1 Like a mother’s song over a child’s cradle, like a mountain echo echoing in the morning to a shepherd’s horn, like the distant surf of a native, long-unseen sea, your thrice-blessed name sounds to me: Alexandria! Like the intermittent whisper of love confessions under the oak trees, like the mysterious noise of shady sacred groves, like the tambourine of Cybele the Great, like distant thunder and the cooing of doves, Your thrice-wise name sounds to me: Alexandria! Like the sound of a trumpet before a battle, the scream of eagles over the abyss, the sound of the wings of a flying Nike, your thrice great name sounds to me: Alexandria! 2 When they say to me: “Alexandria,” I see the white walls of the house, a small garden with a bed of gillyflowers, the pale sun of an autumn evening and hear the sounds of distant flutes. When they say to me: “Alexandria,” I see stars over the silent city, drunken sailors in dark quarters, a dancer dancing the “wasp,” and I hear the sound of a tambourine and the cries of a quarrel. When they say to me: “Alexandria,” I see a pale crimson sunset over the green sea, shaggy blinking stars and light gray eyes under thick eyebrows, which I see even when they don’t say to me: “Alexandria!” 3 Evening twilight over the warm sea, the lights of lighthouses in the darkened sky, the smell of verbena at the end of the feast, a fresh morning after long vigils, a walk in the alleys of the spring garden, the cries and laughter of bathing women, sacred peacocks at the temple of Juno, sellers of violets, pomegranates and lemons, Doves are cooing, the sun is shining, when I see you, my dear city!

Alexandrian Songs: Excerpts

1 We were four sisters, there were four sisters, we all loved four, but we all had different “becauses”: one loved because her father and mother told her to do so, the other loved because her lover was rich. the third loved because he was a famous artist, and I loved because I fell in love. We were four sisters, there were four sisters, we all wanted four, but we all had different desires: one wanted to raise children and cook porridge, another wanted to wear new dresses every day, the third wanted everyone to talk about her, and I wanted to love and to be loved. We were four sisters, there were four sisters, we all fell out of love, but we all had different reasons: one stopped loving because her husband died, another stopped loving because her friend went bankrupt, the third stopped loving because the artist abandoned her, and I I fell out of love because I stopped loving. There were four of us sisters, there were four of us sisters, or maybe there were not four of us, but five? 2 What kind of rain? Our sail is completely foggy, and it’s no longer clear that it’s striped. Rouge flowed down your cheeks, and you looked like a Tyrian dyer. With fear we crossed the threshold of the coal miner's low dugout; the owner with a scar on his forehead pushed aside the dirty, scabbed children with sore eyes and, placing the stump in front of you, brushed off the dust with his apron and, clapping his hand, said: “Won’t the master eat some cakes?” And the old black woman rocked the child and sang: “If I were Pharaoh, I would buy myself two pears: I would give one to my friend, I would eat the other myself...”

* * *

Ah, lips kissed by so many, by so many other lips, you pierce with bitter arrows, with bitter arrows, hundred. You will bloom with lively smiles, Bright spring bushes, Like a caress with light fingers, Light, sweet fingers. Pilgrim, or impudent robber - Every kiss reaches you. Antinous, whether the abominable Thersit - Everyone finds his own happiness. The kiss that touches you leaves a strong seal, Who communes with the lips of your loved ones With the past with everyone. The look of supplication left on the icon will lie there like strong chains: The ancient face, glorified by prayers, binds those praying with that chain. So you go through slippery places, Slippery, holy places. - Ah, lips kissed by so many, So many other lips.

M.A. Kuzmin. Collection of poems. M.A.Kuzmin. Gesammelte Gedichte. Munchen: Wilhelm fink Verlag, 1977.

* * *

There are moments when you don’t demand the last caresses, but joyfully sit, hugging tightly, clinging tightly to each other. And then it doesn’t matter what will happen, what will come true, what will not succeed. The heart (not the trashy, straight, native male heart) beats close, so reassuringly, so reliably, like the ticking of a clock in the dark, and says: “everything is fine, everything is calm, everything is in its place.” Your hands and chest are tender because they are young, but strong and reliable; your eyes are trusting, truthful, not deceptive, and I know that my kisses and yours are the same, unsweetening, worthy of each other, why then kiss? To sit like shipwrecked people, like orphans, like true friends, the only ones who have no one else in the whole world; sit, hugging tightly, clinging tightly to each other!.. the heart beats close soothingly, like a clock in the dark, and a thick and gentle voice, like the voice of an older brother, whispers: “calm down: everything is fine, calm, reliable when you are together.” .

M.A. Kuzmin. Collection of poems. M.A.Kuzmin. Gesammelte Gedichte. Munchen: Wilhelm fink Verlag, 1977.

* * *

Throwing my nets into the slanting shine of the mirrors, I bowed to the greenish dawn, I follow the pattern of the barely noticeable swell, - The lunatic of the golden lakes! As blood oozes under healing cotton wool, the youth on the granite block becomes clearer, and the haze of languor in the honeyed summer prophetically casts a blue gaze. Live, Motionless One! My eyelids will flutter, I greedily fall into tender palms, May my heavenly companion quench the yearning of unquenchable love. I don’t remember or guess, - The flight of moments, light and beloved, Suddenly you stop the youthful cheeks forever with luxury.

* * *

A vision took possession of me: About a golden bird catcher, About a feathered arrow from a cane, About a languid afterlife grove. Every piece of the body, Every drop of blood, Every crumb of bone - More dear than holy relics! Let me always curse, Curse, people, curse, Put out the fire with fires, - Ice cannot bind the waterfall. After all, we don’t know anything, How these threads stretch from heart to heart... We don’t know, and we don’t need to know!

M. Kuzmin. Arena. Selected Poems. 1000 years of Russian literature. Library of Russian classical literature. St. Petersburg: North-West, 1994.

* * *

Once again I recognized sleepless nights Without sleep until dawn, Again the gentle voice whispered: “Die, die.” Having finished a book, I take up another, Should I catch up with sleep? I'm languishing in sadness, imprisoned by something into an unbearable captivity. I finish the famous “Manon” a hundred times, But what’s wrong with me? Of course, from tea This is insomnia at night... I'm not in love, that's true, I'm unwell. Here, quietly and steadily, there is a distant call to early mass. I see you, closing the pages, closing my eyes; My strange eyelashes were suddenly wetted by a tear. I'm not in love, I'm just sick, Until dawn I lie weak-willed, And a voice whispers: “Die, die!”

M.A. Kuzmin. Collection of poems. M.A.Kuzmin. Gesammelte Gedichte. Munchen: Wilhelm fink Verlag, 1977.

* * *

Still the same dream, alive and old, Stands and does not go away: The window is closed with a thick shutter, Behind the shutter is the freezing night. The corners are crackling, the bed is warm, a sleepy dog ​​is barking in the distance... I got up early today and passed through the peaceful day peacefully. A good day is so long! Everything is a gentle shine, and snow, and expanse! You can only read here the Prologue or David’s Psalter. And the heat of the stove in the white closet, And the ringing of the night from afar, And with the lamp on the burnt Such a white hand! It defuses and calms, Love blooms simple and lush, And the blizzard howls fiercely in the field, planting vines by the window. Covered by a fluffy blizzard, Live, love, don’t die! The fiery-icy, frosty-hot, Russian paradise has arrived for us! Oh, if only there was snow, and a beloved gaze, and the delicate colors of icons! Desired, ineradicable, a long-standing dream of my soul!

M. Kuzmin. Arena. Selected Poems. 1000 years of Russian literature. Library of Russian classical literature. St. Petersburg: North-West, 1994.

* * *

Do you think I'm a poet in love? I am nothing more than a geographer... A geographer of a country that you discover every day and the more famous it is, the more unexpected and charming it is. I’m not saying that this country is your soul (Verlaine also compared the soul to a landscape), but it is similar to your soul. There is no sea, forests and alps, there are lakes and rivers (Slavic, not Russian rivers) with cheerful banks and sad songs, white clouds in the sky; there is always April, sun and wind, sails and wells, and a flock of cranes in the blue; there are sad, but not gloomy places there, and it looks as if the once carefree and bright country was trampled by the horses of enemies, the heavy wheels of carts, and now sometimes remembers the lightning of fires; there are roads lined with birch trees and castles where mazurkas, driven out to the taverns, rejoiced; there you will recognize pity and bliss, and short violence, like a spring shower; robins call upon the girl, and the Virgin Mary looks on from the sharp gate. But I am another geographer, not just a soul. I am not Columbus, not Przhevalsky, lovers of the unknown, doomed nomads - the more I know, the more I am surprised, find and love. Oh, amber rose, pink amber, topazes, amber, mixed with honey, slightly tinted with purple, Montrachet and Chablis, the Smyrna coast on a pink evening, gently round hills above the twilight of sweet valleys, an ancient and eternal paradise! But, hush... and a geographer is not allowed to be immodest.

M.A. Kuzmin. Collection of poems. M.A.Kuzmin. Gesammelte Gedichte. Munchen: Wilhelm fink Verlag, 1977.

