," the first poem in the final edition, severs this tie<br />
and in fact provides a polemical response to the opening poem of his first book of poetry,<br />
"В моей стране." Khodasevich rejects this past, claiming Путем зерна as his first book<br />
of poetry in his 1927 Собрание стихов and presenting the message of "Путем зерна"—<br />
the continual renewal of life through death—as the structural motif of the book.<br />
Khodasevich's various additions to and excisions from the 1921 and 1927 editions<br />
all support this general movement away from the personal toward the universal truth of<br />
the "way of the grain."<br />
81
Chapter Two: Zinaida Gippius's Radiances<br />
In most studies of Gippius, critics have focused on the philosophical and religious<br />
foundations of her verse rather than on its formal aspects. 94<br />
This is due not only to the<br />
rich content of her poetry, but also to its apparent “stylelessness.” Vladislav<br />
Khodasevich wrote that Gippius related to form the way an intellectual woman relates to<br />
her clothing—she loves it, but she doesn’t respect it:<br />
Она формально усложняет и украшает свои стихи, но лишь между делом, не<br />
вдумываясь и нацепляя на себя, что попало. В конце концов ее стихи<br />
оказываются еще более манерными, чем у других символистов, и отсутствие<br />
стиля становится ее стилем… Как бы ни были велики прегрещения Гиппиус<br />
перед формой,—возлюбленное содержание платило и платит ей за любовь и<br />
верность взаимностью. 95<br />
In addition to this emphasis on content over form, critics have maintained that<br />
Gippius’s poetry does not evolve, but rather remains consistently distinctive<br />
(своеобразная) over the course of her poetic career. Aside from a brief flirtation with<br />
Nadsonian verse, her early poetry can be considered mature in terms of both content and<br />
poetic form. She struggles with the same major themes throughout her poetic career<br />
(love, death, and the devil), and this struggle is distinctly marked by paradox—she<br />
regularly shifts between moods of ecstatic faith and hopeless despair.<br />
In this chapter, I will attempt to show that Gippius's final book, Сияния, defies<br />
both of these assumptions. While remaining true to the thematics of her earlier work,<br />
Gippius provides a new form for her poetry, paying close attention to the structure of her<br />
book. For the first time, she provides a single dedication for the entire work. While the<br />
dedicatee is left unnamed, evidence points to Saint Teresa of the Child Jesus whose<br />
94 An exception is James Orville Bailey's 1965 dissertation, The Versification of Zinaida Gippius (Harvard,<br />
1965), a detailed statistical study of Gippius's verse.<br />
95 Zinaida Gippius, Stikhotvoreniia (Saint Petersburg: Novaia biblioteka poeta), 517.<br />
82
spiritual presence can be felt throughout the book. Also for the first time, Gippius<br />
chooses an overall thematic title, Сияния. Her first two collections are titled simply<br />
Собрание стихов and are organized according to the years the poems were written. The<br />
title of her third collection, Стихи. Дневник 1911-1921, explicitly labels the book a<br />
diary—a collection of chronologically organized entries. 96<br />
The seemingly thematic<br />
headings of its subsections, “У порога,” “Война,” “Революция,” and “Там и здесь,” in<br />
fact refer to periods of Gippius’s life to which the poems correspond in terms of the time<br />
of their writing. With Сияния, Gippius moves away from this diary-type organization.<br />
The poems, written over the course of fifteen years, represent only a small portion of the<br />
poetry she wrote in her later period. They are not arranged chronologically, and Gippius<br />
chooses not to date them in the text. 97<br />
In her previous books, Gippius dated each of her<br />
poems. By leaving out the dates in Сияния, Gippius seems to highlight the<br />
interdependence of the poems. Instead of assigning each poem a distinct moment in time,<br />
she suggests that each is part of the overall course of Сияния.<br />
Gippius thought carefully about the way she structured her poetic collections.<br />
She wrote explicitly about the composition of a book of poetry in the introduction to her<br />
first collection, Собрание стихов 1889-1903, “Необходимое о стихах”: “Мне жаль<br />
создавать нечто совершенно бесцельное и никому не нужное. Собрание, книга<br />
стихов в данное время—есть самая бесцельная, ненужная вещь.” 98<br />
She recalled an<br />
earlier time when books were written as wholes, intended to be read straight through. At<br />
96 Some relatively minor exceptions were made, but groupings of poems were all written within the same<br />
period. Chronology is emphasized in the title of her second book, as well. Like the third, it contains dates<br />
in its title: Собрание стихов. Книга вторая 1903-1909. While the second book is limited to a relatively<br />
short time period, Gippius does not follow a chronological order within the book.<br />
97 Gippius makes two exceptions, dating "Рождение" and "Лазарь," which will be discussed below.<br />
98 Gippius, Stikhotvoreniia, 71. Emphasis, Gippius's.<br />
83
“the given time,” that is at the time of writing, 1903, such a book was an impossibility.<br />
Contemporary poets and their poems had become more subjective, more set apart from<br />
the outside world and thus from the outside reader. The compilation of poems in one<br />
book overwhelmed the reader:<br />
Ведь все-таки каждому стихотворению соответствует полное ощущение<br />
автором данной минуты; оно вылилось—стихотворение кончилось;<br />
следующее—следующая минута,—уже иная; они разделены временем, жизнью;<br />
а читатель перебегает тут же с одной страницы на другую, и смены, скользя,<br />
только утомляют глаза и слух. 99<br />
In 1908 in the introduction to her Литературный дневник, Gippius returned to<br />
the topic of a literary collection, now defending the practice as a way to preserve a<br />
particular historical perspective:<br />
Есть точка зрения, с которой всякий сборник,—стихов, рассказов или статей,—<br />
бессмыслица. Автор не может не смотреть на него, в иные минуты, с досадой.<br />
В самом деле: собирают разбросанные по длинному прошлому, разделенные<br />
временем, дни, часы—и преподносят их в одном узле (в одной книжке)—<br />
сегодня. Перспектива ломается, динамика насильственно превращается в<br />
статику, образ искажен,—ничего нет.<br />
Но есть другой, более верный, взгляд на «сборник»: взгляд исторический.<br />
Надо уметь чувствовать время; надо помнить, что история везде и все в<br />
истории—в движении. Последняя мелочь—и она в истории, и она может комунибудь<br />
пригодиться, если только будет на своем месте. Всякий вчерашний<br />
день—история, а всякий «сборник» именно вчерашний день. 100<br />
At this point, Gippius's collections, including Литературный дневник, were largely<br />
organized chronologically. Often titled diaries, they presented poems, stories, and<br />
articles as a series of independent entries. In the introduction to Синяя книга, a diary of<br />
the tumultuous years 1914-1917, Gippius wrote that it was precisely in these diaristic<br />
forms, as opposed to memoirs, that the flow of real life could be found: 101<br />
99 Ibid., 72. Emphasis, Gippius's.<br />
100 Zinaida Gippius, Dnevniki (Moscow: Intelvak, 1999), v. 1, 165.<br />
101 Modest Gofman, however, found just the opposite in Gippius's collections of verse: Творчество З.<br />
Гиппиус—творчество минут, а не жизни. Вот почему у нее почти нет циклов, вот почему ее<br />
84
Дневник—не стройный «рассказ о жизни», когда описывающий сегодняшний<br />
день уже знает завтрашний, знает, чем все кончится. Дневник—само течение<br />
жизни. В этом отличие «Современной записи» от всяких «Воспоминаний», и в<br />
этом ее особые преимущества: она воскрешает атмосферу, воскрешая<br />
исчезнувшие из памяти мелочи. «Воспоминания» могут дать образ времени.<br />
Но только дневник дает время в его длительности. 102<br />
Gippius, however, moved away from the diary form after her emigration. While<br />
she kept extensive journals in Russia, there is no sustained diary record of the years in<br />
Paris. Instead, she explored the form of the memoir (Живые лица) and the biography<br />
(Дмитрий Мережковский 103 ). In compiling Сияния, Gippius approached her verse<br />
differently as well. Instead of providing a complete, chronological series of poems which<br />
would resurrect a certain period in time, she selected and ordered them in a more<br />
deliberate way to provide a fuller picture of her own spiritual journey. A.V. Lavrov<br />
noted that Gippius left out her more contemporary, historically based poems in Сияния:<br />
“в этом нельзя не видеть сознательной авторской установки—преодолеть<br />
сиюминутное, сосредоточиться на изначально сущем и непреходящем. Видимо,<br />
Гиппиус, составляя книгу, осмысляла ее как подведение итогов в своих<br />
стихотворных медитациях, и такая задача диктовала определенные принципы<br />
отбора.” 104<br />
сборники стихов, рассказов, статей—являются случайными сборниками разных стихов, рассказов,<br />
статей, а не живым целым—книгою. Gippius, Stikhotvoreniia, 38.<br />
102 Gippius, Dnevniki, vol. 1, 381-2. The word "длительность" suggests the Bergsonian term "durée," a<br />
concept largely understood by Russian modernists as the "constant flow of divine reality that can be<br />
apprehended only through an effort of intuition." Hilary L. Fink, Bergson and Russian Modernism, 1900-<br />
1930 (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1999), xviii. In a 1930 letter to Gerell, however,<br />
Gippius used the French term to refer to two distinct periods in her life: the present "durée" and the past<br />
"durée." In this usage, Gippius "obscures the true Bergsonian sense of the term as the indivisible, ceaseless<br />
flow of reality, 'succession without distinction'" Ibid., 60. Thus, Gippius, appears to use Bergsonian terms<br />
loosely, not adhering to a strict reading of his philosophy. Gippius invokes Bergson in two poems in<br />
Сияния to be discussed later in the chapter: "Eternité Frémissante"and "Веер."<br />
103 The Merezhkovsky biography was initially titled Он и Мы, suggesting an autobiographical or<br />
memoiristic nature.<br />
104 Gippius, Stikhtovoreniia, 64.<br />
85
This "summational" quality of Сияния should not be mistaken for a static<br />
uniformity. The book tells the story of Gippius's dynamic spiritual journey toward<br />
God, 105 a journey which continually shifts between moods of ecstasy and despair. In this<br />
chapter I will examine the formal ways in which Gippius depicts these shifts, both within<br />
individual poems and between poems consciously placed in sequence. I will also explore<br />
the unifying features of the book—the title and dedication—as well as the book's overall<br />
narrative progression (последовательность) from the declaration of the poet's mission in<br />
the opening poem, "Сиянья," to her failure in the final poem, "Домой."<br />
Сияния—the title and title poem<br />
Gippius begins her book with the metapoetic title poem, "Сиянья." First<br />
published in Русские записки in 1937, it appears that the poem was written shortly<br />
before the compilation and publication of the book. 106<br />
Сиянья<br />
Сиянье слов... Такое есть ли?<br />
Сиянье звезд, сиянье облаков—<br />
Я всё любил, люблю... Но если<br />
Мне скажут: вот сиянье слов—<br />
Отвечу, не боясь признанья,<br />
Что даже святости блаженное сиянье<br />
Я за него отдать готов...<br />
Всё за одно сиянье слов!<br />
Сиянье слов? О, повторять ли снова<br />
Тебе, мой бедный человек-поэт,<br />
Что говорю я о сияньи Слова,<br />
Что на земле других сияний нет?<br />
105 Olga Matich has described this "dynamic" nature of Gippius's faith. Gippius's path is one of "constant<br />
movement toward her goal, which is communication with God and a full understanding of Him." Olga<br />
Matich, Paradox in the Religious Poetry of Zinaida Gippius (Munich: Centrifuga, 1972), 37. "It is in<br />
seeking God and the transformation of the flesh that Gippius finds metaphysical fulfillment. Ibid., 74<br />
106 I have found no precise date of composition.<br />
86
Radiances<br />
Radiance of words… Does such a thing exist?<br />
Radiance of stars, radiance of clouds—<br />
I loved it all, I love it still…But if<br />
I'm told: here is the radiance of words—<br />
I'll answer, not fearing the admission,<br />
That even the blessed radiance of sainthood<br />
I am ready to give away for this…<br />
Everything for one radiance of words!<br />
Radiance of words? Oh, must I repeat again<br />
To you, my poor human-poet,<br />
That I speak of the radiance of the Word,<br />
That other radiances do not exist on earth?<br />
The two stanzas of "Сиянья," while beginning with the same question (is there<br />
such a thing as a radiance of words), create a distinct paradox. In the first stanza, the<br />
poet, full of hope and expectation, is willing to give up everything, even the "blessed<br />
radiance of sainthood," for a radiance of words. In the second stanza, she has come back<br />
to down to earth. She appears to be addressing herself, 107 realizing that she is a "poor<br />
human-poet," neither godly nor saintly. Her poems—attempts at radiances of words—<br />
will never approximate the radiance of God's Word. Nonetheless, she embarks upon her<br />
journey—a book of radiant poems.<br />
In the initial publication of "Сиянья" the second stanza was set off by a post<br />
scriptum mark (P.S.), thus emphasizing its secondary nature to the first stanza, a sense<br />
already established by the fact that the first stanza is twice as long as the second. In the<br />
Сияния version, this P.S. has been removed, pointing to a more equal balance between<br />
the ecstatic joy of the first stanza—the possibility of a merging of the poet and true<br />
107 In his memoir of Gippius, Sergei Makovskii discussed the female addressees of her poems, noting that it<br />
is often unclear whether they refer to some one woman in particular, or to Gippius herself. "Вообще З.Н.<br />
не хочет, чтобы стихи ее были связаны с кем-то: они отвлеченны даже тогда, когда рождены<br />
выношенной страстью, и лишь изредка звучат они как личное признание." Sergei Makovskii, Na<br />
Parnase serebrianogo veka (Moscow: Soglasie, 2000), 174.<br />
87
adiance—and the fall to reality of the second—the realization of the unbridgeable gap<br />
between God and human. This dramatic shift, present throughout Gippius's career, 108<br />
will play out in a particularly concentrated fashion over the course of her final book.<br />
So too, will the poet's attempt to move from multiplicity toward singularity. In<br />
the first stanza, the poet marvels at the many radiances in the skies—the radiance of stars<br />
and clouds—all of which she has loved. She longs, however, for just one radiance of<br />
words (одно сиянье слов), as if a single poetic radiance could capture all of the world's<br />
many lights. By the end of the poem, she has realized that what she seeks is not a<br />
radiance of words, but the radiance of the singular Word of God which encompasses all<br />
that is heavenly on earth. Throughout the book, particularly in the poems<br />
"Вечноженственное" and "Eternité Frémissante" which will be discussed below,<br />
Gippius continues to seek God's unified truth in its multiple manifestations on earth.<br />
By lending this poem's title to the title of the book, Gippius suggests that the<br />
poems in her book be considered radiances, or at least her attempts to create radiances of<br />
words on earth. Fundamentally, she knows that this is a doomed project. The only true<br />
radiance of words is the radiance of God's Word, something no human poet can ever<br />
achieve. 109<br />
While the poet will reach epiphanies along her journey, ultimately her<br />
attempts will prove futile, leading to the utter despair of the final poem, "Домой."<br />
108 Throughout her life and work Gippius strove to merge the worlds of man and God, relentlessly pursuing<br />
what she knew to be unattainable. Her conscious awareness of the impossibility of achieving a heavenly<br />
miracle on earth (here, the radiance of words) is perhaps most famously evident in the opening poem of her<br />
first collection of verse, "Песня" (1893), also characterized by the paradox of despair and expectant desire:<br />
Увы, в печали безумной я умираю,/Я умираю,/Стремлюсь к тому, чего я не знаю,/Не знаю!/И это<br />
желание не знаю откуда,/Пришло откуда,/Но сердце хочет и просит чуда,/Чуда!…Мне нужно то,<br />
чего нет на свете,/Чего нет на свете. For a detailed study of the paradoxical nature of Gippius's verse,<br />
see Matich's excellent book, Paradox in the Religious Poetry of Zinaida Gippius (Munich, 1972).<br />
109 Later in the book, she will remind herself yet again of the inefficacy of human language. In the poem,<br />
"Воскресенье," dedicated to Merezhkovsky, the poet advises her addressee not to search for "impossible<br />
words" for the Resurrected Christ (Не ищи невозможных слов). The only worthy earthly words are the<br />
88
Epigraph/Dedication to St. Thérèse of Lisieux<br />
From the opening page, Gippius's final book is distinct from her earlier<br />
collections: first, for its thematic title; second, for the dedication included on the title<br />
page. While Gippius occasionally attached epigraphs or dedications to individual poems<br />
in her previous books (and in Сияния as well), this is the only instance where she<br />
provided a dedication or epigraph to an entire book. This gesture, like the thematic title,<br />
adds to the sense of the book as a unified whole—the entire book can be given a single<br />
name and a single dedicatee.<br />
The dedication itself is somewhat cryptic, leaving the addressee unnamed:<br />
Тебе, чье имя не открою,<br />
Но ты со мной всегда,<br />
Ты мне, как горная вода<br />
Среди земного зноя.<br />
For you, whose name I will not reveal,<br />
But you are with my always,<br />
To me you are like mountain water<br />
Amidst the intense heat of the earth.<br />
At first the dedication seems to be a very private gesture, a concealed address from<br />
Gippius to her dedicatee. Yet, by presenting it so publicly on the title page of her book,<br />
and by declaring that she will not reveal the addressee, Gippius sets up a riddle for the<br />
reader. She stresses the addressee's constant presence in her life (ты со мной всегда), a<br />
presence which presumably will be felt in the book that follows. Uncovering the identity<br />
of the dedicatee may provide a key to reading the book as a whole.<br />
final words of Thomas (Нету слов об этом на свете,/Кроме слов—последних—Фомы). Even here,<br />
Gippius does not dare to replicate those words (Господь мой и Бог мой (John 20:28)) in her own voice.<br />
89
As yet the addressee has not been definitively revealed, 110 yet considerable<br />
evidence points to the Catholic saint Thérèse of Lisieux, or Saint Teresa of the Child<br />
Jesus. After first establishing this connection, I will argue that Teresa serves as a<br />
spiritual model for Gippius when writing Сияния. Her presence is indeed felt throughout<br />
the book.<br />
Saint Teresa was a Carmelite nun born in 1873, just a few years after Gippius.<br />
While her life was relatively unremarkable—she lived only twenty-four years—she is<br />
remembered for a collection of epistolary essays published under the title Histoire d'une<br />
âme in which she described her childhood, entrance into the convent at the age of 15, and<br />
terrible physical and spiritual suffering throughout her short life. Teresa frequently<br />
struggled with religious doubt, even up to her final days. Her dramatic swings from pure<br />
faith to depression and guilt found a resonance in Gippius's own spiritual journey.<br />
Gippius repeatedly mentions her devotion to Saint Teresa in letters and diaries. She and<br />
Merezhkovsky visited the church of Teresa in Paris every week and had a statue of her in<br />
their home. At the time of the writing of Сияния, Merezhkovsky was working on a<br />
biographical novel about Teresa (Маленькая Тереза) as part of his series Лица святых<br />
от Иисуса к нам. Gippius actively participated in the preparation of the book, gathering<br />
materials for her husband.<br />
110 In the commentary to the recent edition of Gippius's verse by Novaia biblioteka poeta (1999) no<br />
suggestions are made. While conceding that a "real" referent may be found by biographers, Oleg Kling<br />
claims that the epigraph is addressed primarily to Blok. He also proposes that the entire book is based upon<br />
features of Blok's "Стихи о прекрасной даме." Oleg Kling, "Evoliutsiia i 'latentnoe' sushchestvovanie<br />
simvolizma posle oktiabria," Voprosy literatury 4 (July-August 1999): 55-56.<br />
90
The first link between the dedication to Сияния and Teresa is its date of<br />
composition: December 24, 1933, 111 the Catholic Christmas Eve. Gippius wrote a very<br />
similar poem, "Ты" on the same date: 112<br />
Ты не приходишь, но всегда,—<br />
Чуть вспомню,—ты со мною.<br />
Ты мне—как свежая вода<br />
Среди земного зноя...<br />
You don't come, but always—<br />
I barely recall—you are with me.<br />
To me you are like fresh water<br />
Amidst the intense heat of the earth.<br />
Dates were of great significance to Gippius, and she did not assign or record them<br />
lightly. 113<br />
The Catholic Christmas Eve was associated in her mind with Teresa's<br />
conversion at the age of fourteen—the night that she received God's grace as described in<br />
Histoire d'une âme. In a letter to Greta Gerell on January 4, 1934, less than two weeks<br />
after writing these two poems, she describes her love for Teresa, evoked by the Christmas<br />
holiday:<br />
Notre Noël c'est le 7, Dimanche prochain. Mais comme j'aime beaucoup quelques<br />
saints romains, la petite Thérèse surtout, j'ai beaucoup vénéré le jour de Noël passé.<br />
… Les saints…il y en a que j'admire, il y en a d'autres que j'aime tout simplement<br />
comme s'ils étaient des personnes vivantes (ne le sont-ils pas, d'ailleurs?). La petite<br />
Thérèse a séduit le monde entire, et vous le serez, bien sûr, quand vous lirez l'historie<br />
de sa vie écrite par elle-même—je vous enverrai le livre ce Dimanche; ou un jour<br />
plus tard—quand j'irai dans le magasin à elle. Après je vous enverrai la traduction de<br />
quelques-unes de mes poésies que je lui ai faites. Peut-être vous enverrai-je l'autre<br />
111 This date is not included in the actual text of Сияния, but it is given as the date of the epigraph in the<br />
notes to the 1999 edition of Gippius's verse. Gippius, Stikhtovreniia, 518.<br />
112 "Ты" was published in Современные записки in 1934. The original was dated "24 дек 1933."<br />
Gippius, Stikhtvoreniia, 555.<br />
113 Vladimir Zlobin cites Gippius as writing, "За числами слежу я очень зорко,/Как вещий знак дает<br />
нам числа Бог." Vladimir Zlobin, A Difficult Soul: Zinaida Gippius (Berkeley: University of California<br />
Press, 1980), 125.. Birthdays are given particular importance in her 1903 poem, "Числа": И день, когда<br />
родимся, налагает/На нас печать заветного числа;/До смерти наши мысли и дела/Оно сопровождает.<br />
In a letter to Georgii Adamovich (15 August 1927) Gippius wrote: "категория чисел—ближе<br />
соприкасается с реальностью, чем мы привычно воображаем." Temira Pachmuss, Intellect and Ideas<br />
in Action: Selected Correspondence of Zinaida Hippius (Munich: Centrifuga, 1972), 367.<br />
91
livre, au lieu de la »Vie«—»L'Enfant chérie du monde«; il es très bien écrit. Tous ces<br />
livres je las avais, mais M. Dmitry me les a chipés, car il a l'intention d'écrire sur cette<br />
petite fille aussi. 114<br />
Evidence that most clearly links the dedication to Teresa is found in yet another<br />
poem written by Gippius near Catholic Christmas. Dated December 23, 1925 in the<br />
manuscript, the poem was published in the Warsaw-based newspaper За свободу! in<br />
1929 under the title "24 декабря." Here, Gippius clearly reveals the "ты" of "24<br />
декабря" as Saint Teresa, placing the text in between her poem, "St. Thérèse de l'Enfant<br />
Jésus" and a short article about Teresa titled "Любимая." Gippius included the poem in<br />
Сияния, but under a new title, "Втайне" ("In Secret"). In Сияния "Втайне" directly<br />
precedes "St. Thérèse de l'Enfant Jésus," but, in the larger context of the book and with<br />
the altered, "secret" title, the connection is not immediately apparent.<br />
Сегодня имя твое я скрою,<br />
И вслух—другим—не назову,<br />
Но ты услышишь, что я с тобою.<br />
Опять тобой—одной—живу.<br />
На влажном небе Звезда огромней,<br />
Дрожат—струясь—ее края.<br />
И в ночь смотрю я, и сердце помнит,<br />
Что эта ночь—твоя, твоя!<br />
Дай вновь увидеть родные очи,<br />
Взглянуть в их глубь—и ширь—и синь.<br />
Земное сердце великой Ночью<br />
В его тоске—о, не покинь!<br />
И всё жаднее, всё неуклонней<br />
Оно зовет—одну—тебя.<br />
Возьми же сердце мое в ладони,<br />
Согрей,—утишь,—утешь, любя...<br />
Today I hide your name,<br />
114 Pachmuss, Intellect, 537.<br />
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And aloud to others I do not name you,<br />
But you will hear that I am with you<br />
Again I live by you alone.<br />
In the damp sky the Star is more enormous,<br />
Its edges, streaming, flicker.<br />
And I look into the night, and my heart remembers<br />
That this night is yours, yours!<br />
Let me see again your familial eyes,<br />
Let me look into their depth—into their expanse and blueness.<br />
The earthly heart in the great Night<br />
In its despair—oh, do not abandon it!<br />
All the more greedily, all the more steadfastly,<br />
It calls you alone.<br />
Take my heart in your palms,<br />
Warm it, quiet it, console it, lovingly…<br />
The title and first stanza clearly echo the epigraph of Сияния. The name of the addressee<br />
is again kept secret, however a few clues as to the identity of the unnamed "ты" are<br />
given: she is grammatically marked as feminine in the fourth and fourteenth lines and<br />
she is presented as something otherworldly, heavenly. The poet, with a heart tied to the<br />
earth (земное сердце), looks up into the sky hoping to see her beloved. A similar<br />
distance is expressed in the epigraph—water from the heights of the mountains assuages<br />
the brutal heat of the earth.<br />
Despite this physical separation between the я and the ты, certain elements link<br />
them closely together in "Втайне." The poet desires to look into the addressee's familiar<br />
eyes (родные очи), suggesting that Gippius and Teresa are from the same "clan" (род) or<br />
family. As in the epigraph, the poet claims the addressee's constant presence. Here,<br />
however, the poet inverts the relationship. Whereas in the epigraph, Teresa was always<br />
with the poet (всегда...ты со мною), here the poet is always with Teresa (я с тобою).<br />
While clearly still relying on Teresa, asking for her consolation and love, the poet<br />
93
suggests the reciprocity of the relationship. The two are always together, each with the<br />
other, as if equal or even interchangeable.<br />
This sense of equality and similarity clearly drew Gippius to Teresa. In her 1929<br />
article "Любимая" she stresses their contemporaneity. 115<br />
Not only the full period of<br />
Teresa's life (1873-1897), but even her canonization (1925), usually a long drawn-out<br />
process, falls fully within Gippius's lifetime. Thus, Gippius has indeed been present<br />
throughout Teresa's physical and spiritual life. Gippius describes the great speed with<br />
which Teresa was canonized, crediting not the Roman Catholic church, but the thousands<br />
of devoted followers who already pray before her altars. Teresa lived only yesterday<br />
(Она жила «вчера»)—the sisters of her convent, and her actual familial older sisters<br />
have survived her and brought about her canonization.<br />
According to Gippius, Teresa attracted such a loyal and immediate following<br />
precisely because of her accessibility and contemporaneity: "они полюбили Терезу,<br />
поверили ей,—и почувствовали ее своей; такой близкой, как будто равной, и в то<br />
же время такой любимой Богом, что для нее Он все сделает. К Терезе же совсем<br />
просто можно обращаться—к своей-то!" 116<br />
While Gippius is describing Teresa's<br />
immediate followers, the ones who brought about her canonization, clearly she includes<br />
herself among them when claiming Teresa's kinship. She too can relate to Teresa simply<br />
and directly, as someone both equal and especially loved by God—both near and distant.<br />
115 While Gippius originally published this article in 1929, she returned to it at the time of the composition<br />
of Сияния. She sent a copy to Gerell in a letter dated January 22, 1934 (just over two weeks after sending<br />
her the letter about Teresa and Christmas), in order to explain further her love for Teresa. She also<br />
indicated her plans to send a French translation of the article to Teresa's sister Pauline who, at the time, was<br />
still the prioress of the Carmelite convent in Lisieux. Pachmuss, Intellect, 538.<br />
116 Zinaida Gippius, "Liubimaia," Za svobodu!, no. 135 (26 May 1929), 3.<br />
94
Gippius expresses this paradox of closeness and distance most explicitly in the<br />
poem "St. Thérèse de L'Enfant Jésus" which accompanies the article "Любимая" and "24<br />
декабря" in За свободу! and which follows "Втайне" in Сияния:<br />
Девочка маленькая, чужая,<br />
Девочка с розами, мной не виденная,<br />
Ты знаешь всё, ничего не зная,<br />
Тебе знакомы пути неиденные—<br />
Приди ко мне из горнего края,<br />
Сердцу дай ответ, неспокойному...<br />
Милая девочка, чужая, родная,<br />
Приди к неизвестному, недостойному...<br />
Она не судит, она простая,<br />
Желанье сердца она услышит,<br />
Розы ее такою чистою,<br />
Такой нежной радостью дышат...<br />
О, будь со мною, чужая, родная,<br />
Роза розовая, многолистая...<br />
Little girl, a stranger<br />
A girl with roses, unseen by me,<br />
You know everything, knowing nothing,<br />
Untraveled paths are familiar to you—<br />
Come to me from the mountain region,<br />
Give my troubled heart an answer…<br />
Dear girl, stranger, relative,<br />
Come to an unknown, unworthy one….<br />
She does not judge, she is simple,<br />
She will hear the desire of my heart,<br />
Her roses radiate such pure<br />
Such tender joy…<br />
O, be with me, stranger, relative<br />
The rose-colored rose, many-leafed….<br />
Teresa, a stranger (чужая), is again physically distant, invisible to the poet and inhabiting<br />
