Dedalus Book of Russian Decadence

by Lodge, Kirsten; Rosen, Margo Shohl; Dashevsky, Grigory

  I am certain that there was a hypnotic force in Theodosius’s voice and gaze. Swayed by his influence, everyone in the sanctuary seemed transfigured. I saw ecstatic faces. I heard heroic exclamations.

  Theodosius commanded us to sing our hymn. Someone sat down at the organ. The air rippled. The melody filled up the dark expanse, poured down among us, bound us all together in its irresistible net into one many-visaged being. Our great poet’s verses burst forth instinctively from our lips, as the ocean instinctively roars in response to the call of the wind. We were the singing strings of a great orchestra; we were the voices of a single organ, glorifying the eternal Mystery and the creative Passion.

  III

  Somewhat later I was summoned to the Council of Acolytes. We gathered by candlelight in the usual Council meeting room. The divine frescoes on the walls were barely discernible. Theodosius presided over the meeting.

  He summarised all that was known about the progress of the uprising. Our situation was hopeless. The entire army had gone over to the revolutionaries. All generals and senior officers had already been arrested and executed. The Central Fortress had been taken by storm. All government buildings—the palace, the parliament and the police stations—were occupied by the militia. News from the provinces confirmed the rebels’ victory in every other city as well.

  The question was posed: what should be done? The majority was for surrendering and giving in to the overwhelming force of the revolution.

  Theodosius heard out these opinions in silence. Then he took a paper from a casket and invited us to examine it. It was one of Central Militia Headquarters’ proscription lists. In it were named all the acolytes serving in the Council, myself among them. We had all been sentenced to death by the Secret Tribunal.

  A bewildered silence fell. Theodosius said, “Brothers! Let us not lead our lesser brothers and sisters into temptation. If we allow all our faithful to know of this list, many will be troubled by doubt. They will wish to buy their own lives through betrayal and apostasy. By keeping it secret, we will give them the great honour of sealing the purity of their faith with a heroic death. Let us allow them to join together with us in our thrice-blessed fate.”

  Someone tried to protest, but weakly. Theodosius calmly put the paper with the names up to a candle and burnt it. We watched as the small scroll turned slowly to ashes.

  Just then a deaconess knocked at the door. A representative from the militia’s headquarters wished to speak with us.

  In came a man, young, confident and self-assured. In the name of the Provisional Government he demanded that we disperse to our homes. The Special Committee, he said, was to examine the statutes of our religious union and determine whether it was a threat to public life.

  We knew that these words were a trick—that we had already been sentenced. For a few moments all were silent. I remember the two speeches that followed—Theodosius’s and the emissary’s—by heart. In these two short speeches, two worldviews found full expression.

  Here is what Theodosius said:

  “The new government speaks its deceitful words to us in vain. We already know that everyone who is present here has been sentenced by the Secret Tribunal to execution. We know that you have already judged our sacred faith an immoral sect. But we do not accept your power and your court. We live on heights of consciousness such as you have never achieved, and therefore it is not for you to judge us. If you are even but a little familiar with the cultural life of your homeland, take another look at those gathered here. What do you see? You see the flower of our time—your poets, your artists, your thinkers. We are your mouthpiece, we are the voice of the wordless, eternally silent whole that is the sum of individuals like yourselves. You are darkness; we are the light born from it. You are the possibility of life; we are life itself. You are the soil that is necessary and right only because we, the stems and blossoms, grow from it. You call upon us to disperse to our homes and wait for your proclamations. We demand that you carry us to the palace in your arms and, kneeling before us, await our commands.”

  You know Theodosius. You know all his shortcomings: his hypocrisy and pusillanimity, his petty vanity. But at that moment, as he gave the last sermon of his life, he was truly great and splendid. He seemed a biblical prophet, speaking to the rebellious people, or an apostle during the first days of Christianity, somewhere in the bowels of the Coliseum, amidst a crowd of martyrs about to be led out to the arena to be torn apart by wild beasts.

  And here is how the herald answered Theodosius:

  “So much the better, if you know your fate. The experience of millennia has shown us that there is no place in the new life for ancient souls. They are a lifeless force that has always destroyed all of our victories up until the present day. On this day of the world’s great transformation we are resolved to make the necessary sacrifices. We will cut out of our body all the dead, all those unfit to be born anew, with the same suffering, but also with the same pitilessness with which one cuts off an infected limb. Why do you lavish praise on yourselves for being poets and thinkers! We have enough strength to give rise to a whole new generation of sages and artists, the like of which the earth has never seen, the like of which you cannot even begin to fathom. He who is afraid of loss has not the strength to create. We are a creative force. We have no need of anything old. We renounce all heritage, because we ourselves will forge our treasure. You are the past, we are the future, and the present is the sword we hold in our hands!”

  The room buzzed. Everyone was talking at once. I, too, could not resist shouting, “Yes! You are barbarians without any predecessors. You despise the culture of the ages because you don’t understand it. You boast of the future because you are spiritually impoverished. You are the shot that brazenly shatters the marble of antiquity!”

