MARINA TSVETAEVA
505
Oh, when I read that scene with the disguise, my heart trembled
because - it was Frederika and not me!
The coziness of that old half-peasant house - the pastor - play–
ing at forfeits - reading aloud . . .
Because of all this I couldn't manage to get out of bed at all to–
day : just didn't feel like living!
• • •
How I would have raised Alya in the 18th century! Buckles on
her shoes! Clasps on the family Bible! And what a dancing instruc–
tor!
•
•
•
Nowadays, probably because of the axe and the saw, there are
far fewer
enjants d'amour!
For that matter, only the intelligentsia saws
and hacks (The
muzhiks
don't count! Nothing affects them!), and the
intelligentsia has never been noted for either
enfants
or
amour.
•
•
•
Not long ago at Smolensky Market: a buxom peasant lass–
wearing a fabulous shawl crisscrossed, her gait from the hips - and a
little withered spinster- a spiteful old hag! A withered finger stuck
into the girl's high bosom. An ingratiating whisper: "What's that
you've got there? - a piglet?"
And the girl , pulling her shawl ever tighter around her, haugh–
tily : -"Three hundred and eighty."
•
•
•
Now today, for instance, I ate all day long, though I could have
written all day long. I really don't want to die of starvation in 1919,
but even less do I want to make a pig of myself.
•
•
•
By nature I can't abide surpluses. I'll either eat something or
give it away .
And one could, so it wouldn't seem so terrifying, imagine
things this way: a loaf of bread doesn't cost 200 rubles, but 2 kopecks,
like it used to , but I don't have those 2 kopecks-and never will.
And the Tsar is in Tsarskoe Selo as always - only I'll never go
to Tsarskoe Selo, and he-will never come to Moscow.
