Dedalus Book of Russian Decadence
Page 11
The dead moon, bright and cold, hung above the dark precipice.
1 Moist Mother Earth (Mat’ syra zemlya) is an ancient and powerful pagan Slavic earth goddess.
O death! I am yours. Everywhere I see
Only you, and I hate
The charms of the earth.
Human pleasures I disdain—
Battles, festivities and haggling,
The din and dust of the mundane.
The reign of your unjust sister
Life, contemptible and meek,
I rejected long ago. Not I,
Fanned by the mystery
Of your extraordinary beauty,
Not I will fall at her feet!
Not I will go to the brilliant feast
Whose haughty fire sears
My somnolent eyes,
On which has fallen, as clear
And lucid as pure crystal,
Your cold tear.
Fyodor Sologub, 1894
Since I fell in love with you,
All else I hate.
Since I fell in love with you,
Only you I contemplate.
And I often wonder how
I ever could have missed
That you reign everywhere, O death,
And life does not exist.
Fyodor Sologub, 1894
Hymn of the Order of Liberators in the Drama Earth
Death, who art eternally pure,
Hearken to our praise,
Your loving lips have set us
All ablaze!
Naked, you will stand before us,
Each of us, one day.
You won’t deceive, you won’t betray
Anybody’s faith!
You will come to us in bed,
A goddess, all in flames.
Come to me, O death, and show
Your fiery face!
With caresses stern and tender,
Come and kiss me!
Wound me mortally,
And heal me!
Blissful are those who have known
Your lips’ sweet blade,
Who are free, who have surrendered
Their corpse to the flames!
Valery Briusov, 1904
The Poisoned Garden
Fyodor Sologub
Nature of the parched plains
Begat it on a day of wrath.
A. Pushkin, “Anchar” (“The Upas Tree”)1
I
“Beautiful Youth, what are you pondering, so lost in thought?” asked the Old Woman, from whom the Youth was renting a room.
She had quietly entered his half-dark room in the evening and, with a barely audible rustle of soft slippers over the uneven, brownish-red painted floor, she drew near the Youth and stopped just behind him. He started in surprise—he had been standing for half an hour at the single window of his cramped sleeping quarters in the upper rooms of the old house and was staring intently at the beautiful Garden lying before him, where a multitude of plants blossomed, giving off their soft, sweet and strange fragrances.
In answer to the Old Woman, the Youth said, “No, Old One, I am not thinking about anything. I’m standing, looking and waiting.”
The Old Woman shook her grey head disapprovingly, and the tied ends of her dark kerchief bobbed like two pointed, pricked-up ears. Her wrinkled face, yellower and drier than the faces of the other old women living on that street at the outskirts of the enormous Old City, now wore an expression of concern and anxiousness. In a soft, sad voice, the Old Woman said, “I pity you, dear Youth.”
Her voice, old and hoarse as it was, rang with such sadness, such heartfelt sympathy, and her aged, faded eyes looked so sorrowful, that suddenly, for just a moment, it seemed to the Youth, there in the half-light of his room, that those outward signs of age were only a very cleverly worn disguise, and behind it was concealed a young and beautiful Wife who not so very long ago had suffered the heart-rending grief of a Mother mourning the death of her Son.
But this strange moment passed, and the Youth smiled at his fantastic imaginings. He asked, “Why do you pity me, Old One?”
The Old Woman drew next to him, looked for a while through the window at the Garden, beautiful and blossoming, and all illumined by the rays of the setting sun, and said, “I pity you, dear Youth, because I know where you are looking and what you are waiting for. I pity you and your Mother.”
Perhaps because of these words, or perhaps for another reason, something in the Youth’s mood changed. The Garden, blossoming and fragrant beyond the high fence below his window, now struck him as somehow strange, and his heart was transfixed by a dark feeling like sudden terror, seemingly born of the heady, languorous fragrances exuding from the brightly-coloured flowers below.
“What is happening?” he thought in bewilderment.
He did not want to yield to the dark enchantment of evening melancholy. He bestirred himself, smiled cheerfully, tossed a black lock of hair off his high forehead with a quick, strong hand, and asked, “What could be bad, Old One, about what I’m looking at and waiting for? And how do you know what I am waiting for?”
And at that moment he was merry, brave and handsome, and his black eyes blazed, and his ruddy cheeks glowed, and his bright scarlet lips now seemed just-kissed, and from behind them his strong, white teeth gleamed, glad and fierce.
The Old Woman said, “Here you are looking at the Garden, dear Youth, and you don’t know that it is an evil Garden. Here you are waiting for the Beautiful Lady, and you don’t know that her beauty is fatal. Two years you’ve lived in my room, and never before today have you stared out of the window in this way, lost in thought. Apparently your turn has come. Come away from the window before it is too late, don’t breathe in the evil breath of these insidious flowers, and don’t wait for the Beautiful Lady to arrive under your window and enchant you. She will come, she will enchant you, and you will follow her whither you’d not want to go.”
