892
PARTISAN REVIEW
it emitted from its brass mouthpiece the so-called
tziganskie romancy
beloved of my generation. These were more or less anonymous imi–
tations of gypsy songs-or imitations of such imitations. What con–
stituted their gypsiness was a deep monotonous moan broken by a
kind of hiccup, the audible cracking of a lovesick heart. At their best,
they were responsible for the raucous note vibrating here and there
in the works of true poets (I am thinking especially of Alexander
Blok). At their worst, they could be likened to the
apache
stuff com–
posed by mild men of letters and delivered by thick-set ladies in Pari–
sian night clubs. What may be termed their ecological niche consisted
of nightingales in tears, lilacs in bloom and the alleys of whispering
trees that graced the parks of the landed gentry. Those nightingales
trilled, and in a pine grove the setting sun banded the trunks at
different levels with fiery red. A tambourine, still throbbing, seemed
to lie on the darkening moss. For a spell, the last notes of the singer's
contralto pursued me through the dusk. When silence returned, my
first poem was ready.
It was indeed a miserable concoction, containing many borrow–
ings besides its pseudo-Pushkinian modulations. An echo of Tutchev's
thunder and a refracted sunbeam from Fet were alone excusable.
For the rest I vaguely remember the mention of "memory's sting"–
«vospominan'ia zhalo"
(which I had really visualized as the ovipositor
of an ichneumon fly straddling a cabbage caterpillar, but had not
dared say so) and something about the old-world charm of a distant
barrel-organ. Worst of all were the shameful gleanings from Apukh–
tin's and Grand Duke Constantine's lyrics of the
tziganski
type. They
used to be persistently pressed upon me by a youngish and rather
attractive aunt, who could .also spout Louis Bouilhet's famous piece
(A une Femme)
in which a metaphorical violin bow is incongruously
used to play on a metaphorical guitar, and lots of stuff by Ella Wheeler
Wilcox-a tremondous hit with the Empress and her ladies-in-waiting.
It seems hardly worth while to add that, as themes go, my elegy dealt
with
the loss of a beloved mistress-Delia, Tamara or Lenore-whom
I had never lost, never loved, never met but was
all
set to meet, love,
lose.
In my foolish innocence I believed that what I had written was
a beautiful and wonderful thing.
As
I carried it homewards, still
unwritten, but so complete that even its punctuation marks were
