"E. Konstantinova: Restrained, according to eyewitnesses, in everyday life, Zabolotsky remained the same in poetry. But in the Last Love cycle, feelings splash out without looking back ...

Nikita Zabolotsky: - In the fall of 1956, a tragic discord occurred in the Zabolotsky family, the main reason for which was Vasily Grossman, the author of the famous novel Life and Fate. Having settled in neighboring buildings on Begovaya Street, the Zabolotskys and Grossmans quickly became close at home: their wives and children were friends, the poet and prose writer were interested in talking. True, the relationship between these too different personalities was not easy. Conversations with Grossman, venomously ironic, sharp, each time turned to the subject that irritated Zabolotsky's old spiritual wounds, violated the hard-to-establish internal balance necessary for him to work. Ekaterina Vasilievna, who, like no one else, understood the condition of her husband, nevertheless could not remain indifferent to the strength of mind, talent, and masculine charm of Grossman. Zabolotsky could not put up with their deep mutual sympathy. And in the end he announced: let Ekaterina Vasilievna go to Grossman, and he will find himself another wife. On October 28, Zabolotsky called an almost unfamiliar beautiful young woman from the literary circle - Natalia Alexandrovna Roskina - and asked for a meeting. During the second date, he proposed. But the joint life did not work out. Roskin's poet dedicated the tenderly tragic poem "Confession" ("Kissed. Bewitched ..."). In early February 1957, they parted. Zabolotsky plunged into work. And after talking with Ekaterina Vasilievna, he was imbued with the conviction that time would pass - and she would return to him. “Many of my poems, in essence, as you know,” my father wrote to my mother in Leningrad on January 20, 1958, “we wrote together with you. I am alone, you always stood ... You know that for the sake of my art I neglected everything else in life. And you helped me in this. " In September, the parents were together again." And in October, Nikolai Zabolotsky passed away ...

Under the cut, all ten poems:

1. Thistle
2. Sea trip
3. Recognition
4. Last love
5. Voice on the phone
6. * * * (You swore - to the grave)
7. * * * (In the middle of the panel)
8. Juniper Bush
9. Meeting
10. Old age

1. Thistle

They brought a bouquet of thistles
And they put it on the table, and behold
Before me is a fire, and turmoil,
And fires crimson round dance.

These stars with sharp ends
These splashes of the northern dawn
And they rattle and moan with bells,
Lanterns flashing from within.

This is also an image of the universe,
An organism woven from rays,
Battles of unfinished flaming
The blaze of raised swords.

It's a tower of rage and glory
Where a spear is attached to a spear,
Where are the bunches of flowers, blood-headed,
Cut right into my heart.

I dreamed of a high dungeon
And the lattice, black as night,
Behind bars - a fabulous bird,
The one with no one to help.

But I also live, apparently, badly,
Because I can't help her.
And the thistle wall rises
Between me and my joy.

And a wedge-shaped thorn stretched out
In my chest, and for the last time
Shines me sad and beautiful
The gaze of her inextinguishable eyes.

2. Sea trip

On a sparkling white glider
We drove into a stone grotto,
And a rock with an overturned body
Blocked the sky from us.
Here in the underground shimmering hall
Above the lagoon of clear water,
We ourselves have become transparent,
Like figurines made of thin mica.
And in a large crystal bowl,
Looking at us with surprise
Our reflections are unclear
Shine with millions of eyes.
As if suddenly escaping from the abyss,
Flocks of fishtail girls
And crab-like men
They cordoned off our glider around.
Under the great garment of the sea,
Imitating the movements of people
A whole world of glee and grief
He lived his strange life.
Something there was torn and boiled,
And weaved, and torn again,
And rocks overturned body
It pierced right through us.
But the driver stepped on the pedals
And again we, as if in a dream,
Flew from the world of sorrow
On a high and light wave.
The sun was at its zenith,
The foam of the rocks flooded the stern,
And Taurida rose from the sea,
Getting closer to your face.

3. Recognition

Kissed, bewitched
Once married to the wind in the field,
All of you, as if chained,
My precious woman!

Not happy, not sad
As if descended from the dark sky,
You and my wedding song
And my crazy star.

I will bow down on your knees
I will embrace them with fierce force,
And tears and poems
I will burn you, bitter, sweet.

