SOLITUDE
The strange and untimely death of a young Russian poet shocked the Russian society, and especially its literary circle. It all happened in Paris, in 1932. However, whether it was a suicide or a homicide, or just an accidental death, no one knew. The Parisian newspapers speculated that he was poisoned by an overdose of heroin by a man who was afraid to die alone and decided to take him along on the road to eternity. The name of this young poet was Arthur Yablonsky, and he died as mysteriously, as he had mysteriously lived. The next day his portrait appeared in every newspaper with detailed and yet unclear circumstances of his sudden death.
A small, poor Russian church was overcrowded with mourners. It was located on a narrow, deserted street, away from the noisy Parisian crowd. The funeral service was long and painful for everyone who attended it, and especially for those who knew him well. His fate deeply touched every soul. His friends reacted to his death:
“Tragedy is the essence of every creative process. It turns into a seed and from this seed has grown a whole generation of new poets with their own vision of the world, a result of their dramatic experience of being separated from their motherland. They live in solitude in a foreign soil. No wonder that they are called ‘the unnoticed generation.”
Then he continued:
“He lived through this tragedy. I think that his personality had magically outgrown him as a man. First of all, he left a divine impression on everyone who had known him. His ability to love passionately, as well as to hate, to think abstractly, and fanatically love poetry, his high erudition, the purity and complexity of his soul, the sharpness and flexibility of his mind put him in the rank of geniuses.”
Mona looked at his mother who tearfully mourned, and her beautiful spiritual face expressed such a sorrow that one could not look at her without feeling her pain. Mona did not cry; she was magnetized by the words that described him, his poetry and his life. They revealed to her his soul that she did not know as deeply as his fellow poets, but she could feel it with all her heart. It left a deep impression on her. She stood silently in the corner of the church, alone, listening to all the speeches, thinking about him, and recollecting their short but happy time together.
* * * * *
He was known among his friends as the one who used to wear dark glasses even at night. Nobody could guess why he never took them off. He was tall, broad-shouldered, with long dark-brown hair and surprisingly delicate hands, the hands of an aristocrat. He had a sharp tongue and a quick mind, and his witty expressions had been often repeated in his literary circle.
The night was slowly falling over the city. The hot summer day with its sticky air enveloped his brain, dissolving all his thoughts, making him incapable of thinking. He could not live his life without meditating or pondering over the purpose of it, the meaning of his existence. He absorbed the world around him through his heart, and then, put his images on paper in a form of emotional and imaginative poetry.
The bluish fire slowly died out.
But on the wall, curved shadow will stay.
The dream of death, the memory of silence
Would bring to life so quickly passing day.
Morning heat, mixed with cool air coming from the river, was still around, but the humidity had lowered and he could now breathe. This summer in Paris was especially hot. He went several times to Nice to visit his friends, but travel was expensive, and he simply spent most of his time during the day roving along the Seine, adoring narrow medieval streets and grandiose monuments of the city. In the evening, he would walk the same route along the river to Montparnasse and to the Caf; Rotonde, a center for the Parisian artistic and intellectual world, for his small dinner and big talks with his fellow poets. Although the abundance of historical and architectural monuments of Paris had encouraged great writers, musicians and artists to create their masterpieces, the beauty around him gave him very little inspiration. He was still alone, locked in his own world, into his inner solitude, away from the futility of a Parisian crowd.
He was exhausted by his everyday struggle to survive, by his destitution, boundless isolation and search for the religious light. He was a Russian poet without a land, without a home, without love. He was forgotten in his own country and not yet recognized in a new land. Life without a reader was a tragedy for every creative mind living on a foreign, unsteady and unfriendly soil that did not embrace the newcomers, but had only opened a dark trap of deprivation. He wrote:
To fall asleep, to sleep,
To live in solitude –
I am so scared.
If only I could
Have strength to keep,
To hide into my nest,
To leave this cruel world,
The bright, the greedy,
To all the rest.
