Александр Блок // Polly Gannon
Полли Гэннон
Ph.D. по русской литературе и славистике Корнелльского университета (США). Многие годы преподаёт письмо, литературу и переводоведение, как в США, так и зарубежом. Жила в Амстердаме, Берлине, Хельсинки Нэшвилле, Итаке и Санкт-Петербурге. Переводчик с английского, голландского и русского (технические статьи, искусствоведческие тексты, художественная литература, поэзия), подробнее на http://gmtranslations.com/polly.htm
Александр Блок
О смерти
[оригинал: http://www.goldpoetry.ru/blok/index.php?p=124]
Alexander Blok
On Death
More often now I wander through town.
More often now I look at death and smile
A tranquil smile; well, what does it matter?
It’s as I wish. It’s my forte-to know
That at the end she’ll come in turn to me.
I walked along the road beside a horse race.
The golden day dreamed on the heaps of gravel.
Enclosed by a blind fence, the hippodrome
Shone green under the sun. There, wisps of grass
And dandelions basked, all swollen up
With spring, caressed by rays of light in sleep.
And far off in the distance the tribune’s
Flat roof pressed down upon the crowd
Of gawkers and their fashion plates. Here
And there flashed little gaily colored flags,
And on the fence climbed passersby to stare.
I walked and heard how hard the horses raced
Along the easy ground, the hoofbeats’ fevered pace.
And then, a shout: “He’s down! He’s down!” A hue
And cry went up from those atop the fence.
And I jumped up upon a little stump
And took the whole view in at once.
The distant bright-garbed jockeys raced headlong
Up to the finish. A short pace behind,
A horse without a rider galloped, stirrups
Flying. Behind the little curly leaves of birch,
So close to me, the jockey lay, dressed all
In yellow, in the greening grass of spring.
He lay there on his back and faced the sweet
Deep sky, as if for ages he had lain
With arms outstretched, a leg bent under him.
He lay so calm, so still. People dashed over.
Far off, a landau, slow spokes glittering,
Rolled softly straight toward him. The menfolk rushed
To him and lifted up the body.
His leg
Was dangling helplessly, wrapped up in yellow
Jodhpurs. His head lolled loosely, side to side,
And came to rest upon a shoulder.
The landau stopped beside him. On its cushions,
Tenderly and gently, the jockey’s yellow,Like a newborn chick, was laid. A man
Jumped awkwardly onto the footboard and stood
Stock-still, his hand supporting head and leg.
The pompous coachman turned the coach around.
And once again the spokes so slowly spun,
The box, the axles and the mudguards glittering...
It’s good to die so free, and so inspired.
He galloped all his life, one thought consuming him-
To come in first. But at a gallop, winded,
His horse’s footing faltered and it stumbled.
The gripping thighs were loosened from the saddle,
And flapping stirrups once again swung free.
The jockey was flung off, cast down,
He struck his head upon the welcoming,
Vernal, native ground. And at that very
Instant through his mind passed every thought,
Each haunting fundamental thought.
They passed-and died. So did his eyes. A corpse
Now stares up vacantly, dreaming,
So free, and so inspired.
One day I strolled along the water’s edge.
Some laborers were loading wood and bricks
And coal from barges onto carts. The river’s
Blue looked even bluer under whitish foam.
From under shirt collars unfastened
In the heat, sunburned bodies peeped.
And the blue eyes of freedom-loving Rus
Shone sternly out of blackened faces.
And there were children kneading heaps
Of yellow sand with their bare feet.
They dragged along a brick, a log,
Or a small beam, and hid among them.
Then they ran off, their grimy heels flashing.
Their mothers-breasts sagging under
Soiled dresses-waited for them, cursing.
And having boxed them on the ears, they seized
The wood, the bricks, the slender beams, and dragged
Them off, bent under the heavy burden.
Afterwards, returning in a cheerful flock,
The kids again took up their game of filching:
One-a beam; another-a brick...
Suddenly, a splash of water and a shout:
“He’s down! He’s down!” -the people from the barge cried out.
A workman lowered his wheelbarrowAnd gestured toward the water with one hand.
A brightly colored crowd of shirts rushed over
To where, upon the grass beside the riverbank,
Upon the smoothly rounded stones, a bottle lay.
One man dragged a grappling hook over.
Among
The piles that stood along the quayside in the water,
A man was rocking gently to and fro,
Dressed in a shirt and tattered trousers.
Someone clutched at him; another helped,
And the inert, outstretched, lifeless body,
From which the water poured in braided streams,
They bore to shore, where they set down their burden.
A saber-clinking constable came up.
He laid his cheek upon the dead man’s chest,
Listening in vain for a
Faint heartbeat. People gathered, each one asking
As the one before had done, the same
Repetitive and senseless questions: When had
He fallen? How long had he been under
Water, and how much had he had to drink?
Then all of them began departing quietly,
And I went on my way and listened to
A tipsy but impassioned worker tell
The others, with conviction, that drink’s
To blame for causing deaths like this each day.
I won’t give up my wandering. I’ll walk
Under the sun, and through the stifling heat,
Until my mind and thoughts are numb.
Oh heart!
You take the lead. And death regard
With a calm smile. You will grow tired yourself.
The exuberance of the life I live will be
Too much for you to bear. The love and hatred
That I carry deep inside others cannot
Endure with equanimity.
I vow,
Always I vow to look at men straight in the eye,
To drink good wine, and have a woman to kiss.
To fill the nights with mad desires, when heat
Smothers my daytime dreams. To sing my songs!
And listen to the wind blow through the world!
1907
(trans. by polly and students from the Literary Translation Seminar at the Fyodorov
Translation Center, SPbGU)
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