She of the Ice-Blue Eyes: Ariadna Efron (1912-1975)

                                                               Ariadna Efron, Age 14

                                Sergei Efron and Marina Tsvetaeva as Very Young Newlyweds

Copied from the Website, “Best Verses By Favorite Poets”:

 

В марте 1921 года восьмилетняя Ариадна Эфрон отправила Анне Ахматовой из Москвы вот такое письмо:

 

"Дорогая Анна Андреевна!

 

Читаю Ваши стихи «Четки» и «Белую Стаю». Моя любимая вещь, тот длинный стих о царевиче (поэма «У самого моря»). Это так же прекрасно, как Андерсеновская русалочка, так же запоминается и ранит — навек. И этот крик: Белая птица — больно! Помните, как маленькая русалочка танцевала на ножах? Есть что-то, хотя и другое.

 

Эта белая птица — во всех Ваших стихах, над всеми Вашими стихами. И я знаю, какие у нее глаза. Ваши стихи такие короткие, а из каждого могла бы выйти целая огромная книга. Ваши книги — сверху — совсем черные, у нас всю зиму копоть и дым. Над моей кроватью большой белый купол: Марина вытирала стену, пока руки хватило, и нечаянно получился купол. В куполе два календаря и четыре иконы. На одном календаре — Старый и Новый год встретились на секунду, уже разлучаются. У Старого тощее и благородное тело, на котором жалобно болтается такой же тощий и благородный халат. Новый — невинен и глуп, воюет с нянькой, сам в маске. За окном новогоднее мракобесие. На календаре — все православные и царские праздники. Одна иконочка у меня старинная, глаза у Богородицы похожи на Ваши.

 

Мы с Мариной живем в трущобе. Потолочное окно, камин, над которым висит ободранная лиса, и по всем углам трубы (куски). — Все, кто приходит, ужасаются, а нам весело. Принц не может прийти в хорошую квартиру в новом доме, а в трущобу — может.

 

Но Ваши книги черные только сверху, когда-нибудь переплетем. И никогда не расстанемся. Белую Стаю Марина в одном доме украла и целые три дня ходила счастливая. Марина все время пишет, я тоже пишу, но меньше. Пишу дневник и стихи. К нам почти-то никто не приходит.

 

Из Марининых стихов к Вам знаю, что у Вас есть сын Лев. Люблю это имя за доброту и торжественность. Я знаю, что он рыжий. Сколько ему лет? Мне теперь восемь. Я нигде не учусь, потому что везде без «ять» и чесотка.

 

Вознесение.

И встал и вознесся,

И ангелы пели,

И нищие пели.

А голуби вслед за тобою летели.

А старая матерь,

Раскрывши ладони:

— Давно ли свой первый

Шажочек ступнул!

 

Это один из моих последних стихов. Пришлите нам письмо, лицо и стихи. Кланяюсь Вам и Льву.

 

Ваша Аля.

 

Деревянная иконка от меня, а маленькая, веселая — от Марины".

 

Далее небольшая приписка от Марины Цветаевой:

 

"Аля каждый вечер молится: — «Пошли, Господи, царствия небесного Андерсену и Пушкину, — и царствия земного — Анне Ахматовой».

#МосковскиеЗаписки (from the hashtag “Moscow Notes”)

 

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Letter from eight-year-old Ariadna (“Alya”) Efron, daughter of Marina Tsvetaeva, to Anna Akhmatova, March, 1921:

 

Dear Anna Andreevna,

 I’m reading your poems, “Rosary Beads” and “The White Flock.” My favorite thing is that long poem about the Tsarevich (“By the Very Banks of the Sea”). It’s as lovely as Andersen’s mermaid, it sticks in your memory and wounds you for all time. And that cry, “White bird—it hurts!” Do you recall how the little mermaid danced on the knives? There’s something here [similar], although it’s different.

 That white bird is in all your poems, or [flying] over all your poems. And I know what kind of eyes she has. Your poems are so short, but you could make of each of them an entire enormous book. Your books [of ours]—on the outside—are completely black; all winter we’ve had soot and smoke. My bed has a large white cupola over it: Marina wiped down the wall, as far as her hands could reach, and by accident it formed this cupola. Inside the cupola there are two calendars and four icons. On one calendar it shows how The Old Year and the New Year have met for a second and are parting ways. The Old Year has a gaunt and noble-looking body, and dangling from it is the same sort of scraggly and noble robe. The New Year is naïve and dumb, he’s fighting with the nanny; he’s in a mask. Outside the window you can see a hullaballoo of a New Year’s scene. The calendar has all the Orthodox and tsarist holidays marked. One little icon of mine, very ancient, has the eyes of the Mother of God that resemble your eyes.

 Marina and I live in a slum. There’s a window up by the ceiling, a hearth with a skinned fox hanging over it, and pipes (in pieces) in all the corners. Everyone who comes by is horrified, but we’re happy here. The prince cannot come to a nice apartment in a new apartment building, but he can come to a slum.

 But those books of yours are black only on the outside, and some time we’ll put new covers on them. And we’ll never part with them. Marina was in somebody’s home where she stole The White Flock, and for three whole days she went around feeling happy. Marina writes all the time, and I write too, only not so much. I write a diary, and poems. Practically nobody comes to see us.

