)fvO

!
tlr
f.;vS

tf?l-tJq/~~
~

1<,

'l"#V iL- (r _? LI )-

j/Jv>

I\{ p'~1 P I
.

II

.,1tJ

j,

iS

~:. .~RJt

j,j .e>

V? i/

J,i IL JtV'",vd'

~J r;JdPj
"ABOU T T H IS"

On their return from Rig a, Ma yakov sky and Lili (alon g with Osip) again
rented a dacha in Pushkino, where they spent the su m mer together. In
August l.ili left for Berlin (d iplom a tic rel ations had been re-established in
April), and fro m th ere went to London . At the beginning of October
Mayakovsky and Osip went to Berlin, where Lili and Elsa were waiting
for them after tra velling from London. Elsa re calls th at on this meeting
Mayakovsky irrita ted her by co n sta n tly pla ying cards." Uti wa s also
unhappy that he spent all his time at this activity, leaving his hotel room
only to take part in literary evenings.
On the 18th of November, at Diaghilev's invitation, Mayakovsky went
to Pa ris, where he met French writers and painters, among them Picasso,
Lege r a nd De la un ay. After a week in the French capital, he we n t back to
Berli n , a nd from there, on the 13th of December, he returned to Moscow.
In the autumn o f 1922, relations between Mayakovsk y a n d Lili Brik
underwent a crisis, their first serious trial since the "le ga lisatio n " of their
love affa ir in 1918. The cri sis w as building up during their s tay in Berlin,
and it cam e to a he ad at the end of December: Lili a nd Ma yakovsky took
a decision to spend two months apart, he in his room in Lubyanskiy
Pa ss a ge, s he in the flat in Vodopyanyy Lane. Lili has summansed th e
m o tiva tio n for thi s decision:
we were living well; we had grown used
to each other, to the fact that we w ere s hod, dressed and livin g in th e
1/ .

20

warm, eatmg regular tasty meals, drinking a lot of tea with jam . ' Little old
routine' (byt) had been established .
"Sud d en ly we took fright at thi s and decided o n the forcible destruction
of 'shameful prudence' .,,39
Th e decisive impetus for such an important s te p was not, however,
provided by theoret ical discussions . A w eek afte r hi s return to Moscow
Mayakovsky gave a lecture in the Polytechnic Museum called "What is
Berlin up to?". Lili was present at the lecture, and to her amazement she
heard Mayakovsky recounting things which he had not experienced
himself but had heard from other s, in particular from Osip. She lost her
temper and left the hall. Then Mayakovsky su gges ted to her that he
should cancel his next lecture, "What is Paris up to?" She re plied that this
was fo r him to decide. Ma yakovsky gave his lecture about Pa ris on the
27th o f December, this time without borrowing impressions from others .
Lili wa s not present; she wa s lying in bed at home, in a s ta te of depression
afte r their first quarrel. On the next da y, the 28th of December, their two
month-long se pa ra tion bcgan; the initiative belonged to Lili. as is clear
from letter No . 113: " yo u did not want to prolong relations ". Rita Rayt ,
who called in on th em on the day of their parting, recalls th at they were
both crying. 4/,1
The separation was to last exactl y two month s, until the 28th of
February 1923. During this time Mayakovsky did not visit LiE once . He
went up to her hou se, hid on the staircase, crept up to the doors of her
flat, wrote letters and notes , which were handed to her by the servants or
by mutual friends; he sent her flowers , books and othe r presents, such as
ca ged bird s, w hich were intended to re m ind her of him . Uri se n t short
notes in reply . A few times they met by chance in the street or in editorial
offices.
Mayakovsky found their separation very much more of a torm ent than
Lili , who, unlike him , lived a normal life during th ese two months . Hi s
co ns ta n t oscillations between joy an d hope , on the one hand , and doubt
and despair, on the other , are registered in the correspondence with
exceptional clarity (Nos. 8 1-113). These letters and n otes also sh ed ne w
light o n th e long poem Pro d o (About Th is), with its d edication "To her and
to me", written during their separation; certain parts of the
co rr es po nd e nce went almost w ord for word int o the text of the poem (se e
No. 98).
During their se pa ra tion Ma yakovsky kept a sort of diary, in which he
wrote down his feelings and thoughts . This d iary is important not only as
a key document with re gard to the period of sep ara tio n, but also as an
21

iS
~)Ujtjl~
.
!~
L
e
Jf
~fc( j ;;JS 7, ,~/ } f:-

~.~(

{?C V ~ {/JV>(, ~

rl{ p.~VI~ ~ ,,1tJ

II

r-

/Jl~

"JP IL V1 ~V:rVd'

..
I

~ I~J"Pj
"A flQ UT THIS"

On their return from Riga, Mayakov sky and Lili (along with Osip) a gain
rented a dacha in Pushkino. where they spent the sum m e r tog e th er. In
August Lili left for Berlin (diplomatic relations had been re -established in
April), and from there went to Lon don . A t the be ginning of October
Mayakovsky and Osip w ent to Berlin , where Lili and Elsa were waiting
for them after tra velling from London . Elsa recall s that on this me eting
Ma yakovsk y irritated her by constantly playing ca rd s .i" Lili wa s also
unhappy that he s pen t all his time at this acti vity, leaving his hotel room
only to take part in litera ry evenings.
On the 18th of November, at DiaghiJev's in vitation, Ma yakovsk y went
to Paris, where he met Fre nch writers and painters, a m o ng them Pi casso ,
Le ge r and Delau n ay. After a w e ek in th e Fr ench capital , he went back to
Berlin, and from th ere , on the 13th of December, he returned to Moscow.
In the autumn of 1922, relations be tw ee n Ma yakov sky a nd Lili Brik
u nderw en t a crisis, th eir first serio us trial since the " lega lisa tio n" of their
lo ve a ffa ir in 1918. The crisis wa s building up during their s tay in Berlin,
and it ca m e to a h ead a t the e nd of December: Lili an d Mayakovsk y took
a decision to spend two months apart, he in his room in Lubyanskiy
Passag e, she in the flat in Vod opyan yy Lane . Lili has summarised th e
mo tiva tion for this decision: " . .. we were living w ell; we had grown used
to each other, to the fact that we w er e shod , dressed and living in the

20

warm, eating regul ar tasty meals, drinking a lot o f tea with jam . ' Little old
routine' (byt) had been established .
"Suddenly we took fright a t thi s and decided on the forcible destruction
of 'shameful prudence' . ,,39
The decisive impetus for such an important step was not, however,
provided by theoretical discussions . A week after his return to Moscow
Mayakovsky gave a lecture in the Polytechnic Museum called "W h a t is
Berlin up to? " . Lili wa s pr es ent at the lecture, and to her amazement she
heard Mayako vsky recounting things which he had not ex p erienc ed
him self but had heard from others, in particular from Osip . She lost her
temper a nd left the hall. Then Ma yakovsky su gges ted to her that he
should cancel his next lecture, "What is Paris up to? " She re plied that th is
was for him to decide . Ma yakovsky gave his lecture a bo u t Pa ris on the
27th of December, this time without borrowing impress ions from others .
Lib was not present; she was lying in bed at home, in a sta te of depression
after their first quarrel. On the next day, the 28th of December, their two
month-long se pa ra tion began; the initiative belonged to Lili. as is clear
fro m letter No. 113: "you did not want to prolong relations ". Rita Rayt,
who called in o n th em on th e da y o f th eir parting, re calls th at they were
both crying.4()
The separation wa s to last exac tly two month s, until th e 28th of
February 1923. During this time Mayakovsky did not visit Lili once . He
went up to her hou se, hid on the s tairca se, crept up to the doors of her
flat, wrote letters a nd notes , which were handed to h er by the servants or
by mutual friends ; he sent her flowers, books and other presents, such as
ca ged bird s, which were intended to remind her o f him . Lili sen t short
notes in reply . A few times they met by chance in the street or in editorial
offices.
Mayakovsky fo un d their sepa ra tio n very much more of a torment than
Lib , who, unlike him, lived a normal life during these two months. His
co ns ta n t oscillations between joy and hope , on the one ha nd, an d doubt
and despair, on th e other , are registered in the correspondence wi th
ex ce p tio nal clarity (N os . 81-113). These letters and n ot es also shed new
light On th e long p oem Pro eta (AlloHf This), with its dedication "To her and
to me", written during th eir separation ; certain parts of the
co rr es pon de n ce w ent almost word for word into the te xt of the poem (see
No. 98).
During their separation Mayakovsky kept a sort of diary, in which he
wrote down his fe elings and thoughts . This di a ry is importan t not only as
a ke y document with regard to the period of separation, but also as an
21

expression of Mayakovskys attitude to love and poetry in general (No.

113) . Found only after the poet's death, it is a substantial addendum to
Mayakovsky's long existential poems Man and About This , underlining
ye t a ga in the "ex trao rd in ary unity of th e symbolism" in his work noted by
Roman Iakobson ."
As is clear from the correspondence, both Lili and Mayakovsky were
s u p pose d to reapprai se their attitudes to routine, to love and jealousy, to
the inertia of their relationship, to "tea-drinking" and so on. It is dear that
Mayakovsky at least attempted to do so; but these two months of putting
themselves to the te st did not lead to great changes in th eir life, and
indeed this was not important to Mayakovsky just as long a s they could
g o on being together: " W ha t so rt of life can we have, what sort will I agree
to as a result of all th is? Any sort. I'll a gr e e to an y sort. 1 miss you terribly
and I terribly want to see you" (No . 113).
At th ree o'clock in the a fte rnoon of the 28th of February Ma ya kovsky's
" se n ten ce of incarceration" was over. At eight in the evening he met Lili
at the s ta tio n, in o rd er to go with her to Petrograd fo r a few days . He got
into the carriage, read her About This and burst into tears.
Whatever the motivations were for their two-month separation,
"id eolo gical" or personal and emotional, this radical step is ev idence that
a change had taken place in the relations between Mayakovsky and LUi
Brik.

Ukraine, they spent only thre-:

months of 1924 together.
Th e year 1924 was a
Mayakovsky and Lili Bril
(Yubileynoye), written
Pushkin on the 6th <,'

(Th .

'oks out of the first three and a half

;0

the relationship between

t,is in the poem Jubilee Year
'e rsary of the birth of

_ in About

This.)
, 11 which she
A little n,
.rm, adding: "It
announces tha i
, won 't feel a great
seems to me that y'"
sp ring of 1924; the
deal of torment. " Th u,
co the change in their
poem" " <' Year makes.
relati
r
-m s for this ch,
..5 . In a letter of the 23rd of
r
a sks: "H o w
.1.?" (No. 122) . Al eksandr
hokov. formel. esident and minister of foreign
of the Far Ea stern Republic, retu-ned to
\ and
-ca m e president of the lndustri>'
\ffairs . Lili met him in t'
- of
.iim . which Mayakovs k
St'r
Krasnoshchokov v
camp.
.rge of misuse of p o"
term of I ..
.e No. 78, note 2 an r'
Mayakovs
.e s u m me r of 1924,.
Mo scow . On L
i th of October he
November he arn ved in Paris, where he
In
Montparnasse . Elsa w as living in th e same h
. 1)aris
this visit the poet was " p ar ticu larly gloomy" . r
_, for who
for a week, Ma yakovsky wrote to Lili: r I cann.
.ea , Because
and what yo u are, I still have absolutely, absolu i.
there really is no way to console myself; you are dear h, --' a nd I lov e you,

23

156

[1922
I wane to stand
in the ranks of Einsreins,

I1"'lTRODUCTION TO ABOUT TIUS

of Lenins,
in the rank

l;~ons.