* * *

Where can I find a syllable to describe a walk, Chablis on ice, toasted bread, And sweet agate ripe cherries? The sunset is far away, and in the sea you can hear the echoing splash of bodies, whose heat welcomes the coolness of the moisture. Your tender gaze, sly and alluring, is like the sweet nonsense of a ringing comedy, or Mariv’s capricious pen. Your nose, Pierrot, and the cut of your lips are intoxicating. My mind is spinning, like “The Marriage of Figaro.” The spirit of little things, charming and airy, Love of nights, sometimes tender, sometimes stuffy, Cheerful lightness of thoughtless living! Ah, I am faithful, far from obedient miracles, Your flowers, cheerful land!

* * *

The eye of a snake, the snake's twists, Variegated fabrics play, Unprecedented sultry poses... Sometimes shameless, sometimes bashful, Every ebb of kisses, The sweet smell of white roses... Freezing, hugging, Curling of serpentine hands And skillful trembling of legs... And skillful kissing , The ease of a close meeting And farewell across the threshold.

M.A. Kuzmin. Collection of poems. M.A.Kuzmin. Gesammelte Gedichte. Munchen: Wilhelm fink Verlag, 1977.

Geese

Geese are flying across the evening sky... Geese, goodbye, goodbye! Autumn will pass, we'll winter through the winter, come back for summer! Geese, fly to the lower lands, fly to the warm sea, flock after flock stretch out, geese, screaming in the crimson dawn, but you’ll only get away from the cold, but nowhere from melancholy. The sky darkened, the dawn turned pale, a star was reflected in a puddle; the wind subsides, night falls, the geese continue to squawk.

Russian poetry of the Silver Age. 1890-1917. Anthology. Ed. M. Gasparov, I. Koretskaya and others. Moscow: Nauka, 1993.

* * *

If they tell me: “You must go to torment,” I will ascend to the last bonfire with joyful singing, Obedient. If I had to give up singing forever, I would silently put my tongue and hands under the knife, - Obedient. If they said: “You are deprived of a meeting forever,” - You would endure this separation, strengthening your love, - Obedient. If I had been given the last betrayal of suffering, I would have accepted this strait as a duty, - Obedient. If they put a ban on love between us, I will not believe the ban and will say: “No.”

Stanzas of the century. Anthology of Russian poetry. Comp. E. Yevtushenko. Minsk, Moscow: Polifact, 1995.

* * *

Why does the moon, having risen, turn pink, And the wind blows, full of warm bliss. And the boat doesn’t feel the serpentine swell of the waves, When my spirit keeps talking about you? When I don’t see your eyes, the memories of the nights of love burn - I lie - and here the charms of sweet little things are jealously guarded. And the peaceful view of the river in the distant bends And the rare lights of the sleepless windows, And the shine of the breaks of the cloud fibers Will not drive away thoughts, tender and sad. There are shady alleys of other gardens - And the unfaithful shine of the morning dawn... The lanterns shine with the last fire... And the sweet playfulness of love affairs... The soul flies to abandoned amusements, There is a strong thread in the poisons of the lungs, And the scent of roses cannot be drowned out by simple and meek rural , summer herbs.

M.A. Kuzmin. Collection of poems. M.A.Kuzmin. Gesammelte Gedichte. Munchen: Wilhelm fink Verlag, 1977.

* * *

A dry rose hung sadly from a basket that had once been offered, And they sang to us that aria of Rosina: “Io sono docile, io sono rispettosa.” Candles were burning, the warm rain was barely audible, Flowing from the trees, inducing drowsiness, the Pesar swan, sweet and magnificent, Crowned the slightest note of joy. The story of friends about their wanderings, a sophisticated dispute where your mind hovers. Meanwhile, in vain expectations, My gentle friend wanders alone in the garden. Ah, the sounds of Mozart are bright with kisses, Like they gave Raphael’s “Parnassus”, But they cannot drive away the thought that I haven’t had a date since the fourth hour.

M.A. Kuzmin. Collection of poems. M.A.Kuzmin. Gesammelte Gedichte. Munchen: Wilhelm fink Verlag, 1977.

Art

I will collect the fog and May dew in thick canvas, seal it tightly in a vessel, and take it to my house before daylight. Constellations burn blissfully, Indicated in the Zodiac, Planets enter into marriages, Protecting my ritual. Here is a bitter and living life. I take a decayed plant. The prophetic boil is bubbling... Blaze, ally of fire! Everything that comes from death goes to the bottom. (Are the stars visible in the well, or in the sky?) I have been given the opportunity to bring out the transparent stem of the former vine again. Bark and pinkish color, - Everything restored from the dust. He who knows no fear of perishable things, There is no destruction for him. If a wild horse rushes by the wind, it does not shake the tops of the lungs. An alien spring crowns the Head, since the holy fire is alive.

M.A. Kuzmin. Collection of poems. M.A.Kuzmin. Gesammelte Gedichte. Munchen: Wilhelm fink Verlag, 1977.

* * *

Every evening I look from the cliffs at the glittering surface of the waters in the distance; I notice which steamer is running: Kamensky, Volzhsky or Lyubimov. The sun has become very low, And I always look closely to see if there is a star above the wheel, When the steamer passes close. If there is no star, it means it’s a postal one, Maybe it can bring me letters. I’m in a hurry to go down to the pier, where the postal cart is already standing ready. Oh, leather bags with big locks, How huge you are, how heavy you are! And are there really no letters from those who are dear to me, Which they would write with their dear hands? So my heart beats, it aches so sweetly, While I’m waiting behind the postman, And I don’t know whether I’ll find the letter or not, And this dear riddle torments me. Oh, the road up the mountain is already under the stars. Alone, without a letter! The road is straight, rare lights are burning, houses in gardens are like nests. And here is a letter from a friend: “I always remember you, Being with one, being with another.” Well, as he is, that’s how I love and accept him. The steamships will leave with the waves, And I sadly look after them - Oh, my dears, my friends, When will I see you again?

M.A. Kuzmin. Collection of poems. M.A.Kuzmin. Gesammelte Gedichte. Munchen: Wilhelm fink Verlag, 1977.

* * *

Like girls dream of grooms, We are talking about art with you. Oh, a mysterious flock of cranes! There is a slender interruption in live flights! Catherine is betrothed to Christ, And one soul beats in two hearts. The windy blush fades from the cheeks, And the eyes light up to the bottom. Winged, confused babbling, Almost unspoken “I love you.” What a meeting in love I can compare with such evenings!

M. Kuzmin. Arena. Selected Poems. 1000 years of Russian literature. Library of Russian classical literature. St. Petersburg: North-West, 1994.

* * *

How I love, eternal gods, the beautiful world! How I love the sun, the reeds and the shine of the greenish sea through the thin branches of the acacias! How I love books (my friends), the silence of a lonely home and the view from the window of distant melon gardens! How I love the diversity of the crowd in the square, the shouts, the singing and the sun, the cheerful laughter of the boys playing ball! Returning home after joyful walks, late in the evening, at the first stars, past already illuminated hotels with an already distant friend! How I love, eternal gods, bright sadness, love until tomorrow, death without regret for life, where everything is sweet, which I love, I swear by Dionysus, with all the strength of my heart and sweet flesh!

M. Kuzmin. Arena. Selected Poems. 1000 years of Russian literature. Library of Russian classical literature. St. Petersburg: North-West, 1994.

* * *

How strange it is that your feet walk along some streets, shod in funny shoes, and they should be kissed endlessly. That your hands are writing, fastening your gloves, holding a fork and a ridiculous knife, as if they were created for this!.. That your eyes, beloved eyes are reading “Satyricon”, and they would look like a spring puddle! But your heart does as it should: it beats and loves. There are no boots, no gloves, no "Satyricon"... Isn't that right? It beats and loves... nothing more. What a pity that you can’t kiss him on the forehead like a well-behaved child!

M.A. Kuzmin. Collection of poems. M.A.Kuzmin. Gesammelte Gedichte. Munchen: Wilhelm fink Verlag, 1977.

* * *

When I leave the house in the morning, I think, looking at the sun: “How it looks like you when you swim in the river or look at distant vegetable gardens!” And when I look at the same burning sun at noon, I think about you, my joy: “How it looks like you when you drive along a crowded street!” And when I look at the gentle sunsets, you come to my mind, when, pale from caresses, you fall asleep and close your darkened eyelids.

Silver Age. St. Petersburg poetry of the late XIX-early XX centuries. Leningrad: Lenizdat, 1991.

* * *

He who has a choice chooses; Whoever is ready to go on a journey, let him go; Keep an eye on the map, who is playing, Fly quickly, who needs to fly. Ah, the choice, free or involuntary, is always more pleasant than three roads! The path without anxiety, the painless path - The path where fate leads us. Why be captivated by a daring collision? You are a peaceful traveler, not a fighter. You think a mistake is a mistake Correct you, funny blind man? Everything that has passed, like an unnecessary burden, Leave at the entrance forever. Walk without thoughts like pearly dew, While your star burns. Baby doves are flying low, The eagle is looking at the sun. Everything that happens is sacred; The one you love is the one you love.

Silver Age. St. Petersburg poetry of the late XIX-early XX centuries. Leningrad: Lenizdat, 1991.

* * *

Oblique correspondences Throw mirror spheres into space, - Crazy parabolas, Ringing, shoot up the shoot of stems. Zodiac tribe The fields are burning, the ether is boiling, But all the intersections of the drawing display the motionless letters of your name!