 From Marina’s verses dedicated to you I know that you have a son, Leo. I love that name for its kindness and solemnity. I know that he has red hair. How old is he? I’m eight now. I don’t go to school, because everywhere they’re doing without the “yat” letter (Ѣ, one of the letters eliminated in orthographical reforms of 1918) and there’s scabies.

 

The Ascension

And He stood up and ascended,

And the angels were singing,

And the beggars were singing.

While the doves behind you were flying.

And the old mother,

Spreading her hands, said,

“Can it have been

So long since he

Took his very first

Wee baby step!”

 

That’s one of my latest poems. Send us a letter, a picture of your face and poems. I bow down to you and to Leo.

 Your Alya

 The little wooden icon is from me, and the small, happy one from Marina.

 

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At the bottom a short note from Marina Tsvetaeva:

Alya prays every evening: “Send, Lord, the heavenly kingdom to Andersen and Pushkin, and the earthly kingdom to Anna Akhmatova.”

 

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Translator’s Note

She of the Ice-Blue Eyes: Ariadna Efron (1912-1975)

This letter speaks volumes if one reads between the lines. Ariadna at age eight is totally upbeat, and obviously very bright. She and her mother are living in terrible straitened circumstances. Note the mention of the smoke and the soot accumulated in the “slum” where they live. The way Marina finds joy in the Akhmatova book that she manages to steal. Not a word said here about Alya’s younger sister Irina, who had starved to death the previous year, and not a word about what, or how, they manage to eat. At that time in Moscow eating was a serious everyday problem. Marina Tsvetaeva’s short life was enveloped in one disastrous catastrophe after another. Ariadna, sadly, shared that life—and that of the ill-fated Sergei Efron, her father.

 This upbeat, intelligent little girl had a bright future ahead of her, and, but for one horrendous mistake, she might have lived out her life in France, in relative contentment. After all sorts of tribulations, involving her along with her parents, Ariadna ended up in Paris at age thirteen. She lived in France from 1925 to 1937, and she was educated at prestigious schools in Paris.

 The mistake was her decision to return to the Soviet Union at age 25. She could have found work in France and stayed there the rest of her life. Apparently led astray by her father—whose murky clandestine life in the West included work as an agent of the NKVD, the Soviet secret police—she developed Communist sympathies. She was the first of her family to return, voluntarily, to Russia, in March of 1937. Two years later, in August, 1939, she was arrested, tortured, forced to testify against her father. Upon his return—not entirely voluntary, given that French and Swiss police were after him, consequent upon his involvement in at least two political assassinations—Sergei Efron was also arrested. He was shot as a spy in 1941, the same year that Marina Tsvetaeva committed suicide by hanging. By this time Ariadna had already been convicted of espionage and was serving a sentence of eight years at hard labor in the Gulag. Only years later did she learn of her parents’ deaths, but their streak of bad luck followed her nearly the whole of her life.

 After her release from the labor camp in 1948, Ariadna worked as a teacher of graphics at an art college in the city of Riazan. But she was rearrested in early 1949 and sentenced to a life in exile; she was rehabilitated in 1955 and allowed to live in Moscow. Her common-law husband Samuil Gurevich was executed in the Stalinist repressions. They had no children. Ariadna suffered from a heart ailment for much of her life. She died of a heart attack on July 26, 1975.

 

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Tsvetaeva Poem,“Going on Four”

Четвёртый год...

Четвёртый год.
Глаза, как лёд,
Брови уже роковые,
Сегодня впервые
С кремлёвских высот
Наблюдаешь ты
Ледоход.

Льдины, льдины
И купола.
Звон золотой,
Серебряный звон.
Руки скрещены,
Рот нем.
Брови сдвинув — Наполеон! —
Ты созерцаешь — Кремль.

— Мама, куда — лёд идёт?
— Вперёд, лебедёнок.
Мимо дворцов, церквей, ворот —
Вперёд, лебедёнок!

Синий
Взор — озабочен.
— Ты меня любишь, Марина?
— Очень.
— Навсегда?
— Да.

Скоро — закат,
Скоро — назад:
Тебе — в детскую, мне —
Письма читать дерзкие,
Кусать рот.

А лёд
Всё
Идёт.

March 24, 1916

 

 

Going on Four

 

Three years old.

Eyes like ice.

Eyebrows deadly bold.

Today the first time in your life

You stand on Kremlin heights

And watch, behold

The ice-blocks flow.

 

Ice floes, ice floes flow

And cupolas of churches.

Peals of gold that glow,

And silvery peals in arches.

Arms crossed on chest,

Mouth mute.

A furrowed brow: Napoleon!

As he contemplates the Kremlin.

 

Mama, where does the ice go?

Onward, little swan of mine,

Past palaces, churches, stately gates;

Onward, little swan of mine!

 

Blue-eyed

Gaze is troubled.

Do you love me, Marina?

Very much.

For ever and all time?

I do.

 

Soon will come the sundown,

Soon we’ll head back home-bound:

You to the nursery, and me—

To read insolent letters

While biting my lips testily.

 

Translation/Adaptation by U.R. Bowie