Anna Akhmatova
A Lady and Her Maid

1

Isn’t it sad when things are forgotten?
Everyone mourns for something lost,
for the dreams we dreamed in the springtime of life,
shattered past repairing, like Pierretta’s pitcher
in the well-known fable by La Fontaine.

Pierretta the milkmaid was walking to market,
she carried on her head a pitcher of milk,
nicely balanced, intending to sell it.
She’d buy herself a chicken with the profits,
earn enough from its eggs over time
to buy her own cow—
thoughts of her eventual wealth
set her dancing.
That golden pitcher filled with dreams
slipped from her head, broke on the road,
gray clay shards in a puddle of white.

Try she did to gather the fragments:
too badly smashed to ever glue back.
That’s how it goes with young people’s dreams . . .

Today a lady said to her maid,
“Can you imagine, Alyssa,
how very tiresome my life’s become?

“I hardly stay awake through the tedium of meals,
I forget to eat, to drink. Well you know
I’m even forgetting to paint on a face:
I nearly went out with unpencilled eyebrows!

“Oh, Alyssa, Alyssa, can’t you suggest
some remedy? A way to get him back?
If you could, I’d give you whatever you asked,
even this house, even all my best dresses!

“I dreamed of him. He was wearing a crown.
What does it mean? I’m afraid to even sleep.”

In Alyssa’s locket is a curl of dark hair.
I don’t suppose
you can imagine
whose.

2

“How late it is, no wonder I’m yawning.”

“Madame should take her gentle rest.
I’ll see to it the red wig’s perfectly curled
for my lovely, slender mistress.

“I’ll work in those all pretty green ribbons,
fasten them at the side with the pearl clasp.
I know who it’s for. I read Madame’s note,
‘I’ll wait for you by the maple tree,
my mysterious count!’

“My lady knows just how to slyly
half-suppress a laugh
from behind the lace of a carnival mask!
And yes, madame has instructed me
to be sure her garters are perfumed.”

An early sunbeam falls from the little window
on the dark dress laid out for her ladyship;
that patch of sunlight glides across the fabric
as the hours pass and Madame—in such a dream,
as one dreams in the springtime of one’s life—
is already in the arms of her mysterious count
in the shade of the maple.

Translated by Seraphina Powell