The threshing barn is stifling and hot,
I laugh, but in my heart, I weep from spite.
My old friend mumbles to me: “Jinx it not,
Can’t you discern that luck is on our side!”
I listen to my old friend’s words with doubt.
He’s lost his sight, he’s ludicrous and vile.
He spent his whole life trampling the ground
Of long and dreary trails in denial.
My fragile voice is crying out with sorrow,
The ringing voice of those who knew no better:
“Our knapsacks are all emptied and tomorrow
Just promises more hunger and foul weather!”
Под навесом тёмной риги жарко,
Я смеюсь, а в сердце злобно плачу.
Старый друг бормочет мне: «Не каркай!
Мы ль не встретим на пути удачу!»
Но я другу старому не верю.
Он смешной, незрячий и убогий,
Он всю жизнь свою шагами мерил
Длинные и скучные дороги.
И звенит, звенит мой голос ломкий,
Звонкий голос не узнавших счастья:
«Ах, пусты дорожные котомки,
А на завтра голод и ненастье!»
«(Aria for a broken voice) My head's a dark lantern with shattered panes / And open to the winds on every side, / I wander around with drunk women of nights, / In the mornings doctors inspect my insides. I'm a boil on the seat of Russian verse's fine name. / Let thunder burst me in four hun...»
«Some love a laundress and others love a duchess, / Each person's opiate is his own, / But I'm in love with the concierge's daughter. / Our romance is an autumnal thing. On our block, Liza is considered stuffy, / She doesn't like displays of love, / But still she often sneaks around to see...»
«What heavy, dark delirium! / The turbid moonlight on these peaks! / To have touched the violin so many years / And in the light not recognize its strings! Who needs us? Who has lit up / Two yellow faces, both so melancholy... / Then suddenly the bow felt / Someone take them up and someo...»
«It happened in Vallen-Koski1, / The rain descended from somber clouds, / And planks of wood, yellow and sodden, / Plunged over the mournful rocks. After such a cold night we were yawning, / Tears stood in our eyes: / To divert ourselves, for the fourth time, / We threw a doll into the w...»