S E C O N D-H A N D S O U L SS E L E C T E D W R I T I N G

T R A N S L A T E D F R O M

T H E R O M A N I A N

A N D I N T R O D U C E D

B Y S E A N C O T T E R

T W I S T E D S P O O N P R E S S

P R A G U E / 2 0 0 3

N I C H I T A D A N I L O V

Copyright © 1993, 1999, 2000, 2003 by Nichita DanilovIntroduction and translation copyright © 2003 by Sean Cotter

This edition © 2003 by Twisted Spoon Press

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. This book, or parts thereof, may not be

used or reproduced in any form, except in the context of reviews,without written permission from the publisher.

isbn 80-86264-08-4

9Trans la tor ’s In t roduc t ion

21Nine Var ia t ions for the Organ

Kiril / 22 • Cyril / 23Ferapont / 26 • Ferapont / 27

Lazar / 30 • Lazarus / 31Daniel / 32 • Daniel / 33

Celalalt Kiril / 34 • The Other Cyril / 35Atichin / 36 • Atikin / 37

Celalalt Ferapont / 38 • The Other Ferapont / 39Celalalt Lazar / 40 • The Other Lazarus / 41

Coborârea lui Daniel / 42 • Daniel’s Descent / 43

45Se lec ted Poet r y

Senin / 46 • Serenity / 47Din timp în timp / 48 • From Time to Time / 49

Lied (II) / 50 • Lied (II) / 51Lied (V) / 52 • Lied (V) / 53Neantul / 54 • The Void / 55

Despre poezie / 56 • On Poetry / 57Poem / 58 • Poem / 59

Scurt poem de dragoste / 60 • Short Love Poem / 61Chip orb / 62 • Blind Face / 63

Caderea / 64 • The Fall / 65Portret al artistului la tinerete / 68 • Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man / 69

Celui care vine / 72 • To the One Who Will Come / 73Finita la commedia / 74 • Finita la commedia / 75

Peisaj cu îngeri orbi / 80 • Scene with Blind Angels / 81Apus / 82 • West toward the Sun / 83

Rastingnire / 84 • Crucifixion / 85Iluminare / 86 • Enlightenment / 87

Îngerul / 88 • The Angel / 89Nimicul / 92 • Nothingness / 93

Peisaj diurn / 94 • Diurnal Scene / 95Din nou, Ferapont / 98 • Again, Ferapont / 99

Profetul / 102 • The Prophet / 103Trup / 104 • Body / 105Lan / 106 • Field / 107

Second-Hand / 108 • Second-Hand / 109Îngerul / 112 • The Angel / 113Anatol / 114 • Anatol / 115

Invocatie / 118 • Invocation / 119Somn / 120 • Sleep / 121

Poem în O / 122 • Poem in O / 123Apele sufletului / 124 • Waters of the Soul / 125

Peisaj cu mâini si aripi / 126 • Scene with Hands and Wings / 127

129Se lec ted Prose

On Writers / 131In the Author’s Cell / 135

Sound and Space / 139How Much Fiction is There in a Poetic Text? / 142

T R A N S L AT O R ’S I N T R O D U C T I O N

We lack, in translations of East European literature following1989, a sense of the importance of religion to these writers.Whether due to our more secular interests, or to the patternsestablished by officially atheist Communist governments, wehave avoided exploring this aspect of literary experience, anaspect whose importance we can gauge by the centrality of theterms “Catholic,” “Orthodox,” and “Muslim” in the Balkanconflicts. The fall of the Communist governments removed thecensorship that suppressed discussion of this topic with theWest, and this change has given us the opportunity to exploreEast European spirituality more fully. When we examine thereligion and literature of the region, we find a relationship morecomplex than we may have at first expected. This complexityholds especially true in the case of Romania, where for fortyyears the Orthodox Church provided a sense of Romanian iden-tity, sometimes resistant to and sometimes complicit with astrongly nationalist Communist government.

These considerations become more entangled in the case ofNichita Danilov, a poet from the city of Iasi ( Jassy), in the regionof northeast Romania called Moldavia. Iasi is the home of MihaiEminescu, Romania’s national poet, and the city has long beena center for the nation’s literary production. Danilov, however,is not ethnically Romanian. He belongs to the Lippovan Slavicminority, a group which settled in Moldavia and the Danubedelta in the eighteenth century, having fled Russian persecutionafter the Orthodox Church schism. Although Danilov was raised

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speaking both Russian and Romanian, he writes solely in thelatter language.

The Lippovan identity as religious dissenters has been instru-mental in constructing Danilov’s own identity. His mysticalvision of religious experience seems to inform all his poems,even those that do not contain explicitly religious imagery. Theimagery itself can be located in the Romanian engagement withSurrealism, which has provided Danilov a mode for describingan ineffable God. In his poetry and theoretical writings, heargues that the divine is manifest in this world through surre-alistic moments, that is, through jarring juxtapositions.Danilov’s poetic technique is an imitation of this image of God.Not only does his poetry express his relationship with thedivine, but it also demonstrates his relationship with the day-to-day world. He is conscious of the jarring effect his techniquecan have on the reader, and he words his poems carefully to bal-ance that effect. At no time do we see Danilov detached from hisrelationship with others, writing purely for God or for his ownamusement. He is constantly writing in the tension he feelsbetween the divine world and our own.

