Mikhail Kuzmin
My forebearers

Sailors of ancient families,
in love with distant horizons,
drinking wine in dark ports,
hugging cheerful foreign girls;
the dandy’s of the thirties,
imitating d’Orsay and Brummell,
adopting the dandy’s pose
all the naivety of the young race;
important, star-studded, generals,
once charming gallants,
preserving cheerful stories over rum,
always one and the same;
charming actors without much talent,
who brought the school of a foreign land,
playing “Mahomet” in Russia
and dying with innocent Voltaireanism;
you — young ladies in a bandeau,
playing Marcalho’s waltzes with feeling,
embroidering bead pocketbooks
for grooms on distant campaigns,
gossiping in home churches
and fortune-telling on cards;
economical, clever landowners,
boasting of their reserves,
capable of forgiving and forsaking
and coming closely to a person,
mocking and devout,
rising before dawn in winter;
and the charmingly foolish flowers of theatre schools,
devoted since childhood to the art of dance,
tenderly debauched,
purely unholy,
ruining their husbands for dresses
and seeing their children for a half-hour a day;
and further, in the distance — nobles of remote provinces
some sort of stern boyars,
the French fleeing the revolution
those unable to ascend the guillotine —
you all, you all —
you remained silent throughout your long century,
and now, you, shouting with hundreds of voices
dead, but alive,
within me: the last one, the poor one,
but possessing a tongue for you,
and every drop of blood
close to you, hears you,
loves you;
and here you all are:
tender, foolish, touching, close,
blessed by me
for your silent blessing.

Translated by Jennifer Daria Hadawi