Caf; Rotonde was packed with visitors, though he managed to find a small table in a corner of the room, and ordered his usual simple dinner of onion soup, and a piece of a roasted chicken. Today, the place was filled with the Russian literary elite and Russian aristocrats, loudly talking as always, about the current situation in Russia, and the impact of the execution of the Russian Tsarist family on their own fate that inevitably led them to the end of their hopes to restore the monarchy and return back to their motherland. He was finishing his dinner with a cup of a strong Parisian coffee when a young handsome man with a curly black beard approached his table. They shook hands as old friends. The curly-haired man was his close acquaintance, a struggling Bulgarian poet searching for his own truth. They often walked together from the caf;, locked in a heated discussion about the philosophy of life. Stefan, the name of his friend, had never been an optimist, and to survive in this world alone was difficult for him. As a child, he was abandoned by his parents and grew up with his grandmother in Bulgaria. They had recently moved from Sofia to Paris where she had been born. Stefan spoke fluent Russian and French, had the delicate soul of a poet and was deeply fond of Arthur.
“Hello, Arthur. Where have you been? I was looking for you since Sunday. Somebody was inquiring about you, a young lady, probably one of your admirers. Oh, by the way, she should be here.”
And without giving him a chance to answer, Stefan had disappeared from view. He did not return for a while, and Arthur was already on his way out when the young man hailed him again. Arthur turned and his eyes immediately met the straight and inquisitive look of a woman, probably in her late thirties or early forties.
Without any prolonged hesitation, she stretched out her hand, “My name is Mona,” she spoke perfect Russian, although she looked French with her short haircut, high heels and a tight skirt. A long bright colorful scarf was wound around her neck. Her face shone with a beautiful smile. The woman was very attractive. He openly looked her over through his dark glasses.
She did not see his look and continued talking, “Well, the thing is that I am your cousin. You, probably, never heard of me. You lived in St. Petersburg, while I lived in Riga. I am a daughter of your father’s brother. They did not talk for many years and now, when my parents died, I moved to Paris to live with my old aunt. When for the first time I came here to Rotonde, I heard somebody reading your poetry, and then, I learned your name. I am so happy to find a close soul in this foreign land. I am so happy.”
She repeated “happy” several times, and taking him by the hand pulled him outside the caf;. He was completely numbed not knowing how to express his gratitude to the woman who found him in this immense strange world.
At last, feeling the awkwardness of his silence, he spoke, “Mona . . . Mona . . . what a rare name. Why Mona? Oh, I am truly glad that I have now found a cousin. Are you really my cousin?”
Now he would walk with her about the streets of Paris and have a companion, a listener and an admirer of his poetry, he thought, carefully discerning her expressive face, and without waiting for her answer, he continued, “What are you doing here all of these days long? This summer is so hot. Do you want me to walk you home?” He looked at her through his glasses with a warm smile.
“How old is she?” he mulled, while continuing to examine her.
“Probably forty or so, but it does not really matter. Maybe now it will be solitude for two people instead of one,” he thought absently.
“You asked me why my name is Mona. It’s an abbreviation of Desdemona. So, please continue calling me Mona. I love Shakespeare, but can’t stand my name. The tragic end of Desdemona’s life makes me often think about my own. I despise the tragic ends either in real life or in literature. I can’t think about death, I am afraid of it. Nevertheless, I noticed that in your poetry you often refer to it as a way out of our misery. Your predisposition to death scares me. Do you really think that it is the only way out of misfortune or sufferings? All of us, consciously or subconsciously, have an aim in life, and we strive for achieving it. The tragedy is that often we are aiming at things that are beyond our power or current circumstances. However, it does not mean that our lives should become aimless, or that we should think about the end. I always considered that there were other ways to overcome the difficulties. I view you as a very strong man. So why does the theme of death sound so often in your verses? ”
She looked at him seriously, but he smiled back at her and, trying to choose his words carefully, responded, “My dear Mona, many people now see death as a savior from the labyrinth where we find ourselves to be, and the only way to exit it, is to die.”
She fell into silence. She was still too full of life to think about the end.
The night became almost chilly, and the streets looked deserted. She lived not far from him with her aged aunt and a dog. She painted during the day and walked the dog at night. It was her duty to walk the dog at night.
“Painting?” He was pleasantly surprised. “Are you an artist?”
