A year went by, nineteen eleven,
And Richard spent it rather well:
His life was hardly seventh heaven
But neither had it been the hell
Predicted by the black depression
That followed Henriette’s confession
Of friendly feelings she was sure
Would cast a pall on her allure.
But then, how often our predictions,
Our efforts to control our fate,
Do not, in fact, anticipate
The unexpected contradictions
That actual living holds in store
And no one can predict before.

Thus, Henriette thought her appointment
Would only make relations worse,
And Richard feared his disappointment
Betokened that his love was cursed.
Yet, in the end, their being together
Did not exacerbate the weather
But actually dispelled the gloom
That previously had forecast doom.
At first a certain discomposure
Was evident, their talk was strained,
But in a while they regained,
Because of mutual exposure,
The ease of shared experience
And overcame their reticence.

The year had also had attractions
Within the realm professional
That counter-pointed the distractions
Of disengagements personal.
My Richard’s life became so busy,
It left him feeling slightly dizzy,
But work’s harmonious resonance
Drowned out romantic dissonance.
In March, still feeling in the pits, he
Received the opportunity
Of playing Scriabin’s Symphony
Of Fire under Koussevitzky* –
It was the Petersburg premiere,
And greatly brightened his despair.

The summer brought a separation
From Henriette which made him glum,
But as a kind of reparation
His work in Riga was a plum:
His solos with the Philharmonic
Of Warsaw was a potent tonic,
And though they left him quite fatigued,
They guaranteed he had “big-leagued”
And gave him little time to ponder
How much he missed his Henriette,
How much his heart could not forget,
And just how much it had grown fonder.
To be so tired one can’t think,
Surpasses not to sleep a wink.

He had returned to school assuming
They would continue as before –
As friends and colleagues, just resuming
Their work together, nothing more.
Yet while their everyday relations
Remained the same, in conversations
Her manner seemed … more indirect.
On matters where he would expect
Straightforwardness, she played the hinter.
At first he hardly was aware
Of her far more elusive air,
But as the fall passed into winter,
He sensed there really was a change –
In fact, she acted downright strange.

Before, she’d never been offended,
But now she often acted hurt;
Before, she never had pretended,
But now she openly would flirt.
Where formerly she’d been judicious,
She now at times became capricious
And would occasionally employ
Devices positively coy.
Where once she’d been enthusiastic
And joined in group activity,
She now avoided company,
Retreated to a life monastic
And never let the truth be known
Why she preferred to be alone.

One needs but scant sophistication
To realize what these changes show,
But Richard lacked an education
In sentiment and did not know.
Her coyness made him feel unsettled.
By her caprices he was nettled
And pushed to pleading self-defense
For words not meant to cause offense.
He found her presence most perturbing
And wished at times she’d go away,
But if she did, in just one day
He found her absence more disturbing!
He had no clue to what it meant …
(Oh reader, he was innocent.)

Thus, not without some consternation,
My Richard greeted nineteen twelve,
And looked ahead. His graduation
In May loomed large: he had to shelve
His private worries since despairing
Was not conducive to preparing
For his profession’s future chores,
His first real job, in Helsingfors.
(My goodness! I forgot to mention
The most important thing of all
Last summer brought – a job next fall.
Please forgive my inattention –
It must have been one of the times
When facts of life eluded rhymes.)

But I shall spare you long reflections
On why my memory mis-fared
And turn to Burgin’s recollections
Of nineteen twelve when he prepared
To make the imminent transition
To his new Helsingfors position.
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“And my philosophy, I remember,
When going to a foreign land,
Was wanting to become a member
Of that new culture, understand
The language and the literary
Traditions. Literature was very
Important, interesting for me.
I also tended, musically,
Perhaps because I’d lived in Prussia
When I was young, you know, Berlin,
To be more cosmopolitan.
I sort of went outside of Russia,
You know, to find composers who
Were different from the ones we knew.

“So when I knew that it was certain
I’d go to Finland, I found out
About Sibelius’s Concerto,
Which only then, I learned about.
I practiced that and then I brought it
To class. And Auer’d never taught it.
Though Tseitlin* played it – that he knew –
For him it was completely new.
And also Sinding, for example –
I brought to class and played his Third
Concerto which no one had heard,
And Auer, since he liked to sample
New music, had respect for me,
That I would bring it in, you see.

