It is simple, it is easy.
Everyone can understand it;
Not the smallest love you bear me,
You will never long for me.
Why should I be full of longing
For a man who is a stranger?
Why should I kneel every evening
To put up a prayer for you?
Why should I forsake mv comrade
And my curly-headed baby,
Throw away my native country
And the town that I love best,
And just like a dirty beggar
Wander through a foreign city?
Oh, how glad I am to think that
I shall soon be seeing you!
Это просто, это ясно,
Это всякому понятно,
Ты меня совсем не любишь,
Не полюбишь никогда.
Для чего же так тянуться
Мне к чужому человеку,
Для чего же каждый вечер
Мне молиться за тебя?
Для чего же, бросив друга
И кудрявого ребенка,
Бросив город мой любимый
И родную сторону,
Черной нищенкой скитаюсь
По столице иноземной?
О, как весело мне думать,
Что тебя увижу я!
«You aren’t yet dead, and you are not as yet alone, / As long as with your beggared lover / By joy of wide expanses of the plains you’re thrown / As dark and cold and blizzards cover. In lavish destitution and in mighty dearth / Then live in peace and consolation. / For blessed then th...»
«The drifting smoke was melting in the frosty air, / And I, oppressed by freedom’s sadness, lingering there, / Wished only to ascend to cold and quiet singing, / To disappear for ever, but my fate was bringing Me down the snowy street upon the evening hour / Where dog was barking at the su...»
«We’re unable to live, for this country’s absurd, / At ten paces’ remove are our voices unheard, / But opinion, when muttered, half-spoken, / Kremlin highlander’s spectre’s awoken. / Podgy fingers he has that are meaty like worms, / But his speech is deliberate, its measure confir...»
«When red October’s dim time-server for us made / A yoke of bloodshed and of malice, / And armoured car, aggressive, then enforced blockade / And loomed an apish gunner, callous — And “Crucify Kerensky!” irate soldier brayed, / And angry mob on cue applauded: / Then Pilate let them...»