Old-Style WC in Berlin
Владислав Ходасевич
(1886-1939)
Под землей
Где пахнет черною карболкой
И провонявшею землей,
Стоит, склоняя профиль колкий
Пред изразцовою стеной.
Не отойдет, не обернется,
Лишь весь качается слегка,
Да как-то судорожно бьется
Потертый локоть сюртука.
Заходят школьники, солдаты,
Рабочий в блузе голубой, –
Он всё стоит, к стене прижатый
Своею дикою мечтой.
Здесь создает и рaзpушaeт
Он сладострастные миры,
А из соседней конуры
За ним старуха наблюдает.
Потом в открывшуюся дверь
Видны подушки, стулья, склянки.
Вошла – и слышатся теперь
Обрывки злобной пеpeбpaнки.
Потом вонючая метла
Безумца гонит из угла.
И вот, из полутьмы глубокой
Старик сутулый, но высокий,
В таком почтенном сюртуке,
В когда-то модном котелке,
Идет по лестнице широкой,
Как тень Аида – в белый свет,
В берлинский день, в блестящий бред.
А солнце ясно, небо сине,
А сверху синяя пустыня…
И злость, и скорбь моя кипит,
И трость моя в чужой гранит
Неумолкаемо стучит.
1923
d
Literal Translation
Underground
Where it smells of
carbolic acid
And the stench of earth,
He stands, his sharp
profile bent
Against the tile of the
wall.
He won’t step back, won’t
turn around,
Just slightly rocks all
over,
And the threadbare elbow
of his frock-coat
Somehow shudders convulsively.
Schoolboys come in,
soldiers,
A laborer in a light-blue
blouse;
He goes on standing,
affixed to the wall
By his bizarre daydream.
He’s creating here and
destroying
His own voluptuous
worlds,
And from the cubbyhole
next door
And old lady watches him.
Then through the opened
door
One sees pillows, chairs,
phials.
She has come in, and now
one hears
Fragments of a spiteful
squabble.
Then a stinking broom
Drives the crackpot out
of his corner.
And then, from out of the
depths of half darkness
A stoop-shouldered, but
tall old man,
Wearing such a
respectable frock-coat,
Such a once stylish
bowler hat,
Ascends the broad
staircase,
Like the shade Aida—into
the wide world,
Into the Berlin day, the
gleam of delirium.
And the sun is bright,
the sky is blue,
From high above there’s a
blue wasteland…
And my anger, my sorrow
boils up,
And my cane pounds away
Incessantly against the
alien granite.
d
Literary Translation/Adaptation by U.R. Bowie
Underground
The smell is disinfectant
phenol,
Combined with moldy stench
of earth.
He’s come here not for
reasons renal,
He pulls at pleasure,
forlorn mirth.
His profile bent, his
thoughts remote,
He leans against the wall
of tile,
The elbow of his worn
frock-coat
Is faintly trembling all
the while.
Schoolboys come in, and
soldiers too,
A workingman in
light-blue blouse;
He labors on in that sad
loo,
Rapt in his private
bawdyhouse.
A wild voluptuous
capriole
He’s leapt into with
rings of fire;
While from her next-door
cubbyhole
She peers with
ever-growing ire,
Then open wide she throws
the door,
That crone attendant—one
could note
The pillows, chairs and
phials, more;
Now she’s entered in full
throat,
The fragments of a spat
ring loud,
And with a broom that
reeks of muck
She routs the culprit, cringing,
cowed.
And then emerges the
rebuked,
From depths of gloom he
makes his way:
An old man tall, but
frail, stooped,
In what was once a frock-coat
gay,
In bowler erstwhile much in
style.
He slowly climbs the
broad stairway,
Aida’s ghost, in socks argyle,
He blends with Berlin’s
frenzied day.
The sun is clear, sheer
blue the sky,
An azure wasteland gleams
on high . . .
Inside me burn both grief
and spite;
As my cane pounds at
stone off-white,
I step, am steeped in gruesome
light.
d
Translator’s
Note
The poem is set in Berlin, Germany, 1923. The scene may need
explaining for American readers. When I was sent to Germany in the U.S. Army,
summer of 1964, the arrangement of public toilets was the same as described in
this poem. All over Europe things were set up much the same way, and probably
still are, for all I know. I suspect, however, that the public facilities in
Germany are cleaner these days.
1964. In a little annex when you first enter the men’s WC (often
below ground, as in this poem), an old woman sits, a toilet attendant. She is
there to keep things in order, to clean up occasionally—although cleanliness is
not usually much in evidence and the stench can be overwhelming. She provides
toilet paper when needed, as well as towels, often for a small fee. She has no
compunctions about being in the part of the WC where the urinals are, even
while male urinators go about their business.
The pillows, chairs and phials that the poet/narrator describes
when she opens the door to her cubbyhole are part of her daily arrangement of
things—her little world with her little things in the alcove, where she
presides over urination, defecation, and—in this case—illegal masturbation.
P.s.: Something I read recently in a book by David Sedaris (A
Carnival of Snackery: Diaries 2003-2020) leads me to believe that the
conventions of public toilets in Germany are much changed now from what they
were in 1923, or 1964. Sedaris (p. 45-46) describes what is apparently a
feminist campaign in 2004 to make men urinate sitting down in public toilets.
Entering a bathroom at a bookstore in Hamburg, he saw “an odd
sticker applied to the wall above the toilet. On it were two drawings. The
first showed a man in the act of peeing. He stood looking straight ahead, his
penis in his hand. Normal. This drawing was overlaid with a slashed red circle,
the international symbol for ‘No.’ The second drawing showed the same man
sitting with his pants around his ankles. It wasn’t elaborately detailed, but
you could sense that he was happier here, content that his actions, however
inconvenient, were making the world a better place.”
On the next page Sedaris quotes an article in a supplement to the International
Herald Tribune, “on the WC Ghost, a talking device that attaches to the
underside of a toilet seat and warns the user to sit down. ‘Peeing while
standing up is not allowed here and will be punished with fines,’ one of them
says. The ghost can be ordered with the voice of either Chancellor Schrōder or
his predecessor, Helmut Kohl, and the manufacturer sells two million a year. I
guess the Germans are really serious about this.”