Danilov, an Orthodox Christian, understands the divine asthe Creator God of Genesis. The world in which we live is the“created” world. Danilov also refers to another world, one wherethe divine resides. Because the divine is the Creator and not thecreated, he calls the divine realm the “uncreated.” His poetry isa kind of prophecy, not of a world to come, but of the simulta-neous existence of another world. The poems take place in aworld similar to but other than ours. Familiar images, such as awindow lit at night or a man playing chess, are set against an

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indefinite, monochrome landscape; they are suspended in frontof green and black fields, void of intelligible detail. His prophecyis a vision of our world sustained by these voids.

The presence of another world in Danilov’s poetry has morethan an aesthetic significance. In his critical writings he statesthat he has in fact experienced an other world. He describesvisions, hallucinations that offer a writer what he needs:

Maybe hallucination encompasses more reality thansimple perception. Hallucination makes other doorson the universe swing open. We move beyond theworld of the senses. Time acquires another dimensionand space another configuration.*

The other world in Danilov’s poetry is written in relationship tothe other world he has experienced. His poems are not directlya description of that world, but they are analogous to it. By cre-ating another world in his poetry, Danilov argues for the actualpresence of a world outside of the one we perceive from day today. He does not describe that world because the uncreated isalways other than this one, which means it is also other than thewords of his poetry.

This world is made essentially other by its ineffability. Danilovplaces himself in the tradition of negative theologians, such asMeister Eckhart, St. John of the Cross, and Pseudo-Dionysius.This tradition describes the divine in negative terms: it is “nota part of non-existence nor is it a part of being” — Danilovquotes the Areopagite — it is “ineffable and unknowable.” For

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* Apocalipsa de carton 29 (Iasi, Romania: Institutul European, 1993). All of theprose citations in this essay are taken from this collection.

Danilov, the world “beyond the world we perceive” is a void, asin the title of his major collection, The Void above All Things.Because the divine is ineffable, no poem he writes will be anadequate expression of its nature.

But his vision also includes a radical skepticism. The majordistinction between Danilov and traditional negative theologyis his emphasis on the impossibility of meaningful communica-tion with the divine at any level. Meister Eckhart, for example,presents a dialogic relationship with the uncreated, in which themystic is pecking his way out of his shell, while, on the other side,God is pecking in. For Danilov, however, we have no way topeck. The most we can do is passively wait for a divine eruptionin this world, the nature and timing of which are impossible topredict.

When these eruptions do occur, more often than not theyconfirm the incommensurability of the uncreated and createdworlds. Danilov uses the angel, the traditional image of com-munication between earth and heaven, to show how unsuitablethese worlds are to each other. In one poem, an angel realizeshe is in the created world and hangs himself from his halo. Theearth is so harsh that even divine beings suffer. They are drivento drink:

But what kind of angels are these?Some are drunk, like they’recoming from a party.Some walk around the housesmoking and shouting, others sitat my table and play a game of chance. (“The Fall”)

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Danilov’s angels are far from Dante’s spiritual guides, farfrom Rilke’s terrible presences. His angels are incapable offunctioning in this world. They arrive as incarnations ofincommensurability. Even though the angels come from thedivine, they are corrupted, sometimes battered by their contactwith the created world. “To The One Who Will Come” soundslike a warning from one angel to his successor:

You need a heart of stoneto live on earth,and sometimes it is betternot even to have a stone.

This bitterness results in brooding figures such as “The Angel,”who stays in his room, smoking cigars and gambling, or themob of decadent angels who take over Lazarus’s apartment in“The Fall.” Danilov finds the created world “a place of perpet-ual suffering.” The suffering is too intense, even for the divine.

The exact nature of suffering in Danilov’s poetry is exem-plified in his poem “Crucifixion,” where he pictures Christ,another mediating figure, questioning God:

Father, I bit into our breadour daily breadand I found a tooth.So I’m asking you, Father:What kind of bread is this?

In this revision of the story, Christ’s moment of doubt inGethsemane is caused by the unexpected appearance of teethinside a loaf of holy bread. The fact that this surreal eruption

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occurs in “our daily bread,” the place of holy nourishment,makes the irony of a believer’s relationship with God all themore apparent. The suffering that Danilov describes is not theresult of the absence of the divine in this world, a simpler andmaybe preferable situation. Rather, suffering is a result of theworld being in an inscrutable, unpredictable relationship withGod. Danilov describes this situation in images of his angelsplaying games of chance:

They will play dice for a week.Then, cards, for a month, day and night. (“The Angel”)

Other angels hold my mouth openand fill it with champagne . . .The rest keep throwing diceat the table. (“The Fall”)

As a pastime for someone with divine knowledge, these gamesmake little sense: presumably the angels would know alreadywhat the next card or roll of the dice would be. They must enjoyinstead the tumbling of the dice, the chaotic shuffling of thecards. At his most jaded, Danilov suggests that the divine treatsthe created world like a deck of cards. The unpredictability ofthe world is something that the divine has introduced, for itsown pleasure.

