Robert Chandler and H.T. Willetts (London, HarperCollins 1992), p. 242.
8 Letter from Boris Pasternak, 13 June 1922, in Elaine Feinstein, Marina Tsvetaeva (Lives of Modern Women, Harmondsworth, Penguin 1989), p.102.
9 Yevgeny Pasternak, Yelena Pasternak and Konstantin M. Azadovsky (eds), Boris Pasternak, Marina Tsvetaeva, Rainer Maria Rilke: Letters, Summer 1926, trans. Mararet Wettlin and Walter Arndt (London, Jonathan Cape 1986), p. 264.
10 ‘Footnote to a Poem’, in Joseph Brodsky, Less than One: Selected Essays (New York, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux 1986), p. 195.
11 ‘New Year’s Greetings’, p. 121, below.
12 Feinstein, A Captive Lion, p. 186.
13 Feinstein, A Captive Lion, p. 146.
14 Feinstein, A Captive Lion, ibid.
15 Marina Tsvetaeva, Art in the Light of Conscience: Eight Essays on Poetry, trans. Angela Livingstone (London, Bristol Classical 1992).
Written so long ago, I didn’t even
know I was a poet,
my lines fell like spray from a fountain
or flashes from a rocket,
like imps, they burst into sanctuaries
filled with sleep and incense,
to speak of youth and dying.
All my unread pages
lie scattered in dusty bookshops
where nobody picks them up
to this day. Like expensive wines,
your time will come, my lines.
May 1913
1
Are you happy? You never tell me.
Maybe it’s better like this.
You’ve kissed so many others –
which makes for sadness.
In you, I see the heroines
of Shakespeare’s tragedies.
You, unhappy lady, were
never saved by anybody.
You have grown tired of repeating
the familiar words of love!
An iron ring on a bloodless hand
is more expressive,
I love you – like a storm burst
overhead – I must confess it;
all the more fiercely because you burn
and bite, and most of all
because our secret lives take
very different paths:
seduction and dark fate
are your inspiration.
To you, my aquiline demon,
I apologise. In a flash –
as if over a coffin – I realise
it was always too late to save you!
Even as I tremble – it may be
am dreaming – there
remains one enchanting irony:
for you – are not he.
16 October 1914
2
Beneath this caressing, plush blanket
I call up yesterday’s dream.
What was it? Whose was the victory?
Who was defeated?
As I think it over again and again
I keep trying to find
the words for what happened:
Was it love?
Who was the hunter? Who the prey?
The roles reverse.
What does the Siberian tiger
understand as he purrs?
Who in our duel of wills
was left holding a bauble?
Was it your heart – or mine
flew off at a gallop?
And, after all, what did happen?
Something desired – or regretted?
I can’t decide if I won
or if I was conquered,
23 October 1914
3
Today it thawed, today
I stood by the window
soberly, with my lungs free,
almost satisfied.
I don’t know why – maybe,
my soul is tired –
I had no wish to touch
my mutinous pencil.
Instead I stood in a mist
neither good nor wicked,
with my finger quietly prodding
the window pane.
My soul felt no better and no worse
than that passer-by over there
or those puddles of mother-of-pearl
splattered by the sky,
the bird flying above
or a dog running;
even a beggar’s song does not
move me to tears.
Sweetly and cleverly, forgetfulness
has already taken over –
and by today another huge emotion
has melted in my soul.
24 October 1914
4
You were too lazy to dress yourself,
or get up from the armchair.
– When I go towards you, the day
is joyful with my happiness.
You were troubled about leaving
so late at night in the cold.
– Any hour when I approach you
is healthy with my joy.
You mean no harm by any of this,
unchangeably innocent,
– I am your youth, which already
begins to pass you by.
25 October 1914
5
About eight this evening, a sleigh
rushed past me, recklessly,
along Bolshaya Lubyanka
like a bullet or a snowball.
