Unknown Lady
Yuri Falik (1936-2009)
[Sung in Russian]
[English translation:]
The restaurants on hot spring evenings
Lie under a dense and savage air.
Foul drafts and hoots from drunken revelers
Contaminate the thoroughfare.
Above the dusty lanes of suburbia
Above the tedium of bungalows
A pretzel sign begilds a bakery
And children screech fortissimo.
And every evening beyond the barriers
Gentlemen of practiced wit and charm
Go strolling beside the drainage ditches—
A tilted derby and a lady at the arm.
The squeak of oarlocks comes over the lake water
A woman’s shriek assaults the ear
While above, in the sky, inured to everything,
The moon looks on with a mindless leer.
And every evening my one companion
Sits here, reflected in my glass.
Like me, he has drunk of bitter mysteries.
Like me, he is broken, dulled, downcast.
The sleepy lackeys stand beside tables
Waiting for the night to pass
And tipplers with the eyes of rabbits
Cry out: “In vino veritas!”
And every evening (or am I imagining?)
Exactly at the appointed time
A girl’s slim figure, clothed in silk,
Glides past the window's mist and grime
And slowly passing through the revelers,
Unaccompanied, always alone,
Exuding mists and secret fragrances,
She sits at the table that is her own.
Something ancient, something legendary
Surrounds her presence in the room,
Her narrow hand, her silk, her bracelets,
Her hat, the rings, the ostrich plume.
Entranced by her presence, near and enigmatic,
I gaze through the dark of her lowered veil
And I behold an enchanted shoreline
And enchanted distances, far and pale.
I am made a guardian of the higher mysteries,
Someone's sun is entrusted to my control.
Tart wine has pierced the last convolution
of my labyrinthine soul.
And now the drooping plumes of ostriches
Asway in my brain droop slowly lower
And two eyes, limpid, blue, and fathomless
Are blooming on a distant shore.
Inside my soul a treasure is buried.
The key is mine and only mine.
How right you are, you drunken monster!
I know: the truth is in the wine.
— Alexander Blok (1880-1921)
Kangaroo
Sergei Ekimov (b. 1974)
[Sung in Russian]
[English translation:]
Dreams didn't keep me in bliss today:
I awoke early in the morning
And went out breathing in fresh air
To look at my lively kangaroo.
He tore down bunches of tarry needles
And chewed them for no reason—silly!
He began jumping toward me
Making funny loud noises.
His caresses are so clumsy,
But I love to caress him back
And see his little brown eyes
Enlightening our feast in a flash.
Later I sat on a bench, weary,
Dreaming of someone who is far away and unknown—
The one whom I love:
Why is he not coming to me?
My thoughts are clearly lying down
Like leaves’ shadows in the morning:
I do want to caress someone
As I was caressed by my kangaroo.
— Nikolai Gumilev (1886-1921)
“Unknown Lady” and “Kangaroo" were recorded by the Houston Chamber Choir in the album “Ravishingly Russian" released in MSR Classics in 2010.
