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Notes on Valery Briusov

PART ONE

The Poet

I

And with a secret thrill I look the enemy in the face.

— Balmont

From the age of 16 to 171 loved Briusov's1 poems with a brief, passionate love. I contrived to love what was most un-Briusovian in Briusov, that which he so lacked to his very depths, to his core — song, the element of song. More than his poems I loved — and this love lives to the present — his Fiery Angel,2 at the time both in concept and execution, now only in concept, in concept and in memory— in its unfulfillment. However, I remember that even then, at age 16, the word "interesting" struck me on one of the emotionally charged pages, a mercantile and calculating word, unimaginable either in Renata's century, or in the story of the Angel, or in the overall pathos of the work. A master — and such a blunder. Yes, mastery isn't everything. You must have an ear. Briusov didn't have one.

Briusov's antimusicality, despite the external (local) musicality of a whole series of poems — is an antimusicality of essence, a drought, a dearth of river. I remember the words of the profound and unusual poetess Adelaida Gertsyk,3 recently deceased, about Max Voloshin and myself, then 17 years old: "In you there's more river than riverbank, in him — more riverbank than river." Briusov was all embankment, a granite one. A municipal embankment granite that escorts and restrains (within the confines of the city)—that was the relationship between Briusov and the living river of his contemporaries' poetry. Out of town the embankment loses power. Thus, he prevented neither Mayakovsky of the outskirts, nor rye-field Esenin, nor the hero of his last and crudest jealousy—Pasternak, who is unprecedented like the first day of creation. Everything that was city, office, guild, if it didn't dry up from him, took on his features. Listening to Goethe's forever reverberating words: "In der Beschrankung zeigt sich erst der Meister" — words directed at overcoming immeasurableness in oneself (the cradle of all creativity, which, like a cradle, is meant to be overcome) — it should be said that in this sense Briusov had nothing to overcome: he was born limited. Boundlessness is overcome by boundaries, but no one is able to overcome boundaries within himself. Briusov would have been a master in Goethe's sense only if he had overcome his own inborn boundaries, if he'd been able to dislodge them, and perhaps — had broken himself. In response to Moses' staff, Briusov remained silent. He remained invulnerable (the French is untranslatable in its full sense), outside the lyrical stream. But, I insist, his material was granite, not cardboard.

*

(Goethe's words —ward off demons: perhaps Briusov's most extreme, secret, hopeless passion.)

*

Briusov was a Roman. That's the only way to explain him fairly. Behind him obviously stands the Capitol and not Olympus. His gods never meddled in Trojan battles — recall Aphrodite wounded! Thetis pleading! Zeus gloomy with the knowledge of Achilles' inescapable death. Briusov's gods towered on high and sat in state, they are gods that have done away with the celestial and settled on earth once and for all. But, I maintain, their material was marble, not plaster.

*

I don't want any lies about Briusov, I don't want any posthumous Briusov-kicking. Briusov was not a quantite negligeable, even less so a qualite. Entirely Russian by birth, he presents an enigma. There is no one else like him in Russian lyric poetry: a completely buttoned-up poet. Tiutchev? But that was in life: in the drafts, in the interlinear translations of the lyre. Briusov is buttoned up (or perhaps nailed shut?) in

his very creativity, encased in bronze with no chance of a breakthrough. What kind of Russian is this? And what kind of poet? He's Russian—true; he's a poet—also true: within the limits of human will, he's a poet. A poet of the limit. There are houses, die first ones you see when you approach a big city: they're multieyed, (multiwindowed), but they are somehow blind, life in them is unimaginable. They're official, executive, (and now, to put it lyrically) — executed. I see Briusov's work as one of those houses. And his highest achievement: a granite hallway that leads to a dead end.

Briusov: a poet of entries without exits.

That this not sound unfounded, reader, check for yourself: have you even once felt like prolonging one of Briusov's poems? (Goethe's "Verweile doch! Du bist so schon.") Have you even once had the feeling that something has broken off (he led me here and abandoned me!); did a country ever once emerge at the heart's unaccountable halt — a country beyond his lines, to which the poems are only an approach: in the farthest distance — at the farthest point—gates lie wide open? Did Briusov ever rend your soul, as Music does? ("Is that all? Already?") Did the soul, as after music, ever beg Briusov, "Already over? More!" Did you ever once leave an encounter —dissatisfied?