I heard your tinkling laugh
in the distance and froze,
staring: your fawn-coloured fur,
the tall figure at your side…
You are enjoying the pleasures
of a sleigh with someone else,
a chosen lover, already more
desired than I was!
– Oh, je n’en puis plus, j’étouffe,
you screamed at me today.
And now, boldly, you cover her
with the furs inside the sleigh.
The rest of the world is happy.
The evening glamorous.
Gifts and muffs… and you both rushing
into the blizzard – fur to fur.
Then a brutal surge of snow
turns everything white.
I could only follow the two of you
for a matter of seconds.
I stroke the long hair on my
coat and feel no anger…
Your little Kay has frozen to death
O great Snow Queen.
26 October 1914
6
Night weeps over coffee grounds
as it looks to the east.
Its mouth is a tender blossom
but it has a monstrous flower.
Soon a young, thin moon will take
the place of scarlet dawn,
and I shall give you many
combs and rings.
The young moon between the branches
never guards anyone.
I shall give you ear-rings
bracelets, and chains!
Your bright eyes sparkle, as if
from under a heavy mane.
Are your horses jealous – those
thoroughbreds, so light on their feet?
9
You entered with incomparable panache,
and I dared not touch your hand.
Already I could feel the pain of longing
as if you were my very first love.
My heart whispered: Darling!
I forgave you in advance,
without knowing your name, I murmured
Love me! Please love me!
I looked at the curve of your lips,
that deliberate arrogance,
those heavy eyebrows – and
my heart began to thunder.
Your dress was a silky black shell,
your voice husky as a gypsy;
everything about you sweetly poignant
– even the fact you are no beauty.
You won’t fade over the summer even
if your flower and stalk are not steely,
for you are meaner and sharper than any
– from what island do you come,
with that huge fan, and walking stick?
In every bone, and wicked finger
I make out the gentleness of a woman
and the audacity of a boy.
How shall I treat these ironies in verse
or explain to the world
all the qualities I see in you?
My stranger with Beethoven’s brow!
14 January 1915
10
How can I forget that perfume
of White Rose and tea,
those figures of Sèvres above
a blazing fireplace.
There we stood. I was dressed
in splendid golden silk.
You – in a black knit jacket
with a winged collar.
As you entered, I remember your face
was almost colourless;
you stood biting a finger,
your head slightly tilted.
A helmet of red hair surrounded
your powerful forehead.
You were neither woman nor boy –
but stronger than I was.
With no reason to move, I stood up
and at once people gathered round –
someone even tried, as if in a joke,
to introduce us.
How calmly you put
your hand in mine,
and left in my palm a lingering
splinter of ice.
You took out a cigarette.
I offered you a light,
afraid of what I might do
if you looked into my face.
I remember how our glasses clinked
over a blue vase. Please
be my Orestes, I murmured
– and gave you a flower.
Your grey eyes flashed as you took
a handkerchief out of your
black suede purse – and slowly
let it drop to the floor.
28 January 1915
11
Many eyes sparkle under the sun
and one day is not
like another. Let me tell you this,
in case I am unfaithful:
whoever I am kissing
in the hour of love,
whatever vows I make
in the dark of night
– since I can’t live like
an obedient child
or bloom like a flower without
looking at anyone else –
I swear by this cross of cypress
– you know it well –
if you whistle under my window
all my love will re-awaken.
22 February 1915
12
Moscow’s hills are blue, the warm air
tasting of dust and tar.
I sleep all day or else I laugh
as if well again after winter.
I go home quietly without regretting
the poems I haven’t written,
the sound of wheels, or roasted almonds
matter more than a quatrain.
My head is magnificently empty,
my heart dangerously full;
my days are like tiny waves
seen from a small bridge.
Perhaps my look is too tender
for air that is barely warm.
I am already sick of summer –
though hardly recovered from winter.
