«(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...»
«I live like a cuckoo in a clock, / I'm not jealous of the forest birds. / They wind me up — and I cuckoo. / You know — such a fate / I could only wish / For someone I hate.»
«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...»