Open my midnight face
Let me enter these heavy eyes,
In these black eastern eyebrows,
In these hands are your half-naked.

What will increase - will not decrease,
What will not come true - will be forgotten ...
Why are you crying, beautiful?
Or is it just my imagination?

4. Last love

The car trembled and became
Two went out into the evening expanse,
And wearily sank down on the steering wheel
Busy driver.
In the distance through the cab windows
The constellations of lights fluttered.
Elderly passenger at the curtain
Stayed with my girlfriend.
And the driver through sleepy eyelids
Suddenly I noticed two strange faces,
Turned to each other forever
And completely forgotten.
Two foggy light lights
Came from them, and around
The beauty of the passing summer
Embraced them with hundreds of arms.
There were fire-faced elands here,
Like glasses of blood wine
And gray aquilegia sultans,
And daisies in a crown of gold.
In the inevitable premonition of grief,
Waiting for autumn minutes
Sea of ​​momentary joy
Surrounded by lovers here.
And they, leaning towards each other,
Homeless children of the night
Silently walked along the flower circle
In the electric brilliance of rays.
And the car was in the dark
And the motor trembled heavily,
And the driver smiled tiredly,
Lowering the glass in the cockpit.
He knew that summer was ending
That rainy days are coming
That their song has long been sung, -
That, fortunately, they did not know.

He used to be sonorous, like a bird,
Like a spring, it flowed and rang,
Just pour out all in radiance
I wanted to use a steel wire.

And then, like a distant sob,
Like farewell with the joy of the soul,
He began to sound full of repentance,
And disappeared into the unknown wilderness.

He perished in some wild field,
A merciless blizzard is brought ...
And my soul cries out in pain,
And my black phone is silent.

6. * * *

You swore - to the grave
Be my sweet.
Remembering both
We have become smarter.

Remembering both
We suddenly realized
What happiness to the grave
It won't, my friend.

The swan oscillates
On the flame of the waters.
However, to the ground
And he will float away.

And lonely again
The water will sparkle
And look into her eye
Night star.

7. * * *

Middle of the panel
I noticed at the feet
In watercolor petals
Dead flower.
He lay motionless
In the white twilight of the day
Like your reflection
In my heart.

8. Juniper Bush

I saw a juniper bush in a dream
I heard a metallic crunch in the distance,
I heard a ringing of amethyst berries,
And in a dream, in silence, I liked him.

I smelled a slight smell of resin through my sleep.
Bending these low trunks,
I noticed in the darkness of tree branches
Slightly living likeness of your smile.

juniper bush, juniper bush,
The cooling babble of changeable lips,
Light babble, barely reeking of resin,
Pierced me with a deadly needle!

In golden skies outside my window
The clouds float by one by one
My garden that has flown around is lifeless and empty ...
God forgive you, juniper bush!

10. Old age

Simple, quiet, gray-haired,

They are golden leaves
They look, walking until dark.

Their speech is already laconic,
Without words, every look is clear,
But their souls are light and even
They talk about a lot.

In the obscure haze of existence
Their destiny was inconspicuous,
And the life-giving light of suffering
Above them slowly burned.

Weak as cripples
Under the yoke of their weaknesses,
Into one forever
Their living souls merged.

And knowledge is a small particle
Revealed to them in their declining years,
That our happiness is just a lightning bolt,
Just a distant faint light.

It so rarely flickers to us,
This requires work!
It fades so fast
And disappear forever!

No matter how you cherish it in your palms
And no matter how you press it to your chest, -
Child of the dawn, on bright horses
It will rush off to a distant land!

Simple, quiet, gray-haired,
He is with a stick, she is with an umbrella, -
They are golden leaves
They look, walking until dark.

It's probably easier for them now.
Now all the fear is gone
And only their souls, like candles,
Stream the last heat.

When I first read this poem, I noticed that it is quite easy to understand what it is about. There is no deliberate complexity here that distances the reader from the correct perception of the text - you can immediately say that the poem is about the life of two elderly people, about love, life and death.
This "simplicity" is emphasized by the form. Zabolotsky strictly adheres to the syllabo-tonic, without turning the size of the poem into either a dolnik or a tact. Moreover, in this work, the ikts of the three-foot anapaest do not fall on unstressed syllables. Finally, the cross-rhyming and alternation of masculine and feminine clauses shows that, using a strict and regular, simple form, the author wanted to draw our attention to something else.

