The Garden.
Posting #19.
“…Only there in the
resounding halls,
Where it is empty and dark –
With a bloody dagger
Ran Domino…”
Andrei Bely. Masquerade.
In
the poetry collection The City Andrei
Bely’s “knife” becomes a “dagger.” In a very unusual poem Masquerade, which Bely liked so much that he wrote, also in July
1908, another one which he titled A Fest,
and placed in the same collection.
In
both these poems, Bely has a “guest” dressed in a “domino” costume. But only
one of them has a murder in it, namely, in Masquerade.
“Domino”
plays an important role in Bely’s poetry, as the author introduces it into his
famously infamous novel Peterburg.
In
the poem Masquerade Domino as though
splits into two persons: a “slim devil,
silken and red,” the one who serves “fiery cruchon” with a bow –
“...A
devil brings [cruchon] to the Capuchin –
A slim, silken, red devil –
There will be a price to pay
for the beverage…”
–
and – what a coincidence! – one of the guests:
“…a
mute, fateful, fiery [sic!] Domino.”
What
really happens here is that the devil himself creates two guests here: the
female guest death:
“…The
scythe’s dry plank will knock there
On the floor with its iron
ire:
The she-guest enters,
clicking her bone,
She will whirl up her shroud,
the guest-death!”
– and the “mute, fateful, fiery
Domino, bending over the hostess with
his unliving [sic!] head.”
Just
as the host and the hostess open the cotillion dance –
“...Someone’s
voice is being raised:
You are destined to die.”
The
host turns back his head, but Domino –
“…Already
whirling in far halls,
Whirling in a dance is
domino…”
Alarmed,
the host starts looking for the wicked joker, while his wife was “flashing in a
whirlwind of ribbons with a silken fop…”
Intrigue closes with the words:
“…Only
there in the resounding halls,
Where it is empty and dark –
With a bloody dagger
Ran Domino…”
This
poem finds its explanation in the second poem of the cycle The City, which Bely had written for this purpose. Exactly the same
triangle:
“...There
in the distance passes
A stout white-haired gallant…
He turned his head – from
behind a palm
A black mask is staring at
him.
Splashing are streams of red
talma
Into the bright sparkle of
the parquet boards.
Who are you, who are you,
stern guest?
What is it you need, domino?
But wrapping itself in a crimson
cloak,
It departs...”
The
“white-haired gallant” is as worried as “the host in a black tuxedo with white
sideburns”:
“…Whiter
than linen,
He was leaning against
Gobelin [tapestry],
While coming through the
doors, his wife
Is rustling with her
triple-pearl train…”
Just
like in Alexander Blok’s poetry, Andrei Bely baffles the reader, which is why
it is necessary to read all the poems of a given cycle, as well as to be
well-familiar with the whole body of poetry of these mystical poets. This is
the only way to acquire comprehension of what they are really writing about.
In
this particular case, there must have been a young man in love with a young
woman who went on to marry an old man for his money. And also there may have
been a situation depicted by M. Yu. Lermontov in his drama Masquerade. In the poem The
Feast, which follows the poem The
Fest, Andrei Bely describes what happened prior to the murder. –
“We
were riding. Young and fresh,
The lovely beauty splashed
her feathers…
I was exchanging quips with
her
At the Aquarium – lightly and
sharply.
I bent my shadowy profile
Over the mad roulette…
Around the large table,
Where a tight group of
revelers were carousing…”
It
is only now that Bely identifies the woman:
The young Hungarian was
swimming,
Abandoning herself to a fiery
cachucha.
From behind the silken dark
eyelashes
The eyes were casting a
burning flame.
She was swimming, and the
light silk of her garments
Was flying behind her like a crimson
storm cloud…
As
for the hero of this poem, he was busy gambling:
“…I
was gambling the bank,
In the heat of a drunken
passion,
Throwing hundred-ruble notes,
Card was laid down after card,
And, having lost it all,
I got up, invulnerably stern,
I danced a demented cakewalk,
Throwing my feet up under the
ceiling…”
The
poem The Feast, which Andrei Bely
wrote in 1905, that is, three years prior
to his previous two poems: The Fest and
Masquerade, demonstrate that, just
like in Lermontov’s Masquerade,
Bely’s hero had been waiting, looking for, and finding at last the man who had
won against him, and married the “burning Hungarian” girl.
The
murder was revenge.
To be continued…
No comments:
Post a Comment