Blaise Cendrars - Trans-Siberian

Introduction to the Trans-Siberian of Blaise Cendrar Introduction and translation by

Ekaterina Likhtik

Blaise Cendrars is one of the rst to introduce modernity into twentieth century poetry. With his style he ushers in a spirit of innovation into writing, he works diligently and tirelessly to nd a way to express himself, a way to write his life. In 1910 he writes to his friend Fela in New York, Ten years of study. I need ten years and I will nd my own language. My style. He spends about a year in New York between 1911 and 1912, deliriously hungry most of the time, but letting nothing deter him from his goal: he must develop his style. For

him to write is not a Romantic notion, it is the exhaustive work of a artisan. In 1911 he changes his given name, Frdric-Louis Sauser, to Blaise Cendrars, incorporating into his identity the words Blaze and Ashes. For Cendars Trans-Siberian is the transition to a self-dened and elaborated poetic style. He solidies that style, emphasizing the key to his poetry in the title. Stylistically it is prose on which he insists in his poetry. Cendrars is rst inspired by the idea of prose in the work of Remy de Gourmont in his Le Latin Mystique. In it he discovers the hymns and free verse of the medireview monks of Saint-Gall. Cendrars nds Le Latin Mystique a profoundly humane work, and searches for a way to appeal to the populace at large with his writing, seeking to reverberate in as many layers of the reading public as possible. He says, I used the word 'prose' in the Trans-Siberian in the early Latin sense of prosa dictu. Poem seemed to me too pretentious, too narrow. Prose is more open, popular. Blaise attempts to cross the social bridges that often surround poetry, and in that sense his attitude is proletarian. His vocabulary is often offensive to the contemporary aristocracy and his versication is deemed unorthodox. Cendrars is full of vigor and initiative. He constantly travels, he writes, and, after becoming better known and recognized for his poetic genius, he starts up magazines, he is an art critic, he publishes unknown authors, he explores the spaces between the obvious, he wants to get to the bottom of suffering. The Trans-Siberian describes his initiation or crossing over into manhood, both sexually and spiritually. This is his rst great voyage, of which he was able to write for the rst time I saw in the same way that Goya has written Yo lo vi. Having lived in St. Petersburg, in New York, in London, in Switzerland, having visited an enormously large part of the world and fought in World War I, he is one of the more cosmopolitan poets of the time. This knowledge of the world, of literature, of war and of international lore can all be seen in the Trans-Siberian. The violence of the poem as well as the many references to war and death are

associated with the Russo-Japanese war (1904-1905), and the Russian Revolution of 1905, two events that Cendrars witnessed while in Russia. The work of Cendrars resonates with as much force now at the other end of the twentieth century, as it did in his time. It builds a bridge for us to cross from the beginning of the 20th to the beginning of the 21st. dedicated to musicians

Trans-Siberian Prose and Little Jeanne from France

I was in my adolescence at the time Scarcely sixteen and already I no longer remembered my childhood I was 16,000 leagues from my birthplace I was in Moscow, in the city of a thousand and three belfries and seven railroad stations And they weren't enough for me, the seven railroad stations and the thousand and three towers For my adolescence was so blazing and so mad That my heart burned in turns as the temple of Epheseus, or as Red Square in Moscow When the sun sinks. And my eyes shone upon the ancient routes And I was already such a bad poet That I didn't know how to go all the way to the end. The Kremlin was like an immense Tatar cake Crusted with gold, With great almonds of cathedrals all done in white And the honeyed gold of the bells

An old monk was reading to me the legend of Novgorod I was thirsty And I was deciphering cuneiform characters Then, suddenly, the pigeons of the Holy Spirit soared above the square And my hands also ew up, with the rustling of the albatross And these, these were the last recollections of the last day Of the entire last voyage And of the sea. But I was a very bad poet. I didn't know how to go to all the way to the end. I was hungry And all the days and all the women in the cafs and all the glasses I would have liked to drink and to break them And all the shop windows and all the streets And all the homes and all the lives And all the wheels of the hackney cabs turning in a whirlwind on the bad cobblestones I would have wanted to thrust them into a furnace of swords And I would have wanted to crush all the bones And to tear out all the tongues And to liquefy all the big bodies strange and naked under the clothing that drives me to madness I sensed the coming of the great red Christ of the Russian revolution And the sun was a bad wound That split open like a burnt up inferno. I was in my adolescence at the time I was scarcely sixteen and already I didn't remember my birth I was in Moscow, where I wanted to feed on ames And they weren't enough for me the towers and the railroad stations that studded my eyes like constellations In Siberia the cannon roared, it was war Hunger cold plague cholera

