Но как забавно, что в конце
абзаца,
корректору и веку вопреки,
тень русской ветки будет
колебаться
на мраморе моей руки.
Amusing, though, that at the last
indention,
Despite proofreader's
and my age’s ban,
A
Russian branch’s shadow shall be playing
Upon the marble of my
hand.
One is reminded of the branch gently moved by
wind (ветка, тихо колеблемая ветром) which
the narrator in Turgenev's Phantoms can see through Ellis's
semi-transparent face, but also of Khodasevich's
poem Pamyatnik (Monument, 1928):
Во мне конец, во мне
начало.
Мной совершённое так мало!
Но всё ж я прочное звено:
Мне это
счастие дано.
В России новой, но великой,
Поставят идол мой
двуликий
На перекрестке двух дорог,
Где время, ветер и
песок...
The end, the start I do embody -
Forged as
a link that's true and sturdy.
Although my claims to fame are
few!
Rejoicing, I unite the queue.
In future Russia - new and
mighty,
My graven idol will be sighted
Two faced where two roads come to
meet
Where time, wind, sand...evolve their lied.*
In his poem Den' (The Day,
1921), beginnig: Goryachiy veter, zloy i lzhivyi... ("Hot wind,
malicious and mendacious..."), Khodasevich compares our everyday
reality to a dark-blue prison (temno-lazurnaya
tyur'ma):
И верно, долго не
прервётся
Блистательная кутерьма
И с грохотом не
распадётся
Темно-лазурная тюрьма.**
Did I ascribe Musset's
poem A Julie to Baudelaire? Khorosh, nechego skazat'
(What an idiot I am)!
*I'm not responsible for this rhymed translation
(lied, Germ., "song," is the anonymous translator's
contribution)
**it was A. A. Fet who first compared
(in his poem In Memory of N. Ya. Danilevski, 1886) the phenomenal world
to a blue prison (golubaya tyur'ma)