I used r
Overi

157

1923]

-u essen.

Nov
m
~

.ally
.tle,
I ss,
"A!'
that "a"
is a trumpet at .
If I say:
C~B!"_

that "b's" a new bomb in nurnaniry's battle.

The poem "About This" was written by Mayakovsky in the

course of one and a half months: from the end of December
1922 co the middle of February 1923.
He first read extracts from it at an evening on "Futurism
Today" at the Proletcult, April 3rd, 1923. In a foreword to a
Russian edition primed in Berlin in 1924, Mayakovsky wrote:
"This for me--and indeed for everyone else--was a poem of
the greatest and finest finish". It is also his most complex work
and I am giving more detailed notes than for the ocher poems.
(See pp. 216-229.)
On the eve of 192 3 serious disagreement existed between
Mayakovsky and his closest friends. At the same time he was
under constant atrack from critics both in or ganisa dons, includ
ing the Communist Parry, and individuals. And on the publica
cion of this poem it reached its height. One leading Bolshevik
-A. V. Lunacharsky-e-spoke on his behalf, bur even his
authority as Minister of Education could not shake the general
condemnation. So it came about that at this period he reached
a crisis in his life, in which social and personal problems inevit
ably intertwined.
Five years after the "Glorious October Revolution't-e-t'his
Revolution" as he called ir-e-carne Lenin's New Economic Policy
(NEP), and all that Mayakovsky had fought against seemed to
be resurrected. The black-marketeer, private capitalism, the
petty bourgeois oudook he so hated, bureaucracy and the grow
ing challenge to his revolutionary ideals, all this affected him
deeply. The fact that the official Parry representatives, who called
for artists to work to a "social command", were amongst his
active enemies frustrated the willing response that be would
have made to such a call. Articles appeared, "Down with
Mayakovskyism", and attacks came upon him from right and
left, from RAPpl and the Party paper Pravda to the right wing
"Imagists". The opposition to him seemed to include everyone,
even Lenin, except his group of Fururisrs."
See Introduction, pp, 20-26.

Which th en included N. Aseyev, S. Tretiakov, B. Pasternak, O. Brik,

V. Khlebnikov, V. Kamensky, A. Kruchonykh, A. Rodchenko.

158
And now came the swing back of the pendulum. And to
Mayakovsky came the fear of Therrnidor, of what happened to
the French Revolution. On April 3rd 1923, Mayakovsky read
some extracts from "About This" and, replying to his critics,
srated : 'They've said here that no general idea can be found
in my poem. Of course I've only read some extracts, nevertheless
even from those pieces I've read there is a basic core: our
mode of living. That mode of living, which has nor changed in
any way, chat mode of living which is now our deadliest enemy,
making us petty bourgeois philistines".'
All this, plus his personal problems, his quarrel with the
woman he loved, the conflicts with his friends, and the funda
mental unsolved problem of the new life, the new love, the new
sociecy-----all this came to a head at this time, on the eve of
Christmas.
And so by mutual agreement it was decided he would make
a complete break with his up-till-then "normal" life : he would
not meet with anyone, not be a guest of anyone, not play at
cards or gamble; he would stay in his room alone, for a definite
period , "like in jail" and go over his "inner baggage", re-think
his whole life.
And he kept to his resolution-he was in his room for
exactly rwo months, only going out for necessary business pur
poses, nothing else.
The external facts of his life in those two months, given in
his poem in poetic form, are realistically exact. The relationship
between "she" and "me", the Iact that "she" was ill, the tele
phone conversation with her housekeeper Annushka in the
kitchen, the description of his "spectacle-case room" and its
contents, the "iron arches" of his bedstead, the stove, the globe
of the world, the way from Lyubyansky Lane to Vodopyany
Alley where "she" lived, passing the "columns of the post
office", are all exactly corresponding to reality:
The personal relationship between lily Brik and Vladimir
Mayakovsky served as a lyrical springboard for the creation of
the poem, but-despite the sharp criticism of the rime-s-it was
developed to deal with the general problem of love and social
,.
4

Collected Works . 1940 edition, Vol. VI, p. 376.

See photo-montage facing p. 170.

[1923

159

1923]

relationships in the circumstances of (he new, growing society.

He sought co find the solution of the fundamental conflict
between individual love and love of mankind, the conflict
between love as sexual relationships, as jealousy, as domestic
fireside self-satisfaction, as the selfish isolation of love for a pair,
or for a family, and the love that embraces little animals,
human society and the whole universe. And the tragedy for
Mayakovsky was the realisation that such a great love was not
possible in the now he lived in, that no decree of the mighty
Communist Parry could help a man Struggling with love like
a wounded animal, and, instead of suicide, for himself the only
other way out was to dream of a resurrection in the new
socialist world to come.
Each of his great lyric poems-"A Cloud in Trousers" (1914),
"Man" (1916) and "About This" (1923)-is a poem on the
tragedy of personal love-but inextricably becoming the tragedy
of a world that can only be changed by revolution. Through
out Mayakovsky's work is the identification of himself with all
the progressive forces of man struggling against all that is
decadent, outmoded, oppressive, inhuman.
It is interesting to note that the image of Jesus Christ runs
through the early lyrical work of this hundred per cent Com
munist arheisr. He identifies the Revolution , and himself as irs
poet, with the same Christ as Blok in "The Twelve" saw march
ing at the head of the Revolutionary army. Mayakovsky saw the
Revolution coming with "a thorny crown", and cried:
And I amongst you~m his prophet;
wherever pain is-there am I;
On every single tear that's shed
I myself am crucified.
But in the era of the successful revolution the image of Jesus
changes inca a Young Communist-who commits suicide! And
Mayakovsky is fighting against suicide. He sees himself on the
N evsky bridge, seven years before , ready to do what the Young
Communist Leaguer did, and he calls for help from his family
-in vain. He calls for help co his Parry and coumry-in vain;
to the who le world-in vain. In the end he calls to the Future
to resurrect him. That seems the only possibility of help left.

160
That was io ,t92 Li\.nd io ._15HO -h is last unfinished poem
was also addressed to the funU'~_ "At the Top of His Voice" so
thac his "Comrade heirs and descendants" in posterity should
hear him . Again his cry for help rang our-but no help came.
And this time the crisis was nor overcome-s-he did commit
suicide.

The cover 0/ th {irSI edition of "A bOllt This" . Th e series 0/ seven lllus
trations which follow shows probably the firs I exam ple in Europe 0/
imaginative photo-montage; it is by Mayakovsk y's friend and [ellow
Futurist, A. M . Rodchcnko. /1 has not been reproduced in [ul! since 1923.
not even ill (he Soviet Union.

161

1923]

ABOUT THIS
To her and 10 me.
About what - .
about this?
With this theme,
both personal
and petty,

I've trod the poetical treadmill

not once
bue a dozen times repeated,
and I wane to tre ad it srill,
This theme
even now
is a Buddha's prayer,
and it grinds a Negro's knife at his master.
If Mars
has but on e human-hearted there,
he'll be
writing about ie
now
and everlasting.
This theme will come
and approach a cripple
nudge his elbow to paper
and order:
"Scribble! "
And thar cr ipple
f rom paper
soars an eagle's cry,
an d with song-lines dazzles the sun on high.
T his theme will come,
phone from the kitchen perhaps,'
turn around
and van ish like mushrooms once found,
Lil~

Brik's telephone was in the kitchen of her fla t. (See photo-m ontage
facing p. 170.)

162

and a giant

for a second will stand

and collapse,

himself under scribbling's ripples drown.

This theme will come

and command:

"Beauty! "

This theme will come

and decree :

"Truth !"

On a cross-beam of arms

though crucified mutely,

under your brearh you'd hum a walrz on the rood.

With this theme starts to gallop the ABC-

can anything d earer than ABC be?

and "A"

more inaccessible

than Kazbek's steeps.

Stir it up,

and one no longer eats or sleeps.

Unexhausced through ecerniry

this theme will return,

has but to say:

"Look at me henceforth! "

And looking at it,

a banner-bearer you'll burn,

a flame of red-silk on a banner-filled earth.

It's a cunning theme this!

Under events up-pressing,

in the depths of the instincts preparing to spring,

should it erupt in a fury-

having dared to suppress it!

your spirit will burst from your very own skin .

This theme pronounced me, in anger bound,

a command :

"Hand over
the reins of your days! "

Wryly looked into my daily round

and people and deeds scattered in rage.

[1923

163

1923)
This theme came,

all else set aside

and one and indivisible
become near and dear.
This theme a knife to my throat was plied.
From heart to temples pounding
the hammer-wielder rears.
This rberne darkened day into dusk.
"Beat", it commanded, "W ith your brow-lines above."
The name
of chis theme
is thus:

164

[1923
1.

THE BAlLAD OF READING GAOL

"I stood there - r remember.
That gleam had glittered
And that
was then
called the Neva."2-From "Man".'

About a Ballad

and

about Ballads.

165

1923]
Tbere're no bars on the windows at all!

Mind your business.

It's a gaol - I insist.

A table.

On the cable the last straw.'

A number's let

loose along

the wire.

r couched it hardly - blisters my body.

The receiver dropped prone.

The factory tr ade-mark

twO arrows spark

and flash CO lightning the telephone.

The neighbour's room.

From the neighbour

sleepily :
"When was that?
Sounds like a squealing piglet! ..
From burns the bell now screeches shrill,
white-hot the apparatus g lows.
She's in bed !
She's ill!

Run!

Hurry !

You must go!

Flesh smokes, I blanch as the burning jolts.
Lightning spans my body a flashing twitch.
Under the pressure of a million volts
my lips jab into the receiver's molten pitch.
It drilled a hole
through the house
and, unencumbered,
ploughed
Myasnitsky'
in its passage,

A ballad isn't such a young lad,

but if in pain its words grow sad

and words explain just why they're sung sad,

then younger still will be that ballad.

Lyubyansky lane'

Vodopyany Alley"

The background

is this.

This sets the scene.

In bed is she.

She's lying down.

He.

On the table a telephone is seen,

This ballad-to-be is 'he' and 'she'.

Not a terribly novel line .

What's terrible is,

that 'he' - is me.

and that 'she '

is mine.

Why a gaol?

Christmas.

Christ a mess.

..

The River Neva flows through Leningrad (petrograd).

A poem Mayakovsky wro te in 1916, as yet umranslated. 13 Y ears' Work,

Ru ssian edition, Vol. II. p. 77.

Where Mayakovsky lived then, now Proyezd Serova.
Where Lily Brik lived; now Kirov Street.

He means the telephone, See his leiter to Lily Brik, December 1922,
N ew Lighl on Ma yako vsky, Moscow 1958, p. 128.

Mya snitsky Street lay between Mayakovsky's room in Lyubyansky

Lane and Lil y Brik's h ome iin Vod opyany Alley,

166

(1923

bursting
the cable,
the number
sped

167.