“Oh, no, it sounds too pompous; I am an amateur painter, never studied, but my life without it would be empty. You see, just recently I lost my husband, he was very sick, and I thought that by moving to Paris I would be able to save him. I could not. But don’t look at me with such compassion. He was a good and a kind man, much older then I. We were great friends, but I had never loved him, though I had a deep respect for him and his work. He was an architect in Riga, a great one. We had a life there. Nevertheless, now I don’t wish to return. I am revealing to you all these details only because you are my cousin.”
And suddenly, realizing that she talks too much, she stopped.
“Please continue, don’t hide anything from me. So, you don’t have any friends in Paris or any relatives, except me. Am I correct?”
“Yes, you are almost right. You forgot to mention my aunt. But, please, please, take off your dark glasses. I need to see your eyes, at least just once. It is so difficult to talk to you. Can I do it?”
And she stretched out her hand to take his glasses off. He caught her hand and felt its soft and cool skin.
“Just once, and only for you.”
Laughing, he pulled off his glasses and looked at her. They both stopped under the streetlight, facing one another.
“Oh my goodness, your eyes are light green, almost like mine. Why do you wear these stupid glasses at night?” She sounded puzzled.
“Why? Because I want to be mysterious and unrecognizable, or even invisible.”
He screwed up his eyes, as if he was trying to see her better.
“It is just the opposite: everybody will notice and remember you because you are the only one in Paris who wears dark glasses at night,” she reasoned, still staring at him, as if trying to memorize how he looked without them.
They both laughed, but he put them back on his nose again. Only now, she realized that he did not see well, and this was his only pair of glasses for his near-sightedness. She did not say anything and skillfully changed the subject to his poetry.
“I know your poetry by heart.” She looked at him again to see the expression on his face. He seemed to be really surprised.
“This is my favorite,” she said and began reading it:
The sky is flowering with the stars,
Like diamonds they are dispersing light.
The heat has painted the August night
With shadows of black, on left and right.
In an oval shape of pupiless eyes,
The sun has plunged as black opal at dusk.
All faces on the earth became the faceless masks.
Without the sun the earth in darkness dies.
She finished reading, but her deep voice was still trembling with an excitement
“Well,” he was impressed, “how do you remember it by heart? I don’t. And the topic – the dead sun? Why did you choose this one to read today?”
“First of all, I often thought about our world without light, and always having to live in darkness. Does it mean that all the joys of our lives would be taken away from us, and our thoughts would become dark and our lives gloomy? What is our happiness about? Maybe, it is the light that is around us and inside us, the light we exchange with each other, the flow of positive energy we give to others. The dead sun…I can’t comprehend it, it is too scary.”
She stopped for a second thinking, and then continued, “Remember the philosophy of Kant, who stated that our world exists the way we see it, and only when we see it, it exists. When we turn around the world disappears, ceases to exist. Just imagine that we are living in the darkness, and there is nothing around us, nothingness everywhere, inside and outside. I can’t take this.”
“Mona, unfortunately, our existence here is all nothingness, people without a land, a steady soil to stand on, without relatives or friends, we are all surrounded not by the material world, but by the emptiness. You want to reach for a friendly hand, and your own hand plunges into a vacuum. We have a small circle of friends, but everyone is fighting for their own survival. ” He fell into silence for a minute, and then recited:
I am afraid to wake in solitude.
The colors of wallpapers are so bright.
The cloud’s edge, the sadness of prelude,
The window, the books are all my life and light.
* * * * *
They reached her house. It was an old brick building with big windows overlooking a narrow medieval street. Both did not know what to say. They stopped at pause.
He was the first one to talk, “I am glad that you found me, Mona. Our souls are now bound. Maybe this meeting will help us to overcome the loneliness, and all this nothingness around us will now find a meaning. Shall we meet again, perhaps, tomorrow?” He looked at her smiling happily and waiting for her answer.
“Sure, I want to see you again tomorrow, Arthur. We can walk the dog together and then . . .”
“Then, we will have dinner in a quiet place. I know one not far from here,” he interrupted her, kissing her on both cheeks, and then dissolved with the night.