M. Kuzmin. Arena. Selected Poems. 1000 years of Russian literature. Library of Russian classical literature. St. Petersburg: North-West, 1994.

* * *

Spin, spin: hold on tight to your hands! The sounds of the ringing sistrum rush, rush, they reverberate languidly in the groves. Does the Nile fisherman, when he casts his nets into the sea, know what he will catch? Does the hunter know what he will encounter and whether he will kill the game he is aiming at? Does the owner know whether the hail will destroy his bread and his young grapes? What do we know? What should we know? What to regret? Spin, spin: hold on tight to your hands! The sounds of the ringing sistrum rush, rush, they reverberate languidly in the groves. We know that everything is wrong, that it leaves us irrevocably. We know that everything is perishable and only variability is unchangeable. We know that a sweet body was given in order to decay later. This is what we know, this is what we love, for what is fragile, we kiss three times! Spin, spin: hold on tight to your hands! The sounds of the ringing sistrum rush, rush, they reverberate languidly in the groves.

M. Kuzmin. Arena. Selected Poems. 1000 years of Russian literature. Library of Russian classical literature. St. Petersburg: North-West, 1994.

* * *

Lighter than a spring breath, the touch of thin fingers. Silence is louder and sweeter to my lips than the magnificence of sonorous choirs. I'm falling, I'm falling, I'm burning, The struggle is fierce, The wings are low. Let those separated be bound together, The vows already spoken are forever close. Where is the division? time? smoldering? Our desire is higher than dust. Let us fearlessly meet the light of the future, passing by, alien to fear.

M. Kuzmin. Arena. Selected Poems. 1000 years of Russian literature. Library of Russian classical literature. St. Petersburg: North-West, 1994.

* * *

Lighter than flame, softer than milk, Playing with the blush of dawn, the youth will rush from the golden canopy. Peals in the curls of heaven. Wise in courage, blind Sagittarius, When you enter the upper room without wings, The thorns fall, the crown flickers, You see lands of unearthly greenery. In the swirling noise, in the shining armor, - Still the same messenger of the noble will! Sinus memory! A treasure of revelations! Float, smoke of false whim! The king is getting married, the guest remembers, the stranger has passed away, tabernacles are being built! Burnt offering! The bone rejoices, And the blood sings more and more loudly.

M. Kuzmin. Arena. Selected Poems. 1000 years of Russian literature. Library of Russian classical literature. St. Petersburg: North-West, 1994.

Lermontov

With one dream in your stubborn gaze, There is no place in God’s world, You yourself are both the Demon and Pechorin, And the runaway, sorrowful monk. From an early age you stood at the door, repeating: “No, no, I’m leaving.” Striving for both primitive faith and a romantic knife. Indifferent to the land and people, Tied to your chosen fate, Obedient to your melancholy alone, You are alien to the world, and the world is alien to you. You dreamed of an extraordinary passion, But oh, how simple is the story about it! You were captivated by the mystery of the Caucasus, - The Caucasus became your grave. And God's joys flashed by, Like a dream, like a snowstorm... You choose - what? two bullets and a vulgar duel. Admirer of demonic heat, You sent a childish challenge to the Creator Russia, dear Tamara, Do not believe the sad singer. In the pale azure he learns that a long journey has only just begun. After all, often a child bites the breast that feeds him.

Stanzas of the century. Anthology of Russian poetry. Comp. E. Yevtushenko. Minsk, Moscow: Polifact, 1995.

Moon

Moon! Where we met!.. through the hatches You look unobstructed, Like a magician performing tricks, That a mouse is pulling from a top hat. An urn would be dearer to you, Ruins, a pitiful landscape! And we settled down well, Climbing behind someone else's luggage! Everything is asleep; it smells like tar, like moss from matting... And suddenly, like Renbo, a solemn louse snaps under a fingernail. And we are warm, and we are not dark, comfortable. Jocks - no trace. According to fantastic laws, food is not remembered... The neighbor snores. The moon caresses Him freely as it pleases, And is voluptuous and pure, In all kinds of places. I am not jealous of such grief: After all, if you stretch out your hand, - And I can easily argue with the moon In reality, and not just some other way! Suddenly... How? . I look, I look... the features are completely alien... Were you really like that? Both the nose and the mouth... It’s not the same at all. Why hunger, the hold and the sea, grinning uncleaned teeth? Have I really become the toy of evil phantasmagoria, Moon? But the breath is so trusting, And the thin chest is so warm, That in the dark, sorrowful kiss I forget everything completely.

Stanzas of the century. Anthology of Russian poetry. Comp. E. Yevtushenko. Minsk, Moscow: Polifact, 1995.

Love's joy

To the story by S. Auslander "Evening at M. de Sevirage" Plaisir d"amour ne dure qu"un moment. Chagrin d'amour dure toute la vie.* Loves of joy last a single moment, Loves of suffering last a long century. How happy I was with dear Nadina, How greedily I drank a cup of languid bliss! But ah! that tender love did not last long We collected sweet fruits: The stream of time, unsatiated and rebellious, Has washed away my beloved footprints in the sand. In that meadow where we frolicked together, A scythe mowed down the soft grass; Wreaths of love, alas! they have developed, I do not see Nadina in reality. But long after, in the languid heat, there are no other beauties called Nadina in delirium. Love's suffering lasts a long century, Love's joy lasts a single moment. * The pleasure of love lasts only a moment, the longing of love lasts a lifetime (French).

* * *

“I love you,” I said without loving - Suddenly winged Cupid flew in and, taking your hand like a leader, drew me after you. Sweeping away the sleep of past and forgotten love from his clear eyes, he unexpectedly led me out to a bright meadow, washed with dew. The morning deception is wonderful: I see strangely, as I gain my sight, How a gentle glow of scarlet Blushes a vaguely unsteady figure; I see a slightly open mouth, I see the color of bashful cheeks, And the look of still sleepy eyes, And the turn of a thin neck. The stream gurgles for me in a new dream, I greedily drink the living streams - And again I love for the first time, Forever again I am in love!

Wonderful Moment. Love lyrics of Russian poets. Moscow: Fiction, 1988.

* * *

People see gardens with houses and the sea, crimson from the sunset, people see seagulls over the sea and women on flat roofs, people see warriors in armor and sellers with pies in the square, people see the sun and stars, streams and bright rivers, and I’m just everywhere and I see pale, dark cheeks, gray eyes under dark eyebrows and the incomparable slenderness of the figure - this is how the eyes of lovers see what their wise heart tells them to see.

Silver Age. St. Petersburg poetry of the late XIX-early XX centuries. Leningrad: Lenizdat, 1991.

Mary of Egypt

M. Zamyatina After all, Mary of Egypt The emptiness of a sinful life did not allow her to touch the Life-giving Cross. And when she went into the desert, Fornication forgotten, her soul simple, Free songs sounded like the new glory of Christ. Zosima found her, dividing his mantle, so that she could cover the prepared flesh before her death. Not sins, but the power of the Savior, the purity of the secret life, let it make the burden of the free cross light for you. And the care of close life, Invisible and simple, Will be counted for you, like a prayer, from the resurrected Christ, And not Zosima will find, Dividing his mantle: Christ Himself, having come, will cover the prepared flesh.

Masquerade

Who sang the joy of summer: Groves, rainbows, rockets, Laughter and screams on the lawn? In the diversity of lights and light To the motives of the minuet The slender faun drooped his head. What is white by the fountain In the gray tenderness of the fog, Whose whisper is there, whose sigh is there? Heart wounds are only deceptions, Only for the evening are those turbans And artificial moss in the grotto. The smell of the beds is spicy and sweet, Harlequin is greedy for affection, Columbine is not strict. Let the colors of rainbows be momentary - Dear, fragile world of mysteries, Your arc burns for me!

S. Bavin, I. Semibratova. The fates of the poets of the Silver Age. Russian State Library. Moscow: Book Chamber 1993.

* * *

I can’t sleep: my spirit is languishing, my head is spinning and my bed is empty, - Where are the hands, where are the shoulders, where are the intermittent speeches and beloved lips? , dry hands. I can’t drive away the boredom of love, I can’t bear it... They cuddled, kissed, Intertwined with each other, Like a paladin with a snake... Already the smell of mint came through the window, And the pillow was all wrinkled, And I was alone, everyone was alone...

M.A. Kuzmin. Collection of poems. M.A.Kuzmin. Gesammelte Gedichte. Munchen: Wilhelm fink Verlag, 1977.

My ancestors

Sailors of ancient families, in love with distant horizons, drinking wine in dark ports, hugging cheerful foreign women; dandies of the thirties, imitating D'0rsa and Brummel, bringing into the dandy's pose all the naivety of the young race; important, with stars, generals who were once sweet rakes, keeping funny stories over rum, are always the same; cute actors without much talent, who brought the school of a foreign land, who play “Mahomet” in Russia and die with innocent Voltairianism; you are young ladies in a bandeau, playing Marcaglio’s waltzes with feeling, embroidering beaded purses for grooms on long campaigns, fasting in house churches and telling fortunes with cards; thrifty , smart landowners, and here are all of you: boasting of your reserves, knowing how to forgive and cut off and come close to a person, mocking and pious, rising before the dawn in winter; and the charmingly stupid flowers of theater schools, devoted from childhood to the art of dancing, tenderly depraved, purely vicious, ruining their husbands for dresses and seeing their children half an hour a day; and further, in the distance - the nobles of remote districts, some strict boyars, the French who fled from the revolution, who were unable to climb the guillotine - all of you, all of you - you were silent for a long time century, and here you are shouting in hundreds of voices, lost, but alive, in me: the last, poor, but who has a tongue for you, and every drop of blood is close to you, hears you, loves you; dear, stupid, touching, close ones, you are blessed by me for your silent blessing.