  Finally, the emissary from the militia’s headquarters said in an official tone, “In the name of the Provisional Government I give you until today at noon. By that time you must open the gates of your temple and surrender into our hands. By doing this you will save hundreds of people from a senseless death—people you have lured here through trickery and temptation. That is all.”

  “And if we don’t submit?” asked Lycius.

  “We will destroy this building to its very foundations with our weapons, and you will all be buried beneath the rubble.”

  The emissary went out.

  “Destroy the temple!” repeated Lycius. “Our temple, the best of Leander’s architectural creations! With its statues and paintings by the greatest masters! With our entire library, the fifth greatest in the world!”

  “My friend,” replied Adamantius, “for them our art is no more than archaeology. For them it is not all that important whether their museums will hold a dozen superfluous antiquities or not.”

  Someone expressed regret that we had let the emissary go alive. Theodosius reined in the speaker.

  “We are here,” he said, “in order to spill our own blood, not that of others. We are here for the heroic deed of faith, not for murder. Let us not mar the crimson purity of our martyrdom with the black wings of wickedness and revenge.”

  IV

  The rays of the dawning winter’s day shone weakly through the heavy curtains.

  Our temple was magnificently illuminated by the light of all our candles. I had never seen such a festival of lights. There were perhaps several thousand flames.

  Theodosius commanded us to celebrate the liturgy.

  Never before had he been so majestic. Never had the voice of the chorus sounded so solemn. Never had Hero’s naked beauty been so blindingly dazzling.

  The censers’ intoxicating smoke caressed our faces with wispy, cloud-like fingers. The great rituals were performed in a dark-blue, transparent haze of incense before the Symbol. Naked youths, according to their rank, removed the veil from the holy of holies. The invisible choir of deaconesses glorified the Occult Mystery.

  The fragrant, searingly sweet wine, only barely inebriating, aroused tr
embling throughout the body and agitation in the soul. The awareness that this moment was unique, never to be repeated, was inspiring.

  And now Hero, in golden sandals, with a single gold serpentine belt about her waist instead of clothing, went forth with twelve sisters garbed likewise, and their silent circle dance wended along the length of the temple. And the magical sounds of the organ and the harmonic, mysterious singing captivated all as she passed, riveting our gaze to her smooth undulations.

  Imperceptibly, insensibly, instinctively we were all drawn into the silent circle dance after them. And this circling was more intoxicating than wine, and the movement was more enrapturing than caresses, and the celebration of the service was loftier than any prayer. The rhythm of the music grew faster, and faster grew the rhythm of the dance, and with outstretched arms we sped onward, in a circle, after her, after the unique and divine Hero. And now we were carried away with exaltation, we panted and gasped for breath, inflamed with a mysterious fire, and now we trembled through and through in the shadow of the godhead.

  Then Theodosius’s voice was heard: “Come, all you faithful, to make the sacrifice.”

  Everyone stopped, froze where they were, motionless. Hero, once again standing near the altar, ascended the steps. Theodosius gestured for a youth, whom I had not noticed until then, to approach. Blushing, the boy threw aside his clothing and stood by Hero, naked as a god, youthful as Ganymede, fair as Balder.

  The gates opened up and swallowed the couple. The curtain closed.

  On our knees, we began to sing the hymn.

  And Theodosius spoke thus to us: “It is done.”

  He lifted the chalice and blessed us.

  Ecstatic sounds gushed from the organ and we could no longer restrain our passion. And we fell on one another, and in the sudden dusk of smoky incense lips sought lips, arms sought arms, and bodies other bodies. There was intimacy, intertwining, unity; there were shouts and groans; there was pain and ecstasy. There was the intoxication of a thousand-visaged passion, when you see around you every image, every form, every possibility of celebration, all the contortions of women’s, men’s and children’s bodies, and every possible distortion of faces transfigured with frenzied rapture.

  Never, never again have I or has anyone else experienced such passion, such insatiable desire, as we flung ourselves with abandon from body to body, into double, triple and multiple embraces. And we had no need of the flagellants, who on that day were, like everyone else, seized with the ecstasy of passion.

  Suddenly, apparently in response to some sign, the heavy curtains that had been covering the windows parted, and the whole interior of the temple was opened to the view of those outside it: everything, including the image of the Symbol, the mysterious frescoes on the walls and the people scattered around in strange combinations on the soft rugs.

  The sounds of enraged shouting reached us from outside.

  Immediately the first ringing shot pierced the mirrored glass. After the first came more. Bullets whistled by and bored into the walls. The militiamen hadn’t been able to bear the spectacle revealed before their eyes, and could no longer wait for the appointed hour.

  But it was as if no one heard the shots. The organ, beneath unseen hands, continued its seductive song. The aroma of incense undulated in the agitated air. And in the clear light of day, as earlier by the light of sacred candles, the passionate celebration continued unabated.

  And now Hero, before any of us, suddenly staggered where she stood in the gates of the altar and, lips distorted in pain, fell down. Here and there people paused; a second, and a third, and yet another body sank down, as if in final, utter exhaustion.