Speaking thus, the Old Woman lit two candles on the table where his books lay, banged the window closed and pulled the curtain over the window. The rings slid with a light scraping sound along the copper rod, the yellow linen curtain billowed and lay quiet again, and the room brightened up, becoming cosy and tranquil. And it seemed that no Garden lay outside the window, and enchantments didn’t exist, and that all was simple, normal and firmly established for all time.
“But it really is true,” said the Youth. “Never before have I noticed this Garden, and today was the first time I saw the Beautiful Lady.”
“You’ve seen her already, then,” the Old Woman said sadly. “The evil seed of her magic has already been planted in your soul.”
But the Youth continued speaking, perhaps to the Old Woman, or perhaps reasoning with himself. “Of course, I had no time before. During the day there were lectures at the university, and in the evenings I studied or went to parties or the theatre with my merry companions and pretty girls, somewhere way up in the balcony, or even in the parterre for the student rate when there weren’t enough regular ticket-buyers: entrepreneurs love us—we clap heartily and shout, calling out the actresses again and again until they extinguish all the lights. And when summer comes you go home. That’s why I’ve only just heard that right next door is the magnificent Garden of our professor, the famous Botanist.
“And why is he famous? Because he sold his soul to the devil,” the Old Woman said angrily.
The Student laughed gaily.
“But still,” he said, “it seems strange that until this very evening I had never laid eyes on his daughter, although I have heard much about her wondrous beauty and about how many distinguished young men, from the Old City and other places both far and near, have tried to win her love, and had high hopes, but their hopes were dashed, and some of them even died, unable to endure her coldness.”
“She is guileful,” said the Old Woman. “She knows the value of her charms, and doesn’t display them to everyone. A poor student will have a hard time making h
er acquaintance. Her father taught her much that even scientists don’t know, but she doesn’t go to your meetings. She spends her time with rich men, who are more likely to lavish gifts on her.”
“Old One, today I got a good look at her, and it seems to me,” protested the Youth, “that a maiden with such a beautiful face, such pure, bright eyes, such graceful ways, and who is dressed so prettily, cannot be guileful and venal and always seeking after gifts. I have firmly resolved to make her acquaintance. This very day I am going to visit the Botanist.”
“The Botanist won’t let you set foot over his threshold. His servant won’t even bother to announce you once he’s seen the tattered rags you wear.”
“My clothes are not his affair!” the Youth exclaimed in vexation.
“Let me put it this way: if you were to arrive on the back of a winged serpent, then they would admit you without a glance at your patches.”
The Youth laughed and cried gaily, “All right then, Old One, I’ll saddle up my winged serpent, if there’s no other way to get in.”
The Old Woman grumbled, “It’s all because of those strikes of yours. Had you been tending to your studies, you wouldn’t have started caring about that artful Beautiful Lady and her terrible Garden.”
“What is so terrible about her Garden?” asked the Youth. “Anyway, we had no choice but to strike: our rights and the university’s are being violated. Do you really think we can humbly submit to that?”
“Young people must get their education,” the Old Woman muttered, “and not busy themselves with their rights. And you, dear Youth, before you go and make the Beautiful Lady’s acquaintance, have a good look at her Garden from your window tomorrow morning at daybreak, when all is clearly and truly visible. You will see that in that Garden there are none of the flowers we are all familiar with here; the flowers there are of a sort no one in our City knows. Give that some good long thought, for it isn’t so simple. The Demon is guileful—could not this be his creation, designed to bring men to their ruin?”
“Those are plants from faraway countries,” said the Youth. “They were brought from hot countries where everything is different.”
But the Old Woman didn’t want to discuss it any further. She waved her hand in irritation and left the room, scuffing her slippers and angrily grumbling harsh words under her breath.
The Youth’s first impulse was to go to the window, pull aside the yellow linen curtain and look again at that enchanting Garden, and wait. But he was interrupted: his Friend arrived, a loud and ungainly young man, and invited the Youth to a place they often went to talk at length, argue, shout, sing and laugh together. On the way there his Friend, laughing, looking indignant and waving his arms somewhat more than was necessary, told him about something that had happened that morning in the classrooms and hallways of the university, how all the lectures had been cut short, how the opponents of the strike had been put to shame, what beautiful words their favourite, good professors had spoken, and how their least favourite, and therefore bad professors had made fools of themselves.
The Youth spent an interesting evening. He spoke excitedly, like everyone else. He heard sincere, fiery speeches. He looked at his friends, whose faces expressed both the carefree courage of youth and its passionate indignation. He saw young women, pretty, smart and demure, and dreamt of how he would choose himself a sweetheart from their merry midst. And he almost forgot about the Beautiful Lady in the enchanting Garden.
He got home late, and fell soundly asleep.