13 March 1915
13
Let me repeat, at the end of our love
on the very eve of parting,
how much I loved those powerful
hands of yours,
those eyes which do – or don’t –
look someone over, and
nevertheless demand a report
on my most casual glance.
Three times is your passion cursed!
God sees all of you
and insists on repentance
for every casual sigh.
Now let me say again, wearily
– don’t be too eager to hear this –
your soul now stands
in the way of my own.
And something else, since
it is almost evening –
that mouth of yours was young
when we first kissed,
your gaze was bold and light then
your being – five years old…
How fortunate are those
who have not crossed your path.
28 April 1915
14
Some names are like sultry flowers
and glances like dancing flames.
There are dark and sinuous mouths
whose corners are deep and moist.
There are women with hair like helmets
whose fans smell faintly of ruin.
They are thirty. Why would you need
the soul of a Spartan child?
Annunciation Day 1915
15
I want to look in the mirror, where
sleep is wrapped in mist.
I wonder where you are going
and where you will find solace.
I see the mast of a ship
with you on the deck,
or standing in the smoke of a train
in the sad fields of evening.
There is dew on the night grass
and above that – ravens.
I send you my blessings now
to every corner of those fields
3 May 1915
16
At first, you loved beauty
above everything, curls
with a delicate touch of henna,
the melancholy sound of the zurna,
notes struck by a stallion’s
hooves against flint
or semi-precious stones
with patterned facets.
In the next love, your second:
an arch of fine eyebrows
and a silky carpet from
rose-coloured Bokhara,
Every finger was ringed then,
There was a birthmark on her cheek,
tanned flesh through Victorian
lace – and London at midnight!
Your third love was sweet
in some different way…
– But what trace remains in your heart
of me, my faithless one?
14 July 1915
*
The clock – what time is it?
The hour has sounded.
I can barely make out
the hollows of huge eyes,
the flowing satin of your dress.
I can barely see you.
Next door the lights are out.
Someone is making love.
I am frightened by the
shape of your face.
It is half dark in the room;
Night is as lonely as if
a piece of ice pierced by moonlight
marks the window.
– Did you surrender?
I did not fight.
The voice froze as if from
A hundred miles away or the moon itself
Moonbeams stood between us
transforming the world.
The metal of your dark
furiously red hair
glowed unbearably.
History itself is forgotten,
in the flint of the moon, the looking glass
splinters: there are distant hooves,
and the squeak of a carriage. The street light
has gone out. Time no longer moves.
Soon the cock will crow. And two
young women will part.
1 November 1914
Your narrow, foreign shape
is bent above written pages,
with a Turkish shawl, dropped
over you like a cloak.
You make a single line, which
is broken and black at once.
And you are cold – in erotic
gaiety – or unhappiness.
All your life is a fever to be
perfected, yet this young
demon, who on earth is she
with her cloudy, dark face?
Everyone else is worldly,
while you remain playful,
with harmless lines of poetry –
trifles – aimed at the heart.
In a sleepy, morning hour –
at five a.m. – I discover
I’ve fallen in love with you,
Anna Akhmatova
1915
I know the truth – give up all other truths!
No need for people anywhere on earth to struggle.
Look – it is evening, look, it is nearly night:
what do you speak of, poets, lovers, generals?
The wind is level now, the earth is wet with dew,
the storm of stars in the sky will turn to quiet.
And soon all of us will sleep under the earth, we
who never let each other sleep above it.
1915
What is this gypsy passion for separation, this
readiness to rush off – when we’ve just met?
My head rests in my hands as I
realise, looking into the night
that no one turning over our letters has
yet understood how completely and
how deeply faithless we are, which is
to say: how true we are to ourselves.
