notebook, published in Panteon,no. 2 [Feb. 1855 ]) by changing in line 3
“Mezhdu kartinami, statuiami” (Between the pictures and statues) to
“Mezhdu statuiami, kartinimi.”
In several cases Zotov’s editing marred Khvoshchinskaia’s artistry. Forexample, in “Ia ne tebe otdam poslednie chasy” (I will not give you the
last hours, no. 88 in the notebook, published in Literaturnaia gazeta,no.
38 [Sept. 18 , 1847 ]), he destroyed Khvoshchinskaia’s alliteration in line 8
by changing “Bezvestnyi, beznachal’nyi” (unknown, eternal [without a
beginning]) to “Bezvestnii i dalekii” (unknown, far off). And in lines 11–
12 of “Uzhasno skorbnykh dnei kholodnosti dozhdat’sia!” (It is terrible
to wait for mournful days of coldness! no. 66 in the notebook, published
in Literaturnaia gazeta,no. 39 [Sept. 25 , 1847 ]) he destroyed Khvoshchin-
skaia’s carefully crafted emphasis on “ko grobu” (to the grave) when he
changed “i trepetno idti / Stopoiu robkoiu ko grobu” (and, trembling, to
go / with timid tread to the grave) to “i trepetno ko grobu / Stopoiu
robkoiu idti” (and trembling to the grave / with a timid tread to go).
Zotov also routinely changed Khvoshchinskaia’s punctuation—adding exclamation points (four, for example, in “Druz’ia, vam istinno,
vam shchedro zhizn’ dana” [Friends, to you truly, to you generously life
has been given, no. 76 in the notebook, published in Literaturnaia gazeta,
no. 39 (Sept. 25 , 1847 )], discussed later in this chapter), or changing semi-
colons to commas. A poet’s punctuation, as Emily Dickinson scholars
have long argued, must be seen as an important part of its meaning, pro-
viding clues about how we are to read and understand it.^40 This is cer-
tainly true of Khvoshchinskaia’s clear and intelligent punctuation in the
manuscript versions of her poems. Furthermore, Zotov printed all of
Khvoshchinskaia’s poems flush left, ignoring her line indentations, that
is, her visual arrangement of the poem on the page. This, too, I would
argue, is part of the poem’s meaning. In many cases Zotov removed lines
or virtually rewrote poems. For example, in addition to other changes,
he removed eighteen lines from the five poems he published under the
title “Otryvki iz dnevnika” (Fragments from a diary, in the notebook po-
ems nos. 121 , 122 , 123 , 125 , and 119 , published in Literaturnaia gazeta,no.
35 [Sept. 12 , 1848 ]), rendering the second and the fifth unintelligible.^41
In another instance he changed twenty-three lines of the thirty-line
poem “Melodiia (O daite mne pole, shirokoe, gladkoe pole!),” men-
tioned previously, and in yet another changed fifteen out of twenty-six
lines of “Byvalo, s sestrami veseloi i shumnoi tolpoi” (My sisters and I
in a cheerful and noisy crowd used to), discussed later in this chapter,
never, I would argue, to these poems’ advantage.
124 Nadezhda Khvoshchinskaia