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Marina Tsvetaeva, 1914
Sofia Parnok, Koktebel ,1914
Sofia Parnok
Koktebel and Moscow
1914 -1916
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In Koktebel in the fall of 1914 Marina met the poet Sofia Parnok,“Sonya”, nine years older then she. The encounter grew into a lesbian affair that lasted two years. What were Marina's motives is not clear. Why did she tempt her happiness, her relationship with Seryozha, with Alya in this fierce fire? Was it the emotional plateau she had reached, the tranquility offered by Seryozha's quiet temperament? A flood of new poems of an as yet unexpressed intensity, erupted like a volcano from her soul. Sofia Parnok derailed her completely. All the dormant chasms between her sensuality, her poetic sensibilities, and the guilt feelings of her upbringing were torn open. Again her poems are filled by the torments of the most exalted and darkest sides of her character.
Sofia Parnok had been briefly married and divorced. Driven by an insatiable need for freedom from all moral codes she had publicly declared herself a libertine and taken a lesbian lover. She was well known in Moscow. The fashionable woman literature of their times was full of such heroines. Asya swears that they had never read Verbitskaya or Nagorskaya, who sold thousands of their sleazy novels: “a woman should be permitted everything she craves for!” Sofia's freedom must have exerted a magnetic attraction on the “spartan child”.
In 1919-20 Marina put together a cycle of 17-stanzas to Parnok: “Poems to a Friend (female).” I include a few of these in my poems section.
Her first poem, written in July 1914, is an ecstatic evocation of their first meeting:
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Я
видела Вас
три раза, |
I
saw you three times, |
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Я
Вас люблю. -
Как грозовая
туча |
I
love you - like a storm cloud |
She writes on October 16 and a few days later describes the state she is in.
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За
эту дрожь, за
то - что - неужели |
This
trembling, for what really, |
What was it?
- I venture to suggest
that Marina had one of her crushes on Sofia, and when Sofia,
attracted by her obvious inexperience, took advantage of that –
a deep kiss? caresses? - Marina discovered a hitherto unexplored
erotic world that left her reeling. Her love of Seryozha was one
between two lonely, deeply wounded children. They were both equally
innocent, and in her poems to her “shining guard” she
kept this innocence throughout her life. Erotic allusions never
entered her poems to him. Sofia introduced her to the sensations of
an entirely more consuming way of loving.
Pra and Max
Voloshin, who disliked Sofia, were truly afraid for Marina and her
marriage. However, practical Pra, in a letter to Seryozha (VS.
p.102)
realizes that nothing could be done about “the spell this Sonya
has put on her.” - It had to burn itself out.
Meanwhile
World War I had broken out. Marina inserted one poem into a cycle to
Pyotr Efron, Seryozha's brother. It shows her indifference to the
mundane world. Pyotr Efron was dying, she was renting their house on
Tryokhprudny Lane, the Tsar's quarrels did not affect her. The war
would not turn their lives up-side down for another 2 years.
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Война,
война!- Кажденья
у киотов! |
War,
war! - burn incense before the icons! |
Marina and Sofia spent the winter of 1914/15 in Moscow. The storm was still raging. Sofia took her to parties, Sofia in expensive pants, Marina in a showy dress. The guests made fun of them. Chain smoking, sleigh rides, shopping sprees, bangles and earrings, lazing around, laughter... Sofia's life as a socialite was alien to Marina. Slowly she distances herself.
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Повторю
в канун разлуки, |
I
repeat on the eve of parting, |
A few weeks later Marina gets even more explicit.
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Есть
имена, как
душные цветы, |
There
are names, like suffocating flowers, |
Finally she tells her quite rudely to go away.
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....И
идите себе...
- Вы тоже, |
....And
now go ... - You, too, |
Marina's infatuation had burned itself out. The final break between them came in February 1916. They parted with hard feelings. It took Marina six years to understand what had happened and open up her poems to others. She never engaged in another lesbian relationship. Fully conscious of her “sin” she doesn't hide it, doesn't write confessions like Akhmatova, doesn't write to shock like Mayakovsky or withhold herself like Mandelstam. She bares her soul, often at the risk of estranging her readers.
The affair with Sofia marks the final end of her childhood. The “soul of a Spartan child” is a thing of the past. Her poetry will never return to the interiors of Tryokhprudny Lane or the landscapes of Tarussa. She turnes into a “vagabond”, a “beggar”, or a “gipsy” roaming a world of darkness, wind, sleeplessness and yes – stealing when necessary. She tried to do her best to be a reasonable house keeper, a mother to Alya and wife to Seryozha.
A few months after Sofia had actually “gone away” in anger, she wrote a poem to her husband begging for his forgiveness and help.
At a black midnight
hour I came to you
For the last time seeking your help.
I am a
vagrant with no memory of kin
A sinking ship.
.....
By
imposters and predatory dogs
I was plundered to the end.
At our
palace, veritable king,
I stand – a beggar!
1916?
(VS
p.104)
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And Seryozha, how did he survive this purgatory? During the height of the affair he just held still – stunned? Some people see him as having had a weak character incapable of resisting or fighting for her. He was not in good health, tubercolosis outbreaks came and went. He had finished his Gymnasium diploma in Feodosia and worked as a medical orderly. Eventually he was drafted to work on a hospital train and was absent for several months during 1915-1916. Konstantin Rodzevich told Viktoria Schweitzer (VS p.103): “He just got out of the way and gave her the freedom she craved for.”
