Reinventing Romantic Poetry : Russian Women Poets of the Mid-nineteenth Century

  




h

(The fickle child disappeared.)

( 319 )

The countess’s tale:

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h

(That I was senselessly stubborn

And faint-hearted, like a child.)

( 358 )

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h

(How I amused myself in childish spite.)

( 359 )

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h

(Don’t be more stubborn than a child.)

( 361 )

The repetition of the word “detskii” (childish) underlines Pavlova’s

theme: that women can only gain freedom by renouncing the social con-

ditioning that encourages them to remain children.

Pavlova creates the most striking echo between narrative levels, how-

ever, in the similarity between the countess’s description of Vadim in

the culminating story and the narrator’s depiction of Pushkin (noted by

Fusso in “Pavlova’s Quadrille,” 125 ). We see in Vadim yet another incar-

nation of the disapproving, harsh, but loving God from the earlier

works. Polina says,

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h

(I always feared his unexpected criticisms

Like fire

Karolina Pavlova 163