“And also, when I went to Finland
I learned – not Finnish actually –
But Swedish since there were in Finland
Still Swedish-speaking Finns, you see.
That was the strangest situation –
A city with a population
That was comparatively small,
A hundred fifty thousand in all,
And in a country of three million
That also, isn’t very large,
They had two symphony orchestras,
And each one gave a concert season.
No day would pass, in other words,
Without a concert in Helsingfors.

“Those two full orchestras reflected
The country’s ethnic rivalries:
The one that Kajanus* directed
Had nationalistic tendencies;
The one I was associated
With, Schnéevoigt’s* (educated
In Germany although a Finn)
Was more inclined towards Berlin.
But due to this great competition,
Those special Finnish politics,
Helsinki music life was rich,
And Finland’s musical position
Was really way ahead, I’d say,
Of any country’s of its day.”

I’ve quoted Burgin’s recollections,
His look behind, to look ahead
And show the various connections
To which his education led,
But in the meantime I’ve left pending
A situation far more rending
Than my young violinist’s art –
The future of his tortured heart.
So now I’ll do my own backtracking,
Pick up the still unwoven strand
I dropped with Richard, nothing planned,
Uncomprehendingly a-lacking,
A-lassing, angered and upset
About the change in Henriette.

Her oddities did not diminish
But just grew odder in the spring,
And Richard saw his future Finnish
As finishing their future thing.
Again, the clouds of disillusion,
Annoyance and irresolution
Were gathering and seemed to blight
Professional horizons bright.
He tried to talk but met resistance:
Whenever he would ask, “What’s wrong?”
She’d say, “I’ve got to go, so long.”
And pleading proved of no assistance:
To his, “Oh please don’t make a scene,”
She’d shrug, “I don’t know what you mean?!”

And yet, the more she drove him crazy,
The more, it seemed, he found her dear;
The more she left the future hazy,
The more he wished to make it clear.
At last, one night when he was pondering
Her oddities, he started wondering,
‘What can I do? What should I say?
There simply has to be some way,
Some instrument at my disposal,
To solve this problem … Let me see …
Perhaps I’ll make her … [suddenly,
The answer sounded] … a proposal!
That’s it! If she says yes, it’s great;
If no, well, still I’ll know my fate.’

Dear reader, I shall skip the details
Of his proposal. Why rehash
The sort of banal scene that retails
In Harlequins for petty cash?
He made it after graduation
And common to the situation
His eyes expressed both hope and dread,
He mumbled and his face was red.
She also blushed, demure, elated
To hear him get it out at last,
Then sighed and whispered, breathing fast,
Her answer, which you have awaited
For thirteen lines, but now must guess:
One word to rhyme my couplet: ____.

Nor will you hear from me effusions
About my lovers’ happiness.
With all such blissful grand illusions
My Muse does not have much success.
She finds it telling that for happy
The most convenient rhyme is sappy;
It bores her that in English, kiss,
So glibly harmonizes bliss.
‘In Russian, kiss is more amusing,’
She grinned, ‘what rhymes with potselui?’
‘Well what?’ ‘You know,’ she whispered, ‘____.’
(Forgive me, reader, for refusing
To write a word so crass and sick
It makes my conscience feel a prick.)

But onward! What’s the greatest hurdle
My youthful lovers have to face?
What can make their hot blood curdle
With thoughts of scandal, shame, disgrace?
What wear-and-tear can snap the suture
With which they have sewn up their future?
What worry turns them into wrecks?
No, no, you’re wrong, it isn’t sex.
No, please don’t think I’m being funny,
It isn’t that, or their rapport,
Nor problems of the mundane sort
Like housing, jobs, or even money.
There’s something worse than all of these –
Their meetings with their families.

Perhaps you think I’m either joking
Or have completely lost my mind,
Or feel the need to be provoking
Because I have an axe to grind –
But you are wrong. It’s not derangement
That moves me here, or some estrangement.
So let me take a little space
And I shall try to make my case …
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If I am wrong, what child would grovel?
Or wish his home another one?
If I am wrong, what kind of novel
Were ever written or begun?
What plays or films would give enjoyment?
Where would we find enough employment
For counselors, psychiatrists,
Or lawyers, priests and therapists?
If I am wrong, who’d ever bother
To read the works of Sigmund Freud?
And who would ever get annoyed
Or want to fight with his/her mother?
If I am wrong – now, don’t get sore –
All life would stop or be a bore.