For what? At least for composition. The whole poem can be divided into three parts, each of which differs from the previous one in content, images and vocabulary. The first part (which ends with the words "I stayed with my girlfriend") tells about two elderly people and a driver, the second part describes their love, and the third shows the driver as an outside observer and his conclusions (or the conclusion of the author?). If we talk about images, then in the first and third parts it is a driver and two passengers, and in the second part the driver disappears, and the passengers too, and the feeling that unites two people comes to the fore. Their images seem to dissolve in a sea of ​​love (“And those who forgot themselves to the end”), and their feeling becomes the main subject in the second part, and they are only objects subordinate to it. This is also expressed grammatically: what unites them always has the function of a predicate (“Two misty light lights //
came from them<…>”), “The beauty of the outgoing summer // Embraced them<…>”, “Short-term joy of the sea // Surrounded by lovers here<…>”), and the “lovers” themselves are designated as an addition - “of them”, “them”, “lovers”. In addition, their actions are expressed by participial phrases - “converted” and “forgotten”, and not by verbs. But still, the most important thing that emphasizes the lack of independence of the images of these two lovers is that we do not know anything about them, and their feelings are spoken of together, and not separately. If their names, appearance, their love story, thoughts of each of them were known, this would radically change the system of images of the poem.

Now about vocabulary. In the second part, such words as “car”, “chauffeur”, “passenger” or “sung song” are inconceivable, just as in the first and third parts there are no words “aquilegia”, “cannes”, “lights”. At the same time, the stylistic integrity of the poem is still felt: in the first and third parts, the author still uses some poetic language (tropes like the “constellation of lights”), and it cannot be said that at the beginning or end of the poem the style of a completely ordinary, everyday speech.

One may wonder: where is the author here?
Indeed, there is no lyrical "I" here, the author seems to describe reality without saying anything on his own behalf. However, in the last quatrain, the author ceases to play the role of a detached narrator. The driver thinks that they do not have long to live - and the author, using the words “he knew something” (and not “thought”, “was sure”, etc.) shows that this is really so. But then he inserts the words "fortunately" and these two words clarify his attitude towards their late love. The last two lines literally say: “It’s good that they don’t think that their love will soon end in death”, which can be generalized, and then we will reach the following statement: “You don’t need to think about death when you love - love is higher Total".

This idea is the heir of romanticism and, therefore, symbolism. If this poem were cut so that it began with the words "two strange faces" and ended with the words "in the electric brilliance of rays", then this could well be a poem by one of the young Symbolists (for example, in "Poems about the Beautiful Lady"). Moreover, love, which seems to be an independent entity here, has a certain mystical connotation: “Two foggy light lights”, which can be explained by the influence of the symbolists.

The whole poem is characterized by indirect references to death. But they are best seen when you look at what time means here. The action takes place late in the evening (“evening expanse”, “constellations of lights”), and this is a metaphor for “the evening of life”, “the sunset of life”: the sleeping driver almost noticed their living feelings and woke up; “two lights” emanated from them, which seemed to “resurrect” them. Significantly enough, the action takes place in autumn, and this time of year refers us to the concept of old age. “The beauty of the fading summer” is similar to the “beauty of the fading life”, and the “short-term joy of the sea” refers either to the transience of life, or to the approaching autumn.

In conclusion, I will again emphasize the importance of the composition of this poem. Just as in Blok's Stranger, the first part, describing restaurants and visitors, is opposed to the second, mystical part, so in this poem, the high romanticism of love is compositionally opposed to the prosaic life. And the author makes his choice, and the transience of this last love in no way detracts from its value.

Do you know anything about the Oberiuts? Or that Vasily Grossman was a famous heartthrob? And about the love lyrics of Nikolai Zabolotsky? In any case, the poem "Confession" - for sure, is familiar to many. Or a romance in his words. Something karmic seems to me in this whole story.
In any case, it's interesting.
Look at the source, wonderful additions: photographs, romance.

