Seraphina Powell’s translation of Evening, from which the following is excerpted, is available for purchase here.
Akhmatova was born in 1899, well-educated, of a noble, land-owning family. Evening was published in 1912, when she was twenty-three. It inaugurated a new epoch in Russian poetry. Each poem condenses into a few lucid stanzas the emotional depth one might expect of a great psychological novel. Nothing like it had ever been seen, in Russia or elsewhere. It sold out edition after edition, and became the Bible of Russian lovers.
The book found many imitators among literary ladies. Told, “You have given Russian womankind a voice!” Akhmtova replied, “Yes, but now how do I get them to shut up?”
Akhmatova had a gift for depicting physical things in a way that carried psychological meaning. But she was not simply manufacturing metaphors. Her images have a photographic precision that makes them too concrete to be simply symbols. And they are not photographs, because they capture not a moment, but a narrative. They have a momentum. Akhmatova’s imagery is cinematic.
Love
Now it’s a serpent curling itself
into a little circle,
a magic circle, cast
as a spell to bind your heart.
Now it’s a dove huddled on the white sill
of the little window you leave open a crack
in winter, to cool the room
when the woodstove overheats the house.
It remains there whole days,
softly warbling.
Now it glitters like frost, shines like ice,
then it seems as soft as a drowsing flower—
but surely, obscurely, implacably
it proceeds, unseen,
carries you further from joy, from calm,
for it knows how to wheedle, sweetly, deeply
as a prayer or the sob of a violin,
and it knows how to scarily suggest
that very feeling, that very meaning,
in someone’s still unfamiliar smile.
Tsarskoye Selo
1
Tsarskoye Selo, “Tsar’s Village,”
is the Russian Versailles.
Fifteen miles south of Saint Petersburg,
two palaces set in eight hundred acres
of park, extending the implausible
three-dimensional paisley
of its lawns and topiary, obelisques and follies,
admiring themselves in a man-made lake
wide enough to sail on—
groves and gardens populated
by random classical statues,
while, outside this perfect world—
a no less perfect town,
broad boulevards lined with great family mansions—
2
Along these broad tree-shaded ways
they promenade horses with manes as long
and wavy, and carefully combed
as a lady’s hair. Magical,
impossible town
whose very existence seems a riddle.
Sad as I am, I must love you.
Here I longed for a man with all my soul,
panted, delirious, like a dying woman—
it now seems so unreal.
Somehow, I turned into a toy,
like everything else in Tsarskoye Selo’s
clockwork, music-box world—
a splendid pet, like my pink cockatoo.
I no longer feel that tension in my chest,
that anticipation of pain.
Don’t believe me? Look into my eyes.
If I seem glum, it’s because
I’ve never liked that last afternoon hour
before sunset, or the chilling wind
that blows in off the sea,
or the words “time to go.”
3
And here’s my marble counterpart, sprawled,
propped up on one elbow, leaning defeatedly
under an ancient maple:
a done-in Adonis.
This dying god hearkens
to the green, the muffled rustling
of leaves, possibly comforting
to a dying and reviving vegetation god—
but he’s given his full attention to the lake
which faithfully returns his perfect face.
Pale rainwater washes
the immortal gore of his marble-carven wound.
Wait, my cold, white other self,
I will, in my own way, also turn
into woeful stone
and feel as little as you.
4
Along these paths and through this park
wandered once a swarthy young man—
his great grandfather was a nobleman from Africa
captured by the Ottoman Turks who gave him
as a present to Peter the Great.
The young man was Pushkin, who thoroughly enjoyed
his un-Russian complexion
which made him visibly as well as inwardly
an exotic breed.
Along the shores of this lake he sadly
strolled, in Byronic melancholy.
A century later we’re still thrilled to think
he, even as we, walked here,
supposing we hear in the rustle of our footsteps
among these autumn leaves
a faint echo of his.
Beneath those pines, where the roots protrude
from the thick and prickly carpeting of needles—
perhaps it was there he set down
his tricornered hat,
and a dog-eared volume of his favorite poet.
A boy was playing the bagpipes . . .
A boy was playing the bagpipes, a girl
was plaiting herself a garland;
the paths they took through the forest crossed,
a little fire was kindled
far away in a far distant field.
Far away as it is, I can see it all still,
I remember every detail,
I’ve tenderly kept it all safe in my heart,
though the years have blurred my certainty
of how this story was supposed to end.
I don’t pray to become wise enough to forget,
or for strength not to ache when recalling it all.
I’m cold and I wish I could warm my hands
again at that far away fire.
It’s been long since the glad little god with the wings
who once soared for me, paid me a visit
even on foot.
Love sneaks up . . .
Love sneaks up, then gets you,
as would some dumb catchy pop tune,
and, weirdly, all of a sudden
you no longer feel sad, or aware
of your gray hair.
Love smiled at you: in your own backyard,
in your house, out in the countryside—
wherever it was, you felt free,
like nothing could stop you,
you glowed—you were done for.
You drank her poison.
Didn’t the stars look bigger
as though they’d moved closer?
Didn’t the autumn air
have a richer scent?
She wore a dark veil . . .
She wore a dark veil to hide how she felt
but the way she was wringing her hands said it all.
“Why,” I asked, “are you so pale today?”
“Last night I gave him a taste of my rage,
made him drink it all in; he was stunned, as if drunk.
“He staggered out, hurt into wordlessness, still,
the twist on his mouth was as good as a scream.
I saw what I’d done. I ran down the stairs,
fingertips barely grazing the rail.
