Andrei Bely
A Memory

December… Snowdrifts in the yard…
Your words and you I still remember;
How in the snow-night, silver-starred,
So shyly shook your every member.

In pearly lace of old Marseilles
You day-dreamed by the velvet curtain:
Around you suitors eyed their prey
On low-slung sofas, far from certain.

A servant brought in spicy tea…
And there around us tunes were playing…
However, now it seems to me
A sorrow of some sort was weighing.

And now in gentle steps there grew —
Imagination, inspiration —
In reverie as I looked at you
A secret, heartfelt aspiration;

And at that moment we were tied,
As Haydn’s strains around us rumbled…
From hall your husband on us spied,
With sideways glance at whiskers fumbled.
____
Now in the snow I stand alone…
Above my wretched soul are floating
The useless dreams that then were sown —
A memory now, with sugared coating.

Translated by Rupert Moreton