II
In the morning, when he opened his eyes and his gaze fell upon the yellow linen curtain at the window, it appeared to him that its yellow was tinted with the crimson of dark desire, and that it held within it a kind of strange, horrible tension. It seemed that the sun was insistently and passionately thrusting its burning, bitter rays into the linen, which was shot through with golden light, and it was calling, and demanding, and rousing. And in answer to this amazing outer tension of gold and crimson, the Youth’s veins filled with blazing vitality, his muscles flooded with supple strength, and his heart became like a fountain of furious wildfires. Pierced sweetly through and through with millions of live, burning, stimulating needles, he leapt from his bed, and with gay, childlike laughter, without getting dressed, he suddenly began to leap and dance about the room.
Attracted by the unusual sound, the Old One, his landlady, glanced in from the doorway. She shook her head reproachfully, and grumbled, “Dear Youth, you are dancing and joyful and disturbing everyone, but you yourself know not what you are happy about, and you know not who is standing beneath your window and what she is preparing for you.”
The Youth was discomfited, and once again became quiet and decorous as he had been before, which was in keeping with his character and the fine upbringing he’d had at home. He washed up more attentively than usual, perhaps because he didn’t have to rush off to any lectures that day, or perhaps for an entirely different reason, and he dressed with just as much care, taking a long time to get his rather worn clothing brushed clean; he didn’t have any new clothes, since his parents were not rich and couldn’t send him much money. Then he went to the window. His heart started beating anxiously as he pulled the yellow linen curtain aside. An enchantingly beautiful sight opened up before him—although today he noticed immediately that there was something strange in the whole aspect of that extensive and perfectly designed Garden. He could not immediately make out what exactly it was that so surprised him, and he began to examine the Garden attentively.
What was it that made its beauty unpleasant? What made the Youth’s heart so terribly faint? Was it that everything in the enchanting Garden was too perfect? The pathways were laid out straight, all of the same width and monotonously strewn with a uniform layer of yellow sand; the plants had been placed with painstaking accuracy; the trees were pruned in the form of globes, cones and cylinders; the flowers were chosen by their hue, so that their combination was a feast for the eyes, but also inexplicably wounded the soul.
But, reasoning coldly, what was so unpleasant about a tidiness that bore witness to the fact that the Garden was diligently tended? No, that was not the cause of the strange uneasiness troubling the Youth. It was something else, something the Youth did not yet understand.
One thing was certain: this Garden was unlike any other garden the Youth had ever seen in his life. Here he saw flowers that were enormous and too brightly coloured. Sometimes it seemed that multicoloured flames were burning among the vibrant greenery, with its brown and black stems of creeping vines, thick like tropical snakes, and strangely formed leaves of exorbitant size and unnaturally bright green colour. Airy waves of spicy and languorous fragrances poured in through the open window, puffs of vanilla, and incense, and bitter almond, fragrances sweet and bitter, ceremonial and mournful, as during the triumphant mysteries of a funeral mass.
The Youth felt the soft but arousing touch of a light breeze on his face. But in the Garden, apparently, the wind lost its force, weakly coming to rest on the soothingly green grass and in the shade beneath the strange shrubs. And because that strange Garden’s trees and grasses were breathlessly silent, and did not hear the wind blowing softly above them, and did not respond to it in any way, they seemed lifeless. And this in turn made them seem deceitful, sinister and hostile to man.
However, now one of the plants did stir. But the Youth laughed when he had a closer look. What he had taken for the leafless trunk of a strange tree was a rather short, gaunt man dressed all in black. He had been standing in front of a shrub with bright purple flowers, and he now set off slowly along the pathway, leaning on a thick stick and approaching the very window where the Youth stood looking out. It wasn’t so much by his face—which, shaded as it was by the broad brim of his black hat, was only partially visible from above—as by his manner and walk that the Youth recognised the Botanist. Not wishing to appear brash, the Youth began to turn away from the window. But just then he caught sight of the Beautiful La
dy, the Botanist’s youthful daughter, going to meet him.
Her bare arms were raised to the crown of black braids encircling her head, for just at that moment she was pinning a bright vermilion flower to her hair. Her thin, short tunic was fastened at her shoulder with a gold clasp. Her legs, lightly tanned and bare to the knee, were as shapely as the legs of a resurrected goddess. The Youth’s heart began to pound, and forgetting all caution and modesty, he rushed back to the window and gazed greedily at the lovely vision. The Beautiful Lady threw a quick, fiery glance in his direction—her eyes flashed a dark blue from beneath black, even brows—and her smile was tender and arch.
If there are happy people, if there are times when the mad sun of joyousness shines on them, carrying them off in a sweet whirl of ecstasy to undreamt-of lands—then where are the words to tell about it? And if there is such a thing as truly bewitching beauty, how can one describe it?
But now the Beautiful Lady paused, gazed intently at the Youth, and then laughed, joyfully and merrily, and in an unutterable whirl of ecstasy, the Youth forgot himself completely, leaned impetuously out the window and cried out in a voice ringing with emotion, “Dear Lady! Fair Lady! Divine Lady! Come to me! Love me!”
The Beautiful Lady came up close, and the Youth heard her gently ringing, clear voice, its every sound wounding his heart with sweet torment. “Dear Youth, do you know the price of my love?”
“Even though it were life itself!” exclaimed the Youth. “Even at the dark gates of Death!”