Danilov identifies all kinds of shocking interruptions of ourworld as emanations of the uncreated. For him, nothingexpresses the interaction of the divine and the created betterthan Dalí’s surrealism:

Yes, the uncreated exists, you only need eyes to see it

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. . . We have to include Dalí, without a doubt, amongthose who have seen it recently. Recall the flaminggiraffe. What is in each drawer of the giraffe’s chest, ifnot the uncreated? (122)

The divine is marked by its frustration of our expectations. “TheVoid” treats this problem directly. The poem’s speaker, havingwitnessed a manifestation of the uncreated, asks a question withappropriate gravity:

A hole opened in the sky above himso he could speak with the void.He shouted: What is evil?Truth? Good?

The divine does not respond with the same seriousness:

After three days a response came:a soft gigglefollowed by a snicker.

Despite this response, the speaker must show reverence to thedivine. The divine has the prerogative to change, while theperson must be passive. The speaker continues with the samekind of questions:

He asked: What is wisdom?Love? The Soul?After three days a response came:a goat’s soft bleat,followed by a horse’s cackle, an ox’s squeak,a dog’s croak, and so on.

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The divine responds by unexpectedly juxtaposing incompatibleterms, croaking being as foreign to a dog as burning is to agiraffe. The tears that appear in Danilov’s poems, such as thoseof Daniel in Nine Variations for the Organ, are often tears of frus-tration with the incommensurability of a person’s reverence andthe divine’s caprice. This frustration with divine ineffabilityappears in Danilov’s prose as well:

Is the uncreated a thing or a being? Soul or puppet?Who or what? Half goat, three quarters ram, and fourquarters teaspoon! Don’t ask me what it looks like! Idon’t know anything about it! I have never seen it, andI never will! (122)

Danilov’s work describes a person called to a holy world thatfunctions by rules he cannot understand.

We realize the depth of this suffering when we readDanilov’s descriptions of his work as a poet. Danilov dependson his relationship with the uncreated world. The poet mustconstantly attend to the void, he argues, because the uncreatedworld is the source of creativity. To create a poem is to “takewords from the void . . . and transfer them into [the] work (29).”Any creativity in the created world comes from an interruptionby the uncreated (the creating) world. Danilov pictures the poetas a man who fishes, his hook resting age after age in a body ofclear water that is void of fish. There are no fish in this world,but eventually a fish inexplicably appears at the end of the line,in the same way that a tooth appears in Christ’s bread.

Despite his frustration, Danilov must embrace the othernessof the divine. He therefore transforms his frustration with the

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divine into a poetic practice. He imitates the unpredictability ofthe uncreated. We can see the resemblance of the uncreated andthe poet by juxtaposing this description of the former:

The uncreated can take different forms. If the poet[Emil Brumaru] will be good enough to slide open thedrawer of his memory, he will see the “uncreated” inall its brilliance: a short creature with a red crest andlittle yellow boots, walking from one end of the officeto the other. (122)

with this picture of the poet as a similarly eccentric creature:

With pants made of billiard felt, with a pink jacket andblue shirt, a tie painted by a friend, an immense som-brero, a snarled beard pulled into a sharp point, and anenormous blue hoop in one ear . . . (14)

The poet in “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” is also dis-tinguished by his appearance:

His head is shaved, his face is hairy,a cigar between his teeth.He tips his hat to showa 100 lei note stuck to his head.

He dresses like this to shockyour fat little hearts.

Just as the divine is marked by its surrealism, the poet ismarked by his eccentricity. Both shock the world.

What restrains Danilov from extending this rationale to

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the ruptured literary language common in Romanian post-modernism, and what distinguishes him from simple sadism, ishis conviction that poetry wields a real power over the reader.He feels a responsibility to take great care over the language andimages of his poems. We see his carefulness in his ars poetica, “OnPoetry.” Here he describes an eccentrically dressed saddle-makernamed Johann, a craftsman, as is the poet. “Every harness” thatJohann makes he tests “first on himself.” After he puts on fancyclothes, he harnesses himself to a carriage for a short trip:

Only if the harness didn’t bruise his chestwould he put it on the horse.Where can you find people like that today?

The answer, of course, is that poets are like that. Danilov seeshimself as a craftsman, a creator of poems. But the poems hecreates might bruise his reader. After all, this creation involvesthe most powerful energies that we can imagine, the power, forexample, to set fire to a giraffe. The poet cannot ask his readerto empathize with an object that might do him real harm.Danilov therefore states that the language and form of the poemshould be carefully constructed, contending that the poet

. . . should take care not to use [words] in such a waythat they collapse without a purpose and without aform. He has the duty to make a wall of the wordswhich came to him from the superior forces of thespirit in the moment of inspiration, a wall moredurable than the Great Wall of China. (29)

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He is arguing here against a poetry that is not carefully con-structed, a poetry that does not take its relationship with thereader seriously. Danilov’s own clear sentence structure andsimple forms are an attempt to avoid bruising his reader, anattempt to fulfill this duty.