  A terrible slaughter began. Bullets fell among us like rain, as if gigantic hands were throwing them down upon us by the fistful. But none of the faithful wanted to run or voluntarily disengage from their embraces. Everyone, everyone—even the worthless, even those of little faith, became heroes, became martyrs, became saints. The horror of death was banished from our souls, as if by a magic word. We sealed the truth of our faith with our blood.

  Some of us fell, slain. Others, near the fallen bodies, clung ever closer to one another, breast to breast. The dying were still struggling to complete the caress they had begun with a final frenzied kiss. Weakening hands were outstretched in languorous passion. In the pile of writhing bodies it was impossible to tell who was caressing, who dying. Amidst the shouts and cries it was impossible to distinguish passionate gasps from the moans of the dying.

  Someone’s lips were still pressing against mine, and I felt the pain of an ecstatic bite that might have been a paroxysm of death agony. In my arms I still held someone’s body, grown cold from rapture or death. Then a heavy blow to the head felled me as well to the heap of bodies, to my brothers and sisters.

  The last thing I saw was the image of our Symbol. The last thing I heard was Theodosius’s cry, echoing a thousand times not beneath the temple vaults, but in my own soul’s endless passages, now flooding with darkness:

  “Into your hands I commend my spirit!”

  1 Bright fires are giving light.

  Oh, cover your pale legs!

  Valery Briusov, 1895

  Presentiment

  My love is like a sultry Javan noon

  Drenched in noxious scents, as in a dream,

  Where lizards laze with heavy lids

  And boas coil round the trees.

  And you entered the inexorable garden—

  For respite, or for sweet delight?

  Flowers tremble, grasses pant,

  Everything intoxicates and blights.

  Let’s go —I’m here —we’ll luxuriate,

  Weave orchid wreaths, play, embrace,

  Our bodies clinging like a pair of greedy snakes!

  The day will fade. Your eyes will close.

  That will be death. And I will entwine

  Your immobile form in a shroud of vines.

  Valery Briusov, 1894

  Messalina

  Burning with desire, in Rome

  I did not find passion,

  So I summoned slaves from the Danube lands,

  I summoned wild Dacians.

  To my chambers, one by one,

  My eunuch led all three,

  But his efforts were in vain,

  They could not satisfy me!

  I felt cramped in my bed,

  So I wandered around the palace,

  And I came upon an unknown room,

  Where your bed stands.

  Your robes on the floor,

  You slept, perfectly limber,

  All downy, tenderly naked,

  Like coral, and flax, and pearls.

  My boy, my boy! Be brave!

  In the silence of the night we are alone:

  Nestle your compliant body against me,

  Press your loins close!

  There is passion as yet untapped

  In your perplexity…

  Let me fall upon your breast,

  All will be revealed in ecstasy…

  Quiet, quiet! Soon, soon!

  Our executioner is near!

  Oh, no more strength to feel or see…

  My boy, my boy, let me dry your tears…

  Valery Briusov, 1903

  Now That I’m Awake…

  Valery Briusov

  The Diary of a Psychopath

  Of course, ever since I was a child people have thought me perverted. Of course, I have always been assured that no one shared my feelings. And I got used to lying, used to giving hackneyed speeches about compassion and love, about the happiness of loving others. But deep in the recesses of my heart I was convinced—and I remain convinced even now—that man is criminal by nature. It seems to me that among all the sensations that are called “pleasures,” there is only one worthy of such a name—the one that overcomes a man as he contemplates another’s sufferings. It is my belief that man in his primitive state can lust for just one thing—the pleasure of causing pain to other
s. Our culture has reined in this natural drive. Centuries of servitude have inculcated in the human heart the belief that it is hard to bear another’s torments. And now people weep quite sincerely over others and sympathise with them. However, this is but a mirage and a sensory illusion.

  One can make a certain mixture of water and spirits such that within it olive oil will balance wherever it happens to be positioned, neither floating to the top nor sinking down. In other words, gravity will cease to act upon it. Physics textbooks tell us that then, obeying only the force inherent in its own particles, the oil will form a ball. Similarly, there are moments when the human soul is freed from the force of its gravity, from all the fetters imposed upon it by heredity and upbringing, from all the external influences that ordinarily condition our will: from fear of judgment, from the dread of public opinion, and so forth. In these moments our desires and deeds submit only to the primitive, natural inclinations of our own being.

  These are not the hours of normal sleep, when our daytime consciousness, even if somewhat dimmed, still continues to maintain authority over our sleeping “I”; nor are they days of insanity, of madness: these are times when other, even more despotic influences take the place of ordinary ones. These are moments of that peculiar state when our body rests in sleep, and knowing this, thought secretly alerts our spirit as it wanders in the world of reverie, “You are free!” Having grasped that our deeds will exist only for our own selves, that they will remain undiscovered by all the world, we voluntarily give ourselves over to the original impulses issuing from the dark depths of our own will. At such moments, at least in my case, never once has the desire arisen to do any kind of good deed. On the contrary, knowing that I would remain completely and utterly unpunished, I have always made haste to do something wild, vicious and sinful.