Although the Zhivago poems of the American edition of Pasternak's novel are not numbered, it is interesting to note that "Fairy Tale" ("Skazka" in the original), central as it is to both the Appendix and the events of the novel, is the thirteenth of twenty-five poems left by the hero, Yuri Zhivago, as his testament. It is in fact at Lara's urging that the poet decides to record some of the work she has heard him recite. This takes place on the second and third night of the couple's stay at Varykino, a period of thirteen days stolen out of time, out of History. "Fairy Tale" is a deeply personal message to Lara, yet it is so devoid of "romantic morbidity" as to yield "to a broad and serene vision that [lifts] the particular to the level of the universal and the familiar."…

It has often been pointed out that Doctor Zhivago is not a novel of social criticism, that it is the portrait of a poet caught in the midst of historical upheaval, a man of thought and faith whose consciousness is deeply involved with the destiny of the Russian people from its earliest beginning to the epoch of the Revolution….

At the moment of creation … it is language which takes over, imposing its own laws upon the writer…. During the waking hours the poet's consciousness is veiled, diffuse; he readies himself for the night's labor. When everyone is asleep, except the wolves which issue from the nearby gully, Zhivago allows himself to enter that state of wakeful dreaming consonant with the elaboration of a new poem. The legend of St. George and the dragon appears to him not as an image but as the sound of a horse's hoofs "ringing on the surface of the poem."…

What is this waking dream dreamed by Zhivago during his brief respite in Varykino? It is an ancient myth set to a Russian folk melody, that of the dragon slayer, the rescuer of a fair maiden. Fights with winged dragons or snakes are a common theme of myth, symbolizing both historical and psychological truths. The dragon, a teratological, chthonic creature combining the destructive powers of fire and wild beasts, is the concretization of evil, of the demonic forces of the underworld. The killing of the monster is a necessary step toward the attainment of the pure and true, symbolized by the sacrificial maiden held in the dragon's coils. Lara/Andromeda is the beautiful girl sacrificed by the people to save their own life. (p. 517)

If, as Edmund Wilson claims [in The Bit Between My Teeth], the chapter entitled "Return to Varykino" constitutes "the emotional climax" of the novel, then "Fairy Tale" can also be called the climactic poem of the Appendix. Wilson reminds us that the Russian name Yuri is George, and that Zhivago is thus writing a highly personal poem when he describes the struggle of the saint whose name he bears. It was by reading Voragine's Golden Legend that Edmund Wilson discovered that St. George was converted to Christianity as a result "of the martyrdom of twenty-two thousand Christians, which caused some to renounce their faith."

We know that Pasternak, although born a Jew, became a Christian and was buried with the rites of the Russian Orthodox Church. According to Jean-Luc Moreau, the twenty-five poems of the Appendix are "arranged according to an evidently intentional order, which reflects at once the cycle of the seasons, the spiritual progress of the poet and of his double, and also the Passion of Christ." Thus Zhivago, whose name means "the one alive," is St. George and Christ, or the knight become the Savior. He will save Lara's life by sacrificing their own happiness, but before this parting they will be united in a dream life which takes them into circular, cosmic time and into the eternal space of fairy tales and myths. (p. 518)

Pasternak is always opposing the so-called realistic or materialistic to the poetic. Men like Komarovsky triumph easily over men like Zhivago, at least in the short run. On the other hand, the Komarovskys of this world have no inkling of what it means to be a poet, to lead the poetic life. The latter runs on more than one level, or perhaps one should say track. "The lyrical voice is that of Nature itself," as Guy de Mallac points out in his essay "Zhivago versus Prometheus." And in turn, twentieth-century technology disrupts the natural rhythms of life. The thirteen days in Varykino are peaceful, creative and full of reverence because they are a return to a mode of existence which is disappearing. As Zhivago begins the writing of "Fairy Tale" and sees at the same time the mother and daughter asleep on clean beds, freshly made, in a clean room, freshly tidied, his heart is filled with intense gratitude, and he begins to pray:

"Lord! Lord! … and all this for me? Why hast Thou given me so much? Why hast Thou admitted me to Thy presence, allowed me to stray into Thy world, among Thy treasures, under Thy stars, and to the feet of my luckless, irrational, uncomplaining love, who fills my eyes with perpetual delight?"…

The poem is also a form of prayer or incantation, but it is not uttered by the poet; it finds its own utterance through him. Pasternak compares the power of poetic flow to "the current of a mighty river polishing stones and turning wheels by its very movement."… As Zhivago yields to this overpowering feeling, he enters the shamanic trance, an ecstasy…. During these first nights in Varykino the poet transcends quotidian time and space and travels out into supernatural time/space. There the physical and the spiritual spheres are fused. Zhivago's brief prayer reveals that he has been able to reestablish primordial communication between sky and earth, that he has re-entered mythical time. Thus he does not merely write about the galloping knight; he becomes the rider, and the poet's prayer becomes that of the "antidemonic champion":

                 Looking up, imploring
                 Heaven, up above,
                 He, the Horseman, raises
                 The spear of victory.

