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

The newspaper hawker’s indifference to his wares—the affairs of the world and the fates
of other men—has nothing in common with the wanderer’s indifference in "Дом." It is
based not on any greater understanding of life’s patterns (e.g. that heroism and dishonor
naturally replace each other as life replaces death), but rather on cold calculation—it does
not matter what he sells as long as others buy it up. His indifference does have
something in common, however, with the description of man in lines 47-58 of "Дом." By
"inventing history" and writing down events, haughty man believes he has gained control
over those events. This control is proven false in "Дом," but in "Газетчик" the hawker's
similar "greatness," his indifferent treatment of human stories typed up in the mundane
genre of the evening news, tempts the speaker. The lyric "я" lacks such control over his
own life—the muddy spring roads 78 lead him inevitably into darkness—but his "greedy
soul" longs for it. Any attempts to achieve such greatness, however, are akin to selling
himself to the devil, becoming "soulless" like the hawker.
The poem "Сердце" is likewise concerned with greed. The speaker describes his
heart as a bloody miser (кровавый скупец) who stores away earthly moments in a huge
lead box. He seems to believe that locking them up will help him cling to life. In the
final stanza he recognizes the futility of his heart’s actions:
И много тяжелых цехинов,
И много поддельных гиней
Толпа теневых исполинов
Разграбит в час смерти моей.
And many heavy zecchins,
And many fake guineas
A throng of tenebrous giants
Will steal in the hour of my death.
78 Here the word "распутица" suggests a certain degree of debauchery, depravity (cf. "распутство").
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