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

The first link between the dedication to Сияния and Teresa is its date of
composition: December 24, 1933, 111 the Catholic Christmas Eve. Gippius wrote a very
similar poem, "Ты" on the same date: 112
Ты не приходишь, но всегда,—
Чуть вспомню,—ты со мною.
Ты мне—как свежая вода
Среди земного зноя...
You don't come, but always—
I barely recall—you are with me.
To me you are like fresh water
Amidst the intense heat of the earth.
Dates were of great significance to Gippius, and she did not assign or record them
lightly. 113
The Catholic Christmas Eve was associated in her mind with Teresa's
conversion at the age of fourteen—the night that she received God's grace as described in
Histoire d'une âme. In a letter to Greta Gerell on January 4, 1934, less than two weeks
after writing these two poems, she describes her love for Teresa, evoked by the Christmas
holiday:
Notre Noël c'est le 7, Dimanche prochain. Mais comme j'aime beaucoup quelques
saints romains, la petite Thérèse surtout, j'ai beaucoup vénéré le jour de Noël passé.
… Les saints…il y en a que j'admire, il y en a d'autres que j'aime tout simplement
comme s'ils étaient des personnes vivantes (ne le sont-ils pas, d'ailleurs?). La petite
Thérèse a séduit le monde entire, et vous le serez, bien sûr, quand vous lirez l'historie
de sa vie écrite par elle-même—je vous enverrai le livre ce Dimanche; ou un jour
plus tard—quand j'irai dans le magasin à elle. Après je vous enverrai la traduction de
quelques-unes de mes poésies que je lui ai faites. Peut-être vous enverrai-je l'autre
111 This date is not included in the actual text of Сияния, but it is given as the date of the epigraph in the
notes to the 1999 edition of Gippius's verse. Gippius, Stikhtovreniia, 518.
112 "Ты" was published in Современные записки in 1934. The original was dated "24 дек 1933."
Gippius, Stikhtvoreniia, 555.
113 Vladimir Zlobin cites Gippius as writing, "За числами слежу я очень зорко,/Как вещий знак дает
нам числа Бог." Vladimir Zlobin, A Difficult Soul: Zinaida Gippius (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1980), 125.. Birthdays are given particular importance in her 1903 poem, "Числа": И день, когда
родимся, налагает/На нас печать заветного числа;/До смерти наши мысли и дела/Оно сопровождает.
In a letter to Georgii Adamovich (15 August 1927) Gippius wrote: "категория чисел—ближе
соприкасается с реальностью, чем мы привычно воображаем." Temira Pachmuss, Intellect and Ideas
in Action: Selected Correspondence of Zinaida Hippius (Munich: Centrifuga, 1972), 367.
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