Zinaida Gippius
Devillet

I happened upon a devillet
with the body of a child.
Thin and scrawny like a gnat;
his face was sharp, and shy, and old.

His body trembled in the rain;
his fur was dark and ruffled.
It was a sorry sight; I feared
this devillet might snuff it.

“Love! Love!” I hear all round me.
But love’s beyond me, out of reach.
Pity, though, can sometimes grip me,
and so I caught the little creature:

“Come, come, come into the warm.
Why hang about here on the street?
No, no, don’t bristle, don’t take fright —
I’ll give you sugar lumps to eat.”

“Sugar,” he roared. “Don’t be a fool.
I’ll have some soup, a plate of veal.
I’m moving in with you for good.
I’ll have a proper meal.”

His voice was rich and resonant —
a masculine, caressing bass.
It was really quite indecent —
so deeply out of place.

His bluster put my back up —
I’d only been trying to help.
So I started to turn my back on
this wretched devil-whelp.

He wrinkled up his little face;
he let out a feeble groan.
I felt another tug of pity —
and dragged the devillet home.

I looked at him in lamplight:
a vile mix, an ancient child.
“I’m sweet, I’m sweet,” I heard him say;
I let him be, grew reconciled.

And soon I felt quite at home,
sharing my home with a devillet.
at noon he frolicked like a goat;
by evening he looked dead.

Now he’d strut about like a man;
now he’d rely on womanly wiles;
and when it rained, he smelt of dog
and licked his fur beside the fire.

For years I’d longed for this or that;
whatever I had, it was never enough.
But now my home almost came to life,
as if growing a coat of fluff.

All was joyless, but all right,
tender and sleepy, in the dark.
Life was dully sweet with a devillet:
child or old man — what did I care?

He was like a decaying mushroom —
ever softer, frailer, sicklier.
Sickly sweet and very tenacious
and stickier, stickier, stickier...

Until we were not two, but one.
Now here I am, part of his heart.
And on rainy days I smell of dog
and lick my fur beside the hearth.

Translated by Robert Chandler