Marina Tsvetaeva, Her Life in Poems - Rolf Gross

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student of Seryozha, and all her fierce destructive fires were aflame again. She directs this poem at poor Konstantin: Blade Between us a double-edged knife I swore – to put it there in my thoughts... But it happens between- passionate sisters! But it happens in brotherly passion! This is such a confusing subject Prairie in the wind, the edge of the abyss Blows ... Sword, protect us From our two immortal souls! Sword, torment us, and, sword, pierce us, Sword, execute us, but, sword, know, What is the extreme Truth, the edge of the roof... A double-edged blade - separates It joins! So tear away the cloak And bring us together, ferocious guard - Wound into wound and grisle to grisle! (Listen, if a star is falling ... Not by the will of a child in a castle And drops into the sea... Islands exist, There are islands for any kind of love ...) The double-edged knife, that was tempered blue will turn red ... A double-edged Sword – we shall plunge into each other. This will be the best way to lie down! This will be - a fraternal wound! Thus, under the stars, and nothing Innocent ... Just the two of us Brother, with a fused sword! August 18, 1923 Rodzevich, frightened by the elemental tidal wave of Marina's passion, could not understand. While she, for the first time contemplating a divorce from Sergey, vacillated 40
etween her insatiable need for freedom and a nagging conscience, Rodzevich longed for a simple family life. He soon ran from the onslaught. – Marina was devastated by his rejection. Her poetry of those months runs from searing ecstasies to deep depressions bordering on madness. Fortunately Marina had sent Alya to a Russian boarding school in Moravia; she seems to not have known about Rodzevich. But Seryozha knew. He became the true victim. The longed for stability of his marriage seemed unreachable again. His health declined and he withdrew to his room in Prague. In his despair he wrote a long letter to Max Voloshin, but then couldn't make up his mind to send it off for over a month. I reproduce the letter in its full length [quoted by Viktoria Schweitzer in her Tsvetaeva biography, [VS p.241-243] because he describes, beyond his own agonies, Marina like nobody else could. My dear Max, I received your splendid, affectionate letter long ago and have been unable to reply all this time. You are of course the only person to whom I could say all this, but it's not easy to say it even to you - for me, in matters like this, saying something seems to make it happen. Not that I have any hope, I was just held back by human weakness. Once I have said something, this needs to be followed by definite action - and I am quite lost. My weakness and complete helplessness, Marina's blindness, my pity for her, my feeling that she's got herself stuck in a hopeless dead end, my inability to help her clearly and decisively, the impossibility of finding any satisfactory way out - it's all moving towards a standstill. Things have reached the stage where every exit from a crossroads could lead to disaster. Marina is a woman of passions. Considerably more than in the past - before I left. Plunging headfirst into her hurricanes has become essential for her, the breath of life. It no longer matters who it is that arouses these hurricanes. Nearly always (now as before) -- or rather always – everything is based on self-deception. A man is invented and the hurricane begins. If the insignificance and narrowness of the arouser of the hurricane is soon revealed, then Marina gives way to a hurricane of despair. A state which facilitates the appearance of a new arouser. The important thing is not what but how. Not the essence or the source but the rhythm, the insane rhythm. Today - despair, tomorrow - ecstasy, love, complete self-abandon; and the following day - despair once again. And all this with a penetrating, cold (maybe even cynically Voltairian) mind. Yesterday's arousers are wittily and cruelly ridiculed (nearly always justly). Everything is entered in the book. Everything is coolly and mathematically cast into a formula. A huge stove, whose fires need wood, wood and more wood. Unwanted ashes are thrown out, and the quality of the wood is not so important. For the time being the stove draws well - everything is converted to flame. Poor wood is burnt up more quickly, good wood takes longer. It goes without saying that it's a long time since I've been any use for 41
Page 1 and 2: Marina Tsvetaeva A Life in Poems No
Page 3 and 4: poetic power like distress and - lo
Page 5 and 6: Childhood Moscow 8 Tryokhprudny Per
Page 7 and 8: children. In “Mother and Music”
Page 9 and 10: seventeen Marina began to smoke, a
Page 11 and 12: Koktebel Maximilian Voloshin's Have
Page 13 and 14: The motley crowd of greater and les
Page 15 and 16: did not concern her. My poems, writ
Page 17 and 18: Sofia Parnok Koktebel and Moscow 19
Page 19 and 20: She writes and a few days later des
Page 21 and 22: And I'll tell you: - All the same -
Page 23 and 24: orderly. Eventually he was drafted
Page 25 and 26: In December 1915 Marina was invited
Page 27 and 28: To Osip Mandelstam A strange anxiet
Page 29 and 30: Marina escaped on flights to the ot
Page 31 and 32: Love! Love! Even in convulsions, ev
Page 33 and 34: - Alya had these frequent attacks.
Page 35 and 36: ... Dead - and risen! Just enough f
Page 37 and 38: Berlin - Prague Ilya Ehrenburg Serg
Page 39: her and writes that “he had been
Page 43 and 44: Moscow. I don't want to write about
Page 45 and 46: Swan-like... - But what happened Li
Page 47 and 48: toe of the heart, not yet touched b
Page 49 and 50: France 1925 - 1939 The Summer of 19
Page 51 and 52: German and Russian! In a postscript
Page 53 and 54: thus alien after all!) One more thi
Page 55 and 56: affirmation around a spring. Around
Page 57 and 58: horseman. Your penciled notation (i
Page 59 and 60: Boulevard de Crancy, 3 (not far fro
Page 61 and 62: in 1924 and 1925), hence my long so
Page 63 and 64: You are alive, I want to see you. A
Page 65 and 66: trug uns ein blinder Befehl durch d
Page 67 and 68: to feign halves. We, confined to ci
Page 69 and 70: German is deeper than French, fulle
Page 71 and 72: eflection when it appears in the wa
Page 73 and 74: asleep, fast asleep. I sound quite
Page 75 and 76: winter!... "You don't need to answe
Page 77 and 78: This letter became the last in thei
Page 79 and 80: France 1925 - 1939 The Lure of the
Page 81 and 82: Mur and Marina, 1936 Photo dommuseu
Page 83 and 84: In your family album! Children! You
Page 85 and 86: People are all the same to me, And
Page 87 and 88: go. But there was, of course, no ch
Page 89 and 90: Marina Tsvetaeva, Golitsyno 1939 No
Page 91 and 92:
The idea of suicide is disturbing t
Page 93 and 94:
Marina Tsetaeva (1892 - 1941) Chron
Page 95 and 96:
August 1, move to Prague, where the
Page 97 and 98:
August 17, Marina and Mur evacuated
Page 99 and 100:
Marina Zwtajewa, “Mutter und die
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Marina Tsvetaeva, Her Life in Poems - Rolf Gross

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