Stanzas of the century. Anthology of Russian poetry. Comp. E. Yevtushenko. Minsk, Moscow: Polifact, 1995.

Muse

Throwing a net into the deep waters, Under the prophetic babble of dark linden trees, the pensive maiden looks at the scales of magical fish. Either in the ecstasy of the beast they curl their scarlet tails, then they float out like aquamarine, light, transparent and simple. Enthusiastically not understanding the Fruits of the imprinted waters, Everyone is waiting for the head of Orpheus to emerge like a golden rose.

M. Kuzmin. Arena. Selected Poems. 1000 years of Russian literature. Library of Russian classical literature. St. Petersburg: North-West, 1994.

Music

I hug you, - And the rainbow to the river, And the clouds are burning on the Divine hand. You laugh - it’s raining in the sun, mignonette is growing, the purple star is cunning with its eyelash. Figarit Figaro, split by a comet. Mysterious and clear Mozart's Tar O. Lethean bliss Sleeps sweetly in the trombones, The resinous monastery rings like a violin forest. What shadows will a sweet glance cast into space? Do not you know? and there is no need to look back, my friend. Whose heart shone on the blue, blue Si? The Never-Former Debussy listens thoughtfully.

M. Kuzmin. Arena. Selected Poems. 1000 years of Russian literature. Library of Russian classical literature. St. Petersburg: North-West, 1994.

* * *

A strange silence comes upon us from time to time, But in it lies a crowning moment, a calm hour of happiness. Thoughtful over the steps, Our angel looks down, Where golden smoke hangs between the autumn trees. Then again our spurred horse will neigh affably and carry us forward along the unbeaten road. But do not be embarrassed by the stops, My gentle, gentle friend, And by awkward explanations, Do not break our circle. Everything that is destined will happen, The leader guides us. During those hours that are lost here, We will taste the heavenly honey.

M. Kuzmin. Arena. Selected Poems. 1000 years of Russian literature. Library of Russian classical literature. St. Petersburg: North-West, 1994.

* * *

Don’t I look like an apple tree, an apple tree in bloom, tell me, friends? Isn't my hair as curly as her top? Isn’t my body built the same as her trunk? My arms are as flexible as branches. My legs are as tenacious as roots. Are my kisses sweeter than a sweet apple? But ah! But ah! The young men stand in a round dance, eating the fruit from that apple tree, but my fruit, my fruit, only one can eat at a time!

M. Kuzmin. Arena. Selected Poems. 1000 years of Russian literature. Library of Russian classical literature. St. Petersburg: North-West, 1994.

* * *

The meaning of your commands is unclear: Do you command me to pray, curse, fight, incomprehensible genius? The spring is becoming scarce, stingy and small, And the fast walker Benozzo Gozzoli dozed off in the dense wilds. The hills are dark like a copper cloud. Look: I don’t touch the harmonious strings. Your gaze, prophetically volatile, is closed, does not pour winged streams, does not beckon you along the May road to get ahead of Hermes' years. The hobbled horses do not neigh, the warriors are spread out, decrepit... Keep your palms open! Sunday spring is red, But the groves of darkness are not worthy to leap, rising from sleep. The groom does not set an hour, Do not be tempted by delay, Catch the calls of the voice through the ice. Your flax is watered with oil, And, having said goodbye to lazy prayer, You will be resurrected, free and in love.

M. Kuzmin. Arena. Selected Poems. 1000 years of Russian literature. Library of Russian classical literature. St. Petersburg: North-West, 1994.

* * *

Oh, to be abandoned - what happiness! What an immeasurable light is visible in the past. So after the summer - the winter storm: You still remember the sun, even though it is no longer there. A dried flower, a bunch of love letters, a smile in the eyes, two happy meetings, - Even if the road is now dark and sticky, But in the spring you wandered through the ants. Ah, there is another lesson for voluptuousness, There is another path - deserted and wide. Oh, to be abandoned is such happiness! To be unloved is the bitterest fate.

Wonderful Moment. Love lyrics of Russian poets. Moscow: Fiction, 1988.

* * *

Oh, mourners of days gone by, torturers of silent fate, seekers of drowned treasures, - are you anxiously waiting for the trumpet? In due time, dispassionately unchanging, that signal will awaken. No rebellious and peaceful captive drove away His fate. The river is still the same, but the drops are different, The distance is silent, the day is clear, The colors of the flowers are always varied, And the light of the sun replaces the shadow. Our eyes are not blind, our ears are not deaf, We listen to the song of the spring birds. It’s warm, pre-holiday and dry in the meadows. Don’t rush your pages. Get ready to be ready for the trumpet, Don’t regret and don’t guess, Be wisely simple to the current shackles, Don’t close your eyes to May.

M. Kuzmin. Arena. Selected Poems. 1000 years of Russian literature. Library of Russian classical literature. St. Petersburg: North-West, 1994.

* * *

Stop here from an hour to six. I would like to spend a week. Like bunnies of mirrors, The town rose from the sea, All canals and dams, With herds of meadows, - There are no abysses, no rocks. - The zucchini stands on the very shore, I will watch out for the steamboat from the window. Only the sea, only the heights. I wish I could walk on the ground. No matter the city, everything is wonderful, unknown and charming, just know and marvel at yourself! - If you love, how can you resist? Will this morning happen again? And the old man’s hand is gallant and strong. The block creaked. It smelled of ale, Now we'll sweep away the nonsense, We won't hear the whistle.

Stanzas of the century. Anthology of Russian poetry. Comp. E. Yevtushenko. Minsk, Moscow: Polifact, 1995.

* * *

In the evening, go out into the flooded meadows, lie down on the mown grass... How tender and languid thoughts come in reality! The heavens flow with radiance, The ether shimmers with a light sleep, As before a sweet date, When you already see your father’s house. More and more trembling, more and more grateful The heart greets the simple world, And the barking of dogs behind the cheese factory, And the bridge, and the meadow, and the watering hole. I see everything: a garden with cherries, and a table covered with a tablecloth, and a cloud floating on the paths on high like a joyful ambassador. Arkhangelsk plumage decorates the azure firmament. In such a captivating burning Death is easy and unnoticeable. The bird will leave the narrow cage, the body will melt... forget everything: And the sweet Russian nature, And your dear, painful path. What will I dream, what will I remember in the last splendor of existence? What will my soul look back at when going to otherworldly lands? For something completely homely, That you won’t even remember now: The walk in the garden yesterday, The door open in the sun. After all, thoughts have become volatile, And it’s no longer you who rule them, - Can you, with your will, keep up with the clouds That look from the blue heights? But death the shooter takes aim in vain, I am doomed to a strange fate. What is indivisible cannot be divided; I still live... I live in you.

M.A. Kuzmin. Collection of poems. M.A.Kuzmin. Gesammelte Gedichte. Munchen: Wilhelm fink Verlag, 1977.

* * *

I don’t know whether my love is like my first or my last, I only know that it cannot be otherwise. Can the Venus star not rise, although not visible, behind a cloud, every evening? Does not the tail of the bird of Juno, even if folded, wear all the emeralds and sapphires of the east? My love is simple and trusting, it is inevitable and therefore calm. She will not give secret dates, stairs and lanterns, serenades and cursory conversations at the ball, she is alien to hints and masks, almost silent; she combines the tenderness of a brother, the loyalty of a friend and the passion of a lover - what language should she use? That's why she remains silent. She is not romantic, she is devoid of cute embellishments, charming trinkets, she is poor in her wealth, because she is plump. I know that this is not the love of a young man, but of a child - a husband (maybe an old man). It's so simple, so little, (maybe boring?) but it's all me. Is it possible to praise a person for breathing, moving, looking? From another love I am left with black jealousy, but it is powerless when I know that nothing, neither she, nor even you yourself, can separate us. It's as simple as drinking when you're thirsty, isn't it?

M.A. Kuzmin. Collection of poems. M.A.Kuzmin. Gesammelte Gedichte. Munchen: Wilhelm fink Verlag, 1977.

