THE BOOK OF POEMS IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY ... - TopReferat

This sense of cyclical entrapment is broken, however, in "Вариация." Unlike the
circular "Эпизод," "Вариация" ends with a sense of openness and outward movement.
The lyric persona is not returned to the physical world after the spiritual separation, but
continues to move further into the ephemeral realm. His world is ever-widening—he
steps into the second circle of waves, anticipating a third and a fourth. While aware of
the earthly world (the measured cadence of his porch-swing), it reaches him from far
away (оттуда).
In the 1927 edition of Путем зерна, Khodasevich reinforces this hopeful
development with a seemingly small revision to "Эпизод," the deletion of line 69 (И
маску Пушкина, и снова за окном). As a result the final stanza begins:
Увидел я перед собою книги,
Услышал голоса.
Снова
By excising the specific details of Pushkin’s death mask and the window (first mentioned
in the fifteenth and seventeenth lines of the poem), Khodasevich lessens the degree of
sameness between the lyric hero’s surroundings before and after the episode. Eliminating
one of the persistent uses of "снова" also weakens the first editions’ stress on entrapment
and futility.
In all three editions of Путем Зерна “Сны” is followed by several poems which deal explicitly with death.
The lyric persona envisions his own body laid out in state ("О, если б в этот час желанного покоя") as
well as the bodies of others ("В Петровском парке," "Смоленский рынок"). He tells young girls
("Милые девушки, верьте или не верьте…") and even death itself ("На ходу") how close he is to dying.
"Эпизод," for all of its resonance with "Сны," appears to mark a turn toward a new, more hopeful pattern.
The experience of separation is complete and ecstatic in "Эпизод," whereas the escape into dream is
limited and tarnished in "Сны."
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