* * * * *
He walked slowly home. In the mysterious silence of the night, the half-moon was hanging over him as “a golden fruit-drop glued to the sky.” He heard the music in the air, the music of silence, and the music of joy. “Love,” he thought, “is a source of energy and emotions that make us move and perform great deeds. Who is the winner in a struggle between love and death?” He was longing to write. Verses were dancing in his head.
He hastened his steps to get home and sit at his typewriter. “Mona, Mona . . . Mona . . .” Her name, like music, was knocking in his head. “Mona. Mona. . . .”
* * * * *
Arthur lived in his poetry. It was his life, his way of expressing himself, the only place, the heaven for his soul, where it could be boundlessly open without fear of being hurt. Most of the time, he lived and talked with himself, plunged into the depth of his thoughts. The misbalance between the wealth of his spiritual life and the poverty of his everyday existence, a complete misunderstanding by his close friends, made him reserved and withdrawn from the world.
He belonged to the family of the Russian aristocrats and was very well educated. He was taught by governesses, and spoke many languages fluently. He often remembered his father, and their long evenings of reading and learning the Russian and the world literature and poetry, their long walks together around the austere streets of St. Petersburg with its beautiful buildings and bridges, built mostly by the Italian and French architects, his favorite Anichkov bridge with four wild horses at the every corner of the bridge, and the horsemen trying to tame them. There was the famous Stroganov’s palace across the bridge, known by its rich art collection. But especially memorable were their trips to the Mariinsky Theatre, where, for the first time in his life, he heard the famous Russian opera singer, Fedor Chaliapin in the opera “Life for the Tsar”. The spectacle was unforgettable. Never again had he heard such a powerful voice or seen such acting.
During the Revolution, one night, his father, who was a diplomat at the tsarist’s regime, was taken away, and only later, had they learned that he had been shot by the Bolsheviks in a prison yard. It was the most difficult time for Arthur and his mother to accept the fact that this handsome, caring, full-of-life man was not with them any longer. They also understood that they needed to act, and act immediately.
His mother and he managed to escape through Turkey, and finally, after several years of wandering around the world, living in Berlin and Prague, they had ended up in Paris. The little money his mother had saved helped her to open a small boutique that gave them a chance to survive somehow. They rented a flat above the shop, poorly furnished, but nevertheless, it met their needs. In the corner of their tiny room, there was his desk with an old lamp and a typewriter. There, he spent most of his time in solitude. Once, he had a woman in his life whom he loved passionately, with all his heart, but it was a long time ago, and nothing was left, except pain and a short poem he wrote after her departure:
I wander along the streets,
Dull solitude of parting.
In a blink of twilight, around,
I found
The shadows, reflecting the face
Of the city I trace.
O, dull solitude of parting.
His poetry was reminiscent of a dream, or the mutter of a man drugged by images, by verses, and by spontaneous emotions. It was often a delirium, a stream of sub-consciousness, and his imaginative poetry differed from the poetry of others by his ability to see more deeply, and feel more strongly the world around and inside him. He also kept a diary, where every day he would leave his thoughts on paper, as if talking to an invisible companion. Upon his return home, he sat at his desk and opened his diary where, after some meditation, he wrote:
“Today is a happy day. I met Mona. I know deep in my heart that we have one heart and one soul, because we are related not only as cousins, but also as the lost people in this enormously big and cruel world. Today, perhaps is the first day in the past year that I did not want to think about death as the only way out of my miserable existence. But still, I am afraid that nothing, absolutely nothing could make me happy any more. Death is nonexistence. The same is God. I understand him, his unfathomable compassion to those who suffer, because he suffered himself. How can he help us? Maybe Mona will bring some light into my life, and I would be able to escape my constant thinking about the end of my meaningless existence. I need to stop taking drugs as the way to end my misery.”
And then he added some verses that were forming in his head.
Be silent, listen to the rain.
The miracle of Truth will shortly die.
Love God. Don’t spend your life in vain.
The rest is just a lie.
He closed his diary and went to bed. He could not fall asleep for a long time; verses were dancing in his head again, as mystical images of life and death. He saw Mona, exhaling such a bright light that it cut through the darkness and extended its beams to give him a feeling of warmth and joy. He fell asleep when the first whimsical rays of sun gazed at him through a small window of his room.