No, Briusov is perfectly satisfactory, he gives exactly what he promises and no more, and you leave his books as you would a profitable deal (it's telling: with other poets —die book has left, and you follow after, with Briusov: you've left, and the book—stays put). If something is missing—it's dissatisfaction.

*

"The End" is invisibly written under each of Briusov's poems. For the sake of completeness Briusov should have filled it in graphically as well (typographically).

*

Briusov's creations are greater than the creator. At first glance — this is flattering, on second — sad. The creator contains all tomorrow's creations, the whole Future, the whole inescapability of die possible: the unrealized, but not unrealizable, the unaccounted for—which in its un-accountedness is unconquerable: tomorrow.

Write it all down, use every ounce of strength you've got and write it all out to the very end; but if I, reading, feel this end, then — that's the end of you.

And—it's a strange miracle: the greater the creation (Faust), the less it is in comparison with the creator (Goethe). How do we know Goethe? Through Faust. Who told us that Goethe is greater than Faust? Faust himself— by his perfection.

Let's take an analogy:

"How great is God, to have created such a sun!" And, forgetting about the sun, the child thinks about God. The creation, through its very perfection, leads us to the creator. What is the sun, if not a lead to God? What is Faust, if not a lead to Goethe? What is Goethe, if not a lead to divinity? Perfection is not the end. Perfection happens here, accomplishment—There. Goethe's period —is only the beginning! The first sign of the perfection of the creation (of the absolute) is the feeling of comparison it awakens in us. Height is only high because it is higher —than what?—than the previous "higher," and this is already consumed by the next. The mountain is higher than the brow, the cloud higher than the mountain, God is higher than the cloud—and then there's the inherendy limitless height of the idea of God. For the word perfection (a condition) I would substitute perfectibility (a continuum). The breakthrough to divinity is as incomparably greater than Goethe, as Goethe —is greater than Faust; that's what makes both Goethe and Faust immortal: the insignificance of them, the great ones, in comparison to what is incomparably higher. The only chance we have of perceiving the heights — is through a continual movement along the vertical of points that measures them. On earth the only chance of greatness — is to convey a feeling of the height above your own head.

"But Goethe's dead and Faust lives on!" But, reader, don't you have the feeling that somewhere —in a duchy incomparably more spacious than Weimar — Part Three is taking place?

*

A promise: tomorrow will be better! Tomorrow will be bigger! Tomorrow will be higher! The promise on which all poetry —and something higher than poetry —stands: the promise of a miracle above you, and for that reason of your miracle above others: nowhere in Briusov's lines does this promise exist.

Perhaps all life is but a means

For brightly singing verse,

And since your carefree childhood,

You have been searching for the words.

Words instead of meanings, rhymes instead of feelings. As if words were born of words, rhymes of rhymes, and poems of poems!

A mission implemented fifteen years later by Briusov's "Poetry Institute.

*

The most perfect creation —ask an artist —is only an intention: what I wanted to do — and couldn't. The more perfect something is for us, the more imperfect for the artist. Beneath each of Briusov's lines lies: this was all I could manage. And more than that is actually impossible.

How little he wanted, if he was able to do so much!

To know your own capabilities — is to know your own inabilities. (Capability without inability—is all-powerfulness. Pushkin didn't know his abilities. Briusov — knew his own inabilities. Pushkin wrote haphazardly (the roughest of rough drafts —there was an element of miracle), Briusov wrote — for sure (statute, Institute).

*

By the will of miracle —we have all of Pushkin. By the miracle of will — all of Briusov.

I can do no less (Pushkin. All-powerfulness).

I can do no more (Briusov. Abilities).

Since I couldn't do it today, I'll be able to tomorrow (Pushkin. Miracle).

Since I couldn't do it today, I'll never be able to do it (Briusov. Will).

But today—he always could.

*

The Egyptian Nights that Briusov finished.4 Whether the attempt on Pushkin was carried out with adequate or inadequate means —what tempted him? A passion for the limit, for the signifying and graphic dash. Alien by his very nature to mystery, he didn't honor and didn't sense it in the unfinishedness of the creation. Pushkin didn't finish it — so I'll finish it (off).

