-
The Fifth Eclogue (fragment)
- Syracuse University Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
m i k lós r adnó t i | 189 The Fifth Eclogue (fragment) In memory of György Bálint* Cold, how shuddering cold, my friend, was the breath of this poem, with what dread did I fear its words; and today again I have fled them, scribbling half-lines. And always of some other thing, of some other thing, I would write, but in vain! The night, this night with its hidden prodigies summons me: write about him. And I startle, and rise, but the voice already has ceased, like the dead among the Ukrainian corn. Missing. Nor has the autumn brought news of you. Now in the forest again rustles the shelterless omen of winter; the clouds draw on, heavy with snow, and slowly come to a halt in the sky. And are you alive? Not even I can know that, nor can I rage when they throw up their hands and bury their face in despair. They can know nothing. But are you alive? Only wounded, perhaps, are you wading the leaf-drift, the fragrant mold of the forest? Or are you no more but the fragrance? Already the fields flutter with snow. Missing,—the word Stiffens and chills in the thud of the heart and there in the ribs’ cage the twisted anguish awakens, and now my memory shivers, delivers your words from the past in a pain so sharp I can feel the touch of your physical being as that of the dead— yet I can’t write about you, I just can’t. November 21, 1943 *György Bálint was Radnóti’s friend. He died as a Jewish labor serviceman in the Ukraine. ...