And the muddy waters of Love pulled along millions of carrion In all the railroad stations I saw departing all the last trains No one could leave any more for the tickets were no longer sold And the soldiers who were going away would have very much liked to stay An old monk sang to me the legend of Novgorod. Me, the bad poet who didn't want to go anywhere, I could go everywhere And also the merchants still had enough money To go and tempt fate. Their train left every Friday morning. It was said there were a lot of deaths. One merchant carried away one hundred crates of alarm clocks and cuckoos from the Black Forest Another, hatboxes, top hats and an assortment of Shefeld corkscrews Another, cofns from Malmoi lled with canned food and sardines in oil Then there were lots of women Women renting between their legs and who could also serve Cofns They were all patented It was said there were a lot of deaths over there They traveled at reduced prices And had an open account at the bank. Now, one Friday morning, it was nally my turn It was December And I too left to accompany a salesman in the jewelry business traveling to Kharbin We had two coups in the express and 34 chests of jewelry from Pforzheim From the German peddler Made in Germany He had dressed me in new clothes, and while boarding the train I lost a

button I remember it, I remember it, I have often thought of it since I was sleeping on the trunks and I was very happy to play with the nickel-plated browning that he had also given me I was very happy carefree I made believe we were robbers We had stolen the treasure of Gloconde And were going, thanks to the Trans-Siberian, to hide it on the other side of the world I had to defend it against bandits from Ural who had attacked Jules Vern's traveling acrobats Against the Khoungouzes, the Chinese boxers And the Great Lama's enraged little Mongols Ali Baba and the forty thieves And those faithful to the terrible Old Man of the Mountain And especially, against the most modern of all The hotel rats And all the specialists from international express trains everywhere. And yet, and yet, I was as sad as a child The rhythms of the train The railway marrow of American psychiatrists The noise of the doors the voices the axles screeching on the frozen rails The golden railing of my future My browning the piano and the cursing of the card players in the nextdoor compartment The splendid presence of Jeanne The man in the blue glasses who nervously paced the hallway and who would look at me as he passed by Rustling of women

And whistling of steam And the eternal sound of wheels whirling in madness in the furrows of the sky The windows frosted over No nature! And behind, the Siberian plains the low sky and the great shadows of the Taciturn Ones rising and falling I am asleep in a blanket Checkered As is my life And my life keeps me no warmer than this Scottish shawl And all of Europe glimpsed in gusts of wind from a full steam express Is no richer than my life My poor life This shawl Unraveled on the trunks that are lled with gold With which I trundle forth And I dream And I smoke And the only ame in the universe Is one poor thought From the depth of my heart tears rise If I think, Love, about my mistress; She is but a child, whom I found so Pale, immaculate, in the back rooms of a bordello. She is but a child, blond, blithe and sad, She doesn't smile and never cries; But deep in her eyes, when she lets you drink from them, There trembles a gentle silver lily, the poet's ower. She is meek and silent, and without reproach, With a drawn out shiver at your approach;

But when I come to her, from here, from there, from a party, She takes a step, then closes her eyes and takes a step. For she is my love, and the other women Have nothing but golden dresses on great bodies ablaze, My poor companion is so lonesome, She is completely nude, she has no body she is too poor.

She is but a candid, frail ower, The poet's ower, a slight silver lily, So cold, so alone, and already so wilted That tears well up in me if I think of her heart. And this night is like one hundred thousand others when a train presses on in the night The comets fall And a man and a woman, even when young, muse in making love. The sky is like the shredded tent of a poor circus in a small shing village In Flanders The sun is a smoky oil lamp And at the very top of a trapeze a woman makes a moon. The clarinet the piston a sharp ute and a bad tambourine And here is my cradle My cradle It was always next to the piano when my mother like Madame Bovary played Beethoven sonatas I spent my childhood in the Hanging Gardens of Babylon And skipping school, in the railroad stations in front of departing trains Now, I have made all the trains run behind me Basel-Timbuktu I have also bet on the races at Auteuil and at Longchamp Paris New York Now, I have made all the trains run the course of my life

Madrid Stockholm And I lost all my bets There is now only Patagonia, Patagonia, that suits my immense sadness, Patagonia, and a journey to the South Seas I'm on the road I've always been on the road I'm on the road with little Jehanne from France The train makes a perilous jump and falls back on all of its wheels The train falls back on its wheels The train always falls back on all of its wheels Blaise, tell me, are we very far from Montmartre? We are far, Jeanne, you've been on the move for seven days You are far from Montmartre, from the Hill that nourished you from Sacre-Cur that cradled you Paris has disappeared and its enormous ame There is nothing but continuous ash Falling rain Rising peat Whirling Siberia Heavy rebounding sheets of snow And the bell of madness that quivers like the very last wish in the bluish air The train beats at the heart of the heavy horizons And your sorrow sneers Tell me, Blaise, are we very far from Montmartre? The worries Forget the worries All the railroad stations cracked askew on the road The telegraph wires on which they hang The grimacing lampposts gesticulate and strangle them