a higher realm. As in the epigraph in which Teresa is described as mountain water<br />
(горная вода), the poet calls her down from the mountain region (из горнего края) to<br />
95
her unknown, unworthy self. 117<br />
Spiritually, however, the poet feels a close connection<br />
with Teresa, her relative (родная). She is inspired by her childlike simplicity and purity,<br />
her ability to know without knowing, to hear the call of another's heart instinctively. In a<br />
letter to Georgii Adamovich dated September 5, 1928, Gippius described her constant<br />
desire for a similar simplicity in her poetry. Hindered by her time and her struggle<br />
against the prevailing "isms" of her day, she realized she would never achieve such<br />
simplicity, but she strove for it all the same:<br />
с самого начала (допотопно) я стремилась прочь от всякого «декадентства»,<br />
отрекалась от него, издевалась над ним, объявляла и проповедовала<br />
«простоту» (историческая информация для вас). Мое время было, однако,<br />
очень трудное, бороться за простоту приходилось на два фронта, т.е. прежде<br />
всего, против П.Я., Надсона и т.д., а тут же и против фиолетовых рук на<br />
эмалевой стене. [...] Так вот, время и школа не могли не повредить моей<br />
сознательной воле к «простоте», которой я уже теперь не достигну, хотя<br />
стремиться к ней не перестану. 118<br />
This struggle for simplicity in poetic form is a symptom of her larger quest for spiritual<br />
simplicity as embodied by Teresa:<br />
даже моя влюбленность в маленькую Терезу—а у нас с ней свои отношения—<br />
из того же источника: влечение к «простому» и простоте, к сиянию «enfance<br />
spirituelle», к самому высокому, потому что в малом. Да, тут не Толстой вам, с<br />
его сложнейшей вязью и пере-пере-вывертами,—до опустошения и боговыгона,<br />
в конце концов (прекрасная статья Маклакова а Совр. Зап.), самообманная<br />
простота; тут иное. 119<br />
Here Gippius equates Teresa's simplicity with the "radiance of 'spiritual childhood,"<br />
directly connecting the word "сияние" to Teresa. Her life-long journey toward radiant<br />
simplicity, both in her poetry and her spiritual life, defines the progressive movement of<br />
Сияния, where radiances and Teresa are again closely linked.<br />
117 Сияния includes other poems about mysterious feminine figures from the mountains, for example the<br />
two poem cycle, "Ей в горах," originally dedicated to Berberova.<br />
118 Pachmuss, Intellect, 382.<br />
119 Ibid., 383.<br />
96
Gippius's deliberate struggle toward simplicity (сознательная воля к<br />
«простоте»), however, can never achieve Teresa's innocent and pure faith. Instead, like<br />
the hyper-conscious Tolstoy, Gippius twists back and forth in her poetry between faith<br />
and despair—throughout her career, but particularly in the carefully conceived and<br />
constructed Сияния. The tragedy for Gippius, however, is that she, unlike Tolstoy,<br />
remains undeceived. She recognizes the true ideal in Teresa, asks for her help and<br />
presence throughout the book, but ultimately retreats, as will become evident in the<br />
discussion of the final poem in the book, "Домой."<br />
Gippius concludes her article in За свободу! with a description of Teresa's<br />
crowning achievement—the discovery of her own spiritual path:<br />
Никаких видимых героических подвигов у Терезы нет. Нет у нее и никаких<br />
ослепительных экстазов. Но у нее есть свой духовный путь. «Это моя<br />
маленькая тропинка к Богу», говорит она, «маленькая потому, что я сама<br />
маленькая; верная, прямая тропинка, и такая простая, что всем по силам,<br />
каждому, если он даже мал и слаб, как я"… 120<br />
Long before ever hearing of Teresa, Gippius had pursued her own spiritual path, striving<br />
to form a new church, the true Christian church, with her husband and Dmitrii Filosofov.<br />
Here, many years later, and after the Cause had been formally abandoned, she has found<br />
a spiritual exemplar who can serve as an inspiration for her own spiritual quest. While<br />
Merezhkovsky will use Teresa's example to support further the case for the Third<br />
Church, 121 Gippius will take a more personal approach, describing the extreme highs and<br />
120 Gippius, "Liubimaia," 3.<br />
121 In his biographical novel Маленькая Тереза, Merezhkovsky promotes Teresa as a continuer of Luther's<br />
reforms and a direct heir to Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross. She furthers their work by<br />
subconsciously acknowledging and embracing the Third Church: Маленькая Тереза, сама того не<br />
сознавая, и перешла из старой Церкви Римской в новую, Вселенскую. Первая точка этого перехода<br />
и есть свидание с Папой. Здесь же начинается и путь ее к тому великому делу всей жизни ее и<br />
святости, в котором силою тишайшей, не только миру, но и ей самой неслышимой, невидимой,<br />
изменит она круговращение земли так, что взойдет над нею новое солнце—Третье Царство Трех.<br />
Dmitrii Merezhkovsii, Malen'kaia Tereza (Ann Arbor: Ermitazh, 1984), 125.<br />
97
lows of her spiritual journey in Сияния as a parallel journey to Teresa's. 122<br />
Like Teresa,<br />
(как я), Gippius will struggle with doubt and despair on her individual path—a path<br />
which, like Teresa's, strives towards sainthood and resurrection.<br />
A trinity of poems: "Рождение," "Вечноженственное," and "Женскость"<br />
Sainthood and resurrection are manifestations of the poet's ultimate goal in<br />
Сияния—the unification of heaven and earth. Teresa is only one incarnation of the ideal,<br />
but, because of her closeness to Gippius, she provides particular inspiration and hope.<br />
The larger implications of Teresa's spiritual path are evident in two poems which are<br />
placed near the beginning of the book, "Рождение," and "Вечноженственное." Like<br />
"Втайне," "Рождение" is a Christmas poem: 123<br />
Беги, беги, пещерная вода,<br />
Как пенье звонкая, как пламя чистая.<br />
Гори, гори, небесная звезда,<br />
Многоконечная, многолучистая.<br />
Дыши, дыши, прильни к Нему нежней,<br />
Святая, радостная, ночь безлунная...<br />
В тебе рожденного онежь, угрей,<br />
Солома легкая, золоторунная...<br />
Несите вести, звездные мечи,<br />
Туда, туда, где шевелится мга,<br />
Где кровью черной облиты снега,<br />
Несите вести, острые лучи.<br />
На край земли, на самый край, туда—<br />
Что родилась Свобода трехвенечная<br />
И что горит восходная Звезда,<br />
Многоочитая, многоконечная...<br />
Run, run, cave water<br />
Like sonorous singing, like a pure flame.<br />
Burn, burn, heavenly star,<br />
Many-pointed, many-rayed.<br />
122 Gippius describes this difference in approach in the January 22, 1934 letter to Gerell: Je suis bien<br />
contente que M. Dmitry s'intéresse à des saints aussi enfin. Mais certes nous nous y prenons un peu<br />
différemment. Ce n'est pas mon »travail«, c'est ma contemplation. Pachmuss, Intellect, 540.<br />
123 "Рождение" is dated December 24th in the actual text of Сияния.<br />
98
Breathe, breathe, cling to Him more tenderly,<br />
Holy, joyful, moonless night...<br />
Be tender, warm the newborn within you,<br />
Light, golden-fleeced straw...<br />
Spread the news, starry swords,<br />
There, there, where the gloom stirs,<br />
Where the snows are glazed with black blood,<br />
Spread the news, sharp rays.<br />
To the end of the earth, the very end, there—<br />
That three-crowned Freedom has been born<br />
And that a rising Star burns,<br />
Many-eyed, many-pointed...<br />
In addition to the Christmas date, several links can be made between "Рождение" and<br />
Gippius's poems about Teresa. Gippius uses many of the multiple subjects and<br />
addressees of "Рождение" to describe Teresa elsewhere: the cave water of the first line<br />
resembles the refreshing mountain water of the epigraph; the heavenly burning star of the<br />
third line recalls the enormous Star of "Втайне"; the night, which belongs to Teresa in<br />
"Втайнe," is called upon to caress and warm the newborn, just as Teresa, also in<br />
"Втайне," is asked to "warm, quiet, and console" the poet (Согрей,—утишь,—утешь,<br />
любя...). The various attributes given to the feminine subjects of "Рождение" (чистая,<br />
радостная, нежная) are also applied to Teresa. While these adjectives are relatively<br />
common, an unusual echo is found between the attributes of the star in "Рождение"<br />
(многоконечная, многоочитая, and most particularly многолучистая) and the manyleafed<br />
(многолистая) rose of Teresa in "St. Thérèse de l'Enfant Jésus." The leaves of<br />
Teresa's rose reach out from its rosy (i.e. absolute, pure) core in multiple directions, just<br />
as the many points, eyes, and rays shine out of the star in "Рождение." Both the star and<br />
the rose are able to share their purity and holiness by means of this radiant reach.<br />
In "Втайне," December 24 is not so much the night of Christ's birth as the night<br />
of Teresa's rebirth—her spiritual awakening: И в ночь смотрю я, и сердце<br />
99
помнит,/Что эта ночь—твоя, твоя! 124<br />
Similarly, "Рождение" points beyond the<br />
traditional Christmas story. While the poem clearly acknowledges the birth of Christ,<br />
naming him by means of the capitalized masculine pronoun in line five (Нему) and<br />
referring to the newborn in line seven (новорожденного), it does not center on him.<br />
Christ, in fact, is presented solely as an object who receives tenderness and warmth. The<br />
active subjects providing this love are all feminine (вода, звезда, ночь, солома). It is<br />
not the birth of Christ, or the Son of God, which is announced in the final lines of the<br />
poem, but the birth of a wholly feminine "three-crowned Freedom."<br />
The significance of the trinity to Gippius's worldview is well-known. In her<br />
memoir of Merezhkovsky, she describes the summer of 1905 when she first realized what<br />
was to become her idée fixe—the seemingly obvious "trichotomous structure of the<br />
world" (тройственное устройство мира). Within this system, one represents the<br />
individual, two the merging of two individuals in love, and three the plurality or<br />
community in which neither one nor two is lost. 125<br />
Merezhkovsky later developed this<br />
idea into the religious dialectic that would occupy him throughout his life. For him, the<br />
first stage of the Trinity was the realm of God the Father, the Old Testament and the past;<br />
the second stage the realm of God the Son, the New Testament and the present; the third<br />
and final stage, to be disclosed in the future, would entail the Third Testament and be<br />
embodied by the Holy Spirit in the form of an Eternal Woman-Mother. 126<br />
For Gippius,<br />
this new church required a new degree of human freedom. While the path of salvation,<br />
124 December 24th was an important date in Gippius's life as well. In her diary, Серый блокнот, she notes<br />
it as the actual day in 1919 when she and Merezhkovsky left Petrograd and headed toward their new life in<br />
emigration. Gippius, Dnevniki, vol. 2, 279.<br />
125 Gippius, Dmitrii Merezhkovskii (Paris: YMCA Press, 1951), 137-9.<br />
126 Temira Pachmuss, Zinaida Hippius: An Intellectual Profile (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern<br />
Illinois University Press, 1971), 104. Temira Pachmuss, Merezhkovsky in Exile: the Master of the Genre<br />
of Biographie Romancée (New York: Peter Lang, 1990), 189-90.<br />
100
evealed by the Church and the saints, is open to all, it is up to the individual to make the<br />
choice and to follow his own path. In making this choice, the individual will not be lost<br />
within the communal ideal, but will instead be freed—capable of both communion and<br />
selfhood. 127<br />
The birth of "three-crowned Freedom" in "Рождение" thus represents the<br />
fulfillment of Merezhkovsky's and Gippius's prophecies. Beyond the birth of Christ,<br />
"Рождение" signals the rebirth or resurrection of the Christian Church. In the realization<br />
of the Third Testament, Heaven and Earth will be miraculously united—all antitheses (of<br />
sex and asceticism, individualism and sociality, slavery and freedom, atheism and<br />
religiosity, hatred and love) will be resolved. 128<br />
"Рождение" was written four years before "Втайне" and "St. Thérèse de l'Enfant<br />
Jésus." 129<br />
Gippius does not mention Teresa or any other female figure explicitly in the<br />
poem, yet the prominence of feminine nouns, particularly the culminating capitalized<br />
"Свобода" and "Звезда," creates a strong feminine presence. This feminine role will<br />
take on a stronger, more personal force when the abstract nouns of "Рождение" are<br />
exchanged for the names of Teresa, other individual women, and the familiar pronoun<br />
"ты" later in Сияния. This movement toward specificity—toward an identification with<br />
or exploration of individual spiritual paths—is typical of Gippius. Unlike her husband,<br />
127 See Matich, Paradox, 49 and Pachmuss, Merezhkovsky in Exile, 64-5. In addition to Merezhkovsky's<br />
global dialectic, Gippius found local and personal manifestations of the trinity, or "Three in One." She<br />
described her spiritual group—Merezhkovsky, Filosofov and herself—as a trinity; each retained his or her<br />
individuality and independence, yet together they created something larger than themselves. See Matich,<br />
Paradox, 27.<br />
128 Pachmuss, Merezhkovsky in Exile, 58.<br />
129 "Рождение" is dated December 24, 1920 and is the second-oldest poem included in Сияния. It could<br />
have been included in Gippius's previous book, Стихи. Дневник (1911-1921), but it resonates much more<br />
closely with her life after her emigration to France in 1920, particularly her newfound love for Teresa.<br />
101
she is more concerned with her own spiritual journey, her own realization of God, than<br />
with the historical evolution of a new church for all humanity.<br />
Were it not for the many echoes found in the later poems about Teresa,<br />
"Рождение," one of only a handful of poems in the book which do not incorporate the<br />
poet's "я," might seem too impersonal for the overall tone of Сияния. The formulation<br />
"трехвенечная Свобода" seems to resemble Merezhkovsky's dialectic or the formal<br />
prayers invoked by Gippius, Merezhkovsky, and Filosofov at the time of the Cause more<br />
than the highly personalized, emotional language of Сияния as a whole. 130<br />
By means of<br />
these echoes, however, and particularly by dating the poem December 24th in the text,<br />
Gippius connects it to the later poems. Within the context of Сияния, a poem such as<br />
"Втайне," later both in terms of time of writing and position within the book, can now<br />
inform the earlier poem, "Рождение." The birth of "Рождение" could thus be read as the<br />
birth of Gippius's spiritual journey. The impersonal yet feminine Freedom leads her<br />
toward Teresa and other individual manifestations of the eternal feminine. Ultimately<br />
these figures lead her along her own spiritual path towards her own resurrection.<br />
A clear turn towards this personal path is evident in the seventh poem of Сияния,<br />
"Вечноженственное" ("The Eternal Feminine"), in which Gippius strives to celebrate<br />
and emulate the ideal, an unnamable feminine entity: 131<br />
Каким мне коснуться словом<br />
Белых одежд Ее?<br />
С каким озареньем новым<br />
Слить Ее бытие?<br />
О, ведомы мне земные<br />
Все твои имена:<br />
Сольвейг, Тереза, Мария...<br />
130 Pachmuss, Merezhkovsky in Exile, 68-9.<br />
131 This poem was originally dedicated to Nina Berberova. See Nina Berberova, Kursiv moi (Moscow:<br />
Soglasie, 2001), 287.<br />
102
Все они—ты Одна.<br />
Молюсь и люблю... Но мало<br />
Любви, молитв к тебе.<br />
Твоим—твоей от начала<br />
Хочу пребыть в себе,<br />
Чтоб сердце тебе отвечало—<br />
Сердце—в себе самом,<br />
Чтоб Нежная узнавала<br />
Свой чистый образ в нем...<br />
И будут пути иные,<br />
Иной любви пора.<br />
Сольвейг, Тереза, Мария,<br />
Невеста-Мать-Сестра!<br />
With what word can I touch<br />
Her white garments?<br />
With what new illumination<br />
Can I fuse Her being?<br />
O, known to me are<br />
All your earthly names:<br />
Solveig, Teresa, Mary…<br />
All of them—are you Alone.<br />
I pray and love… But there is too little<br />
Love, too few prayers to you.<br />
Masculinely and femininely yours from the beginning 132<br />
I want to abide in myself,<br />
So that my heart will answer you—<br />
My heart—in its very self,<br />
So that the Tender One will recognize<br />
Her pure image in it...<br />
And there will be other paths,<br />
A time of other love.<br />
Solveig, Teresa, Maria...<br />
Bride-Mother-Sister!<br />
Unlike "Рождение," this poem reveals much about Gippius herself. The first lines mark<br />
her as a poet—she wishes to touch and illuminate the Eternal Feminine with words. As<br />
in the title poem, "Сиянья," however, she realizes the impossibility of the task. The<br />
radiance of God is beyond her reach as a human poet and cannot be named in human<br />
words. As a result, Gippius refers directly to the Eternal Feminine only by the nameless<br />
132 This line is Pachmuss's translation, Merezhkovsky in Exile, 275.<br />
103
pronouns она and ты. She can, however, approach her by way of her earthly<br />
manifestations, the trinity of Maria, Teresa, and Solveig. Together, these human<br />
incarnations create a larger three-fold unity, a Three-in-One (Все они—ты Одна).<br />
Together, they encompass the multiple roles of the feminine—Bride, Mother, and Sister.<br />
Gippius's choice of Solveig, the heroine of Ibsen's dramatic poem Peer Gynt, for<br />
her earthly trinity continues to reveal her own personal history. Gippius compared<br />
Solveig's faithful love for Peer Gynt throughout his roguish travels to her own constant<br />
love for Filosofov after their final split in the 1920's. At the end of Ibsen's play, when<br />
Peer Gynt asks where his true self has been during all the years of his misdaventures,<br />
Solveig, both his mother and his bride, replies: "Here—in my faith, my hope, and in my<br />
love." 133<br />
In Коричневая тетрадь, Gippius, despite her doubts and despair, wanted to<br />
provide the same answer to Filosofov: Не знаю, дойду ли до этого, но хочу дойти. До<br />
полной реализации того, что ты не погиб, что ты живешь—со мной, в моем сердце<br />
(больном), именно ты единственный, ты сам. «Где был я, я сам?—тревожно, в<br />
роковую минуту, спрашивает Петр Гюнт. И для него, как для тебя есть это место.<br />
Не бойся. 134<br />
After she learned about Filosofov's death in 1940 she again recalled<br />
Solveig, envying her pure faith: Чего бы проще, кажется, говорить, как Сольвейг:<br />
«Где б ни был ты—Господь тебя храни,/А если ты уж там—к тебе приду я»... Да,<br />
приду. А если не приду—ведь я этого не узнаю... Но мысль, что не приду и не<br />
узнаю... Gippius longed to believe as clearly as Solveig, yet doubts constantly tormented<br />
her. While her faith was often in question, her love was not: вера—всякая, даже не моя<br />
133 Henrik Ibsen, Peer Gynt, trans. Gerry Bamman and Irene B. Berman (New York: Theatre<br />
Communications Group, 1992), 238.<br />
134 Gippius, Dnevniki, vol. 2, 353. Emphasis Gippius's.<br />
104
ничтожная, а большая,—всегда слабее любви. 135<br />
Thus she held up Solveig, for whom<br />
faith and love are equally unshakeable, as a spiritual model.<br />
Another personal aspect of Gippius is found in the androgynous language of lines<br />
11 and 12: Твоим—твоей от начала/Хочу пребыть в себе. Stemming from Plato's<br />
Symposium, the idealization of the androgyne fascinated Russian writers at the turn of the<br />
century. Decadent and symbolist writers explored androgynous relationships in their<br />
poetry and prose; Merezkhovsky purported a belief in the androgynous nature of Christ<br />
and God. Beyond these poetic and metaphysical explorations, however, Gippius<br />
acknowledged androgyny in her own life, viewing herself as inherently both masculine<br />
and feminine—one of the seemingly unresolvable splits in Gippius's psyche. In the<br />
September 14, 1900 entry of Contes d'amour she wrote: "I do not desire exclusive<br />
femininity, just as I do not desire exclusive masculinity. Each time someone is insulted<br />
and dissatisfied within me; with women, my femininity is active, with men—my<br />
masculinity! In my thoughts, my desires, in my spirit—I am more a man; in my body—I<br />
am more a woman. Yet they are so fused together that I know nothing." 136<br />
In<br />
"Вечноженственное," the poet attempts to resolve this divide, to fuse both aspects of her<br />
being within herself. Both her masculinity and femininity stem from the Eternal<br />
Feminine (твоим—твоей от начала), and can be resolved in Her presence. This fusion<br />
will take place in her heart, not her head—it will be a pure spiritual moment rather than<br />
an intellectual one, and it will lead her towards new paths, a new love and a new life.<br />
135 Ibid., 512. Emphasis, Gippius's. This tendency to rely on faith over love is also typical of Teresa, who<br />
wrote of her spiritual crises throughout Histoire d'une âme.<br />
136 Temira Pachmuss, Between Paris and St. Petersburg: Selected Diaries of Zinaida Hippius (Urbana:<br />
University of Illinois Press, 1975), 77.<br />
105
This emphasis on the future is also typical of Gippius. She writes of what she<br />
desires, of what will be. Her poetry is guided by what Olga Matich calls "dynamic<br />
faith"—the constant journey towards God, without ever realizing Him fully. It is only<br />
after death that God can be fully known. In her article "Влюбленность," she wrote: Так<br />
же, как мир, Бог, правда, жизнь—никогда нами не могут быть познаны, но лишь<br />
все более и более познаваемы, так не узнаем мы и этой тайны. Знание есть конец,<br />
смерть, или порог безвременья, иной жизни; познавание—жизнь мира, движение во<br />
времени. 137<br />
In the journey from "Рождение" to "Вечноженственное," God has indeed<br />
become more knowable to Gippius. Now approaching Him from her own personal<br />
experience by means of her private trinity of Mary, Teresa and Solveig, she has moved<br />
from the impersonal announcement of the birth of a new faith to her own private quest for<br />
God—a quest which, she knows, will never find resolution on earth.<br />
Not only is it unrealizable, but in seeking it, Gippius will continuously face<br />
obstacles, primarily in the form of doubts. 138<br />
In Сияния Gippius often expresses this<br />
alternation between doubt and faith in the placement of her poems, one of the clearest<br />
examples being the separation of "Рождение" and "Вечноженственное" (the fifth and<br />
seventh poems in the book respectively) by a poem of worldly despair and cynicism,<br />
"Женскость." After proclaiming the birth of the religious ideal in "Рождение," Gippius<br />
falls back to earth in "Женскость" before embarking upon her personal quest for<br />
godliness in "Вечноженственное."<br />
137 Gippius, Dnevniki, vol. 1, 265. Matich contrasts Gippius's dynamic faith to Merezhkovsky's static<br />
solutions: "Unlike Merežkovskij, who views such notions as vlublennost' and consecrated flesh as static<br />
philosophical concepts or as mysteries which must be solved, Gippius emphasizes the significance of the<br />
process involved." Matich, Paradox, 74.<br />
138 Her "dynamic faith can be characterized by the alternation of doubt and hope that the divine revelation<br />
will take place." Matich, Paradox, 37.<br />
106
Падающие, падающие линии...<br />
Женская душа бессознательна,<br />
Много ли нужно ей?<br />
Будьте же, как буду отныне я,<br />
К женщине тихо-внимательны,<br />
И ласковей, и нежней.<br />
Женская душа—пустынная,<br />
Знает ли, какая холодная,<br />
Знает ли, как груба?<br />
Утешайте же душу невинную,<br />
Обманите, что она свободная...<br />
Всё равно она будет раба.<br />
Falling, falling lines…<br />
A woman's soul is unconscious,<br />
Does it need much?<br />
But be, as I will be from now on,<br />
Quietly attentive to woman,<br />
And more affectionate, and more tender.<br />
A woman's soul is empty,<br />
Does it know how cold,<br />
Does it know how crude?<br />
But console the innocent soul,<br />
Deceive her that it is free…<br />
All the same it will be a slave.<br />
The disdainful tone of "Женскость" clearly jars with the reverential<br />
announcement of the birth of Freedom in "Рождение." In fact, this birth appears to be<br />
ironized: the freedom of "Рождение" is denied the female soul in "Женскость"; woman<br />
will be deceived into believing she is free, when in fact she is forever a slave. The poet,<br />
while acknowledging the gross and empty 139 nature of the female soul, vows to treat her<br />
more tenderly and attentively, again fooling her into a sense of contentment. This "more<br />
139 Gippius's use of the adjective "пустынная" in describing the female soul provides a sharp contrast to<br />
previously discussed comparisons of Teresa to cool, mountain water.<br />
107
tender" treatment ironically echoes the sincere call to approach the Son of God in<br />
"Рождение" more tenderly (нежней—in both cases an end rhyme).<br />
This reversal of tone and purpose in "Женскость" is revealed formally as well.<br />
The final line of "Рождение" rises rhythmically with three and four syllables leading up<br />
to the two stresses of the iambic line: Mnogoochítaia, mnogokonéchnaia. By way of<br />
contrast, the first line of "Женскость" "falls" rhythmically from three initial stresses:<br />
"Pádaiushchie, pádaiushchie línii…" In moving from "Рождение" to "Женскость"<br />
Gippius has similarly fallen from the heavenly realms of paradise to the crudeness of life<br />
on earth. This fall, like the fall of Eve, is representative of the "falling lines" of women<br />
everywhere. 140<br />
Their unconscious, uninhabited souls are incapable of realizing the truth<br />
of God, just announced in "Рождение." Despite their apparent freedom after the fall,<br />
they remain slaves to their incomprehension.<br />
The word "женскость," apparently a neologism created by Gippius, suggests the<br />
helplessness, incomprehension, and disloyalty of the female sex. 141<br />
In Черное по<br />
белому, published in 1908, Gippius included a story entitled "Вечная женскость" about<br />
a student, Ivan, who is abandoned by his wife, Varya. She leaves him for a tenor who has<br />
promised to rent her a room so that she can be free. Despite her betrayal, Ivan has<br />
forgiven her and wishes to help her. He has come to the realization that it is in her nature<br />
as a woman to betray him—doomed by her женскость, she is, in fact, innocent, as is the<br />
140 This emphasis on falling was even more evident when the poem was first published in 1927 under the<br />
title "Падающее."<br />
141 As K.M. Azadovskii and A.V. Lavrov point out, the negative traits associated with женскость are<br />
limited to a certain type of woman.: Характерно, что объектом «ненависти» Гиппиус в ее<br />
произведениях становится далеко не любая женщина, а лишь та, что погружена в «быт», охвачена<br />
«неизменной чувственностью». И наоборот: Гиппиус создала целый ряд возвышенных женских<br />
образов, несущих символическую нагрузку. From K.M. Azadovskii and A.V. Lavrov's introductory<br />
article to Zinaida Gippius, Sochineniia: Stikhotvoreniia. Proza. (Leningrad: Khudozhestvennaia<br />
literatura, 1991), 17-18.<br />
108
feminine soul (невинная душа) of the poem. When his mother does not understand or<br />
condone his act of forgiveness, he comes to the following conclusion: "she, too, was one<br />
of those creatures who are given to the world but whom it is not given for others to<br />
understand; one of those creatures who are not endowed with a capacity to understand,<br />
for his mother, too, was—a woman." 142<br />
Ivan recognizes the signs of this inescapable<br />
"женскость" even in the eyes of his little sister, Lena: Her "two beautiful, dark eyes,<br />
intelligent in their own way, righteous, wonderful, yet mysterious, and perfect in their<br />
own undying mysteriousness, glanced at him. They were the eyes of a creature whom<br />
everyone has agreed to consider and to call a human being, and everyone actually does<br />
call her that, trying to regard her as a human being, although from this designation<br />
nothing but suffering and pain results for anyone." 143<br />
Still a child, Lena has not yet been<br />
fully corrupted by her "женскость." Her beautiful mysteriousness could lead to<br />
something greater than human nature, perhaps an aspect of the eternal feminine. 144<br />
In<br />
Ivan's view, however, she seems doomed to the fate of his mother and his wayward<br />
wife. 145<br />
142 Zinaida Gippius, "The Eternal Woman" in Selected Works of Zinaida Hippius, trans. and ed. Temira<br />
Pachmuss (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1972), 165. Page numbers for subsequent quotations from<br />
the story will be noted in parentheses in the text. For the Russian text, see Zinaida Gippius, Chernoe po<br />
belomu (Book V of Short Stories. Reprint edition.), (Newtonville, MA: Oriental Research Partners, 1977),<br />
108-123.<br />
143 Ibid., 164.<br />
144 I.L Savkina discusses the commonality of Gippius's seemingly opposite descriptions of femininity:<br />
"интерпретация природы женственного остается у Гиппиус неизменной—как в презрительно<br />
ироническом, так и в возвышенно-символическом контекстах." For example, the emptiness of<br />
женскость can be seen as the purity of женственность. I.L. Savkina, "Obraz Bogomateri i problema<br />
ideal'no zhenskogo v russkoi zhenskoi poezii XX veka," Preobrazhenie (Russkii feministskii zhurnal) 3<br />
(1995): http://www.a-z.ru/women/texts/savkinar.htm#. This positive nature of desertedness is evident in<br />
Gippius's 1896 poem, "Любовь моя—одна": Однообразно и пустынно,/ Однообразием<br />
сильна,/Проходит жизнь... И в жизни длинной/Любовь одна, всегда одна.<br />
145 Gippius treats the infidelity of Bunin's mistress, Galina Nikolaevna Kuznetsova, in a similar way. While<br />
Kuznetsova appears to exercise her freedom by leaving Bunin for the singer Margo Kovtun, she remains a<br />
slave to her passion. In a 1927 letter to Berberova, Gippius writes about Kuznetsova, "Да, вы правы: все<br />
равно она будет раба." Zinaida Gippius, Pis'ma k Berberovoi i Khodasevichu (Ann Arbor: Ardis, 1978),<br />
23.<br />
109
This enslaved "creature" of both "Вечная женскость" and "Женскость" provides<br />
an absolute contrast to the three-crowned Freedom of "Рождение." By placing these<br />
poems next to each other, Gippius demonstrates the tremendous vacillations of her faith<br />
and spirit. In "Вечноженственное" Gippius attempts to reconcile these opposites within<br />