Like his skeptical theology, Danilov’s understanding of apoem’s capacity to bruise has a radical edge. He argues that thewords of a poem have the potential to bruise not only our aes-thetic sensibilities, but also our bodies. He tells of writing aprose poem about a man with three black holes in his head:

Not long after, an inexplicable anxiety caused myhair to fall out of my head in three places, each thesize of a large coin.

I burned the text in an open place — in a rowboaton Lake Ciric — and I scattered the ashes over thewater. (The poem was not that great, I had found it bychance in my coat pocket. I put a lighter to it and heldthe burning end of the paper over the waves until it allhad turned to ash.) Not more than a week later, myhair began to grow back. Within a month you couldn’tsee where it had fallen out.

The words that a poet employs can have a physical effect, andnot only on the person who writes them and those who readthem, but also on those who have not read them. Danilov tellsus that during a train trip, after his hair had grown back, heoverhears an anecdote that brings the prose poem to his mindfor the first time in several months:

The man who told it, an engineer for the roads around

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Dorohoi, had three bald spots on his head. I wanted toask him if by chance he had been swimming in LakeCiric, where I had scattered the ash of my poem aboutHans, but I held myself back. (21)

The poet may actually have the same power as his angel coun-terpart: he may introduce unpredictability into the worldthrough his poetry just as he imagines the angels do throughtheir gambling. This combination of uncertainty and potencymakes the careful construction of a poem an ethical concern.

Beyond demonstrating that the writer is always in relationshipwith the two worlds of the uncreated and the created, beyondarguing that in this relationship the poem should avoid bruisingits reader (or non-reader), Danilov does not describe the preciseboundaries of his ethics. In fact, given the relationship of the twoworlds, he cannot describe the boundaries precisely. He statesthat the poet’s words come from his encounter with the uncre-ated, but their appearance is inexplicable: like catching a fish inan empty pond. He suggests that the poet has a “responsibility”to the world around him, but his power is unpredictable. We donot know just how or when the poet can be said to affect theworld. Danilov’s ethics is a peculiar combination of potency andconfusion: the great power of his creativity is circumscribed bya spiritual mystery. In the same way that Danilov writes in thetension between the uncreated and the created worlds, he writesin an ethics whose restrictions are unknowable by their nature.With this situation in mind, we can better understand the spir-itual frustration we find in many of these poems.

Sean Cotter

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Truly, the best part of everything can be expressed in many

words, few words, or none, because it is ineffable and unknow-

able. It is supernatural, transcendent, manifesting itself

directly and completely to those who are able to rise above both

impure things and pure things, to climb the most holy peaks,

leave behind divine light and heavenly sounds and words, and

become one with the dark, where he who is above all things is

truly found. We say that this part is neither the soul nor the

mind . . . It is neither number nor order, neither greatness nor

smallness, neither equality nor inequality, neither likeness nor

unlikeness . . . It is not part of non-existence nor is it part of

being: beings do not know it, as it is in itself, neither does it

know beings as they are.

dionysius the areopagite

Nine Var ia t ions for the Organ

K I R I L

Calugarul Kiril sta în interiorul unei fântâni si scrie la oneagra psaltire. Aici vietuieste de pe vremea lui Constantin. Înjurul lui apa s-a dat putin la o parte. Totusi înauntrul fântânii eumed si frig. Din când în când îsi încalzeste mâinile la unopait. Pe masa sa are un blid, iar în dreapta un fel de pasareoarba care ciuguleste meiul din blid.

Eu stau aplecat peste fântâna si-l urmaresc foarte atent: totce scrie el, eu transcriu într-o alta psaltire. Din când în când, elîsi ridica ochii spre mine, dar nu-mi spune nimic.

Câteodata apa devine cam tulbure si nu pot vedea ce scrieel. Atunci trebuie sa m-aplec tot mai mult peste margine.

Altadata apa devine vâscoasa ca lutul si crapa.Altadata e fierbinte ca lava si împroasca afara foc.Apoi se raceste treptat si se preface în piatra,

atuncea astept. Ma asez în dreptul fântânii si asteptpâna piatra devine iar apa.Altadata începe sa ninga.Fulgi mari cad în fântâna, dar nu se topesc cum ar fi fost

normal sa se topeasca la contactul cu apa, ci se prefac în banutide-argint si de-arama si se lipesc pe

teasta rasa a calugarului Kiril.

El scrie fara sa simta ceva. Eu îl urmaresc foarte atent: nutrebuie sa-mi scape nici un cuvânt. Tot ce scrie el, eu transcriuîntr-o alta psaltire, dar nu cu

cerneala, ci cu nisip.

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C Y R I L

Cyril the monk lives inside a well and writes a black psalter.He has lived there since the age of Constantine. Around him,the water has parted, leaving the walls wet and cold. He warmshis hands from time to time at a stone lamp. On the right corner of his table, a blind bird pecks at a small plate of seeds.

