Translation of Poem by KONSTANTIN SLUCHEVSKY, Константин Случевский, "AN EXECUTION IN GENEVA"

Константин Случевский

(1837-1904)

После казни в Женеве (First Variant)

Тяжелый день… Ты уходил так вяло…
Я видел казнь: багровый эшафот
Давил как будто бы сбежавшийся народ,
И солнце ярко на топор сияло.

Казнили. Голова отпрянула, как мяч!
Стер полотенцем кровь с обеих рук палач,
А красный эшафот поспешно разобрали,
И увезли, и площадь поливали.

Тяжелый день… Ты уходил так вяло…
Мне снилось: я лежал на страшном колесе,
Меня коробило, меня на части рвало,
И мышцы лопались, ломались кости все…

И я вытигивался в пытке небывалой
И, став звенящею, чувствительной струной,
К какой-то схимнице, больной и исхудалой,
На балалайку вдруг попал едва живой!

Старуха страшная меня облюбовала
И нервным пальцем дергала меня,
«Коль славен наш господь» тоскливо напевала,
И я вторил ей, жалобно звеня!..

Literal Translation

After an Execution in Geneva

Oppressive day . . . you went away [passed] so sluggishly . . .

I saw an execution; the crimson scaffold

Pressed down upon the people, who seemed gathered in a throng,

And the sun shone brightly on the axe.

They executed [him]; the head bounced like a ball!

The headsman wiped the blood from both hands with a towel,

And the red scaffold was hastily dismantled,

Taken away, and the public square was wet down.

Oppressive day . . .  You went away so sluggishly . . .

I had a dream: I lay stretched on a terrible wheel,

I writhed, torn to pieces,

My muscles cracking under the strain, all my bones broken.

I was being stretched out more and more, in unheard-of torment,

And then I was a ringing, feeling [sensitive] string,

Barely alive, on a balalaika

Held by a sick and emaciated novice nun.

The horrible black old lady singled me out [selected me],

Plucked me with a trembling finger.

“How glorious is our Lord,” she hummed drearily,

And I kept time with her, twanging plaintively away.

d

Literary Translation/Adaptation by U.R. Bowie

An Execution in Geneva

Oppressive day . . . So listlessly you passed . . .

I watched an execution; the scaffold scarlet red

Pressed down its weight, it seemed, on throngs amassed,

While sunlight gleamed on axe’s blade and head.

They did the deed; a child’s ball, the sconce

Bounced high! With towel the headsman wiped

Both bloody hands, exuding nonchalance;

The scaffold disassembled; square wet down.

Oppressive day . . . So listlessly you passed . . .

I had a dream; wracked on a gruesome wheel,

I lay, I writhed, my body torn, harassed,

My sinews whined, my broken bones did squeal. 

As I in grievous torment lay distended,

A shrunken, scraggy nun I did espy,

She held and played a balalaika splendid,

On which one plonking feeling string was I!

The black hag plunked away, she fretted me,

On me she played and mouthed repulsive croon,

“How great Thou art,” she warbled drearily,

While I kept time and twanged on out of tune.

d

                                                      После казни в Женеве (Second Variant)

Тяжелый день... ты уходил так вяло...
Я видел казнь: багровый эшафот
Давил своею тяжестью народ,
И солнце на топор сияло.

Казнили. Голова отпрянула как мяч!
Стёр полотенцем кровь с руки палач,
И эшафот поспешно разобрали;
Пришли пожарные и площадь поливали.

Тяжелый день... ты уходил так вяло...
Мне снилось: я лежал на страшном колесе,
Меня коробило, меня на части рвало,
И мышцы лопались, ломались кости все...

Я всё вытягивался в пытке небывалой
И стал звенящею, чувствительной струной,
К монахине какой-то исхудалой
На балалайку вдруг попал живой!

Старуха чёрная гнусила и хрипела,
Костлявым пальцем дёргала меня,
"В крови горит огонь желанья" - пела,
И я вторил ей, жалобно звеня! ...

Literal Translation

After an Execution in Geneva

Oppressive day . . . you went away [passed] so sluggishly . . .

I saw an execution: the crimson scaffold

Was pressing down on the people with its weight,

And the sun shone on the axe.

They executed [him]. The head bounced like a ball!

The headsman wiped the blood from his hands with a towel,

And the scaffold was hastily dismantled;

Firemen came and wet down the public square.

Oppressive day . . .  You went away so sluggishly . . .

I had a dream: I lay stretched on a terrible wheel,

I writhed, torn to pieces,

My muscles cracking under the strain, all my bones broken.

I was being stretched out more and more, in unheard-of torment,

And then I was a ringing, feeling [sensitive] string,

Alive, on a balalaika

Held by some emaciated nun!

