Doctor Zhivago (82 page)

Talk in half whispers,
And with fervent haste
She gathers her hair up
In a shock from the nape.

A woman in a helmet
Looks from under the big comb,
Tossing back her head
With its braids and all.

But the night outside is hot
And promises bad weather,
And, shuffling as they pass,
Pedestrians head for home.

Abrupt thunder comes
With sharp reverberations,
And the wind flutters
The curtains of the windows.

A hushed stillness follows,
But it’s sultry as before,
And lightning as before
Rummages in the sky.

And when the intense, radiant
Morning heat dries up
The puddles on the boulevards
After the night’s downpour,

The still-flowering lindens,
Fragrant, centuries old,
Look gloweringly around them,
Having had too little sleep.

I’m no more, but you’re still alive,
And the wind, complaining, weeping,
Sways the forest and the dacha,
Not each pine tree separately,
But all in their entirety,
With all the boundless distances,
Like the hulls of sailing ships
On the smooth surface of a harbor.
And it’s not out of mere bravado,
Nor out of pointless fury, but
So as in anguish to find words
To make for you a lullaby.

Under a willow twined with ivy
We seek shelter from the rain.
Our shoulders are covered by a raincoat,
And my arms are twined about you.

I was wrong. These thick bushes
Are wound not with ivy, but with hops.
Better, then, let’s take this raincoat
And spread it out wide under us.

The currant leaf is coarse as canvas,
There’s laughter in the house and the clink of glass,
There’s chopping there, and pickling, and peppering,
And cloves are put into the marinade.

The forest, like a scoffer, flings this noise
As far away as the precipitous slope
Where the hazel grove burnt by the sun
Looks as if a bonfire’s heat had scorched it.

Here the road descends into a gully,
Here you feel pity for the dry old snags
And for the poor ragpicker, Mistress Autumn,
Who sweeps it all down into the ravine.

And because the universe is simpler
Than some clever thinker might suppose,
Because the grove is feeling so crestfallen,
Because it is all coming to its end.

Because it is senseless to stand blinking
When everything before you is burnt down,
And the white autumnal soot
Draws its cobwebs across the window.

There’s a way from the garden through the broken fence,
And it loses itself among the birches.
Inside there’s laughter and the noise of housework,
And the same noise and laughter far away.

Cutting through the yard outside,
Guests came to make merry
In the bride’s house until dawn
With a concertina.

Back behind the masters’ doors,
Doubled with felt lining,
The snatches of small talk died down
Between one and seven.

Just at dawn, the deep of sleep,
Slumber, slumber, slumber,
The accordion struck up afresh
Going from the wedding.

The accordionist poured out anew
Music from his squeeze box,
The clap of hands, the flash of beads,
The din of merrymaking.

And again, again, again
The chattering chastushka
Burst right into the sleepers’ bed
From the joyous feasting.

And one woman white as snow
Amidst the noise and whistling
Floated again like a peahen
Swaying her hips in rhythm.

Tossing back her haughty head,
And with her right hand waving,
She went dancing down the road—
Peahen, peahen, peahen!

Suddenly the heat and noise of play,
The stomping of the round dance,
Went plunging into Tartarus
And vanished in a twinkling.

The noisy yard was waking up,
And the busy echo
Mixed itself into the talk
And the peals of laughter.

Into the sky’s immensity,
A whirl of blue-gray patches,
A flock of pigeons went soaring up,
Rising from the dovecote.

Just as if someone half-asleep
Suddenly remembered
To send them, wishing many years,
After the wedding party.

For life is
only an instant, too,
Only the dissolving
Of ourselves, like the giving of a gift,
Into all the others.

Only a wedding that bursts its way
Through an open window,
Only a song, only a dream,
Only a blue-gray pigeon.

I’ve let the family go its ways,
All those close to me have long dispersed,
And the usual solitude
Fills all of nature and my heart.

And so I’m here with you in the cabin,
In the unpeopled and deserted forest.
The paths and trails, as in a song,
Are half submerged in undergrowth.

