"Cabaret Artistique"
January 1, 1913
Все мы бражники здесь, блудницы, We're all revelers here, prostitutes,
Как невесело вместе нам! How unhappy we are all together!
На стенах цветы и птицы On the wall, flowers and birds
Томятся по облакам. Languish on clouds.
Ты куришь черную трубку, You puffing on your black pipe,
Так странен дымок над ней. A strange haze hovering over.
Я надела узкую юбку, Me wearing a tight skirt
Чтоб казаться еще стройней. Highlighting my slim figure.
Навсегда забиты окошки: Permanently sealed windows:
Что там, изморозь или гроза? What's out there? sleet or storm?
На глаза осторожной кошки The cautious eyes of a cat
Похожи твои глаза. So like yours.
О, как сердце мое тоскует! O how my heart yearns!
Не смертного ль часа жду? Couldn't be in waiting for the hour of death?
А та, что сейчас танцует, Over there, she's dancing,
Непременно будет в аду. No doubt on her way to hell.
Some comments below the pipesmoke curlique
So, one hundred years ago today, New Year's Eve, the young Russian poet Anna Akhmatova partied with friends in a popular basement cabaret in St. Petersburg. Of course a poem came out of it. There's an uncanny premonitory feel to these lines, perhaps we can't help playing the century backwards as we read them--all those millions to be slaughtered, all the horrific contents of the human heart and psyche yet to be exposed.
"If only" is written across so much of what has been said since. Well, that doesn't do much, does it? Yes, It's hard to face how high the stakes are for the coming ten decades given what happened in the last ten. Given what we already see headed our way.
In spite of all that, isn't it worth honestly asking ourselves what could we do differently today, tomorrow, personally, collectively, to lessen the chances of another century like that. Maybe not every last one of us will despair in the face of that question and maybe that will be just enough to make a difference.
Translation altered (with apologies) from that of Stanley Kunitz as found in Poems of Akhmatova