Blok’s Women. Francesca.
Posting 3.
Blok’s
unrhymed and untitled 1908 poem in the poetry collection Faina, in which the poet fantasizes about Francesca is closely
connected to another poem probably written about the same time, I say probably
because Blok does not put a date on it. This poem is part of the poetry
collection Harps and Violins (1908-1916).
“Radiant
like the day, but incomprehensible,
All real, but like a fragment
of a dream…
[Perhaps
she is a reminiscence of Blok?]
…She comes with distinct
speech,
And after her always comes spring…”
[In
other words, the action in this poem takes place in winter.]
“…She
sits right here, and starts chatting [sic!]
She likes to tease me
And to hint that everybody
knows
About the secret whirlwind of
her fire.
But I, without listening
attentively
To her spasmodic chatter,
I watch how alarm expands
In the gleam of the eyes and
the trembling of the shoulders.
But when her talk finally
reaches my heart,
And I am intoxicated by her
perfume [sic!],
And I fall in love with the
eyes and the shoulders,
Like with spring wind, like
with poetry, –
The cold wrist will sparkle,
And interrupting her own
chatter
She herself insists that the
power of passion
Is nothing before the
coldness of the mind!”
This
produces an impression that in the woman depicted in these two poems, Blok has
found his match.
In
order to understand all this, we must remember the following lines from another
titleless poem from the same poetry collection Faina:
“And
always measuring with a strict heart,
He didn’t know how to love,
and couldn’t.”
This
is how Blok is writing about himself, thus comparing both these women – in the
titleless and rhymeless poem ending in the story of Paolo and Francesca – and
in the poem from the collection Harps and
Violins, complements and explains the first one.
A couple
of pages later, Blok returns to this theme again:
“I
may have lived without love,
I may be breaking the vows,
But you are still stirring my
soul,
Wherever I chance to meet
you!
Oh, these faraway arms!
Into my dim life
You are bringing your charm
Even in separation!”
And
then in the next poem Blok confesses to himself that she does not love him:
“Years
flowed after years,
And the blind and stupid me
Only today dreamt it up in my
sleep
That she has never loved me
at all…”
(The
reader may still remember that A. Blok compares this woman to “a fragment of a dream” – “…All real, but like a
fragment of a dream…”).
“…I
was only a passerby along your way,
But that infantile fervor has
grown cold,
And she told me: Forgive me…”
Blok
closes his poetry collection Harps and
Violins with the following words:
“I
remember with an otherworldly sadness
All my past, as though it
were yesterday…
I recognize you in my sad
dreams,
And with my hands I press
Your hand of an enchantress,
While repeating the faraway
name.”
It
is interesting that at the end of Harps
and Violins Blok calls himself “only a
passerby along her way.” At the same time, note that among the first poems
in this collection he has one titled To A
Passerby [feminine form].
Thus
with this poem I am closing the circle: starting with the titleless and
rhymeless poem which ends with another famous woman from world literature,
namely, Francesca da Rimini.
Blok’s
poem To A Passerby starts in a solemn
tone:
“I am
only a knight and a poet,
A descendant of a Northern
skald,
Whereas your husband carries
a book of Wilde –
Your husband is a disdainful
aesthete…”
This
poem shows the reality of the time in which A. Blok lived and how much he
yearned to have lived in the time of Paolo and Francesca, whose story was told
by the great Dante in La Divina Commedia.
“...Isn’t
the reason why he is a scoffer
The fact that he is
suspicious without measure?
And I… What are his chimerae
to me?
Today I am in love with you!..”
Blok
is not of a very high opinion of the object of his love:
“…You
are dressed, like in garments,
In treachery, flattery, and
lies…
Tell me, you faithful wife,
Have you ever trembled with a
sacred quiver?
Have you ever been secretly
in love?..”
And
he again returns to her husband:
“…And
is it possible at all
That this sleepy, jealous and
ridiculous spouse
Would ever whisper to you:
let’s go, my friend…
Having wrapped you in a green
plaid
Against the winter blizzards
of St. Petersburg?”
Once
again Blok raises the theme of winter like in the two core poems that I have
been analyzing.
“…And
is it possible at all that after the ball
Your languid glance wasn’t
being sly,
When you were pulling down
from your sloping shoulders
That airy garment of yours,
Having tasted the light
poison of the dance?”
In
other words, Blok accuses the “faithful wife” of hypocrisy. This woman never
loved anybody, either her husband or her lovers.
This
is why the titleless poem in that same poetry collection Harps and Violins, placed third in it, that is, one page before To A Passerby, is so important.
To
be continued…
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