her own spiritual journey. She strives to escape the banal "женскость" of her earthly life<br />
and to approach the perfection of the eternal feminine. These three poems form<br />
something of a trinity—a personalized dialectic. "Рождение" announces the goal of<br />
spiritual freedom; "Женскость" represents one of Gippius's many falls back to the cruel<br />
world; "Вечноженственное" describes Gippius's journey toward the truth of<br />
"Рождение," having experienced worldly "Женскость." The personalization of this<br />
journey is suggested in the gender of the poems' titles. The neuter titles of the positive<br />
poems, "Рождение" and "Вечноженственное," combine the masculine and the feminine<br />
and suggest the possibility for an androgyne like Gippius to reach the ideal of eternal<br />
femininity. Gippius reserves the feminine gender for the negative "Женскость" which<br />
represents her fallible, fickle, nature as an all-too-human woman. 146<br />
The obstacle of exile: "Неотступное" and "Южные стихи"<br />
In Сияния, Gippius's spiritual journey toward God is disrupted by her physical<br />
separation from her home, Russia. Gippius left no detailed record of her life in<br />
emigration, only occasionally keeping sporadic diaries, primarily of her first months in<br />
146 While grammatical gender often carries significance in Gippius's writing, it is particularly evident in the<br />
case of these titles. Gippius originally gave "Вечноженственное" a feminine title, "Вечная<br />
женственность," and "Женскость" was initially the neuter "Падающее." By changing the titles, she<br />
highlights the spiritual promise of the neuter while denigrating the feminine.<br />
110
Paris. 147<br />
She did, however, provide a glimpse into her personal experience of exile in a<br />
group of poems near the beginning of Сияния: "Неотступное" and the short cycle,<br />
"Южные стихи." These poems, unlike the angry, politically charged poetry written<br />
immediately after her emigration, highlight the poet's emotional response to Russia's fall,<br />
bringing together Gippius's spiritual path with that of Russia. In "Неотступное" the poet<br />
ties herself to Russia's fate, pleading persistently for her native land's regeneration.<br />
Trapped in the stagnant heat of her surroundings, she continues to linger in her despair in<br />
the first poems of the southern cycle. In the cycle's final poem, "Дождь," she finds some<br />
relief from her anguish, enabling a return to her journey of dynamic faith.<br />
Gippius explicitly names Russia just once in Сияния, in the book's eighth poem,<br />
"Неотступное," which immediately follows "Вечноженственное." 148<br />
In this poem, the<br />
poetic persona knocks tenaciously at the gates of Heaven, begging God to resurrect sinful<br />
Russia:<br />
………<br />
Отдай мне ту, кого люблю,<br />
Восстанови ее из праха!<br />
Верни ее под отчий кров,<br />
Пускай виновна—отпусти ей!<br />
Твой очистительный покров<br />
Простри над грешною Россией!<br />
И мне упрямому рабу,<br />
Увидеть дай ее, живую...<br />
Открой!<br />
Пока она в гробу,<br />
От двери Отчей не уйду я.<br />
147 In her biography of Merezhkovskii she wrote very little of their years in emigration: Мне особенно<br />
трудно писать об этих годах жизни Дм. С-ча и нашей, потому что я как раз в это время никакой<br />
последовательной записи не вела, кроме отрывочной, в первые месяцы после нашего приезда в<br />
Париж. Gippius, Dmitrii Merezhkovskii, 295. She did, however, briefly describe the feelings of loneliness<br />
and helplessness associated with emigration in this same memoir. Ibid., 295-6.<br />
148 Gippius names Petersburg in "Лазарь," one of the last poems of the book, which acts as an interesting<br />
counterpart to "Неотступное."<br />
111
................<br />
Give back to me the one I love,<br />
Restore her from the ashes!<br />
Return her under the father's protection,<br />
Even though she is guilty, let her free!<br />
Your purifying cover<br />
Spread out over sinful Russia!<br />
And let me, a stubborn slave,<br />
See her, alive…<br />
Open!<br />
As long as she is in the grave,<br />
I will not leave my Father's door.<br />
Here, the poet's urgent call is not only for the salvation of Russia, but for her own<br />
salvation as well. She needs to see Russia revived; she needs to have her beloved land<br />
returned to her. The poet's cry to free Russia despite its guilt could just as easily be<br />
applied to herself, the stubborn slave. Her fate depends on the restoration of Russia.<br />
Gippius follows "Неотступное" with "Южные стихи," a short cycle of four<br />
poems written between 1923 and 1926 which describes the poet's displacement in a<br />
southern climate, far from home. By the end of the cycle, the poet has moved away from<br />
the desperate tone of "Неотступное." Initially disturbed by the foreign surroundings,<br />
particularly the heat and motionless, clear skies, she eventually finds relief in rain.<br />
A larger cycle of six "Южные стихи" was originally published in Современные<br />
записки in 1924. 149<br />
In Сияния, Gippius kept three of those six poems, changing the<br />
names of two, and added a fourth. These deliberate changes all contribute to the integrity<br />
of the cycle within Сияния as a whole, highlighting connections between the poems and<br />
to the preceding poem, "Неотступное."<br />
149 Современные записки 18 (1924): 100-103<br />
112
In the first poem, "За что?," Gippius juxtaposes the beauty of her surroundings<br />
with the anguish of her soul:<br />
Качаются на луне<br />
Пальмовые перья.<br />
Жить хорошо ли мне,<br />
Как живу теперь я?<br />
Ниткой золотой светляки<br />
Пролетают, мигая.<br />
Как чаша, полна тоски<br />
Душа—до самого края.<br />
Морские дали—поля<br />
Бледно-серебряных лилий...<br />
Родная моя земля,<br />
За что тебя погубили?<br />
Palm fronds<br />
Rock in the moonlight.<br />
Is it good for me to live<br />
The way I do now?<br />
Like a golden thread fireflies<br />
Fly by, flickering.<br />
Like a chalice, my soul<br />
Is full of anguish—to the very brim.<br />
The expanses of sea are fields<br />
Of pale-silver lilies…<br />
My native land,<br />
Why were you destroyed?<br />
Each of the three quatrains divides neatly in half—the first two lines describing the clear<br />
and calm beauty of the southern twilight; the second two lines expressing the poet's<br />
despair in the face of this beauty. The palm fronds are foreign to her, only accentuating<br />
the poet's distance from her beloved native land. The clear skies reflected in the southern<br />
seas provide a contrast to Russia's ruin. It is not only not good for the poet to live as she<br />
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does now, in exile, but it is seemingly impossible. Her soul is tied to her native land,<br />
incapable of finding a place in the peaceful south.<br />
When initially published, the poem was titled "Сумерки," also suggesting the<br />
mixed nature of the poem—the light of the south and the darkness of Russia mingle<br />
together in the twilight, the convergence of day and night. The new title, however,<br />
focuses the reader's attention on the last lines of the poem which are concerned with the<br />
fate of the poet's native land. This emphasis on the final emotional, personal address<br />
connects "За что?" more directly with its antecedent, "Неотступное," and suggests that<br />
the poems which follow, while not making direct reference to Russia, are also informed<br />
by the poet's despair for her native land.<br />
In the second poem of the cycle, "Лягушка," the poet listens to a frog, imagining<br />
she might discover a new understanding of the world hidden in the frog's secret language.<br />
In the end, however, she rejects this foolish notion, blaming it on the murkiness of the<br />
southern night:<br />
Но я с досадой хлопаю окном:<br />
Всё это мара ночи южной<br />
С ее томительно-бессоным сном...<br />
Какая-то лягушка! Очень нужно!<br />
But with vexation, I slam the window shut:<br />
All this is just the murk of the southern night<br />
With its oppressively-sleepless sleep…<br />
Some frog! Very necessary!<br />
By slamming shut the window, the bridge between her internal and external worlds, 150<br />
the poet has, in effect, closed herself off to her spiritual life.<br />
150 Matich has described the image of the window in Gippius's poetry as a symbol of the poet's isolation or<br />
seclusion. It separates her from the rest of the world: "By virtue of the window, which is usually high<br />
above the ground, the poet is put into the position of a remote observer who looks at the outside world<br />
through her window-keyhole." Matich, Paradox, 89. While the window does indeed separate, it also<br />
114
The poet's spiritual weariness continues to be felt in the third poem of the cycle,<br />
"Жара." The unchanging clarity of the night sky oppresses her with its inevitability; the<br />
Milky Way is a stagnant river in the heat. The poet longs instead for the movement of<br />
clouds:<br />
О, тени Божьих мыслей,—облака!<br />
Я вас любил... И как о вас тоскую! 151<br />
Oh, shades of God's thoughts—clouds!<br />
I loved you…And how I long for you!<br />
In the context of this cycle, the absent, yet longed-for clouds can be seen as<br />
representative of the poet's native sky, turbulent yet alive, home to Gippius's dynamic<br />
faith. They will ultimately bring relief to the poet in the form of the rain of the cycle's<br />
final poem, "Дождь":<br />
И всё прошло: пожары, знои,<br />
И всё прошло,—и всё другое:<br />
Сереет влажно полог низкий.<br />
О, милый дождь! Шурши, шурши,<br />
Родные лепеты мне близки,<br />
Как слезы тихие души.<br />
And everything passed: fires, sultry days,<br />
And everything passed—and everything is different:<br />
The cover of night turns damply gray.<br />
Oh, dear rain! Babble, babble,<br />
Your native murmurs are close to me,<br />
Like quiet tears of the soul.<br />
In Сияния, Gippius replaced the poem's initial title, "Мелькнули дни," with "Дождь,"<br />
highlighting the connections to the previous poem, "Жара." With the rain of "Дождь,"<br />
the oppressive heat of "Жара" has been broken. The soul, filled to the brim with anguish<br />
provides an opening for communication between the poet's internal and external worlds. By slamming the<br />
window shut here, the poet cuts off this channel.<br />
151 These lines recall the opening lines of "Сиянья": Сиянье слов... Такое есть ли?/Сиянье звезд,<br />
сиянье облаков—/Я всё любил, люблю...<br />
115
in "За что?," can now release its quiet tears. The poet has discovered something familiar,<br />
even native in the sound of the rain. She has rediscovered her spiritual path, even in<br />
exile.<br />
Shortly after this cycle, Gippius placed the poem "Прорезы," originally written in<br />
1918 while Gippius was still living in Russia. In this poem, the poet again expresses her<br />
love for her native land:<br />
И я люблю мою родную Землю,<br />
Как мост, как путь в зазвездную страну.<br />
And I love my native Land,<br />
Like a bridge, a path to a country beyond the stars.<br />
Here, however, there is no hint of despair or desperation. The "native land" appears to<br />
have taken on a universal meaning—the land of her birth is the earthly world, a bridge or<br />
transition to the unearthly realm of heaven. By capitalizing the word "Земля," Gippius<br />
grants the literal land entry into the spiritual realm.<br />
While the title, "Прорезы," seems to suggest a break in this connection, Gippius<br />
treats these cuts or gaps as apertures that allow for movement between the two realms. In<br />
the opening stanza, she lists some of the "promises and signs" which are present "here,"<br />
in mundane reality (Здесь—только обещания и знаки), specifically describing "A<br />
radiating gap, a cut in the gloom…" ("Сияющий прорыв, прорез на мраке…") By<br />
choosing a form of the book's central word, radiance, to modify the gap, Gippius<br />
highlights its positive, creative nature. This and other intangible and elusive signs<br />
promise to transport the poet from the earthly to the heavenly world.<br />
In the final stanza, Gippius points to yet another "gap," proclaiming her love for<br />
her "high window," which, like her native land, ultimately unites these two worlds:<br />
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И чем доверчивее, тем безгрешней<br />
Люблю мое высокое окно.<br />
Одну Нездешнюю люблю я в здешней,<br />
Люблю Ее... Она и ты—одно.<br />
And the more trust I have, the more innocently<br />
I love my high window.<br />
The Unearthly alone I love in the earthly,<br />
I love Her… She and you—are one.<br />
For the time being, the poet has successfully maneuvered around the obstacle of her exile<br />
and embarked again upon her spiritual journey. New obstacles, of course, await her. She<br />
will return again, at the close of Сияния, to her despair for her literal homeland.<br />
The epiphanies: "Eternité Frémissante" and "Равнодушие"<br />
Towards the end of Сияния, Gippius included two poems, "Eternité Frémissante"<br />
(1933) and "Равнодушие" (1927), which clearly refer to earlier works. In the case of<br />
"Равнодушие," Gippius explicitly identified the poem's precursors, "В черту" (1906)<br />
and "Час победы" (1918), by citing them in two epigraphs; in "Eternité Frémissante,"<br />
she revealed the shared title of its two antecedents, "Любовь—одна" (1896 and 1912), in<br />
the first line: "Моя любовь одна, одна." 152<br />
In both instances, Gippius moved distinctly<br />
away from the earlier poems, complicating and revising their messages and themes, and<br />
pointing toward an ideal future. This type of development, narrative in the case of<br />
"Равнодушие," is unusual for Gippius. Of the few poetic cycles found in Gippius's<br />
verse, these are the only two which play out over time, across books and decades. 153<br />
152 All three poems share the same form as well, albeit a common one—quatrains of iambic tetrameter with<br />
alternating rhyme.<br />
153 In fact, "Час победы," "Равнодушие" and the 1912 version of "Любовь—одна" (1912) are three of<br />
only four poems in which Gippius used poetic autocitations as epigraphs. Gippius cited two lines of the<br />
first "Любовь—одна" in an epigraph to the 1912 version; she cites the last stanza of "В черту" as an<br />
epigraph to "Час победы." (The fourth use of an autocitational epigraph is found in the uncollected poem<br />
"Петербург" (1919) which incorporates four lines from a 1909 eponymous poem.)<br />
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Through their links to the past and subsequent gestures toward the future, the third, final<br />
elements of these poetic triads add to the summational nature of Сияния.<br />
From "Любовь—одна" to "Eternité Frémissante"<br />
In the 1896 poem "Любовь—одна," the poet claims love as the one constant in a<br />
person's life, equating it with the soul (Душа одна—любовь одна). No matter what we<br />
do in our exterior lives, there is always a silence in our hearts, the home of love (Мы<br />
негодуем, иль играем,/Иль лжем—но в сердце тишина). It is in this constancy of<br />
love, our heart, our soul, that we discover eternity. Love can be painful, we pay for it in<br />
our blood (Любви мы платим нашей кровью), but it is ultimately as faithful and<br />
unquestionable as death (Любовь одна, как смерть одна). Gippius concluded each of<br />
the five stanzas with a mantra-like affirmation of the unity of love (любовь одна).<br />
Sixteen years later Gippius expressed an equal confidence in the constant, unified nature<br />
of love. In the poem's first lines, the poet proclaims the singularity of the soul and love:<br />
Душе, единостью чудесной,/ Любовь единая дана (To the soul, miraculous in its<br />
unity,/unified love is given). She follows this, however, with a complicating simile: Так<br />
в послегрозности небесной/Цветная полоса—одна (Just as, in the heavens after a<br />
storm/The colored stripe is one). As she describes in the second stanza, this eternally<br />
singular "colored stripe" contains within it seven colors:<br />
Но семь цветов семью огнями<br />
Горят в одной. Любовь одна,<br />
Одна до века, и не нами<br />
Ей семицветность суждена.<br />
But seven colors with seven fires<br />
Burn in one. Love is one,<br />
One for the centuries, and it is not by us<br />
That this seven-coloredness is granted to it [love].<br />
118
The "но" which begins this stanza, marks an apparent paradox within Gippius's notion of<br />
the unity of love. Love, like a rainbow, is simultaneously both uniform and manyfaceted.<br />
She resolves this by claiming ignorance: humans did not devise this sevencoloredness;<br />
it has been ordained by something higher, greater. Her acceptance is<br />
complete, finalized by a resolution of the rainbow metaphor in the final stanza: Она<br />
всецветна—и одна./Ее хранит, ее венчает/Святым единством—белизна. (It [love] is<br />
all colorful, and one./It is preserved, it is crowned/By whiteness, in its sacred unity.) 154<br />
In "Eternité Frémissante" 155 Gippius revisits the paradox of the unity of love, but<br />
this time, instead of returning at the end of the poem to the original theme, either by<br />
repetition or metaphor, she pushes forward to a discussion of the nature of time and<br />
existence:<br />
Моя любовь одна, одна,<br />
Но всё же плачу, негодуя:<br />
Одна,—и тем разделена,<br />
Что разделенное люблю я.<br />
О Время! Я люблю твой ход,<br />
Порывистость и равномерность.<br />
Люблю игры твоей полет,<br />
Твою изменчивую верность.<br />
Но как не полюбить я мог<br />
Другое радостное чудо:<br />
Безвременья живой поток,<br />
Огонь, дыхание «оттуда»?<br />
Увы, разделены они—<br />
154 Earlier in the poem, these seven colors are described as seven radiances (семь сияний). This recalls the<br />
plurality of radiances in the book's title and title poem. While ultimately Gippius strives toward the<br />
singular radiance of unified love, on earth she is limited to the multiple radiances/colors which that single<br />
truth encompasses—in the case of the book Сияния, the multiple poems with which Gippius futilely<br />
attempts to approach the singular Word of God.<br />
155 This poem may be considered another of Gippius's Christmas poems. It was originally dated December<br />
23, 1933, just one day before Gippius wrote the epigraph to Сияния and the poem "Ты." It was first<br />
published together with "Ты" in Современные записки, no. 54 (1934).<br />
119
Безвременность и Человечность.<br />
Но будет день: совьются дни<br />
В одну—Трепещущую Вечность.<br />
My love is one, one,<br />
But all the same I cry, feeling indignant:<br />
It is one—but also divided by the fact<br />
That I love the divided.<br />
O Time! I love your course,<br />
Your explosiveness and evenness.<br />
I love the flight of your play,<br />
Your fickle fidelity.<br />
But how could I not love<br />
Another joyous miracle:<br />
The lively flow of timelessness,<br />
Fire, breath "from out there"?<br />
Alas, they are divided—<br />
Timelessness and Humanity.<br />
But the day will come: the days will wind<br />
together<br />
Into one—Trembling Eternity.<br />
The poem's title is purportedly a Bergsonian formula. 156<br />
When initially published in<br />
Современные записки in 1934, the title was followed by the names "Бергсон-Плотин";<br />
in Сияния the poem is dedicated to Vladimir Varshavskii, an expert on Bergson. The<br />
"lively flow of timelessness" has been identified as a description of Bergson's "durée," 157<br />
a durational, eternal time largely understood by Russian modernists as the "constant flow<br />
of divine reality that can be apprehended only through an effort of intuition." 158<br />
Despite<br />
156 In the notes to the Novaia biblioteka poeta edition of Gippius's poetry, the title "Eternité Frémissante" is<br />
described as "философская формула А. Бергсона." Gippius, Stikhotvoreniia, 522. In her discussion of<br />
this poem in the context of Bergson, however, Fink does not attribute the title phrase to Bergson. Fink,<br />
Bergson, 59-60.<br />
157 Fink, Bergson, 60.<br />
158 Fink, Bergson, xviii. What seems to me an even clearer depiction of Bergsonian durée can be found in<br />
the poem "Веер," placed slightly after "Eternité Frémissante" in Сияния. The poetic persona looks into a<br />
familiar face, worrying about her fate. God has revealed eternity to them, opening it up like a veil, but the<br />
unidentified addressee has not accepted it, but instead has torn apart the living, durational time into<br />
forgotten, presumably dead, moments: Но ты спасительного дления/Из Божьих рук не приняла/И на<br />
120
these seemingly abstract philosophical sources, the poem is intensely personal. Gippius's<br />
concern with love and time are intrinsically linked to her own life and fate.<br />
Unlike the steady, reasoned pronouncements of the "Любовь—одна" poems,<br />
"Eternité Frémissante," like "Вечноженственное," has an emotional force behind it.<br />
While the previous poems are largely impersonal, only occasionally referring to the<br />
generic pronoun, "мы," here, Gippius emphasizes the "я" of the poem. The very first<br />
word of the poem is "моя"—it is specifically the poet's love, not love in general which is<br />
being discussed. The first three stanzas are driven by descriptions of this love: my love, I<br />
love (three times), how could I not love. The exclamations "О Время!" and "Увы"<br />
which begin the second and fourth stanzas enhance this sense of personal involvement.<br />
Gippius begins the poem by repeating what she has proclaimed before (Моя<br />
любовь, одна, одна), but this first line seems rushed, as if she wishes to state the obvious<br />
in order to move beyond it. The crux of the poem lies not in this assertion, but in the<br />
resulting conflict, marked by the word "но" at the beginning of the second line. Despite<br />
the decades which have passed since she seemingly accepted on faith the unity of love,<br />
she cries all the same about an inherent paradox: her love is divided because she loves<br />
the divided. She loves human time, paradoxical in itself—both fickle and faithful,<br />
explosive and even—and she loves the timelessness of the heavenly world. Wishing to<br />
see these worlds reconciled, yet knowing the impossibility of such a reconciliation on<br />
earth, she relies solely on faith: the two will come together in Trembling Eternity one<br />
day.<br />
забвенные мгновения/Живую ткань разорвала... The poet fears what will become of her should the veil<br />
yet again close: И если веер снова сложится,/В нем отыщу ли я тебя?<br />
121
The phrase "trembling eternity" perfectly resolves what Matich has identified as<br />
"the basic paradox of Gippius's spiritual and emotional life: the contradictory attraction<br />
to the timeless (the constant) and the temporal (that which is in movement)." 159<br />
Eternity<br />
trembles; the constant moves. Gippius acknowledges, however, that such a resolution is<br />
possible only in an unearthly future, on that day when all days will be entwined into one.<br />
Again she strives for unification—of love, of time, of heaven and earth. Again, despite<br />
the impossibility of realizing this unity in her earthly life, she continues on her faithful,<br />
yet difficult, journey toward God.<br />
The devil cycle: "В черту," "Час победы," and "Равнодушие"<br />
Like "Eternité Frémissante," "Равнодушие" completes a triad of poems—this<br />
time a corrupted trinity that presents a continuous narrative about the poet's encounters<br />
with the devil. Gippius explicitly acknowledges the earlier poems, "В черту" (1905) and<br />
"Час победы" (1918) by citing them in epigraphs to "Равнодушие." 160<br />
In "В черту" Gippius describes the first encounter with the devil. After drawing a<br />
ring around the poetic persona, 161 the devil dares him to break the ring, comprised of the<br />
poet's own sin, and stretch it out into a line. The devil leaves him, still trapped helplessly<br />
in the ring, fearing his return: Что мне делать, если он вернется?/Не могу я разорвать<br />
кольца. The devil does indeed return in "Час победы." Gippius cites the final stanza of<br />
"В черту" as an epigraph to the new poem, beginning and ending it with ellipses, clearly<br />
159 Matich, Paradox, 79.<br />
160 Matich has discussed the need to approach the individual devil poems as "part of a whole cycle in which<br />
Gippius symbolically describes her spiritual fall, followed by her final victory." Matich, Paradox, 94. She<br />
includes as part of this "cycle" two additional poems about encounters with the devil, "Дьяволенок" (1906)<br />
and "А потом...?" (1911). For my purposes, however, these poems do not have a direct bearing on my<br />
reading of "Равнодушие." I am interested in Gippius's explicit designation of a group of three poems (by<br />
means of the epigraphs), rather than a comprehensive picture of Gippius's devils.<br />
161 As is typical in Gippius's verse, the poetic persona in this poem is marked as grammatically masculine.<br />
122
indicating that "Час победы" is a continuation of a single narrative begun in "В черту."<br />
In the second poem, the devil returns after a long absence, amused by the poet's<br />
inaction—the rings are still whole; the poet appears to have been biding his time in long<br />
meditations or dreams (долгие мечтания). After the devil threatens to make the still<br />
unbroken links of the ring even stronger, the poet slaps him in the face with the devil's<br />
own glove and cries that only blood can forge and break his ring. The devil's cloak is<br />
blown away revealing his previously hidden face. The poet looks into his familiar eyes<br />
and watches as he fades into emptiness. By the end of the poem, the poet's victorious<br />
ring has unbent itself into a fiery line: В этот час победное кольцо мое/В огненную<br />
выгнулось черту.<br />
The images of the ring and line suggest the contradictory patterns in Gippius's<br />
spiritual life—striving to attain a direct path to God (the line), she often finds herself<br />
trapped in an alternating cycle (ring) of doubt and faith. By the end of "Час победы" she<br />
has declared victory over this seemingly endless cycle. Having recognized the devil (Я<br />
взглянул в глаза его знакомые), she has claimed the ring as her own (победное кольцо<br />
мое), and succeeded in straightening it into a line. This appears to be a final victory. By<br />
themselves "В черту" and "Час победы" create a complete narrative—the goal set out in<br />
the title of the first poem is reached in the last line of the second.<br />
Gippius, however, resists such finality. The emphasis on the hour of victory in<br />
"Час победы," both in the title and in the final lines (В этот час) raises the possibility<br />
that this is only a temporary victory. After the hour has passed, the devil may yet return.<br />
This potential return is further suggested by the identical description of the devil's exit in<br />
123
oth "В черту" and "Час победы": in each poem he fades off into emptiness (Уходя,<br />
сникая в пустоту; И сник он в пустоту.)<br />
The narrative is continued and concluded with the description of the devil's third<br />
visit in "Равнодушие." The epigraphs to this third poem highlight the two previous<br />
poems' similarities to each other. They both introduce the same key facts—the arrival of<br />
an unknown male figure in a cloak:<br />
…Он пришел ко мне, а кто—не знаю,<br />
Он плащом закрыл себе лицо... 1906<br />
Он опять пришел, глядит презрительно,<br />
Кто—не знаю, просто, он в плаще… 1918<br />
…He came to me, who, I don't know,<br />
He had covered his face with his cloak.<br />
He came again, looking condescendingly,<br />
Who—I don't know, simply the one in the cloak…<br />
In the first epigraph, Gippius altered the original text of "В черту," putting the<br />
first and fourth lines of the first stanza together in order to create a more complete<br />
parallelism with the epigraph from "Час победы." 162<br />
The only significant change<br />
suggested by the epigraphs is the passage of time, explicitly marked by the dates 1906<br />
and 1918 and by the adverb "опять" in the second epigraph—the devil has come again.<br />
There is no hint of the victory which the poet had achieved over the devil in "Час<br />
победы," no real sense of narrative development. These two virtually identical epigraphs<br />
instead serve as a point of contrast to the first lines of "Равнодушие":<br />
Он приходит теперь не так.<br />
Принимает он рабий зрак.<br />
He comes now in a different way.<br />
162 The original stanza reads, "Он пришел ко мне,—а кто, не знаю,/Очертил вокруг меня кольцо./Он<br />
сказал, что я его не знаю,/ Но плащом закрыл себе лицо."<br />
124
He takes on a slave-like look.<br />
The devil indeed comes in a different way in "Равнодушие." He is accompanied by a<br />
dol'nik meter instead of the trochees of the epigraphs; he arrives in the present tense as<br />
opposed to the past. The devil's slave-like look, which replaces his previously<br />
condescending gaze, suggests a shift in power—it is now the poet who is command. This<br />
reversal of roles is evident throughout the poem. In the third line, the devil bends<br />
submissively (Изгибается весь покорно), recalling the ring which once entrapped the<br />
poet. Now that the ring has been straightened out into a line, it is the devil who curves<br />
and bends. In the fifth stanza, Gippius describes the devil as "жалкий," an adjective used<br />
by the devil in "В черту" to describe the poet. Having achieved victory, the poet is<br />
dealing with an entirely different, "grotesque and petty" 163 devil—one who sits quietly on<br />
the floor in the corner, snickering affectedly (похихикивая притворно) instead of<br />
mockingly laughing at the poet. His speech, full of colloquialisms and diminutives, is<br />
distinct from the powerful, challenging language of the earlier poems.<br />
Nonetheless, the devil tries once more to tempt the poet, offering her the chance<br />
to step inside the skin of another human being:<br />
Хочешь в ближнего поглядеть?<br />
Это со смеху умереть!<br />
Назови мне только любого.<br />
Укажи скорей, хоть кого,<br />
И сейчас же тебя в него<br />
Превращу я, честное слово!<br />
На миг, не навек!—Чтоб узнать,<br />
Чтобы в шкуре его побывать...<br />
Как минуточку в ней побудешь—<br />
Узнаешь, где правда, где ложь,<br />
Всё до донышка там поймешь,<br />
А поймешь—не скоро забудешь.<br />
163 Matich, Paradox, 96.<br />
125
Do you want to look into your neighbor?<br />
You'll die laughing!<br />
Name just one for me.<br />
