Excerpts from a Diary, 1919

My passion, my homeland, cradle of my soul! Fortress of the spirit, which is usually thought of as a prison for bodies!

The little town of Loschwitz near Dresden, I'm sixteen years old, living in a pastor's family—I smoke, have short hair, eight-inch heels (Luftkurort, Dr. Laman's system —the whole town is in sandals!)—I walk to a rendezvous with a statue of a centaur in the woods, I can't tell beets from carrots (in a pastor's family!) —you can't count all the antagonisms!

And what — did I antagonize them? No, they loved me, no, they put up with me, no, they let me be. Did anyone there ever criticize me? Was there even a sideways glance? Even the thought of one?

This is the country of freedom. I insist. The country of the highest accounting of quality with quality, quantity with quality, personality with personality, impersonality with personality. A country where the law (of community life) not only takes the exception into account: it reveres it. Because a poet slumbers in every clerk. Because in every tailor a violinist awakens. Because in every beer-hall lion a real lion will awaken at the call of the homeland.

I remember in early childhood, on the Riviera, the eighteen-year-old German, Rover, who was dying from tuberculosis. Until age eighteen he had been in Berlin, first in school, then in an office. Stuffy, sweaty,

boring.

I remember how, in the evenings, drawn by his German music and my Russian mother —mother played the piano with unfeminine accomplishment—to the accompaniment of his sacred Bach, in the darkening Italian room, where the windows were like doors —he taught Asya and me the immortality of the soul.

A piece of paper held over a kerosene lamp: the paper shrivels up, turns to ash, the hand holding it lets go and—"Die Seek fliegt!"

The piece of paper flew up! It flew to the ceiling, which, of course, would part in order to let the soul pass to the sky!

*

I had an album. It's awkward for a thirty-year-old woman, mother of two children, to start an album, so mother went and started albums for Asya and me —our own. The entire consumptive Genoan shore wrote in them. And there, amid Uland, Tennyson and Nekrasov is the following truth, strange from the pen of a German:

"Tout passe, tout casse, tout lasse . . ." — with an extremely German note, written in meticulous letters almost two inches high: "Excepte la satisfaction d'avoir fait son devoir."

*

The German Reinhardt Rover, a model clerk and a no less model dying man (thermometer, Thiokol, departure home at sunset) —the German Reinhardt Rover died in the nineteenth year of his life, in Nervi, during Carnival.

*

He was transferred to a private apartment (you mustn't die in the boarding house), to the top room of a tall, gloomy house. Asya and I brought him the first violets, mother —all the music of her unusual being.

"Wenn Sie einen ansehen, gnadige Frau, klingt's so recht wie Mu-sik!"

And then one time Asya and I fly in —violets, confetti, a mouth full of news. The door is open.

"Herr Rover!"

And the frightened hiss of the sitter:

"Zitto, zitto, e morto il Signore!"

An open mouth through which the soul flew out, the bustling wings of tresses over die ashes.

We approached, placed the flowers, kissed him ("Just don't kiss! In every cubic millimeter of air there are billions of miasms" —that was what everyone taught us, not taking into account that at eight years of age you don't know what cubes are, or millimeters, or billions, or miasms — nothing except kisses and air!)

We kissed him, stood awhile, left. On the staircase — spiral and echoing — we got scared: Rover's chasing us!

For three days in a row from the window of his death room they hung out: the mattress, the pillow, the sheets —in expectation of the new inhabitants. His belongings (Mahlkasten, thermometer, several changes of underclothes, a bedside volume of Lenau) were sent home, to the office.

And nothing remained of the German Reinhardt Rover —"excepte la satisfaction d'avoir fait son devoir."

*

My Rover is a mere gasp away from the world's Novalis. "Die Seele fliegt" — Novalis didn't say anymore than this, after all. No one has ever said more. Here one has Plato, and the Count August von Platen, all and sundry are here, and there's no "except for:"

So, from children's amusements and album inscriptions, two words: soul and duty.

The soul is duty. The duty of the soul — is flight. Duty is the soul of flight (I fly, because I must). In a word, one way or the other: die Seele fliegt!

"Ausflug." Just listen carefully: flight out of. . . (a city, room, body, the genitive case). The habitual Sunday flight ins Griine, the hourly— ins Blaue. Aether, heilige Luft!

I may be saying something wild, but for me, Germany is Greece continued, ancient, youthful. The Germans inherited it. And, not knowing Greek, I won't accept that nectar, that ambrosia from anyone's hands, from anyone's lips other than German ones.

*

About boys. I remember, in Germany—I was still an adolescent — in the little village of Weisser Hirsch, near Dresden, where father sent Asya and me to learn housekeeping at the pastor's — a fifteen-year-old, unpleasantly impertinent and unpleasantly timid pink boy was once looking at my books. He saw Heinrich Mann's Zwischen den Rassen, with an epigraph penned in my hand:

Blonde enfant qui deviendra femme,

Pauvre ange qui perdra son ciel.