The gesture of a barbarian. For, in some circumstances, completion is a no lesser, if not a greater act of vandalism, than destruction.

*

To be honest, all of Briusov's exercises with poetry —are futile attempts. He didn't have the wherewithal to become a poet (the wherewithal—is birth), and he became one. An overcoming of the impossible. Kraftsprobe. And the choice of his own antithesis: poetry (why not science? or mathematics? or archaeology?)— was simply the only outlet for his intensity: wrestling with the self.

And, to be more precise: Briusov wasn't wrestling with rhyme, but with his own lack of propensity for it. Poetry as an arena for self-combat.

*

After all that's been said, was Briusov a poet? Yes, but not by God's grace. A versifier, a composer of verses, and what's far more important, a creator of the creator in himself. Not a character from the Gospels, not one who buried his talent in the earth — but a man who by his own will forced it out of the ground. Who created something from nothing.

Onward, dreams, my faithful oxen!

Oh, this cry, which more closely resembles a gasp, is no accident; it's not there for the rhyme. If ever Briusov was truthful — to his core, then it was precisely in this gasp. With all his sinews, strength, like an ox — what is this, a poet's labor? No, his dreams! Inspiration + oxlike labor, that's the poet, oxlike labor + oxlike labor, that's Briusov: an ox, dragging a load. This ox is not devoid of greatness.

Who, but Briusov, could have compared dreams —to oxen? Let us recall Balmont, Vyacheslav, Blok, Sologub — and I'm only talking about poets of his generation (why doesn't Bely ever fit?) — who among them, in what hour of final prostration, could have uttered this "dreams — are oxen"? And if it had been "will" instead of "oxen," the poem would have been formulaic.

*

A poet of willpower. An act of will, even if short-lived, is limitless at the given moment. Will is of this world, all here, all now. Who else held sway over real live people and fates like Briusov? Balmont? People were drawn to him. Blok? People were infected with him. Vyacheslav? People heeded him. Sologub? People conjectured about him. And people listened spellbound to them all. Everyone obeyed Briusov. There was something of the Stone Guest in his appearances at the Don Juan feasts of young poetry. The wine froze in glasses. People bent under Briu-sov's palm, not loving him, and his yoke was a hard one. "Magician," "Sorcerer" — you never heard this about the bewitching Balmont, nor the magical Blok, nor the born alchemist Vyacheslav, nor the alien Sologub — only about Briusov, about this dispassionate master of verse. What was this power? What kind of spells? The power was un-Russian and the spells were un-Russian: willpower, unusual in Russ, supernatural, a marvel in a magical kingdom where, as in a dream, everything is possible. Everything except naked will. And the marvelous magical kingdom of the Soul — Russia—was captivated, worshiped it, and bowed to this naked will.* To the Roman will of a Moscow merchant's son from somewhere near Trubnaya Square.

— Isn't this a fairy tale?

*

It seems to me that Briusov must never have dreamed in his sleep, but knowing that poets dream, he replaced undreamed dreams with invented ones.

Isn't this — the inability to simply dream — the source of the sad passion for narcotics?5

Briusov. Brius. (A Moscow black magician of the 18th century.)6 Per-

*A generation of poets is, after all, that very same Russia, and not the worst of it... (M.Ts.)

haps it's already been noted. (Knowing that I was going to write, I didn't read my predecessors in Briusov — not out of a fear of coinciding, but out of a fear that if they upbraided him, then I would overpraise him. Briusov. Brius. The assonance isn't accidental. Rationalists, seen by their contemporaries as black magicians. (Enlightenment, which in Russia transforms into black magic.)

*

Briusov's fate and essence are tragic. The tragedy of loneliness? The tragedy created by all poets.

...Und sind ihr ganzes Leben so allein . . .

(Rilke on poets.)

Here, a tragedy of desired loneliness, of an artificial gap between you and all that is alive, a fateful desire to be a monument — in your own lifetime. The tragedy of a proud man, with the sad satisfaction that at least it's his own fault. His whole life he fought doggedly to be a monument in his lifetime: not to love too much, not to give too much, not to deign.