I lean over the side of the well, and watch him, very care-fully: everything that he writes, I copy into another psalter.Occasionally he raises his eyes toward me, but he does not say anything.

Sometimes the water ripples, and I cannot see what he iswriting. Then I have to lean farther over the edge.

Other times the water thickens into clay, then cracks.Other times it boils like lava and spits fire.Then it slowly cools into stone,

and I wait. I sit on the well and waitfor the stone to turn back into water.Sometimes it snows.Large flakes fall into the well. They do not melt, as they

normally do when they touch water. Instead they turn into silver and copper coins and stick

to the shaved scalp of Cyril the monk.

Cyril writes, but without feeling. I watch him very carefully:I cannot miss a word. Everything he writes, I copy into anotherpsalter, using not

ink, but sand.

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Am în fata mea o clepsidra si-mi moi pana în nisipul care sescurge din ea. Pentru asta trebuie, într-adevar, sa fiu deosebitde atent; orice boare de vânt

îmi poate da peste cap tot ce am scris.Deasupra mea sta aplecat altcineva si transcrie tot ce scriu

eu. Daca îmi ridic cumva ochii spre el, îsi vâra imediat nasul încarte si se preface ca-i absorbit de lectura.

Seamana binisor cu mine si cu Kiril.De multe ori se apleaca atât de mult peste margine, încât îi

strig sa fie atent, sa aiba grija sa nu se prabuseasca în put. Dar elrâde, hohoteste ca un nebun.

El este fratele Ferapont.

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In front of me is an hourglass. I dip my quill in the streamof falling sand. I have to be exceptionally careful: any breath of wind

would erase everything I have written.Someone else leans over me, copying what I write. If I look

at him, he immediately puts his nose in his book, as if he isabsorbed in reading.

He looks a little like both Cyril and me.He often leans dangerously far over the well’s edge. I yell

at him to be careful not to fall down the shaft. He giggles atme like a crazy man.

He is Brother Ferapont.

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F E R A P O N T

Deasupra mea sta fratele Ferapont. Si-a lasat o barba pânala brâu. El vegheaza peste tot ce scriu eu. Poarta un fel derubasca si e încins la mijloc cu o frânghie din

scoarta de tei. Seamana mult cuFiodor Mihailovici Dostoievski.

Daca fac cumva o micuta greseala de stil, el îmi scapa opietricica în cap.

„Fii atent, fii atent, frate Nichita, îmi spune. Fii atent, toateastea s-ar putea sa te coste scump.”

Când nu stiu exact unde sa pun virgula si ezit între unpunct si o virgula, el ma corecteaza.

„Toate astea nu mai au nici o importanta, îi spun.În psaltirea moderna nu se mai folosesc multe semne de

punctuatie.”„Tu, totusi, sa le folosesti, sa le folosesti. Nu se stie nimic

niciodata. Cine stie ce vremuri mai vin! Trebuie sa fii foarteatent si prevazator. De asemeni, ar trebui sa postesti mai multsi mai mult sa te concentrezi asupra ta. Mai putin sa visezi lafemei. Sa fii un adevarat egumen.”

„Toate astea nu mai au importanta acum, îi raspund.Vremurile sânt altfel, s-au schimbat mult. Lumea nu mai

posteste. Cât despre femei . . .”„Tu, totusi, sa nu uiti niciodata ce-ti spun! Sa fii foarte,

foarte atent . . .”

Fratele Ferapont are ochi albastri si blânzi.

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F E R A P O N T

Above me is Brother Ferapont. His beard reaches down tohis waist. He sees everything that I write. His linen shirt istied around the middle with rope made

of linden bark. He looks very much likeFeodor Mihailovich Dostoevsky.

If I commit a small stylistic mistake, he drops a pebble onmy head.

“Be careful, be careful, Brother Nichita,” he says, “Be careful, that could be a costly mistake.”

If I don’t know exactly where to put a comma, or if I hesitate between a period and a comma, he corrects me.

“None of this matters at all,” I tell him,“In the modern Psalter, many punctuation marks are no

longer used.”“Still, you should use them. You should. You never know.

Who knows what the future will bring! You have to be verycautious, very careful. And another thing, you should fastmore, attend more to yourself. Spend less time looking atwomen. If you want to become a Superior.”

“None of this matters now,” I respond,“The times have changed, it’s very different now. People

don’t fast any more. And about women . . .”“Even so, don’t forget what I’m telling you. Be very, very

careful . . .”

Brother Ferapont has soft, blue eyes.

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Desi e trist nu l-am vazut plângând niciodata.Are o voce groasa si cânta tot felul de psalmi.As vrea sa-mi moi pana si sa scriu cu tristetea acestor

priviri. Dar el sta mult deasupra mea si oricât de sus mi-asridica mâna, tot nu i-as putea atinge ochii.

Deasupra fratelui Ferapont sta fratele Lazar.

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Although he is a sad man, I have never seen him cry.He has a deep, rich voice, and he knows many psalms.I would like to wet my quill in the sadness of his gaze. But

he is so far above me. However high I raise my hand, I cannotreach his eyes.

Above Brother Ferapont is Brother Lazarus.

