Even that argiment, however, proves to be insufficient. For those very pangs, the very thoughts about language, recollections of childhood, paraphrases of Rilke himself, ultimately poetry as such with its rhymes and images— everything that reconciles one to reality—to the author like a flight, like a distraction from reality:
Am I getting distracted?
Tsvetaeva inquires, looking back at the preceding stanza, but basically at the entire poem as a whole, at her not so much lyrical as guilt-prompted digressions.
On the whole one may observe that Tsvetaeva's strength lies precisely in her psychological realism, in the voice of conscience, pacified by nothing or no one, that resounds in her verse either as a theme or, at least, as a postscript. One of the possible definitions of her creative production is the Russian subordinate clause put at the service of Calvinism. Another variation is: Calvinism in the embrace of this subordinate clause. In any case, no one has demonstrated the congeniality of the said Weltanschauung and this grammar in a more obvious way than Tsvetaeva has. Naturally, the severity of the interrelation between an individual and himself possesses a certain aesthetics; but it seems there is no more absorbing, more capacious, and more natural form for self-analysis than the one that is built into the multistage syntax of the Russian complex sentence. Enveloped in this form, Calvinism "takes" the individual much farther than he would happen to get had he used Calvinism's native German. So far that what is left of the German is the "best memories," that German becomes the tongue of tenderness:
Am I getting distracted? But no such thing Could happen-—to be distracted from you. Each thought, every, Du Lieber, Syllable leads to you—no matter what The subject . . .
This Du Lieber is at once tribute to a feeling of guilt ("Russian I Letters are running on now instead of German") and deliverance from the guilt. Behind it, moreover, there stands a strictly private, intimate, almost physical endeavor to draw nearer to Rilke, to touch him in a way that is natural to him—with the sound of his native tongue. But if this were her only concern, Tsvetaeva, being an extremely versatile poet technically, would not have switched into German; she would have found on her palette other means for expressing those feelings already mentioned. The point is probably that Tsvetaeva has already said Du Lieber in Russian at the beginning of the poem: "A man walked in—whoever you like—(beloved—/ You)," The repetition of words in verse is in general not recommended; if one repeats words with an a priori positive coloring, the risk of tautology is greater than usual. If only for this reason, it was imperative that Tsvetaeva switch into another language, and German played the role here of that other language. She uses Du Lieber here not so much semanticaUy as phonetically. Above all, because "Novogodnee" is not a macaronic poem, and therefore the semantic burden that falls to Du Lieber is either too huge or totally insignificant. The first possibility is quite unlikely, for Tsvetaeva utters Du Lieber almost sotto voce and with the spontaneity of a person for whom "German is more native than Russian." Du Lieber is simply that famous "blessed, meaningless word"" pronounced "as our own," and its generalizing blessed and meaningless role is only confirmed by the no less nonspecific atmosphere of its accompanying rhyme: "o chom by ni byf ("no matter what"). Thus, we are left with the second possibility, that is, with pure phonetics. Du Lieber, injected into the mass of the Russian text, is first of all a sound—not Russian, but not necessarily German either: like any sound. The sensation to which the use of a foreign word gives rise is one that is first of all directly phonetic and therefore more personal, as it were, more private: the eye or ear reacts before reason. In other words, Tsvetaeva uses Du Lieber here in a supra- lingual rather than in its strictly German meaning.
A shift into another language to illustrate a psychological state is a fairly extreme means and in itself is indicative of that state. But poetry, in essence, is itself a certain other language—or a translation from such. The use of the German Du Lieber is Tsvetaeva's attempt to approximate the original, which she defines, following what rhymes with Du Lieber, in what may be the most significant parentheses in the history of Russian poetry:
· From Mandelstam's poem 'In Petersburg we shall meet again."
Each thmtght, every, Du Lieber, Syllable leads to you—no matter what The rubject (though German is more native
than Russian For me, the most native is Angelic!) . . .
This is one of the most significant admissions made by the author in "Novogodnee"; and, from the standpoint of intonation, the comma comes not after "me" but after "Russian." It is remarkable that the euphemistic quality of "Angelic" is almost completely removed by the whole context of the poem—by the "next world," where Rilke happens to be, by his immediate surroundings in "that" world. It is also remarkable that "Angelic" testifies not to despair but to the height—almost literal, physical, perhaps—of the spiritual flight precipitated not so much by the presupposed location of the "next world" as by the overall poetic orientation of the author. For "Angelic" is more native to Tsvetaeva in general in the same way that German is more native than Russian in general: biographically. It is a question of a height that is "more native," i.e., not attainable by either Russian or German: a height that is supra- lingual, in ordinary parlance—spiritual. Angels, ultimately, communicate in sounds. However, the polemical tone clearly distinguishable in "for me the most native is Angelic" points to the completely nonclerical character of that "Angelic" and to its very indirect relation to bliss; in effect, this is just another variation of Tsvetaeva's celebrated formula: "the voice of heavenly truth—versus earthly truth." The hierarchism of world view reflected in both formulations is an unlimited hierarchism—not limited, at least, by ecclesiastical topography. The "Angelic" she uses here is therefore merely an auxiliary term to designate the height of the meaning to which, as she puts it, she shrieks herself.