For all its worrisome detractions,
Its woes and tensions very real,
One’s family still has great attractions,
Potential for one’s own ideal
Of happiness. Who doesn’t pander
To that beguiling propaganda
That there exists, and yours can be
(With luck) the perfect family?
And never is this feeling stronger
Than when you’re coming home from school:
It seems your absence has been cruel,
It cannot last a moment longer,
You yearn for home, and hence your zeal
To make your visit there ideal.

And what’s ideal, you ask? That question
Re families and other things
Quite frankly gives me indigestion,
And clips my Muse’s soaring wings.
We can’t give positive definitions,
But there are contexts and conditions
Where we’ll suggest what it is not:
It’s not in general what you’ve got.
In striving, it is, not desiring
What is impossible to get,
In setting up, it’s not upset;
In ending, it is, not expiring;
In blossoming, it’s not to wilt;
In family life, it is, not guilt.

Ah guilt! Who’ll offer me a reason
Why every family structure’s built,
When no one has committed treason,
On mutual do-not-blame- me silt?
Is there a way of understanding
The permanent self-reprimanding
That tips us from our cradle’s tilt
And tears to bits our comfort quilt?
Why do our most sincere laudations
To families have a guilty lilt?
Why is the Golden Rule so gilt
With burnished self-recriminations?
Why, over milk by parents spilt,
Do children burst in tears from guilt?

Like everyone, my Richard suffered
From guilt though he was not aware
Of this since early on he’d buffered
Himself against its wear-and-tear
By showing filial devotion,
Behavior based upon the notion,
That he could best avoid complaint
By acting out the role of saint.
He’d made his parents’ mute injunction
His own: just always do your best,
Indeed, he never let it rest
And planned his future in conjunction
With what he knew they would expect,
And loved and showed them great respect.

The only time he could remember
When he had disappointed them
Was in that bleak New York November –
For that he did himself condemn.
But otherwise, his guilty flurries
Were hidden in what he called “worries”
That he would ever do again
What might cause his parents pain.
He felt withal he’d been successful.
Through graduation – knock on wood! –
He had done well and had been good.
Yet lately, feelings most distressful
Disturbed his generally guiltless state
Whenever he would contemplate

His visit home. In consternation,
He tried to find the reason why,
From careful self-examination.
At first, it yielded no reply:
Indeed, what possible abrasion
Could mar this happiest occasion
Of sharing joys with kin he missed?
His being a Silver Medalist,
The job that he’d begin next season,
And then, the greatest news of all,
His plans to marry in the fall …
There seemed to be no earthly reason
Why he should be at all upset,
Unless … it might be … Henriette!

Suddenly, the realization,
A-blush with guilt, had dawned on him,
That maybe out of sublimation,
Embarrassment, or by some whim,
Not once in person or by letter
Had he mentioned Henrietta.
So it would come as quite a shock
When he and she, engaged, would walk
Into his home … O Lord, what terror!
Oh why had he not paved the way
For bringing home his … fiancée?
And now that he had seen his error,
The happiness that lay ahead
Betokened nothing, if not dread.

So reader, what’s your expectation?
Has Richard’s guilty prophecy
Foreseen the actual situation
He’ll meet within his family?
Or will there be a contradiction
Of his most dread and sure prediction,
More proof of that phenomenon
That I affirmed in stanza One?
In other words, what's my intention?
Will I eventually undermine,
Or have my story stay in line
With my auctorial contention?
You ought to have some time to guess,
So I shall once again digress

Just briefly, with some information
About the Burgin family scene
Where Richard hurried from the station
(With Henriette) on May nineteen.
You’ve met the missus and the mister,
His oldest brother and his sister,
And now I shall the others name:
In nineteen hundred Myron came,
And not too far behind him, Paula,
And then, Mateus-Teodor
And Juliusz (whom Ronia bore
Within a year of one another);
And that completes the Burgin eight
Who now await our graduate.

With young Bernard and more so, Lily
My Richard shared the closest ties.
They were the only siblings, really,
He’d lived with so that’s no surprise.
Though when away he wondered whether
It would seem strange to be together,
“The family was so closely knit,”^{[1]Comment of Maria Wierna Burgin, widow of Juliusz Burgin, made to the author in August, 1981.}
He rarely felt apart from it.
He shared close ties with all his siblings
From whom by travels he’d been cleft;
Once home, he felt he’d never left
And joined into their joys and quibblings
Spontaneously and magically,
A limb re-grown upon the tree.

