MARINA TSVETAEVA
211
irritation, creating bad blood for nothing"-is what people say. The
limit of this "unnecessary" and "for nothing" -is the final spoiling
of the blood, that is, death. Your death .
While I cannot forgive life for the humiliating approximateness
of its dates-the 29th of December instead of the 31st, moreover, the
eve of your beloved nineteen hundred and
twenty-seven,
I
am
grateful to it, life, for the precision of form and appellation ...
Rainer Maria Rilke, and every doctor will confirm this, died
from decomposition of the blood.
-Having transfused his own.-
* * *
And all the same, Rainer, despite the magnificence of your
death , your right- and left-hand bedfellows in me are and will re–
mam:
MIle Jeanne Robert, teacher of the French language
and Vanya G-v, an aggrieved Russian boy and-sweeping
aside the surnames and even their first letters-simply
J eanne-(all of that France)
and
Vanya-(all Russia) .
I chose neither the definitiveness of the names, nor the perfec–
tion of the proximity.
* * *
Rainer Maria Rilke, at rest on the cliff of Rarogne
above the Rhone-all alone-
rests in me, his loving Russian admirer,
between Jeanne and Vanya-Joan and John.
* * *
Bellevue, February 27, 1927.
Translated from the Russian by Jamey Gambrell