Tell me quickly, it could be anyone,<br />
And right this very minute into him you<br />
I will turn, on my word of honor!<br />
For an instant, not forever! So that you can find out,<br />
So that you can spend a bit of time in his skin…<br />
As soon as you've been there for just a minute—<br />
You'll know what is truth, what is falsity.<br />
Everything to the very bottom you'll understand there,<br />
And when you understand, you'll not soon forget.<br />
In the second poem of Сияния, "Идущий мимо," Gippius expressed this very desire to<br />
see inside another's soul, to discover the secret histories hidden behind every passerby.<br />
Once she has discovered their truths, she can then reward or punish them accordingly:<br />
Как Бог, хотел бы знать я всё о каждом,<br />
Чужое сердце видеть, как свое,<br />
Водой бессмертья утолять их жажду—<br />
И возвращать иных в небытие.<br />
Like God, I would like to know everything about each person,<br />
To see another's heart as my own,<br />
To assuage their thirst with the water of immortality—<br />
And return others to non-existence.<br />
Gippius recognizes this desire as something beyond her reach. Only God has the right to<br />
see into each soul, to grant immortality or death. In "Равнодушие" the devil thus tempts<br />
her with a blasphemous gift, one that would result in the poet's fall. Unlike Eve,<br />
however, Gippius is not swayed by this devil. She has already overcome him and is<br />
unresponsive and indifferent to his offer:<br />
От работы и в этот раз<br />
На него я не поднял глаз,<br />
Неответен—и равнодушен.<br />
Уходи—оставайся со мной,<br />
126
Извивайся,—но мой покой<br />
Не тобою будет нарушен...<br />
И растаял он на глазах,<br />
На глазах растворился в прах,<br />
Оттого, что я—равнодушен...<br />
But this time from my work<br />
I did not raise my eyes to him,<br />
Unresponsive—and indifferent.<br />
Go ahead and leave, stay with me,<br />
Wriggle—but my peace<br />
Will not be disturbed by you…<br />
And he melted before my eyes,<br />
Before my eyes he dissolved into dust,<br />
Because I am indifferent.<br />
Makovskii considered "Равнодушие" the most terrifying of the three devil poems,<br />
viewing the poet's indifference as a capitulation, a loss of the emotional power found in<br />
"Час победы." 164<br />
Matich too has written of the danger of indifference in Gippius's<br />
worldview, associating it with apathy and irresoluteness—a refusal to engage in the<br />
spiritual journey, to participate in dynamic faith. Indifference results from a loss of will<br />
required by traditional Christian humility. 165<br />
In "Равнодушие," however, the poet has achieved an ultimate victory. The devil<br />
does not fade away into emptiness, but dissolves into dust—there is no possibility of<br />
return. Here, instead of "indifference" the poet appears to have reached a more literal<br />
164 Makovskii recalls the willful slap in the face the poet gives the devil in "Час победы," but incorrectly<br />
attributes the disdainful look (глядит презрительно) to the poet instead of the devil. Makovskii, Na<br />
Parnase, 160-1.<br />
165 "[I]t is the devil, the evil spirit, who tempts Gippius by offering her the easy escape into a 'willless' state<br />
which leads to indifference." Matich, Paradox, 54. See also Marietta Shaginian, O blazhenstve<br />
imushchego (Moscow: Al'tsion, 1912), 20-23. Zlobin, too, addresses this poem, calling Gippius's<br />
indifference a "sham" without further explanation. Zlobin, A Difficult Soul, 140. In general, Zlobin's<br />
readings of the devil poems take many liberties.<br />
127
state of "равнодушие"—an equilibrium of the soul. 166<br />
Her struggle is over, she has<br />
achieved the spiritual balance which she has sought throughout her life. 167<br />
As Gippius wrote in the third poem of Сияния, "Мера," this sense of balance or<br />
measure is only attained by God: 168<br />
Всегда чего-нибудь нет,—<br />
Чего-нибудь слишком много...<br />
На всё как бы есть ответ—<br />
Но без последнего слога.<br />
..........................<br />
Ущерб, перехлест везде.<br />
А мера—только у Бога.<br />
Always something is lacking—<br />
There is always too much of something…<br />
It is as if there is an answer for everything—<br />
But without the final syllable.<br />
……………….<br />
Decline, overflow is everywhere.<br />
But only God has measure.<br />
The lyrical "я" of "Равнодушие," like God, has achieved this sense of measure. His<br />
spiritual journey is over. Gippius's, however, is not. In the seven poems which follow<br />
"Равнодушие," the poet will continue to struggle with the same issues of eternity, faith,<br />
and despair. The poet will encounter difficulties in "Сложности"; she will experience a<br />
166 In the rough draft of the poem, Gippius offered a variation on the sixth line of the sixth stanza, later<br />
scratched out, which supports this positive reading of "равнодушие": instead of "Неответен—и<br />
равнодушен," she wrote "Безболезненно-равнодушен."<br />
167 Matich claims the poem as a final victory over the devil but does not explicitly address the issue of<br />
indifference. Matich, Paradox, 94. She does address the theme of indifference to death in relation to<br />
Gippius's final poem, dictated to Zlobin on her death bed: По лестнице...ступени все воздушней/Бегут<br />
наверх иль вниз—не все ль равно!/И с каждым шагом сердце равнодушней/И все, что было—было<br />
так давно. Matich claims that such indifference "is a product of Gippius's inability to struggle, desire or<br />
accept. It is a state which, as we know, Gippius feared the most because it is associated with the abrogation<br />
of her will." Ibid, 107. According to Matich, Gippius is not reconciled with her death. In my opinion, this<br />
final poem expresses neither reconciliation nor indifference to death, but rather the actual experience of<br />
death. The poet is, in fact, dying, and as she dies her heart becomes more and more balanced, coming<br />
closer and closer to heavenly equilibrium. Her past is a distant memory because she is entering into<br />
another form of existence.<br />
168 For more on Gippius's notion of balance, see Zinaida Gippius, "Выбор?," Vozrozhdeniie 222 (June<br />
1970): 58-77.<br />
128
gamut of emotions—a "fiery desire for death" (пламенное желание—смерти) in<br />
"Когда"; a capricious love of play in "Игра"; angry spite in "Лазарь" ("Ты, Строитель,<br />
сам пустоглазый,/ну и добро!").<br />
It is not a surprise that Gippius and the lyrical persona of "Равнодушие" are not<br />
in agreement. This poem, like "В черту" and "Час победы," has none of the personal<br />
markers found in "Eternité Frémissante" or "Вечноженственное." In her only narrative<br />
poetic cycle, Gippius has created a fictional persona, one whose successful spiritual<br />
journey, like Saint Teresa's, can act as a model and inspiration.<br />
Journey Homewards<br />
With "Eternité Frémissante" and "Равнодушие," Gippius provides two distinct<br />
conclusions to two disparate cycles. Despite their differences, both poems direct the poet<br />
from her conflicted past and present toward an ideal future. Their placement next to each<br />
other near the end of the book creates a sense of spiritual climax. The following poems<br />
which conclude the book bring the poet back to earth. Knowing that the ideal future can<br />
only be attained after her earthly life, the lyric persona first desires and anticipates her<br />
own death—the necessary step toward rebirth or resurrection. Encountering difficulties<br />
which evoke the earlier theme of exile and the book's spiritual guide, St. Thérèse, she<br />
resorts to a desperate plea for home in the final poem of the book, "Домой."<br />
In "Когда?," the first poem to follow "Равнодушие," the poet longs for death:<br />
В церкви пели Верую,<br />
весне поверил город.<br />
Зажемчужилась арка серая,<br />
засмеялись рои моторов.<br />
Каштаны веточки тонкие<br />
в мартовское небо тянут.<br />
Как веселы улицы звонкие<br />
129
в желтой волне тумана.<br />
Жемчужьтесь, стены каменные,<br />
марту, ветки, верьте...<br />
Отчего у меня такое пламенное<br />
желание—смерти?<br />
Такое пристальное, такое сильное, как будто сердце готово.<br />
Сквозь пенье автомобильное<br />
не слышит ли сердце зова?<br />
Господи! Иду в неизвестное,<br />
но пусть оно будет родное.<br />
Пусть мне будет небесное<br />
такое же, как земное...<br />
They sang the creed in church,<br />
The city came to believe in the spring.<br />
The gray arch turned pearly,<br />
the swarms of cars began to laugh.<br />
The chestnuts stretch out their thin young branches<br />
into the March sky.<br />
How joyous are the sonorous streets<br />
in a yellow wave of fog.<br />
Shine with your pearls, stone walls,<br />
have faith in March, branches…<br />
Why do I have such a burning<br />
desire for death?<br />
Such a clear, such a strong desire, is if my heart is ready.<br />
Through the song of the automobiles<br />
doesn't my heart hear its call?<br />
Oh, God! I am going into the unknown,<br />
but let it be familiar.<br />
Let the heavenly be for me<br />
The same as the earthly…<br />
This poem, originally titled "Etoile," was written in Paris on the first of March, 1924 and<br />
is set in the early spring. Two explicit references to March and one to spring are made in<br />
the twenty-line poem, leaving no doubt as to the time of its setting. The poem, in a<br />
superficial way, then, explicates the title question, "когда?" In the context of Сияния,<br />
however, this new title adds a sense of urgency to the poem. Fourteen years have passed<br />
since the poem was written, and yet death has still not come. The poet seems to be<br />
130
asking when she will finally be released through her desired death. This sense of urgency<br />
is also evident in a change in the first line of the final quatrain. The initial 1924<br />
publication reads, "Господи! Я пойду в неизвестное." In the Сияния version, Gippius<br />
changed the tense to the present, emphasizing her current journey towards death:<br />
"Господи! Иду в неизвестное."<br />
This unexpected combination of death and spring, typically a time of new life, is<br />
paralleled by the surprising mixture of spiritual, natural, and urban imagery in "Когда?"<br />
As the city finds faith in the spring, swarms of cars laugh and church-goers sing. Both<br />
chestnuts and streets, stone walls and branches are called upon to greet the spring.<br />
Ultimately, the poet hears the call of death, perhaps of God, through the song of traffic.<br />
Once again, the poet attempts to unite seemingly opposed worlds. As in "Eternité<br />
Frémissante," she hopes to find the multiplicity of the earthly world in the unity of<br />
heaven.<br />
The poet continues to anticipate death in the next poem, "Игра." Here, again, the<br />
poet is not afraid of death, but looks forward to the wisdom which will result from it:<br />
Совсем не плох и спуск с горы:<br />
Кто бури знал, тот мудрость ценит. 169<br />
Even the descent from the mountain isn't bad at all:<br />
One who has known storms values wisdom.<br />
The poet's only fear is that heaven will not be playful:<br />
Пускай! Когда придет пора<br />
И все окончатся дороги,<br />
Я об игре спрошу Петра,<br />
Остановившись на пороге.<br />
И если нет игры в раю,<br />
169 Zlobin cites these lines to describe Gippius's illness and descent into death. Zlobin, A Difficult Soul,<br />
188.<br />
131
Скажу, что рая не приемлю.<br />
Возьму опять суму мою<br />
И снова попрошусь на землю.<br />
So be it! When the time comes<br />
And all roads end,<br />
I will ask Peter about play,<br />
Stopping on the threshold.<br />
And if there is no play in heaven,<br />
I'll say that I won't accept heaven.<br />
I'll take my bag once more<br />
And again set off for earth.<br />
This refusal to accept a heaven without play is characteristic of Gippius's dynamic faith.<br />
She seeks a "trembling eternity," not a static realm of unchanging wisdom. As in<br />
"Когда?," she wishes to find in heaven earthly joys—a poet's play with words, a kitten's<br />
game with a ball (Котенок возится с клубком...Играет с рифмами поэт). She strives<br />
to combine the earthly with the divine, to unify the spiritual and the everyday.<br />
Gippius's expectations for death become more complicated in the subsequent<br />
poems. She longs not only for death, a passage from the earthly world to the spiritual<br />
realm of heaven, but also for resurrection—a return to an original, sinless state. This<br />
notion of resurrection as return is evident earlier in Сияния. In a discussion of the nature<br />
of memory in the book's fourth poem, "Над забвеньем," the poet defines resurrection as<br />
the "backward flight of moments" (воскресенье,/Мгновений обратный лет)—the literal<br />
reestablishment of an earlier existence. 170<br />
In "Сложности," the poet wishes to return to<br />
simplicity, an original pure state reminiscent of the "enfance spirituelle" Gippius admired<br />
170 In the final lines of "Идущий мимо," cited above, a God-like Gippius wishes to offer other souls the<br />
choice of immortality or a return to nonexistence. It is possible that this return, seemingly a negative<br />
opposite to immortality, is in fact an alternative reward for those who, tired of earthly existence, wish to<br />
return to an original simplicity.<br />
132
in Saint Teresa. Already in the title, however, she recognizes her inevitable failure to<br />
achieve such spiritual simplicity. Simplicity and complications are irreconciliable:<br />
К простоте возвращаться—зачем?<br />
Зачем—я знаю, положим.<br />
Но дано возвращаться не всем.<br />
Такие, как я, не можем.<br />
Сквозь колючий кустарник иду,<br />
Он цепок, мне не пробиться...<br />
Но пускай упаду,<br />
До второй простоты не дойду,<br />
Назад—нельзя возвратиться.<br />
Why return to simplicity?<br />
I know why, let's assume.<br />
But not everyone is destined to return.<br />
People like me are unable to.<br />
I walk through thorny bushes,<br />
They are prickly, I can't make my way through…<br />
Even if I fall,<br />
I will not make it to my second simplicity,<br />
It is impossible to go back.<br />
While the poet does not explain in "Сложности" why "people like her" are unable to<br />
return, the opening lines of the next poem, "Лазарь," suggest that it is due in part to her<br />
ties to Russia. An exile from a decaying nation, she can never return to her land of birth,<br />
her literal childhood home:<br />
Нет, волглая земля, сырая;<br />
только и может—тихо тлеть;<br />
мы знаем, почему она такая,<br />
почему огню на ней не гореть.<br />
No, the damp, raw earth;<br />
all it can do is quietly rot;<br />
we know, why it is this way,<br />
why fire can not burn on it.<br />
133
This stanza echoes "Сложности" in a number of ways. The opening interjection, "Нет,"<br />
appears to continue the negative tone of the preceding poem's final lines: не дойду,<br />
нельзя. The "я" of "Сложности" and the nation of "Лазарь," both aware of their<br />
predicament (я знаю; мы знаем), are nonetheless limited: the poet cannot return; the<br />
land can do nothing but rot. As in "Неотступное," the poet's fate seems hopelessly tied<br />
to her native land's. Once again, the poet calls for the resurrection of her home, this time<br />
the city of Petersburg, sprayed with blood by an empty-eyed young girl with a red<br />
watering-can. Even the legendary builder, Peter, is unable to revive his creation:<br />
……………………………<br />
Петр чугунный сидит молча,<br />
конь не ржет, и змей ни гу-гу.<br />
Что ж, любуйся на ямы вольчи,<br />
на рыжее кружево на снегу.<br />
Ты, Строитель, сам пустоглазый,<br />
ну и добро! Когда б не истлел,<br />
выгнал бы девочку с лейкой сразу,<br />
кружева рыжего не стерпел.<br />
Но город и ты—во гробе оба,<br />
ты молчишь, Петербург молчит.<br />
Кто отвалит камень от гроба?<br />
Господи, Господи: уже смердит...<br />
Кто? Не Петр. Не вода. Не пламя.<br />
Близок Кто-то. Он позовет.<br />
И выйдет обвязанный пеленами:<br />
«Развяжите его. Пусть идет».<br />
……………………..<br />
Cast iron Peter sits in silence,<br />
his horse doesn't neigh, there isn't a sound from the snake.<br />
Go ahead, admire the trous-de-loup,<br />
the red lace on the snow.<br />
You, Builder, yourself empty-eyed,<br />
so it is! If you hadn't rotted<br />
you would have driven out the girl with the watering-can immediately,<br />
134
you wouldn't have endured the red lace.<br />
But you and the city are both in the grave,<br />
you are silent, Petersburg is silent.<br />
Who will push the stone off the grave?<br />
Lord, Lord: it already stinks…<br />
Who? Not Peter. Not water. Not flame.<br />
Someone is near. He will call.<br />
And out will come the one wrapped in shrouds:<br />
"Loose him. Let him go."<br />
Like "Eternité Frémissante" and "Равнодушие," "Лазарь" suggests the passage of<br />
a considerable amount of time. The poem was first published under the title "Рыжее<br />
кружево (о Петербурге)" in 1923 and dated 8 November (Gippius's birthday), 1922. In<br />
Сияния, however, Gippius not only changed the title to the more universal "Лазарь," but<br />
she included the dates 1918-1938 at the end of the poem, making it one of only two<br />
"dated" poems in the book. While Gippius made a few minor changes to the 1923<br />
version in addition to the new title, the poem is largely the same. The dates thus do not<br />
reflect a twenty-year period of work on the poem, but rather suggest the poem's lasting<br />
effect from 1918 to 1938—from the fall of Russia to the Bolsheviks to the current year,<br />
the time of the publication of Сияния. "Лазарь" thus spans the entire period of Сияния,<br />
marked as both its youngest and oldest poem. All this time, Petersburg has been slowly<br />
decaying; Peter has been rotting away silently on his horse, incapable of resurrecting his<br />
city, covered with the red lace of blood; the poet continues to beg God for the<br />
resurrection of her native land. Russia and the poet still require a spiritual revolution—a<br />
return to the simple truth of Christ who will come and call for all of Petersburg to be<br />
released, as Lazarus was.<br />
135
Gippius employs two "sacred" texts in "Лазарь": the biblical story of Lazarus<br />
and Pushkin's "Медный всадник." The poem is framed by explicit references to the<br />
biblical story, beginning with the title "Лазарь" and ending with the words of Martha and<br />
Jesus. When Jesus asks Martha to take the stone away from her brother Lazarus's tomb,<br />
Martha resists, saying "Sir, by now there will be a stench; he has been there four days"<br />
(John 11:39; cf. Gippius's lines: Кто отвалит камень от гроба?/Господи, Господи:<br />
уже смердит). Gippius's description of Lazarus's resurrection and release (Близок Ктото,<br />
Он позовет./И выйдет обвязанный пеленами:/«Развяжите его. Пусть идет»)<br />
comes directly from John 11:43-44: Then [Jesus] raised his voice in a great cry:<br />
'Lazarus, come out.' The dead man came out his hands and feet bound with linen<br />
bandages, his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said, 'Loose him: let him go.'<br />
Pushkin's poema is invoked in the fourth stanza of "Лазарь" with the description<br />
of the statue of the Bronze Horseman: the cast-iron Peter sits on his horse, trampling on a<br />
snake. Just as the inhabitants of the city come out to marvel at the furious waves in<br />
Pushkin's "Медный всадник" (Поутру над ее брегами/Теснился кучами<br />
народ,/Любуясь брызгами, горами/И пеной разъяренных вод [In the morning along<br />
her shores/The people crowded around in clusters,/Admiring the splashes, mountains/And<br />
foam of the furious waters]), Gippius commands the silent Peter to "admire" the bloody<br />
destruction surrounding him in his devastated city: Что ж, любуйся на ямы волчьи,/на<br />
рыжее кружево на снегу. Like the hero of Pushkin's poema, she challenges Peter, but<br />
now, in place of Evgenii's threatening, "miracle-working builder" (Добро, строитель<br />
чудотворный!), she encounters an "empty-eyed" Builder, (Ты, Строитель, сам<br />
136
пустоглазый, ну и добро!). Peter, like the land, has rotted. Blind and mute, he is in the<br />
grave alongside his creation.<br />
By invoking the story of Lazarus and "Медный всадник," Gippius<br />
simultaneously substitutes herself for those narratives' heroes, Martha and Evgenii. Like<br />
Martha, she depends fully on Christ for salvation while, like Evgenii, she rejects the false<br />
god, Peter. No one but Christ, not even the legendary Peter, and no earthly force, neither<br />
water nor flame, can revive the decaying land.<br />
This rejection of the earthly world, previously viewed as a bridge to heaven, 171<br />
culminates in the final poem of Сияния, "Домой" ("Homeward):<br />
Мне—<br />
о земле—<br />
болтали сказки:<br />
«Есть человек. Есть любовь».<br />
А есть—<br />
лишь злость.<br />
Личины. Маски.<br />
Ложь и грязь. Ложь и кровь.<br />
Когда предлагали<br />
мне родиться—<br />
не говорили, что мир такой.<br />
Как же<br />
я мог<br />
не согласиться?<br />
Ну, а теперь—домой! домой!<br />
I was told<br />
fairy tales<br />
about the earth:<br />
"There is humankind. There is love."<br />
171 "И я люблю мою родную Землю,/Как мост, как путь в зазвездную страну" ("Прорезы"). In its<br />
initial 1923 publication in "Окно," "Лазарь" preceded the poem "Прорезы," perhaps suggesting the<br />
continuing strength of Russia, despite its decay. Now placed amidst the closing poems of Сияния,<br />
"Лазарь" is followed by no such hope.<br />
137
But there is<br />
only malevolence.<br />
Guises. Masks.<br />
Lies and filth. Lies and blood.<br />
When I was offered<br />
birth<br />
I wasn't told that the world was like this.<br />
So how<br />
could I<br />
not agree?<br />
But now, home! home!<br />
The poet no longer wishes to combine the earthly and the heavenly; she wants only to<br />
escape the world and return home. This journey home does not lead the poet to the pure<br />
simplicity of "Сложности," but rather demonstrates a blasphemous arrogance. She<br />
claims that life was offered to her; she had the right to refuse it. In fact, she would have<br />
refused it had she not been lied to about its nature. 172<br />
As a result, the poet rejects not<br />
only the falsity of the world, but also those who tricked her into being born, presumably a<br />
deceitful God or devil. The hopeless task which the poet set out for herself in the<br />
opening poem of Сияния—to create radiances of words on earth—has, indeed, been<br />
proven impossible. Not only have her own words failed her, but she has lost sight of<br />
God's Word.<br />
While the book ends in retreat, the poet's spiritual journey is not over. The final<br />
poem's title and closing word, "домой," points to the continuation of the journey—most<br />
likely a return to the cycle of despair with which the devil once entrapped her, but<br />
nonetheless movement. In this most summational of Gippius's books, there is still no<br />
room for finality.<br />
172 The poet's superhuman nature here is reminiscent of the poet's willingness to give up the radiance of<br />
sainthood (святости блаженное сияние) in "Сиянья."<br />
138
Conclusion<br />
In this chapter I have attempted to show that, with Сияния, Gippius has moved<br />
away from her earlier diaristic books of poetry to a more retrospective account of the<br />
poet's spiritual journey. The goal of this journey was to unite the heavenly and the<br />
earthly, to find unity within multiplicity. In Сияния, Gippius set out to express this unity<br />
in a unified form, a book of poems brought together under one title and dedicated to one<br />
individual in order to express the single truth of God's Word.<br />
While recognizing this task as impossible even in the opening poem, she never<br />
abandons the journey. Through her careful placement of poems throughout the book, she<br />
highlights the dynamic nature of faith—the constant shifts between hope and despair, the<br />
inevitable falls that follow spiritual epiphanies. While the book ends in despair, the<br />
spiritual journey is not finalized. The poet continues her journey, albeit in the form of a<br />
retreat.<br />
139
Chapter Three: Elena Shvarts's Works and Days of the Nun Lavinia<br />
Critics have commented on the coherence of Elena Shvarts's verse throughout her<br />
career. Andrei Anpilov claims that she emerged as a poet entirely formed. Her poetry<br />
does not show a typical progression from early to late verse, addressing new themes or<br />
exploring new forms. Instead, her later poems more clearly define elements which are<br />
present in her earliest work. 173<br />
Similarly, Valery Shubinsky has described her<br />
development as that of a tree giving off new shoots: she revisits themes across decades,<br />
revealing their new and more complicated possibilities. 174 Together, these themes and<br />
formal elements make up the unique world of Shvarts's verse, a world which displays<br />
remarkable interdependence and integrity: Каждый из элементов этого мира связан с<br />
другими. Все они—часть сложной системы, Сада, в котором ни одного цветка<br />
нельзя сорвать, не изменив непоправимо целого. 175<br />
While such a statement may seem hyperbolic in describing a poet's entire oeuvre,<br />
it certainly applies to the more local level of Shvarts's individual poems. Shvarts herself<br />
has described the complicated, interconnected nature of her poetry. To her, a poem is a<br />
living organism, a whole entity: "живой организм, цельный." 176<br />
Consisting of many<br />
separate, discernable parts, it comes together like a living structure or building. 177<br />
This<br />
organic combination of separate parts is clearly apparent in her self-proclaimed favorite<br />
173 Andrei Anpilov, "Svetlo-iarostnaia tochka," Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie 35 (1999): 363-4.<br />
174 Valerii Shubinskii, "Elena Shvarts (Tezisy doklady)," in Istoriia leingradskoi nepodtsenzurnoi<br />
literatury, ed. B.I. Ivanov and B.A. Roginskii (Saint Petersburg: DEAN, 2000), 110.<br />
175 Valerii Shubinskii, "Sadovnik i sad: O poezii Eleny Shvarts," Znamia 11 (2001): 201.<br />
176 Valentina Polukhina, Brodsky through the Eyes of his Contemporaries (Saint Petersburg: Zvezda,<br />
1997), 209.<br />
177 Elena Shvarts, Opredelenie v durnuiu pogodu (Saint Petersburg: Pushkinskii fond, 1997), 71.<br />
Similarly, in her 1990 interview with Valentina Polukhina, Shvarts describes the complex architectural<br />
nature of a poem, "with columns, roofs, beams and all." Polukhina, Brodsky, 208.<br />
140
genre, the "маленькая поэма" (small poema). 178<br />
For Shvarts, the small poema is a cycle<br />
of discrete yet linked short lyrics. 179<br />
The "plot" is revealed not through continuous<br />
narrative progression, 180 but through the musical intersections and collisions of the<br />
various parts: Повествование более скрыто, в нем есть сюжет, но внутренний, не<br />
прямой. Для меня важно сопряжение разных мотивов, сведение их в единую<br />
гармонию. И полное совпадение с какими-то смыслями, сюжетными линиями. 181<br />
The different parts of the poema acquire meaning only through their relation to and<br />
confrontation with each other. Once broken apart, they lose their coherence. 182<br />
Within this complicated structure built on the principles of polyphony, 183 Shvarts<br />
claims an entire world can be created—a world over which the poet no longer has<br />
complete control. She has coined a new generic term for this type of verse: визьёнприключения<br />
(vision-adventures). 184<br />
A "complicated baroque form" inspired by a<br />
supernatural force, it takes on a life of its own: Когда поэт впадает в некое<br />
сверхнатуральное состояние, ему является видение, и дальше оно творит само себя,<br />
178 Polukhina, Brodsky, 207. Shvarts gives as examples her own short poetic cycles, "Черная пасха" and<br />
"Хоррор эротикус," and points to Kuzmin as an originator of the form.<br />
179 In the Предуведомление to her "Маленькие поэмы," a collection of "small poemas" written between<br />
1974 and 1996, Shvarts distinguishes the "small poema" from the traditional poema: От собственно<br />
«поэмы» она отличается крайне прерывистым развитием фабулы. Сюжет обычной поэмы течет как<br />
река, маленькой—то скрывается под землей, то неожиданно низвергается с высот, то возвращается<br />
к истоку. При этом часто и сам сюжет состоит из борьбы метафизических идей, видений,<br />
чувствований, причудливо смешанных с мелкими происшествиями жизни. Контрапункт<br />
противоречий всегда находит гармоническое разрешение. В этом смысле она—маленькая трагедия:<br />
в ней есть завязка, апофеоз и катарсис, монологи и хоры. Elena Shvarts, Sochineniia (Saint Petersburg:<br />
Pushkinskii fond, 2002), v. 2, 62.<br />
180 Andrei Anpilov has described the non-linear nature of Shvarts's long poems: Мне кажется, каждое<br />
длинное стихотворение этого поэта имеет несколько зачинов, кульминаций и развязок. Текст<br />
развивается не «линейно», а мечется за «добычей» во все стороны, продвигаясь тем не менее<br />
вперед. Anpilov, "Svetlo-iarostnaia tochka," 364.<br />
181 Polukhina, Brodsky, 207.<br />
182 When Polukhina asked if she could choose one of Shvarts's poems for her book, Brodsky through the<br />
Eyes of his Contemporaries, Shvarts made only one request: если это отрывок из поэмы, то укажите,<br />
пожалуйста, иначе он будет звучать, как проигрыш между двумя темами. Polukhina, Brodsky, 211.<br />
183 For a discussion of Shvarts and polyphony, see Aleksandr Skidan, "Summa poetiki," Novoe literaturnoe<br />
obozrenie 60 (2003): 285-92.<br />
184 Polukhina, Brodsky, 207.<br />
141
приключается. Поворачивает куда хочет. 185<br />
At the outset, the poet herself does not<br />
know the final destination of the vision, and the lyrics themselves are better off without<br />
her: Стихи буквально живы, они—Существа, они улетают, и очень далеко. Им<br />
безразличен их Творец. Без него им даже легче, после его смерти они наливаются<br />
кровью, они—еще живее. 186<br />
Shvarts's 1987 book of poetry Труды и дни Лавинии, монахини из ордена<br />
обрезания сердца serves as the fullest example of a визьён-приключение in Shvarts's<br />
work. Her longest poetic cycle, Lavinia consists of seventy-eight short poems written<br />
from the perspective of a fictional nun, at times deeply religious, at times heretical. The<br />
poems are gathered together by a "sister" of Lavinia and published by a specialist in<br />
contemporary psychology. The sister's letter to the publisher and the publisher's<br />
foreword precede Lavinia's actual verse, as do ten epigraphs. Shvarts has produced a<br />
number of other poetic cycles where she takes on the voice of a fictional poetic<br />