The black old lady vented nasal sounds, snorted,

Plucked me with a bony finger,

“The flame of desire burns in my heart,” she sang,

And I kept time with her, twanging plaintively away.

Literary Translation/Adaptation by U.R. Bowie

An Execution in Geneva

Oppressive day . . . So listlessly you passed . . .

I watched an execution; the scaffold scarlet red

Pressed down its weight on crowds in square amassed,

While sunlight gleamed on axe’s blade and head.

They did the deed; a child’s ball, the mazzard

Bounced! the headsman wiped his bloody hands with care;

They took the scaffold down in haste, haphazard,

Then came the firemen to sprinkle down the square. 

Oppressive day . . . So listlessly you passed . . .

I had a dream; wracked on a gruesome wheel,

I lay, I writhed, my body torn, harassed,

My sinews whined, my broken bones did squeal. 

As I in grievous torment lay distended,

Some sort of scraggy nun I did espy,

She held and played a balalaika splendid,

On which one plonking feeling string was I!

The black hag snuffled words and snorted through her nose,

One bony finger fretted me, she softly crooned,

“In my heart burns desire’s flame,” her ditty swelled and rose,

While I kept time and twanged on out of tune.

d

Translator’s Notes

Russian Writers View Public Executions in Western Europe

In the spring of 1857, traveling in Europe, Lev Tolstoy, in a letter to V.P. Botkin, describes how he was “stupid and callous enough” to go and view a public execution by guillotine: “I’ve seen many horrible things in war and in the Caucasus, but if a man had been torn to pieces before my eyes it would not have been so revolting as this ingenious and elegant machine by means of which a strong, hale and hearty man was killed in an instant.” Twenty years later he was still disgusted: “When I saw the head part from the body and how it thumped separately into the box, I understood, not with my mind, but with my whole being that no theory of the reasonableness of our present progress could justify this deed, and that though everyone from the creation of the world, on whatever theory, had held it to be necessary, I knew it was unnecessary and bad; and therefore the arbiter of what is good and evil is not what people say and do, nor is it progress, but is my heart and I myself” (A.N. Wilson biography of Tolstoy, p. 146-47).

In January, 1870, Ivan Turgenev was present at a public execution outside the Roquette prison in Paris. Turgenev turned away from the actual event, refusing to watch it. Later he wrote an essay, “The Execution of Tropmann,” in which his semi-fictional first-person narrator describes events leading up to the execution, but he too averts his eyes at the last minute, so that only a few details are described: the sound of “a light rattle, as if wood on wood,” as the yoke descends, and later the “dull growl” of the blade. See the article by Emma Lieber in the Slavic Review, Vol. 66, No. 4 (Winter, 2007).

In Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novels there are at least two descriptions of executions by guillotine. In The Idiot Prince Myshkin describes an execution he viewed in Lyon, France, and in The Brothers Karamazov Ivan tells Alyosha the story of a man named Richard, who was executed in Geneva.

Here is Myshkin speaking in The Idiot:

“Yes—I saw an execution in France—at Lyons. Schneider took me over with him to see it.”

“What, did they hang the fellow?”

“No, they cut off people’s heads in France.”

“What did the fellow do?—yell?”

“Oh no—it’s the work of an instant. They put a man inside a frame and a sort of broad knife falls by machinery—they call the thing a guillotine-it falls with fearful force and weight-the head springs off so quickly that you can’t wink your eye in between. But all the preparations are so dreadful. When they announce the sentence, you know, and prepare the criminal and tie his hands, and cart him off to the scaffold—that’s the fearful part of the business. The people all crowd round—even women-though they don’t at all approve of women looking on.”

“No, it’s not a thing for women.”

“Of course not—of course not!—bah! The criminal was a fine intelligent fearless man; Le Gros was his name; and I may tell you—believe it or not, as you like—that when that man stepped upon the scaffold he cried, he did indeed,—he was as white as a bit of paper. Isn’t it a dreadful idea that he should have cried—cried! Whoever heard of a grown man crying from fear—not a child, but a man who never had cried before—a grown man of forty-five years. Imagine what must have been going on in that man’s mind at such a moment; what dreadful convulsions his whole spirit must have endured; it is an outrage on the soul that’s what it is. Because it is said ‘thou shalt not kill,’ is he to be killed because he murdered some one else? No, it is not right, it’s an impossible theory. I assure you, I saw the sight a month ago and it’s dancing before my eyes to this moment. I dream of it, often.”

The prince had grown animated as he spoke, and a tinge of colour suffused his pale face, though his way of talking was as quiet as ever. The servant followed his words with sympathetic interest. Clearly he was not at all anxious to bring the conversation to an end. Who knows? Perhaps he too was a man of imagination and with some capacity for thought.