1923J
Sales scorch ...
It rocks under my feet! . .. "
But the kids didn't believe

it could be so.

to the operator

a bullet-message,

The owlish eyes of the operator flutters

working for rwo on this holiday shift.

Again the red lamp lights up and stutters.

It rings!
The light was short-lived.
Suddenly

the lamps went berserk,

and thenthe whole telephone network is torn to shreds, see !

"67-10!"
Connect me !"
In the little Alley!
Hurry!
Inco Vodopyany's quiet!
Look out!

or else electrically that call

an Xmas Evewill blow you sky-high

yes,
with your telephone exchanges and all.
In Myasnitsky there lived one oldest inhabitant.
He lived after that a hundred years laterand about that only a century exranr l-e-
the old 'un to the young 'u ns related !
"Once upon a Saturday ...
on Sunday eve ...
Went for a ham-bone . . .
wanted a cheap treat ...
Suddenly - bang!
An earthquake heave .. .
I

The pbon c number of Lily Brik.

An

-- rthquake?
.
?

In winrer .
h GPO.?

At t e . .

l;"<U.UI

The telephone
hfJrts itself
at everyone
A miracle squeezed through the tiny wire,

forcing wide the funnel of the receiver's rim,

with a pogrom of bells storming the quiet,

from the telephone a lava bursts over the brim.

That shrilling,

that ring-a-linging,

burst against the walls,

tried to blow them in the air.

Rings

by the rhousa

nd

hom the wans

asptinging,

came

rolling under the bed

and under the chair.

From the floor to the ceiling the bell-ringing soared.

Then again,

like a ringing bell aswinging,

boomed to the ceiling, bounced from the floor,

and splattered down in a spray of ringing.

Window after window,

damper after damper

strove to ring

with the telephone in cone.

Shaking the house,

like a children's rattle

rampant,

the engulfing rings were drowning the phone.

168

[1923

169

1923]

The Second

As if in themselves,

looking at me,

they awaited

a deadly duel of passion.

The hurty-burly's whirligig no longer rotates.
Ossified the siren's howling breath.
Only the duelling ground
and Doctor Time awaits
with the endless bandages of healing death.
Moscow
beyond Moscow fields silent gleam.
Oceans
beyond oceans mountains blend.
The whole
universe
as if through binoculars seen,
through gigancic binoculars (from the wrong end).
The horizon straightens
so even, it seems

braid.

Whipcord stretched to its limit, see,

r in my room-

am one extreme.

In your room you - the Other extremity.

And between
such,
as could never be dreamed,
in a proud new raiment, gleaming whitely,"
through the universe
lay Myasnirsky and seemed
a miniature carved from ivory.
Clarity.
The transparenrest clarity of rorrnenred dread.
In Myasnitsky
a detail of dexterous skill therein,
a cable
gossamer-tenuous
why . sim ply a thread !

Barely seen

from sleepiness
pupil-point eyes

needle cheeks of burning red.

Lethargically, the cook" arises,

groaning and hawking,

from her bed.

Her brow thought-furrows scar,

till she's a pickled apple.

"Who?

Vladim Vladimich? 10

Ah !"

Off she went, slippers flapping.

The Second measures rhe paces from here.

She goes.

The paces die away ...

till hardly perceived ...

Somewhere the rest of the world disappears,

an unknown aims at me with that receiver.

The Enlightment
of the World
At all meetings stock-still the speakers stand,

unable to finish the gestures they began.

Just as they were,

mouths wide

with amaze,

they watch

this Birthday of aU Birthdays.1l

Squabble after squabble

is life to them seemingly.

Their homes

of everyday muck are fashioned,

A. F. Gubanova (Annushka), the cook-housekeeper in the Brik's qouse

(see photo-montage facing p. 170).
,
.0 A familiar abbreviation oC Ma:yakovsky's own Christian Dame and
patronymic: i.e . Vladimir Vladimirovich.
II In Russian the word ior Christmas is also an archa ic form for "Birth".

12

It is winter, and all Mo scow is covered with snow.

170

[1923

171

1923]

And everything

hangs on that very threadikin,

But can it be . ..

Of course it can!

No one crawled into th e phone at all,

there is no troglodyte-like pan .

Just myself in the phone,

mirrored in metal.
They should write him circulars from the A.C.E.C. ! H
With the Erfurr Programme, check it'S correctness.\.
Through one's first sorrow
raging,
senselessly,
a brain-burrowing beast crawls
reckless.

The Duet
One!

.
points

The receiver
'Hope bas been

abandoned.
Two!
Slowly it rises
and scops,
dead steady,
right between
my
entreaty-clouded eyes.
At that woman's slowness I want to cry:
"What's the show-off?
You stand like D'Anthes" poised.
Hurry,
hurry,
burrow through the wire
a bullet
of any calibre or poison."
More terrible than a bullet
that frorn-rhere-ro-here

W hat Can

H appen to

f1 Man

Handsome enough.
Comrades!
.
Weigh the pros and cons then!
This coming summer a poet,

who
will tour Paris,
a respect abl e Izvestia" correspondent,
now scratches the ch air with claws through his shoe.
Yesterday a man
with one stroke alone
of my fangs my looks I polar-beared !

pause,
the housekeeper drops between her yawns,
a sw allowed rabbit in the boa-consrrictor's jaws
along the cable,
I see,
a WORD crawls.
More terrible th an a wordfrom primordial history,
when only fangs would win men mates,
crawled out
from the flex
clawing jealousy,
a monster of those troglodyte days.
.. The man who shot Pu shkin in a duel delibera tely provoked .

Sha ggy.

My shirt han gs like furry hair.

You're also going there! ?
to moan inro the phone! ?
Go back to th e Arctic'!
To your ow n !
14
15

11

The All-Union Central Executi ve Com mittee of the USSR.

The Congre ss of the German Social-Democratic Party , held at Erfurt
in 1891, laid do wn the Party Programme of Marxism.
Th e official newspaper of the Soviet Government.

172

[1923

Polar-bearing
Like a bear,

when co deadly anger prone,

my breast

I turn

to my foe--the phone.

Inro the two-pronged receiver rest,

deep into the boar-spear,

my heart is pressed.

It gushes

A stream of coppery red.

Howls and blood

lapping, darkness sped..

, know

I don r

il they weep,no bears exist,

173

1923J
The
Leaky
Room
A bedstead

of iron.

Blanket jumbled.

He lies on the bedstead.

Quiet.

Shivering.

Tremors

through the bedstead rumble.

The bed-sheet wavelike is quivering.

Water licked a leg with a cold clammy touch.

Where's the water from?

Why so much?

It's me crying.

Snivelling.

but if they weep,

then it's just like this.

11

Dribbling tears.

] ust like this :

It's not true

without sympathetic falseness,

they're whimpering,
bursting into ravines of howls.
And like this their neighbour-bear Balshin,"
by whimpering awakened, behind the wall growls.
Yes , JUSt like that can howl every bear:
immobile,
jutting upward
his jaws,
and howling himself Out
lies in his lair,
tearing his cave with twenty claws.
A leaf dropped.
A landslide.
It scared.
let no rifle-cones
shoot a salvo from the pines.
He could only have been like that polar-beared
t hr oug h tears and fur, fringing the eyes.

one couldn't cry so much in years.

That damned bath!

Behind the sofa water wells.

Under the cable

behind the bookcase,

chen from the sofa

the water propels

Due through the casement, a floating suitcase.

The hearth ...

A fag-end .. .

Chucked it myself.

Must put it Out.

Put myself Out.

A neighbour in Mayak ovsky's apartment in Lyubyansky Lane .

Fear .

Where to?

A mile.

To what hearth on earth I'm impelled?

Beyond, shores of bonfires appear.

Everyt.h..ing's washed away,

even the smell of cabbage,

174

[1923

ever cooking,n rhe kitchen, cloying-sweet.

A river.

Far shores.

How deserted and savage!

In pursuit from Ladoga" how the wind howls fleet!

A river.

A mighty river.

Freezingness there.

The river ripples.

In the middle am r.

Clambering 00 the ice-floe,

a white polar-bear,

on my ice-floe pillow I float by.

Shores surge by,

vista after vista flows.

Beneath me a pillow of ice.

Water whirls by.

From Ladoga it blows.

The pillow-raft onward flies.

1 float on the icy pillow

fever-parched.

One sensation rlie waters can't wash away:

I'm forced to float

either under a bedstead-arch

or under a bridge

or something that way.

Ie was JUSt like that :

the wind and 1 blew by.

That river l

No, another.

Not that one at all.

No, not another! It was like chat -there stood 1.

It was so 18

it glittered.

Now I recall.

Lake Ladoga, the largest in Europe , and the source of the river Neva.

175

1923]
Thought grows.
.
I can't cope with it.
Go back!
The raft slows down as the waters resist.
Still more visible . ..
Clearer the scope of ir . , .
Now it's inevitable .. .
He'll be there!
He is!!!

The Man From

Seven Years

Ago

Waves wash the steel abutments, unabated.

Immovable,
terrible,
the sides it pierces
of the capital,
in desperation self-created,
rearing
on its sky-scraper piers.
With aerial clamps it embroiders the skies.
Steel soared from the water a fairy-scene.
Higher,
higher, I life my eyes ...
There!
There
on the bridge's parapet he leans . . .
Forgive me, Neva!
Ir doesn't forgive ...
.
rejected.
Take pity!
There's no pity in that surging sound.
He!
Heon inflamed skies projected,
stands a man by my hand pinned down.
He stands.
Tossing back his overgrown hair.

.176

[1923

Vainly I rumple

and paw my ears!

My own,

my very own voice

I hear.

By the knife of that voice my paws are pierced.

My very own voice-

it pleads,

it entreats now:

"Scop '

Don't desert me!

Vladimir!

Why didn't you then let me

hurl myself down?

At one go smash my heart on its piers.

Into that water I state

for seven years,

bound to the parapet by cables of lines."

Seven years at me that water peers.

When, oh, when

will the day of deliverance shine?

You roo've become a hanger-on to their caste?

Kiss?

Eat?
Let Que your trousers?
Into their family bliss
you
intend to pass,
steal into their life-mode
like mincing scroungers?
Don't imagine it! "
His arm leans beneath the landscape.
Threatening
sinewy
in the underbridge steeps.
"It
19

W'S

I'll find you.

au
Torture y . . . h you
FUllS

for keeps!

I hear the thunder

of a festival
there,

in the city.
So what!
Tell them they must attend it.
Carry the Resolution of the Executive Committee.
Confiscate my agony,
rescind it.
Until,
over the depths
of the Nevsky River,
Saviour-love comes to me-
if ever,
you too won't be loved
you roo'Il walk the water.
Rowan!
Drown midst household bricks and mortar !

Help!
Stop, pillow!
Useless tr ies.
Paws co paddle with
are very poor oars.
The bridge shrinks.
Nevsky's tides
sweep me further
and further from the shores.
I'm already far away .
Maybe, at least a day.
A day
from my shadow on the bridge's face .
But the thunder of his voice overtakes me on the way.
With sails Outstretched those menaces chase.
"You think you'll forger ehe Neva's glittering? !