persona, 187 but Lavinia remains the most important to her. 188 Distinguishing it from her<br />
"small poemas" and collections of poetry, she has described it as a "novel in verse,<br />
185 Shvarts, Определение, 71.<br />
186 Ibid., 84.<br />
187 Shvarts's appropriately titled 1996 collection of poetry, Mundus imaginalis, includes all of the<br />
fictionalized cycles except for Lavinia: the two books of Cynthia, the legendary Roman poet; gypsy verses;<br />
the works of Arno Tsart, an invented Estonian poet; a diary of the soul, "Лестница с дырявыми<br />
площадками"; and a miracle-play about Moses. In the poet's afterword ("Необязательные пояснения")<br />
she describes the unifying characteristic of the book as this feature of speaking through another's voice:<br />
загримированность, говорение из-под маски, переодетый (или перерожденный) автор. Elena Shvarts,<br />
Mundus imaginalus: Kniga otvetvlenii (Saint Petersburg: EZRO/Utkonos, 1996), 108.<br />
For a discussion of Shvarts's use of ventriloquism and questions of poetic identity see Stephanie Sandler,<br />
"Elena Shvarts and the Distances of Self-Disclosure," in Reconstructing the Canon: Russian Writing in the<br />
1980s, ed. Arnold McMillin (Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers, 2000), 79-105.<br />
188 Shvarts, Mundus imaginalis, 108. In Shvarts's introduction to her 1999 collected works she reiterates<br />
the primary nature of Lavinia, reprinting the entire book and calling it a book within a book (книга в<br />
книге). By way of contrast, she puts the other ventriloquized cycles ("Кинфия," "Сочинения Арно<br />
Царта" and "Цыганские стихи") in a section titled "Приложения" and describes them as "«боковыми»,<br />
игровыми, скажанными из-под маски." Elena Shvarts, Stikhotvoreniia i poemy (Saint Petersburg:<br />
<strong>IN</strong>APRESS, 1999), "От автора", [5].<br />
142
perhaps" (роман в стихах, может быть). 189<br />
Critics have addressed the novelistic nature<br />
of Lavinia in similarly qualified terms. 190<br />
In this chapter I will try to understand the<br />
nature of Shvarts's "perhaps"—to explicate more fully the novelistic and other generic<br />
and formal qualities of the book. First, I will explore the book's introductory material<br />
(the title, epigraphs, publisher's foreword and sister's letter)—a fictional structure within<br />
which the reader approaches Lavinia's verse. I will pay special attention to the title<br />
which provides the ecumenical mission of Lavinia's convent (the circumcision of the<br />
heart), and to the subtitle, "От Рождества до Пасхи," a literal and spiritual timeframe<br />
which Lavinia's poetry follows. I will discuss the fictional world created within Lavinia's<br />
book and the characters who populate it. I will then look at lyric connections made<br />
between non-narrative poems which make whole an otherwise "fragmentary novel."<br />
Finally, I will show how the final poem, "Скит," provides a resolution to the many<br />
seemingly disjointed threads of the book.<br />
Title<br />
Shvarts provides a tremendous amount of "introductory" material in Труды и дни<br />
Лавинии, монахини из ордена обрезания сердца. The title itself is packed with<br />
references to multiple traditions: the poetic ancestry of Hesiod's Works and Days; the<br />
apparent pagan ancestry of the heroine, Lavinia; and the biblical source of the<br />
189 Ibid. See also the short autobiography written for Barbara Heldt in December, 1988. Barbara Heldt,<br />
"The Poetry of Elena Shvarts," World Literature Today 63, no. 3 (Summer 1989): 381-2.<br />
190 Sandler writes, "Lavinia proceeds as a novel—and very much a twentieth-century novel. Affinities with<br />
the novel mark both its psychological intensity and its evocative yet utterly earthy language." Stephanie<br />
Sandler, "Elena Shvarts," in Russian Women Writers, ed. Christine Tomei (New York: Garland, 1999),<br />
1462. Darra Goldstein has described it as "like a fragmentary novel in verse." Darra Goldstein, "Shvarts,<br />
Elena Andreevna," in Dictionary of Russian Women Writers, ed. Marina Ledkovsky, Charlotte Rosenthal,<br />
and Mary Zirin (Westport, Ct.: Greenwood Press, 1994), 599. Heldt calls it a "sort of diary novel," "a<br />
modern novel in verse, with no plot, but rather a central character who changes daily." Heldt, "The Poetry<br />
of Elena Shvarts," 382-383.<br />
143
circumcision of the heart. This combination of traditions is typical of Shvarts's verse as a<br />
whole, and particularly her book Lavinia. 191<br />
By titling the book Труды и дни, Shvarts suggests an affinity to or descendance<br />
from Hesiod's poem, an example of "exhortation to wisdom" poetry which provides<br />
advice on how to live. This suggestion is reinforced by the book's first epigraph, an<br />
imperative first bit of advice on how to be wise: "Хочешь быть мудрым в веке сем,<br />
будь безумным." Already in the title, Shvarts has provided a reference point for<br />
Lavinia's book within the poetic tradition. Throughout the book she will continue to<br />
explore Lavinia's role as poet and the role of poetry itself.<br />
The choice of the non-Russian name Lavinia emphasizes the heroine's exceptional<br />
nature and seems to provide her with a pre-Christian heritage. 192<br />
In Roman legend<br />
Lavinia was the daughter of King Latinus, the wife of Aeneas, and the ancestor of the<br />
Roman people. Lavinia also suggests a feminine inversion of the name Livanii<br />
(Ливаний), the Russian equivalent of Libanius, a pagan fourth-century rhetorician from<br />
Antioch who wanted to pass on his school to his prized pupil, Ioann Zlatoust, "еслибъ<br />
его не похитили христiане." 193<br />
Both Antioch and Ioann are important to Shvarts: she<br />
cites Ioann in her third epigraph and makes frequent reference to Paul, whose missionary<br />
work in Antioch opened up the Christian church to the Gentiles. Paul's ecumenical vision<br />
191 It is difficult to know to what extent Shvarts endows her many references with particular meaning. She<br />
has described herself as an autodidact who has read widely but not in depth. Heldt, "The Poetry of Elena<br />
Shvarts," 381. Catriona Kelly has described her use of "head-spinning mosaics of citations" as "patchwork,<br />
rather than appliqué." They are "not hierarchically ordered in terms of either values or perspectives."<br />
Catriona Kelly, A History of Russian Women's Writing 1820-1992 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 413.<br />
Similarly, Sandler does not consider Shvarts's references to have the kind of intricate subtextual patterning<br />
typical of the Acmeists; rather, "Shvarts relies on more fleeting associations, and typically mixes sources<br />
very freely." Sandler, "Elena Shvarts and the Distances of Self-Disclosure," 102. This said, when<br />
contained within a novel-like structure, the references have more resonance and interplay within the<br />
fictional, mythical world which Shvarts creates.<br />
192 This is not unique in Shvarts's verse. She has previously taken on the persona of a legendary Roman<br />
woman poet in her cycle "Kinfiia."<br />
193 Entsiklopedicheskii slovar', vol. 34, (Moscow: Terra, 1990-94), 644.<br />
144
is extremely important to Shvarts's conception of Lavinia's convent which includes not<br />
only Jews and Gentiles, but Buddhist monks, demons, angels and animal-protectors.<br />
The third part of the title, the order of the "circumcision of the heart," invokes Paul<br />
directly, referring to his letter to the Romans (2:29) in which he annuls the Jewish law<br />
which requires physical circumcision and calls instead for a metaphorical circumcision of<br />
the heart—a spiritual cleansing and acceptance of Christ. 194<br />
This passage is cited directly<br />
in the book's fourth epigraph: "То обрезание, которое в сердце, по духу, а не по<br />
букве." On a practical level, Paul's stance on circumcision both opens the church to noncircumcised<br />
Gentiles and generally lessens the authority of Jewish law (to which Paul<br />
had been a strict adherent prior to his conversion). In Lavinia, Shvarts frequently<br />
expands these moves toward a universal church and away from a code of laws to the<br />
point of what would normally be considered blasphemy. Thus, Shvarts's heroine, like<br />
Paul, provides a radical, new interpretation of religious life. She not only accepts Paul's<br />
metaphorical concept of the "circumcision of the heart," but she realizes the metaphor,<br />
most explicitly in Lavinia's nineteenth lyric, "Обрезание сердца":<br />
Значит, хочешь от меня<br />
Жертвы кровавой.<br />
На, возьми—живую кровь,<br />
Плоть, Любовь и славу.<br />
Нет, не крайнюю плоть—<br />
Даже если была б—это мало,<br />
А себя заколоть<br />
И швырнуть Тебе в небо.<br />
Хоть совсем не голубица—<br />
Захриплю я голубицей.<br />
Миг еще пылает Жизнь,<br />
194 Goldstein cites the following figurative definition of circumcision from the Oxford English Dictionary:<br />
"spiritual purification by, as it were, cutting away sin." Darra Goldstein, "The Heart-Felt Poetry of Elena<br />
Shvarts," in Fruits of Her Plume, ed. Helena Goscilo (Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1993), 250 n.1.<br />
145
Плещет, пляшет и струится.<br />
Думала я—Ангел схватит<br />
В миг последний лезвие,<br />
Но Тебе желанна жертва—<br />
Сердца алое зерно.<br />
So, you want from me<br />
A bloody sacrifice.<br />
Here, take it—living blood,<br />
Flesh, Love and glory.<br />
No, not the foreskin—<br />
Even if I had some, it wouldn't be enough,<br />
Instead I'll stab myself<br />
And hurl myself up in the sky to You.<br />
Even though I'm far from an innocent young thing,<br />
I'll wheeze like a little dove.<br />
Life still blazes for a moment,<br />
Splashes, dances and streams.<br />
I thought the Angel would grab<br />
The blade at the last minute,<br />
But Your desired sacrifice—<br />
Is the scarlet seed of my heart. 195<br />
In this poem, Lavinia returns Paul's notion of spiritual circumcision to its physical<br />
literalness; her heart becomes the actual site of circumcision. As a woman, she has no<br />
foreskin to offer—even if she did, such "outlying flesh" (крайняя плоть) would not be a<br />
worthy sacrifice. The very core of her heart (зерно сердца), her life source, must be cut<br />
away. 196<br />
Throughout the book, Lavinia returns to her heart as the literal location of her<br />
physical and spiritual pain. Once circumcised, her heart is no longer whole, but can be<br />
195 Unless otherwise noted, all translations are my own.<br />
196 This image recalls Pushkin's poem, "Пророк," in which the six-winged seraphim cuts through the heart<br />
of the poet with a sword. Like the prophet, Lavinia spreads the word of her physical sacrifice through her<br />
poetry.<br />
146
invaded and tempted by various demons and alien forces. These "characters" constitute<br />
one of the book's major narrative threads. 197<br />
The first three stanzas of "Обрезание сердца" are filled with violent physical<br />
detail: repeated images of blood and flesh; the forceful actions of taking, stabbing,<br />
hurling (возьми, заколоть, швырнуть); and the frantic last gasps of her circumcised<br />
heart, blazing and streaming for one final moment before her imminent death. Combined<br />
with Lavinia's extremely conversational address to God ("значит," "на"), these details<br />
create an excruciatingly vivid portrait of self-sacrifice.<br />
In the final stanza, Shvarts compares her sacrifice to that of Abraham. Having<br />
shown her willingness to make the sacrifice, she expects an angel to take away the knife<br />
and reprieve her, as God reprieved Abraham. But such a spiritual offering of devotion is<br />
not enough, and God does not intervene. The literal circumcision of the heart is carried<br />
out, and a different model is suggested: Christ's self-sacrifice. Lavinia's familiar address<br />
to God reflects an intimacy typical of a literal child and parent, not a person and God.<br />
The imagery of physical torment recalls Christ's sufferings on the cross. The "living<br />
blood" and flesh (живая кровь, плоть) offered up in the first stanza recall the living<br />
blood and flesh of Christ offered to man in the Eucharist. 198<br />
Lavinia, like Christ, is God's<br />
chosen sacrifice (желанна жертва).<br />
This poem is typical of Lavinia's verse in many ways: the immediacy of its<br />
conversational tone and language; its violent, physical imagery particularly in describing<br />
self-mutilation; its specificity to the female gender; its emphasis on the physical and<br />
spiritual center of the heart; and, most importantly, its realization of metaphors, the<br />
197 For a discussion of the heart as the locus of Shvarts's poetry, see Goldstein, "The Heart-Felt Poetry of<br />
Elena Shvarts."<br />
198 See John 6:48-55.<br />
147
central one being the metaphor of Lavinia and Christ. I will argue below that this<br />
metaphor makes up the main narrative thrust of Lavinia's works and days; Lavinia's verse<br />
describes an attempt at a literal imitation of Christ's life.<br />
Here, I wish to single out the structural importance of the book's title. In the<br />
space of nine words Shvarts has introduced three major themes which will be explored<br />
and developed throughout Lavinia: the nature of being a poet, invoked by the poetic<br />
heritage of Hesiod's Works and Days and complicated by Shvarts's ventriloquism of<br />
Lavinia's verse; the notion of a universal church freed from a strict code of laws<br />
suggested by Lavinia's name and Paul's call for the circumcision of the heart; and the<br />
concept of self-sacrifice, developed within the (partial) title poem, "Обрезание сердца,"<br />
to suggest a correspondence between Lavinia and Christ.<br />
Epigraphs<br />
The themes of the universal church and the role of the poet are recapitulated in the<br />
ten epigraphs which follow the title page. Placed before the publisher's foreword, the<br />
sister's letter and Lavinia's poems, the epigraphs seem to be Shvarts's personal selection<br />
rather than the choice of her fictional characters. The fact that there are ten epigraphs<br />
suggests that Shvarts is providing her own set of commandments—one not tied to strict<br />
religious law or a particular religious or ethnic tradition. The first epigraph, from Paul's<br />
letter to the Corinthians, supports such a reading. An imperative, it calls on the reader to<br />
disregard traditional ways of thinking. In order to be wise, one must be mad: Хочешь<br />
148
быть мудрым в веке сем, будь безумным. 199<br />
The list of epigraphs which follows can<br />
be read as a highly personalized, "mad" set of guidelines or instructions for the book.<br />
In typical fashion, perhaps true to her autodidactic background, Shvarts takes the<br />
epigraphs from a variety of different sources and traditions: two from the bible (#1 and<br />
#4), two from apocryphal works (#2 and #3), one from a Rilke short story (#5), two<br />
apparently from Buddhist texts (#6 and #7), and the final three from poetry by her<br />
Russian contemporaries. They are not linked in any obvious way—in fact, when read in<br />
succession they seem more confusing than enlightening. In many cases the sources are<br />
not widely known (the religious poet Burikhin, the obscure Безумный Линь 200 ) and<br />
appear to be Shvarts's personal muses. She cites them with little or no context, often<br />
eliding critical information that would make them more accessible. For example, the<br />
second epigraph, "Да раздражу глубину сердечную" is cited from the "Lives of the<br />
Fathers" (из Патерика), but it is not clear to which Paterik it refers, who is speaking, or<br />
what is being discussed. It does, however, help prepare the reader for the disconcerting<br />
poetry which will follow—poetry which will agitate the reader's heart as well as<br />
strengthen it, both potential meanings of the verb раздражать. Again, Shvarts<br />
emphasizes the heart as the center of spiritual and physical torment and growth.<br />
The third epigraph is in the form of a riddle and solution: Иоанн рече: Что есть<br />
гроб хождаше, а в нем мертвец пояше? Василий рече: Кит в море хождаше, а Иона<br />
в чреве песнь Богу пояше. In the following epigraphs, no such resolution is provided.<br />
The fifth epigraph, like the third, begins with a question, «Но с чем же может<br />
199 The notion that madness can lead to spiritual wisdom recalls the tradition of holy fools in Russia.<br />
200 I have not been able to find a definitive source for the seventh epigraph attributed to "Безумный Линь."<br />
When asked via email, Shvarts wrote that Lin' was apparently a Daoist poet and thinker, but she could no<br />
longer recall where the citation came from (private email correspondence, August 16, 2002).<br />
149
граничить Россия с этих двух сторон?» A response, but no answer, is included:<br />
"«…Вы это знаете!»—вскричал больной." Taking this epigraph from a story in Rilke's<br />
Geschichten vom Lieben Gott, Shvarts not only elides crucial information, but even alters<br />
the original text. In Rilke's story, the question is asked by Evald, an invalid who is<br />
listening to the narrator's description of his trip to Russia. In response, the narrator tries<br />
to map out the geography of Russia in spiritual terms. He is not interested in the<br />
traditional measures of latitude and longitude, instead he asks Evald what borders Russia<br />
from above and below. Confused, Evald responds with the question cited in the<br />
epigraph: but what can border Russia from those two directions? In the story, the<br />
narrator, not the sick man, responds, "Sie wissen es." 201<br />
By changing the identity of the<br />
speaker, whether intentionally or not, Shvarts is granting a sick man knowledge. The<br />
word "больной" refers to Evald's physical paralysis, but following Shvarts's first<br />
epigraph it could also suggest a spiritually ill person (душевнобольной)—one of the<br />
madmen who possess true wisdom. 202<br />
In Rilke's story, Evald ultimately arrives at the<br />
answer the narrator is looking for: God borders Russia from above and below. By<br />
leaving out the answer in the epigraph, Shvarts leaves it for her reader to discover, just as<br />
the narrator of Rilke's story waits for Evald to come to the answer himself. Shvarts thus<br />
stresses the personal and unique nature of every individual's search for meaning.<br />
Shvarts's sixth epigraph comes from the Chuang Tzu, a central text of Zen<br />
Buddhism. Like the Rilke quote, it is broken in half by an ellipsis: Поймав зайца,<br />
забывают про ловушку... Где мне найти забывшего про слова человека, чтобы с<br />
201 Rilke, Rainer Maria. "Wie der Verrat nach Russland kam," in Geschichten vom lieben Gott (Leipzig:<br />
Im Insel-Verlag, 1920), 43.<br />
202 In Rilke's story Evald's illness also gives him a special spiritual presence. At times, he looks very<br />
young, almost boylike, at times he seems to turn into an old man. His questions are simple but sincere and<br />
ultimately reveal deep truths.<br />
150
ним поговорить? The two parts do not seem to fit together logically—the only thing<br />
which links them is the act of forgetting. The ellipsis points to the "forgotten" words of<br />
the original source. In a Russian translation of Chuang Tzu the passage reads:<br />
Ловушкой пользуются при ловле зайцев. Поймав зайца, забывают про ловушку.<br />
Словами пользуются для выражения смысла. Постигнув смысл, забывают про<br />
слова. Где бы найти мне забывшего про слова человека, чтобы с ним<br />
поговорить? 203<br />
Here the Daoist philosopher, unlike Shvarts, provides a clear parallelism<br />
between capturing the hare and capturing words. Just as the trap is forgotten once the<br />
hare is caught, so are the words forgotten once the meaning is grasped. The concluding<br />
question, "where can I find someone who has forgotten the words [and thus grabbed the<br />
meaning], in order to speak with him," poses an impossible situation: you can not speak<br />
to someone who has forgotten the words. While you may desire to have meaning given<br />
to you from someone who has already obtained it, you must discover your own words<br />
and your own path to truth. This message is obscured in the epigraph by the forgotten<br />
words of Chuang Tzu, just as the answer to Evald's question is held back in the Rilke<br />
epigraph. The technique of ellipsis thus points to a common theme in two epigraphs<br />
taken from radically different traditions—the individuality and nontransferability of<br />
spiritual knowledge and experience.<br />
The concepts of ellipsis and forgetting point also to the extraordinary, yet<br />
transitory power of words themselves. According to Chuang Tzu, words are needed to<br />
reach a truth, but once that truth is attained, they are forgotten. By citing this at the<br />
beginning of her book, Shvarts suggests that the many words and poems which follow are<br />
203 Chzhuan-tszy, chapter 26, translated by V.V. Maliavin. [http://skeptik.dp.ua/lib/fil/chu/26.htm]<br />
(accessed December 19, 2003).<br />
151
an attempt to attain spiritual enlightenment. As a poet, Shvarts has tremendous respect,<br />
even reverence for words, but her ultimate project is greater than language. 204<br />
In the<br />
end, it is not the words she seeks, but the revelation which can eliminate the need for<br />
those words.<br />
The final epigraphs to Lavinia deal with the poet's role as seeker of truth. The<br />
seventh epigraph, from Безумный Линь, suggests Shvarts's embarkation on her journey<br />
of discovery: У входа в пещеру/Играю с клубящимся туманом (At the entrance to the<br />
cave/I play with the swirling fog). The entrance to the cave can be read as a metaphor for<br />
the entrance to the book of poetry. At this stage, Shvarts is playing with swirling fog—<br />
the words have not yet provided an overall shape or meaning. The following epigraph,<br />
taken from Aleksandr Mironov's verse introduction to his Метафизические радости,<br />
predicts a ruinous end to the poetic journey. In the poem, Mironov describes the<br />
simplicity and purity of incorporeal poetic wanderings from silence to spiritual fruition:<br />
Как бестелесны и просты/плутанья наши—/от новой страшной немоты/до Новой<br />
Чаши. Once the Word of God has been corrupted by the flesh of letters and human<br />
language, however, the promised Chalice turns into a small, and hollow cup, the object of<br />
Shvarts's epigraph: И снова станет небольшой и полой чашей. Shvarts alters the<br />
original text slightly, replacing снова with скоро, again pointing out the incipient nature<br />
of her book. By citing Mironov's poem, she suggests that Lavinia's poems are not the<br />
204 When asked what language means to her, Shvarts responded: Для меня язык прежде всего слуга. Я<br />
очень люблю язык, его богатство, его возможности. К сочинению стихов я отношусь как к<br />
сакральному, священному акту, когда происходит слияние каких-то сил, идущих не только от меня,<br />
и даже в меньшей степени идущих от меня, а гораздо больше еще откуда-то. И постольку,<br />
поскольку действуют совсем какие-то другие силы, они пробуждают и языковые скрытые пласты и<br />
все, что угодно, другое, когда это нужно. Polukhina, Brodsky, 206.<br />
152
uncorrupted word of God, but rather that word filtered through her all too human<br />
experience, mired in flesh. 205<br />
Shvarts's metapoetic comments become explicit in the ninth epigraph which cites<br />
Olga Sedakova: Поэт есть тот, кто хочет то, что все/Хотят хотеть... This epigraph<br />
supports Shvarts's notion of the poet as a seeker of truth and meaning. The poet is not a<br />
prophet granted truth by default—she is privileged over the non-poet only in her ability to<br />
desire and to seek truth. The final epigraph is taken from the end of the religious poet<br />
Igor Burikhin's long poem "Февральский демон," which concerns itself with the same<br />
struggle between flesh and the spirit that will torment Lavinia. The lines Shvarts cites<br />
provide a concluding call to God: И все же силою любви/с гнездом подняться от<br />
земли./Сам Господи, благослови!.. (And with that same power of love/rise up from the<br />
earth with the nest./The very Lord, give your blessing!) With this request for a<br />
benediction, Shvarts embarks on Lavinia's spiritual journey toward God.<br />
While the epigraphs at first seem like a puzzling array of unrelated thoughts, they<br />
ultimately guide us into the book that follows. In their diversity of sources they support<br />
the ecumenical mission set out in Paul's "circumcision of the heart"; several address the<br />
central theme of the role of the poet and poetic work; the Rilke and Corinthians epigraphs<br />
are tied by their association of madness and wisdom; the Rilke and Chuang Tzu citations<br />
are connected through the technique of ellipsis. The epigraphs resonate not only with<br />
each other and with elements of the title, but also with the subsequent poems. Jonah will<br />
reemerge in Lavinia's poem, "Левиафан"; themes and images related to madness and<br />
205 Mironov's epigraph is hinted at in the seventy-fifth poem of the book, "Сатори," which will be<br />
discussed later in the chapter.<br />
153
forgetting will figure repeatedly in her verse; and Rilke's new kind of geography will<br />
provide a thematic focus for the book.<br />
After the ten epigraphs, Shvarts inserts two more voices before finally producing<br />
Lavinia's own verse. First comes a foreword from the fictitious publisher, identified<br />
grammatically as male. 206<br />
Primarily a publisher of contemporary psychological studies<br />
(труды по современной психологии), he makes an exception in the case of Lavinia's<br />
poetry, seeing in it an example of a psychological event—the spontaneous eruption<br />
(взрыв) of the unconscious within a modern consciousness. Lavinia confronts this<br />
eruption head-on, and, as a result, loses her mind. While the foreword is couched in the<br />
publisher's "mock-pompous tones" 207 and impersonal, pseudo-scientific language, it<br />
nonetheless guides the reader into Lavinia's verse. By referring at the outset to Lavinia's<br />
decline into madness, the publisher takes away some of the narrative tension. No longer<br />
concerned with "what will happen," he can focus his attention on the major themes in<br />
Lavinia's verse: organic ecumenism and unorthodoxy (неортодоксальность) combined<br />
with deep faith—issues not ordinarily attributed to academic works of psychology. The<br />
publisher emphasizes the separateness of Lavinia's poems, referring to them in the plural<br />
(произведения монахини Лавинии, присланные нам ее сестрой) rather than as one<br />
work or collection, but he recognizes their composite power to provide insight not only<br />
into one case study of a mad nun, but into the modern human condition as a whole. He<br />
concludes with an explicit wish that Lavinia's verse reach beyond his typical audience of<br />
206 Midway through the introduction, the editor writes, "я бы даже сказал."<br />
207 Heldt, "The Poetry of Elena Shvarts," 383. Heldt has suggested that the foreword might be in imitation<br />
of Dostoevsky's footnote to Notes from Underground. Here, however, Shvarts creates a fictitious character<br />
(the male publisher) to write the foreword, whereas Dostoevsky claims the footnote as his own. Also,<br />
while concerned with the predicament of "contemporary" man, her publisher ultimately seeks selfknowledge<br />
rather than the societal awareness Dostoevsky calls for in Notes.<br />
154
psychoanalysts and provide contemporary man with a better self-understanding: Мы<br />
надеемся, что эта причудливая смесь видений, фантомов, медитаций, простых<br />
признаний и непритязательных наблюдений даст пищу не только психоаналитикам,<br />
но и послужит к лучшему самопознанию современного человека.<br />
Such a goal recalls the spiritual project of Shvarts's poetry—to discover and<br />
express some sort of new reality, new knowledge. 208<br />
The publisher's description of<br />
Lavinia's verse as a "fantastic/odd mixture" more concretely echoes Shvarts's own<br />
description of the "маленькая поэма" genre: Сам сюжет состоит из борьбы<br />
метафизических идей, видений, чувствований, причудливо смешанных с мелкими<br />
происшествиями жизни. Контрапункт противоречий всегда находит<br />
гармоническое разрешение. 209<br />
Like the publisher, Shvarts aims to provide some<br />
greater understanding, a "harmonic resolution" of the dissonant, seemingly unconnected<br />
pieces of the whole. Thus it is largely Shvarts's voice that emerges in the foreword,<br />
disguised in the publisher's academic, anti-poetic language, to guide the reader into the<br />
text and into Lavinia's world.<br />
The foreword is followed by a letter from Lavinia's fellow nun to the publisher<br />
(Письмо сестры к издателю). 210<br />
Written in verse, it introduces Lavinia's poetry,<br />
describing the convent where Lavinia worshipped and Lavinia herself:<br />
Где этот монастырь—сказать пора:<br />
Где пермские леса сплетаются с Тюрингским лесом,<br />
Где молятся Франциску, Серафиму,<br />
208 У меня не столько эстетические задачи, сколько какие-то другие. Не хочу говорить духовные, но<br />
это какое-то постижение иной реальности через вещи, через людей, через себя саму, постижение<br />
чего-то иного. Это попытка получить знание, а какими средствами—мне более или менее<br />
безразлично. Polukhina, Brodsky, 201.<br />
209 Shvarts, Sochineniia¸ v.2, 62. Emphasis mine.<br />
210 These multiple letters and epigraphs which precede Lavinia's verse recall the vast amount of<br />
introductory material in Tsvetaeva's "Poema bez geroia." In both cases, the additional voices initially<br />
crowd out the central text and lyric persona.<br />
155
Где служат вместе ламы, будды, бесы,<br />
Где ангел и медведь не ходят мимо,<br />
Где вороны всех кормят и пчела—<br />
Он был сегодня, будет и вчера.<br />
Каков он с виду—расскажу я тоже,<br />
Круг огненный, змеиное кольцо,<br />
Подвал, чердак, скалистая гора,<br />
Корабль хлыстовский, остров Божий—<br />
Он был сегодня, будет и вчера.<br />
А какова была моя сестра?<br />
Как свечка в яме. Этого довольно.<br />
Рос волосок седой из правого плеча.<br />
Умна, глупа—и этого довольно.<br />
Она была как шар—моя сестра,<br />
И по ночам в садах каталась,<br />
Глаза сияли, губы улыбались,<br />
Была сегодня, будет и вчера.<br />
Where this nunnery is—it's time to say—<br />
Where the Permian forest blends with Thuringian forest,<br />
Where they pray to Serafim and Francis,<br />
Where lamas, buddhas, and demons worship together,<br />
