Olga Bergholz
Conversation with a Neighbour

Fourth month of the blockade. In the preceding weeks air-raid alerts had lasted anything from ten to twelve hours. The Leningrad bread ration averaged 125 to 250 grams.

Dariya Vlasievna, my next-door neighbour,
Let us sit down and talk, we two,
Let's talk about the days of peace,
The peace that we all long for so.

Nearly six months now we've been fighting,
Six months of battle's roar and whine.
Cruel are the sufferings of our nation,
Your sufferings, Dariya, and mine.

O nights of shriekings and of rumblings
And bombs that ever nearer fall,
And tiny scraps of rationed bread
That scarcely seem to weigh at all...

To have survived this blockade's fetters,
Death daily hovering above,
What strength we all have needed, neighbour,
What hate we've needed — and what love!

So much that sometimes moods of doubting
Have shaken even the strongest will:
«Can I endure it? Can I bear it?»
You'll bear it. You'll last out. You will.

Dariya Vlasievna, wait a little:
The day will come when from the sky
The last alert will howl its warning,
The last all-clear ring out on high.

And how remote and dimly distant
The war will seem to us that day
We casually remove the shutters
And put the black-out blinds away.

Let the whole house be bright with lights then,
Be filled with Spring and peacefulness,
Weep quietly, laugh quietly, and quietly
Exult in all the quietness.

Fresh rolls our fingers will be breaking,
Made of dark rye-bread, crisp and fine,
And we'll be drinking in slow sips
Glasses of glowing, crimson wine.

And to you — to you they'll build a statue
And place on the Bolshoi Square;
In firm imperishable steel,
Your homely form they'll fashion there.

Just as you were — ill-fed, undaunted,
In quickly gathered clothes arrayed;
Just as you were when under shell fire
You did your duties undismayed.

Dariya Vlasievna, by your spirit
The whole world renewed shall be.
The name of that spirit is Russia.
Stand and be bold then, even as She.

Translated by James von Geldern and Richard Stites