“Kissed, bewitched”: to whom the poet confessed his love, to whom the lyrics were alien

The history of the creation of the poem "Kissed, bewitched ...", which has become a popular romance, is very curious. After reading it, it may seem that it was written by a young man in love with an ardent gaze. But in fact, it was written by a serious 54-year-old serious pedant with the manners and appearance of an accountant. In addition, until 1957, it was in that year that Zabolotsky created his cycle “Last Love”, intimate lyrics were completely alien to him. And suddenly, at the end of life, this marvelous lyrical cycle.
Nikolai Zabolotsky (that's right, he became Zabolotsky with an accent on the penultimate syllable only in 1925) was born on April 24, 1903 in Urzhum, Vyatka province. In his youth, he became a student at the St. Petersburg Institute named after Herzen, and as a student he became a member of the OBERIU group. The attitude towards women among the Oberiuts was purely consumerist, and Zabolotsky himself was among those who "violently scolded women." Schwartz recalled that Zabolotsky and Akhmatova simply could not stand each other. “A chicken is not a bird, a woman is not a poet,” Zabolotsky liked to repeat. Zabolotsky carried a disdainful attitude towards the opposite sex almost through his whole life and was not noticed in love lyrics.

But despite such life approaches, the marriage of Nikolai Alekseevich was successful and was very strong. He married a classmate - slender, dark-eyed, laconic, who became a wonderful wife, mother and mistress.
Zabolotsky gradually left the Oberiuts, his experiments with the word and image expanded significantly, and by the mid-1930s he became a famous poet. But the denunciation of the poet, which happened in 1938, divided his life and work into two parts. It is known that Zabolotsky was tortured during the investigation, but he never signed anything. Maybe that's why he was given the minimum five years. Many writers were crushed by the Gulag - Babel, Kharms, Mandelstam. Zabolotsky survived - according to biographers, thanks to his family and wife, who was his guardian angel.

He was exiled to Karaganda and his wife and children followed him. The poet was released only in 1946 thanks to the efforts of well-known colleagues, in particular, Fadeev. After his release, Zabolotsky was allowed to settle with his family in Moscow. He was reinstated in the Writers' Union, and the writer Ilyenkov gave him his dacha in Peredelkino. He worked hard on translations. Gradually, everything got better: publications, fame, prosperity, an apartment in Moscow and the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.
But in 1956, something happened that Zabolotsky did not expect at all - his wife left him. 48-year-old Ekaterina Vasilievna, who lived for many years for the sake of her husband, who did not see any care or affection from him, went to the writer and famous heartthrob Vasily Grossman. “If she had swallowed the bus,” writes Nikolai, the son of Korney Chukovsky, “Zabolotsky would have been less surprised!”

Surprise was replaced by horror. Zabolotsky was helpless, crushed and pathetic. His grief led him to Natalya Roskina, a 28-year-old lonely and intelligent woman. Confused by what had happened, he simply called a certain lady who loved his poetry. That's all he knew about her. He let the one who knew all his styles from a young age, they met and became lovers.
There were no happy ones in this triangle. And Zabolotsky himself, and his wife, and Natalya Roskina suffered in their own way. But it was the poet's personal tragedy that prompted him to create a cycle of lyrical poems "Last Love", which became one of the most talented and poignant in Russian poetry. But among all the poems included in the collection, "Confession" stands apart - a true masterpiece, a whole storm of feelings and emotions. In this poem, two women of the poet merged into one image.
Ekaterina Vasilievna returned to her husband in 1958. Another famous poem by N. Zabolotsky “Do not let your soul be lazy” dates from this year. It was written by a terminally ill person. 1.5 months after the return of his wife, Nikolai Zabolotsky died of a second heart attack.

Confession
Kissed, bewitched
Once married to the wind in the field,
All of you, as if chained,
My precious woman!
Not happy, not sad
As if descended from the dark sky,
You and my wedding song
And my star is crazy.
I will bow down on your knees
I will embrace them with fierce force,
And tears and poems
I will burn you, bitter, sweet.
Open my midnight face
Let me enter these heavy eyes,
In these black eastern eyebrows,
In these hands are your half-naked.
What will increase - will not decrease,
What will not come true - will be forgotten ...
Why are you crying, beautiful?
Or is it just my imagination?

Nikolay Zabolotsky<1957 г>