Alexander Blok
The Commander`s Footsteps

A thick, heavy curtain at the door,
Mist beyond the nighttime window.
Now that you know fear, Don Juan
What's your hateful freedom worth?

Cold and empty is the lavish bedroom,
Servants sleep in the still night.
From a blissful, foreign, distant land
Comes a rooster's song.

What are sounds of bliss to a betrayer
When his time is up?
Donna Anna sleeps, arms crossed above her heart,
Donna Anna's dreaming...

When his cruel features have frozen,
Echoed within mirrors?
Anna, Anna, is the grave's sleep sweet?
Is it sweet to have unearthly dreams?

Life is empty, crazy , fathomless!
Step outside to fight, old fate!
And in answer - smitten and triumphant -
A horn sounds in snowy darkness...

Splashing light into the night, a car
Rushes by, as black and quiet as an owl.
With his quiet, heavy footsteps
The Commander steps inside the house...

The door gapes. Through the excessive frost
Hoarsely like the tolling of the midnightclocks -
The hour tolls: "You called me here to dinner.
I have come. Are you prepared?.."

To this brutal question there's no answer,
There's no answer - only silence.
Frightening at daybreak is the lavish bedroom,
Servants sleep in the pale night.

Cold and strange is break of day
Night is dim at break of day.
Bride of Light! O, Donna Anna where are you,?
Anna! Anna! - only silence.

In the horrifying morning mist
The hour tolls one final time:
In your dying hour Donna Anna will arise.
Anna will arise in the hour of your death.

Translated by A. Wachtel, I. Kutik and M. Denner