Marina Tsvetaeva, Her Life in Poems - Rolf Gross

enough! (Rainer, when I wrote in German "fegeii - Fegefeuer - that magnificen word -
sweeping here, purgatory there, swept right into the middle of purgatory, etc., that's how
I write, from the word to the thing, recreating the words poetically. This is how you write,
I think.)
So, dear one, don't be afraid, simply answer yes to every "Give" - a beggar's comfort,
innocent, without consequences. Most of the time my begging hand drops away - along
with the gift - into the sand. What do I want from you What I want from all of poetry and
from each line of a poem: the truth of this moment. That's as far as truth goes. Never
turns to wood - always to ashes. The word, which for me already is the thing, is all I want.
Actions Consequences I know you, Rainer, as I know myself. The farther from me - the
further into me. I live not in myself, but outside myself. I do not live in my lips, and he
who kisses me misses me.
Savoie. (Pause for thought.) Train. Ticket. Place to stay. (Praise God, no visa!) And...
faint distaste. Something prepared, won in battle ... begged for. I want you to fall from
heaven. Rainer, quite seriously: if you want to see me, with your eyes, you must act - "In
two weeks I'll be at such-and-such a place. Are you coming" This must come from you.
Like the date. Like the town. Look at the map. Perhaps it must be a large town Give it
some thought. Little towns are sometimes misleading. Oh, yes, one more thing: I haven't
any money; the little I earn by my work (because of my "newness" printed only in the
"newer" monthlies, of which in the emigration there are only two) - vanishes as soon as it
is received. I wonder if you'll have enough for both of us. Rainer, as I write this I have to
laugh: a strange sort of guest!
Well, then, dear one, when at some point you really want to, you write to me (a little
beforehand, for I have to find somebody to stay with the children) - and I'll come. I am
staying at St.-Gilles until October 1-15. Then to Paris, where I start from scratch: no
money, no apartment, nothing. I'm not going back to Prague, the Czechs are angry with
me for having written so much and so ardently about Germany and having been so firmly
silent about Bohemia. And after all, having been subsidized by the Czechs for three and a
half years (900 kronen monthly). So, some time between October 1 and 15, to Paris. We
won't get together before November. But surely, it could also be somewhere in the South
(Meaning France.) Where, how, and when (from November on) you like. Placed into your
hands. You can, after all... part them. I shall never love you more or less in any case.
I am looking forward to you terribly, as to a whole totally new realm.
About Boris. No, I was in the right. His answer was that of an Atlas liberated. (He,
remember, carried a heaven with all its inhabitants! And, rid of this burden, he, too,
sighed, it seems to me.) Now he is rid of me. Too good-natured, too compassionate, too
patient. The blow had to come from me (nobody likes to terminate, to kill!). He already
knew about the two Abroads. All I did was speak up, name things, break the spell. Now
everything is all right, the realms separated: I in the innermost self - outermost foreign
place - quite out of the world.
How much longer are you staying in Ragaz and how do you feel What is the last thing
you've written
I take you in my arms.
M.
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