tear you
limb
from limb
I"
Nor is this fury to be at-
tributed to "patriotic" motives; Posajnoy hates the
Russians just as much. "I would I were a plague,
that I might punish the Russian people
I"
You villainous monster, you!
Deserving of the knout,
You lousy Russian nation,
You'll get it without a doubt.
liNation of swine ~nd worse, stinking ·in your sty
I"
Posajnoy assures us that in him "boils the wrath of
a Niagara." But this comparison to a cataract is ob-
viously a bit of hyperbole;
for this is nothing if not
the classic slaver of insanity.
One might imagine the ~mign~ would feel grateful
toward the bourgeois West. But don't forget,
Po-
sajnoy has to work in a factory! This, while others
round about him are "carousing." So our Hussar
curses out Europe as a "crazy old fool."
The poet grows threatening : "The time will come
whenyou'll turn tail, you brute 1 ... A Tamerlane is
an angel of mercy compared to what we'll be then;
our dolmans shall be red with enemy blood, and we'll
broil Paris like a mushroom-that
whorehouse of
Europe." Our Hussar is haunted by the image of
Tamerlane:
I would I were a T amerlane;
I'd ro·am o'er Europe with a sword,
With blood and slaughter in my traill
For those foes of ours, the English h01'de.
I would I had a giant's heel;
I'd trample the German in the bog;
I would show him how I feel,
For his covering Russia with a red fog.
We come now to some asterisks,
for the prudent
bard is turning his attention to the French: "I would
give the .. : . a whack, Sink my teeth into their
throats, To Devil's Island with the pack
I"
Posajnoy's political convictions are determined by
his universal hate. For who is there who is not to
blame for the fact that a Black Hussar has to work
ina factory? He criticizes Nicholas II. Why did the
Czar have to take part in the Peace Conference?
"What! he an Emperor,
and he wanted no more
war? ... A Tolstoyan idea
I
The idea of a jackass
I"
My blood boils at the memory:
In place of sternness to the foe,
We showed clemency.
Christ, too, comes in for his share: he was a Jew
and an' "upstart." "He who truly loves Russia and
would see her victorious will spit on a Jewish Mes-
siah. Hail to Mohammed the great
I"
And now, it may be asked, just what are the poet's
"unflinching ideals"? In moments of sorrow and des-
pondency, he spouts curses, but in his lucid intervals
he is full of hope:
PARTISAN
REVIEW AND ANVIL
The hour strikes,
The time's at hand,
When a new power
Shall take command!
His political program he formulates as follows:
"Yes, what we need is a dictator-czar,
a stern and
terrible Emperor,
such as Peter, Paul or Nicholas."
In the choice of a czar, Posajnoy does not hesitate:
"It is Cyril's by every right, that is clear. Hurrah
for Cyril; long may he live!" He assails those
monarchists who have not yet picked a monarch; and
here, he displays those "fecal" manners of which
he is so fond:
Out in the meadow was a stinking bit
Of very pretty looking--.
In the shadow of the feeding herd,
It was a lilac-colored turd.
"Look!" it cried, "I'm an amethyst!"
And such, without Cyril, a monarchist.
So, then, all communists and rebels, all the Jews
and Lettish have already been exterminated.
The
dictator-czar
is· now enthroned,
the knout is whist-
ling, gallows are being put up for the workers, and
Milyukov and Kuskova have been hunted down by
way of sport-all
in due course. What then? What
is our exigent poet's ideal that he would realize?
The answer is clear and prompt: "Do away with all
the bloody Reds. They should have been sent to
hell long ago. And let bottles once more foam for
the old-time Cadets."
The years go by. The Emperor Cyril is enthroned
at Saint-Briac.
In Moscow,
no bottles foam for
Hussars.
Machines in the factories roar. The Let-
tish are not dead yet. The Hussar is gripped with
despair:
"Forgotten are swords,
cannon,
ship's
yards. The· emigres drag out their weary lives in
Paris. And I cannot help asking my Creator:
'0
Lord, why did you put us here, seeing how utterly
.wretched we all are?'
"
The Black Hussar, poet of Pegasus and the pistol,
day-laborer in the Renault plant, has a moment of
bitter realization,
as he adds:
Lower, ·lower, down I sink;
My life's strength is ebbing fast;
And as I stand upon the brink,
No friend in Paris at the last.
Unafraid of the grave, I'll take the plunge;
Upon the journey I'll embark-
But I once was strong; I'll make .a lunge
And break a window in the dark.
Posajnoy talks of breaking windows; but he's no
window-breaker;
he's only a poet. Pavel Gorgulov
was not satisfied with verses. He didn't make poems
about his pistol. When he drew his revolver from his
pocket, it was not for poetic purposes.
He knew it
would shoot and shoot straight.
9