In the Russian-language edition of Doctor Zhivago a new section in the poem begins immediately after the above stanza. It is marked by a dividing line, yet even without this typographical sign, one becomes aware of a sharp shift in tone. Although the meter remains unchanged, we now have phrases or even separate words.

                  Closed eyelids.
                  Heights. Clouds.
                  Waters. Fords. Rivers.
                  Years and centuries.

We the readers are being drawn into a whirlwind, a phantasmagoric cavalcade. No longer does the lone horseman gallop over hills and dales, but he rises above the earth, into the heavens, scaling new heights, riding clouds, moving over our planet with the nebulae, spanning human time. If this is a form of transgression, then we must admit to recognizing the essential mechanism of dreams and fairy tales, the universe of the fantastic. It can also be interpreted as a symbolic motion of psychic maturation. (pp. 519-20)

During his two nights of writing "Fairy Tale" Zhivago experiences a rite de passage. For the first time, as poet, he knows that he has triumphed over certain human limitations. Pasternak tells us:

Last night he had tried to convey, by words so simple as to be almost childish and suggesting the directness of a lullaby, his feeling of mingled love and fear and longing and courage, in such a way that it should speak for itself, almost apart from the words….

Soon Zhivago and Lara are to be parted. A new cycle is about to begin for both of them. At this instant, however, they are enclosed in the magic circle of the room, the night, the space of love and, above all, the dream and that dream's poem.

Lara is asleep, and Zhivago is plunged in the reverie of creation. In the poem the rider's horse has finally trampled the dragon to death. Now the steed is still, dead, lying by the side of the monstrous beast. The struggle has taken its toll. The rider is lying in a swoon next to the swooning maiden. They lie close together, between dream and waking, only half-conscious. They have lost much blood, and yet they are shedding tears of ecstasy.

                 Their hearts beat in turn,
                 First her heart, then his,
                 Struggling to awaken
                 They fall into sleep.

Somehow they sense this fight is over, and they would like to join the living but are unable to do so. Is this the shaman's symbolic death, often represented by lethargic sleep, or is it rather a symbol of Russia, crippled, incapable of rising from its spiritual slumber, yet full of love and hope?

                 From excess of joy
                 A triple stream of tears
                 Flows, while locked in sleep
                 Rests the oblivious soul.

In the solitude of the night Zhivago has turned his meditation about his country, its people, its women, into a contemporary bylina. Like Albert Camus's Jonas, the poet feels at once solitaire and solidaire.

In the last stanza of the poem Zhivago/Pasternak returns to the eighteenth, using it as a refrain, or perhaps framing in this fashion the last and most important portion of the poem. Now, however, the image evoked is that of the shared dream of the lovers, the images which pass behind their tightly "shut eyelids." No longer does the rider need his steed to scale the heights of heaven. The dream of love, the presence of the beloved by his side suffice…. In the writing of "Fairy Tale" Zhivago has succeeded in immortalizing his love for Lara and in escaping together with her into a realm out of the reach of men and circumstances. (pp. 520-21)

If the poet Zhivago writes "Fairy Tale" for Lara, the poet Pasternak, through his hero Zhivago, addresses the Russian people. He has captured the simple melody of their voice and has linked the ancestral past with the present. The Russian people are the sick patient, and their shaman, the poet, must call back their wandering soul and allow it to reenter the empty body. Zhivago is both a doctor and a poet, twice healer. Pasternak is that specialist of the sacred who, having traveled through the collective subconscious of the Russian people, crystallizes it in a dream-poem. (p. 521)

Rosette C. Lamont, "Yuri Zhivago's 'Fairy Tale': A Dream Poem," in Books Abroad (copyright 1977 by the University of Oklahoma Press), Vol. 51, No. 4, Autumn, 1977, pp. 517-21.