When he woke up, the window was opened, and he could feel how a fresh breeze of air. The hot sunbeams touched his body with the afternoon warmth. His mother had already gone downstairs to her shop. His breakfast was waiting for him on the stove. He was still a child to her. She had to be sure that he ate properly and slept enough - it was her major concern, but she could not see or feel that his wandering soul was searching for a peaceful place to rest.
He got up, drank only a glass of milk, and went back to his typewriter. He sat at his desk and opened a book with old pictures of St. Petersburg. It was his favorite book; its pages retained the traces of his past. On page 26, there was a picture of Nevsky Prospect, a wide and long, straight street where he used to walk with his father. There, in the middle, he could see the building, where he had spent his happy childhood, surrounded by the luxury and the unconditional love of his parents. “It was so many years ago,” he thought, while writing his new verses.
In the teapot, the morning cooled down.
Multicolored pieces of my past I found,
Resting on the dusty shelves of the old bookcase.
And still, a voice from my past I trace
From the distant land called “remembrance”
His poetry was always coming out from his heart, not from his mind, accompanied by an unbearable pain, and only after finishing his writing, could he feel relief from the pain. Sometimes, he had a feeling that it was not he who writes a poem, but somebody above him moving his hand and putting words on paper.
By the time he finished his work, the sun had already disappeared behind the horizon, and suddenly, the excitement of seeing Mona again overwhelmed him.
* * * * *
He was ringing the bell for a long time before Mona had opened the door. She was dressed in a simple white summer dress and a small hat which suited her very well. Dark long hair beautifully framed her face. Her shiny smile enlightened her appearance when she saw Arthur.
“I thought you forgot about me and would never come back. I had already walked the dog without you. You missed the most fun.” He heard the dog barking somewhere upstairs.
“Can you introduce me to him?” he asked, laughing.
“As a punishment for you being late, I would say no. And by the way, I still did not have my dinner.” She glanced at him with a reproach.
“Neither did I. Shall we go?” And taking her by the hand, he rushed into the direction that he had pointed to her yesterday.
It was a Russian restaurant, called Nostalgia, small and cozy, owned by an ex-General of the White Russian army and his sophisticated wife. They were friendly and kind people who knew Arthur well and adored his poetry. The place was painted in a dark red color which made the room look festive and bright. The walls were decorated with the paintings of the well-known Russian artists, some of them making their living by selling their works of art for almost nothing.
“These are masterpieces!” Mona exclaimed, looking around in surprise. The colorful oil paintings depicted nature of their motherland, giving rise to nostalgic feeling in everyone who entered this small corner, an image of their old lives. Tables were covered with bleached white linen tablecloths. One single red rose and a candle stood in the middle. But the most impressive thing was the menu – Russian borscht and cabbage soup, mushroom soup with barley, and a famous solianka were their best. They both ordered mushroom soup and Russian chicken cutlets with white sauce. There were only two more couples in the restaurant, but they were also deeply engaged in their own conversations. Mona and Arthur felt as if they were alone on a small island of their past. He could not take his eyes off Mona. Her eyes shone and projected warmth and light. She was very cheerful and talked nonstop. A glass of red French wine put them both in a playful mood.
“Arthur, is it a sin? I think that I am falling in love with you. I am much, much older than you, but does it really matter if we feel so close to each other? Oh, I should not say that. Should I? You are my cousin, my relative, but again, nothing matters in this world when two lost souls feel happy with each other. Are you happy?” She stretched out her hand.
“I had never been happier during my life in Paris. You are a sunlight that illuminated my gloomy life. God heard my prayers, Mona. And you are right, it does not matter how old we are, or how we look, what truly matters is that we feel and understand each other well. Lately, I often think about the meaninglessness of my life. I had only seen the darkness and you brought me the light.”
He took her delicate small hand and kissed it passionately. They finished their dinner. The candle was still burning on the table, dispersing a dim yellowish light that reflected their radiant faces. It was time to close the restaurant, and they left this homey and hospitable place.
