Innokenty Annensky
Violin bow and strings

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 someone join them.

"Oh, how long ago it was! In all this darkness,
Tell me only: Are you the same one, are you?"
And the strings caressed him, pressing close,
Ringing, but caressing, they trembled.

"It is true, is it not, that nevermore
Shall we be parted? Enough?..
And the violin replied — yes,
But there was pain in the violin's heart.

The bow then understood all, fell silent,
And in the violin there stayed the echo...
And that which people took for the music
Was torture to them.

But not till morning did the man
Put out the candle... and the strings sang,
Only the sun, exhausted, found them
On the black velvet of the bed.

Translated by Lubov Yakovleva and Daniel Weissbort