The world expands elongates and retracts like an accordion tormented by a sadistic hand In the shreds of the sky, locomotives in a fury Flee And in the holes, The dizzying wheels the mouths the voices And the dogs of misfortune that bark at our parcels The demons are unchained Scrap iron All is in false harmony The broom-room-room of the wheels Jolts Bouncing back We are a storm in the skull of the deaf Tell me, Blaise, are we very far from Montmartre? You irritate me, of course you know very well, we are far Overheated madness bellows in the locomotive The plague cholera arise on our road like burning embers We disappear in the war completely in a tunnel Hunger, the whore, clings to the clouds as it spreads And battle droppings are in rancid heaps of corpses Do as she does, perform your craft Tell me, Blaise, are we very far from Montmartre? Yes, so we are, so we are All the scapegoats have croaked in this desert Hear the screech of this mite-infested herd Tomsk Cheliabinsk Kainsk Ob Tai Shan Verkneudinsk Kurgan Samara Pensa-Tulun Death in Manchuria Is our last stop our last lair

This voyage is terrible Yesterday morning Ivan Ulitch had white hair And Kolya Nikolai Ivanovich has been gnawing his ngers for fteen days now Do as she does Death Hunger perform your craft It costs one hundred sou, in the Trans-Siberian, it costs one hundred rubles The benches in fever and red ashes under the table The devil is at the piano His gnarled ngers arouse all the women Nature Whores Perform your craft Until Kharbin Tell me, Blaise, are we very far from Montmartre? No butget the hell outleave me alone You have angular hips Your stomach is sour and you have the clap That's all that Paris has put in your bosom There's also a bit of soul because you are unhappy Feel my pity feel my pity come towards me unto my heart The wheels are windmills from the land of Cocagne The windmills are crutches twirled by a beggar We are the cripples of emptiness We roll on our four sores Our wings have been clipped The wings of our seven sins And all the trains are paddleballs of the devil Farmyard The modern world Speed can't do much here but

The modern world The faraway places are just too far And at the end of the journey it's terrible to be a man with a woman Blaise, tell me, are we very far from Montmartre? Feel my pity feel my pity come towards me I will tell you a story Come to bed Come unto my heart I'm going to tell you a story Oh come! come! In Figi spring reigns eternal Laziness Love swoons couples in the tall grass and hot syphilis lurks under banana trees Come to the lost isles of the Pacic! They are called Phoenix the Marquesas Borneo and Java And Sulaweisi in the form of a cat. We can not go to Japan Come to Mexico! On its high plateaus tulips bloom Tentacular creepers are the hair of the sun Could almost be the palette and brushes of a painter Colors deafening as gongs Rousseau went there There he bedazzled his life It is the country of birds The bird of paradise, the lyrebird The toucan, the mocking bird And the colibri nest among the black lilies

Come! We will love one another in the majestic ruins of Aztec temples You will be my idol A checkered childish idol a little ugly and grotesquely odd Oh come! If you wish we will go by plane and we will y over the country of a thousand lakes, The nights there are immeasurably long A prehistoric ancestor will be afraid of my motor I will land And I will construct a hangar for my plane with the fossils of mammoths A primitive re will reheat our paltry love Samovar And we will love one another conventionally near the pole Oh come! Jeanne Jeannette Pipette nono niplo nipplette Mimi milove my dovedew my Peru Sleepy me zeezee Moor my manure Dear li'l-heart Tart Beloved li'l goat My li'l-sin sweet Halfwit Halloo She sleeps. She sleeps And of all the hours of the world she hasn't swallowed a single one All faces glimpsed in railroad stations All clocks The time in Paris the time in Berlin the time in Saint Petersburg and the

time in all stations And in Ufa, the blood stained face of the cannoneer And the foolishly glowing dial in Grodno And the perpetual rushing of the train Each morning we set our watches to the hour The train advances and the sun retreats Nothing to be done, I hear the echoing bells The great bell of Notre-Dame The shrill bell of the Louvre that tolled Bartholomew's The rusted peal of bells on the death of Bruge-la-Morte The electric rings of the library bells in New York The Venice countryside And the bells of Moscow, the clock of the Red Door that counted for me my hours in an ofce And my memories The train weighs on the revolving plates The train rolls A grasseye gramophone a gypsy march And the world, like the Jewish quarter clock in Prague deliriously turns backwards. Strip the rose of the winds Here murmur unchained storms Trains roll on in a urry on entangled tracks Diabolical paddleballs There are trains that never meet Others lose themselves on the way Stationmasters play chess Backgammon Billiards Pool balls Parables The steel-rimmed track is a new geometry Syracuse