1915
We shall not escape Hell, my passionate
sisters, we shall drink black resins –
we who sang our praises to the Lord
with every one of our sinews, even the finest,
we did not lean over cradles or
spinning wheels at night, and now we are
carried off by an unsteady boat
under the skirts of a sleeveless cloak,
we dressed every morning in
fine Chinese silk, and we would
sing our paradisal songs at
the fire of the robbers’ camp,
slovenly needlewomen (all
our sewing came apart), dancers,
players upon pipes: we have been
the queens of the whole world!
first scarcely covered by rags,
then with constellations in our hair, in
gaol and at feasts we have
bartered away heaven,
in starry nights, in the apple
orchards of Paradise.
– Gentle girls, my beloved sisters,
we shall certainly find ourselves in Hell!
1915
Some ancestor of mine was a violinist
and a thief into the bargain.
Does this explain my vagrant disposition
and hair that smells of the wind?
Dark, curly-haired, hooknosed, he is
the one who steals apricots
from the cart, using my hand. Yes,
he is responsible for my fate.
Admiring the ploughman at his labour,
he used to twirl a dog rose
in his lips. He was always unreliable
as a friend, but a tender lover.
Fond of his pipe, the moon, beads, and all
the young women in the neighbourhood…
I think he may have also been a coward,
my yellow-eyed ancestor.
His soul was sold for a farthing,
so he did not walk at midnight
in the cemetery. He may have worn
a knife tucked in his boot.
Perhaps he pounced round corners
like a sinuous cat.
I wonder suddenly: did
he even play the violin?
I know nothing mattered to him
any more than last year’s snow.
That’s what he was like, my ancestor.
And that’s the kind of poet I am.
1915
I’m glad your sickness is not caused by me.
Mine is not caused by you. I’m glad to know
the heavy earth will never flow away
from us, beneath our feet, and so
we can relax together, and not watch
our words. When our sleeves touch
we shall not drown in waves of rising blush.
I’m glad to see you calmly now embrace
another girl in front of me, without
any wish to cause me pain, as you
don’t burn if I kiss someone else.
I know you never use my tender name,
my tender spirit, day or night. And
no one in the silence of a church
will sing their Hallelujahs over us.
Thank you for loving me like this,
for you feel love, although you do not know it.
Thank you for the nights I’ve spent in quiet.
Thank you for the walks under the moon
you’ve spared me and those sunset meetings unshared.
Thank you. The sun will never bless our heads.
Take my sad thanks for this: you do not cause
my sickness. And I don’t cause yours.
1915
We are keeping an eye on the girls, so that the kvass
doesn’t go sour in the jug, or the pancakes cold,
counting over the rings, and pouring anis
into the long bottles with their narrow throats,
straightening tow thread for the peasant woman:
filling the house with the fresh smoke of
incense and we are sailing over Cathedral Square
arm in arm with our godfather, silks thundering.
The wet nurse has a screeching cockerel
in her apron – her clothes are like the night.
She announces in an ancient whisper that
a dead young man lies in the chapel.
And an incense cloud wraps the corners
under its own saddened chasuble.
The apple trees are white, like angels – and
the pigeons on them – grey – like incense itself.
And the pilgrim women sipping kvass from the ladle
on the edge of the couch, is telling
to the very end a tale about Razin
and his most beautiful Persian girl.
1916
No one has taken anything away –
there is even a sweetness for me in being apart.
I kiss you now across the many
hundreds of miles that separate us.
I know: our gifts are unequal, which is
why my voice is – quiet, for the first time.
What can my untutored verse
matter to you, a young Derzhavin?
For your terrible flight I give you blessing.
Fly, then, young eagle! You
have stared into the sun without blinking.
Can my young gaze be too heavy for you?
No one has ever stared more
tenderly or more fixedly after you…
I kiss you – across hundreds of
separating years.
1916
You throw back your head, because
you are proud. And a braggart.
This February has
brought me a gay companion!
Clattering with gold pieces, and
slowly puffing out smoke, we
walk like solemn foreigners
throughout my native city.
And whose attentive hands have
touched your eyelashes, beautiful boy, and
when or how many times your
lips have been kissed
I do not ask.
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