Osip Mandelshtam
Dombey and Son

The shrillness of the English language
and Oliver’s dejected look
have merged: I see the youngster languish
among a pile of office books.

Charles Dickens — ask him; he will tell you
what was in London long ago:
the City, Dombey, assets’ value,
the River Thames’s rusty flow.

‘Mid rain and tears and counted money,
Paul Dombey’s curly-haired son
cannot believe that clerks are funny
and laughs at neither joke nor pun.

The office chairs are sorry splinters;
each broken farthing put to use,
and numbers swarm in springs and winters,
like bees perniciously let loose.

Attorneys study every letter;
in smoke and stench they hone their stings,
and, from a noose, the luckless debtor —
a piece of bast — in silence swings.

His foes enjoy their lawful robbing,
lost are for him all earthly boons,
and lo! His only daughter, sobbing,
embraces checkered pantaloons. 

Translated by Anatoly Liberman