Russian Revolution

It’s as if a hundred years have passed, but only a week! What a week... twenty-four hours! Saturn himself was surprised: never before had his braid spun like this. Yesterday, the people stood in a dark heap, Occasionally shying away and vaguely shouting, And the Anichkov Palace, like a red and deserted cloud, Sent volley after volley from a corrupt shoulder. The news (such ordinary news!) crawled like snakes: “There are fifty, there are two hundred killed...” The Cossacks moved. “They refused. They won’t shoot!..” - The spies hiss with their collars raised. Today... today the sun rose and saw all the gates open in the barracks. No guards, no policemen, no outposts. It was as if there had never been a guard or a machine gun. Music is playing. There was a battle near Kirochnaya, But somehow the last shadow of fear disappeared. Troops for freedom! God, oh my God! Everyone is ready to hug each other. Remember this morning after a black evening, This sun and shiny copper, Remember what you did not dream of in distant evenings, But what made your heart burn! The news is becoming more and more joyful, like a flock of doves... “The Fortress has been taken... The Admiralty has fallen!” The sky is becoming clearer, more and more doves. It’s as if Easter has arrived in Lent. Only in the evening do the attic owls begin the roll call of shots, With dull madness they are ready to suffer their hired life to the end. Trucks are rushing, Boys are carrying ministers to the Duma, And “Hurray” clings to the rapid noise like a column of dust. Laughter? But why fasting people? We not only bury, we build a new house. We'll think about how everyone can fit in it later. Remember this beginning of Soviet dispatches, the dizzying: “Everyone, everyone, everyone!” It’s like saying to a hungry person: “Eat!” And he, smiling, answers: “I eat.” According to the words, I went through strong sandpaper (Language Renewers, here you go!). And the word “citizen” sounds as if grammar first invented it. The Russian revolution - youthful, chaste, good - Does not repeat, only sees a brother in the Frenchman, And walks along the sidewalks, simple, Like an angel in a work blouse.

S. Bavin, I. Semibratova. The fates of the poets of the Silver Age. Russian State Library. Moscow: Book Chamber 1993.

* * *

The bright room is my cave, Thoughts are tame birds: cranes and storks; My songs are cheerful akathists; Love is my constant faith. Come to me, who is confused, who is cheerful, Who has found, who has lost a wedding ring, So that I hang your burden, bright and sad, like a garment on a nail. We will smile over grief, we will cry over happiness. It's not difficult to read akathists. A gratifying cure comes on its own In a room illuminated by the not-hot sun. High is the window above love and decay, Passion and sadness, like wax from fire, soften. New roads, always spring, are awaiting, Saying goodbye to heavy, dark languor.

S. Bavin, I. Semibratova. The fates of the poets of the Silver Age. Russian State Library. Moscow: Book Chamber 1993.

* * *

What is today: Wednesday, Saturday? Is today a fast day or a fast? Where did the care go, That every day is pure and simple. How all the faces except you have been erased, How smoothly the days run forward! Ah, I realized: “Continuous week.” The turn has come in my love.

S. Bavin, I. Semibratova. The fates of the poets of the Silver Age. Russian State Library. Moscow: Book Chamber 1993.

* * *

I sit, reading fairy tales and stories, I look at portraits of the dead in old books, Portraits in old books of the dead say: “They forgot you, they forgot you”... - Well, what can I do if they forgot me? What will help here, old portraits? - And he asked what would help, old portraits, threats, oaths, pleas? “You too will forget the kissed shoulders, Be like us, an old portrait in love: You can be a good portrait in love With a languid look, without any speech.” - I'm dying of immeasurable love! Don’t you see, dear portraits? - “We see, we see,” said the portraits, “That you are a faithful, faithful and exemplary lover? So I read, sitting, fairy tales, looking at the portraits of the dead in old books. And I didn’t feel sorry for the portraits whispering: “They forgot you, they forgot you.”

M.A. Kuzmin. Collection of poems. M.A.Kuzmin. Gesammelte Gedichte. Munchen: Wilhelm fink Verlag, 1977.

* * *

It is sweet to die on the battlefield with the whistle of arrows and spears, when the trumpet sounds and the sun shines, at noon, dying for the glory of the fatherland and hearing around: “Farewell, hero!” It is sweet to die as a venerable old man in the same house, on the same bed where our grandfathers were born and died, surrounded by children who have already become husbands, and hearing around them: “Farewell, father!” But even sweeter, even wiser, having spent all his property, having sold the last mill for one that he would have forgotten tomorrow, returning after a cheerful walk to the already sold house, having dinner and, having read Apuleius’s story for the hundred and first time, in a warm fragrant bath, without hearing any farewells, open your veins; and through the long window near the ceiling there was the smell of leftovers, the dawn was shining, and flutes could be heard in the distance.

M. Kuzmin. Arena. Selected Poems. 1000 years of Russian literature. Library of Russian classical literature. St. Petersburg: North-West, 1994.

* * *

Sun, sun, divine Ra-Helios, the hearts of kings and heroes rejoice in you, sacred horses neigh at you, hymns are sung to you in Heliopolis; When you shine, lizards crawl out onto the stones and the boys go laughing to the Nile for a swim. Sun, sun, I am a pale scribe, a library recluse, but I love you, sun, no less than a tanned sailor, smelling of fish and salt water, and no less than his usual heart rejoices at your royal rise from the ocean, mine trembles , when your dusty but fiery ray slides through the narrow window near the ceiling onto the scribbled sheet and my thin yellowish hand, tracing the first letter of the hymn to you with cinnabar, O Ra-Helios sun!

* * *

Everyone beats the same, But everyone lives differently, Heart, heart, you will have to keep score with the sky. What does "heartache" mean? What does it mean: "love's delight"? Sounds, sounds, sounds The air was blown out of the air. What kind of genius would stick an exact label on a word? Only our hearing is in the word “awe.” We are used to catching some kind of awe. Love itself grows, Like a child, like a sweet flower, And often forgets About the small, muddy source. I didn’t follow her changes - And suddenly... oh, my God, Completely different walls, When I came home! Where does a horse run without a bridle? Capricious eyebrows? As if from a sweet, childish stove, a familiar warmth emanates. The streams are wide and calm, Like the navigable Danube! It’s better not to remember about those kisses. I prefer the sun to the Bunny of dim mirrors, Like Saul, I found and know the Kingdom that I did not seek! Is it calm? Well, yes, calm down. Is it warm? Well, yes, it's warm. A wise heart is worthy, a faithful heart is bright. Why do I get completely cold, When I suddenly see you, And what I dare to express is only a sound born in the air?

M.A. Kuzmin. Collection of poems. M.A.Kuzmin. Gesammelte Gedichte. Munchen: Wilhelm fink Verlag, 1977.

Trout breaks the ice

FIRST STRIKE It was cold, and “Tristan” was playing. The wounded sea sang in the orchestra, The green land behind the blue steam, The wildly stopped heart. No one saw how Beauty entered the theater and found herself already sitting in a box, like a Bryullov canvas. Such women live in novels, They are also found on the screen... Thefts and crimes are committed for them, Their carriages lie in wait and they are poisoned in the attics. Now she carefully and modestly watched deadly love, without straightening the scarlet handkerchief that had slipped from her pearly shoulder, without noticing that many binoculars were stubbornly watching her in the theater... I didn’t know her, but I kept looking at the twilight it seemed like an empty box... I was at a spiritualistic seance, Although I don’t like spiritualists, and the medium seemed pathetic to me - a downtrodden Czech. A bluish chilling light flowed freely through the wide window. The moon seemed to be shining from the north: Iceland, Greenland and Thule, The green land behind the blue steam... And so I remember: my body was shackled by some kind of drowsiness before the explosion, And expectation, and disgust, The last shame and complete bliss... And the light knocking inside did not stop, as if a fish was hitting its tail on the ice... I stood up, staggering, like a blind sleepwalker. I reached the door... Suddenly it opened. A man of about twenty, with green eyes, came out of the front box; He took me for someone else, shook my hand and said: “Let's smoke!” How hard the fish moved its tail! Lack of will is the threshold of the higher will! The last shame and complete bliss! Green land behind blue steam! SECOND STRIKE The horses are fighting, snoring in fear, Blue ribbon is entwined around the arcs, Wolves, snow, bells, gunfire! As for the retribution terrible as night? Will your Carpathians tremble? Will honey harden in an old horn? The cavity flutters, a marvelous bird; The squeal of the runners - “Gayda, Maritsa!” Stop... the haiduk is running with a lantern... This is what your house is like: The light of the Madonna at the head of the head And the horseshoe guards the threshold, Galleries, a snowdrift on the roof, Mice scratching behind the trellis, Saddle cloths, lace, carpets! It's hard from the front bedrooms! And a whole forest is piled into the fireplace, resin hisses like incense... “Why are your lips yellow? Don’t you know what you did? Forget about jokes here, my friend! Not a vampire of the Bohemian forests - You called yourself a mortal brother before the whole world , so be a brother! And the laws in our prison, Oh, they are free and strict: Blood for blood, love for love. We take and give according to honor, We do not need bloody revenge: God will untie one from the vow, Cain condemns himself ..." The young master turned pale, cut his palm at random... Blood quietly drips into the glasses: A sign of exchange and a sign of protection... The horses are being led to the stable. .. THE FIFTH STRIKE We are spending this May like in a village: We pulled down the curtains, took off our jackets, dragged the billiard table into the front room, and banged cues for half the day From breakfast to tea. Early dinner, getting up at dawn, swimming, laziness... Since you left, it seemed necessary for me to live as it should be to live apart: A little boring and hygienic. I wasn’t even particularly looking forward to the letters, and I shuddered when I saw the postmark: “Greenock.” - We are spending this May as if in delirium, the rose hips are going crazy, the sea is blue, and Ellinor is more beautiful than ever! Forgive me, my friend, but if you saw how in the morning she goes out into the flower garden in a bluish-gray Amazon, - You would understand that passion is stronger than will, - So here it is - a green country! - Who invented that peaceful landscapes cannot be the scene of disasters? THE TENTH STRIKE A succession of sweet entertainments Sometimes it is more boring than service. Only chance can come to the rescue, But you can’t lure chance, like the Temple of Chance to the Bug - gambling houses. I won’t describe the excitement of burnt eyes, dry lips, dead foreheads. Under the croupier's cries I sat all night long. It seemed to me that I was sitting under water. The green cloth was reminiscent of the green land beyond the blue steam... But I was not looking for memories, which I carefully avoided, but was waiting for an opportunity. One day, a certain man with big glasses comes up to me and says: “As you can see, you are not a player at all, rather an amateur, Or, rather, a seeker of sensations.” But in essence there is a terrible melancholy here: Monotonous and uninteresting. Now it's not too late. Perhaps you wouldn’t mind walking with me and inspecting a small collection of curiosities? I have traveled all over Europe from a young age; I was even in Egypt. A small museum has been formed - Among the trash there are interesting things, And I, like any collector, Appreciate the attention; without division, Like all others, this passion is dead. - I quickly agreed, although, to be honest, I didn’t like this little man: He seemed annoying and stupid. But it was only a quarter to one, and I absolutely did not know what to do. Of course, if you look at it as a case - this adventure was pathetic! We walked for three blocks: an ordinary entrance, an ordinary bourgeois apartment, ordinary fake scarabs, muskets, broken telescopes, moth-eaten wigs, and wind-up dolls without keys. A cobweb settled on my brain, I felt nauseous, my head was spinning, and I was just about to leave... The owner hesitated a little and said: - You don’t seem to like it? Of course, it is far from a commodity for a connoisseur. I have one more fun, But it’s not quite finished, I’m still looking for the other half. One of these days, I hope, it will be done. Perhaps you'll take a look? - Twin! "Twin?!" - Twin. "And single?" - Single. We entered the closet: in the middle stood an aquarium, covered on top with bluish glass, like ice. In the water, a trout curled melancholy and beat melodiously against the glass. - She will break through it, have no doubt. "Well, where is your twin?" - Now, be patient - He opened the closet in the wall with a grimace and jumped out the door. There, on a chair, Against a green calico background, a ragged creature slept (Like lightning flashed - “Caligari!”): The greenery clearly showed through the skin, The lips curled bitterly and criminally, Brown rings stuck to the forehead, And a vein beat on the dry temple. With anticipation and disgust I looked and looked without taking my eyes off... And the fish hit the glass quietly... And a light crack and blue ringing merged... An American coat and tie... And a cap the color of delicate rose champagne. He grabbed his heart and screamed wildly... - Oh, my God, have you already met? And even... maybe... I don’t believe in happiness!.. “Open, open your green eyes! I don’t care how the green country sent you back to me! I am your mortal brother. Do you remember there, in the Carpathians? Shakespeare also you haven’t finished reading And the words diverge like a rainbow. The last shame and complete bliss!..” And the fish beats, and beats, and beats, and beats. CONCLUSION Do you know? After all, I first wanted to depict Twelve months And come up with a purpose for everyone In the circle of activities of light and lovers. And here's what happened! Apparently, I’m not in love, and I’m heavy. Memories came flooding in, excerpts from novels I had read, the dead mixed with the living, and everything was so mixed up that I myself am not glad that I started all this. I saved twelve months and gave the approximate weather, - And that’s not bad. And then I believe that breaking the ice is possible for trout, When it is stubborn. That's all.