Now the log walls gaze in sorrow
At us alone. We never promised
To take the obstacles, if we perish,
We shall do it openly.

We sit down at one, get up at three,
I with a book, you with your sewing,
And at dawn we won’t have noticed
How at some point we stopped kissing.

Rustle, leaves, rustle and fall
Still more splendidly and recklessly,
Let yesterday’s cup of bitterness
Brim over with the anguish of today.

Attachment, attraction, loveliness!
Let’s be scattered in September’s noise!
Bury yourself in autumnal rustling!
Freeze in place, or lose your mind!

You shed your dress in the same way
A grove of maples sheds its leaves,
When you fall into my embrace
In your robe with silken tassels.

You are the blessing of a fatal step,
When life’s more sickening than illness,
Yet courage is the root of beauty,
And that’s what draws us to each other.

Once in olden times,
In a faery land,
A horseman made his way
Over the thorny steppe.

He was hastening to battle,
And far across the steppe,
Out of the dust a forest
Darkly rose to meet him.

An aching in his bosom,
A gnawing in his heart:
Fear the watering place,
Tighten the saddle girth.

The rider did not listen
And rode on at full speed,
Going ever faster
Towards the wooded knoll.

Turning at the barrow,
He entered a dry gap,
Passed beside a meadow,
Rode over a hill.

And finally reached a hollow,
And by a forest path
Came upon animal footprints
And a watering place.

And deaf to any warning,
And heedless of his sense,
He led his steed down the bankside
To water him at the stream.

            ———

By the stream—a cave,
Before the cave—a ford.
What seemed like flaming brimstone
Lighted the cave mouth.

And from that crimson screen,
Which hid all from view,
A distant call resounded,
Coming through the pines.

Then straight across the gully
The startled rider sent
His horse stepping surely
Towards the summoning cry.

And what the rider saw there
Made him clutch his lance:
The head of a dragon,
A long tail all in scales.

Its maw was spewing fire,
Spattering light about,
In three rings round a maiden
Its twisting length was wound.

The body of the serpent,
Like a whip’s lash,
Swayed about, just grazing
The shoulder of the girl.

The custom of that country
Was to bestow the prize
Of a captive beauty
On the monster in the woods.

The local population
Had agreed to pay this tax
Each year to the serpent
In ransom for their huts.

The serpent wound and bound her
And tightened on her neck,
Having received this tribute
To torture as it liked.

With a plea the horseman
Looked to the lofty sky
And prepared for battle,
His lance set at the tilt.

            ———

Tightly shut eyelids.
Lofty heights. Clouds.
Waters. Fords. Rivers.
Years and centuries.

The rider, without helmet,
Knocked down in the fight,
The faithful steed tramples
The serpent with his hoof.

Steed and dragon body
There upon the sand.
The rider is unconscious,
And the maiden stunned.

The heavenly vault at noonday
Shines with a tender blue.
Who is she? A royal princess?
A daughter of the earth? A queen?

First in a flood of happiness
Her tears pour out in streams,
Then her soul is mastered
By sleep and oblivion.

He first feels health returning,
But then his veins go still,
For his strength is failing
From loss of so much blood.

Yet their hearts keep beating.
And now she, and now he
Tries to awaken fully,
And then falls back to sleep.

Tightly shut eyelids.
Lofty heights. Clouds.
Waters. Fords. Rivers.
Years and centuries.

This morning, faithful to its promise,
The early sun seeped through the room
In an oblique strip of saffron
From the curtains to the couch.

It covered with its burning ochre
The nearby woods, the village homes,
My bedstead and my still moist pillow,
The edge of wall behind the books.

Then I remembered the reason why
My pillowcase was slightly damp.
I had dreamed you were walking through the woods
One after another to see me off.

You walked in a crowd, singly, in pairs,
Then someone remembered that today
Was the sixth of August, old style,
The Transfiguration of Our Lord.

Ordinarily a flameless light
Issues on this day from Tabor,
And autumn, clear as a sign held up,
Rivets all gazes to itself.

And you walked through little, beggarly,
Naked, trembling alder scrub
To the spicy red woods of the graveyard
Burning like stamped gingerbread.

