Polina Barskova

A Passionate Damsel, or the Exploits of Zinaida C.

Translated from the Russian by Valzhyna Mort

A note from the translator:

Zinaida Bykova, a completely forgotten by now Russian poet and translator of French Symbolism, was one of more than a million victims of the Siege of Leningrad (1941-44). Like so many others, Zinaida Bykova disappeared into the darkness of the Siege seemingly without a trace – this poem is an attempt to retrace her fragile and tragic trajectory in the world of literature and history.

Preface

In the Saltykov-Schedrin Public Library, the author discovers paperwork on the 1942 authorized breaking—by a team of librarians and policemen—into the requisitioned room formerly belonging to Zinaida Bykova, an early-century poet and translator of French verse under the pen name of Zinaida C. Further research shows that her reputation as a translator was so piss-poor that only the authority of her husband, an outstanding bibliographer and bibliophile, provided Zinaida C. with a kind of a niche in the house of belle-lettres.

French Lock

Where’s Zinaida C.?

Gone from her room—an eggshell
drained of its rotten darkness,
leaving the lux of the outer Fabergé.

A team of librarians assisted by a district police officer filed a report.
What they discovered upon breaking into the room (two hanging
and one French locks)

which the deceased hasn’t visited
since January—

Why did the deceased stop visiting this room?
Did she no longer love all these fine, gently used things?
An elegant double armoire,
a nickel-plated bed under a down quilt,
two medium desks, five chairs,
a landscape and a portrait of P.V. Bykov, framed.
It’s hard to believe that the deceased could have grown disappointed in such
excellent things.
Above all—books: in foreign languages
scattered
on the table sofa shelves boxes baskets floors,
scraps of the archive, first-class autographs,
Maupassant Musset Zola—

The Scraps of the Archive

“Zinaida C. is so humble that she releases her outpourings only under the banner
of Musset or Verlaine.
The sole reason to review this book in the first place is the issue of translation.
The desire of the reading public to know great foreign authors is totally fair
and any small negligence, any little lie in that respect deserves the most severe
condemnation.
Complete ignorance, immense shallowness, reckless negligence when handling
this foreign property, shocking shamelessness – this is the most generous description
of Zinaida C.’ translations.
We take care to be courteous, keeping in mind at all times that the translator is
a damsel.”

Reckless negligence when handling foreign property—
Never forget that the translator is a damsel—
mumsy babushka devochka ovary
(whose mommy I wonder).
Never forget that the translator is a grave
at the Seraphime-Piskarevsky cemetery,
her sunken dentureless mouth.
Not only do we never forget, Mikhail Alexievich—
we are gagged.
Widow, widow, bald like a window.
Belle with a cotton ball in her ear.
Boot her blush her flush her face
into the shame of her words, like a yapper’s mug into its piss.
Yak!
What shit you’ve dragged into a stanza!
The public’s desire to know great writers is totally fair—
How do you, little pimple, fare?

Il bacio

Come, you soft, crushed, dangling pink, a paper
pistil
of mallow, cocked
and pointing—
come here, little fella.

It peeps from the grasses
like ember
aflame, winking from under a skirt.
Could you cover every mouth
with a rhyme, a tune, a giggle?

Why did you, widowlette, fail to open
Encyclopedia Botanica,
to pull out of it a stem
not a rose but a mallow, a hollyhock, pin it
to your collar?
Why did you give yourself to be pulled to pieces by a bored critic?
Where to did you charge afterwards
with a penny rose from an enchanted garden—

a bomb shelter, a line for bread?
You are nowhere everywhere. Don’t be
nowhere. Now what?—she asks—what do you want?

Preface

I want blah blah blah
and the power of yadda-yadda
the power of Flaubert and Zola
the power of good and evil
the power of libraries
So I could turn you into a chronic bruise
So I could clone you into a wound

This old witch
Where did she die
What month date
What stranger
passed by a mass of snow she was frozen into.
Her galoshes stuck out like two prunes on a wedding cake.
Whatever’s touched-up, wiped-out
I wish to expose, to trace
like a child—her tongue stuck out diligently—
traces letters.

What letter is this?
What do you think?
Aaaaaaaaaaa Could be aaaaaaaaaa
Zinaida Bykova lowers herself into the snow,
like Verlaine—into the grass
in the suburbs of London.
I leave her now,
I live a bit now.