Stanzas of the century. Anthology of Russian poetry. Comp. E. Yevtushenko. Minsk, Moscow: Polifact, 1995.

* * *

A. S. Roslavlev I know you firsthand, O, upper Volga city! Kremlin scaly towers, I will never forget you! And I know how long the nights are, How bright and short the winter day is, - I myself was born on the Volga, Where laziness became friends with daring, Where the ancient pious and sharp-witted, where the conversation is cool, Where the fields run merrily to the river, where they pray and lie , Where Yaroslavl burns, that in the mitre The patriarch has a ruby, Where our Tsarevich Dimitri grew up, a crimson stained with blood, Where everything is free, everything is sedate, Where everything shines, everything blooms, Where the Volga slowly and foamily leads to distant seas. I know the running of carpet sleighs, And the roses of cheeks in the cold, I will not find royally severe frosts in another land. I know the bell of Lenten, In a distant forest there is a small skete, - And in the sweet and inert life there is some kind of secret magnet. I remember the smell of raspberry ridges and festive comfort in the upper rooms, the tunes of the touchingly long services They still sing in my soul. I don’t know if I’m right or wrong, I don’t love by order. For growing up in Yaroslavl, I will bless my destiny!

M. Kuzmin. Arena. Selected Poems. 1000 years of Russian literature. Library of Russian classical literature. St. Petersburg: North-West, 1994.

M.A. Kuzmin was born in Yaroslavl.

For a long time, he deliberately downplayed his age, calling the year of birth either 75th, then 76th, or even 77th. “My father was 60 years old at my birth,” he recalled, “my mother was 40. I remember my father as quite an old man; in the city everyone took him for my grandfather, but not my father. In his youth he was very handsome with the beauty of a southern and western man, he was a sailor, then he served in elections, he led, they say, a stormy life, and in old age he was a man with a capricious, spoiled, difficult and despotic character. The mother, by nature, perhaps somewhat frivolous, loves dancing, before the wedding had just fallen in love with her previous groom, who then abandoned her, then she was all about children, timid, silent, aloof from acquaintances and, in the end, stubborn both in love and in not understanding something. I lived in Yaroslavl for a year and a half, after which we all moved to Saratov...”

In Saratov, Kuzmin went to the gymnasium.

“I was alone, my brothers were in Kazan, at the cadet school, my sisters were in St. Petersburg on courses, then I got married. I all had girlfriends, not comrades, and I loved playing with dolls, theater, reading or performing light medleys of old Italian operas, since my father was a fan of them, especially Rossini...”

Kuzmin grew up extremely unbalanced. He either threw himself into devout religiosity, or had attacks of unbelief. In St. Petersburg, where the Kuzmins moved in 1884, the most significant acquaintance for him was his acquaintance with G.V. Chicherin, the future People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs under Soviet rule. “I was happy,” the poet recalled, “relaxing in a large, “proper” noble family and the appearance of a wealthy life. We agreed on our adoration of music, ran together to the Belyaev Concerts, studied Mozart, went to the gallery and the theater. I started writing music, and we performed our compositions in front of the family. Having written several romances, valuable in melody, but otherwise unimaginable, I began to work on operas and kept writing prologues to “Don Giovanni” and “Cleopatra” and, finally, the text and music itself for “La Rei Millo” according to Gozzi. This is the first thing I took a risk in literature...” Kuzmin also owed his friendship with Chicherin a good knowledge of foreign languages.

Kuzmin kept a diary almost his entire adult life. “I must be sincere and truthful, at least to myself, regarding the confusion that reigns in my soul,” he noted in his diary, “but if I have three faces, then there is another person sitting inside me, and everyone is crying out.” , and at times one will shout out to the other, and how I coordinate them, I don’t know. My three faces are so dissimilar, so hostile to each other that only the subtlest eye would not be seduced by this difference, which outrages everyone who loved one of them, with a long beard, somewhat reminiscent of Vinci, very effeminate and seemingly kind and some kind of suspicious holiness, as if simple, but complex; the second, with a pointed beard - the somewhat foppish face of a French correspondent, the more roughly subtle, indifferent and bored face of Eulogius; third, the most terrible thing - without a beard and mustache, neither old nor young, a 50-year-old man and a young man, - Casanova, half-charlatan, half-abbot, with an insidious and childishly fresh mouth, dry and suspicious...”

In 1891 he entered the St. Petersburg Conservatory. He studied with Lyadov, Rimsky-Korsakov, Solovyov, he loved and understood music, but he did not finish the conservatory and suddenly left it, deciding to take private lessons from V.V. Kuehner. Kuzmin's actions were affected by some of his personal characteristics. “In 1893, I met a man,” he wrote frankly in his diary, “whom I loved very much and the connection with whom promised to be strong. He was 4 years older than me and an officer in a cavalry regiment. It was very difficult to find enough time to go to him, to hide where I was with him, etc., but this was one of the happiest times of my life, and here I wrote a lot of music... My life was not particularly approved by my mother ; Oddly enough, my attempt to poison myself dates back to this time. I don’t understand what motivated me in this act; maybe I hoped that they would save me. I think that ignorance of life, the consideration of my situation as somehow special, dissatisfaction with the conservatory, the inability to live widely enough, romanticism and frivolity prompted me to do this... But in the spring I went with Prince Georges to Egypt. We were in Constantinople, Athens, Smyrna, Alexandria, Cairo, Memphis. It was a fabulous journey through the enchantment... and unprecedentedness of what was seen. On the way back he had to go to Vienna, where his aunt was, I immediately returned alone. In Vienna, my friend died of heart disease, but I tried to forget myself in intense studies. I began to study with Kuehner, and every step was observed with delight by Chicherin, with whom it was a honey year of friendship...”