The night was warm and windless. The air was filled with a smell of summer flowers and freshness. For the first time in many years, he felt that his mind and soul were at peace. She radiated the energy of love around her, and he fell into this stream of positive emotions and happiness. They walked along the Seine. The feeling of nirvana came over him. He was desperate to kiss her, but was afraid to offend her, when, suddenly, she stopped and turned her face to him.
“Kiss me,” she said simply, “Isn’t it what we both want?”
And she wound her hands around his neck. He lowered his head, reaching for her lips, and they locked in a prolonged, passionate union.
They spent the night together at the nearby hotel and woke up in the morning at the same time. The colors of their lives had changed around them from dark to bright. Love had altered their aimless existence; now it had a meaning. They both possessed a power to make their world different, and make each other happy.
* * * * *
It was late at night next day, when he was heading home. Everything was singing around him; the hot summer air was filled with joy, and the moon, round and smiling, was dispersing its bright light over him. He could not take his eyes off the moon. It was like a magnet, or, maybe, it was another planet where people would go after they abandon the earth, or, maybe, it was just a place for their wandering souls to rest.
Approaching his building, under the streetlight, he noticed a lonely figure of a man. His heart almost stopped with a premonition that something was about to happen. “Oh, God, please, not today, not today . . .,” he whispered in the air.
“Are you talking to yourself?”
He heard a familiar voice near his ear. It was Stefan. His face was twisted with pain and disillusionment. Under the streetlight it seemed to be even more drawn and deadly pale.
“He took heroin again,” Arthur realized, and a panic crossed his heart.
“Look, Stefan,” he took his friend by his shoulders, “why did you do it again? You promised me, we gave each other our word. Do you hear me? You promised.”
Stefan’s indifferent face remained unmovable. Now, Arthur was almost screaming at him, dragging him to the entrance of his mother’s boutique. He could not take him upstairs, his mother was, probably, already asleep and he did not want to wake her up. Arthur opened the door to the shop and they stepped into complete darkness.
“Arthur, I did not take any drugs today, believe me. I am simply in pain – my grandmother died today. I was looking for you everywhere. You are the only one I now have,” Stefan muttered in agony.
He took hold of Arthur’s hand and pulled him deeper into the darkness, sobbing like a child. Arthur’s heart sank; he was experiencing the same pain that his friend now was. Stefan stopped crying for a second.
“Arthur, I need to have a hit of heroin today, this is the only thing that can help me now. Please, do it with me, for the very last time, go along with me. I beg of you, I promise, just one last time. My grandmother was the only close soul I had. Now, I feel so lonely. I can’t live in solitude any longer. Do you hear me? Why don’t you answer me? Just one last time. You are my only friend; please, help me not to feel this awful pain any more.” His speech was choked with pain and deep emotion.
Arthur hesitated for a second, and then, he extended his hand to receive his dose of the drug. This was the only thing he could do at this moment to help Stefan to fall into delirium, forget his misery, the death of his grandmother, cease his sufferings.
“I will be doing this for the last time,” he thought, losing the flow of his thoughts, “Mona . . .” This name suddenly crossed his mind in despair, and he lost his consciousness.
* * * * *
Later, the local newspaper revealed some new details about the strange death of two poets, one Russian, one Bulgarian. Their bodies were discovered the next morning on the floor of a small boutique in a poor Russian Parisian district. There was no evidence of any fight. The traces of some white powder were found on their bodies. It was obvious that they injected the overdose of heroin. The French police questioned a woman with whom Arthur Yablonsky had spent his last hours. They had come to the conclusion that the other man was afraid to die alone and took his friend along with him . . .
* * * * *
The church service ended and the procession moved to the Pere Lachaise Cemetery, where his body had to be interred. Mona stood alone behind the mourning crowd and wondered if she could have saved him with her love, or whether he was already doomed and predisposed to die. She remembered a line from his poem:
Those who live in depth
Have no fear of death.
The night fell over Paris, over the Russian Parisian district, over the dreams of so many people, lost and displaced all over the world. The night sang its song about one more soul perished in the immense universe, and no one could save him or break the walls of his solitude.