By Alexander Blok
1
What challenge for a dead man among people,
Pretending to be passionate, alive!
But one must toss oneself into the social whirlpool,
And from the carriage bony clanks must hide...
The living sleep. The dead one from his casket rises,
Goes to the bank, and to the senate, court...
More black the anger as the night time whitens,
And creak the feathers in triumphant hold...
On a report the dead man all day labours.
And straight-away, just as the meeting stops,
He whispers to an ear now, while his backside wavers...
The ear of senator's receives his dirty joke...
Now evening comes. With mud a light rain splashes
The passersby, the homes, and other nonsense too...
A rattling taxi motor carries forth the dead man,
Into some other ugly thing that he shall do.
Into a crowded columned ballroom of a palace
The dead man rushes and a graceful tailcoat dons.
A friendly smile he's gifted by that fool, the host,
His foolish wife would toss another smile along.
He's weary from the day of an official's boredom,
But music covers up the sound of clanging bones ...
He shakes the hands of friend and shakes them firmly -
He must appear alive, alive to each and all!
Oh, just to meet with eyes beside the column
A ladyfriend - like him she is a corpse.
Behind veneers, conventions of their speeches
You hear the real contents of their words:
"My weary friend, I feel so odd inside this ballroom". -
"My weary friend, but how the grave is cold.'
"It's midnight." - "Yes, but you haven't asked NN to waltz.
She's so in love with you, that you should know..."
NN now looks around, and with a gaze impassioned,
She seeks him, him - with worry in her blood...
And in her face, so pretty, like a virgin's,
The wonder, meaningless, of living love...
He whispers in her ear some inconsequential wordings,
The speeches that consume all living souls,
And stares at her as redden both her shoulders,
And as upon his shoulder her head falls...
And sharpest poisons of a casual and social meanness,
With an unearthly spite, he lavishes along...
"How smart! And how in love with me he surely is!"
But in her ears sound out such strange, unearthly ringings:
She hears the rattle of each bone to bone.
- February 19th, 1912
2
The night, the street, the pharmacy, the streetlamp,
The meaningless and paling light.
Whether one lives another quarter-century or more:
All will be so. There is no end.
And you will die – and then begin again,
But all will be repeated, as before:
The night, the icy ripples on the channel,
The pharmacy, the street, the lamp.
- October 10th, 1912
3
An empty street. A window's flame burns lonely.
A Jewish pharmacist, while sleeping, utters "Oh's".
And here, before a shelf inscribed "Venena",
While bending, house-masterly, his creaky knees
A skeleton, unto his eyes within a cape draped up,
While baring his black mouth, for something seeks...
It's found... But inadvertently he clanks with something,
The skull revolves around... The pharmacist... he quacks,
Gets up - and on his other side is falling...
Meanwhile, the cherished vial does his guest now
Pass, beneath his cape, unto a pair of women, noseless,
Who, under whitish streetlight, receive it from his grasp.
- October 1912
4
An old, old dream. The streetlamps rushing out of darkness - going where?
Why there - where's only blackened water.
And where oblivion persists forever...
A shadow slides around the corner,
Another shade crawls up, sits close to it.
The cape's agape, and white the chest is,
Across the tailcoat's buttonhole peeks scarlet.
The second shadow's slender, clad in metals,
Or else a bride absconded from her vows?
It lacks a face. A helmet and some feathers.
The perfect stillness of a dead man's poise.
A doorbell rattles at the gates,
And then the dull click of a lock's.
A prostitute and a perverted soul
Are passing onwards through the doorway...
The freezing wind produces wails,
It's dark, it's empty, and it's silent.
Above a lonely window burns.
It matters not, it matters not.
Just like lead, the water's black,
And oblivion eternal is inside it.
The third ghost. Where do you head,
You, from shade to shade who's sliding?
- February 7th, 1914
5
Again the rich one's glad and mean,
Again the poor one is debased,
From roofs of massives made of stone,
Looks downwards the crescent pale.
Sends down muteness,
Shades hard slopes,
Of stone-wrought rafters,
And canopies' blackness...
All this would have been in vain,
If the tzar was not in reign,
To enforce the laws.
But don't ask where stands the palace,
Where's the wise good-natured face,
Where the crown of gold.
He - from wastelands in the distance
Under light of scattered lamps
Appears.
Around his neck a rag is twisted,
From beneath a tattered cap
He grins.
- February 7th, 1914