MARINA TSVETAEVA
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the boy's aunt, who was clanking scissors on the big dining room
table. Therefore the following question was addressed to her back.
"So no one's gone to see the French woman?"
"To see the French woman-it's far away!"
"It's not too far for her, but for
us-too
far? The malice in the
aunt's tone was tempered by the triumph of the witticism.
"It's not too far for her, but for us it's too far," affirmed the
girl's mother, freezing at the formulation.
"But still, we should, it's only right"-the aunt nagged,
distressed by the failure of her wit and, in my view, insufficiently
shocked by the unheard (in that form) coarseness of the response.
"But still, we should, it's only right."
"At some point, yes . . . " but these words were not heard
since they were mumbled.
So it was actually the grandmother who said it first.
"Either she's very ill, or she's gone"-said the grandmother,
with the quiet sadness of the old who are resigned to the whole thing,
and know it inside out.
But "she's gone" still isn't quite "she ... ". And so it was
the little boy's mother who said it first after all, the evening of that
same day, after French dinner, that is Russian supper.
"If
we haven't heard from her by now, she's either very ill-or
she's dead."
And-the house came to life.
The resonance of death, have you ever thought about it,
Rainer? In a house where after a long, demanding, devastating ill–
ness, someone finally passes on. Now, it would seem-is the time for
peace, and when, if not at that moment-peace. Nothing of the
kind! It's only the beginning.
A house where someone is dying is quiet. A house where some–
one has died is loud. The former sleeps-a death potion poured into
all its nooks and crannies. Death is in every crevice. It's the hole in
every crack in the floor. The former is flooded with the potion of
death-the latter sprinkled with the potion of life. When the phial
filled with the potion of life is smashed to smithereens, in every
sliver, though it may wound-there is life . There's no crying in the
house of the dying, and should you cry-you'll hide. In a house
where someone has died-sobs. The first sound-tears.
Lebenstrieb
of death, Rainer, have you thought about it? Then,
the feet were run ragged, now the hands are busy, but of the
two-hands and feet-it's the
hands
that are quiet and the
feet
that