(Lamartine)

"Ist's wirklich Ihre Meinung?"

And my reply:

"Ja, wenn's durch einen, wie Sie geschieht!"

*

And another boy, also pink and blonde, but utterly timid and pleasantly timid — a little commis, the touching thirteen-year-old Christian — led Asya triumphantly by the hand, like his bride. He probably—certainly! — didn't think about it, but the gesture, developed by dozens of generations (of shop assistants) was in his hand.

And another — dark-haired and light-eyed Hellmuth, whom we and the odier boys (Asya and I were "grownup," "rich," and "free," and they were Schulbuben who were herded into bed at 9 p.m.) taught to smoke at night and treated to cakes, and who wrote such a jolly note in Asya's album when we left: "Die Erde is rund und wir sind Jung — wir werden uns wiedersehen!"

And the lycee boy Volodya —so different —but who measured die height of our heels with just as much excitement —here in the sanctum of Dr. Laman, where people are even born in sandals!

Hellmuth, Christian, lyceen Volodya!—who among you survived 1914-1917!

*

Oh, the strength of blood! I remember diat to die end of her life mother wrote: Thor, Radi, Theodor —out of German patriotism for the old days, although she was Russian, and not at all old, since she died at the age of 34.1

Me, with my letter yat!

*

From mother I inherited Music, Romanticism and Germany. Simply put—Music. My entire being.

*

I definitely feel music as Germany (just as amorousness — is France, longing — is Russia). There is this country—music; its inhabitants — are Germans.

*

Razin's Persian girl and Undine. Both were loved, both were abandoned. Death by water. Razin's dream (in my poems) and the dream of the Knight (in Lamotte-Fouque and Zhukovsky).

Both Razin and the Knight were supposed to perish because of their beloved—only the Persian girl comes with all the cunning of the Unloving and Persia —"for the slipper," and Undine with all the devotedness of the Loving and Germany—for a kiss.

*

Treue — how it sounds!

And from their fidelite the French managed to make only Fidele (Fidelka).

*

Heine has a prophecy about our revolution:"... und ich sage euch, es wird einmal ein Winter kommen, wo der ganze Schnee im Norden Blut sein wird . . ."

In general, Heine on Russia is interesting. On the democraticness of the nation. On Peter —the statist revolutionary (betrothed of the Revolution).

Heine! What a book I would write. And—without archives, outside the luxury of personal penetration, simply — in private with six volumes of the awful German edition of the late '8os. (Illustrated poems! And since Heine often writes about women — there's nothing but sausages!)

Heine will always cover any event in my life, and not because I... (event, life) am weak: he —is strong!

*

To bump into one another and —with no apology, to part. What crudeness in this gesture! I recall Heine, who, on arriving in Paris, deliberately tried to make people bump into him—just to hear the apology.

*

In Heine, Germany and Romany reign together. I know only one other such person — another regime, another theme of the soul, another scale — but equal to Heine in his dual homeland: Romain Rolland.

But Romain Rolland, rumor has it, is a Gallo-German, Heine — as everyone knows — is a Jew. And so the miracle explains itself. I would like an inexplicable (genuine) miracle: a Frenchman through and through and he loves (senses) Germany like a German, a German through and through and he loves (senses) France like a Frenchman. I'm not talking about stylizations — they are easy, boring — about punctured dead ends and borders of birth and blood moved apart. About organic (ethnic) creation, not related to zoology. In a word, for a Gaul to create a new Song of the Nibelugen, and for a German — a new Song of Roland.

This cannot "can be" this must be.

*

Die blinde Mathilde — memoirs of childhood.

In Freiburg, there was a woman who came to die boarding house every Sunday—die blinde Mathilde. She wore a blue satin dress —was about forty-five — half-closed blue eyes — a yellow face. Each girl in turn was supposed to write letters for her and glue on stamps, at her own expense. When the letters were finished, she would sit down at the piano and sing in gratitude.

For German girls: "Ich kenn ein Katzlein wunderschon."

For Asya and me: "Der rothe Sarafan."

*

Now a question: to whom did blinde Mathilde write so much? Whoever answers that question will write a novel.

*

How I loved —loved with longing, to distraction! — the Black Forest. The golden valleys, the resonant, threateningly cozy forest — not to mention the villages with tavern signs: "Zum Adler," "Zum Lowen." (If I had a tavern I would call it: "Zum Kukuck.")

*

I will never forget the voice with which the proprietor of the small Gasthaus "Zum EngeP in the little Black Forest, pointing to the only portrait of the emperor Napoleon in the hall, exclaimed:

"Das war ein Kerl!"

And after a pause that indicated complete satisfaction:

"Der hat's der Welt auf die Wand gemahlt, was wollen heisst!"