Of course, the Burgins had their troubles.
Moisey and Ronia, you recall,
Were psychologically doubles –
At once enthralled and disenthralled
With one another. Yet, they rarely
Indulged in arguments unfairly
Before the children: he would cease,
Or she would tensely hold her peace.
In nineteen twelve, I ought to mention,
Moisey’s finances had improved,
Which put him in a better mood.
Now optimistic, free from tension,
He had regained his former pluck,
His faith in self, and in his luck.

And so, the home on Nowolipka^{[2]Nowolipka was a main street in the Jewish section of Warsaw.}
When Richard crossed its threshold, rent
With guilt, krasneya, no s ulybkoi,^{[3]krasneya, no s ulybkoi = blushing, but with a smile (Russian).}
Though not ideal, was quite content.
Arrival. Shouts of joy, embracing,
Excitement. With his pulse beat racing,
He raised his hand for silence: “Well,”
He paused, “I’ve got great news to tell!
Please meet …”. Although the unexpected
Amazed and shocked them all at first,
There was no scandalous outburst.
Moisey and Ronia both respected
The rules of hospitality,
He noisily, she silently.

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Two weeks had passed. The visit, nearing
Its end, had settled into calm,
My couple outwardly appearing
Well-rested and without a qualm;
But appearances can be deceiving,
And Richard found himself receiving,
Through all the noisy fun and sport,
A message of the silent sort.
For all the stories, banter, blather,
And chitchat, no one said a word
Pro eto, till one night he heard^{[4]Pro eto literally means, “about that.” It is a common euphemism in Russian for “about love.”}
His mother whisper to his father,
“You know, Moisey, this is no whim.
You’d better have a talk with him.”

So on the eve of his departure,
Moisey and Richard took a walk
To … (oh, my reader, aren’t you smart, you’re
Quite right about the rhyme here) talk.
Around the neighborhood they ambled
As Moses nervously pre-ambled
The topic, feeling out of joint,
But finally he approached the point:
“So Richard, now you plan to marry?”
“I do. I love her very much.”
“I know, my boy, but it is such
A … serious step, a lot to carry,
I mean, responsibility … “
“I realize that.” “You won’t be free,

“So free, you know. I mean, it’s harder …
A wife and … children … to support …
That’s quite a job, to keep the larder
Well-stocked,” he started to exhort,
“To make a living isn’t easy!”
“I know that but don’t be uneasy
On that score. I feel quite secure
My job in Finland will assure
Us stable income, and …” “Yes Richard,
Of course. And I’m so proud of you,
About the job … your mother, too,
But son, we [words of warning which had
Eluded him, now reached his tongue]
We feel that you are … just too young.”

“I’m not, I’m not,” the youth insisted,
Too angrily to save his pride.
“We think you are,” Moisey persisted
“And maybe we’re unjustified,
Who knows? But wouldn’t it be frightful
To end your visit, so delightful,
Somehow estranged?” He turned his eyes
To Richard, “So, let’s compromise.”
“How?” “Listen, I am not opposing
Your getting married, or your choice,
In fact, it makes my heart rejoice
To see you happy. I’m proposing
You … put it off a year or two,
And then, my boy, good luck to you.”

So once again my story hangs on
The guessing game of either-or,
But since I’m bored with tempos langsam,
I won’t suspend you as before.
He did agree to a postponement –
I don’t know why – perhaps atonement?
Perhaps what Ronia left unsaid?
Or guilt? Or what his father said?
But he gave in, and at this juncture,
You may be thinking Richard’s way
Will follow that of Prince Andrey.*
Such sharpness normally would puncture
My Muse, but her balloon is not
Inflated yet with such a thought.

Unlike Natasha, Henrietta –
And everything depends on HER –
Herself believed it might be better
If their marriage were deferred.
It wasn’t that she didn’t love him,
Or somehow held herself above him,
Or that she didn’t want to wed
Or that she hadn’t lost her head
Or was by nature too complacent.
She did not know quite what was wrong
Except that all the very strong
Emotions and desires, nascent
Within her sometimes strangely made
Her feel a little bit afraid.

And this confused and frightened feeling
Welled up in her and overtook
Her love when he, with eyes appealing,
Would radiate a certain look.
It seemed to her his look was gunning
Her down, it made her feel like running,
So much at times, it was a strain
To make the effort to remain.
That look, she knew, was not a sin and
She couldn’t kill his happiness
For what she deemed her silliness,
But when she saw him off to Finland,
She sensed beneath her parting grief
An undercurrent of relief.

