Strangers In
The Night.
Alexander
Blok. Falling In Love.
“…But
without strictly listening
To
her fragmented talk,
I
watch how alarm is broadening
In
the radiance of her eyes
And
in the trembling of her shoulders…”
Alexander Blok. Harps and Violins.
Returning from that important excursion, as the reader
will find out, to Blok’s 1907 poem And I
Spent a Crazy Year at the Black Train [of a woman’s dress], Blok writes
that his beloved is about to leave:
“…And
then she stops her spinning
And
softly puts away her yarn…”
In other words, Blok’s inspiration dries up, and this
is how he shows it:
“…And
my unhappy passion [sic!]
Passed
beyond the Third Guard.”
According to the Ancient Roman Calendar, nighttime was
divided into four “guards,” three hours each, roughly between sunset and
sunrise. That would be approximately between 6 and 9pm for the first, 9 to 12am
for the second, 12 to 3am for the third, and 3 to 6am for the fourth.
In other words, the poet is exhausted.
“Thus
am I passing nights and days,
At
a maiden’s train in a quiet hall;
The
lights in the fireplace have died out…
She
is getting up, she will be leaving…”
It is perhaps from here that Vladimir Vysotsky takes
the lines of his song about the Muse:
“…She
was staying for days in a row at Blok’s place,
While
she had lived at Pushkin’s place without ever leaving…”
And indeed, Blok himself depicts his Muse on numerous
occasions, this time as a maiden with a black train of her dress.
This is why when master says farewell to Moscow from
Vorobievy Hills, in Bulgakov’s Master and
Margarita, his Muse Margarita acquires a black train to her dress.
“Ah, no, no, Messire! –
responded Margarita, sitting in the saddle like an Amazon, akimbo, with the
sharp train of her dress hanging down, touching the ground…”
And Woland on one occasion calls Margarita “a lady.” –
“You can frighten the lady,” – he
says to Kot Begemot in response to the latter’s expressed wish to perform a
“farewell whistle.”
Bulgakov clearly shows that Margarita is the “Fair
Lady,” the first Muse of Alexander Blok from his 1901-1902 poetry cycle Verses About a Fair Lady.
And here is Blok:
“…She
ties up tightly
Her
black silken kerchief
[image of
chastity in Blok].
She
caresses her friend for the last time,
Dropping
a gentle hint,
And
then she walks…”
...And indeed, it is unclear from this depiction where
the woman ends and the Muse of Poetry
begins.
“…Her
movements are fast;
In
her eyes, sparks are fading and dying down…”
Together with the Muse’s eyes, coals are dying down in
the fireplace.
“…And
I am listening to the noise
Of
the glass door shutting in the distance,
And
to the dying down sound
Of
coals in the extinguished fireplace…”
In other words, Blok’s fire of passions, that fire
which he so much likes to write about in his poetry, his passion is dying down.
But this lasts only for a moment:
“…Then
I again rush toward the door,
I’m
running after her…”
The Muse and the woman are merged again:
“…In
the frosty park,
The
night is sighing over the walkways.
She
softly walks around
One
flowerbed after another,
Then
she retreats, now coming close,
Now
jumps away – and in the frosty air
Only
her steps are sonorously ringing…”
It is only Blok’s incredible poetic mastery that can
turn ordinary events, like a woman leaving her house, into an extraordinary
depiction of this otherwise insignificant occurrence.
And here comes the mysticism right away:
“I
recognize in the unsteady light of the side street
My
beautiful snake;
She
slithers from one light to other lights,
And
her train streams like a comet’s tail…”
This depiction alone sends Blok into a frenzy of
inspiration:
“And
catching up with her, with a new zeal,
I
am whispering tender words to her,
And
again the head is spinning [sic!]…”
And once again Alexander Blok is on fire:
“…And
in the glow of a distant fire
I
am before her like a wild beast…
The
yawning door is beating back and forth…”
In other words, Blok describes how he is catching up
with the woman with the black train, but it is most likely his former passion
that comes back to him – to keep writing, to make verses – and he closes his
wondrous poem thus:
“…And
as though into an abyss,
Into
the bosom of the night,
Our
ascent is steep… Delirium and darkness,
Rejoicing
are the eyes, and the hair is streaming
Upon
the shoulders, like a wave of lead,
Blacker
than darkness…”
And as though the reader has not figured out yet what
is going on, Blok closes with these lines:
“…Oh,
night of painful consummation…”
And he continues his depiction of their passion, of
their joining together:
“…The
mutiny of moments, a vivid dream,
The
frenzy of useless embraces,
And
the sonorous morning toll.
Angelic
hordes are crowding
Behind
the thick curtain of the window,
But
the night is with us, rowdy and tipsy…”
An amazing description! Passionate? Yes! Frantic? Yes!
But it is clean, human, and lauded by angels…
To be continued…
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