GALINA SEDOVA’S BULGAKOV. CCXCV.

Strangers in the Night.

Blok Unmasked. Who?

 

“…And on snowy beds

Sleep tsars and heroes of yore

In a silvery-snowy rest.

Oh, Unknown!

They are your snowy victims…

 

Alexander Blok. No Way Out.”

 

“Secretly hiding in a long fairytale,

The preordained hour strikes.

There is a slit in the dark mask

Of bright eyes…”

What fairytale is Blok talking about here?

Away! and The Heart is Given to Blizzards, two poems in the poetry cycle Snow Mask, written in January 1907, that is, a year after the Night Violet, provide an answer to this question.

In the mystical poem Away!, Blok introduces us into his enchanting and enticing world.

“…And again the suns

Opened this door;

And again they are dragging

This shadow from the heart…”

While inviting the reader, Blok is warning him:

“…And again they are giving

A warning sign,

So that ice would be melting slower

In the monastic cell…”

The “suns” want to “wake up” Blok, cure him of his “drowsiness” and return him to “constructive work.” Blok:

“…We are the curers of anguish,

To our slow-acting care

Submit yourself!..”

To their question: “Who art thou? Who art thou? – Blok responds: “Who are ye? Who are ye?” And responds to the question himself:

“…Daughters of paradise! Away! Fly away!

Who has broken my door bars?

Whom did you open the doors to,

Having dozed off, servant-girl night?..”

And here Blok’s tale begins:

“…My cell is guarded by owls –

You cannot help oblivion and loss!..”

And now he discloses his secret:

“…My breast is chained by snows,

In my ice cave dwells the daughter

Of the whirlwinds of the north…”

This is no longer the White Ancient Maiden of the year 1905:

“…Darkness is glowing from her winged eyes,

A triple-crown tiara is around the brow.

She has lit a golden coal in my heart!

My heart has revealed to me

The snowy darkness of her eyes!..”

Chasing away the “ daughters of paradise,” Blok threatens them:

“…Fly away, you holy flock,

To the old door of the dying paradise,

And you, fierce beasts, protect me,

So that angels themselves

Would not raise me on their wings,

Would not turn my head with praises…”

Blok is totally in the power of the “daughter of the whirlwinds of the north,” that is, of winter:

“…There are two swords in my darkened cell,

There are signs of black days over my bed.

And my merriment emits two beams,

Those are the burning and the slumber

Of the poppies of the wicked eyes…”

In the poem No Way Out, the title itself indicates that Blok continues the same theme of winter:

“There is no way out of the blizzards,

And perishing will be fun for me.

She has lured me into an enchanted circle,

And has curtained me off with the silver of her blizzards…”

But already in the next poem after this, titled The Heart is Given to Blizzards, Blok blows up:

“…Kill me, like I once killed

Those who were close to me!

I have forgotten all whom I loved,

I’ ve whirled my heart in blizzard,

I’ve thrown my heart off the white mountains,

It lies at the bottom…”

And again an allusion to the “White Ancient Maiden”:

“I am myself walking upon your pyre!

Burn me!..”

Considering that Blok himself changes positions of his poems within his poetry cycles, I have decided to not to close this interlude with his jocular last poem:

“…Dear knight, with my snowy blood

I was faithful to you.

I was faithful to you for three whole nights –

So burn, bright and luminous,

Whereas I, with a light hand

Will scatter your lightweight ashes

Over the snowy plain…”

I have decided, rather, to close with a definitely more serious poem from the same cycle, titled: They Are Reading Verses. –

“See, I’ve mixed up all pages,

While your eyes were blooming,

The large wings of a snowy bird

Had swept my mind with a blizzard…”

Is the reader following Blok in his fairytale?

“How strange were the words of the mask!

Are they clear to you? [the reader] – God knows!

You firmly know: books have fairytales,

But what life has – is only prose.

So do not be too strict with me,

And do not tease me with your mask.”

The poem closes both unexpectedly and in a hostile manner:

“…And do not touch inside the dark memory

A different, frightful fire.”

And in the poem Confusion of the same cycle, likewise dated January 1907, the reader is about to hear and understand what this mysterious poet is writing about:

“Are we dancing shadows?

Or are we casting a shadow?

The burning-down day is filled

With dreams, deceptions, and visions…”

Blok complains:

“…I cannot understand what is luring us,

You won’t understand what’s with me,

Whose gaze is being fogged under the mask

By the darkness of the snow blizzard?..”

Not only cannot Blok understand, but he is filled with doubt:

“…And your eyes are shining at me,

Is it real or just a dream?

Even at noon, even in the day

Scattered are the tousles of the night…”

Blok doubts the correctness of his decision:

“…Was it your inevitability

That has led me astray?

Is it my passion and tenderness

That is trying to expire in a blizzard?..”

Blok’s poem closes with a scream of despair:

“…Mask, let me acutely listen

To your dark heart,

Mask, give me back my soul,

My radiant grief!..”

Still no clue? Let’s try one more time! Blok’s poem Caught in a Blizzard in the same poetry cycle, opens with the words:

“The blizzard was singing,

And the snow needles were prickling,

And the soul was freezing [sic!],

You have caught up with me…”

And the next stanza is of utmost importance for the understanding of the whole cycle:

“You have lifted your head upwards,

You said: look in there, look in there,

Until you forget

What you love!..”

Blok frequently returns to the fairytale theme in his poetry, and throughout my work I will keep doing the same. Blok’s fairy tales are all unconventional. The reader has already become acquainted with some of them, and with certain other variations, the reader can expect very interesting encounters.

Reading the poetry cycle Snow Mask, I couldn’t help discovering inside it a wonderful Andersen fairytale about two adorable children and a beautiful but wicked witch who froze the heart of the boy Kay, making him forget his Gerda. Blok wrote a variation of this tale about himself. –

“…And the pride of the new baptism

Turned my heart into ice…”

And also:

“…I have forgotten all whom I loved,

I’ ve whirled my heart in blizzard,

I’ve thrown my heart off the white mountains,

It lies at the bottom…”

And also:

“…The daughter

Of the whirlwinds of the north…”

[same as Andersen’s Snow Queen!]

“…lifted [her] head upwards,

[And] said: look in there, look in there,

Until you forget

What you love!..”

More about this amazing Andersen fairytale Snow Queen and its acute currency in the modern world, particularly concerning the press of today, can be found in my chapter Nature: Snow Queen, Posting LXXIII.
Incidentally, hence the connection between Blok's Snow Mask and Bulgakov. It's Andersen's Snow Queen.

To be continued…