MARINA TSVETAEVA
205
various deaths-associating or juxtaposing?-I of course was on my
guard against Vanya's camphor.
Two rooms and a kitchen. A little bed. (Maybe it was big, but
since he called him "Uncle," it had to be small.) The nanny's
despair, regulated by daily cares and church-going. (What sort of
despair was the mother's?) The horror of the fact that this is
Meudon and not Moscow (in Moscow we would have ... ). The
horror of the unauthorized, uncontrollable thought of a foreign
cemetery.... We brought him to Meudon ... if it hadn't been
Meudon ....
If
we hadn't taken him to the store that
day ... if. .. .
"How's your brother doing?"
"He's gentle, so good, he lies in bed just like a little boy-it's
touching. . . . "
The last thing 1 know of Vanya's life is that he ate caviar.
"I ate caviar today. They gave some to my brother, he didn't
finish it and so 1 did. He didn't want to eat anything, and then sud–
denly took a fancy to caviar. ... We were all so pleased.... "
Caviar reminded me of my mother's pre-death cham-
pagne-she didn't want anything, and then suddenly fancied cham–
pagne. Caviar too-spelled death.
"Will you be at such and such a place tomorrow?"
"Well, 1 don't know, if! don't stay with Mama. My brother's
awful sickly, anything could happen. . . . "
About two days after the caviar one of the inhabitants of our
house, coming in from outside:
"The G-kovsky boy died after all."
• • •
"Two rooms and a kitchen." The little bed isn't visible,
nothing can be seen but backs. The funeral service goes on without
light. I stand on the threshold between the foyer and the first room.
The coffin seems to be a thousand miles away, unattainable.
The bell rings, more and more new people come to say
farewell.
The priest exists, creating a void around himself. A priestly
void, sacred. A circle of emptiness created by the inhuman. A travel–
ing circle. There was room for no one-now-for everyone. The
elasticity of the vessel, or the condensability of the contents? A
refusal of the vital in the name of that surplus. Refusal of oneself and