Where the angel and the bear do not pass by,<br />
Where the ravens and the bees feed everyone—<br />
It was today and will be yesterday.<br />
What it looks like—I will also tell.<br />
A fiery circle, ring of snakes,<br />
Cellar, attic, sheer cliff face,<br />
Ship of the Khlyst sectarians, god's isle—<br />
It was today and will be yesterday.<br />
And what sort of a person was my sister?<br />
Like a candle in a pit. Enough of that.<br />
A grey hair grew from her right shoulder.<br />
Wise and stupid—that's enough of that.<br />
She was like a ball—my sister,<br />
At nights she would go rolling through the gardens,<br />
Her lips were smiling and her eyes were ardent—<br />
She was today, she will be yesterday. 211<br />
211 With one exception—the substitution of "demons" for "devils" in the fourth line—this translation is<br />
taken from Michael Molnar. Elena Shvarts, Paradise (London: Bloodaxe Press, 1993), 111.<br />
156
This poem can be read as an almost programmatic statement of Shvarts's ecumenical<br />
outlook. Apparent oppositions are synthesized within a universal church: the convent<br />
resembles both a cellar and an attic (подвал, чердак); nuns come together with lamas,<br />
buddhas and demons to worship saints from both the Eastern and Western Christian<br />
traditions (Serafim and Francis). Outside of the physical constraints of space and time,<br />
the convent represents the juncture of two geographically distant forests (Permian and<br />
Thuringian) and the intersection of the present and the past, the past and the future (Он<br />
был сегодня, будет и вчера). 212<br />
Similarly, opposites converge within Lavinia: she<br />
combines light and darkness, like a candle in a pit; she is both wise and stupid (умна,<br />
глупа). 213<br />
These oppositions within the convent and Lavinia herself find a "harmonic<br />
resolution" in spherical images of a ball (шар), a fiery circle (круг огненный), and a<br />
circle of snakes (змеиное кольцо), reminiscent of the ouroboros, the symbol of a snake<br />
with its tail in its mouth representing the eternal circle of life and the wholeness of being.<br />
In fact, the sister's poem provides the clearest moment of harmonic resolution to<br />
be found in the book. The very form of the sister's letter creates a harmony<br />
uncharacteristic of Lavinia's and Shvarts's verse. Written in consistent iambs with a lead<br />
rhyme which repeats in each of the poems three stanzas, the poem stands out in its<br />
normalcy from the shifting, often jarring rhythms typical of Shvarts's verse. 214<br />
This sense<br />
of harmony owes much to the sister's use of repetition: extensive anaphora in the first<br />
seven lines of the poem; the repetition of the phrase "этого довольно" in the final stanza;<br />
212 In Molnar's Paradise translation, poems excerpted from Lavinia are preceded by the following<br />
description of the convent of the Circumcision of the Heart: "На скрещении времен, пространств и<br />
религий стоит вообржаемый монастырь Обрезанья Сердца." (Shvarts, Paradise, 110)<br />
213 This second opposition recalls the equation of madness (signaled here by apparent stupidity) and<br />
wisdom in the first epigraph, and the suggestion by the publisher that Lavinia's record of her decline into<br />
madness will lead to a better understanding of the self.<br />
214 For a discussion of Shvarts's "polyrhythmic verse," see Skidan, "Summa poetiki," 285-7.<br />
157
and, most importantly, the repetition of the final line of each stanza (with a slight change<br />
in the third): Он был сегодня, будет и вчера. This line reinforces the eternal cyclicity<br />
suggested by the spherical imagery. It takes on the quality of a mantra, becoming natural<br />
through repetition, despite its temporal illogic and stands in sharp contrast to the<br />
explosive, unsettling nature of much of Lavinia's verse. Take, for example, the opening<br />
lines of "Ипподром," Lavinia's first poem which immediately follows the sister's letter:<br />
Слова копытами стучат. В средине дров<br />
Расколется пылающее сердце.<br />
Words thunder like hooves. In the middle of the wood<br />
The flaming heart will split.<br />
The soothing abstractions of the sister's letter are replaced by thundering words, 215<br />
enlivened like horses' hooves. A flaming heart takes the place of the convent's fiery<br />
circle, but, instead of symbolizing the eternal synthesis of opposites, it splits. The verb<br />
"расколоться," while the standard verb for "to split," here surely suggests the religious<br />
meaning of "раскол," schism. The whole heart, perhaps the ideal of the universal church,<br />
is split apart in the middle of the wood, just as the first line of Lavinia's verse is split<br />
apart by enjambment.<br />
In imagery, tone, and form, these lines depart dramatically from the harmony of<br />
the sister's letter. Throughout this poem and the book, Lavinia will continue to produce<br />
such volatile verse, providing no explicit resolution to her seemingly disparate poems.<br />
The reader, aided by the various introductory material of the epigraphs, the foreword and<br />
the letter, is left to try and synthesize her poems—to understand the wholeness of the<br />
book.<br />
215 It is noteworthy that Lavinia's "first word" as a poet is "words."<br />
158
The Geography of Lavinia.<br />
In the introductory material Shvarts sets out one of the central unifying features of<br />
Lavinia: the metaphysical location of Lavinia's world. Such a location is first suggested<br />
in the Rilke epigraph which proposes a new kind of geography: a physical space (Russia)<br />
bordered by a spiritual entity (God). Lavinia's world is described more specifically in the<br />
sister's letter to the publisher. Twelve of the poem's twenty lines are devoted to Lavinia's<br />
convent. The first stanza gives its location—a physical, temporal, and geographical<br />
impossibility; the second describes its various contradictory physical traits. Even though<br />
the letter's purpose is to introduce the publisher (and subsequently the reader) to Lavinia,<br />
she is not mentioned until the third stanza (as "сестра").<br />
The poem's geographical focus points to the importance of the location of<br />
Lavinia's verse—where the events described in her verse take place and where that verse<br />
is produced. This location is both the convent and Lavinia's own body. Lavinia can not<br />
be understood or even approached without reference to the space she inhabits. Her<br />
similarity to the convent—a contradictory yet spherical shape, a strangely eternal<br />
presence—suggests an equivalence of personhood and location. It appears impossible to<br />
separate one from the other; the physical and the spiritual are wholly intertwined.<br />
This becomes more apparent in Lavinia's own verse, where she frequently equates the<br />
physical space of a church with the human body. Her first explicit description of a place<br />
of worship comes in her third poem:<br />
Храм тем больше храм, чем меньше храм он.<br />
Помню я—церквушечка одна<br />
Вся замшелая, как ракушка. Ночами<br />
В ней поет и служит тишина.<br />
Там в проломы входят утра и закаты,<br />
159
И луна лежит на алтаре,<br />
Сад кругом дичающий, косматый<br />
Руки в окна опускает в сентябре.<br />
Только голубь вдруг вкось<br />
Вспорхнет из колонны,<br />
На которой коростой свилось<br />
Спасенье Ионы.<br />
Пагода, собор или костел—<br />
Это звездный, это—Божий дом,<br />
Забредут ли волк или прохожий—<br />
Ветер напоит его вином.<br />
Ангел даст серебрянного хлеба.<br />
Ты, когда разрушишься,—тобой<br />
Завладеют тоже ветер, небо,<br />
Тишины неукротимый вой.<br />
The less a temple is like a temple, the more it is a temple.<br />
I remember—there was a little church<br />
All overgrown with moss like a cockle shell. At night<br />
Silence sings and worships in it.<br />
There mornings and evenings enter through its gaps,<br />
And the moon lies on the altar,<br />
Running wild all around, the shaggy garden<br />
Lowers its arms [loses heart] through the windows in September.<br />
Only a dove will suddenly off at a slant<br />
Take wing from the column<br />
On which like a scab is curled up<br />
The escape of Jonah.<br />
A pagoda, an Orthodox cathedral or a Catholic church—<br />
It is a celestial home—God's home,<br />
Whether a wolf or a passerby drops in<br />
The wind will intoxicate him with wine.<br />
An angel will give some silver bread.<br />
You, when you fall apart—you too<br />
The wind and sky will claim,<br />
The indomitable howl of silence.<br />
160
This poem echoes the sister's letter in several ways. The temple, like the sister's convent,<br />
represents a seemingly contradictory space: the less like a temple it is, the more it is a<br />
temple. The first and last stanzas end with oxymorons reminiscent of the impossible<br />
contradictions found throughout the sister's letter: singing silence; the indomitable wail<br />
of silence. Here, the feminine noun тишина appears to take the place Lavinia held in the<br />
sister's letter. Its contradictory nature—ability to sing, worship and wail—brings to mind<br />
Lavinia's split between wisdom and madness (умна, глупа) and her role as both<br />
worshiper and poet. The nighttime designation (ночами) recalls the image of Lavinia<br />
rolling through the gardens at night (по ночам) in the sister's letter.<br />
The poem's fourth stanza reiterates the importance of a temple as a universal<br />
space (here, Божий дом; in the sister's letter, остров Божий). Its form is unimportant, be<br />
it a pagoda, Orthodox cathedral or Catholic church, as long as it welcomes all those who<br />
wish to enter it: the mornings and evenings, the moon, the garden, the wolf and the<br />
passerby. The third line of the stanza, "Забредут ли волк или прохожий," most<br />
specifically recalls the angel and the bear who do not pass by the sister's convent ("ангел<br />
и медведь не ходят мимо").<br />
The distant, mythical actions described in the sister's letter, however, become<br />
much more personalized and mystical in Lavinia's poem. In the sister's letter, crows feed<br />
everyone in the convent (вороны всех кормят) as, according to the bible, they fed the<br />
prophet Ilya. 216 In Lavinia's poem the ministration of food takes on a very particular<br />
character: the wind provides wine, the angel offers silver bread in a strange form of<br />
communion. Lavinia's description has a specificity and uniqueness not found in the<br />
sister's letter.<br />
216 3 Kings XVII, 4-6.<br />
161
Formally, the poem is quite distinct from the sister's verse as well: occasionally<br />
disrupted trochees take the place of steady iambs; sudden shifts and breaks replace<br />
frequent repetitions. Lavinia's poem opens with a consistently trochaic aphorism (Храм<br />
тем больше храм, чем меньше храм он) reminiscent of the sister's mantra "Он был<br />
сегодня, будет и вчера," but the calm sense of abstraction is quickly disturbed when<br />
Lavinia introduces her personal memory of a little church. In the third line (Vsia<br />
zamshélaia, kak rakúshka. Nochámi) she disrupts the meter and uses enjambment, never<br />
employed in the sister's letter, for the first time.<br />
The poem's most distinct break is found in the third stanza. After the steadily<br />
trochaic second stanza, the first two lines of the stanza are broken by enjambment.<br />
Trochees are suddenly mixed with spondees (vdrúg vkós') and iambs (vsporkhnёt). The<br />
lines, previously pentameter or hexameter, range from two to four stresses and six to nine<br />
syllables. The breaks in meter and line correspond to the explosive subject matter: a<br />
dove suddenly takes wing from a column around which is wrapped an image of Jonah<br />
being expelled from the whale.<br />
The final formal break in the poem takes place between the last two stanzas: the<br />
description of communion is split between the last line of the fourth stanza (the wine) and<br />
the first line of the fifth (the bread). While not technically an enjambment (both lines are<br />
complete sentences), such a break shakes up the previously stable stanzaic structure in<br />
which each of the first three quatrains is a self-contained unit. The final stanza is the<br />
most rhythmically consistent in the poem (trochaic pentameter throughout with<br />
alternating rhymes), but in terms of content it is the most diverse. The tail end of the<br />
communion is followed by a sudden address to an unknown "ты." A comparison is made<br />
162
etween the destruction of the temple and the future destruction of this addressee: both<br />
will inevitably be possessed by the howl of silence.<br />
All of these breaks and shifts unsettle the reader, yet they do not overpower the<br />
poem's overall structure. The poem consists of five clearly delineated quatrains with<br />
alternating rhyme. 217<br />
Largely symmetrical in form, it reaches a dynamic climax in the<br />
middle quatrain. The end of the poem returns the reader to its beginning by comparing<br />
the addressee of the final stanza to the overgrown little church of the first and by recalling<br />
the sonorous silence. The signs of disturbance within this whole seem to reflect the<br />
unsettled nature of Lavinia's internal world, a world which, like the poem, still retains a<br />
sense of coherence and has not yet collapsed into madness. Despite her unpredictability<br />
and idiosyncrasy, Lavinia is ultimately able to provide a powerful picture of her church<br />
as an open universal space, comparable to the body of an individual human being.<br />
This comparison of church and human body, already suggested in the parallels between<br />
the convent and Lavinia in the sister's letter, 218 evolves into an explicit equation in the<br />
thirty-fourth poem of Lavinia: "Весенняя церковь" ("Spring Church"):<br />
Печальное постное пенье<br />
Проникло легко под ребра<br />
И сердца лампаду<br />
Протерло<br />
Ладонью.<br />
Как будто я стала сама<br />
Мягкою белою церковью,<br />
И толпы детей и старушек<br />
Входили, крестясь и мигая,<br />
Мне в чрево и кланялись сердцу,<br />
А сердце дымящим кадилом<br />
Качалось, так мерно качалось.<br />
Когда же они уходили—<br />
217 The first rhyme in the first stanza is inexact, and the fourth stanza has only one rhyme.<br />
218 This connection is also suggested in the fifth poem which repeats images from the third poem to<br />
describe Lavinia's own body. I will discuss this poem later in the chapter.<br />
163
В буреющий снег полей<br />
Храм под дождем опускался<br />
И в сумерки растворялся<br />
Замерзшим забытым ягненком,<br />
Разорванной смятою грудой.<br />
Печальное постное пенье<br />
С врачебным презреньем вонзалось<br />
Мне в сердце—и там оказалось<br />
То же, что и у всех—<br />
Тьмы потоки, безмерности малость,<br />
Бог, завернутый в черный мех.<br />
Sad Lenten singing<br />
Lightly penetrated under my ribs,<br />
And the icon lamp of my heart<br />
It rubbed<br />
With its palm.<br />
As if I myself became<br />
A soft white church,<br />
And crowds of children and old women,<br />
Crossing themselves and blinking, entered<br />
My womb and bowed to my heart,<br />
And my heart like a smoking censer<br />
Rocked, so evenly rocked.<br />
But when they left—<br />
Into the browning snow of the fields<br />
The temple collapsed under the rain<br />
And dissolved in the twilight<br />
Like a frozen forgotten lamb,<br />
Like a torn, crumpled heap.<br />
Sad Lenten singing<br />
With medical scorn was piercing<br />
My heart—and there appeared<br />
The same thing that is in everyone—<br />
Streams of darkness, a bit of immensity,<br />
God, wrapped up in black fur.<br />
In this poem Lavinia describes her emotional and spiritual reaction to sad, Lenten singing<br />
in concrete, physical terms. She transforms the song into a physical entity which can<br />
exert its force on her literally as well as metaphorically: it enters her body, penetrating<br />
under her ribs and rubbing the icon lamp of her heart. The importance of the physical<br />
164
space is highlighted by the break in meter—the first twelve lines are entirely<br />
amphibrachic except for the seventh line: Мягкою белою церковью.<br />
Lavinia expands the image of the heart as icon lamp to a comparison of her entire<br />
body to a soft white church. Further realizing this metaphor, she describes the crowds of<br />
children and old women who physically enter her womb and bow to her heart. As in the<br />
sister's letter and Lavinia's third poem, she presents a church open to the outside—the<br />
children and old women are like the angel and the bear, the wolf and the passerby.<br />
This association of church and body recalls the equation of Christ's body with the whole<br />
Christian church, capable of uniting both Jew and Gentile. 219<br />
When the visitors leave<br />
Lavinia's body, however, the empty church dissolves in a heap. Her church-like body is a<br />
modest imitation of Christ's body; her heart, like everyone else's, contains only a bit of<br />
the immensity of Christ's love. This attempt to imitate Christ constitutes the narrative<br />
center of Lavinia's book.<br />
Several other poems in Lavinia's book focus on churches and temples, often<br />
highlighting the connection between the holy place and Lavinia herself. In the thirtieth<br />
poem, "Моя молельня," Lavinia describes her ability to create a place of prayer<br />
anywhere—even in the metro:<br />
Свою палатку для молитвы<br />
Я разбиваю где угодно—<br />
219 See Paul's Letter to the Ephesians, 2:13-22, 5:29-30. This letter, while possibly not written by Paul<br />
himself, shares his ecumenical viewpoint: "Gentiles and Jews, [Christ] has made the two one, and in his<br />
own body of flesh and blood has broken down the barrier of enmity which separated them; for he annulled<br />
the law with its rules and regulations, so as to create out of the two a single new humanity in himself,<br />
thereby making peace. This was his purpose, to reconcile the two in a single body to God through the<br />
cross, by which he killed the enmity" (2:14-16). In the next verses, the imagery shifts abruptly to describe<br />
Christ as a building rather than a body: "You are built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with<br />
Christ Jesus himself as the corner-stone. In him the whole building is bonded together and grows into a<br />
holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built with all the others into a spiritual dwelling for<br />
God" (2:20-22). This and future biblical citations are taken from The Oxford Study Bible (New York:<br />
Oxfod University Press, 1992).<br />
165
В метро, в постели или в бане—<br />
Где это Господу угодно.<br />
My tent for prayer<br />
I pitch anywhere—<br />
In the metro, in bed or in the banya—<br />
Wherever God pleases.<br />
Later in the poem, Lavinia creates a tiny altar out of her palms into which flies her<br />
double, no bigger than a cicada; 220 Lavinia is both worshiper and place of worship.<br />
Lavinia again describes herself as a place of peace in the thirty-seventh poem, "Чудище":<br />
Я—город, и площадь, и рынок,<br />
И место для тихих прогулок<br />
Для перипатетиков-духов<br />
И ангельский театр, и сад.<br />
Я—город, я—крошечный город<br />
Великой Империи. Остров<br />
В зеленых морях винограда.<br />
I am a city, and a town square, and a market,<br />
And a place for quiet strolls<br />
Of itinerant spirits,<br />
And an angelic theater, and a garden.<br />
I am a city, I am a tiny city<br />
Of a Great Empire. An Island<br />
In green seas of grapes.<br />
These lines recall Lavinia's earlier descriptions of churches and temples. Wanderers<br />
continue to enter her body and stroll within her. A microcosm of God's "Great Empire,"<br />
she again seems to represent or imitate Christ's body, the Church. Lavinia's use of the<br />
word "island" evokes the description of the convent in the sister's letter as "God's island"<br />
(остров Божий); later on in the poem, Lavinia describes herself as round (круглый),<br />
again recalling the sister's depiction of the convent as a circle (круг) or ring (кольцо),<br />
and Lavinia as a sphere (шар).<br />
220 While not explicitly stated in the poem, the double imagery was confirmed by Shvarts: Лавиния<br />
создает маленького двойника (не больше цикады) и прячет в ладонях, в домике из ладоней (personal<br />
email communication of August 16, 2002).<br />
166
By the end of the book, Lavinia is forcibly thrown out of the convent. In the<br />
book's fifty-eighth poem, she resists, threatening to drag the convent along with her: Я<br />
поволоку с собою/…Монастырь весь. It is seemingly impossible to separate the<br />
person from the place—the nun from the convent. Ultimately, however, she is cast out<br />
and thrown into a ditch in the final poem, "Скит." As the poem's title suggests, she<br />
replaces the convent with a private hermitage, one which fits her perfectly. The<br />
longstanding issue of Lavinia's location and, by association, her very identity, is resolved<br />
in this final poem.<br />
От Рождества до Пасхи: An Imitation of Christ<br />
Already in the subtitle, Shvarts lays out a timeline for Lavinia's works: от<br />
Рождества до Пасхи. The poems do indeed follow this temporal progression from<br />
Christmas to Easter, both in seasonal and spiritual terms. In the fourth, seventh, and<br />
eighth poems Lavinia describes the snow and ice of the surrounding winter; Christmas<br />
arrives in the eleventh lyric, "Темная Рождественская песнь," and is celebrated in the<br />
twelfth, "Сочельник"; spring breaks in the twenty-first poem, "Капель." While time<br />
markers are absent in many poems, by the end of the book, as Easter approaches, the<br />
references become more specific and more frequent. Several poems refer to Lent, the<br />
fifty-second explicitly marking Lavinia's passage halfway through the Fast. The sixtythird<br />
lyric is titled "Последние минуты Страстной" ("The final minutes of Holy<br />
Week"), and by the seventy-first poem, "Ночь на Великую Субботу," Lavinia has<br />
reached the eve of Easter.<br />
167
Despite this seemingly straightforward progression through a single season,<br />
Lavinia perceives time as changeable and fluid. 221<br />
In the sixty-eighth lyric, she describes<br />
the days of Lent as expanding and contracting like an accordian (Дни перед Пасхой, дни<br />
Поста/Гармошкой со-разводятся). Three poems later in "Воскрешение апостолом<br />
Петром Тавифы и попытка подражания," time rolls itself up into a ball of incense<br />
(Скаталось время в дымный шар,/В шар фимиамный), allowing Lavinia to be present<br />
simultaneously at Peter's raising of Tabitha and at her own modern-day attempt at a<br />
resurrection.<br />
The book's subtitle similarly incorporates both biblical and "real" time: as<br />
Lavinia proceeds through the calendar year, marking the holidays of a single holy season,<br />
she invokes a sense of ritualized time associated with the repeatable, cyclical pattern of<br />
Christ's life and death. 222<br />
For Lavinia, this pattern is not simply repetitive, but<br />
cumulative. In "Ночь на Великую Субботу," she describes Christ's suffering as<br />
increasing with each year and each crucifixion:<br />
Две тыщи лет назад<br />
Он ранен был,<br />
Как треснул ад.<br />
Он так вопил,<br />
И мечется—ведь раны злее<br />
С годами, злоба тяжелее.<br />
Two thousand years ago<br />
He was wounded,<br />
As hell collapsed.<br />
He wailed horribly,<br />
And he tosses about—since the wounds are more terrible<br />
With the years, the malice more difficult to bear.<br />
221 This mutability of time was first suggested in the final lines of the sister's letter: Была сегодня, будет и<br />
вчера.<br />
222 Skidan has described Shvarts's poetry as "anachronistic" and based in "messianic time," juxtaposing it to<br />
Brodsky's verse which is grounded in chronology and history. Skidan, "Summa poetiki," 287.<br />
168
Throughout this poem, Lavinia shifts between the present, future and past tenses. Here,<br />
the seamless transition in tense from вопил to мечется allows the present and the past to<br />
overlap; Christ's suffering and Lavinia's experience of that suffering are simultaneously<br />
both divided by millennia and contemporaneous.<br />
This mutability of time is reflected in the mutability of the figures of Lavinia and<br />
Christ. Over the course of the book, Lavinia attempts to become closer to God and, in the<br />
process, imitates and at times seems to exchange herself for Christ. Thus, the subtitle<br />
"От Рождества од Пасхи" refers not so much to Christ's journey from birth to<br />
resurrection, as to Lavinia's own parallel journey. In the Christmas poems, for example,<br />
very little attention is paid to the actual birth of Christ. Instead, Lavinia becomes the<br />
focus—first as an awed witness and celebrant of birth in "Темная Рождественская<br />
песнь" and "Сочельник," then as the one being born in "Левиафан."<br />
In "Темная Рождественская песнь," Lavinia attempts to understand the very<br />
nature of birth—to reveal the origins of the Feminine, the source of life and multiplicity:<br />
Разъем я кислотою слов—<br />
Откуда Женское возникло,<br />
Откуда Множественность свисла<br />
Ветвями темных трех дубов.<br />
With the bitterness of words I will eat away at<br />
The place where the Feminine emerged,<br />
The place where plurality hung down<br />
Like the branches of three dark oaks.<br />
Lavinia first traces the Feminine to the terrible maiden (страшная Девица) Venus, but<br />
ultimately arrives at the Virgin Mary as a microcosm for the entire universe (Дева,<br />
Дева—Микрокосм). It is through her that all of humanity has come into contact with<br />
God. In order to become closer to God, a person must emulate the Virgin by accepting<br />
169
God into oneself and laboring to give birth to Him. In the poem, Lavinia literalizes this<br />
notion, granting even the three Magi the ability to conceive and give birth: 223<br />
Шли три царя. Не понимали,<br />
Куда идут и сколько дней.<br />
И только знали, что зачали,<br />
Что их самих родят вначале,—<br />
Но и они родят теперь.<br />
The three kings were on their way. They did not understand<br />
Where they were going or how long they had been traveling.<br />
They only knew that they conceived,<br />
That they gave birth to themselves in the beginning—<br />
And they even were giving birth now. 224<br />
By the end of the poem, Lavinia vows to watch and sing over these colorful angels who<br />
cry out in labor:<br />
И я лечу туда и буду<br />
Над теми, плача, петь полями—<br />
Над зимними, где апельсинами<br />
Лежат, измучены, как пахари,<br />
Цветные ангелы—и синюю<br />
Мглу рвут и охами и ахами.<br />
And I will fly there and will<br />
sing, crying, over those fields—<br />
Over the winter fields, where, like oranges<br />
Tormented, like ploughmen, lie<br />
The colorful angels—and tear the deep blue<br />
Gloom with their cries of Oh and Ah.<br />
In "Сочельник," Lavinia continues to focus on the feminine activity surrounding<br />
Christmas. She calls on her fellow nuns to retrieve the clothing of Christmas from a hole<br />
223 I am indebted to Shvarts for enlightening this "dark" poem in an email correspondence: Посколько<br />
ниже «Дева-Микрокосм», становится понятно, что все превращается в «женское», человек (в целом)<br />
становится Девой, поэтому и три царя тоже превращаются в женщин. И, как таковые, могут родить.<br />
Ведь человек (и человечество) в Христианском смысле вошел в соприкосновение с Богом (принял<br />
Его в себя) через Деву, женщину. И цари должны ими (женщинами) стать, чтобы приблизиться к<br />
Богу. И смысл жизни Лавинии тоже в приближении к истине, к Богу, насколько она может. Это<br />
написано в духе священного дионисийского безумия, вот как Пифия в Дельфах в Греции изрекала<br />
«темные» слова.<br />
224 Again, the expansion of time is evident. Birth is presented as an endlessly repeating event, both present<br />
and past, not the single event of Christ's birth.<br />
170
in the frozen river, and to throw it on the shoulders of Christmas Eve. Whatever the<br />
actual form Christmas takes—it may arrive as a child, a deer or an old man—the nuns<br />
will react in the same way, dressing Christmas Eve in the night:<br />
Пускай войдет Сочельник<br />
Младенцем в пеленах,<br />
Оленем в снежный ельник<br />
Со свечками в глазах.<br />
Приди хотя бы дедом,<br />
Проснувшимся в гробу,<br />
А мы тебя оденем<br />
В ночь со звездой во лбу.<br />
Let Christmas Eve arrive<br />
As a swaddled infant,<br />
As a deer enters a snowy fir-grove<br />
With candles in his eyes.<br />
Come even as an old man<br />
Having woken up in your grave,<br />
And we will dress you<br />
In the night with a star on your forehead.<br />
The next poem, "Левиафан," is not explicitly a Christmas poem (no references to<br />
the holiday or time markers are given), but it does describe a birth, this time Lavinia's,<br />
born of a leviathan:<br />
Левиафан среди лесов<br />
Лежит наказанный на суше<br />
Средь пней, осин и комаров,<br />
Волнуясь синей мощной тушей—<br />
Его я услыхала зов.<br />
Он мне кричал через леса:<br />
«Приди ко мне! Найди дорогу!<br />
И в чрево мне войди. Потом<br />
Я изрыгну тебя, ей-богу.»<br />
И я пришла. Он съел меня.<br />
И зубы, что острей кинжала,<br />
Вверху мелькнули. Я лежала<br />
171
Во тьме горящей без огня.<br />
Как хорошо мне было там!<br />
Я позабыла все на свете,<br />
Что там—за кожею его—<br />
Есть солнце, и луна, и ветер.<br />
И только шептала: «Отчаль!<br />
Брось в море свой дух раскаленный».<br />
И он заскакал, зарычал:<br />
«Ты лучше, ты тише Ионы».<br />
Я позабыла кровь свою,<br />
Все имена, и смерть, и ужас—<br />
Уж в море плыл Левиафан,<br />
Весь в родовых потугах тужась.<br />
О, роды были тяжкие. Несчастный!<br />
Кровавый небо сек фонтан.<br />
Когда я вылетела в пене красной,<br />
Как глубоко нырнул Левиафан!<br />
In the middle of the forests a Leviathan<br />
Lies punished on dry land<br />
Among stumps, aspens and mosquitos,<br />
Agitating with his massive blue body—<br />
I heard his call.<br />
He shouted to me through the forests:<br />
"Come to me! Find the way!<br />
And enter into my belly. 225 Then<br />
I will spew you forth, I swear."<br />
And I came. He ate me.<br />
And his teeth, sharper than a dagger,<br />
Glinted above me. I lay<br />
In the darkness which burned without a flame.<br />
How good I felt there!<br />
I forgot everything in the world,<br />
I forgot that there—outside his skin—<br />
Was the sun, the moon, and the wind.<br />
225 "Belly" is the more neutral translation, here, but чрево could also be translated as "womb," adding to the<br />
