My master — he disliked me from the start.
He never knew me, never saw or heard me,
but all the same he feared me like the plague
and hated me with all his dreary heart.
When I bowed my head before him,
it seemed to him I hid a smile.
When he made me cry, he thought
my tears were crocodile.
And all my life I worked my heart out for him,
each night I lay down late, and got up early.
I loved him and was wounded for his sake.
But nothing I could do would ever take.
I took his portrait everywhere I went,
I hung it up in every but and tent,
I looked and looked, and kept on looking,
and slowly, as the years went past,
his hatred hurt me less and less.
And nowadays it hardly seems to matter:
the age-old truth is men like me
are always hated by their master.
А мой хозяин не любил меня —
Не знал меня, не слышал и не видел,
А всё-таки боялся, как огня,
И сумрачно, угрюмо ненавидел.
Когда меня он плакать заставлял,
Ему казалось: я притворно плачу.
Когда пред ним я голову склонял,
Ему казалось: я усмешку прячу.
А я всю жизнь работал на него,
Ложился поздно, поднимался рано,
Любил его. И за него был ранен.
Но мне не помогало ничего.
А я возил с собой его портрет.
В землянке вешал и в палатке вешал —
Смотрел, смотрел, не уставал смотреть.
И с каждым годом мне всё реже, реже
Обидною казалась нелюбовь.
И ныне настроенья мне не губит
Тот явный факт, что испокон веков
Таких, как я, хозяева не любят.
«By gates of Eden, Angel, gentle, / Shone with his softly drooped head, / And Demon, gloomy and resentful / Over the hellish crevasse flapped. The spirit of qualm and negation / Looked at another one — of good, / And fire of the forced elation / First time he vaguely understood. “I...»
«The lazy artist-boor is blacking / The genius's picture with his stuff, / Without any sense a-making / His low drawing above. But alien paints, in stride of years, / Are falling down as a dust, / The genius's masterpiece appears / With former brilliance to us. Like this, the darkly app...»
«Ah, why do your eyes occasionally / Gaze at me so severely / And why torture my soul with distress / From your cold, unaffectionate gaze, From your cold, unaffectionate gaze? Without a smile and in proud silence / You go like a shadow before me, / And, in spirit, having concealed the suf...»
«And I had a motherland — / So beautiful was she! / There spruce trees swayed above... / But it was a dream! There our family friends still lived. / From every side about me / Were heard sweet words of love... / But it was a dream! »