After the Ball is Over

The love affair between Sophia Parok and Marina Tsvetaeva, which consumed the two poets from late October 1914 until February 1916, seems to have been one of those passions fueled by an attraction to its own doom. Yet, as Sofiia Poliakova has demonstrated, the creative potential and fruits of this love affair were substantial.1 It inspired Tsvetaeva's magnificent lyrical cycle Podruga (Girlfriend), arguably her most mature work so far, as well as several other lyrics. On the whole, Tsvetaeva's poems about Parok are striking for their ambivalence-the mixture of tenderness, love, bitterness, and predictions of doom. In the very first poem of Podruga, Tsvetaeva predicts the end of the relationship, telling her girlfriend that one of the reasons she loves her is that she will tell her good-bye: [Ia Vas liubliu!...] Za to, chto Vam, moi demon krutolobyi,/Skazhu prosti. ([I love you!...] Because to you, my steepbrowed demon,/I'll say goodbye.) Despite their expressions of ecstatic love, Tsvetaeva's poems to Parok are preoccupied with the aftermath of the ball. The poems Parok wrote while she was in love with Tsvetaeva are neither numerous nor poetically distinguished, but they share Tsvetaeva's ambivalence about the relationship. One of Pamok's best early poems, however, was directly inspired by breaking up with Tsvetaeva. Another beautiful lyric to her was composed many years later, in 1929, long after the love affair was over

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