birth imagery found later in the poem. Like the Magi in "Темная Рождественская песнь," the masculine<br />
Leviathan is capable of giving birth.<br />
172
And I only whispered: "Cast off!<br />
Throw your scorching spirit into the sea."<br />
And he began to jump, to growl:<br />
"You are better, quieter than Jonah."<br />
I forgot my own blood,<br />
All the names, and death, and terror—<br />
Leviathan already swam in the sea,<br />
Straining with all his might in contractions.<br />
Oh, the labor was difficult. The poor creature!<br />
A bloody fountain beat the sky.<br />
When I flew out in the red foam,<br />
How deep Leviathan dove!<br />
In this poem, Lavinia radically rewrites the story of Jonah and the whale. Unlike Jonah,<br />
who attempts to run away from God, Lavinia immediately heeds the call of the<br />
Leviathan. Once she has entered into his belly, she finds an unearthly peace, forgetting<br />
the world around her and even her own self. It is as if she has readily journeyed toward a<br />
beckoning God, and, once she has arrived, experiences heaven—a utopia before the Fall.<br />
An innocent child of God, she is ultimately born, like Christ, into the world. This link to<br />
Christ is strengthened by the physical description of the Leviathan's labor in the final<br />
stanzas, recalling the strange birth imagery in "Темная Рождественская песнь."<br />
The Leviathan, however, is traditionally a symbol of chaos or Satan, not God. 226<br />
This could suggest that Lavinia is in fact being enticed by and born of the devil; 227 the<br />
poem as a whole, however, seems too positive for such a reading. 228<br />
Instead, Lavinia's<br />
relationship with the Leviathan highlights other Christ-like qualities in her, specifically<br />
226 "Leviathan, both in the Bible (Job 41; Ps 74.14; Isa 27.1; see also Job 7.12; Isa 51.9; Hab 3.8) and in<br />
other ancient Near Eastern literature, is a sea monster representing cosmic chaos." Michael D. Coogan, ed.,<br />
The New Oxford Annotated Bible (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 730.<br />
227 Later in the book, the devil appears as a tempter in several poems, a few of which I will discuss below.<br />
228 Sandler describes Lavinia's experience of forgetting in this poem as inherently positive: "time spent<br />
inside the whale is comforting and revelatory to Lavinia; memories of death and horror are wiped away,<br />
and her own identity seems washed aside as well." Sandler, "Elena Shvarts and the Distances of Self-<br />
Disclosure," 103 n.29. By treating the Leviathan as simply a "whale," however, Sandler does not address<br />
its potentially negative force.<br />
173
the ability to show compassion for and to save the most wretched of creatures. She frees<br />
the Leviathan, punished (наказанный) on dry land for some unnamed guilt, and returns<br />
him with a gentle whisper to his natural habitat, the sea. She takes pity upon him<br />
(Несчастный!) as he suffers through labor. Ultimately, the Leviathan is soothed and<br />
dives deep into the water, cooling his scorching spirit. This immersion, inspired by<br />
Lavinia's quiet words, resembles a baptism; Lavinia, in effect, has helped to direct the<br />
Leviathan, a Satanic creature, toward God. 229<br />
At the same time as his spiritual rebirth,<br />
Lavinia is physically reborn. Once again the mutability of existence is highlighted: each<br />
gives birth to the other. 230<br />
Just as Christ's baptism was followed by his withdrawal into the wilderness, so<br />
the birth of "Левиафан" is soon followed by Lavinia's experience of Lent. In keeping<br />
with Christian tradition, Lavinia treats the Great Fast before Easter as an opportunity to<br />
imitate Christ's self-sacrifice in the desert, to resist temptation and become pure and<br />
clean. 231<br />
Lavinia, however, takes this imitation to a literal extreme. Her Lenten poems<br />
do not simply acknowledge spiritual cleansing metaphorically, rather they realize Christ's<br />
experience as described by Mark: "He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by<br />
Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him." (Mark 1:13)<br />
Actual demons, angels, and wild beasts populate Lavinia's book, alternately tempting and<br />
ministering to her.<br />
229 In Romans 6:3-4, Paul "likened baptismal immersion to personal sharing in the death, burial, and<br />
Resurrection of Christ." "Baptism," Encyclopædia Britannica. 2003. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 22<br />
Aug, 2003 ) Here, Lavinia could be<br />
seen as encouraging the Leviathan in his own imitation of Christ.<br />
230 In their phonic resemblance, the names Лавиния and Левиафан suggest that the nun and the leviathan<br />
are closely connected and potentially interchangeable. Shvarts previously wrote of the exchangeability of<br />
Jonah and the whale in the 1982 poem, "Книга на окне": Ночь Иона в Ките, через ночь Кит—в Ионе.<br />
231 See, for example, "В бане," "Вот праздник Поста гремит..."<br />
174
Like Christ in the wilderness, Lavinia is repeatedly tempted by Satan. He is first<br />
depicted in the book's twenty-fifth poem, titled "Соблазнитель" in the later editions.<br />
Here, Lavinia describes what happens when someone fails to pray before bed: Приляжет<br />
рядом бес—как бы супруг (a demon lies next to you, as if your husband). Upon<br />
waking, the victim is grabbed by the neck and, half-asleep, enters into carnal relations<br />
with the incubus (И в полусне с инкубом вступишь в связь). 232<br />
Unlike Christ, she is<br />
unable to resist; instead, like Eve, she is seduced by the tender words (Он шепчет на ухо<br />
так ласково слова) of the cold, ancient snake (холодный, древний змей). 233<br />
It is<br />
unclear in the poem whether this seduction actually takes place—whether Lavinia herself<br />
is seduced. Lavinia uses the generalized ты form throughout the poem to suggest that<br />
this is something that happens to anyone who goes to sleep without praying. The fact<br />
that it happens to a half-asleep victim adds to this sense of vague unreality.<br />
It is not until the twenty-ninth poem that Lavinia is actually captured by the devil,<br />
who describes her as an easy victim:<br />
Вы ловитесь на то же, что и все:<br />
Вино, амур, ням-ням, немного славы.<br />
Не надо вам изысканней отравы,<br />
Вы душу отдаете как во сне—<br />
Так старый бес мне говорил, зевая<br />
И сплевывая грешных шелуху,<br />
И за ногу меня в мешок швыряя.<br />
You are caught by the same things that everyone is:<br />
Wine, amour, yum-yum, a little bit of glory.<br />
You don't require a more refined poison,<br />
You give up your soul as if in a dream—<br />
So the old demon spoke to me, yawning<br />
232 As a nun, Lavinia's husband is Christ; here the demon is disguising himself as Christ, suggesting that he<br />
is indeed Satan, and not an "ordinary" incubus.<br />
233 In the book's fifty-ninth poem, "Стою ли на молитве или сплю," the devil again tempts her with<br />
forgotten, carnal love: Лукавый...шепчет про забытую любовь. This time Lavinia resists, pushing her<br />
"naked, fat love" (нагая, жирная любовь) back into its grave: я вниз/За плечи уложу покойницу уныло.<br />
175
And spitting out the skin of sinners,<br />
And hurling me by the leg into his bag.<br />
Despite this failure, Lavinia continues to resist the devil. In the thirtieth poem,<br />
"Моя Молельня," she hides from Satan in an invisible bag (Чуть Сатана во мне<br />
заплачет/Иль беса тянется рука—/В кулек невидимый я прячусь). She urges<br />
incessant prayer in the thirty-sixth poem in an attempt to create a cathedral without<br />
windows or doors, impenetrable by unclean spirits (Чтоб вырастал большой собор/Без<br />
окон и дверей. Ни щели). 234<br />
When the "Demon of Temptation" (Демон Соблазна)<br />
threatens her city in the thirty-seventh poem, "Чудище," she survives unscathed after a<br />
furious battle.<br />
In the forty-sixth poem, "Игра," Lavinia describes her battle with the devil as a<br />
game in which she is the goalie, hitting away the ball of temptation (мяч соблазна).<br />
Exhausted, she collapses into the grass and is thrashed, her face bloodied. All the same,<br />
she does not give up, but fends off the demons with her neck, her tongue, her eyes (шеей,<br />
языком,/Глазами отобью я—чем угодно). A lion comes to her aid:<br />
Тут мне на помощь выступает Лев,<br />
Он их пронзает золотой стрелою,<br />
Они кричат и корчатся, а Он<br />
Мне лечит раны жаркою слюною.<br />
Here the Lion comes to my aid,<br />
He pierces them with his golden arrow,<br />
They shout and contort, while He<br />
Heals my wounds with his hot saliva.<br />
234 This incessant repetition of a prayer suggests a Buddhist protective chant. I will discuss other Buddhist<br />
elements in Lavinia's verse later in the chapter.<br />
176
This lion is both a wild beast and a ministering angel. He inhabits Lavinia's Lenten<br />
world, just as beasts and angels lived alongside Christ in the wilderness. 235<br />
This guardian<br />
angel first appears in the form of a wolf in the seventh poem, "Ангел-Волк." 236<br />
After<br />
emerging out of a deep, dark ice-hole, perhaps even out of Lavinia's own heart, he<br />
embraces her, and together they wash away the horrors of the world with their wails (Мы<br />
двойным омыли воем/Бойни, тюрьмы и больницы). At the end of the poem, Lavinia<br />
asks him not to abandon her in the night:<br />
Ты меня в седую полночь<br />
Не оставь одну.<br />
In the gray midnight<br />
Don't leave me alone.<br />
The angel does indeed come to Lavinia at night, aiding her in various ways. In<br />
the tenth poem, "Уроки Абатиссы," he helps her with her lessons in the convent,<br />
drawing a map of heaven that the Abbess had requested. In the thirty-first poem,<br />
"Перемена хранителя," he appears after hearing Lavinia's plaintive cry, repeated<br />
throughout the night:<br />
Приди, мой Ангел-Волк.<br />
Слети, о серый мой, приди,<br />
О сжалься, сделай милость,<br />
Come, my Angel-Wolf.<br />
Fly down, o my gray one, come,<br />
Oh, take pity, do me a kindness,<br />
235 The wild beasts mentioned in Mark 4:13 could either represent the dangers of the wilderness, or they<br />
could suggest the harmony of the world before the fall. In Lavinia's world, the wild beasts and the angels<br />
are one, although Lavinia, too, will question this in the book's fifty-sixth poem, "Прощание со Львом,"<br />
discussed below.<br />
236 This poem describes a wintry scene, and comes before the Christmas poems. Thus, the wolf appears<br />
before Lent, breaking any strict temporal alignment with the angels and wild beasts described in Mark 4:13.<br />
While Lavinia's experiences are often based on biblical sources, she reinterprets them freely (cf. her<br />
rewriting of the story of Jonah and the whale).<br />
177
This time, however, he takes the form of a Lion, again emphasizing the mutability of<br />
existence in Lavinia's world. The angel changes form because Lavinia herself has<br />
changed. When asked where the Wolf is, the Lion responds:<br />
Он умер, умер для тебя,<br />
Душа твоя сменила цвет,<br />
Сменилась вместе и судьба.<br />
He died for you<br />
Your soul changed its color<br />
And fate changed along with it.<br />
Lavinia, however, recognizes the Wolf in him—the Wolf has been transformed, not<br />
lost. 237<br />
The new "Wolflion" (Волколев) promises Lavinia that he will not abandon her—<br />
they are destined to be together, no matter what form they take:<br />
Сестра, мы изменились оба,<br />
Друг друга поднимая вверх,<br />
Ты—как опара, я —как сдоба.<br />
И вице верса. От двух опар<br />
До твоего, сестрица, гроба<br />
Во что, во что ни превратимся.<br />
Sister, we both changed,<br />
Lifting each other up,<br />
You are like leaven, I am like shortening,<br />
And vice versa. From two risings<br />
To your grave, sister,<br />
No matter what we turn into.<br />
The Lion remains true to this destiny, even when Lavinia rejects him in the fifty-fifth<br />
poem, "Прощание со Львом." Seeing in him only a wild beast, she demands that a real<br />
angel appear:<br />
«И так мы, люди, как звери,<br />
Не хочу я помощи дикой твоей!<br />
Пусть Ангел станет при двери».<br />
237<br />
Lavinia calls upon the angel again in the book's forty-ninth poem, this time summoning both the Wolf<br />
and the Lion: Братец Волк! Братец Лев!/Ох, держите меня под руки— (Dear brother Wolf! Dear<br />
brother Lion!/Oh, support me under my arms—)<br />
178
"And so we people too are like wild beasts,<br />
I don't want your savage help!<br />
Let an Angel stand at the door."<br />
The offended Lion threatens not to return, but while he does become invisible to Lavinia,<br />
he never actually abandons her; she can still sense him in the sun's warmth and in her<br />
dreams, soothing her soul. He makes a final appearance at Lavinia's literal grave in the<br />
book's last poem, "Скит."<br />
With the transformation of the wolf into a lion, Lavinia introduces the central<br />
Buddhist concepts of karma and reincarnation. The wolf has died and been reborn as a<br />
lion, while still retaining the karmic past of his wolf self. This particular transformation<br />
suggests a movement toward spiritual enlightenment—the angel is transformed from the<br />
warlike wolf into a higher creature. In the Christian church, lions are considered to have<br />
divine strength; they symbolize both constancy and greatness. The lion is one of the<br />
signs of Christ, prophesying the Resurrection. In Buddhism, the lion suggests an<br />
enlightened soul. The Buddha himself was incarnated as a lion. 238<br />
This combination of Buddhist and Christian symbolism will play a central role in<br />
Lavinia's book. In the ecumenical order of the circumcision of the heart, Lavinia's<br />
journey toward God takes the form not only of an imitation of Christ, but also of a<br />
Buddhist quest for nirvana—an ultimate state which will require no new incarnations and<br />
238 Svetlana Ivanova, "Nekotorye aspekty izobrazheniia flory i fauny v proizvedeniiakh poetov 'vtoroi<br />
kul'tury,'" in Istoriia leningradskoi nepodtsenzurnoi literatury, ed. B.I. Ivanov and B.A. Roginskii (Saint<br />
Petersburg: DEAN, 2000), 180.<br />
179
no more suffering. 239<br />
In the culminating poems of the book, Lavinia incorporates<br />
Buddhist elements into her experience of the Christian holy week. 240<br />
While the last explicit mention of an event in the Christian calendar comes in the<br />
seventieth poem, "Ночь на Великую Субботу," the poems which follow suggest links to<br />
Holy Week as well. The book's seventy-second poem, "В трапезной," recalls the Last<br />
Supper. 241 In her typical, unorthodox fashion, Lavinia reinterprets the biblical story,<br />
again placing herself at the center. She sits at a table shadowed by a decanter. The<br />
tablecloth is prophetically red (Скатерть/ Краснеет веще), apparently foretelling the<br />
blood that will soon be shed. A starling chirps ominously (чик-чик скворца зловеще),<br />
suggesting the cock's call which would signal Peter's betrayal. 242<br />
Like Christ, Lavinia<br />
herself does not eat or drink. Instead, she recalls her past births, directly invoking the<br />
Buddhist notion of Karma:<br />
Я хлеб крошу и вспоминаю<br />
Свои протекшие рожденья.<br />
Не дай Бог птицей—свист крыла<br />
Как вспомню и ночевку на волне.<br />
Боль в клюве и как кровь текла<br />
Скачками. Птичьего не надо мне!<br />
Была я пастором и магом,<br />
Мундир носила разных армий.<br />
Цыганкой... Больше и не надо!<br />
Сотлела нить на бусах Кармы.<br />
239 Peter Harvey has described the state of nirvana as "a timeless imperturbable state beyond change and<br />
suffering," "the ending of all suffering, rebirths and limitations." Peter Harvey, Buddhism (London:<br />
Continuum, 2001), 64 and 66 respectively.<br />
240 In addition to these final poems, Lavinia directly addresses Buddhism in the book's twenty-sixth poem,<br />
"Перед праздинком," in which she spins a Buddhist prayer wheel and watches the Buddhist quarter of the<br />
convent prepare for their holiday. Buddhas are also mentioned in the sister's letter to the editor and in the<br />
book's fourth, twenty-eighth, and fortieth poems. Other Buddhist references can be found in the second and<br />
forty-second poems.<br />
241 The Last Supper was previously invoked in the book's tenth poem, "Уроки Аббатиссы."<br />
242 In the gospels of Luke and John, Christ foretells Peter's betrayal at the Last Supper: "I tell you, Peter,<br />
the cock will not crow this day, until you three times deny that you know me." (Luke 22:34) The gospels<br />
of Matthew and Mark place this at the Mount of Olives.<br />
180
I crumble my bread and recall<br />
My past births.<br />
God forbid as a bird. The whistle of a wing<br />
Is enough to recall a night spent on a wave,<br />
The pain in my beak and how the blood flowed<br />
With my jumps. I don't need the bird life!<br />
I was a pastor and a wizard,<br />
I wore the uniform of various armies.<br />
I was a gypsy…I don't need any more!<br />
The thread on the beads of Karma has rotted.<br />
Just as Christ is reborn and crucified each year, so Lavinia has experienced multiple<br />
incarnations. Now, however, she desires to be released from this endless cycle. Her<br />
plaintive cry, "Больше и не надо," evokes Christ's plea in the Garden of Gethsemane:<br />
"My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me" (Matthew 26:39). Lavinia is<br />
searching for the final resurrection—one which will put an end to her own, and by<br />
association Christ's, suffering, as well as break the thread of Karma. She seeks both<br />
eternal life in the Christian sense and the timeless Buddhist state of nirvana—her final<br />
resurrection is ecumenism exemplified.<br />
Lavinia again links Buddhist concepts to the Christian holy week in the seventyfifth<br />
poem, "Сатори." The poem's title is a Zen Buddhist term for a flash of sudden<br />
awareness. 243<br />
Here, the personal epiphany appears linked to the story of Christ's<br />
crucifixion. In the poem's fifth line, Lavinia marks the setting: Пятница. Солнце.<br />
Дождь. (Friday. Sun. Rain.) Placed only three poems from the end of a book subtitled<br />
"From Christmas to Easter" and following soon after "В трапезной," the poem seems to<br />
refer to Good Friday. The contrast of sun and rain also supports this possibility, recalling<br />
the shift in weather which took place during Christ's crucifixion. 244<br />
243 Shvarts provides a footnote to the poem with the definition, "внезапное просветление (япон.)."<br />
244 According to three of the four gospel accounts, darkness fell in the middle of the day for three hours.<br />
See Matthew 27:45, Mark 15:33, Luke 23:44-45.<br />
181
The poem also links Christianity and Buddhism by referring to two of Shvarts's<br />
epigraphs to the book, one Buddhist and one Christian, in the final lines:<br />
О, сестры! Духи!<br />
С туманом я играю!<br />
Духи! Мне весело,<br />
Я умираю.<br />
Душа моя, ты стала чашей,<br />
В которую сбирает нищий<br />
Слепой, живущий при кладбище,<br />
Пятак и дождь, и фантики пустые,<br />
Обломки солнца золотые—<br />
Объедки херувимской пищи.<br />
Oh, sisters! Spirits!<br />
I am playing with fog!<br />
Spirits! I am happy,<br />
I am dying.<br />
My soul, you became a cup<br />
In which a blind beggar<br />
Living next to a graveyard collects<br />
A five copeck piece and rain, and empty candy wrappers,<br />
Golden pieces of the sun—<br />
Leftovers of cherubic food.<br />
The book's seventh epigraph, "У входа в пещеру/Играю с клубящимся туманом," is<br />
clearly echoed in the second line of this excerpt. As discussed previously, this epigraph<br />
is attributed to a Daoist thinker and poet "Безумный Линь" and suggests the poet's<br />
embarkation on her journey of discovery. Placed again at the end of the book, it signals a<br />
new beginning. Having struggled through doubt and temptation, Lavinia is now ready to<br />
achieve true enlightenment. She reaches this moment of sudden awareness through her<br />
death, again recalling Christ's physical death on the cross on Good Friday. The epigraph<br />
itself points to the Good Friday connection; Lavinia plays with fog "at the entrance to the<br />
cave," suggesting the cave in which Christ's body will be laid after his death. Again,<br />
Buddhism and Christianity converge.<br />
182
The description of Lavinia's soul as an empty cup, filled by a beggar with various<br />
fragments and leftovers, recalls the book's eighth epigraph, "И скоро станет<br />
небольшой/И полой чашей." As discussed in the beginning of this chapter, the<br />
epigraph, taken from the poet Aleksandr Mironov's Метафизические радости, suggests<br />
a corruption of God's word—a fall from the New Chalice of the Christian faith to a small<br />
and hollow object. Here, however, the empty cup can be seen as a positive symbol—<br />
Lavinia has succeeded in her Lenten task of emptying herself entirely; she has achieved a<br />
purity of soul worthy of resurrection. 245<br />
This emptiness—complete detachment from<br />
worldly desires and objects—is a Buddhist goal as well.<br />
The moment of enlightenment in "Сатори" is fleeting, however. In the next<br />
poem, "Медведь," Lavinia is again reborn, this time in the form of a bear. In Buddhism,<br />
human lives are considered higher stages of moral and spiritual development than animal<br />
lives; 246 Lavinia appears to have regressed. Alongside this Buddhist reincarnation,<br />
suggestions of the Christian holy week are again present. Lavinia has dug herself up<br />
(Вот вскопала себя), perhaps linking herself to Christ, whose body disappears from his<br />
tomb. She cries out to God, expressing a sense of abandonment: "Дай мне знак!/...Я<br />
дождусь/От Тебя—хоть рогатины." ("Give me a sign!/…I await/ From You at least a<br />
spear." Any sign from God—even one of violence—is welcome. In the following poem,<br />
"Кормление птиц," Lavinia expresses this abandonment even more explicitly:<br />
О Боже, я Тебе служу<br />
Который век, который лик.<br />
Кричу, шепчу. Не отозвался<br />
На писк, на шепот и на крик.<br />
О, на кого меня оставил?<br />
245 This self-emptying recalls kenosis (самоопустошение), a key concept in Russian Orthodox belief.<br />
246 Harvey, Buddhism, 72.<br />
183
O God, I have been serving You<br />
For countless centuries, in countless forms.<br />
I shout, I whisper. You didn't respond<br />
To my squeak, my whisper or my shout.<br />
O, to whom have You abandoned me?<br />
Again, Lavinia refers to the Buddhist notion of reincarnation—she has lived many lives<br />
in many forms and desires to be released from this endless cycle of rebirth. Here,<br />
however, she addresses a Christian God—one capable of both abandoning her and<br />
ultimately saving her. 247<br />
This plaintive cry recalls Christ's own desperation on the cross:<br />
Боже Мой, Боже Мой! для чего Ты Меня оставил? (My God, my God, why have you<br />
forsaken me? Matthew 27:46, Mark15:34).<br />
Earlier in the poem, Lavinia's description of her abandonment by God recalls the<br />
book's central metaphor of the crucifixion of the heart:<br />
Печаль!—о вдруг<br />
Меня печаль пронзила,<br />
Когда тарелку подносила<br />
К несытым тяжким небесам,<br />
Как будто край этой тарелки,<br />
Полуобломанной и мелкой,<br />
Вонзился в грудь мне<br />
И разрезал,<br />
И обнажил<br />
Мою остваленность Тобою—<br />
Всю, всю.<br />
Grief!—o suddenly<br />
Grief pierced me<br />
When I carried the plate<br />
To the weighty unsatisfied heavens,<br />
As if the edge of this plate,<br />
Half-broken and small,<br />
Penetrated my breast<br />
And cut<br />
And bared<br />
247 In Buddhism, there is no God who determines a person's karmic path, who sets out "rewards" or<br />
"punishments." The individual "is seen as the determiner of his or her own destiny—a destiny defined by<br />
the actions which he or she chooses to perform." Harvey, Buddhism, 67.<br />
184
Your abandonment of me—<br />
Entire, entire abandonment.<br />
As the book comes to a close, Lavinia explicitly returns to the central aspects of<br />
the book first invoked in the title, epigraphs and title poem. She revisits the metaphor of<br />
the circumcision of the heart, describing God's violent penetration of her breast; she<br />
highlights the extreme ecumenism of her convent by combining Buddhist and Christian<br />
elements in her final poems. In the next and last poem, "Скит," she will move beyond<br />
this sense of violent abandonment and provide something of a resolution.<br />
Роман воспитания: the Abbess's lessons<br />
In her 1997 book Определение в дурную погоду, Shvarts describes the bible as a<br />
"гигантский роман воспитания" (giant bildungsroman); it demonstrates the growth of<br />
God, via the sufferings of Job, from the terrible Yahweh of the Old Testament to the<br />
merciful Christ of the New Testament. 248<br />
In a similar way, Труды и дни Лавинии can be<br />
seen as Lavinia's small роман воспитания—it describes a mad nun's spiritual<br />
development through temptation and suffering toward a unique state of enlightenment<br />
modeled both on Christ's resurrection and the Buddhist state of nirvana.<br />
Lavinia undergoes an explicitly formal education in the book. Just as Lavinia's<br />
encounters with her guardian angel provide a sequential, if fragmented, narrative thread<br />
across the book, so does her series of lessons with another central character, the abbess of<br />
her convent. 249<br />
The Abbess's lessons are described in three of the book's poems: the<br />
248 Shvarts, Определение в дурную погоду, 54.<br />
249 Abbesses played an important role in Buddhist as well as Christian tradition. Cloistered Buddhist<br />
communities (samghas) revolve around the authority of its abbot or abbess who is enlightened enough to<br />
lead the others. For a discussion of monastic orders in Buddhism, see Christopher Lamb's chapter, "Rites<br />
of Passage" in Harvey, Buddhism, 156-162.<br />
185
tenth, "Уроки Аббатиссы," the twentieth, "Еще Урок Аббатиссы," and the forty-third,<br />
"Огненный Урок." 250<br />
In "Уроки Аббатиссы," the abbess sets out three tasks for Lavinia. She first asks<br />
her to draw a map of the heavens, but Lavinia has the Angel-Wolf do it for her, afraid to<br />
test herself and face her own ignorance. The second task requires Lavinia to look at<br />
herself from within as upon one crucified. Lavinia again fails, immediately imagining<br />
stigmata, instead of experiencing true pain or love. In her aspiration to achieve and prove<br />
her enlightenment, she in fact falls victim to this same desire for enlightenment, a typical<br />
Buddhist trap. The Abbess is only satisfied with Lavinia's performance in the third task<br />
in which she is told to travel in her mind to the Last Supper in Jerusalem. When asked if<br />
she saw the Savior, Lavinia finally replies truthfully, expressing her inability to see Him:<br />
«Его я не видала.<br />
Нет, врать не буду. Стоило<br />
Глаза поднять—их будто солнцем выжигало,<br />
Шар золотой калил. Как ни старалась—<br />
Его не видела, почти слепой осталась».<br />
"I did not see him.<br />
No, I will not lie. I only needed to<br />
Raise my eyes—it was as if they were scorched by the sun,<br />
The golden sphere roasted them. No matter how much I tried—<br />
I did not see Him, I was left almost blind."<br />
It is still early in Lavinia's journey toward Christ. She is still finding her way, learning<br />
how to approach Him; she is just beginning to understand that this journey requires the<br />
250 While this is the last of the Abbess's formal lessons, Lavinia receives instruction later in the book as<br />
well. Having swallowed a needle in her soup, she rushes to a medical elder in the sixtieth poem,<br />
"Старица." As treatment, the nun gives her both honey and advice: "[…] В обрезанное сердце льется<br />
Жизнь,/Любовь и дух, и царствие, и сила,/А что-то колет—плюнь и веселись". ("[…] Into the<br />
circumcised heart pours Life,/Love and spirit, and kingdom, and strength,/But if something pricks—spit<br />
and rejoice.")<br />
186
complete relinquishment of worldly attachments and desires, including the desire to be<br />
Christlike.<br />
In the next lesson, the Abbess makes a cross between the sun and the moon and<br />
tells Lavinia to crucify herself. Lavinia babbles her reply:<br />
«Нет, еще я не готова,<br />
Не готова я еще,<br />
Не совсем еще готова».<br />
Лепетала, лепетала.<br />
"No, I am still not ready,<br />
I am still not ready,<br />
I am still not quite ready."<br />
I babbled, babbled.<br />
In response, the Abbess laughs:<br />
Аббатисса засмеялась:<br />
«То-то, дети,<br />
Как до дела—вы в кусты!<br />
Будьте же смирней, смиренней.<br />
The Abbess broke out laughing:<br />
"Oh, you children,<br />
As soon as it comes down to it, you run to the bushes!<br />
But be quieter, more humble.<br />
The Abbess's laughter suggests that she was not serious in asking Lavinia to crucify<br />
herself. Instead, she wants her to realize the magnitude of Christ's sacrifice and to be<br />
humble in the face of it. Lavinia, however, takes her request literally. In her extreme<br />
desire to be Christ-like, she expects to imitate him in every way. At this point she is not<br />
yet ready, but, as we have seen, she will undergo a type of crucifixion in the seventy-fifth<br />
poem, "Сатори."<br />
In the Abbess's final lesson, "Огненный урок," Lavinia complains that she has<br />
not been able to forget the world completely (я/Все плакалась и хныкала, и ныла/…/О<br />
187
том, что не совсем я мир забыла.) In response, the Abbess throws her into the "liquid<br />
core of a fire" (в сердцевину жидкую огня) and instructs her to burn:<br />
"Терпи, терпи, миг—пустяк!<br />
Гори—дитя, гори—старушка.<br />
Расчесанной души<br />
Бинтом огня перевяжи<br />
Все язвы, зуды,<br />
Намажься жаром,<br />
Огня тоской".<br />
Bear with it, bear with it, an instant is nothing!<br />
Burn, child, burn, old woman.<br />
Dress all of the sores and itches<br />
Of your scratched soul<br />
With the bandage of fire,<br />
Massage yourself with heat,<br />
With the sorrow of fire.<br />
This lesson again suggests the Buddhist nature of Lavinia's spiritual journey. The goal of<br />
a Buddhist life is to extinguish all desires, a goal which is often expressed in images of<br />
fire—blowing out the candle of desire, or burning one's desire. 251<br />
Lavinia momentarily<br />
achieves such a state in this fiery lesson, enduring the flames like a salamander. 252<br />
By the<br />
time the Abbess pulls her out of the fire she has become new and strong:<br />
Я стала крепкой, золотой,<br />
Какими идолы бывают,<br />
Когда они вдруг забывают,<br />
Что сами были—Бог простой.<br />
