Rosary by Anna Akhmatova

Source of book: I own the complete poems of Akhmatova

 

I previously read and wrote about Akhmatova’s first collection, Evening. Rosary is her second collection, published in 1914, just two years after her first. A handful of poems were later added to it, most written at the same time, but a few in 1915. 

 

What struck me most about this collection is how many of the poems are about doomed love, unhealthy relationships, and heartbreak. I know that Russian authors are hardly the only ones to choose these themes, but I kind of wonder if there is such a thing as a healthy and happy Russian romantic relationship? Presumably so, but they don’t seem to find their way into art. Just a random observation. 

Portrait of Anna Akhmatova, 1914

Nathan Altman

I presume that these poems were largely written before the outbreak of World War I. As such, there aren’t any that I would call overtly political - all that would come later, with the various revolutions, and eventually her persecution by the Stalin regime. Thus, like the first collection, these are concerned with personal, individual problems, not the sweep of history. 

 

This is not to say they are naive or innocent, though. Even in her 20s, Akhmatova had a truly bitter edge to her view of love and relationships, and nothing is ever simple. 

 

Here is a great example:

 

In the Evening

 

The music rang out in the garden

With such inexpressible grief.

Oysters in ice on the plate

Smelled fresh and sharp, of the sea.

 

He told me: “I am your true friend!”

And he touched my dress.

How unlike a caress, 

The touch of those hands.

 

As one might stroke a cat or a bird,

Or watch slender equestriennes ride…

Under the light gold lashes

There is only laughter in his tranquil eyes.

 

And the voices of mournful violins 

Sing through the drifting smoke:

“Praise heaven above - for the first time

You’re alone with the man you love.”

 

One of the most lacerating depictions of unrequited love I have read. And starting with that sexual metaphor of oysters. She is hot and horny for him, and he obliviously friend zones her. Akhmatova turns the usual symbols of love on their heads. No longer is a touch one of love, violins do not rise in ecstasy, the eyes hold only chaste laughter, and the animals often used to describe the beloved - cat, bird, horse - are a disappointment. 

 

It’s a brilliant poem. 

 

Here is another one that I thought was particularly excellent. It is thoroughly ambiguous. And indeed, the speaker seems ambivalent about it all. Is the speaker hoping her love will be requited? Worried it will be? Or on the cusp of losing that love altogether?

 

After the wind and the frost,

It was pleasant to toast myself at the fire.

But I didn’t look after my heart

And it was stolen from me.

 

New Year’s Day stretches out luxuriantly,

The stamps of the New Year’s roses are moist,

And in my breast I no longer feel

The trembling of dragonflies.

 

Ah, it’s not hard for me to guess the thief,

I recognized him by his eyes.

But it’s frightening that soon, soon,

He himself will return his prize.

 

As with the above, there are many poems that are untitled. Generally, they have years, and sometimes the location they were written, but nothing more. In the middle of the collection, there is a sequence of poems that I feel are related - they seem to form a narrative arc of a failing relationship, with the narrator marrying another, but definitely not over the previous love. Since they lack titles or any specific indication they are meant to be grouped, I am just inferring from the poems themselves. That said, they were written in different years, and are not arranged chronologically. So maybe I am seeing what isn’t there?

 

In any event, I thought this one was a gem:

 

I have a certain smile:

Like this, a barely visible movement of the lips.

I am keeping it for you -

Love gave it to me, after all.

Never mind that you are insolent and evil,

Never mind that you love others.

Before me is the golden lectern,

And beside me is my gray-eyed bridegroom.

 

Here are a pair of others, from a later cycle. Again, there is an edge of bitterness to them. 

 

I led my lover out to the hall,

I stood in a golden haze.

From a nearby bell tower

Solemn sounds flowed.

A throwaway! Invented word -

Am I really a note or a flower? 

But eyes already gaze bleakly

Into the darkening mirror. 

 

I am not sure of all the backstory here. I assume “throwaway” is translated from an invented Russian word perhaps? But the image is still unforgettable. 

 

I’m not asking for your love -

It’s in a safe place now…

Please believe that I won’t write

Jealous letters to your bride.

But take this wise advice:

Give her my poems to read,

Give her my portraits to keep - 

Really, you are such a loving pair!