The death of the friend with whom he traveled really shocked Kuzmin. He firmly decided to completely change his life and put things in order. He strictly regulated classes, food, reading, but his patience did not last long. Soon he left for Italy again. “Rome intoxicated me; here I became interested in the lift-boy Luigino, who was taken from Rome with the consent of his parents to Florence, so that later he would go to Russia as a servant. I was very shy about money, spending it without counting. I was very cheerful, and all the Neoplatonists influenced me only because I considered myself something demonic. In despair, my mother turned to Chicherin (who was in Germany at that time). He unexpectedly arrived in Florence, I was already fed up with Luigino, and I willingly allowed myself to be saved. Yusha (Chicherin) brought me together with Canon Mori, a Jesuit, who first took me into his own hands, and then moved me completely to his place, taking charge of my conversion. We sent Luigino to Rome, Mori dictated all the letters to me. I did not deceive him by surrendering myself to the lulling Catholicism, but formally I said how I would like to “be” a Catholic, but not “become”. I wandered through the churches, through his acquaintances, to his mistress, the Marquise Espinosi Morodi on the estate, read the lives of the holy great martyrs, and was ready to become a clergyman and a monk. But my mother’s letters, a change of heart, the sun, which I suddenly noticed one day in particular in the morning, renewed fits of hysteria, forced me to ask my mother to demand me by telegram. We said goodbye to the canon with tears, promising each other a quick date..."

In St. Petersburg, “having entered deeply into Russian, I became carried away by the schism and forever lost interest in official Orthodoxy. I didn’t want to enter a schism, and without entering I could not use the services and the entire apparatus the way I would have wanted. At this time I met the antiquities seller Kazakov, an Old Believer of my age, a rogue, always making plans, stupid and fickle. I began to study hooks, became acquainted with Smolensky, tried to behave like a book-reader, and was proud when they took me for an Old Believer...” Kuzmin now spent every summer in provincial towns or villages on the Volga. “He was surprised by his appearance at that time,” recalled the artist M. Dobuzhinsky. - He wore a blue undershirt and, with his dark complexion, black beard and too large eyes, his hair cut in a bracket, he looked like a gypsy. Then he changed this appearance (and not for the better - he shaved and began wearing smart vests and ties). His past was surrounded by a strange mystery - they said that he either lived at one time in some kind of monastery, or was a sitter in a schismatic shop, but that he was half-French by origin and traveled a lot around Italy...”

In 1908, Kuzmin’s first collection of poems, “Networks,” was published, and in 1912, “Clay Doves.” Exquisite style and extraordinary musicality of poems (Kuzmin performed many to his own music) very quickly brought popularity to the poet. In 1918, his collections “Counselor” and “Two” were published, in 1920 - “Curtained Pictures”, in 1921 - “Unearthly Evenings” and “Echo”, in 1922 - “Parabolas”, in 1924 -m - “New Ghoul”.

“When you see Kuzmin for the first time,” Voloshin wrote, “you want to ask him, “Tell me frankly how old you are,” but you don’t dare, for fear of getting the answer “Two thousand.” - Without a doubt, he is young, and, rationally speaking, he cannot be more than 30 years old, but in his appearance there is something so ancient that one wonders if he is not one of the Egyptian mummies, to which life was restored by some kind of witchcraft and memory. Only he is not from the mummies of ancient Egypt. Such faces are often found in El-Fayyum portraits, which, having been discovered very recently, aroused such interest among European scientists, giving for the first time an idea of ​​​​the nature of the physiognomies of the Alexandrian era. Kuzmin has the same huge black eyes, the same smooth black beard sharply framing his pale waxen face, the same thin mustache flowing over his upper lip without covering it. He is small in stature, narrow-shouldered and flexible in body, like a woman. He has a fine Grecian profile, a finely modeled and boldly sculpted skull, a forehead in line with the nose and a deep, bold notch separating the nose from the upper lip and flowing into the thin arch of the mouth. Such a profile can be seen in images of Pericles and on the bust of Diomedes. But the character of indisputable antique authenticity gives Kuzmin’s face a special violation of proportions, which is found only on Greek vases; his eye is set very deep and low in relation to the bridge of his nose, as if slightly shifted onto his cheek, if you look at him in profile. His mouth almost always somewhat exposes the lower row of his teeth, and this gives his face that character of dilapidation that is so striking in him. There is no doubt that he died in Alexandria as a young and handsome youth and was very skillfully embalmed. But being in the tomb affected him like the resurrected Lazarus...”

“Soul, I am not tormented by grief, I do not cry, flighty wanderer. We sell everything, we owe everything to everyone, soon we will have nothing left... Of course, there is God, and heaven, and an imagination that is not lazy, but when you sit almost without bread, you become like a funny captive...”

“Not a penny of money,” Kuzmin wrote in his diary in July 1923. - When I was walking home before dark, but already at the eleventh hour, thinking very sadly about my situation and my fate, a car stood on Nadezhdinskaya with an unusually bright lantern. Sometimes there is a silhouette of a driver on it. This yellow fire in the daylight seems to be in the other world - hopelessly and unusually sweet...” The feeling of such unreality, such transparency of the world was familiar to many in those years, but it apparently gripped Kuzmin with some completely extraordinary force. “After all, these are all ghosts - both Lunacharsky and the Red Army soldiers, this has no place in nature...” he wrote. And further - “The weather is such that you don’t want to leave the street. On such days, the Bolsheviks are terribly inappropriate..." - And further - "It still seems to me that this is not life, not people, not rehearsals, not streets, but some kind of boring, satanic game of shadows, shadows and shadows... »

"Ah, don't sail on the blue sea,
We will not see the Golden Horn,
Pigeons and St. Mark's Square.
It's good to sail where it's hot,
Yes, the dear road doubles,
And I don’t know whether it’s for joy or sorrow.
No open, bright decks to be seen
And ships with slanting sails,
Golden in the glow of sunset.
What happens should be sacred
We do not control our destiny ourselves,
Nobody needs our complaints.”

The solution that saved Kuzmin was the sale of his “Diary” to the State Literary Museum. Already on December 17, 1933, the poet wrote to Professor Yu.A. Bakhrushin “I sent a receipt for the money to Vladimir Dmitrievich (Bonch-Bruevich, through whom the Diary entered the museum). Everything arrived safely, although the post office was shocked, and we went twice with suitcases to receive my thousands, like in the old movie “The Virgin Post Office Robbery.” Yes, that means the archive is gone, the money is gone, but, I hope, the good relationships acquired in this way will remain...”

The story of his “Diaries” is tragic. Already in 1934 they were reclaimed from the State Literary Museum by the NKVD. “Kuzmin was no longer alive at that time,” wrote researcher of his work A.G. Timofeev, - when they started taking people according to his “Diary” (or also according to his “Diary”). Until recently, this version was known as an ominous and chilling legend, but the facts of the literary life of Leningrad in the late thirties force us to recognize it as more than reliable (it is possible that the “Diary” began to be used during the author’s lifetime). One cannot help but mourn the fact that Kuzmin’s poems of the 30s (collections “Tristan”, “Simple World”, the poem “Adopted by Murder”) and translations of Shakespeare’s sonnets were requisitioned by the GPU during the arrest of Kuzmin’s friend, writer Yuri Yurkun in 1938 and , apparently disappeared without a trace during one of the besieged Leningrad winters, when the GPU burned and destroyed its archives. Did Kuzmin become the murderer (in the metaphysical sense, of course) of his beloved friend and many other promising prose writers and poets... And, probably, no one will know how many such indirect murders lie on the conscience of this elegant man, in whom there is no I would like to see - in unison with Akhmatov’s concept of “Poem without a Hero” (where he is depicted in the mask of the evil-sowing Cagliostro) - the messenger of Hell, talking about “tender passion” and fascinating friendship-love... They will object to us that Kuzmin’s non-chess mind could not to foresee the dark history of the “Diary” sold to the museum. The answer to this, if we are talking about an artist in whose mind the idea of ​​a play about Nero arose at the time of the construction of the mausoleum, and not in the year of the “great turning point” when the play “The Death of Nero” was written, such an argument is hardly acceptable.”

Mikhail Kuzmin

“He who has a choice, chooses”

He won't notice the tears on my face

The reader is a crybaby,

Fate doesn't put a full stop at the end,

But only a blot.

One of the most mysterious poets of the Silver Age, Mikhail Alekseevich Kuzmin, was born in Yaroslavl on October 6 (18), 1872. During his lifetime, Kuzmin often mystified his past, for example, adding two or three years to his date of birth. His father, Alexey Alekseevich, was a naval officer. Mother, Nadezhda Dmitrievna, nee Fedorova, was the daughter of a poor landowner of the Yaroslavl province. Kuzmin's maternal grandmother was the granddaughter of the famous 18th-century French actor Jean Aufrene, which to some extent influenced Kuzmin's interest in French culture. In general, Western European culture became his second spiritual home from early childhood: Shakespeare, Moliere, Cervantes, Walter Scott, Hoffmann, Rossini, Weber, Schubert shaped the personality of the future poet and musician, despite the fact that Kuzmin’s parents were Old Believers, and he himself was raised in Old Testament traditions of everyday religiosity.

Kuzmin began to study in Saratov, where he was taken by his parents at the age of one and a half years, in the same gymnasium where Chernyshevsky once studied. However, already in the fall of 1884, the poet’s family moved to St. Petersburg.

Even in his gymnasium years, Kuzmin became close friends with Georgy Chicherin, later a famous statesman of Soviet Russia, who became his closest friend until the early 1900s and had a huge influence on Kuzmin. It was Chicherin who introduced Italian culture to Kuzmin’s circle of interests, helped Kuzmin learn the Italian language, and later instilled in Kuzmin a serious interest in German culture.

