Vladislav Khodasevich
Monkey

A day of heat. The woods burning. Time
Hanging heavy. From a neighboring plot
A cock was crowing. I went through the gate.
There, on the bench, his back against the fence,
A wandering Serb, dark-skinned and lean, sat dozing.
A heavy silver crucifix hung down
Among the rolling drops of sweat that coursed
His half-bared chest. Above him, on the fence,
A monkey squatted, wearing a red skirt,
And ravenously made a meal
Of dusty lilac leaves. A leather collar
Straining backwards on a chain
Compressed its neck. Hearing me, the Serb
Awoke, and mopped the pouring sweat, and asked for water.
But as soon as he had put it to his lips
To see if it was cold, he set the saucer
Down upon the bench, at which the monkey,
Its fingers dabbling in the water, seized
The dish with both its hands,
And, crouching down upon all fours, its elbows
Leaning on the bench, began to drink.
Its chin was nearly resting on the boards,
Its back went arching high up in the air
Above its balding crown. In such a way
Must Darius once have stooped and crouched to drink
From some small roadside pool the day he fled
Before the might of Alexander’s phalanx.
When all the water had been drunk, the monkey
Flipped the dish down from the bench, stood up,
And — shall I ever now forget this moment? —
The creature offered me its hand to shake,
Its black and calloused hand, still freshly cool with moisture
I have shaken hands with famous beauties,
With poets, with national leaders — but not one
Whose hand possessed lineaments Of such nobility!
Not one whose hand Touched mine with such a sense of brotherhood!
God knows, no human creature ever looked
Into my eyes so wisely or so deep,
Truly, to the bottom of my soul.
The sweetest legends of profound antiquity
That miserable creature woke in me,
And in that moment life for me was full,
And, as it seemed, a choir of stars and waves,
Of winds and spheres, came bursting in my ears
Like organ music, thundering as it did
Of old, in other, immemorial days.
The Serb went off, pattering his tambourine.
The monkey, riding on his left-hand shoulder,
Sat swaying to the rhythm of his walk —
A maharajah on an elephant.
Up in the opalescent smoke, the sun
Hung huge and crimson, shorn
Of all its rays. The heavy heat, still thunderless,
Pressed down upon the fields of scrawny wheat.

That was the day on which the war broke out.

Translated by Michael Frayn