And these little fools need

The sense of total victory

More than friendship’s casual banter

And the memory of the first tender days…

When you have spent the pennies of delight

With your sweetheart

And your surfeited soul

Feels sudden disgust - 

Don’t come to me in my triumphant night.

I won’t know you.

And how could I help you?

I don’t cure anyone of happiness.

 

That last line is brilliant and heartrending. The speaker is pretty poisonous too, right? The new woman is a little fool who values victory over friendship, of course. Not that these people don’t exist - I literally am related to one, and every narcissist is like this to an extent. But I am not convinced the speaker is, um, unbiased or reliable. And isn’t this poem literally a jealous letter? 

 

But there is no doubt it is a great poem. 

 

Some of the poems also seem to be an allusion to the poet’s childhood. I was unable to find anything specifically problematic, but her parents did separate when she was a teen, and her father insisted she write under a pen name, rather than sully his with poetry. What Akhmatova wrote in her poems seems to hint at some degree of unhappiness. 

 

I find that I understand what she is saying - my own childhood was largely happy, but the seeds of the destruction of my relationship with my parents was sown then, in a hundred small ways, and looking back, I was burdened with things no child should be expected to bear, primarily because of toxic religion, and the generational trauma my parents experienced but never addressed. 

 

This poem is ambiguous as to whether it is primarily about her parents, or about the religion she was raised in - the Father of all. It certainly is implied that religion poisoned her youth. She remained Russian Orthodox, and often used religious imagery in her poems, but there seems to be a bit of ambivalence on her part. (Another thing that resonates for me.)  

 

You gave me a difficult youth.

So much sadness in my path.

How can such a barren soul

Bear gifts to You?

Flattering fate

Sings a long song of praise.

Lord! I am negligent,

Your stingy servant.

Neither a rose nor a blade of grass

Will I be in my Father’s garden.

I tremble at every mote of dust,

Before the words of any dunce.

 

There is another line in a later poem, which has four stanzas mostly in quotes, and seem like aphorisms or a conversation, but which never becomes clear. I wanted to mention the line in connection with complicated parent-child relationships. In the Authoritarian subculture I was raised in, children were assumed to be evil from birth. I think this led to a loss of a more accurate reality about what and how children are.

 

“Only children love like this,

And then only the first time.” 

 

Do we really understand how children love? That love against all evidence, love of even an abuser, a kind of pure unconditional love that most of us will never experience again? But only once. And when a parent betrays that love enough times, it can never be reclaimed. Only the first time. 

 

I’ll end with an incredibly haunting poem that is not about love or relationships, but about identity, existence, death, and memory. 

 

Dying, I am tormented by immortality.

There’s a low-hanging cloud of dusty haze…

Let there be naked red devils,

Let there be vats of stinking pitch.

 

Crawl up to me, play your tricks,

Your threats from antiquated books,

Only leave me my memory,

Only, at the last gasp, my memory.

 

So that you won’t be a stranger to me

In the agonizing line,

I am ready to pay a hundredfold 

For a smile and for a dream.

 

The hour of death, bowing, slakes my thirst

With clear, corrosive lye.

And people come and bury

My body and my voice.

 

How long any of us will linger on memory is unknown. Barring some sort of eternity we can exist in, nothing of us will outlive the death of the solar system - and certainly not the heat death of the universe. 

 

But more realistically, most of us will leave nothing behind us after the passage of a couple generations. Even the “immortal” Greeks had most of what they wrote lost to the passage of time and neglect. Shakespeare died 400 years ago, a mere breath in the history of humanity, and he too could fade to obscurity or irrelevance like the ancients did. 

 

In a way, even eternal punishment is eternal life, which may be one reason why it had to be invented. It wasn’t just a means of control (although it was and is - my own mother recently resorted to threats of hellfire against me as she realizes she has completely lost any means of controlling me) - it is also an ironic consolation, a protest against the undiscovered country, from whose bourn no man returns. 

 

One of the strengths of Russian literature is its refusal to accept banal consolations, easy answers, and artificially happy endings. Even as a young woman, Akhmatova stared into the abyss, and refused to lie. I think this one will haunt me for a long time. 

 

I have a long way to go - Akhmatova wrote a lot - but I am enjoying the journey through her poetry so far.