Marina Tsvetaeva, Her Life in Poems - Rolf Gross

you please, although I consider myself the first person to bear my name, as I considered
you the first holder of yours. The saint whose name was Rainer had a different name, I'm
sure. You are Rainer. So, on my name day the loveliest gift - your letter. Quite
unexpected, as it is each time; I shall never get used to you (or to myself!), or to the
marveling, or to my own thinking of you. You are what I'm going to dream about tonight,
what will dream me tonight. (Dreaming or being dreamed) A stranger, I, in someone
else's dream. I never await you; I always awake you.
When somebody dreams of us together - that is when we shall meet.
Rainer, another reason I want to come to you is the new I, the one who can arise only
with you, in you. And then, Rainer ("Rainer" - the leitmotif of this letter) - don't be cross
with me - it is I talking - I want to sleep with you, fall asleep and sleep. That magnificent
folk word, how deep, how true, how unequivocal, how exactly what it says. Just - sleep.
And nothing more. No, one more thing: my head buried in your left shoulder, my arm
around your right one - and that's all. No, another thing: and know right into the deepest
sleep that it is you. And more: how your heart sounds. And - kiss your heart.
Sometimes I think: I must exploit the chance that I am still (after all!) body. Soon I'll
have no more arms. And more - it sounds like confession (what is confession to boast of
one's blackness! Who could speak of his sufferings without feeling inspired, which is to say
happy!) - so, to keep it from sounding like a confession: bodies are bored with me. They
sense something and don't believe me (i.e., my body), although I do everything like
everybody else. Too ... altruistic, possibly, too ... benevolent. Also trusting - too much so!
Aliens are trusting, savages, who know of no custom or law. People from here do not
trust! All this does not belong with love; love hears and feels only itself, very local and
punctual - that I cannot imitate. And the great compassion, who knows whence, infinite
goodness and - falsehood.
I feel older and older. Too serious - the children's game is not serious enough.
The mouth I have always felt as world: vaulted firmament, cave, ravine, shoal.
[Untiefe]. I have always translated the body into the soul (dis-bodied it!), have so gloried
"physical" love - in order to be able to like it - that suddenly nothing was left of it.
Engrossing myself in it, hollowed it out. Penetrating into it, ousted it. Nothing remained of
it but myself: Soul (that is my name, which is why I marvel: name day!).
Love hates poets. He does not wish to be glorified ("himself glorious enough"); he
believes himself an absolute, sole absolute. He doesn't trust us. In his heart of hearts he
knows that he is not lordly (which is why he lords it so!); he knows that all lordliness is
soul, and where soul begins, the body ends. Jealousy, Rainer, purest. The same thing as
soul feels for body. But I am always jealous of the body: so much celebrated! The little
episode of Francesca and Paolo - poor Dante! - who still thinks of Dante and Beatrice I
am jealous of the human comedy. Soul is never loved so much as body; at most it is
praised. With a thousand souls they love the body. Who has ever courted damnation for
the sake of a soui And even if someone wanted to - impossible! To love a soul unto
damnation means being an angel. Of all of hell we are cheated! (... Trop pure - provoque
un vent de dédain! ) Why do I tell you all this From fear, perhaps - you might take me for
generally passionate (passion - bondage). "I love you and want to sleep with you" -
friendship is begrudged by this sort of brevity. But I say it in a different voice, almost
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