The sky superbly played the neighbor
To the hushed crowns of its trees,
And distances called to each other
In the drawn-out voices of the cocks.

Death, like a government surveyor,
Stood in the woods among the graves,
Scrutinizing my dead face,
So as to dig the right-sized hole.

You had the physical sensation
Of someone’s quiet voice beside you.
It was my old prophetic voice
Sounding, untouched by decay:

“Farewell, azure of Transfiguration,
Farewell, the Second Savior’s gold.
Ease with a woman’s last caress
The bitterness of my fatal hour.

“Farewell, years fallen out of time!
Farewell, woman: to an abyss
Of humiliations you threw down
The challenge! I am your battlefield.

“Farewell, the sweep of outspread wings,
The willful stubbornness of flight,
And the image of the world revealed in words,
And the work of creation, and working miracles.”

It snowed, it snowed over all the world
From end to end.
A candle burned on the table,
A candle burned.

As swarms of midges in summertime
Fly towards a flame,
Snowflakes flew from the dark outside
Into the window frame.

The blizzard fashioned rings and arrows
On the frosty glass.
A candle burned on the table,
A candle burned.

Shadows lay on the ceiling
In the candlelight,
Crossings of arms, crossings of legs,
Crossings of destiny.

And two little shoes dropped down
With a thump on the floor,
And wax tears from the night-light
Dripped on a dress.

And all was lost in the snowy murk,
Hoary and white.
A candle burned on the table,
A candle burned.

It blew at the candle from the corner,
And the heat of seduction
Raised up two wings like an angel,
Cruciform.

It snowed through all of February,
And time and again
A candle burned on the table,
A candle burned.

The man looks from the threshold,
Not recognizing his home.
Her departure was more like flight.
Havoc’s traces are everywhere.

All the rooms are in chaos.
The extent of the destruction
Escapes him because of his tears
And an attack of migraine.

Some humming in his ears since morning.
Is he conscious or dreaming?
And why does the thought of the sea
Keep coming to his mind?

When God’s world cannot be seen
Through the hoarfrost on the windows,
The hopelessness of anguish resembles
The waste of the sea twice over.

She was as dear to him
In her every feature
As the coast is near the sea
Along the line of breakers.

As waves drown the reeds
In the aftermath of a storm,
So her forms and features
Sank to the bottom of his soul.

In years of affliction, in times
Of unthinkable daily life,
She was thrown to him from the bottom
By the wave of destiny.

Amidst obstacles without number,
Past dangers in its way,
The wave bore her, bore her
And brought her right to him.

And now here is her departure,
A forced one, it may be.
Separation will devour them both,
Anguish will gnaw their bones.

And the man looks around him:
At the moment of leaving
She turned everything upside down,
Emptying the dresser drawers.

He wanders about and till nightfall
Keeps putting scattered scraps
Of fabric and pattern samples
Back into the drawer.

And pricking himself on a needle
Stuck into some sewing,
All at once he sees the whole of her
And quietly starts to weep.

Snow will cover the roads,
It will heap up on the rooftops.
I’ll go out to stretch my legs:
You’re standing near the door.

Alone in a fall coat,
Without hat, without warm boots,
You’re fighting back agitation
And chewing the wet snow.

Trees and lattice fences
Go off into the murk.
Alone amidst the snowfall,
You stand at the corner.

Water runs from your kerchief
Down your sleeve to the cuff,
And drops of it like dewdrops
Sparkle in your hair.

And a flaxen strand
Illuminates: your face,
Your kerchief and your figure,
And that skimpy coat.

Snow moist on your lashes,
Anguish in your eyes,
And your entire aspect
Is formed of a single piece.

As if with iron dipped
In liquid antimony,
You have been engraved
Into my very heart.

And the meekness of those features
Is lodged in it forever,
And therefore it’s no matter
That the world’s hardhearted.

And therefore everything
On this snowy night is doubled,
And I can draw no boundary
Between myself and you.

But who are we, where from,
If of all these years
There remains only gossip,
And we’re no longer here?