The city took off its wintery things.
The snows turned slobbery.
Spring has come again,
foolish and loose-tongued
as an army cadet.
Город зимнее снял.
Снега распустили слюнки.
Опять пришла весна,
глупа и болтлива, как юнкер.
«A path — into ether / Leaves the earth behind. / — Stop here, people! — / Adolescence is blind. / Higher and higher still! / Into the blue fields of rye! / — Stop! — or you will / Step on the sky.»
«I told her: the sidewalks are muddy, / The sky is gloomy, everyone is depressed... / I said that days are all the same / And make me sick at heart, / That balls, the theater — get on my nerves... / “Really?” I told her there’s cholera in the city, / So-and-so have pa...»
«Nothing but anniversaries, anniversaries... / Our liter reeks like a kitchen! / To judge by it, all Russia / Is teeming with great men: / After their deaths, it’s certain. / Following magnificent empty sanctimonies, / A hundred Pantheons / And a hundred Westminster Abbeys won’t suf...»
«Yes, for the multitude of people it’s hard to avoid / The creative influence of celebrated ideas, / The influence of Rudins, Raskolnikovs, Chatskys, / Oblomovs!1 They weigh us down!.. Not like chains, / But only mentally, absolutely not heavy, brotherly... / The artist cuts a silhouette ...»