“I howled, with gasps in between,
I was kidding—I can’t believe
you thought I was serious—don’t go—
that would kill me.
He,
with a smile of creepy calm said this,
Don’t stand out here without your coat
in the cold wind. ”
The memory of sunlight . . .
The memory of sunlight as something warm
fades from my heart.
The first frost has already yellowed
the green from the grass.
The wind is playing, just barely,
with a few flakes.
The water in the narrow canals
is already motionless, frozen.
Nothing moves. Nothing will change.
Not ever.
The willow spreads its leafless branches
against empty sky,
like the framework of a transparent fan.
If I’d never become your wife, perhaps
things would have been better.
It’s hard to remember now how warm
the sunlight felt.The temperature drops.
Maybe it’s evening coming on. Sometimes
it seems like winter arrived overnight.
A tiny cloud . . .
A tiny cloud, high in the sky,
stretched thin and gray
as a squirrel-pelt pinned to the tanning board,
seemed to say to me, “Snow Maiden,
come March, I’ll enjoy watching
your frail form dissolving under the sun.”
(The Snow Maiden, daughter of Springtime
and Old Man Winter, was the heroine
of a number of folk tales, all of which
ended badly for her.
Typically, she fell in love
with a mortal who warmed her heart,
making her melt away.)
As I looked at the sky, my hands felt cold
even in the deepest fluff of my muff—
I felt so weird, I felt unreal.
If only I could have called back
those fast-passing easy weeks of his love,
elusive as time and lighter than air.
I wish I wasn’t bitter, I wish
I didn’t want revenge,
I wish I could die away, forgotten
along with winter’s last all-effacing blizzard.
On New Year’s Eve I played a fortune-telling game
The oracle wasn’t wrong. I became his girlfriend
before January’s end.
You left the door half open . . .
You left the door half open;
I breathe in the the linden trees’
honey-lemon scent.
On the table, where your forgot them:
your riding crop, one glove.
The lamp casts a yellow circle.
I hear the leaves rustling.
Where did you go to?
I’m too sleepy to figure it out.
Tomorrow morning will be bright
and clear as a joy.
This life of ours, it’s wondrous.
I should try to be wise.
I’m tired. Slower, less perceptible,
my heart’s deep beat;
I was just reading something
about how our souls are immortal . . .
Do you want to know how it all happened?
Do you want to know how it all happened?
The clock in the dining room struck three.
She was leaving, her hand on the bannister.
She paused, then said
with what seemed like great effort,
“Well, that’s everything.
But no.
There’s something I forgot. I love you, sir.
I loved you even then, ever since we met.”
“Ah!”
The Song of the Last Assignation
Such a numbness overcame me—
my heart felt nothing—
yet I left, self-possessed,
rapid and deft my steps—
I did, however, attempt
to pull my left hand glove
over my right.
It was three steps down to the courtyard,
though they seemed to go on and on.
A whisper in the leaves of the maples,
asked whether I too wouldn’t like to die.
Autumn said, “I too was betrayed,
as I always am, deceived, cruelly fooled,
believing each year anew
the old, old sophistries of June.”
I answered, “Sweet season, I know,
dear dying time, I feel as you do.”
This duet was the song of my last assignation.
I stared back at his house, all dark
except for the windows of the master bedroom
where candles glowed their same yellow
as though nothing at all had changed.
You sip at my soul . . .
You sip at my soul—I know
the flavor can’t be sweet,
and yet, you seem to find it intoxicating.
Torture yourself. Far be it from me to interrupt
your fun with a plea. As for me,
I lack the ambition to console you:
I’ve been at peace for weeks.
Let me know when you’re finished.
I’m not sad at having, as it were, fallen
outside of the world and of life.
Just walking through the neighborhood,
watching children play—that’s enough.
The gooseberries have started to blossom
on the hedge. Past that fence, they’re loading a cart
with bricks. Is your interest in me
just brotherly-friendly? Do you suppose you love me?
I don’t know, and I don’t need to know.
I’m tired. I lie on the grass.
I let my body rest. It’s broad daylight
in an open space. People passing may be wondering
vaguely, “Isn’t that the young woman
who just became a widow?”
Why are you looking at me like that . . .
Why are you looking at me like that,
whoever you are, like I’m crazy?
I’ll tell you what all the fuss is about.
Yesterday, Wednesday, at three o’clock,
a nasty, buzzing wasp
got me right in the ring-finger.
It thought it was dead, put it on my palm
to get a good look—my touch woke it up
and it poisoned my ring-finger
with its wicked little needle of a sting.
I could cry right in front of you, a perfect stranger,
just remembering how it hurt.
Would you laugh if I did? Just look at this finger
—see what a pretty, smooth, swollen
ring he put on it!
What good are legs ?
What good are legs?
A fish tail would better suit and serve me now.
I’m swimming. The water’s a cool joy,
the bridge in the distance
has faded to a pale silhouette.
Here I don’t need to be
a docile-souled obedient girl—
I wish my spirit could float off,
like weightless smoke,
fly off over the dark docks,
become just a faint blue trail exhaled
against bluer sky.
See how deeply I’m diving,
so far down I can grab onto seaweed
rooted on ocean floor. I needn’t
echo what any man says,
or be trapped by his sadness.
And you, my far-away one, is it true
you’ve lost weight, word, will?
People tell me that for three entire weeks
all you’ll do is whisper, “Why,
Oh, why, you miserable girl?”
illustration: Meryl Gross