This height can be expressed only in physical units of space, and the entire remainder of the poem consists of a description of constantly increasing degrees of removal, one of which is in the voice of the author herself. Once again assuming the mask of an interviewer, Tsvetaeva inquires (starting with herself and, as is her habit, immediately discarding herself):
—Haven't you... about me at all?—
The surroundings, Rainer, how you're feeling?
Most urgently, most assuredly—
First impression of the universe
(I.e., by the jxiet in it),
And the last—of the planet
That's been given to you only once—as a whole!
This is already a sufficiently angelic perspective, but Tsvetaeva's understanding of the situation differs from a seraphic interpretation thanks to the absence of the concern on her part for the fate of the soul alone—or, for that matter, for the fate of the body alone (which makes it different from the purely human viewpoint): "'To isolate them is to insult them both," she states; no angel would say such a thing.
In "Novogodnee" Tsvetaeva illustrates the immortality of a soul which has materialized through bodily activity— creative work—by her use of spatial categories, i.e., bodily ones, and this is what allows her not only to rhyme "poet" with "planet" but to equate them as welclass="underline" the literal universe with the traditional "universe" of individual consciousness. It is a matter, therefore, of the parting of things that are equal in scope, and what the "interviewer" describes is not the "first impression of the universe . . . by the poet," nor even their separation or meeting, but
—a
Confrontation: a meeting and firrf Parting . . .
The reliability of Tsvetaeva's metaphysics comes precisely from the accuracy of her translation of Angelic into police-station parlance, for a "confrontation" is always both a meeting and a parting: both first and last. And what follow this grandiose equation are lines of incredible tenderness and lyricism whose piercing effect is due directly to the ratio between the above-mentioned cosmic spectacle and the insignificance (set off, moreover, in parentheses) of a detail that at once evokes associations both with creative activity and with childhood, and equates their irretrievability.
At your own hand How did you look (at the trace—on it—of ink) From your so many (Iww many?) miles Endless because beginningless Height above the crystal level Of the Mediterranean—and other saucers.
As a variation on the theme of "Thus souls look down from on high . . ."· these lines astonish one not only with the author's perspicacity, which allows her with an equal
· From Tyutchev.
degree of clarity to distinguish both an. ink stain on a hand belonging to an "abandoned body" and the crystallinity of "the Mediterranean—and other saucers" (which confirm these saucers' many-mile remove from this particular soul). The most thrilling thing in these lines, concomitant with their perspicacity, is the conception of endlessness as be- ginninglessness. This entire "landscape of disavowal" is presented in one breath, as though in a glide, by means of a simple compound sentence providing lexical (psychological ) identity between the naively direct "ink stain" and the abstractness of "endless because beginningless," and through the irony of the "crystal saucers." This is a view from paradise, where (whence) it makes no difference, whence any view is a view do^ward:
and where else is one to look, Leaning one's elbows on the edge of the loge, From this—if not to that [the next] from that [the next] If not to the much-suffering this.
And here Tsvetaeva's view literally "plummets" along with the intonation from the '1oge" of paradise to the "orchestra" of reality, to the banality of everyday existence —a banality all the more considerable because it is decorated with the "foreign," French name "Bellevue" (literally: "beautiful view"):
In Bellevue I live. A town of nests and branches. To a guide, having exchanged quick glances: Belle-vue. A jail whose window fancies A fine view of chimera-laden Paris, And a little bit beyond, as far as ...
(Translated by Joseph Brodsky)
In this description of her dwelling place, in the "I live" coming after Bellevue, Tsvetaeva for a moment—but only a moment—gives rein to the feeling of the absurdity of everything happening to her. One can hear everything in this phrase: contempt for the place, the feeling of being doomed to stay there, and even—if you will—self-vindication, since: I live. The unbearableness of "In Bellevue I live" is intensified for her in addition because that phrase is the physical embodiment of the incompatibility between her existence and what happened to Rilke. Bellevue for her is the opposite pole of paradise, of the "next world"; perhaps even another version of the "next world," since both poles are fiercely cold and existence there is out of the question. As though refusing to believe her own eyes, refusing to accept the fact of her sojourn in this place, Tsvetaeva chooses its name—Bellevue—as a scapegoat and repeats it aloud twice, balancing on the edge of tautology, on the edge of the absurd. A third repetition of "Bellevue" would verge on hysterics, which Tsvetaeva cannot permit herself in "Novogodnee," first of all as a poet: that would mean shifting the poem's center of gravity from Rilke to herself. Instead of that, with mockery (directed more at herself than at the location) in her voice she gives a direct translation of the name, which sounds even more paradoxical because the beautiful view, as she knows, can be obtained not from here but from there, from paradise, from the '1oge":
With the elbow on the scarlet velvet, What a laugh should be for you (and well must Be for me) from heights where your loge hovers Bellevues and Belvederes of ours.
(Translated by Joseph Brodsky)
That is the ending of the author's one and only description in this poem of her own world, from which "where else is one to look" but to where her hero disappeared (not toward "a chimera-laden Paris/And a little bit beyond, as far as . . .").
And in general this is Tsvetaeva's position regarding any concrete reality, especially regarding her ownwn affairs. Reality for her is always a point of departure, not a point of support or the aim of a journey, and the more concrete it is, the greater, the farther the repulsion. In her verse Tsvetaeva behaves like a classical utopian: the more unbearable the reality, the more aggressive her imagination. With the sole difference, however, that in her case acuity of vision does not depend on the object of contemplation.
One may even say that the more ideal—remote—the object, the more scrupulous its depiction, as though distance fosters—develops—the lens of the eye. That is why "'Belle- vues and Belvederes" are laughable, in the first instance, to her—for she is capable of looking at them not only through Rilke's eyes but through her own as well.
And it's right here, naturally—from this end of the universe and from this glance cast cursorily at her own present, at herself—that the most unthinkable and inconceivable subject is introduced; the main, strictly personal theme— the author's love for the addressee. Everything preceding is essentially a gigantic exposition, to some extent proportional to the one that in real life too precedes a declaration of strong sentiments. In her elaboration of this topic—or rather, in the process of uttering words of love, Tsvetaeva resorts to means which she has already used in her exposition, specifically, to the spatial expression of qualitative categories (of height, for example). To subject them to a detailed analysis (even despite the presence at times of a significant autobiographical element in them) does not seem expedient in view of the stylistic unity of "Novogodnee." It would be just as inexpedient and reprehensible to indulge —on the basis of a poem—in speculation about the "concrete nature" of Tsvetaeva's relations with Rilke. A poem—any poem—is a reality no less significant than the reality presented in space and time. Moreover, the availability of a concrete, physical reality, as a rule, eliminates the need for a poem. Usually it is not reality but precisely irreality that gives occasion for a poem. In particular, the occasion for "Novogodnee" was an apotheosis of irreality —both in tenns of relations and in the metaphysical sense: Rilke's death. It will therefore be much more sensible to examine the remainder of the poem on the psychological level suggested by the text itself.