I who summoned you'Don't try to escape!

i.e, of his own poems, in particular "Man", written seven years before,

177

1923J

178

(1923

17

1923J

You 'll replace her? !

No one ever will!

You'll remember co your grave chat splattering,

from my poem 'Man' splashing still."

I began to shout.

Can on e overpower it with a yell? !

The storm's bass

overpower one never can!

Help! Help! Help! H elp!

There
.

on the bridge,

on the Neva,

a man!

II .

Xl\1AS EVE

Fantpstic
Reality
Shores surge by
vista after vista .
Beneath me

a pillow of ice.
The winds of ladog a crumple the crests.
The ice-raft
onward flies,
"Help!"
I sign al with a rocket of words.
I fall, beaten down by the jolting.
The river ends
the sea swells outwards.
The ocean
so big, it's insulting.
"H elp !
Help! . . . ..
A hundred times repeated
I roar battery salvoes.
A rectangle
grows
beneath me,

a pillow-island gro ws.

The din is dying ,

dying, dying.

Silencer, silenter, silent , ..

There are no seas.

On snow
I'm lying.
Around
mil es of dry land.
Dry's just a word .
W ith snow it's wet land.
I' m abandoned to a sno wstormy band.

180
What land is this?

What strand?

Green-

Lap
Love-land?

[1923

181

1923J
I'm nor a bear

only appear to be!

The Saviour

The Pain

of Reality

There

from the terminus"

a little man appears.

Step after step the short one comes.
Behind his head
the moon a halo uprears,
I'll urge
that he takes to a boat
at once.
It's the image of Jesus!
The Saviour.
Calm and good,
his halo moon-engendered.
He 's nearer.
Face young and not yet shaven.
It's not Jesus at all.
Younger,
gentler.
He's nearer now,
now he's a Yc.L-er. 2 1
No fur coat or cap.
In tunic and puttees dressed.
Now clasps his hands
as if praying to console us.
Now waves them ,
as if a meeting he addressed.
Cotton-wool snow.
The boy trod conan-wool apace.
Cotton-wool framed in gold
what more commonplace?

From the cloud ripened a moony melon,

slowly on the wall the shadows fleeting.

Petrovsky Perk, "

I run.

Khodynka'" fell

behind me.

Ahead Tverskaya's" white sheeting.

Ah-oo-oo-ee I

I threw an '00' ro the Boulevard"

Motor-car

or bullock-shaft,

but

my mug's in snow

feet-deep.

Bullet-words of blasphemy rip.

24
"By NEp made inept? !

Why're eyes in blinkers? !

Hey, you r

A fig for the Mother of NEP ! I I

Masquerading stinker!"

Ah!
But there

I'm a bear.

A misunderstanding!

Passers-by listen to me !
20
21

"
OJ

2 .

' 5

In the suburbs of M oscow.

Also Field s, so named , in the suburbs.

U litsa Tverskaya , main street of M oscow, now called Gorky Street

Moscow is rin ged with a vast Boulevard known as Sadovaya Koltso-

The Garden Ring.

Lenin's New Economic Policy, which to the ardent revolutionary was
a step bac kwards. if only a temporary one .
Paraphrasing the most blasphemous of Russian swear-words.

2.
27

In Russian the word is \Zasfava, which means Gate, usually indicating

the terminal lines of tram a nd bus routes in the suburbs of Moscow.
Member of the Young Communist League.

182

[1923

183

11923J

It's such a sorrow,

th at one can on ly

wound oneself !

Into a gypsified love-song swoon yourself.

A Gyps)'

Love-song
The boy str ode on, eyeing the sunset-sky there.
Unsurpassably yell ow the sun set.
Even th e snow yell owed at the G ates of Tverskaya,
Nothing seein g, the boy str ode ahead.
Strod e,
then
still stands.
In silk
steel
hands.
For an hour the suns et watched, eyes fixed
beyond the boyan the horizon's border.
The snow, crunching, jolt s joints , and cricks.
For what?
Why ?
By whose orders?
The boy was frisked by the pickpocket-wind then,
The youngster 's note fell co the breeze.
That breeze rang up Perrovsky Park to begin with!
"G oodbye . . .
I'm ending it ...
Blame no one pl ease."

...

all Russia.
son aft er son,
daughter after daughter rush es.

Everybody'l

Parents

"Volodya! For Xmas!

My boy!
What happiness!
Oh, what joy! . .. "
Threshold darkness.
Room electrically kindled.
At onceat an angle the faces of my kindred.
" Volodya !
Oh,God!
What's the matter?
What's happened, here?

N othing Can
Be Done
How like m e
he seems to be!

It's awfuL.
Could it happen?

I run to a puddle.
The dr enched t uni c began to unbutton.
So wh at, comrade !
Far wor se for the other here

From that bridge he's been staring for seven years.

I put it on with difficultyquite another calibre.
Can 't lather myself nohow
teeth chatter away.
From paws and mu g I sh aved thick fur .
Myself in the mirror ice . . .
with a razor-sharp ray ...
I'm almost,
almost the same exactly .
I run.
Addresses my brain 's shufiling-exrracring,
First '
through backyards
to Presnaya Sereer,"
pulled by insti nct to the family retreat.
After me,
stretched to vanishing p oint,

2B

A street in M oscow whe re Maya kovsky's m other and sisters lived.

184

(1923

You 're all over red,

show me your collar, dear!"
"It's nothing, Mama,
I'll wash it off at home.
Now I've got abundancewater too.
But chat's not the paine.
Dear ones!
My own!
Do you sciU love me?
love me? !
You do?
Then listen!
Auntie!
Sisters!
Mum!
Put out the Xmas candles!
Shut up the house.
I'll show cbe way ...
straight there .. .
Come . . .
We'll take everyone
and go
right now.
Don't be afraid
It's just near by
Only 400 odd little miles or SO,29
we'll be there in the twinkling of an eye.
He w aits.
Straight on the bridge we'll go:'
"Dear Volodya,
calm down!"
But my repartee
those squeaking family voices shocks:
"So!
For love you substitute afternoon tea?
love you exchange for the darning of socks? ! "
~"

The distance from Moscow

10

Leningrad.

185

1923]
.11 Tour lI.Jith Mama
Not younot Mama Als andra Alseyevn a'" alone
Through th e whole uni verse my family is sow n.
Look,
the m asts oE ships bristle on edge
into Germany th e Oder" has thrust its wedge.
Alright, Maroa,
we're alr eady in Stertin."
Now, Maroa,
we're driving to Berlin.
N ow you're flying, with motors dinning:
Paris,
USA,
Brooklyn Bridg e,
Piccadilly,
Sahara,
wher e a curl y-headed picaninny
is guzzling her N egro-m ammy's tea.
You 'll crumple wi th an eiderdow n
both freedom

I!

and scone.
Even brin g to n augh t
the Commune-to-be.
For ages
you wer e snug in a house of your ow n,
and now you're snug in your own House Committee! ,.
Jud ging,
punishing ,
thundering October came,
and under its mighty wing,
fire-plumed
you laid out the dishes
and staked out a claim.
30
! I

3~
33

A familiar form of Alexandra Alexeyevna, mother of the poet

The River Oder,
Stettin, now called Szezecin.
After tbe Revolution all hous es were nati onalised and controlled by
House Committees of tenants and members of social and politica l
organisations.

186
With a rake spider's hairs cannot be combed.
House,
home sweet home,
disappear!
Farewell !
The last steps I abandon then.
How can any family help here? !
Ch ick love!
The little love of a brooding ben!
IJ

I:

,I

I~

II

The Mirage
of Presnaya

In sight of all I run and see

Like two Kuclrinsky TowersM armed
my very self
I run
to meet
with presents under my arms.
Taut-thrust across the tempest masts of crosses,
ballast after ballast heaved from the ships.
Desolated lightness be accursed!
Distance snarls houses out of cliffs.
There are no people, no terminating lines.
Snow burns.
All around is naked and bare.
Only from fires behind the blinds
Xmas-tree pine-needles flare.
Obstructing my feet,
at full-speed braking abrupt,
walls arose , windows lined up.
On panes
shadows
of shooting-gallery targets
revolved in the windows,
inviting into apartments.
" . An old M oscow buildi ng; once a famo us lan dmark; now demolished. On
his way to his mothe r's house he had to pas s Kudrinsky Square. now
re-named Ploshchad Vostaniya (Square of the Uprising).

[1923

187

1923]
Eyes don't move from (he Neva,
chilled and wet,
he stands and waits
they'll help him yet.
Behind the first-coming threshold I meet

I set my feet.

In the por ch way a drunkard nightmares aired.

Sobered up and bolted from the porchway stair.

The hall for a minute, burst into a cry there:

"A bear,

a bear,
a bear,
a b-e-a-a-r .. ;"
The Husband of

Felzla Davidovna

with me and with

all acquaintances

Then,
twisting like a question-mark there,
the host peered half-eyed;
"Some likeness!
Mayakovsky !
Some bear!"
Off went the host with honeyed politeness:
"Please!
come m.
Never mind
1'11 stand instead .
An 'Inadvertent Joy' as Blok once said."
Pekla Dvidna - my wife.
My dau ghter here's
exactly like me,
to the life

seventeen and a half little years.

And these others .. .

you 're acquainted, I hear? 1"

,,, The name of a book of poem s by Alexa nder Blok.

188

(1923

From mouse-holes where rhey had disappeared,

from under the bed crawl partners in fear.

With giant moustaches

like lamp-funnel brushes

from under the rable brorher-tipplers came crushing.

From under che cupboard creep admirers and readers.

Can one count all these faceless paraders?

The peaceful procession flows and ebbs,

Beards asparkle with apartment cobwebs.

For ages they've stood

just as they are .

No whip

and the filly of living never starts.

But in place of guardian-angels and fairies bewitching

the guardian-angel's
a tenant in breeches."

Bur most terrible of all :

by his height,

by his skin,

his leather jacket,

his very gait is mine!

At one glance

I knew-

alike as a twin
it's me

myself,

my very I.

From mattresses,

through the bed rags bearing,

bed-bugs lift their paws in greeting.

The whole samovar's with Light-beams laced

srrerching our irs handles to embrace.

Wallpaper

wreaths
"

with fly-spots blown

crown my head all on their own.

3 6

i.e. a Commi ssar or Soviet official. During the period of civil war
occupiers of fiats. in order to dodge enforced billeting, would take in a
Soviet official of some kind [or "protection ".

189

1923J
Angel trumpeters played a flourish pulsating,
out of rhe ikon's lustre caseating.
Jesus,
raising
his thorny crown,

polireiy bows down.

Even Marx,

harnessed in a crimson frame,

a Philistine load must row just the same.
Birds sing from every perching spat,
geraniums climb to nostrils from each little pot.
As they were, grannies, photographed squatting,
gladly descend from pharos on the wainscotting.
They all bowed down,
all simpered cheerily:
some in a sexton's treble,
some a phrase in bass:
Xmas!
I
"A Merry
Merry Xmas .
Xmas'
Merry

A MerryChrist

Mas!-"

The host

shifts a chair

or gives a cough,
or from the table-cloth brushes the crumbs off.
"On Xmas Eve! ...
1 only I'd known! ..
Why, I thought you were busy . ..
at home .. .
with your own . . . "

Senseles,

R.equests

My own?!

