The sailors near the port
shouted in chorus, demanding wine,
and over Stambul and over the Bosphorus
the full moon shone.
Tonight they will hurl an unfaithful wife
to the bottom of the bay,
a wife who was too beautiful
and looked like the moon.
She loved her daydreams,
the summer-house in the reed thicket,
old women fortune-tellers and their fortune-telling
and everything the Pasha did not like.
Father was sad, but understands
and whispers to the husband: «Well, is it time?»,
but the younger sister does not lift
her stubborn eyes and muses:
«Many, many other lovers
lie in the deep bays,
intertwined, languid and silent...
What happiness to be among them!»
Еще близ порта орали хором
Матросы, требуя вина,
А над Стамбулом и над Босфором
Сверкнула полная луна.
Сегодня ночью на дно залива
Швырнут неверную жену,
Жену, что слишком была красива
И походила на луну.
Она любила свои мечтанья,
Беседку в чаще камыша,
Старух гадальщиц, и их гаданья,
И все, что не любил паша.
Отец печален, но понимает
И шепчет мужу: «что ж, пора?»
Но глаз упрямых не поднимает,
Мечтает младшая сестра:
— Так много, много в глухих заливах
Лежит любовников других,
Сплетенных, томных и молчаливых…
Какое счастье быть средь них!
«To Maria Pavlovna Ivanova In the embankment’s mad roar, / A colored kerchief thrown over her hair, / She lies and watches, beautiful / And young, as though alive. With a chaste gait, she had walked / Toward noise and whistling beyond the neighboring wood — / The whole length of the p...»
«“Misty morning, gray morning ..." / — TURGENEV Morning. Good luck! Among the houses! / Little bells are tinkling. / You press your silver rings / Coldly against my lips, / And I, how many times, successively, kiss / Your rings and not your hand... / In your thrown-back shoulder / ...»
«I want to live, live to distraction: / To make the present live forever, / Make the impersonal human cover / With flesh whatever now has none! What if life’s torpor stifles me, / What if I suffocate and am dumb — / A happier young man maybe / Will say of me in the years to come: Fo...»
«What, are you grown dull now and perplexed? / Look at me as you used to. / See What in abasement you’ve become, / In the sharp incorruptible light of day! I am myself not what I was — no longer / Distant, proud, and pure and wicked. / I look upon the simple boring earthly round / Wi...»