In the summer of 1891, after graduating from high school, Kuzmin entered the conservatory. His teacher in his few years at the conservatory (instead of the supposed seven years, he spent only three there, and then took lessons at a private music school for another two years) was Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. At this time, Kuzmin's musical hobbies resulted in the composition of numerous works, mainly vocal. He wrote many romances, as well as operas based on stories from classical antiquity.

In the spring and summer of 1895, Kuzmin made a trip to Egypt, visiting Constantinople, Athens, Smyrna, Alexandria, Cairo, and Memphis. This journey provided themes for many of his subsequent works. Hellenistic Alexandria became a long-lasting source for his writings, both in music and literature.

The darkest period in Kuzmin’s life dates back to the very end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, which gave rise to perhaps the most legends about him, such as, for example, that he lived for months in the Olonets and Volga Old Believer hermitages. This was due to the fact that at that time Kuzmin even tried to look like an Old Believer, wearing a jacket, cap, boots and growing a beard.

Kuzmin first entered the circle of that artistic intelligentsia, which played such a large role in the spiritual life of Russian society at the turn of the century, as a musician. This was facilitated by friendly relations with members of the famous “World of Art” (primarily Walter Nouvel, Konstantin Somov and Leon Bakst), and participation in the “Evenings of Contemporary Music” held in 1901. “Evenings” allowed Kuzmin to present his music not to a close circle of a few people, but to a much wider public.

Kuzmin’s debut as a poet took place in December 1904, when the almanac “Green Collection of Poems and Prose” was published, where his cycle of poems “XIII Sonnets” was published, as well as an opera libretto. The most accurate word that defined the atmosphere in which the poet lived at this time is “aestheticism,” with its cult of beauty and devotion to good taste, veneration of Aubrey Beardsley, Oscar Wilde and the younger French decadents. Kuzmin during these years (until August 1906) was still dressed in Russian dress, which served as a sign of separation from the artistic circle, and spent most of his time in solitude. At the same time, “Evenings of Contemporary Music” remained virtually his only contact with the artistic world. But external isolation from the artistic circle was replaced by a deep internal connection with it: in 1904 - 1905, Kuzmin worked on those works that most determined his literary reputation at the beginning of his creative career - the cycle “Alexandrian Songs” and the story “Wings”.

"Wings" represented a kind of experience of homosexual education. The book had the effect of a literary scandal and for a long time gave Kuzmina a completely odious and unambiguous reputation in wide circles, causing persecution in the press. As a matter of principle, he not only did not try to hide the nature of his intimate life, but also did it with an openness unprecedented for that time.

In the fall of 1906, Kuzmin also began collaborating with Vera Komissarzhevskaya’s theater, writing music for Alexander Blok’s play “Balaganchik,” staged by Vsevolod Meyerhold. It was from “The Showcase” that Kuzmin’s long theatrical career began, as well as his long friendship with Blok. At the very beginning of 1909, Kuzmin met young poets - Nikolai Gumilev, Alexei Tolstoy, Osip Mandelstam.

In the spring of 1913, Kuzmin met the young artist Yuri Yurkun, who became his friend and companion for many years, until the poet’s death.

Kuzmin’s name is closely intertwined with the “Stray Dog” cafe, where he was a frequent visitor, and for the first anniversary of “Dogs” he even wrote “Anthem”, as well as the quatrain “Cabaret”, which was published on “Dogs” programs. From time to time, Kuzmin himself performed from the stage.

From the book “Petersburg Bohemia” by Anatoly Shaikevich:

“An amazing, unreal creature, sketched as if by the capricious pencil of a visionary artist, climbs onto the stage with small, quick steps. This is a man of small stature, thin, fragile, in a modern jacket, but with the face of either a faun or a young satyr, as Pompeian frescoes depict them. Black, as if varnished, thin hair is combed forward on the sides, towards the temples, and a narrow beard, as if drawn on with ink, defiantly emphasizes the unnaturally rosy cheeks. Large, protruding eyes that want to be naive, but have seen a lot, have seen a lot, are illuminated by long, fluffy, as if feminine, eyelashes. He smiles, bows and, like a wax automaton animated by Coppelius, sits down at the piano. What long, pale, sharp fingers he has...

A sickly sweet, vicious and breathless languor descends on the listeners. There is melancholy in a joke, tears in laughter.

Child, do not reach for a rose in the spring,

You can pick a rose in the summer,

Violets are picked in early spring.

In summer you won’t find violets.

Now your lips are like strawberry juice,

Cheeks like the roses of Gloire de Dijon.

Now your curls are like golden silk,

Your kisses are like linden honey.

Child, hurry up, hurry up,

Remember that in summer there are no violets.

Banal modulations merge with a tremulous, velvety voice, and it is not known how or why, but ingenuously childish words receive some kind of mysterious meaning inherent in them alone.

Of course, this is not a child reaching for a rose, but a flirtatious, low-necked shepherdess, climbing on the fence and exposing her slender leg in a white stocking.

If there is sunshine tomorrow, we will go to Fiesole,

If it rains tomorrow, we will stay at home..."

After the closure of Stray Dog, Kuzmin became a regular at the Comedians' Halt, where for some time he regularly performed his songs. It was “Halt” that celebrated Kuzmin’s anniversary on October 29, 1916 - the tenth anniversary of his literary activity.

Kuzmin and Yurkun moved together to an apartment on the 5th floor of building No. 17 - 19 on Spasskaya Street in the troubled year of 1918. Kuzmin's acquaintances noted that in the post-revolutionary years the poet quickly aged. It was hard to imagine that in front of you was the famous St. Petersburg dandy. Kuzmin did not leave Russia, remaining in cold and hungry Petrograd. This apartment became his refuge for many years, when “his swollen fingers cracked and his shoes fell apart.” And then the new authorities began to “compact”, taking away room after room from Kuzmin and Yurkun. By the 1930s, the apartment had become a cluttered, noisy communal apartment. They even occupied a former closet with a single window overlooking the back staircase.

Kuzmin and Yurkun were given two rooms with windows facing the courtyard. Yurkun’s mother, Veronica Karlovna, lived in a small room and took care of the household. Kuzmin and Yurkun lived in a large room. It was a walk-through, and from time to time neighbors walked past the owners and guests to the kitchen. Kuzmin's works were published less and less often, and the poet was forced to earn money by translating for the theater. One might get the impression that one of the brightest poets of the Silver Age was simply forgotten. But not only old admirers of his work remembered Kuzmin - young people were drawn to him. Here, in a walk-through room, young poets, translators, artists, art critics gathered at a round table... It is difficult to list all those who were here: Benedict Livshits, Daniil Kharms, Alexander Vvedensky, Ivan Likhachev, Konstantin Vaginov, Lev Rakov, Rurik Ivnev, Anna and Sergei Radlov and many others.

Every day from 5 to 7 pm, guests went up to the 5th floor and pressed the bell button of the communal apartment three times. The owner of the apartment, a little old man with huge eyes, opened the door. Kuzmin invited guests into the room. There, on the round table, there was already a large samovar. Mikhail Alekseevich poured the tea himself. Guests tried to bring their own treats. At this table they listened to new poems, discussed the latest events in the life of art, and argued. Sometimes Kuzmin would go up to the white piano and play, quietly humming his famous “songs.” House manager Yakovlev treated Kuzmin with great respect and did not interfere with the holding of frequent “meetings”. He claimed that someday a memorial plaque would be hung on the house with the inscription: “Kuzmin and Yurkun lived here, and the building manager did not oppress them.”

In February 1936, Kuzmin was admitted to the Kuibyshev (Mariinsk) hospital in Leningrad, where on March 1 he died of pneumonia. Kuzmin was buried on the Literary Bridge at the Volkov Cemetery. The inscription on the grave is extremely simple:

Mikhail Kuzmin

In one of her later interviews, Anna Akhmatova said something cruel, but in a sense fair: “His death in 1936 was a blessing, otherwise he would have died an even more terrible death than Yurkun, who was shot in 1938.” Kuzmin died in a crowded ward at a city hospital, having previously lain in the hallway and caught a cold. A witness to the funeral said: “There were fewer literary people at the funeral than ‘should’ be, but perhaps more than we would like to see... Remember that seven people followed Wilde’s coffin, and not all of them made it to the end.”

After the death of Kuzmin and the arrest of Yurkun, most of the archive, which had not previously been sold to the State Literary Museum, disappeared, and to this day no one knows where it might be. It seemed that the very name of Kuzmin immediately went into the distant literary past, that he would never be destined to return. He did not even leave Russian poetry, as has long been the custom, his dying “Monument,” so let another poet, Alexander Blok, speak for him: “The most wonderful thing here is that much will pass, what seems unshakable to us, but the rhythms will not pass, for they are fluid, they, like time itself, are unchanging in their fluidity. That’s why we would like and will try to protect you, the bearer of these rhythms, the poet, the master to whom they obey, a complex musical instrument, from everything that disrupts the rhythm, from everything that blocks the path to the musical wave.”

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN WHO IS A FRIEND, WHO IS AN ENEMY On August 29, Vysotsky came to Minsk to give several concerts there again. Moreover, he greatly frightened the organizers: there were only a few minutes left before the start of the concert, the audience was already sitting in the hall, and Vysotsky was still not there. And when in