*

After Eckermann I can read only Memorial de Sainte-Helene by Las Cases — and if I ever envied someone in life — it is only Eckermann and Las Cases.

*

Strange. Here you have the epitome of happiness, there the epitome of unhappiness, and from both books an identical sadness —as though Goethe had also been exiled to Weimar!

*

O, for Goethe (1829), Napoleon was already a legend! O, for Napoleon (1815), Napoleon was already a legend!

*

Goethe, moved by Napoleon's inside-out uniform.

*

In Goethe what bothers me is "Farbenlehre," in Napoleon —all his campaigns.

*

Not long ago I was walking along Kuznetsky and suddenly, on a sign: "Farbenlehre." I froze.

I went closer: "Faberge."

*

There are many souls in me. But my primary soul —is German. There are many rivers in me, but my primary river—is the Rhine. The sight of Gothic letters immediately places me on the tower: on the very highest pinnacle! (Not letters, but teeth. Zacken — what grandeur!) I dissolve in the German anthem.

Lieb Vaterland, magst ruhig sein.

Just listen closely to this magst— it's like a lion — to a lion cub! Why, that's the Rhine itself saying: Vater Rhine! How could you not be at peace?!

*

When I'm asked: who is your favorite poet, I sputter, because I immediately toss out a dozen German names. In order to answer right away, I need ten mouths, for a chorus, simultaneously. Poets' order of precedence in the heart is far crueler than the court's. Each wants to be the first, because there is a first, each wants to be the only one, because there isn't a second. Heine is jealous of Platen's place in my heart, Platen of Holderlin's, Holderlin of Goethe's; only Goethe isn't jealous of anyone: God!

*

"What do you love in Germany?"

"Goethe and the Rhine."

"Well, and do you love contemporary Germany?"

"Passionately."

"You mean, despite . . ."

"Not only despite—not seeing.''

"Are you blind?"

"Sighted."

"Are you deaf?"

"Absolute pitch."

"What do you see?"

"Goethe's brow over the millennia."

"What do you hear?"

"The roar of the Rhine over the millennia."

"But you're talking about the past!"

"About the future!"

*

Goethe and the Rhine have not yet happened. I can't say it any more exactly.

*

For me, France is light, Russia —is heavy. Germany—is just right. Germany — is the tree, oak, heilige Eiche (Goethe! Zeus!). Germany— is the exact membrane of my spirit, Germany—is my flesh: her rivers (Strome!) — are my hands, her groves (Heine!) — are my hair, she is all mine, and I am all — hers!

*

Edelstein. In Germany I would love the diamond. (Edelstein, Edeltrucht, Eddmann, Edelwein, Edelmuth, Edelblut.)

*

And also: Leichtblut. Light blood. Not light-mindedness, but light-bloodedness. And also: Uebermuth: superstrength, excess, over-the-top. Leichtblut and Uebermuth — how that describes me, outside the suspect "light-mindedness," outside the cumbersome "excess of life energy."

Leichtblut and Uebermuth — and aren't they the same gods ? (The only ones.)

And, most important, this doesn't exclude anything, neither sacrifice, nor death — only: a light sacrifice, flying death!

*

And Gottesjungling! Doesn't all of Thebes arise in a chorus of its favorites!

And Urkraft—isn't this all of awakening Chaos! This prefix: Ur! Urquelle, Urkunde, Urzeit, Urnacht.

Urahne, Ahne, Mutter und Kind

In dumpfer Stube besammen sind.

This is eternity moaning! Like a wolf in a stovepipe. Every such Urahne — is a Parcae.

*

Drache and Rache — and it's all "Nibelungenlied"!

*

"Germany—is a country of eccentrics" — "Land der Sonderlinge." That's what I would call the book I would write about it (in German). Sonderlich. Wunderlich. Sander and Wunder are related. More than that: outside of Sonder there is no Wunder, outside of Wunder—there is no Sunder.

O, I have seen them: Naturmenschen with coiffures of red Indians, pastors obsessed with Dionysis, pastors' wives obsessed with chiromancy, venerable old ladies who communicate with their dead "friend" (husband) every evening after supper — and other old ladies —Marchenfrau, tale tellers by vocation and craft, craftswomen of the fairy tale. The fairy tale as a craft, and as a craft that feeds. — Just appreciate the country.

O, I have seen them! I know them! Go tell others how common-sensical and boring Germans are! This is a country of madmen who've lost their minds over the heights of reason — the spirit.

*

"Germans — are bourgeois" . . . No, Germans — are citizens: Burger. From Burg: fortress. Germans are — serfs of the Spirit.

Philistine, citizen, bourgeois, citoyen — for Germans themselves there's no distinction—Burger. In order to distinguish the concept of the petty bourgeois — they add the prefix klein: klein-burgerlich. Is it possible that there's no separate word for a nation's primary trait? Think about it.