Ye-ss ...

they're peculiar, see,

190

[192

191

1923] '

Could a witch on a broomstick find them?

My own
from the Ob
and the Yenisei'"
are trailing now,
on all fOlUS behind me.
Which is my home ever? !
From it, just now,
on the River Neva
an ice-pillow floated down
my home.
twixt dams,
ice becomes,
and jams ...
I grabbed at words,
either the most ingratiating,
or lyrically ringing,
or terribly roaring.
Prayed,
threatened,
pleaded,
agitated,
spurning benefits
turned to eternal glory.
"Why, that's for everyone ...
for ourselves ...
for you and me ...
Why, wasn't it for myself,
that 'Mystery'? ! a
The poet, etcetera ...
He's important to all, isn't he?
Not just for myself ...
not personal whims-to-be ...
For example, putting it crudely,
I'm a bear ...
But isn't creating a poem,
skinning a pel t ? !
11 Arctic Rivers in Russia .

.'" Mayakovsky's own play called Mystery Bouf].

Put in a lining of rhymes

and a fur-coat's chere ! ...
Then by the hearth .. .
there's coffee ...
a fag as well ...
Easy as pie:
takes, say, ten minutes ...
But it's needed now ...
before it's coo late for me ...
One can applaud ...

Say
'There's still hope in it!' . ..
But it must be now ...

must be taken seriously ... "

They listened to a worthy clown, smiling to please .
Along the table bread-balls they're rolling.
Words beat on their brows,
like on a plate
peas.
Mellowed by wine,
sorneone's sentimentally consoling:
"W-a-i-t .. _
w-a-i-t there ...
It's a very simple affair.
They say he's waiting ...
on the bridge ...
I'll go!
That's on the corner 01 Kuznetsky Bridge,"
I know ...
go
!
"
let me.Come, lee's run.
d
k 1"
h corners- .
Aroun r e
hisslOg,.
d-r-u-n-k.'
"H-e- -s ...
Enough of whines!
Drinks and dines,
H

Actually a well-known street in the cent re of Moscow and not a

bridge at all!

192

[1923

193

1923)
Wadded with air, pl ates quieten down ...
The wallpaper,

dines and drinks

then gambles Sixty-Six"
To bell with theory !
NEPis practice see.
Pour for him,
carve for him.
Futurist,
eat heartily!"
Not at all embarrassed by the safety of jaws,
from jaw against jaw comes crunching roars.
Between drinks,
our of art esian borings,
come words of poetic disputes
pouring.

the walls,
faded .. _
faded . ..
T he g rey cones of en gr avings spread and spread.
From the wall,

Bocklin
the city invaded,
disposing to Moscow his "The Isle of the Dead! ..U
Long ago.
Too long ago
now.
Nothing's simpler.

No!
There

Th

in a boat,
in shrouded cerement,

stands an immovable ferryman.

Might be fields,

might be seas

their rustling's effaced by silences.

Beyond the seas,

cypresses

raise to the skies de athliness.

Alright.

I'll step in !
At once
the cypress trees
broke ranks,
and went stamping the streets.
T he cypresses became me asures of peace,
Night's watchmen
militiamen
on their beats .

d
h arrresses'
e bugs 'having greeted,
mustiness.
craw led back to t e m
Everything settled und er the centuries' dustiness.
Bur he stands there
nailed to the railings.
"Soon!"
He believes,
he awaits.
Once more humdrum life berailing,
once more,
word-slamming, my brow
hammers away.
Again,
I attack, right, left and centre.
But strange,
words pass right through as they enter.

The
Extraordinary

Bass quietens down co a mosquito-whine now.

ID

A gambling card game.

4 1

Arn old Bccklin (1827-1901). a popula r Swiss painter of the 19th

century, whose canvas "T he Isle of the Dead" was widely distributed
in engraved reproductions. Tt showed Charon the Fe rryman of Death
with h,is boat crossing the SIX, etc. Rachmaninoff wrote a symphonic
poem inspired by the same picture.
N

194

195
[1923

'1923]
Stooes freeze,

Having quartered himself,

w hire Charon of the Shades

becomes the columns of post-office colonnades.

grave-shivers grow,
and the house-broom sweeps but little.
Taking my shoes off down below
I tread on steps
and spittle.
can't
assuage
the
pain in my heart,
I
and link inca link weld.
Thus,
having murdered,
42
Raskolnikov departs
and comes to ring the bell.
Guests crowd the staircase .
I abandon the stairs
wall-clinging,
myself I strive co efface,
and hearstrings tingling.
Maybe, she sat
like that
inadvertently there,
just for guests
for the broad masses,
And fingers
themselves,
to the limits of despair,
go strumming at sorrow so rashly.

No Way Que
Thus with an axe they break into sleep,

taking the measure of sleeping brows,

then everything disappears

in a leap,

and you see but the butt-end peeping out.

Thus the drums of the streets

break morrow

into sleep,

and memory re -gulps it,

that there's the corner

and there is sorrow,

and behind them-

she-
the culprit.

Shuffiing the windows with the palm of the corner,

pane after pane I fanned oue from the wall.

All my life's staked

on the window-cards' draw now.

One pip of the pane-

and I'll lose all.

That cheat-

cardsharper of mirages-

on window-panes

has marked , mockingly, pips of delight.

The pack of the panes

triumphantly flames

with impudence Out of the paws of the night.

If- as before -

I could grow up, that's all,

as a poem through windows come flying.

Friends
And the raven-guests? !
The door-wings
a hundred times slammed the corridor in the ribs.
Bawlers bawling,
brawlers brawling
wove round me dead drunkenness's webs.
A strip.
A chink.

No,

hug the dampness of the wall.

These are not

those poems and times.

-It

From Dostoyevsky's novel Crime and Pu nis hment ,

(1923

196
Quips
sink:

"Annushka's here--~ 9

why, you're blushing, dear! "

Pies co eat ...

stove co beat . ..

Fur coat

doff,

help it off .. .

Words're deafened by the one-seep tempo,

and again through the one-step tempo tremble :

"What's all the merriment?

Really?"

Voices blear . . .

Again the strip lie up a phrase or so.

Words unintelligible-

particularly at one go.

Words like

(without malice aforethough t) :

"Someone here's broken his leg.

So let's enjoy what the good God bas brought,

and dance a little after our peg."

Y es,

their voic es.

F amiliar exclamations.

Struck dumb in recognition,

crushed flat as could be,

1 cut phrases co th e pattern of declamation

Yesthat's them
talking about me.

Rustling.

Turning over music perhaps.

"A leg, you say?

Isn't that cute , you chaps!"

And once again

glasses in coasts are clinking.

<)

Lily Brik's ho usekeepe r.

197

1923]
glassy-sparks from cheeks
scatter ablinking.
drunken:
And once again,
"1nteresring , for a faCt :
So you say he broke in hall and cracked?"
"What a piry ro disappoint you," they cackled.
"He didn't crack, rhey say,
only crackled,"
And once again
caws and slamming of doors,
and once again dancing, scraping floors,
And once again
walls' burning steppes
stamp into ears
and pane in two-steps.

Only it
Shouldn't be
YOlt

By the wall, I'm not I,

unseen,
unheard.
Let life be ground by delirium 's noi se.
Only it shouldn't be, it shouldn't be her
unendurable voice!
The day,
the year to the commonplace I betrayed.
Myself from chat delirium I suffocated.

It
h as eaten our my life by the fug of apartments.
It cried;
"Decide
from this .floor
down to the pavement!"
I ran from th e summons of windows gaping wide,
loving I ran let it be one-sided, informal,

cnona

creu pacxaxeunere CTe" "

f

noa

y XOM 3BCHSIT Ii B3AblXalOT 8

rycrene,
_

198
let it be but poetry,

but seeps in rhe night,

I scribble,

and their souls become normal.

But in verse I love,

and in prose I'm dumb."

You see, I can't say it,

I just keep mum.

But where, my beloved,

tell me, dear, where I'm wrong,

did I ever betray my love

in a song?

Here

every sound,

should call,

should confess.

But songs can't be made even one word less.

I run up a scale,

a trill.

Point-blank the eyes

aim at the bull's-eye l

Proudly on rwo legs still ,

"D on't move or I'll fire! "

Intacr-e-I survive!

"Look,

even here, my dear."

I exclaim,

"bombarding with verses the horror of the everyday,

I'm protecting my loved one's name,

making sure

my curses

never come your way.

Come,

respond to my poetry.

I am here, having called everyone.

4 4

A t this time Mayakovsk y wrote a 36-page leller to Lily Erik trying to

explain his spiritual crisis. He never sent it-it contains these very lines;
but not in a worked-out poetic al form.

[1923

.199
1923)
Arise !

Now only you could rescue me.

To the bridg e - run ! "
A bull in the slaug hter hou se
beneath the blow
I ben d my stu bborn head.
Mustering myself,
there I'll go.
One second
and off I set .

The lvI4Tch

of Poetr')'

That very last second of all,

that second
has become the beginning,
the beginning
of a din incredible.
The whole North din ned.
Not enough the dinning.
By that aerial tremor,
the vibration that began,
I guess
.,
L b 4.
tt S over . yu an.
By the cold,
by the banging of doors there,
I g uess
it's over Tvyer."
By the noise
windows wid e-op en fling
I g uess
it's over Klin.
Now R azumovskoye's" drowned in tempest devastation.
., Cities in Russia along the route from Leningrad (Petrogra d) to Moscow.
U
Now called Ka li nin
47
Pe trovs~o ye- R nzum~vsko ye . 1n1t sta tion en r oute from Leningrad to
Moscow.

200

'1

,I

01

[1923

Over Nicolayevsky" now,

over the station.
All now is but one breathing)
underfoot
steps ro am ,
rremblingly swimming,
seedling
in the Neva's foam.
Terror has reached me.
It's all in the brain now.
Stretching the nervous structure to the top,
All the time dinning and dinning out
exploded,
pinned down;
Scop!
I came from those seven years ago,
from these four hundred miles at so,
came to command:

201

1923J
On the bridge of the years,
derided,
scorn ed)
a redeemer of earthly love I'll be, alone,
I must sta nd,
sta nd up for everyone born,
for everyo ne I'l l moa n,
for everyone atone.
La Rotondo"

The walls in a two-step broke

into a three-,
at a quarter-tone broke

into a century . ..

As an old man,
on

a table

I climb,
in some kind of Montmartre,
for the hundred-thousandth time
The patrons were fed up with it a long time ago
They know beforehand
everything , as if from a stave :
I shall call them
(some novelry l )
to go
somewhere,
someone or the other to save.
For this drunken burden, excusingl y,
the host tells his guests: "R ussian, you see! "
Women
trusses of flesh and g lad-rags

~'No ~.,

Came to decree :

"Let go!"

let go!

Not a word,
not a plea

is needed.

What's the point

would you
alone
have succeeded? !
I'll wait,

together with the earth

love-betea ved
with the whole human mass

giggling,,')'

we'll achieve it.

Seven years I've stood,
two hundred I'll defy,
just for that waiting,
crucified,
. , Railway terminus in Moscow called the Leningrad Station.

10

dr ag me downby 'he legs:

'0

"We won't go.