Archimedes And the soldiers who slit his throat And the galleys And the vessels And the prodigious engines he invented And all the slaughter Ancient history Modern history The whirlwinds The shipwrecks Even the Titanic, I read it in a magazine So numerous the visual associations that I can't develop them all in my verses For I am still a very bad poet For the universe overwhelms me For I have neglected to insure myself against railroad accidents For I don't know how to go all the way to the end And I'm afraid I'm afraid I don't know how to go all the way to the end Like my friend Chagall I could make a series of insane drawings But I haven't taken notes on my way Forgive me my ignorance Forgive me for no longer knowing the age-old game of poetry As Guillaume Appollinaire says One can read everything about war In the Kuropatkin Memoirs Or in the Japanese journals that are just as brutally illustrated To what end document myself? I abandon myself To bursts of memory From Irkutsk on the voyage became much too slow

Much too long We were in the rst train to circle lake Baikal We had adorned the train with ags and Chinese lanterns And we left the station to sad strains of the hymn to the Tsar. If I were a painter I would pour a lot of red, a lot of yellow on the end of this voyage For I believe that we were all a little mad And that an immense fever bloodied the worked-up faces of my companions on this journey As we approached Mongolia That roared like a re. The train had slowed its pace And I noticed in the perpetual grating of the wheels The mad accents and the sobbing Of an eternal liturgy I saw I saw silent trains black trains returning from the Orient passing like phantoms And my eye, as a headlight, still runs after these trains In Talga 100,000 wounded were agonizing for lack of care I visited the hospitals of Krasnoyarsk And in Khilok we came across a long convoy of soldiers gone mad I saw in the lazarettos the gaping gashes wounds that bled to the bone And amputated limbs danced around or soared through the raucous air Fire was on all faces in all hearts Idiotic ngers were rapping on all windowpanes And under the force of fear the stares burst open like abscesses In all the stations all the wagons burned And I saw I saw trains with 60 engines escaping at full steam hounded by horizons in heat and ocks of crows that afterwards took hopeless ight Disappearing

In the direction of Port Arthur. In Chita we had a few days of rest A ve-day stop since the tracks were blocked We spent it with Mister Yankelivitch who wanted to give me his only daughter in marriage Then the train took off. Now it was I who took a seat at the piano and I had a toothache When I wish to I can still recall that interior the father's store and the daughter's eyes who in the evenings came to my bed Mussogorsky And the lieder of Hugo Wolf And the Gobi sands And in Khailar a caravan of white camels I am sure I was drunk for more than 500 kilometers But I was at the piano and that's all I could see When you travel, you should close your eyes Sleep I would have liked so much to sleep I recognize all the countries with my eyes closed by their odor And I recognize all the trains by their rumbling European trains have four beats while those in Asia are at ve or seven beats Others move softly and these are lullabies And there are those that in the monotonous noise of their wheels remind me of Maeterlinck's heavy prose I've deciphered all the wheels' chaotic texts and I've assembled the disparate elements of a violent beauty That I possess And which compels me. Tsitsihar and Kharbin I am not going any further It is the last station

I got off at Kharbin as they had just set re to the Red-Cross ofce. O Paris Large glowing hearth with the crossed pokers of your streets and your old homes that hunch over warming themselves Like forefathers And here are the posters, red and green multicolored as my brief yellow past Yellow the proud color of French novels sold abroad. I love to squeeze into moving buses in big cities Those of the Saint-Germain-Montmartre line bring me to the assault of the Hill The motors bellow like golden bulls The bovine twilight grazes the Sacre Cur O Paris Central station last stop of desire crossroads of unrest Only the merchants of color still have a little bit of light on their doors The International Company of Sleeping Cars and Europeans Express Trains has sent me their brochure It is the most beautiful church in the world I have friends who surround me like guardrails They are afraid that when I leave I won't return All the women I have met tower on the horizons With gestures full of pity and the sad look of trafc lights in the rain Bella, Agnes, Catherine, and the mother of my son in Italy And the one, the mother of my love in America There are siren screams that rip my soul There in Manchuria a stomach still throbs as if in labor I would like I would like to have never gone traveling This evening a great love torments me And despite myself I think of little Jehanne from France. It is on an evening of sadness that I wrote this poem in her honor. Jeanne

The little prostitute I am sad I am sad I will go to the Lapin Agile to again remember my lost youth And drink a few glasses Then I will return alone Paris City of the inimitable Tower the great Gallows and the Wheel.