My eternal "schwarmen." In Germany this is quite in the order of things; in Germany I am entirely in the order of things, a white crow among white crows. In Germany I'm ordinary, anyone.

*

In Germany only he who oppresses others is oppressed, i.e., he who spreads out beyond the limit indicated to him, whether spatial or temporal. Thus, for instance, by playing my flute in my room later than 10 o'clock, I am extending beyond the temporal limit established by the community, and in this way am oppressing my neighbor; in the most precise sense I hinder (curtail) his sleep. Know how to play silently!

For me, who is passionately indifferent to outward appearances, Germany feels spacious.

*

What attracts me in Germany is the orderliness (i.e., the simplification) of external life — which doesn't and never did exist in Russia. They have beaten everyday life into submission—so as to be utterly subject to it.

In der Beschrankung zeigt sich erst der Meister,

Und das Gesetz nur kann uns Freiheit geben.

Not a single German lives in this life, but his body is efficient. You take the efficiency of German bodies for the slavery of German souls! There is no soul more free, no soul more rebellious, no soul more haughty! They are brothers to Russians, but they are wiser (older?) than us. The struggle with the marketplace of everyday life has been transferred entirely to the heights of the spirit. They don't need anything here. Hence their obedience. The limitation of the self here for limitless sovereignty there. They don't have any barricades, but they have philosophical systems that blow up the world, and poems that create it anew.

The mad poet Holderlin rehearses on a mute harpsichord for thirty years in a row. Novalis the visionary sits behind the bars of a bank to the end of his days. Neither Holderlin nor Novalis is oppressed by his prison. They don't notice them. They are free.

Germany — a vise for bodies and the Elysian fields — for souls. Given my boundlessness, I need a vise.

*

"Well, and what about the war?"

"And with the war — it's this way: it isn't Alexander Blok and Rainer Maria Rilke fighting, but a machine gun with a machine gun. It's not Alexander Scriabin and Richard Wagner, but a dreadnought and a dreadnought. If Blok were killed — I would mourn Blok (the best of Russia), if Rilke were killed —I would mourn Rilke (the best of Germany), and no victory, neither ours nor theirs, would comfort me."

I feel nothing in national wars, in civic ones—everything.

*

"Well, and what about German atrocities?"

"But I was talking about qualitative Germany, not about quantitative. Quality generated by quantity—there's an atrocity. Alone, man isn't a beast (there's no reason to be and no one to be beastly with). Bestiality begins with Cain and Abel, Romulus and Remus, that is, with the number two. From this fateful figure of the first community to reach double digits and further — there's a catastrophic growth of bestiality, multiplied by the thousands with each individual. (Remember childhood and school.)"

In short: if "pour aimer il faut etre deux," then all the more so — pour tuer. (Adam could just love the sun; for murder, Cain needed Abel.)

One is enough for love, for murder you need two.

When people, crowding together, are deprived of their face, they become first a herd, then a gang.

Just wait, the hour will come when you will mourn heroic Germany just as you now mourn heroic, ruined France. Now — it's the cathedral at Rheims, tomorrow—at Cologne: heights hinder the century! It's not the hatred of Teutons for Gauls, Gauls for Teutons, it's the hatred of the square —for the spire, of flatness —for sharpness, of the horizontal for the vertical.

The cathedral of Rheims is a bigger wound for me than for you: in it my Joan happened! Mourning it, I mourn more than you: not Joan, not France — the century of bonfires, replaced by the century of cement!

*

"The Germans gave us the Bolsheviks." "Germans gave us a Lenin sealed in a railway car . . ."

I am not a connoisseur of diplomatic gifts, but, even if it's true — with hand on heart— if we were in their place and had thought of it— wouldn't we have done the same?

The train car carrying Lenin — wasn't it that very same Trojan horse? Politics — is nasty stuff a priori, and you can't expect anything else from it. With ethics — into politics!

And whether nastiness is German or Russian — I can't tell the difference. And no one can. Just as the International — is evil, so Evil — is international.

Vous avez pris l'Alsace et la Lorraine

Mais notre coeur, vous ne l'aurez jamais

Vous avez cru germaniser la plaine,

Mais malgre vous nous resterons francais.

I grew up with this. (An ancient French governess.) And it is as sacred in me as "Wacht am Rhine." And there's no contradiction. The great agreement of heights.

A passion for every country as if it were the only one — that is my International. Not the third, but the eternal.

Moscow, 1919

"O Germanii" was first published in Dni, December 13,1925.

1: Since she died at the age of 34. In a nearly identical passage in "Excerpts from the Book Earthly Signs," Tsvetaeva writes that her mother died at the age of thirty-six. In fact, Maria Alexandrovna was born in 1868 and died in July 1906.