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L A Z AR

Deasupra fratelui Ferapont sta fratele Lazar.Deasupra fratelui Lazar nu mai e nimeni. El e într-adevar

foarte singur. Nu priveste nici în afara, nici înauntru, dar vedetot. Deasupra lui

nu mai e nici un put.El e mai trist decât însusi Cristos. În fiecare zi putrezeste

câte putin si pica-n fântâna.Fratele Ferapont îsi moaie pana

în ranile lui si-si scrie psaltirea.Ranile lui sunt limpezi ca niste fântâni

si nu putrezesc, nici nu dor. El nu scrie.doar sângele lui izvoraste din ranisi umple toata fântâna.Ochiul lui trist ajunge pâna la mine,

pâna la mine si glasul lui blând; el nu m-a mustrat niciodata.Într-una din ranile sale e si fântâna în care scriu eu. Din

când în când îsi deschide ochii si-l priveste pe celalalt Lazar, pecel din adânc.

Celalalt e la fel de slab ca si dânsul.

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L A Z A R U S

Above Brother Ferapont is Brother Lazarus.There is no one above Brother Lazarus. He is truly alone.

He looks neither outside nor inside, but he sees everything.Above him

there is no more well.Brother Lazarus is sadder than Christ. Every day, part of

his body rots off and falls down through the well.Brother Ferapont writes his psalter

after wetting his quill in Lazarus’s wounds.His wounds are as clear as well-water.

They do not fester. He writes nothing.But the blood that flows from his woundsfills the well.His sad gaze reaches down to me,

his voice reaches down softly. He has never chided me.The well where I write is deep in one of his wounds. He

opens his eyes, from time to time, to look at the Lazarus inthe depths.

The other Lazarus is as feeble as this one.

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D A N I E L

Fratele Daniel e înca foarte tânar si rataceste pe câmpia dinjur. El înca n-a coborât în fântâna.

Nu i-a crescut nici mustata.Are un par cânepiu si nu stie ce e femeia.Acum simte un fel de greutate în piept si rataceste pe

câmpie. Din când în când scoate o mica psaltire si-o rasfoiestefara sa înteleaga ceva. E însotit permanent de o pasare. Un felde soim, numai ca are cap de leu si coada de sarpe.

Ea sta pe umarul sau drept si are ochii foarte stralucitori.Stie sa citeasca si-l învata sa descifreze psaltirea.

Când îsi deschide aripile, lasa sa se întrevada pe sub subsuori un trup de femeie. Se hraneste cu nisip si bea apa din ranile fratelui Lazar.

Aduce cu pasarea fratelui Kiril,numai ca e de câteva ori mai înteleapta.

La fiecare luna noua coboara în putsi aduce câte o noua psaltire. Ea este pasarea întelepciunii.

Acum se sfârseste luna april si începe sa amurgeasca.

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D A N I E L

Brother Daniel is still very young. He passes the days play-ing outside in the fields. He has yet to descend into the well.

His whiskers have not started to grow.He has golden hair. He does not know what a woman is.While playing in the fields, he feels a kind of weight on

his chest. He occasionally takes out a small psalter and leafsthrough it, but he does not understand anything. He is accompanied at all times by a bird: a kind of falcon, but with the head of a lion and a serpent’s tail.

The bird is perched on his right shoulder. Its eyes glow.It can read and teaches Daniel to decipher the psalter.

Under the falcon’s wings, the body of a woman showsthrough the feathers. The falcon feeds on sand and drinks the water from Brother Lazarus’s wounds.

It looks a bit like Cyril’s birdjust many times wiser.

On every new moon it flies into the well,in its beak a new psalter for Brother Cyril.

Now, at the end of April, the fogs are gathering.

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C E L A L A LT K I R I L

Dedesubtul fratelui Kiril e un alt frate Kiril.El sta într-un alt put si scrie o alta psaltire.Scrie invers de cum scrie celalalt frate Kiril. Cu o mâna

scrie si cu alta numara banutii de-aramace cad din buzunarul primului Kiril. El e foarte slab

si nu manânca decât o data la sapte zile.

Un sobolan i-a ros sandalele si acum îi roade talpa de lapiciorul stâng. Dar el nu simte nici o durere. Nici

sângele nu-i curge din rana, de parca ar fi mort.Are o barbuta sura si-un nas ca un cioc.

Pleoapele i s-au înrosit de-atâta scris si mâna îi tremura lafiecare litera. E ceva mai batrân decât primul Kiril si mult maiviclean decât dânsul.

Îsi numara pe-ascuns banutii de-arama si hohoteste subtil.Mai mult se chioraste la lumina lunii si scrie cu propriul

sau sânge, atâta e de zgârcit! Scrie foarte marunt, abia potideslusi ce-a scris.

Dedesubtul lui scrie fratele Atichin.

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T H E O T H E R C Y R I L

Under Brother Cyril is another Brother Cyril,in a different shaft and writing in a different psalter.His writing is the reflection of the other Cyril’s. While

one hand writes, the other counts the silver coinsthat fall from the first Cyril’s pocket. He is very thin

and eats only once every seven days.