He journeyed forth, quite unaware of
The fears that plagued his darling’s soul.
He had his own portentous share of
Anxieties about his goal.
The future alternately brightened
And then grew dim and left him frightened.
Had it been right for him to choose
To put things off? Or would he lose?
A year or two – that seemed forever!
Yes, clearly he had been a fool
To let his father overrule
His own desires, and whenever
Impatient thoughts like these would nag,
It seemed that time would really drag.

But he became so very busy,
The weeks and months flew by so fast,
That time outstripped his private tizzy
About the year he wouldn’t last,
That somehow passed before he knew it,
Or even how he’d gotten through it.
His old time-tested rule, “Don’t shirk!”
And his devotion to his work
Not only made the time go faster,
They brought a second timely boon,
And really, not a bit too soon:
He was promoted concertmaster,^{[5]In 1914 the two Helsingfors orchestras merged into one, the Helsingfors City Orchestra, in which Burgin served as concertmaster until 1916.}
Which he was sure would save the day
And put an end to all delay.

And so, the Helsingfors connection,
Which Richard feared would be the death
Of his and Henriette’s affection,
Turned out to give it second breath –
At least when viewed from his perspective
Since it attained his dual objective:
Material security,
And marital felicity.
He was all smiles when he told her
And gazed enraptured in her eyes
To see the love in their surprise
And with his eyes to try and hold her,
But her response to his great news
Had left him feeling quite confused.

It’s true that she had been excited,
Extremely proud and most impressed,
But asking her to marry blighted
Her mood, and she became distressed.
Her manner changed to slightly ruffled,
Her voice then sounded almost muffled,
And she appeared to hesitate
When he had tried to set the date.
Her attitude had been perplexing.
Although at last she did say yes,
The when was anybody’s guess.
Her diffidence to him was vexing –
She seemed at once to dare and daunt –
‘Good Lord,’ he mused, ‘what does she want?!’

Although he wouldn’t have believed it,
She was as dumbfounded as he.
‘To shy from bliss when you’ve achieved it!’
She thought, ‘You’re acting stupidly.’
And though with him I’m empathetic,
To her I’m also sympathetic:
When you yourself have made things worse,
It isn’t any less a curse.
It’s bad enough when others muddle
Things up for you or cause the strife
That discombobulates your life,
But it is worse when you befuddle
Yourself – the onus is the same,
But you yourself must take the blame.

And endless futile lacerating
Your self with blaming never solves,
But ends up just exacerbating
The guilt from which self-blame evolves.
And so, my heroine capricious
Would whip her self in circles vicious:
For days she whirled, a spinning top
Until she tumbled to a stop
So dizzied by her self-derision
And nauseated by her pain,
She could not pull the string again
To spin some more in indecision.
She’d had enough of ‘Let it ride,’
Her tailspin ended in ‘Decide!’

Thank God. I too am sick of spinning
This dizzy lovers’ tale of mine.
I never thought at Five’s beginning
I’d get to stanza forty-nine;
But that’s the way it is with “wimmin” –
They almost always leave you swimmin’!
(Although, it’s also true with men
One can tread water, now and then).
But now my battle of the sexes –
To use a third stale metaphor
(A practice that I do abhor) –
With all its auguries and hexes,
Its plans and obstacles and frights,
Its feints and joinings and its flights

Has ended, with both parties suing
For peace and future harmony,
And all their wearying, worried wooing
Is bent on conjugality.
Alas, no memory has carried
To me the date when they were married,
But I’m quite sure it could have been
In early spring, nineteen thirteen.
A playbill anchors my insistence:
“July ’13, Rostov-on-Don –
A BENEFIT will be put on
For R.M. BURGIN, with assistance
From Henriette BORSH-BURGINA
And a Full Symphony Orchestra.”^{[6]Program in Russian. The Benefit took place on Sunday, 21 July 1913. In the First Part, Burgin performed the Lalo Symphony Espagnole and his wife, Borsh-Burgina, the Liszt Spanish Rhapsody. In the Second Part, the couple performed the 1st movement of the Kreutzer Sonata and Burgin did a set of 4 short pieces by Tartini, Hubay, Kreisler and Sarasate.}