Monkey in India (Langur)
И. А. Бунин
(1870-1953)
С
обезьяной
Ай, тяжела турецкая шарманка!
Бредет худой согнувшийся хорват
По дачам утром. В юбке обезьянка
Бежит за ним, смешно поднявши зад.
И
детское и старческое что-то
В ее глазах печальных. Как цыган,
Сожжен хорват. Пыль, солнце, зной, забота…
Далеко от Одессы на Фонтан!
Ограды
дач еще в живом узоре —
В тени акаций. Солнце из-за дач
Глядит в листву. В аллеях блещет море…
День будет долог, светел и горяч.
И
будет сонно, сонно. Черепицы
Стеклом светиться будут. Промелькнет
Велосипед бесшумным махом птицы,
Да прогремит в немецкой фуре лед.
Ай,
хорошо напиться! Есть копейка,
А вон киоск: большой стакан воды
Даст с томною улыбкою еврейка…
Но путь далек… Сады, сады, сады…
Зверок
устал, — взор старичка-ребенка
Томит тоской. Хорват от жажды пьян.
Но пьет зверок: лиловая ладонка
Хватает жадно пенистый стакан.
Поднявши
брови, тянет обезьяна,
А он жует засохший белый хлеб
И медленно отходит в тень платана…
Ты далеко, Загреб!
<1906—1907>
d
Literal Translation
With the Monkey
Ai, a heavy Turkish barrel-organ!
A thin, bent Croat
wanders
In the morning around
the dachas. A small monkey
In a skirt runs after
him, its backside ludicrously raised.
There’s something both
childlike and old
In its sad eyes. Like a
gypsy
The Croat is suntanned.
Dust, sun, heat, bother . . .
It’s a long way from
Odessa to Fountain St.!
The fences of the dachas
stand out in vivid patterns—
In the shade of the
acacias. The sun from beyond the dachas
Peers into the foliage.
The sea glistens in the allées . . .
The day will be long,
bright and hot.
And it will be drowsy,
drowsy. The tiles
Will sparkle like glass.
A bicycle will flash
Past with the noiseless
[wing-] stroke of a bird,
And ice will rumble in
the German wagon.
Ai, it would be good to
drink one’s fill. Here is a kopeck
And over there is a
kiosk: with a languid smile
A Jewess will give you a
large glass of water . . .
But your journey is far
. . . Gardens, gardens, gardens . . .
The little creature
[monkey] is tired; that gaze of the old man-child
Languishes in grief. The
Croat is drunk with thirst.
But the creature drinks:
the lilac-colored palm
Greedily grasps at the
foaming glass.
Raising its brows, the
monkey gulps [the water],
And gnaws at a desiccate
piece of white bread,
While slowly walking
away into the shade of a plane tree . . .
You are far away,
Zagreb!
d
Literary Translation/Adaptation by U.R. Bowie
The Monkey Business
That morning by the
dachas, bent and flushed,
A Croat saunters, in his
wake a monkey spry,
Dressed in a skirt, his
comic rear upthrust.
A blend of something childlike and aged
Glows in the monkey’s
sorrow-laden eyes.
The Croat gypsy-bronzed.
Dust, heat, thirst unassuaged . . .
Odessa’s somewhere out
there, bathed in sighs!
The dacha fences stage a
blotchy dream,
Acacia-speckled shade
goes on a spree;
Sunlight brightens
foliage; in allées sea-waves gleam . . .
Long and hot and bright
the day will be,
Inclined to drowsy
somnolence. Like glass,
The tiles gleam, all
messy sparkling jumbles;
A bicycle, like
noiseless bird-flap, rushes past,
While ice in German
wagon creaks and rumbles.
How good to drink your
fill; a coin here, ai!
And over there a kiosk;
with a languid smile
The Jewess there a glass
of water will supply . . .
You’ve far to go, alas;
through gardens, mile by mile.
The monkey’s childish
ancient eyes are calm
But languishing in
grief; the Croat, throat bone dry,
Defers to his companion;
the ape’s small lilac palm
Grabs at the glass of
foam and holds it high.
His brows knit, forehead
raised, the ape the water
Gulps, then gnaws a dry
and shriveled hunk of bread,
While slowly walking
off, into a plane tree’s shade . . .
Your way back home is
far—beloved Zagreb!
d
Serb with Monkey
Translation of
Passage from Short Story by Ivan Bunin, “Чаша жизни” (“The Cup of Life),” 1913
Once, when a Serb with a tambourine and monkey appeared
there [on the dirt road in the provincial city of Streletsk—URB], a multitude
of people spilled out over their garden gates. The Serb had a dove-blue
pockmarked face, a bluish tint to the whites of his wild eyes, a silver earing
in one ear, a multicolored kerchief over his thin neck; he wore a ripped coat
obviously secondhand and women’s shoes on his slender feet, the kind of hideous
shoes that even in Streletsk are to be found tossed about on desolate plots of
land. Rapping his tambourine, he sang something agonized and passionate, the
same song about the homeland that all of them sing, have sung from time out of
mind. Ruminating on that homeland, faraway, searing hot, he told Streletsk the
story of some gray rocky mountains,
A blue sea, a white
steamship . . .
His companion, the monkey, was large and frightening: an old
man but all the same an infant, a beast with sad human eyes, deeply sunken
beneath a concave forehead, beneath prominent shabby brows. Only half of him
was covered by his hair, which was thick, bristly, resembling a racoon fur
wrap. Below that the monkey was all bare, dressed in pink-striped cotton print
drawers, from which his small black legs and taut naked tail stuck out
ludicrously. Also ruminating on something private, alien to Streletsk, he
hopped about in the customary way, twitched his backside in time to the song or
the taps on the tambourine, while all the time picking up pebbles from the
pathway, wrinkling his brow, keenly examining each pebble, taking a quick sniff
at it and then tossing it aside.
[Translated by U.R. Bowie from nine-volume
collected works of Ivan Bunin in Russian, IV, 207-08]
No comments:
Post a Comment