And it is a particularly bad sign when a hatless person
sobs as he walks, being moved not by lines he might have composed
himself but by something he hideously mistakes for his own and presently
flinches, yet is too much of a coward to make amends:
Zvezdoobraznost' nebesnyh zvyozd
Vidish' tol'ko
skvoz' slyozy...
(Heavenly stars are seen as stellate
only through
tears.) (2.3)
In these lines VN seems to blend two Russian poets, Fyodor Tyutchev
(1803-73) and Afanasiy Fet (1820-92). Tyutchev is the author of a poem on human
tears (Slyozy lyudskie, o slyozy lyudskie...).* In
Tyutchev's Silentium! (1830) stars are mentioned.**
A great admirer of Tyutchev's poetry, Fet is the author
of Sredi Zvyozd (Among Stars,
1876), Ugasshim Zvyozdam (To Extinguished Stars, 1890)
and of the following two poems written in 1864:
Die Gleichmäßigkeit des Laufes
der Zeit in allen
Köpfen beweist
mehr, als irgend etwas, daß wir
Alle in denselben Traum
versenkt
sind, ja daß es Ein Wesen
ist, welches ihn träumt.
Schopenhauer, Parerga II, § 29.
1
Измучен жизнью, коварством надежды,
Когда им в битве
душой уступаю,
И днём и ночью смежаю я вежды
И как-то странно порой
прозреваю.
Ещё темнее мрак жизни вседневной,
Как после
яркой осенней зарницы,
И только в небе, как зов задушевный,
Сверкают звёзд
золотые ресницы.
И так прозрачна огней бесконечность,
И так доступна вся бездна эфира,
Что прямо
смотрю я из времени в вечность
И пламя твоё узнаю, солнце мира.
И
неподвижно на огненных розах
Живой алтарь мирозданья курится,
В его дыму, как в творческих грёзах,
Вся
сила дрожит и вся вечность снится.
И всё, что мчится по безднам
эфира,
И каждый луч, плотской и бесплотный, —
Твой только отблеск, о
солнце мира,
И только сон, только сон мимолётный.
И
этих грёз в мировом дуновеньи
Как дым несусь я и таю невольно,
И в этом
прозреньи, и в этом забвеньи
Легко мне жить и дышать мне не
больно.
By life tormented, and by cunning hope,
When my soul surrenders in its
battle with them,
Day and night I press my eyelids closed
And sometimes
I'm vouchsafed peculiar visions.
The gloom of quotidian existence
deepens,
As after a bright flash of autumn lightning,
And only in the
sky, like a call from the heart,
The stars' golden eyelashes sparkle.
And the flames of infinity are so transparent,
And the entire abyss
of ether is so close,
That I gaze direct from time into eternity
And
recognize your flame, universal sun.
Motionless, encircled by fiery
roses,
The living altar of the cosmos smolders
And in its smoke, as in
creative slumber,
All forces quiver, eternity's a dream.
And all
that rushes through the abyss of ether,
And every ray, embodied or
ethereal,-
Is but your reflection, O universal sun,
It is but a dream,
but a fleeting dream.
Through the worldly breath of these reveries
I
fly like smoke, involuntarily disperse,
And in this vision, in this
delirium,
I can live with ease and breathe without pain.
2
В тиши и мраке таинственной ночи
Я вижу блеск
приветный и милой,
И в звёздном хоре знакомые очи
Горят в степи над
забытой могилой.
Трава поблекла, пустыня
угрюма,
И сон сиротлив одинокой гробницы,
И только в небе, как вечная
дума,
Сверкают звёзд золотые ресницы.
И снится мне, что ты встала из
гроба,
Такой же, какой ты с земли отлетела,
И
снится, снится: мы молоды оба,
И ты взглянула, как прежде
глядела.
In the darkness and still of a mysterious night
I
see a fond and welcoming spark,
From the chorus of spheres, familiar eyes
Shine upon a grave forgotten in the steppe.
The grass has faded, the
desert is grim,
A lonely tomb dreams an orphan's dream,
And only in the
sky, like an eternal idea,
The stars' golden eyelashes sparkle.
And
I dream you've risen from the dead,
Unchanged since you departed the earth,
And I dream a dream: we both are young,
And you've looked at me as you
did back then.
In the first poem fiery roses are mentioned, and the second, "In the
darkness and still of a mysterious night...", was VDN's favorite poem.
Fet is the author of the palindrome "A roza upala na lapu Azora"
("And the rose fell on the paw of Azor"). Azorka (diminutive of
Azor) is old Jeremy Smith's old dog in Dostoevski's Humiliated and
Insulted. The novel's characters include Nelly, a girl of thirteen. In his
Commentary to Annette's letter to him Vadim twice calls Ninel Langley, Annette's
friend with whom she moved to Rustic Roses, "Nelly" (3.4). Ninel is Lenin
backwards. As to dogs, Annette's (or rather Ninel's) letter to Vadim ends as
follows: "We are seriously thinking of acquiring a big Alsatian!" ("Let
us refrain from a final comment," says Vadim in his Commentary).
VN's father (VDN) died in an assassination. Vadim's first wife, Iris
Black is assassinated by Wladimir Blagidze, alias Starov (1.13).
In Russian, slyozy (tears) and rozy (roses) are rhyme
words.
In the second of VN's two poems Na smert' Bloka (On Blok's
Death, 1921), which begins Pushkin - raduga po vsey zemle...
("Pushkin is the rainbow across the whole world..."), Fet is associated with
roses.*** On March 28, 1922, VN was reading to his mother Blok's Italian
Verses (in one of them Blok compares Florence to a smoky iris), when the
telephone rang...
*see my post "wasted water in LATH"
**Speak not, lie hidden, and conceal
the way you dream, the things you
feel.
Deep in your spirit let them rise
akin to stars in
crystal skies
that set before the night is blurred:
delight in them and
speak no word.
How can a heart expression find?
How should another know your
mind?
Will he discern what quickens you?
A thought once uttered is
untrue.
Dimmed is the fountainhead when stirred:
drink at the source and
speak no word.
Live in your inner self alone
within your soul a world has grown,
the
magic of veiled thoughts that might
be blinded by the outer light,
drowned
in the noise of day, unheard...
take in their song and speak no word.
***...Пушкин -- выпуклый и пышный свет,
Лермонтов
-- в венке из звёзд прекрасных,
Тютчев -- веющий росой, и Фет,
в ризе
тонкой, в розах красных.
...И о солнце Пушкин запоёт,
Лермонтов -- о звёздах
над горами,
Тютчев -- о сверканьи звонких вод,
Фет -- о розах в вечном
храме.
Alexey Sklyarenko