For you see ' 9

Don't be so sm art!
we're all tarts!"

A famo us ca fe in Montma rtre, a rendezv ous of a rtists, which Maya kovsky

freque nted When in Pari s.

202
If only the Seine and the Neva were the same!

,
I

A splash of the future's ride,

I wander in a mist along the Seine,

by all concernporaneousness exiled.

Seven-footed,

derided,

bruise-booted,

incarcerated,

over militarist helmets

I bawl in the boulevards :

"Under the Red Flag!

March!

Over life out-dated!

Through the brains of men!

Through women's hearts!"

They chased us

with special fury indeed.

Today

ehey really put on the heat!

Half-Death
Must cool my brow,

calm down a bit.

I'll go,

go wherever it may lead.

Below whistle Sergeant-peepers.

From the pavement

a body's removed

by sweepers.

Dawn.

I rise, the River Seine's canopy

grey shadows of cinematography.

There
as a school kid saw them
fro m my desk-flaps

France flashing sideways fro m its maps.

By the lase current in memory's cell

I trailed along to the East lands

in farewell.

[1923

203

1923J
An Accidental
Station
Midflight with a jerk,

I stalled,
and was ditched.
By the tatters of my trousers hitched.
I groped,
slippery,
like an onion-dome.
Very big indeed.
Gilded chrome.
Beneath the onion-dome ,
bells howling.
Evening fringed the wall's teeth.
I'm on cop of Ivan the Great,
towering.
Watch-tower of the Kremlin peak.
Moscow windows
are hardly seen.
Merriment.
Firrrees Xmasfied the scene.
In the canyons of the Kremlin waves beat unabated:
either songs
or the bells for Xmas pealed.
From seven hills,50
through Daryal'" precipitated,
Moscow's
festival."
like the Terek reeled.
My hairs stand on end.
Likea frog I strain.
I fear
if I yield bur one single yard,
tha t old
Xmascide horror
aga in

'. I

.. t

"0 Moscow is built on seven hills. like Rome .

' I

Th e riv er Tcrek rushes thr ough a gorge in the valley of Daryal ncar
.T bilisi.. Georgia. USSR.
r.e. Christmas.

204

[192

205

1923)

once more in Myasnitskaya

will tear me apart.

They spit on their palms.

W ith juicy palms raised,
with their hands,
with the wind,
without mercy,
with uncounted

R ecapitlliating

the Past

With my arms a cross,

slaps,

a cross

to a bast-wisp

on the summit-peak,

Through arcades

I catch my balance,

through dusters of glove-shops chase

gesticulate like mad.

women,
dispensing perfume creacly-pungenr,
peeled off their gloves,
flung them in my face ,
in my face whole glove-shops flun g then.
Newspapers,
journals,
don't gape for nothing!
To the help of things flun g in my face
comes abuse,
from p aper after paper frothing.
Gossip grits my ears!
Gripe me, slanders base!
As it is by love's sickness I'm a cripple here.
Keep a slop-pail for your own kind for a starr.
What's the point of insults!
With you I don't interfere.
I'm only poetry,
I'm only the heart.

N ight thickens,
can't see a foot in front of me.
The moon.
Under me
Mashuk" ice-dad.
JUSt can 't keep my balance nohow,
as if from the Ba zMr 54 _
with cardboard hands.
They'll see me,
Here I'm all visible now.

lookif

ehe Caucasus swarms with Pinkerron'" bands.

They 've seen me.
Everyone's informed,
the signal's given.

loved ones'
friends'
ribbons of humanity,
through the whole universe the signal's driven.
Hurrying to settle up,
duellists are coming to me.
Bristling up,
menaces
more and more mounting . . .
A mountain in the North Caucasian ra nge.
Children 's cardboard figures, which jer k up the arms and legs when
pulled by the string, used to be sold at a fair held in Red Square.
u . A famous American private defective agency, notorious at 011e time for
being used as s Lrikebreakers.

they flay my face .

But down below :

"N o !
You're our enemy yet ,
One was alr eady caug h t like (hac

o r,

an Hussar! S6
Smell the gunpowder,
the pistol's lead .
Bare your breast!
Don't playa coward's pare!"
Lerrnontov, who was killed in a duel at Pyatigorsk in the Caucasus.

206
The LaJI
Death
More slashing than torrents,

than thunder more bartering,

evenly,

from brow to brow now,

from every rifle,

from every battery,

from each Mauser and Browning,

from a hundred paces,

from ten,

from two,

point-blank-fire
load after load.

They pause to take breath, chen anew

flying lead litters the road,

Finish him off!

Let his heart by lead be reft :

So nor even a tremor's left!

For in the end

all things end .

Tremors roo are ended then.

That Which
Remained
Slaughter has ended.
Merriment chatters.

Relishing details, ravelling steps drag.

Only on the Kremlin

the poet's ratters

shine in the wind a red, red flag.

And into heaven

as before

lyrical starshine poured .

Watching in wonder

was stardom's wealth

the Great Bear super-troubadoured,

What for?

To become King of Poets by stealth?

[1923

207

1923]
Great Bear,
through Ar arat-eras, beat
the Ark of the Dipper
through the flood of the heavens!
Onboard
an astronaut there,
brother of the Great Bear,
my verses the universe's tumult deafens.
Speed !
Speed!
Speed !
Into space!
Fix your gaze!
The sun sparkles the peaks.
From the jetty smile the days.

208

(1923

III.

A PETITION ADDRESSED TO . . .

(Please, Comrade Chemical-Engineer, fill in the name yourseJ/ ! )

The Ark docks.

Arcs this way!

The jetty.

Hey!

Throw me the line!

And at once

I felt the weight

of window-sill plinths on these shoulders of mine.

The sun

dried up the flood-night with its heat .

At the window

in fever-the day I meet.

Only from the globe--Mouot Kilirnanjaro,

Only from Africa's map-Kenya arose.

The sku II of the globe is bald.

rill hunchbacked in sorrow

over earth's ball.

Tills weight of grief

would make the world press

to itself real mountain-breasts.

So that from its poles ,

along all its veins,

burning and stony,

sur ging lava should flare.

So I want to weep, unrestrained,

a communist-polar-bear.

My father was related

to hereditary gentry,

on my hands the skin is soft and gentle.

Maybe

with verses I'll end my days,

and never ever see turning lathes.

But with all my breathing,

heart-beating,
voice-rending,

209

1923]
with every hair-bristle in spiked terror up-ending,
with the holes of my nostrils,
the nails of my eyes,
with my teeth, set on edge in bestial cries,
with my brow's angry muster,
my por cupining skin,
with a trillion pores
literally
each pore irate,
in summer,
in autumn,
m w mrer,
in sp ring,
awake,
or asleep,
I accept nor,
I hate
all of it,
everything.
Everything
into us
past slavishness driven,
everything,
chat in swarming trifles teem
ossifying
and assify ing living
even in our own
red-flag society.
One satisfaction
I won't be gran ting,
to see me
by a volley
silenced.
You wo n't soon tru dge behind me cha n ting :

"A Requiem for a man of talents."

From behind a corner

one could knife me.

But at my brow D 'Anthes will never aim.
o

210

I.
:,
I

'I

[19 23

Four times I'll age-four times rejuvenated be,

before I reach the grave.

Bur no matter where I die,

dying, I'll sing.

No matter in what sl.um I lie,
when dead.
1 knowI am worthy of lying
with those that fell under our Bag of red.
Bur death is death
no matter for what I die.
It's terrible - not to love,
terrible - not co dare.
For everyone - a buller,
for everyone - a knife.
When's my rum?
And what's my share?
In the very depths
of childhood, maybe,
I'll find ten days
fairly happy.
But that's for others!
If only ir were for me!
But it isn'c.
It doesn't exist

d'you see!
If one believed the hereafter!
So easy a trial trip.
One's only
to lift one's hand
and in a fl ash
the buller
will rip

a thundering path to the hereafter-land.

What can I do,

if through and through

with all,
all my heart's measure,
in life on this ball,

4CThIPC:K/{hl COCTLl P I() Cb , lJCThlp C:t:,\hl OMOAO:KCI-/Hhli:L

211

1923]
this world,
I believed,
believe
and treasure? !
Faith

.:

;, !
",

I::

I,

:: "
I '

No marter how much longer waiting time

I see clearly,
so clear, haJlucioation-real,
rhat it seems
I've only to rid me of this rhyme,
and I'll run along this line
into the life ideal.
. his? ;> I
Is It t .
Is it chat.. . P to me?

, I

Is It u
I see clearly,
ro the tiniest detail I see.
Air into air,
as if brick on brick appears,
inaccessibl e co decay and putrefaction,
gleaming,
rearing through th e eras
the workshop of human resurrection.
There he is
that great-browed
quiet scientist,
before the experiment, furrowing his brow.
N ame-searching
a book-

The Whole Earth its title-list.

The Twentieth Century.
Whom to resurrect now?
"There's Mayakovsky here . ..
Let's find someone brighter
This poet's not handsome enough.
Reject."

212

[1923

Then I cry out

from th ese very pag es of wri ting:

"D on't cum over the page!

Re surrect !

Hope
Puc a heart in m e Transfuse blood
to th e uttermost vein.
Inj ect thought into my skull with your skill !
My earthly life I never Jived out to the end.
On eart h ,
my Jove I could never fuLfil.
I was seven foot tall.
T o me what's a foot or two?
For such works even a plant-louse can do.
L scra tch ed wit h a pe n, eyegl asslik e squeeze d into

th e spectacle-case of a little room.

I'll do for nothing what ever you ask

clean ,

wash,
dust,
sweep,
or swill.
I'll work even as a porter,
wha teve r th e task.
Do you h ave porters still?

Merry was l
is th ere point in m erriment,

if our sorrow 's inextricabl e ?

Now, teeth are bared,
th ey' re only meant
to grind,

to gra b w hatever's g rabable,

A nyt hin g can happen
depr ession or sor row dr ags . .
Call on m e!
The joke of a fool m ay com e in handy.

213

1923)
I'll entertain you

with some ga gs

h erbole,.
Icy

of YP
allegories
. hanky-pan .

and poenc

I loved ...

No point in delving in the deep.

Painful?

Let it be ...

you live and pain becomes dear.

I love animals too-

do you still keep

Zoos?

Let me be a zoo-keeper there.

I love animals.

I'v e but to see a doggie's tail quiver

there's one at the baker's here-

bald completely,

I'm even ready to take out

my very own liver.

I don't begrudge it , funny fellow,

eat me!

