Marina Tsvetaeva, Her Life in Poems - Rolf Gross

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
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