A rat has chewed through the sole of his left sandal, andnow it gnaws at his foot. But he feels no pain. He

does not bleed. As if he were dead.He has a gray beard and a beaked nose.

Constant writing has turned his eyelids red. His handshakes with every stroke. He is older than the first Cyril, and much more cunning.

He counts the copper coins in his pocket and giggles.Most of the time he stares out at the light of the moon.

He writes with his own blood, he is that cheap! He writes with very small letters. You can barely make out what he haswritten.

Below him writes Brother Atikin.

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AT I C H I N

Fratele Atichin nu seamana cu mine ci mai mult cu frateleFerapont, cel de deasupra mea.

El citeste si corecteaza tot ce scrie celalalt Kiril. Nu arebarba, în schimb pletele îi atârna pâna la chilia celui de-aldoilea Kiril.

De când scrie nu si-a taiat unghiile si acum ele îi intra în carne. Are în chilia sa o micuta fereastra prin care

urmareste câmpia.

Pe câmpie rataceste acum celalalt Daniel.

Din când în când rupe câte o fila si-o arunca usor pe fereastra, apoi asteapta sa treaca prin dreptul ei celalalt Daniel.Dar acesta e prea absorbit de propriile sale gânduri ca sa maivada ceva si în jur.

Doar pasarea sa le citeste pe-ascuns, apoi le mesteca si leînghite pe loc, ca sa nu afle nimic Daniel.

Fratele Atichin nu e zgârcit, în schimb viseaza mult lafemei. De multe ori pana lui o ia razna si deseneaza

pe fila coapse si sâni de femeie.

În mâna sa dreapta tine o micuta lupa,dedesubtul lui scrie celalalt Ferapont.

36

AT I K I N

Brother Atikin does not resemble me; he looks like BrotherFerapont above me.

He reads and corrects the writing of the other Cyril. Hehas no beard. Instead, his hair hangs from his head down tothe cell of the second Cyril.

He hasn’t cut his nails since he began to write. Now theyare so long

they curve back into his fingers. A small window in his celllets him see the fields outside.

On the fields, the other Daniel is playing.

Every once in a while Atikin will tear a page from hispsalter and toss it through the window. Then he waits for the other Daniel to walk past it. But Daniel is too absorbed in his own thoughts to see anything around him.

The bird hides somewhere and reads the page. When hefinishes reading, he eats the paper, so Daniel won’t discover it.

Brother Atikin is not cheap. His problem is dreams ofwomen. Often his quill will go astray and draw

on the page, a woman’s thighs and breasts.

In his right hand he holds a tiny magnifying glass.Below him writes the other Ferapont.

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C E L A L A LT F E R A P O N T

Celalalt Ferapont seamana pe jumatate cu mine, pejumatate cu primul frate Ferapont. Ochiul sau drept e aidomacu ochiul meu drept. Celalalt e albastru

si seamana cu cel al lui Ferapont.El sta cu capul în piept si pare ca mediteaza profund la ceva. E mult mai întunecat decât primul frateFerapont.

Pe spate are o pereche de aripi si-o cruce care-l apasa greuînauntru. Poarta barba si seamana cu un paianjen. El sta si transcrie tot ce a scris Atichin. Are o fata întunecata si nu l-am vazut

zâmbind niciodata.E un adevarat gramatic.

Înainte de-a asterne o fraza, o cumpaneste adânc, oîntoarce de pe o parte pe alta, o rasuceste în fel si chip, apoi o trece citet în psaltire. Scrisul lui

e foarte îngrijit.El transcrie în aur psaltirea.Dupa ce scrie o pagina, îi da foc la opait, iar cenusa o

presoara pe trupul lui Lazar. Pe ranileceluilalt Lazar.

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T H E O T H E R F E R A P O N T

The other Ferapont looks half like me and half like thefirst Ferapont. His right eye is like mine. The blue one

looks like Ferapont’s.His head rests on his chest, as if he were meditating deeplyon something. His skin is much darker than the first Brother Ferapont.

In between his wings, a heavy cross presses on his back. Hewears a beard and looks like a peasant. He copies everythingthat Atikin writes. His face is dark; I have never seen him

smile.He is truly a grammarian.

Before writing down a certain phrase, he contemplates itfrom one end to the other, he twists it and turns it, then writesit carefully in the psalter. His handwriting

is exceptionally neat.He writes his psalter in golden ink.After he has written a page, he burns it at the stone lamp.

The ash falls on Lazarus’s body. Into the woundsof the other Lazarus.

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C E L A L A LT L A Z AR

Dedesubtul celuilalt Ferapont e celalalt LazarDedesubtul celuilalt Lazar nu mai e nimeni. Cenusa picura

pe ranile lui si-i acopera trupul. El nu scrie la nici o psaltire. Eprea slab ca sa mai poata scrie ceva.

Nici nu are destula putere sa-si tina ochii deschisi.Din când în când arunca o privire celuilalt Lazar, apoi îsi

închide pleoapele obosite si-si întoarce fata în alta parte.Cenusa îi acopera ranile.Fiecare rana a lui e ca o fântâna.Într-una din ranile salestau eu si-mi continui psaltirea.

