I imagine everything wrapped in a beatific mist:
Statues, arches, gardens, flowerbeds.
The dark waves of the lovely river...
Once the memories start to flow,
it means ... But perhaps all this is nonsense.
Like a wild beast from its lair, crouching,
Sick, I crawl into the cold of Paris...
"Poor Folk."1 Oh, how tautologous!
Who said? Was it I perhaps...
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1. The title of Dostoevsky's first novel, a poignant depiction of Russian poverty in St. Petersburg.
Все представляю в блаженном тумане я:
Статуи, арки, сады, цветники.
Темные волны прекрасной реки...
Раз начинаются воспоминания,
Значит... А может быть, все пустяки.
...Вот вылезаю, как зверь, из берлоги я,
В холод Парижа, сутулый, больной...
«Бедные люди» — пример тавтологии,
Кем это сказано? Может быть, мной.
«Will I ever forget it, that mythical night: / in the blaze of the setting sun / an abyss divided the sky in two / and the street lamps came on one by one. I sat in a crowd by the window while somewhere / an orchestra sang about love; / I sent you a rose in a glass of champagne / as gold...»
«Good is the wine that is in love with us, / and good is bread, our generous friend; / and good the woman who brings us torment / yet yields her sweetness to us in the end. But what are we to do with sunset fires? / With joys that can’t be eaten, drunk or kissed? / And what are we to do ...»
«Fine is the wine that is in love with us, / The goodly bread we wait for from the oven, / And woman whom we have possessed, at last, / After we've suffered under yoke her own. But what to do if a red sunset freezes / Above a sky that's drowning in cold, / Where there is silence and uneart...»
«How pleased we are by the entrancing wine / And by the bread that’s waiting in the oven, / And by the woman who can pacify / Our agonies in the delights of loving. But with the sunset’s color of a rose / Above the cool horizon of the sky — / What do we do with that divine repos...»