For all the foolishness I’ve said,
The punishment is heavy,
I could receive a pea of lead
From the secretary.*
____
* Joseph Stalin: (December 18, 1878 — March 5, 1953) was General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee from 1922 until his death in 1953.
За такую скоморошину,
Откровенно говоря,
Мне свинцовую горошину
Ждать бы от секретаря.
«– Hey tell, old man, had we a cause / When Moscow, razed by fire, once was / Given up to Frenchman's blow? / Old-timers talk about some frays, / And they remember well those days! / With cause all Russia fashions lays / About Borodino! / / – Yea, ...»
«I like you well, O trusty dagger mine, / My comrade wrought of cool Damascus steel! / Forged were you by the Georgian with revenge in the mind, / By the Circassian free — for war were you made keen. A lily-white hand it was gave you to me — / You were affection's keepsake, its last gift...»
«We walk along the streets like in a dream. / We look at women, and we coffee drink. / But real words we still can not reveal, / And the approximate we do not feel. What shall we do? Go back to Petersburg? / Or fall in love? Or blow the Operá? / Or simply lie in bed — which’s cold, / ...»
«The alarming roll of a drum / Stirs the mist of an early morn, / Joan of Arc on a galloping horse / To besieged Orleans is borne. To the clinking of wine glasses, / To the strains of an old minuet, / In the Petit Trianon* passes / Care-free life of Marie Antoinette... A small lamp ligh...»