I would like to not be Valery Briusov7—

is only proof that he wanted nothing else his entire life. And so, in 1922, an empty pedestal, surrounded by the hoots and howls of the ne'er-do-wells, good-for-nothings, don't-give-a-damners. The best—fell away, turned away. With the infallible instinct of baseness sensing —greatness — the boors to whom he bowed in vain spat on him ("he's not one of us! Too good for us, he is!"). Briusov was alone. Not alone above (the dream of an ambitious man), but alone — outside.
"I want to write in the new way — and I can't!" I heard this admission with my own ears in Moscow in 1920 from the stage of the Great Hall of the Conservatory. (About this evening—later.) I can't! Briusov, whose whole meaning was "I can," Briusov, who, in the end, could not!

"Geroi truda (Zapisi o Valerii Briusove)" was first published in Volia Rossii, nos. 9-10,11 (1925).

1: Valery Takovlevich Briusov. Russian poet (1873-1924) and one of the founders of Russian Symbolism. After the Revolution, he established the Higher Literary-Artistic Institute. Briusov died in Moscow on October 9,1924. Tsvetaeva was living in Prague at the time she wrote this essay. She mentions it in a letter to A. A. Teskova on September 9,1925: "It came out, as always, five times longer than I thought, instead of anecdotal notes on Briusov-the-man—an evaluation of the poetic and human figure with numerous accompanying thoughts. I wonder how you will like it. It was a difficult job: despite the repulsion that he inspired in me (and not in me alone), to give an idea of his peculiar greatness. To judge, without passing judgment, although the sentence—it would seem—was a foregone conclusion. Unfortunately, I was writing without sources, quoting from memory. But perhaps that was better — it could have been an entire volume" (M. Tsvetaeva, Pis'ma k Anne Teskovoi [Prague: Academia, 1969], 32).

2: His Fiery Angel. The Fiery Angel (1907-08) is a historical novella set in sixteenth-century Germany. The heroine, Renata, dies, convicted by the inquisition for witchcraft.

3: Adelaida. Kazimirovna Gertsyk (1874-1925), a Russian poet with whom Tsvetaeva was friendly.

In Russian, the word "poetess" can be used merely to indicate gender, since Russian nouns are either masculine, feminine, or neuter, and adjectives must agree with nouns in number and gender. Generally speaking, however, "poetess" has much the same pejorative connotation in Russian that it does in English; "poetesses" belong to a lesser order of being than poets.

Tsvetaeva always referred to herself as a poet, and never wrote of Anna Akhmatova or Karolina Pavlova, for instance, as anything but poets. For her, a poet is a quality of soul, spirit, and verse, unconnected to gender: "the poems were offered by a poet, not a woman," she says to Adalis in this essay. Tsvetaeva elaborates her own, radical "inborn aversion to everything bearing the stamp of female (mass) separatism" at some length here. "In creative work," she explains, "there is no women's question; there are women's answers to human questions ..."

Tsvetaeva chose her words scrupulously, and thus her frequent use of the word "poetess" in this essay is deliberate (it is not used in any of the other pieces in this book). The "punch line," so to speak, is the moment in the scene "The Evening of Poetesses" when Briusov introduces Tsvetaeva alone among twenty-some readers, as the "poet Tsvetaeva."

4: The Egyptian Nights that Briusov finished. In 1914-16, using Pushkin's drafts, Briusov resurrected and completed Pushkin's long, unfinished poem Egyptian Nights.

5: Isn't this—the inability to simply dream — the source of the sad passion for narcotics? According to Khodasevich's memoirs, Briusov regularly used morphine. See Vladislav Khodasevich, Nekropol' (Brussels: Les Editions Petropolis, 1939), 2I, 60.

6: Briusov. Brius. (A Moscow black magician of the 18th century.) Yakov Vilimovich Brius (1670-1735) — a Russian count, statesman, scholar, and military man, one of the compilers of "Briusov's calendar," which presented astronomical tables and predictions.

7: I would like not to be Valery Briusov. Tsvetaeva quotes from Briusov's poem "L'ennui de vivre" (1902) inexactly. The quote should read "I would not desire to be."