Love
It may,
may be,

some time,
some day,
along a pathway of the
Gardens of the Zoo
she roo -

~~~dens

for she loved animals -Will also

. .

smillOg'like th at photo.

he desk of my room.

lOt

, ; T his is a photo of Lily Brik in the Berlin Zo ological Gardens.

re-enter,

214

[1923

She is beautiful
they will Eor certain resurrect her.

Your

thirtieth century

will leave far behind it

flocks of trifles' heart-rending sighs.

215

1923]
our father,

at least , will be the world,

the earth,

at the very least-our mother.

Now love unfulfilled

we are requiting

with the eternal srarriness of endless nights.

Resurrect

if only because,

everyday-muck rejecting,

I awaited you,

a poet of srr.ife!

If only for that

resurrect me !

Resurrect
I want to Jive out my life!

$0 that love won't be a lackey there

of livelihood,

wedlock,

lust

or worse.

Decrying bed,

forsaking the fireside chair,

so that love shall Bood the universe.

So as not to be,

by sorrow aged made)

begging in the name of some Christ's birth.

$0 that,

t he very first cry of

"Comrade! "

shall spin into one this very earth.

So as to live

not victims in home-holes curled.

$0 that henceforth

all kindred

to each other

c) Q'

From a letter

10

Lil y Brik. Mo yakovsk y is al ways th e puppy

and Lily Erik th e kitt en.

216

[1923

NOlES ON ABOUT THIS

(The Prologue)

Abosa who/-about this?

The introduction to the poem scares the theme, which for
emphasis the poet doesn't spell our in so many letters. He leaves
the rhyme to indicate it. This theme-lave-was considered
"personal and petty" boch in the early days of the Revolution
and indeed right up to his de ath. It was considered a "petty
bourgeois hangover" and not a theme for poetry of social sig
nificance. But despite Mayakovsky's own sincere attempts to
"crush under foot the throat of his very own" lyrics, this theme
kept hammering at his brow, however much he tried to repress
it out of Party discipline.
One year later, in "lenin", he said:
Abouc chis and that I'll write in its hour,
but now 's no time for a lover and his lass.
All my ringing poecic power
I give to you , attacking class. (p. 266)
With the lyrical theme is also associated tragedy and the
suicide theme, first developed in "The Tragedy of Mayakovsky"
and "Man" and now in '(About This". In a rejected line at the
beginning of "T he Ballad" of this poem he wrote :

217

1923)

And in one of his last poems "A Letter from Paris to Comrade
Kostfo V on the Nature of love", he apologises for having
squandered on lyricism space allotted him in the Y oung Gua1'd
magazine and, anticipating th e criticisms and uproar th at even
tually ensued over this, he finishes up :
As one waiting for a lover to come

Iliseeo to the ve ry lase beat

in my breast- where love has begun to hum,

all tOO human an d simple indeed.

Flood, fire, hurrican e

thunderously come surging by.

Master it who can ?

You can? Just you try . ..

The greatest poet of the Socialist epoch tried-and couldn't.

But in " Abou t This" he was still trying.

Valery Bryusov had made a very fait hf ul and beautiful trans

lation of Oscar Wilde's poem, which Mayakovsky used. Even the
metre and rhyming paralleled the ori ginal in a remarkable way.
The editors of the 1940 edition of the Collected Works give
this note to the section he aded "Ballad of Reading Gaol" :
This work of Oscar Wilde, written in prison, was taken
for its associatio n with th e external conditions in which
Mayakovsky found himself at rhat rime.'

This tragedy-to.be is "he" and "she"

and in the firsc dr aft of the prologue he wrote :
This theme points a muzzle at my temple.

However another co mmen tator on this same point, Professor

Roman Jakobson, P ro fessor of Slavic Studies, Harvard Univer
sity, U.S.A., a frie nd of M ayako vsky, says:
This remark ex pla ins th e line "Why a gaol?", but the
relationship to Read ing Gaol rem ain s in rhe shadow. For
the Ball ad o f Wilde is ch ar acterised, not so much by the
gaol, about which and in which he wro re, but by a st ory

And although Freud was also taboo throughout those years

(and apparently still is) Mayakovsky knew :
It 's a cunning th eme this! Under events up-pressing,
in the depths of the instincts preparing to spring,
should it erupt in a fury-having dared to suppress it
your spirit will burse from your very own skin.

THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL

about a condemned man and his execution :

1

Co llected Works. 1940 edition, Vol. VI. p. 479.

218

[1923
For he who lives more lives than one,
more deaths than one must die.

The tragic denouement of the poem "About This"-is sub

titled by the poet "The last Death", the execution of the poet:
Finish him off! let his heart by lead be reft :
So not even a tremor's left!
For in the end-all things end.
Tremors tOO are ended then.
And over both the executed ones the executioner's "merri
ment chatters". In the poem of Mayakovsky, at the very bottom
of its complex themes, "day darkens into dusk", lies also the
premise of the "Ballad of Reading Gaol" :
The man had killed the thing he loved,
and so he had to die.
Yet each man kills the thing he loves,
by each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
the brave man with a sword!
Those who read the poem can now judge.
In a letter to lily Beik, dated January 19th 1923, during the
period of his self-confinement he headed it-"Moscow. Reading
Gaol"-and signed it with a typical drawing of himself as a
dog, now behind bars and alongside wrote:
Thy puppy,
he's also Oscar Wilde,
he's also the Prisoner of Chillon
~
he's also:

219

1923)

Man
The quotation at the heading of this section of the poem is
from the section called "Mayakovsky to the Ages" in his poem
"Man", This followed his "Tragedy of Mayakovsky" in 1916
and though, like all his poems, it was about himself, it was also
about all men, about Man. It showed him again desperately and
hopelessly in love- surging from earth to heaven and back
again, unable to assuage his passion or alleviate his pain. Xes
headings were: "T he Birch of Mayakovsky", "The Life of M.",
"T he Passion of M.", "The Ascension of M.", "M. in Heaven",
"The Return of M." and finally "M . eo the Ages". In this poem,
roo, he metaphorically "shot himself at the door of his beloved"
and ends up :

Everything is destroyed. Comes to naught ...

And with this burning pain of mine
I stand , with flames entwined
on the unquenchable pyre
of inconceivable love.
And he is left on the bridge over the Neva:
in terrifying anxiousness
looking out from it.
I stood there-I recall ir,
ever.
Thae gleam had glittered
and that
was then called the
Neva.
And in "About This ", seven years later, he sees himself
still standing crucified to that bridge, with the same pain and for
the same reason-unrequited love. But now against the back
ground of the Revolution and NEP.

;\ [{) 6/\ /-{) !J

~Tllll

I lovell

About a Ballad-and about Ballads

The situation is that he is in his room, on Lyubyansky lane,
She in her room in Vodopyan y Alley. The telephone on the

220

(1923

table is for him "the last straw", at which a drowning man

clutches-the only way "the prisoner" can keep in couch with
her.
The first days of his voluntary confinement coincide with the
Christmas holidays.
A Number's Let Loose Along The Wire
He receives a telephone message that she is ill. In great
anxiety he telephones her.
The factory trade-mark-two arrows spark.
In chose days the telephone system was Swedish Erickson, which
had for irs trade mark two arrows symbolising lightning, which
were stamped on to each phone in red.
67-10 was Lily Brik's telephone number. The power of the
agitation with which he calls the number is conveyed to the
electricity that runs along the wire, and intensifies the current
going under Myasnitskaya (which lay in between his flat and
hers) and under the post-office, causing an earthquake!

The Second
The parallel to a duel is followed through, wirh Annushka,
her housekeeper, being like a second who takes messages to the
other parry.
The Enli/?hte11117ent of the World
He is anxiously waiting for her reply, whether she wishes to
talk to him, will she come to the phone? In the intensity of his
waiting everything seems particularly distinct, as if the whole
world is now awaiting the answer. Everyt hing seems stretched to
breaking paine, stretched to infinity, like seeing through the
wrong end of the binocul ars, and the only connecting link is the
telephone wire;
why, simply a thread!

And everything hangs on that rhreadikin,

In Russian of course ir is easy and usual to make diminutives

and superlatives (as it was once in English). I have tried to meet
the poet's intention here.

221

1923]

The Duel

The telephone receiver is like a revolver , with its receivermuzzle poiming right at him . "Hope has been abandoned". She
has answered "No", she does not want to see or speak to him.
And chen the growing feeling of jealousy, which cannot be
conrrolled by reason, even though he tries to tell himself that
he should check such philistine feelings with the Marxist ideo
logy he subscribes ro.
Ar that period (1923) he was repeatedly attacked for, and
himself attacked, such expression of personal feelings in poetry.
Lyricism, romanticism-all had to now be subordinated to the
Revolution.
He himself satirises the situation of himself, an official corres
pondent of Izvestia, the organ of the Soviet Government,
appearing as a jealous lover in Paris wirh bear-claws showing
through his shoes!
W hert Can Happen to a Man
Jealousy uncontrolled gradually turns a man into a beast; in
this case the image is a bear. Mayakovsky uses this image else
wherein his poem to Pushkin, "Jubilee". He says ;
From love and from posters I'm relieved now.
The clawed bear of jealousy lies skinned and dried.
One of his early poems is called: "H ow I Became Transformed
inro a Dog". He signed his love-letters to Lily Brik with a draw
ing of himself as a dog. (See e.g. p. 218 .)

Polar-Bearing
From now on the image of himself as a bear begins to be
interwoven with himself as the poet-prisoner. In a way ir is as
in the Cocteau film Beaaiy and the Beast with the gr adual
transformation of the lover inca the beast, but here the two re
main parallel throughout the second parr of the poem, until the
poet suffers The Last Death and rhe image of the bear merges
with the Great Bear of the starry constellations, one with the
universe.

222
The poet now in his anger at being turned down, jealous,
pushes the phone against his breast, and the two-p ron ged
receiver rest becomes like a two-pronged boar-spear, which
pierces his heart. H e now whimpers and cries, awakening his
next door neighbour, Balshin.

The Leaky Room

After raging round the room like a wounded bear in his cave,
he lies down on the iron bedstead, quiet and shivering. Now the
quivering blanket takes on the imag e of quivering waves, and
his tears become a flood that carries him away, like a bear on a
floarin g ice-floe. Now his despair is associated in his memory
with the time, 1916, wh en he wrote his tragic poem "Man".
Th e poet's first image of himself as the poet-prisoner of Reading
Gaol, the second image as a throwback to a jealous beast-the
bear, now merges with a third image: the tragic young man he
was seven years before in his poem "Man". In this super
imposition of the three images, merging one into the other, then
separating and chen fusing again we see the link of Mayakovsky
with the rest of modern a rt in Europe: which in his group
became Futurism , in France Cubism, in Germany Expression
ism, in England Vorticism.
Th e M an From Seoen Y ears Ago
He sees himself standing on the same bridge, over the River
N eva, wh ere he ha s been calling for help for seven years (since
his poem " Man") and is not yet rescued or helped. He complains
to th e poet why didn't he let himself commit suicide then? He
too was tortured wit h unrequited love, and he too awaited .the
Saviour-Love to redeem him. The poet cries : " W hen oh when
will the day of deliv eranc e shine ?" (Which seems to ring out
like St. Joan in Bern ard Shaw' s pl ay : "W hen will the earth be
ready to receive thy saints? How long, oh Lord, how long? ")
Of course one could find a way out by accepting their way of
life, the philistine way-which he always fought and still is .
fighting. For this, one has to become a "mincing scrounger", As
so many did.
And the final irony that, though he calls on the Parry or the
State to pass a resolu tion to rescind his agony, or confiscate his

