Speak to no one. Do not drink wine.
Leave home behind. Leave brother, wife.
From people depart. Your soul must come
To feel — the past is forever gone.
What's past one must unlove. Then time
Will come to lose love for the wild,
Indifferent ever more: the day after,
From week to week, year in and year out.
And gradually your hopes expire.
Darkness swallows all. A new life
You will find then, clear and reborn:
The wooden cross, the crown of thorns.
Ни с кем не говори. Не пей вина.
Оставь свой дом. Оставь жену и брата.
Оставь людей. Твоя душа должна
Почувствовать — к былому нет возврата.
Былое надо разлюбить. Потом
Настанет время разлюбить природу,
И быть всё безразличней, — день за днём,
Неделю за неделей, год от году.
И медленно умрут твои мечты.
И будет тьма кругом. И в жизни новой
Отчётливо тогда увидишь ты
Крест деревянный и венок терновый.
«Tell, uncle, it was not a boon / By fire Moscow burnt so soon / Enjoyed by Frenchmen tall? / Fierce fights... or wasn't there any? / There were, great battles, there were many, / For reason Russians, kids and granny, / This glorious day recall! Once was a folk that you...»
«– Hey tell, old man, had we a cause / When Moscow, razed by fire, once was / Given up to Frenchman's blow? / Old-timers talk about some frays, / And they remember well those days! / With cause all Russia fashions lays / About Borodino! / / – Yea, ...»
«I like you well, O trusty dagger mine, / My comrade wrought of cool Damascus steel! / Forged were you by the Georgian with revenge in the mind, / By the Circassian free — for war were you made keen. A lily-white hand it was gave you to me — / You were affection's keepsake, its last gift...»
«We walk along the streets like in a dream. / We look at women, and we coffee drink. / But real words we still can not reveal, / And the approximate we do not feel. What shall we do? Go back to Petersburg? / Or fall in love? Or blow the Operá? / Or simply lie in bed — which’s cold, / ...»