Mikhail Svetlov
Living Heroes

Taras, in the tale
Gogol tells us, was tough...
No quarter he gave
Foe or traitor.
I hear him call
At midnight to his son,
“The child of my loins, I shall slay thee!”

The beautiful pani,
Andrii’s fateful love,
Pale-faced, old Taras implores mutely...
The pistol is raised,
And the father’s firm hand
Through Andrii’s hot heart sends a bullet.

Midnight sweeps its wing
O’er Poltava, all’s quiet...
But restless is pacing Mazèpa:
A war against Russia,
His friend and ally,
Is plotting the treacherous hetman.

His father-in-law
In dank prison meanwhile
Is planning escape and dire vengeance.
But when Kochubei’s
Grizzled head is chopped off,
Heartache clutches Eugene Onegin.

“Pechorin! This land
Is a fearsome place!
I feel murder stalking its back-streets.
And while Dostoyevsky
Is gambling away,
Raskolnikov’s out with a hatchet.”

The train’s pulling in,
As the early day breaks,
Its wheels inexorably turning.
Karenina Anna
Lies down on the rails
On reaching the end of her journey.

What’s this, comrades classics?
You give them no chance —
Your heroes all meet a death cruel:
One dies under train-wheels,
Another is hanged,
A third finds his death in a duel...

I may write a novel, too,
One of these days,
With plenty of heroes and action.
But, mind you, my heroes
Will all learn a trade,
While I shall be learning my pencraft.

Should one of my heroes
Begin to crack up
And wonder if life is worth living,
I’d rather myself
Lie across railway tracks
Than let the train run down my hero.

And when I am laid out
And borne to my grave,
I know that a large crowd of mourners
Will follow my coffin,
The heroes I saved
From death, for a life
full and buoyant.

A passer-by, stopping,
Will ask, all good will,
“Who’s that being buried, poor blighter?”
The heroes will answer:
“Svetlov Mikhail.
He was a fine man and fine writer.”

Translated by Raissa Bobrova