[1923

223

1923]

pain (as it is doing with everything else'), he realises that

nothing can, and helplessly he floats on his sea of pain.

Help

The last cry of himself on the brid ge to all men was for
"Help", seven years before.
The last public cry Mayakovsky made before his suicide was
for help-in his last speech, another seven years later. But
help never came. (See p. 409.)

II. XMAS EVE

FantMtic Reality
The time of writing is Chri stmas, but this is also a symbo l of
the Philistine domestic ritu als : "T hat old Xmasride horror will
tear me apart".
Still crying for help he slowly returns from memories of
seven years ago to the present. From Arctic seas to dry land.
from Perrograd CO Moscow.
Th e Pain 0/ Reality
He lands on the snow in Petrovsky Park, in the Moscow
suburbs, and runs through Khodynka Fields and through the
Boulevards, in franc of him Tverskaya (now called Gorky
Street), the main street of Moscow. H e stumbles in front
of passers-by, who swear at him mo st bl asph emously, with the
most typical Russian swear-words, now related to NEP. Seeing
him like a bear, they take him for a mummer, dressed for a
masquerade ball or something. And h e reali ses h e looks like a
bear. Then is about to explain that he isn't really.
The Saviour
Now the image complexity grows, another figure is super
imposed on the existing ones : he is searching for some one co
rescue him, save him-the usual association of course is w ith
the Saviour, Jesus Chrise-which in M ayakovsky 's early lyric
3

Like the ironical line in his poem "T he Idyll " (see p. 374) attack ing the

Soviet philistines:
"How llnMa rxist, that Fi yaka , how out-dated I
Didn 't the Pol itOrg ex plain,
fa iries have been liqu ida ted:'

224
poems is dearly seen. (See pp. 159 and 181.) But now that is
past; the modern saviour is the Young Communist-so that the
youngster of seven years ago, woo want ed ro commit suicide,
now becomes the Youn g Communist. T he poet calls on him for
help-but alas he roo is part of the gypsified love-song i.e, the
typical philistine decadent world that the poet is fighting. The
Gypsy choruses were the most typical expression of nostalgia
for the past, as well as an arrernpc in the revolutionary period
to forget the present. During the NEP period such chorusesand
night dubs flourished again in Moscow and Leningrad, etc.

A Gypsy Love-song
In his hand a revolver-e--t'In silk steel hands"-a poetic
association with steel hands in silk gloves, or velvet gloves. He
is in the same dilemma as the youngster on the bridge. He
writes a farewell noce-"Goodbye . . . I'm ending it"-and
shoots himself.
Now here we come to a rnosr remarkable thing. This is an
exact prophecy of what eventually happened to the poet him
self; seven years later he wrote such a farewell note and shot
himself with a revolver. First we find in his actual farewell note
he starts off: "To everyone . .. Because I die, don't blame any
one . . . " Then at the end of the nore in a postscript he writes :
"$eriously-nothing can be done about it",
In "About This", at the end of the piece where the Young
Communist shoots himself, Mayakovsky gives the sub-title :
N otbing can be done ["bout it] , follow ed by the couplet: "How
like me he seems to be!" which he says as he looks at the dead
youngster. The poet realises how alike they are. But he has to
save the man on the bridge. H e musr give up his personal
jealousy aspect , rake on his hu man aspect agai n to go into rhe
city. And in rhe poem he takes off the leather runic (the then
typical uniform of the Young Communist leaguer) and puts it
on himself, shaves off his bear-beard and, seeing his reflection
now in the ice-mirror, says : "I'm alm ost, almost the same
exactly."
The poet-prisoner hoped that rhe Young Communist was
going to save him, going to save the Man on the bridge, the bear
in his lair ... but ne ither one of them has the power to save

225

[1923 I 1923]

himself alone. The whole path of the action is permeated

wirh the ceorral idea of the image; the impossibility of living
alone. The solurion to loneliness is to be found in the Socialist
society of rhe future. This is the central theme underlying all
Mayakovsky's lyric works, starting with pre-Revolucionary
poetry right up to his death, in the midst of Soviet society build
ing its First Five Year Plan.
He is thinking of addresses he can go to for help. First comes
to mind his family home, chen in Presnaya Street, Moscow. But
not only is he running fat help, all the youth of Russia is trying
to get help from the family.

Everybod)"s Parents
He reaches the family borne; rbey think he's come for Christ
mas. He calls them to come, give up the Christmas festivities
and rescue the Man on the bridge, only a short 400 miles away
in Petrograd. They don 't go , bur try to calm him down with the
usual family comfortings.
TOUT with Mama
Not only his mother, but mothers and families throughout
the world try to calm down their children in the same way. He
wants his mother to come, but realises the family as such can't
help that Man on the bridge. He bids his family farewell and
goes on alone. Always alone.

The Mirat:e of Presnaya

The way from Presnaya inca che city is through Kudrinsky
Square . He , as the bear , sees himself going with Christmas
presents under his arms to his family . The easy and normal
thing to do. But he must go CO the Man on the bridge. In his path
more obstacles rise-buildings, with Christmas warmth inside,
"inviting into apartments". Bur he still remembers this other self
stands and waits. So he goes over the first threshold to seek help.
But they take him for a bear and scatter.
The Hmband of Fekl Daoidovna, etc.
But the host recognises him. The gueses, who had taken refuge
under the bed, the table, in the mouse-holes, emerge. And the
p

226

[1923

"most terrible of all" he recognises in those people--himself.

"Even Marx" must tow a "Philistine load". In a line he cut out,
he first included lenin also. All are contaminated with philis
tinisrn,

Senseless Requests
He "prayed, threatened, pleaded, agitated" thar tbey should
come and help the Man on the bridge. He tries to prove that it's
a social task, for all of them .. . but "they listened to a worthy
clown, smiling to please" and mistake the bridge for the
fashionable promenade street called Kuznersky Bridge--which
is not a bridge! But they continue to misunderstand. "To hell
with theory! NEP-in practice see, Pour for him, carve for him.
Futurist, eat heartily!" And the poet finds that despite all his
skill and art and arrack-"words pass right through as they
enter". They have no effect.
T be Extraordinary
On the rose-papered wall of this typical "philistine" house
hangs a reproduction of the then fashionable painting "The
Isle of the Dead". All Moscow becomes an island of the dead.
Here the theme of suicide enters, for a rejected verse expresses
the struggle against death:
Stand back, my death. I don't want you. I won't step in.
Don 't wreak your will on the living now.
See. in your dead sea
my revolver, I throw, I drown.
But in the final version he says:
Alright-I'll step in! At once the cypress trees
broke ranks and went stamping the streets.
But then the landscape mixes (co use a film term) and the tree
trunks become the columns of the nearby Post Office.
No Wa)' Out
Now he finds himself near her house and iota memory surges

227

1923]

"that rhere's the corner and there is sorrow and behind them
she-the culprit". And once again he gambles-Mayakovsky
was an intrepid gambler-he sees the window panes as cards,
shuffles them, stakes all his life on them to find out if she is
home-her windows are lit, and shine mockingly at him. He
reminds himself "these are not those poems and times", but
goes on, striving to avoid the guests, tries to cling to the wall
and efface himself.
Incidentally the tide of this episode was used in his own
suicide letter.

Friend!
As the porch door opens he hears through ehe chink odd
phrases, over the foxtrot dance which stamps into his ears.
Only it Shouldn't be You
It shouldn't be her voice be hears in that philistine atmos
phere, which suffocates him, which is driving him to suicide. He
hears his voice urging him to jump Out of the window, but he
runs because he loves, maybe only "one-sidedly", but still in
poetry. He runs to her, justifying himself by his love and poetry.
"Did I ever betray my love in a song?". He calls her co come
and rescue the Man on the bridge. "Now only you could rescue
me."

The March 0/ Poetry

Striding in verse the distance from Petrograd to Moscow, over
lyuban, Tvyer, Klin, Razumovskoye (all along the route) he
comes to command "No". He wants to save not just himself, but
the whole world. For that he will stand there not seven but
two hundred years, crucified, to atone for everyone.
La Rotonde
The sound of the rwo-srep continues. Now he is in Paris,
but it's the same parallel, the Seine instead of the Neva. He calls
on them too " co go somewhere, someone or the ocher to save".
Still he cries and demonstrates in the boulevards: "March! Over
life out-dated".

228

(1923

Hal! Death
Like a cinema shadow he rises over the earth, and sees below
his body is taken away by sweepers. He seems to fly over the
world.

An Accidental Station
He lands in Moscow again, on the great Kremlin Tower,
"Ivan the Great", and again at Christmas time. He fears he
might fall onto the earth again with irs "old Xmasride horror".

Recapitulating the Past

He tries to balance himself on the dome, holding his arms

am cross -wise, like a child's toy jumping-jack. He seems co be

on top of Maune Mashuk, in the Caucasus. Bur rhe private eyes
of his enemies (Pinkerton detectives) have tracked bim down,
and signalled everyone. His enemies come co settle up with him.
They surge like duellists in droves. So many gloves (challenging
to duels) are hurled into his face as if from whole arcades of
glove-shops. The newspapers join in the abuse of him, with
hearsay, tumour and slanderous lying. They had already caught
one there before, in the Caucasus-e-Lerrnontov the poet, who
was shot in a duel by the same ancient enemy: Philisrinism,
vulgarity, toadyism.

229

1923]

"Paith, Hope and Love". And the theme of rhis third parr is
"Resurrection".
He awa kens from the nightmare back in his room. He is lean
ing over the world-globe on his own cable, and, summing it all
up, expresses his incense hatred for everything false, hypo
critical, banal-"everything that in swarming trifles ' teems
ossifying and assiying living", even in his own Socialist society.
H e asserts that he won't give satisfaction to his enemies by
dying, so that they can follow after his bier singing a requiem
to a man of talencs. Nor will he allow himself to be shoe like
Pushkin or Lerrnonrov in a duel. And that he'll grow old four
times over before he reaches the grave.

Faith
Bur despite that, still death is death. He doesn't believe in life
after death, otherwise why nor go there and solve all earthly
problems? Nevertheless in his poetic im agination he dreams that
in the future there will be a Workshop of Human Resurrection,
and when the scientist of the future is deciding whom to bring
back to life, perhaps maybe he will have a chance. The ironic
parallel of this is seen in his play The Bed Bug.

Hope
He hopes for:

The 'Last Death

They fire at him with everything, paine-blank and finish him
off, finally. A duel-murder. Like Pushkin, like Lerrnontov. He
dies, the last death.

That Which R emained

But his tatters become the red flag on the Kremlin. And the
shadow of (he man-bear is now the brother""";r the Great Bear
as he flies like an astronaut on the Ark of the Dipper; a super
troubadour who with his "verses the universe's tumult deafens".
III A PETITION ADDRESSED TO . . .
Here the headings are the famous words from the New
Testament : "Faith , Hope, Charity" or, in the modern version,

My earthly life I never lived out to the end.

On earth my love I could never fulfil.
He's willing ro do any task, however menial; even to be a
keeper in the Zoo if they will resurrect him. And now the bear
image beco mes hurnanised, not the monster of troglodyte times
bur an animal to love. And his beloved will naturally be
resurrected there.

Love
He wants to live aga in so that love will flood the universe,
and nor be JUSt a lackey of philistine existence. $0 that everyone
will be brothers and the earth father, and the world mother, to
all men.

MAYAKOVSKY
translated and edited by

HERBERT MARSHALL

,(
S
Vladimir Mayakovsky

LONDON:

DENNIS DOBSON