Когда, на взгорьях средь лесов<br />
Стоят, упершись лбами низко,<br />
Забытые. […]<br />
I became strong, golden,<br />
The way idols are<br />
When they suddenly forget<br />
251 The notion of burning one's desire is found in Hindu yogic practice, a precursor of Buddhism.<br />
252 Traditionally, a salamander represents a spirit or person who can live in fire. An obsolete association,<br />
which seems particularly appropriate here, is "a woman who (ostensibly) lives chastely in the midst of<br />
temptations." Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, 1989. In this fiery lesson, Lavinia attempts to resist<br />
both desire and temptation.<br />
188
That they themselves were simple God.<br />
When on the hillocks amidst the forests<br />
Stand, resting their foreheads low,<br />
The forgotten ones. […]<br />
Instead of aspiring to a godly nature, Lavinia has forgotten that she is "simple God." She<br />
has managed to achieve godliness by forgetting it. 253<br />
This achievement is fleeting,<br />
however. In the final lines of the poem, signaled by an enjambment which follows<br />
"Забытые," she is brought back to the world, suddenly aware of a field vole dashing by:<br />
[…] Вдруг из боков<br />
Полевка прыснет с тихим писком.<br />
[…] Suddenly from the sides<br />
A field vole spurts with a quiet chirp.<br />
By the end of the book, however, Lavinia begins to assimilate these lessons, no<br />
longer requiring the external instruction of the Abbess. In the seventy-fourth poem,<br />
"Воспитание тихих глаз," Lavinia herself describes the training of quiet, monastic eyes:<br />
О, монастырские глаза!<br />
Как будто в них еще глаза,<br />
А там еще, еще... И за<br />
Последними стоят леса,<br />
И на краю лесов—огни.<br />
Сожжешь платочек, подыми.<br />
Они горят и не мигают,<br />
Они как будто составляют<br />
Бок треугольника. Вершина<br />
Уходит в негасиму печь.<br />
Там учатся томить и жечь.<br />
Окатные каменья вроде,<br />
От слезной ясные воды.<br />
В саду очей, в павлиньем загороде<br />
Они созрели, как плоды.<br />
O, monastic eyes!<br />
As if in them were other eyes,<br />
253 This paradox of forgetting recalls the book's sixth epigraph: Поймав зайца, забывают про ловушку...<br />
189
And there still more, and more… 254 And behind<br />
The last are forests,<br />
And on the edge of the forests—fires.<br />
Burn a handkerchief, raise it up.<br />
They burn and do not flicker,<br />
They seem to form<br />
The side of a triangle. The peak<br />
Goes out into an everburning stove.<br />
There they learn how to stew and burn.<br />
Like rounded stones,<br />
Clear from the water of tears.<br />
In the garden of eyes, in the peacock's enclosure<br />
They ripened, like fruits.<br />
While a flickering flame would evoke disruption and turmoil, the constant fires described<br />
in this poem suggest the same sort of strength and solidity found in "Огненный урок."<br />
The eyes, which learn how to languish and burn, are eventually rounded off and made<br />
clear by the water of tears. They mature, as Lavinia does, on their way to enlightenment.<br />
This poem is immediately followed by "Сатори,"—Lavinia's experience of a "sudden<br />
flash of enlightenment." After a series of lessons, she achieves a true revelation of<br />
Christ's suffering, as opposed to her earlier vain attempt in "Уроки Аббатиссы." While<br />
this experience is again transitory, it leads the way for a more lasting resolution in the<br />
book's final poem, "Скит."<br />
From "Ипподром" to "Скит": the lyric links<br />
While the narrative thrust of the book is found in Lavinia's imitation of Christ,<br />
several of Lavinia's poems fall outside of this narrative. Instead, they are linked to other<br />
254 These additional eyes could be a reference to the Buddhist concept of the vertical third eye, which,<br />
unlike the horizontal physical eyes, is the vehicle for true sight and enlightenment. Lavinia explicitly<br />
mentions the "third eye" in the book's forty-second poem: С тела жизни, с ее рожи/Соскользну—зовут.<br />
Сейчас!/Как ошметок наболевшей кожи,/Под которым леденеет третий глаз. Here, too, Lavinia<br />
emphasizes the eternal nature of the third eye which is frozen solid beneath the temporary, mortal covering<br />
of her sore skin.<br />
190
poems in the book in lyric terms. Lavinia repeats key images and words throughout the<br />
book, contributing to the sense of unity in a seemingly "fragmentary" book.<br />
Lavinia explicitly announces such links in the titles of two pairs of poems, the only<br />
designated "cycles" in the book: "Два стихотворения о вдохновении," "Два<br />
стихотворения, кончающиеся словом, «слепой»." The first cycle addresses the theme<br />
of poetic inspiration, providing the book's most explicit discussion of Lavinia's role as a<br />
poet. In the first poem, a whole host of spirits listens to her, a pathetic victim, read her<br />
poetry in her cell. In the second poem, the poet's mind is compared to a frigate,<br />
overcome by the surf and the sea foam.<br />
The second cycle brings together two seemingly disparate poems: the first about<br />
a monk; the second, individually titled "Прощание с Львом," about Lavinia herself. The<br />
monk is described as a gentle, hardy, blind mule, fulfilling his monastic duties stubbornly<br />
and without hesitation. This blind devotion is contrasted to Lavinia's inconstancy in the<br />
following poem. She rejects her guardian angel, the Lion, causing him to disappear.<br />
Nonetheless, she recognizes her future need of him when she will become a hieroglyph of<br />
blind bone (Иероглифом кости слепой). In both poems, blindness appears to be a<br />
positive trait—the result of emptying oneself of worldly ambition, reaching the absolute<br />
core of being. 255<br />
In addition to these explicitly linked poems, other sequential poems are connected<br />
by the repetition of a particular word. For example, the twenty-first lyric, "Капель,"<br />
describes the coming of spring and ends on the title word, "капель." In the following<br />
lyric, "Воспоминание," Lavinia pleads to be let into a rural church. She is refused, told<br />
255 Blindness is mentioned in three additional poems in the book—"Так свет за облаками бьется...,"<br />
"Уроки Аббатиссы," and "Сатори"—and hinted at in "Последние минуты Страстной" ("глаз мой<br />
плох). Each of these poems describes a moment of enlightenment either fully or partially achieved.<br />
191
that it will drive her mad. While the poem at first seems unrelated to "Капель," the final<br />
lines invoke it with the repetition of the title word:<br />
Ну а так-то—по капле, по капле...<br />
Лучше б сразу всю чашу до дна.<br />
But this way it is drop by drop…<br />
It would be better to drink the cup in one gulp.<br />
The thaw which is just beginning in "Капель" continues to drag out slowly in<br />
"Воспоминание." Lavinia is not granted a quick fall into enlightened madness; instead,<br />
she must make the full, slow journey, drop by drop, word by word.<br />
Repeated images and words not only appear in sequential poems, but also carry<br />
over across considerable gaps. For example, the central image of the "circumcision of<br />
the heart" links the title poem and nineteenth lyric, "Обрезание сердца," discussed<br />
above, to the book's fifth poem, "Свое мучение ночное..." In this fifth poem, as in<br />
"Обрезание сердца," Lavinia literalizes the metaphor of the "circumcision of the heart,"<br />
describing the physical action of cutting out the heart:<br />
[…]Ангел сердце мне<br />
Вдруг вырезал концом кинжала.<br />
И вот оно сквозит—пролом<br />
My heart the Angel<br />
Suddenly cut out with the edge of a dagger.<br />
And look there is a draft—a gap<br />
Not only does this dagger point forward to the blade which cuts out the heart in<br />
"Обрезание сердца," but the notion of a gap also links this poem to Lavinia's<br />
descriptions of various temples and churches in the book. Mornings and sunsets enter<br />
through the gaps in the small, rundown church described in the third lyric; in the thirty-<br />
192
sixth poem, only incessant prayer is capable of building up the walls of a cathedral to<br />
make it impervious to thieves and demons. 256<br />
In addition to opening Lavinia up to possible invasion, this gap also allows for her<br />
full entry into the world. The fifth poem concludes with the following lines:<br />
И смотрит Ангел милосердный—<br />
Как чрез него хрипя, с трудом<br />
В мир выезжает Всадник бледный.<br />
And the merciful Angel watches<br />
As through [this gap], wheezing, with difficulty<br />
The pale Rider exits into the world.<br />
These final images point back to the book's opening poem, "Ипподром," which describes<br />
a horse, wheezing and grown pale: 257<br />
Слова копытами стучат. В средине дров<br />
Расколется пылающее сердце.<br />
Как машут крыльями, свистят<br />
Ночные демоны, мои единоверцы.<br />
Вот я бегу меж огненных трибун<br />
Подстриженной 258 лужайкой к небосклону,<br />
И ставят зрители в сиянье и дыму,<br />
Что упаду—один к мильону.<br />
На черную лошадку—на лету<br />
Она белеет и тончает,<br />
Хрипит, скелетится, вся в пене и поту,<br />
И Бог ее, как вечер, догоняет.<br />
Words thunder like hooves. In the middle of the wood<br />
The flaming heart will split.<br />
As they wave their wings,<br />
The night demons, my fellow-believers whistle.<br />
Here I run among the fiery stands<br />
256 Goldstein has described this vulnerability to outside forces in Goldstein, "The Heart-Felt Poetry," 242.<br />
See also my previous discussions of these poems.<br />
257 The image of the pale rider also recalls the apocalypse.<br />
258 The word "подстрижженый" refers not only to the clipped lawn, but also suggests Lavinia's monastic<br />
vows.<br />
193
Along the clipped lawn toward the horizon,<br />
And the audience, in radiance and smoke, set the odds<br />
That I will fall at a million to one.<br />
A bet is placed on the little black horse—in her flight<br />
She grows white and thin,<br />
She wheezes, becomes skeletal, all covered in foam and sweat,<br />
And God, like the evening, overtakes her.<br />
This poem can be read as a microcosm of Lavinia's entire spiritual journey. At the outset,<br />
she is a strong, black horse who associates with night demons; she begins her journey in a<br />
hippodrome, seemingly incapable of falling. In the middle of this journey, however, "the<br />
flaming heart will split"—Lavinia will undergo a transformation, a circumcision of the<br />
heart, which will cause her to grow weak and white. This apparent weakness, however,<br />
conceals a spiritual strength previously unknown to her. By falling, she will discover a<br />
true God—one who will replace her demonic fellow-believers. 259<br />
Over the course of the book, we witness this fall—Lavinia's physical suffering,<br />
her descent into madness, her expulsion from the convent. In the book's final poem,<br />
"Скит," she has reached an ultimate low; thrown by her sisters into a ditch, she feels<br />
entirely abandoned by God:<br />
Куда вы, сестры, тащите меня?<br />
Да еще за руки и за ноги?<br />
Ну пусть я напилась…была пьяна…<br />
Пустите! Слышите! О Боже, помоги!<br />
Но раскачали и швырнули в ров,<br />
Калитка взвизгнула и заперлась,<br />
И тихо все. Я слизывала кровь<br />
С ладони и скулила—грязь<br />
Со мной стонала. Пузырилась ночь, спекаясь,<br />
Шуршали травы.<br />
259 In a personal email correspondence, Shvarts equated the horse's fall and capture with a spiritual victory:<br />
"этот ипподром—как бы во сне и зрители ставят на того, кто проиграет. И в этом смысле проиграть<br />
в жизни на самом деле может означать выгрыш с точки зрения зрителей (например ангелов, если<br />
они следят за нашей жизнью и спорят о нас; поэтому они ставят на проигрыш черной лошади. И<br />
Бог ее догоняет—с нашей точки зрения—she is lost, and from the angel's point of view, she won."<br />
194
Лежала я, в корягу превращаясь,<br />
Господь мой Бог совсем меня оставил.<br />
Мхом покрываясь, куталась в лопух.<br />
Where are you dragging me, sisters?<br />
And even by my hands and feet?<br />
So I had a bit to drink, was drunk…<br />
Let me go! Do you hear? O, God, help!<br />
But they swung and hurled me into a ditch,<br />
The gate whistled and locked,<br />
And everything was quiet. I licked the blood<br />
Off my palm and whimpered—the dirt<br />
Moaned with me, night bubbled, curdling,<br />
The grasses rustled.<br />
I was lying down, turning into an uprooted stump.<br />
My Lord God had entirely abandoned me.<br />
Covering myself with moss, I wrapped myself in burdock.<br />
Here, Lavinia resembles the crucified Christ. She licks real blood from her palm, true<br />
stigmata which she had falsely claimed in her first lessons with the Abbess. She again<br />
bemoans her complete abandonment by God, once more recalling Christ's cries on the<br />
cross. Like Christ, however, she has not been truly forsaken; in the second half of the<br />
poem, she is resurrected, born into eternal life:<br />
Вдруг слышу я шаги, звериный дух,<br />
И хриплый голос рядом говорит:<br />
"Раз выгнали, пойдем поставим скит".<br />
—"Ох, это ты! Ты, огненный, родной!<br />
Меня не бросил ты, хмельную дуру!"<br />
Мы в глухомань ушли, где бьется ключ,<br />
Лев лес валил и тотчас его шкурил.<br />
Мы за три дня избенку возвели<br />
И церковь, полый крест—как мне приснилось—<br />
В мой рост и для меня, чтоб я вошла,<br />
Раскинув руки в ней молилась.<br />
Пока работали, к нам приходил медведь—<br />
Простой медведь, таинственный, как сонмы<br />
Ночных светил,—<br />
И меду мутного на землю положил,<br />
Он робкий был и так глядел—спросонья.<br />
Лев мне принес иконы, свечек, соли,<br />
Поцеловались на прощанье мы,<br />
195
Он мне сказал: "Коль будет Божья воля,<br />
Я ворочусь среди зимы".<br />
Встаю я с солнцем и водицу пью,<br />
И с птицами пою Франциску, Деве,<br />
И в темный полый Крест встаю,<br />
Как ворот, запахнувши двери.<br />
Текут века—я их забыла<br />
И проросла травой-осокой,<br />
Живой и вставшею могилой<br />
Лечу пред Богом одиноко.<br />
Suddenly I heard footsteps, a beast's spirit,<br />
And a hoarse voice next to me said:<br />
"Since they kicked you out, let's found a hermitage."<br />
"Oh, it's you! You fiery one, my kin!<br />
You haven't abandoned me, a drunken fool!"<br />
We went off into the wilderness, where a spring flows,<br />
The lion felled the forest and immediately skinned the trees.<br />
We raised a little hut in three days<br />
And a church—a hollow cross, just as I dreamed it—<br />
My own height and for me, so that I could enter,<br />
And pray in it, arms outstretched.<br />
While we worked, a bear came to us—<br />
A simple bear, mysterious, like the multitudes<br />
Of night stars—<br />
And he put some clouded honey on the earth.<br />
He was timid and looked at me, half-awake.<br />
The lion brought me icons, candles, some salt.<br />
We parted with a kiss.<br />
He said to me: "If it be God's will,<br />
I will return in winter."<br />
I rise with the sun and drink water,<br />
And I sing with the birds to Francis and the Virgin,<br />
And I stand up in the dark hollow Cross,<br />
Like a gateway with its doors slammed shut.<br />
The centuries pass—I have forgotten them<br />
And I have grown a layer of sedge grass,<br />
Having become a living tomb,<br />
I fly before God alone.<br />
196
In this final poem, Lavinia's spiritual journey reaches a resolution; the path from<br />
Christmas to Easter is completed. On the third day (за три дня), she, like Christ, 260 is<br />
raised again and enters into eternal life, where the centuries pass unnoticed.<br />
Her search for the ideal place of worship also comes to an end. With the help of her everfaithful<br />
guardian angels, she builds a hermitage which perfectly fits her body; Lavinia has<br />
finally achieved the Christ-like equation of body and church. This church is<br />
impenetrable; "like a gateway with its doors drawn shut," Lavinia can no longer be<br />
invaded by the demons who tempted her throughout her journey. Like the "hollow<br />
cross," she has emptied herself of desire and now resides in a Buddhist state of nirvana.<br />
The hermitage also provides a distinct ending point for the journey which began in the<br />
hippodrome; Lavinia, who set out from a public, pagan space, ends up in a private, holy<br />
space. God has indeed overtaken the white horse of the opening poem. As in the<br />
opening poem, Lavinia flies, but God alone replaces the demonic observers of<br />
"Ипподром": Лечу пред Богом одиноко.<br />
Thus, the final poem brings together the book's multiple threads—the imitation of<br />
Christ's life, the Buddhist quest for nirvana, the unique geography of Lavinia's spiritual<br />
world, and the characters who populate that world. Lavinia's "fragmentary novel," like<br />
the collection of seemingly disparate epigraphs which introduce it, is ultimately united in<br />
the final poem, "Скит." The race, set out in the opening poem, is completed, and Lavinia<br />
triumphs in her fall.<br />
260 Matthew 17:22-23: "They were going about together in Galilee when Jesus said to them, 'The Son of<br />
Man is to be handed over into the power of men, and they will kill him; then on the third day he will be<br />
raised again.'"<br />
197
Conclusion<br />
While written in distinct places and time periods by very different poets, the three<br />
books I have studied all fulfill certain structural requirements of the lyric cycle as set out<br />
by theorists Vroon, Darvin and Fomenko. Each poet carefully chooses and highlights the<br />
book's title: Khodasevich and Gippius extend its reach by opening the book with a title<br />
poem; within her lengthy title, Shvarts guides the reader into her book generically (труды<br />
и дни), thematically (обрезание сердца), and temporally (от Рождества до Пасхи).<br />
Both Shvarts and Gippius incorporate epigraphs into their works: Gippius cryptically<br />
calls upon the muse and central figure of Сияния, St. Thérèse of Lisieux; Shvarts invokes<br />
several disparate sources to reflect Lavinia's ecumenical madness. Khodasevich's use of<br />
the title biblical metaphor, while not explicitly expressed as an epigraph, provides the<br />
same sort of extratextual center. All three poets use form and meter to connect and<br />
juxtapose individual poems in their books: Khodasevich links the title poem "Путем<br />
зерна" to "Золото" through the use of rhyming iambic couplets; Gippius emphasizes the<br />
dramatic shifts in her lyric hero's mood by contrasting the rising iambic line of<br />
"Рождение" with the falling metrical line of "Женскость"; Shvarts demonstrates<br />
Lavinia's erratic behavior by introducing a sudden break in her opening poem which<br />
follows the regular iambic meter of her sister's letter. The ordering of the poems in each<br />
of the books is driven not by chronology, but by a progression specific to each individual<br />
book: in the three distinct versions of Путем зерна, Khodasevich shifts the position of<br />
several poems, ultimately leaving out the dates of composition; Gippius makes an<br />
exception to her previous chronologically arranged books, reordering the poems and<br />
198
eliminating their dates; Shvarts's book consists of previously uncollected poems whose<br />
specific dates have not been recorded. 261<br />
The books share a common thematic center as well, each describing the lyric<br />
hero's journey toward resurrection. In Khodasevich's Путем зерна, this path is modeled<br />
on the biblical metaphor of the grain which must die in order to produce fruit. In<br />
Gippius's Сияния, the hero strives for a similar rebirth, but ultimately fails to realize it,<br />
longing instead for a return home, to a pre-birth state. In Shvarts's Труды и дни<br />
Лавинии, the heroine follows the path of Christ to discover her own unique<br />
resurrection—entry into the Buddhist state of nirvana.<br />
While these similarities connect all three books to the tradition of the lyric cycle,<br />
Shvarts's book departs from the earlier two in very significant ways. Perhaps the best<br />
way to highlight these differences is to recall Edward Stankiewicz's discussion of the<br />
centripetal and centrifugal types of lyric poetry. According to Stankiewicz, it is the<br />
"precarious balance between the whole and parts and the tension between openness and<br />
completeness…that imparts to a work of art its dynamic character and the qualities of a<br />
process, rather than of a finished and immutable object." 262<br />
He identifies two distinct<br />
types of poetic works: "works with a dominant centripetal, homogeneous, and tight<br />
structure, and works with preponderantly centrifugal, heterogeneous, and loose<br />
patterns." 263<br />
Stankiewicz argues that modern lyric poetry has moved away from the<br />
261 Shvarts, however, claims that she wrote the entire book between Christmas and Easter. It appears that<br />
she wrote the poems in the sequence in which they appear in the book. When asked if she initially<br />
conceived all of the poems as the verse of the fictional character Lavinia, she responded that in the book's<br />
first nine lyrics (up until "Уроки Аббатисы") she was still getting a hold on Lavinia's character; the rest of<br />
the book comes fully from Lavinia's voice. (Private email correspondence of January 1, 2004.)<br />
262 Stankeiwicz, "Centripetal and centrifugal structures in poetry," 219.<br />
263 Ibid., 221.<br />
199
centripetal types toward more centrifugal forms which leave out the step by step<br />
connections which centripetal structures provide:<br />
The centripetal texts of 'classical' literature were based on the principle of ordered and<br />
goal-directed succession, and on the principle of completeness that the idea of a goal<br />
implies. The autonomy of the parts and of the text as a whole was formally marked<br />
by elements of closure (rhymes, refrains, a strong final close) that served not only to<br />
define the composition, but also to integrate the disparate parts into a self-contained<br />
and meaningful whole. Modern poetry has weakened or done away with both of<br />
these principles: in place of ordered and goal-directed succession it has tended to<br />
create loose aggregates of parts, and in place of completeness it has emphasized the<br />
multidimensional and open character of the text. The weakening of ordered<br />
succession has had as a corollary the loss of emphasis on a central theme and the<br />
breakdown of traditional compositional form. 264<br />
According to Stankiewicz, the lyric cycle is exemplary of this move toward<br />
centrifugality. Individual poems are brought together without explicit linkages to create<br />
an open-ended whole. 265<br />
Critics such as Vroon, however, point not to the inherently centrifugal nature of<br />
the lyric cycle, but instead emphasize the need for a successful lyric cycle to remain in<br />
constant balance between centripetal and centrifugal forces:<br />
If the former dominate over the latter, the result is a coalescence of texts to the point<br />
where they are no longer viewed as independently viable entities. If the latter<br />
dominate the fact of seriation is not only likely to be ignored, but to be subverted.<br />
One can point to scores of instances where poems set in an explicit series by their<br />
author are subsequently broken up or reconstituted into different series, either by the<br />
author himself or by some later editor. In such cases the centrifugal tendencies<br />
within the series are so strong that the series itself cannot be sustained. Where the<br />
balance between centrifugal and centripetal tendencies is maintained, the potential for<br />
cyclization always exists. 266<br />
While all of the books I have studied are considered modern, there seems to be a<br />
significant distinction between the degree of centripetal and centrifugal elements in the<br />
264 Ibid., 225.<br />
265 Ibid., 231. See also Olga Hasty's article "Poema vs. cycle in Cvetaeva's Definition of Lyric Verse"<br />
which outlines Tsvetaeva's distinction between the centrifugal nature of the lyric cycle and the centripetal<br />
nature of the poema.<br />
266 Vroon, "Prosody," 476.<br />
200
first two books as compared to Shvarts's Труды и дни Лавинии. Khodasevich and<br />
Gippius, heavily influenced by the cycles of the early twentieth century, particularly<br />
Blok's trilogy, strive for the balance Vroon describes between centrifugal and centripetal<br />
forces. Paradoxically, the most contemporary of the three books, Shvarts's Труды и дни<br />
Лавинии, is the least centrifugal in the group, seemingly contradicting Stankeiwicz's<br />
claim of the modern trend toward centrifugality.<br />
Structurally, Khodasevich's Путем зерна appears to be the most centripetal of<br />
the books in my study. The prominence of the title metaphor and the circular frame of<br />
the opening and closing poems provide a closed structure that contains the poet's journey<br />
from despair to hope. Gippius's book has a somewhat looser design, although it too<br />
attempts a return, via resurrection in the second-to-last poem, "Лазарь," and in the final<br />
poem, "Домой." Formally, Shvarts's Труды и дни Лавинии, seems to be the most<br />
centrifugal of the three books. Following a strictly defined linear path (from Christmas to<br />
Easter), it ultimately breaks away from the cyclical repetition of the Christ story and<br />
results in the final resurrection of her heroine—the achievement of the state of nirvana.<br />
As a result, the book concludes in an open-ended state, typical of the modern trend which<br />
Stankiewicz outlines.<br />
After further consideration, however, Shvarts's book emerges as the most<br />
centripetal, goal-oriented text. The end, while opening outward, is final; the ultimate<br />
goal (nirvana) has been achieved; no further development is possible. While<br />
Khodasevich's and Gippius's lyric heroes will continue to repeat the cycle of despair and<br />
hope, experiencing again and again the pattern of death and resurrection, Shvarts's<br />
heroine is once and for all released from this struggle. Her story is complete.<br />
201
While the "endless cycle" of despair and hope described in Khodasevich's Путем<br />
зерна and Gippius's Сияния may seem to be constricting, in fact it too exhibits a<br />
centrifugal force. Khodasevich purposefully designed the final version of his book to be<br />
an epic, universal statement about the poet in general, not a biographical account of his<br />
own spiritual struggle. His lyric hero can be extended outside of the text to all poets and<br />
all humanity. Gippius personalizes her hero more than Khodasevich does. She opens the<br />
book with a very private address to her personal muse, and she incorporates certain<br />
aspects of her biography into the text, most notably her androgyny. This specificity is<br />
balanced, however, by her exploration of the universal themes of faith and home.<br />
Gippius does not limit her book to a specific time, place, or physical persona. In<br />
"Лазарь," for example, she directly links her hero's personal fate to that of Russia and<br />
Lazarus, expanding the focus beyond the lyric "я." 267<br />
Shvarts does the opposite, taking the universal story of Christ's life and death and<br />
transforming it into the personal story of a very particular nun, Lavinia, in a very specific<br />
convent of the circumcision of the heart. She creates a fictional character around which<br />
the entire book, including epigraphs and letters, is focused. Stankiewicz has pointed to<br />
such extratextual elements as a typical sign of centrifugal texts. 268<br />
In Труды и дни<br />
Лавинии, however, these outside references have a centripetal effect. They do not direct<br />
267 Lydia Ginzburg points to this same extension of the lyric persona in Blok's trilogy: строя лирическое<br />
я, он строил не психологическую целостность частной личности, но эпохальное сознание своего<br />
современника в полноте и многообразии его духовного опыта. Ginzburg, O lirike, 244. Similarly,<br />
Aleksandr Kushner points to the potential universalization of the lyric hero in his article "Книга стихов":<br />
Книга стихов, на мой взгляд, дает возможность поэту, не обращаясь к условным персонажам,<br />
создать последовательное повествование о собственной жизни, закрепить в стихах процесс,<br />
историю развития своей души, а следовательно, и души своего современника. Книга стихов—это<br />
возможность для лирического поэта в обход большого жанра создать связный рассказ о времени.<br />
Aleksandr Kushner. Apollon v snegu: zametki na poliakh. (Leningrad: Sovetskii pisatel', 1991), 47.<br />
268 "[E]xpansion of the text by commentaries and explanations (which are not meant to explain, but to<br />
diversify the text) has also found expression in the increased tendency towards transtextuality, i.e., towards<br />
the use of the more or less explicit references of a given text to other texts." Stankiewicz, "Centripetal and<br />
centrifugal structures," 228.<br />
202
the reader outward toward the original sources, but rather are focused on defining the<br />
eccentric interior world of Lavinia. By providing so many outside layers to her heroine's<br />
verse, Shvarts distances Lavinia, making her more specific and remote—separate from<br />
the reader, from Shvarts herself, and from any notion of a universal poet.<br />
By pointing to the centripetal nature of Shvarts's book, I am in no way arguing<br />
that the book of poems as a whole has shifted away from the centrifugal to the<br />
centripetal. However, it does seem possible that the balance between centripetal and<br />
centrifugal forces is no longer as important as it was to the poets of the first half of the<br />
twentieth century. Gippius and Khodasevich, inspired by the "diversity within unity" 269<br />
of Blok's trilogy and other "classic" modernist cycles, tried to achieve this balance.<br />
Shvarts, no longer feels this need. Instead, she continues to push the limits of the lyric<br />
cycle—an incredibly diverse form, always difficult to define. In her "novel in verse,<br />
perhaps," she herself is unsure what she has created. The boundaries between the book of<br />
poems, the poema, and the novel in verse remain elusive. 270<br />
269 See Ginzburg, O lirike, 244.<br />
270 Another recent book which would be interesting to explore in this light is Aleksandr Kushner's Apollon<br />
v snegu: zametki na poliakh. In his introduction, he describes it as a new kind of prose whose protagonist<br />
is poetry. Throughout the book he intersperses literary essays and lyric poems.<br />
203
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