Refusing to Love. The Paths of Russian Love from Pushkin to AI. Part II – The Silver Age. Yury Tomin
support for his spiritual turmoil and armed with deep thoughts about the meaning of love, Blok chooses his Beautiful Lady – after a year-long cooling of the relationship, he goes to the Mendeleevs and in long conversations shares his new secret spiritual world with Lyubov Dmitrievna, in which, as she felt, «everything is melodious, everything is unsaid, where these beautiful poems, one way or another, still come from me.» Now his vague inner vibrations of the soul began to resonate more and more confidently with the music of the world, and the mysteries of life became close and understandable to him, and the image of the «Majestic Eternal Wife» appeared in its earthly incarnation.
Alexander Alexandrovich Blok (1880—1921)
I never understood
The art of sacred music,
And now my hearing discerned
The voice of someone’s innermost voice.
I loved that dream in it
And the excitement of my soul
That all the beauty of the past
They bring in waves from oblivion.
The past rises to the sound
It seems close and clear:
Then the dream sings for me,
It smells like a beautiful mystery.
His beloved and confidant in secret thoughts about another life, new trends in art, carrying the initiated into «primordial chaos,» «into the thrill of ideas, into singing images,» also approached the resumption of relations renewed. If earlier she was represented by «magnificent golden hair,» «delicate white-pink complexion, black eyebrows, childish blue eyes and a stern, unapproachable appearance,» now the lights of sensual desires flashed in her eyes. In her memoirs about her growing up, Lyubov Mendeleeva wrote:
I felt my awakened young body. <…> Sometimes, late in the evening, when everyone was already asleep, <…> I took my ball gown, put it right on my naked body and went into the living room to the large mirrors. <…> Then I threw off my dress and admired myself for a long, long time. <…> I was a gentle, well-groomed ancient girl. <…> Later I found the flow of my lines partly in Giorgione, especially the flexibility of long legs, short waist and small, barely blooming breasts.
It is not difficult to imagine the deep disappointment of a young girl yearning for «non-platonic love» when, on the third day after the proposal, her groom withdrew into his illness, which «they do not tell girls about,» and a year later immediately after the wedding (1903) he announced that he would like for ideal reasons, in order to maintain a high style of relationship, to avoid physical intimacy with her. Aphrodite Pandemos wanted to protect her from a cruel fate and sent her signs a year before the fatal consent, so the premonition of the strange role in which her attraction to Blok involved her resulted in the decision to break with him. In a prepared but unsent letter, she informed Blok that she felt like
something in my soul had suddenly broken off, died; I felt that your attitude towards me now only outrages my entire being. I am a living person and I want to be one, at least with all the shortcomings; when I am looked at as some abstraction, even the most ideal one, it is unbearable, offensive, alien to me…
None of these thoughts were expressed; the relationship cooled for the second time, but did not break off. In fact, a direct explanation would not reveal anything that the poet did not already know about, catching involuntary signs – a year ago he wrote down:
I’ve understood the meaning of your aspirations —
I’m blocking your path.
The fire of unearthly lusts
Heaves up the virgin breast.
Shall my pathetic, feeble speech
To fight your flame
On the verge of an uncharted rendezvous
With a beginning dear and alien!
At the same time, Aphrodite Urania fought with «unearthly lusts» for the soul of the poet, who had embarked on the path of the «knight-monk,» and revealed to him her transcendental and underground secrets:
Oh, how alive I am, how the blood springs beat!
I am kindred here with subterranean springs!
Moments of mystery! You, eternal love!
I understood you! I’m with you! I’m behind you!
In this verse from the collection Poems about a Beautiful Lady (1902), with its cheerful opening, there are also hints of other experiences associated with one’s own shadow sneaking «by the moonlit walls,» some «joyless seeds,» cold wind, bare twigs and yet a triumphant smile at the crossroads of the one who «revealed the holy writings.»
Here, in our opinion, one of the characteristic features of symbolism is quite clearly manifested, not so much as a special direction of art that conveys an intuitive understanding of the depths of the natural and spiritual world through secret signs and symbolic images, but as the artist’s own immersion in the world of these shadows, conventions and mysteries, bringing all life to the altar of sacred revelations and setting up life experiments in order to test the true power and truth of the vague, but inexorably attractive phenomena of the divinely beautiful.
One of such tests of «his system» for Blok was communication with prostitutes – not just to satisfy «dirty lust,» but in order to awaken passion even in these women – «flat professionals,» achieve manifestations of tenderness and feel the breath of the «eternal femininity.» As if Dostoevsky’s hero from his spiritual underground, Blok resorts to «debauchery,» though not for the purpose of a reckless collision of the dark and noble qualities of his own soul, but in order to «drink the passion of a vampire» and establish himself in connection with the higher and brighter beginning of life.
In a letter to his fiancée, in raptures of love, Blok amazingly mentions both Dostoevsky and Chekhov, feeling that he is standing «on the threshold of all-joyful knowledge,» that the «era of Chekhov’s despair,» darkness, skepticism, decadence and… romanticism is left behind. At that moment, Blok was infinitely confident in the earthly incarnation of the Beautiful Lady: «I feel that everything I would ever again need, I will find in You.» Indeed, during periods of life’s adversity and hours of despair, Blok always turned to his wife and found her understanding.
But the ghost of the Beautiful Lady gradually dissipated and four years later Blok saw her features in the image of another «Stranger» – actress Natalya Volokhova, who «combined subtle, solemn beauty, an interesting mind and nobility of character.» Although the door of the soul was already bolted in the ice cave, Volokhova’s «wonderful charm» – «tall, slender figure, pale face, delicate features, black hair and eyes, precisely winged, black, wide open» – burned the «golden coal» into the poet’s heart, despite the fact that it also caught «the snowy gloom of her eyes.» However, even this time Blok was disappointed – the heart of the Snow Maiden listened to his beautiful poems, but remained mute.
Lyubov Dmitrievna Blok (Mendeleeva) (1881—1939)
And once again, sparkling from the wine cup,
You put fear in my heart
With your innocent smile
In heavy-snaked hair.
I’m