In my comfortable carriage, buoyed by its ellipsychic bearings,
I love to visit at golden midday the lady's club for tea time,
Where women so deliciously gossip about social trash and quarrels,
Where the foolish rightfully are unfoolish, the wise always stupid.
Oh all you fashionable subjects, from you my sorrow will unfurl.
Trembling lips with irony quiver like jelly made of wild strawberries.
"The natives look just like pineapples and pineapples resemble natives."
The Creole woman's quips are witty, recalling her exotic landscapes.
The mayor's wife begins yawning, leaning over the silent piano,
Looks out the window where fermenting July sensuously stumbles.
Around us fan the golden cobwebs, of spleen's lazy tribes a symbol.
Having thus compared myself, isn't this why I love the Lady's Club?
Я в комфортабельной карете, на эллипсических рессорах,
Люблю заехать в златополдень на чашку чая в женоклуб,
Где вкусно сплетничают дамы о светских дрязгах и о ссорах,
Где глупый вправе слыть не глупым, но умный непременно глуп...
О, фешенебельные темы! от вас тоска моя развеется!
Трепещут губы иронично, как земляничное желе...
«Индейцы — точно ананасы, и ананасы — как индейцы...»
Острит креолка, вспоминая о экзотической земле.
Градоначальница зевает, облокотясь на пианино,
И смотрит в окна, где истомно бредет хмелеющий Июль.
Вкруг золотеет паутина, как символ ленных пленов сплина,
И я, сравнив себя со всеми, люблю клуб дам не потому ль?..
«Love’s memory — a heavy weight! / And I must sing upon its coals. / For others men, — its blaze creates / A bit of warmth for cooling souls. To warm their sated bodies nightly, / They need my tears and I lament… / It’s not for this I sang, Almighty! / Partaking in love’s sa...»
«The sky’s azure lacquer is waning / And you can hear the ocarina play. / She’s just a little fife who’s made of clay, / What is the cause for all of her complaining? / Who left all of my sins for her exposed? / And why does she forgive me anyhow? / Or is a voice reciting to me now ...»
«Instead of wisdom — experience was / My fresh, non-quenching glass. / My youth was Sunday prayer’s words… / Could I forget my past? How many deserted roads were trod / With him, who wasn’t dear, / How many times did I bow to God, / For him, who was sincere… I have become forg...»
«Ah! Here you come again. Not as a smitten youth, / But as a man who’s stern, unbending and uncouth, / You walk inside and barely look up at me at all. / The calm before the storm is frightening to my soul. / You ask me what it was that I have done to you, / Who offered up yourself, with ...»