Trupul lui e numai piele si os.E chiar mai palid decât însusi Cristos. Îsi misca

încet buzele albe si sopteste abia:„Apa, apa . . . putina apa . . .” Atât.Celalalt Ferapont îsi arde linistit psaltirea si în loc de apa îi

presara cenusa pe rani. În aceasta cenusaîmi moi pana si-mi continui psaltirea.

Fratele Daniel nu stie nimic din toate acestea.Acum el abia a-nvatat sa citeasca. Trece cu o mica psaltire

în mâini si-i silabiseste buchiile.E sfârsitul lunii april si-n curând va fi noapte.Pasarea de pe umarul lui a zburat.El îmi va continua psaltirea.

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T H E O T H E R L A Z A R U S

Under the other Ferapont is the other Lazarus.Under the other Lazarus there is no one else. Ash falls on

his wounds, ash falls over his entire body. He writes nothing.He is too weak.

Too weak to keep his eyes open.From time to time he glances at the other Lazarus, then he

closes his tired eyes and turns his face away.Ash covers his wounds.Each of his wounds is a well.Deep inside one of his woundsI am writing my psalter.

He is just skin and bones.He is paler than Christ. He nibbles at his white lips and

whispers:“Water, water, . . . a little water . . .” Nothing more.The other Ferapont quietly burns his psalter. Ash falls on

Lazarus’s wounds instead of water. I wet my quillin this ash to continue my psalter.

Brother Daniel knows none of this.He has just learned to read. He walks with a small psalter

in his hands, mouthing the syllables.The end of April; it will soon be night.The bird has flown from his shoulder.Daniel will continue my psalter.

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C O B O R Â R E A L U I D A N I E L

Se sfârsea luna april si începea luna martie.Daniel se apropie de fântâna. Privi înauntrul ei si se trase

câtiva pasi înapoi. Era într-o noapte de vinerispre luni. Îsi închise ochii si se-apleca peste margineaei: nici cu ochii închisi nu putu scapa de chipul celuilalt Daniel.Luni statu toata ziua si plânseaplecat peste celalalt Daniel.Trupul i se înverzi si pielea i se acoperi cu solzi ca de sarpe.

Îi crescura pene pe mâini, numai aripile nu voira sa-i creasca.Statu toata ziua si plânse.

Dedesubtul lui plângea celalalt Daniel.

Îsi smulgea solzii de pe trup si penele, îsi sfâsiaaura si plângea, aplecându-se tot mai mult pesteDanielDin put îi privea cu o oarecare tristete calugarul Kiril. Îsi

muia pana în lacrimile lor si-si continua linistit psaltirea. Îsiîncalzea din timp în timp mâinile la opaitsi-si continua lucrul.

Pasarea lui oarba ciugulea în continuare meiul din blid. Pasarea de pe umarul lui Daniel zburase demult.

Era o sâmbata neagra, fara sfârsit.

42

D A N I E L’ S D E S C E N T

April ended and March began.Daniel approached the edge of the well. He peered inside,

then moved away. It was the night of a Friday before Monday. He closed his eyes and leaned overthe side of the well: even with his eyes shut, he could not

escape the faceof the other Daniel.He stayed all Monday and cried,leaning over the other Daniel.His body turned green and his skin grew scales like a

snake. Feathers grew out of his hands. The wings did notgrow. He was at the well all day, crying.

Beneath him the other Daniel cried.

He picked off the scales and plucked the feathers. Hesnuffed out

his halo and cried, leaning farther and farther overDaniel.Brother Cyril looked up at them from the shaft, somewhat

sad. He wet his quill in their tears and quietly continued hispsalter. From time to time he warmed his hands at the stonelamp

and continued his work.His blind bird continued to peck at the grain.The bird on Daniel’s shoulder had flown long ago.

It was a black Saturday that would never end.

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Se lec ted Poet r y

S E N I N

Cu ochii goi si privirea stinsama voi pierde încet în patria mea.Sfâsiat de nostalgia unui câmp alb,descult voi pasi prin zapada.

Orb la hotarele ei, mult timpfara un cuvânt voi privi în afara.Însotit de un stol negru,povara unei tristeti fara margini,

cu capul în piept voi traversa încet câmpul nins.

Cersetor pe drumurile ei,ma voi pierde umil si tacut.Prin târguri stravechi, prin sate pustiivoi merge cu ochii în lacrimi.

Cer albastru, cer rosu ca lacrima,încet, încet te întuneci!

46

S E R E N I T Y

With my eyes empty, my sight extinguished,I will sink into my country.I will walk barefoot through the snow,torn with longing for an old white field.

I will stare at the edge of the fieldblind, not speaking a word.With black sheep behind me,burdened by a sorrow without borders,

I will cross the field of snow, my chin nodding against my chest.I will disappear, humble and silent,a beggar on the side of the road.Through ancient towns, through empty villagesI will walk with my eyes in tears.

Sky blue, sky as red as a tearyou go dark slowly, so slowly . . .

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