Boris Pasternak
Illness

At dusk you appear, a schoolgirl still,
a schoolgirl. Winter. The sunset a woodsman hacking
in the forest of hours. I lie back to wait for dusk.
At once were hallooing; back and forth we call.

But the night! A torture chamber, bustling hell.
Come — if anything could bring you! — see for yourself.
Night’s your flitting away, your engagement, wedding,
last proceedings of a hangman’s court against me.

Do you remember that life, the flakes like doves
in flock thrusting their breasts against the howling
and, the tempest swirling them, fiendishly
dashed to the pavements?

You ran across the street, winds billowing under us,
a flying carpet — sleds, cries, crystals headlong!
For life, inspired by the blizzard, gushed
like blood into a crimson cloud.

Do you remember that moment, the hawkers,
the tents, the jostling crowd, the coins a puppy’s
moist nose? Those bells, encumbered by snow,
do you remember their grumbling before the holidays?

Alas. love. I must summon it all.
What can replace you? Pills? Patent medicines?
Frightened by my bottomless insomnia, sweat-soaked,
I look sideways from my pillow as with a horse’s eye.

At dusk you appear, still taking exams.
It’s recess: robins flutter, headaches, textbooks.
But at night how they clamor for thirst, how glaring
their eyes, the aspirins, the medicine bottles.

Translated by Theodore Weiss