“Well, at all events it is a good thing that there’s no pain when the poor fellow’s head flies off,” he remarked.

“Do you know, though,” cried the prince warmly, “you made that remark now, and everyone says the same thing, and the machine is designed with the purpose of avoiding pain, this guillotine I mean; but a thought came into my head then: what if it be a bad plan after all? You may laugh at my idea, perhaps—but I could not help its occurring to me all the same. Now with the rack and tortures and so on—you suffer terrible pain of course; but then your torture is bodily pain only (although no doubt you have plenty of that) until you die. But here I should imagine the most terrible part of the whole punishment is, not the bodily pain at all—but the certain knowledge that in an hour,—then in ten minutes, then in half a minute, then now—this very instant—your soul must quit your body and that you will no longer be a man—and that this is certain, certain! That’s the point—the certainty of it. Just that instant when you place your head on the block and hear the iron grate over your head—then—that quarter of a second is the most awful of all.

“This is not my own fantastical opinion—many people have thought the same; but I feel it so deeply that I’ll tell you what I think. I believe that to execute a man for murder is to punish him immeasurably more dreadfully than is equivalent to his crime. A murder by sentence is far more dreadful than a murder committed by a criminal. The man who is attacked by robbers at night, in a dark wood, or anywhere, undoubtedly hopes and hopes that he may yet escape until the very moment of his death. There are plenty of instances of a man running away, or imploring for mercy—at all events hoping on in some degree—even after his throat was cut. But in the case of an execution, that last hope—having which it is so immeasurably less dreadful to die,—is taken away from the wretch and certainty substituted in its place! There is his sentence, and with it that terrible certainty that he cannot possibly escape death—which, I consider, must be the most dreadful anguish in the world. You may place a soldier before a cannon’s mouth in battle, and fire upon him—and he will still hope. But read to that same soldier his death-sentence, and he will either go mad or burst into tears. Who dares to say that any man can suffer this without going mad? No, no! it is an abuse, a shame, it is unnecessary—why should such a thing exist? Doubtless there may be men who have been sentenced, who have suffered this mental anguish for a while and then have been reprieved; perhaps such men may have been able to relate their feelings afterwards. Our Lord Christ spoke of this anguish and dread. No! no! no! No man should be treated so, no man, no man!”

THE OPEN-ENDED NOVEL (2) DOSTOEVSKY, "Crime and Punishment"

Although Dostoevsky published Crime and Punishment (1866) in the same decade that Turgenev published his Fathers and Sons, C and P, in size and structure, has little in common with Turgenev's work.


C and P tells the story of a contrite murderer, Rodion Raskolnikov, who, unfortunately, is both contrite and un-contrite at the same time. Raskolnikov, in fact, has a split personality and is a typical example of one of Dostoevsky's paranoiac types.

In reading this novel you get the feeling that the author wants his main character saved in the end, wants Raskolnikov to somehow choose the way of the saintly Sonya, who knows in her heart that this man is good and wants him along with herself, in the camp of Jesus Christ.

But Dostoevsky finds himself in a quandary: the novel has run to 450 pages and the main character is still good and evil simultaneously. So the author makes one last effort to get Raskolnikov right with God in the epilogue.

Here we learn that Raskolnikov had once helped a poor consumptive student and his ailing father, had, as well, rescued two little children from a fire. But still he is proud, and for Dostoevsky pride is of the devil. Until the hero humbles himself he cannot hope to be saved.

Note the episode describing Raskolnikov, under Sonya's influence, on the way to the police station to confess his crime. She tells him that he must fall down and kiss the earth he has defiled. He does. But then, when bystanders begin laughing at him, his pride reassert itself and he fails to say aloud (as Sonya has told him) "I am a murderer." Note the comments of the bystanders:

"It's because he's on his way to Jerusalem, boys, and he's saying good-bye to his family and his country. He's bowing down to the whole world and kissing the famous city of St. Petersburg and the soil it stands on" (Norton Critical Ed. of C and P, Jessie Coulson trans., p. 445).

This is a telling statement. Sonya (and Dostoevsky) would like to think that Raskolnikov is bound for  "Jerusalem," where he can find expiation of his crime and salvation, but he still has a long way to go. He is supposed to kiss the good earth, an ancient symbol of warmth and benevolence for Russians, but he ends up kissing the soil of St. Petersburg--the city that, for Dostoevsky symbolizes all the unease and malevolence that works on his hero's psyche, symbolizes, as well, the evil and rationalist ideas imported to Russia from the West.

Back to the epilogue. By the time we arrive here the author is desperate to get his hero saved. Dostoevsky, Christian author that he is, would have the reader believe that in a sudden burst of light, and, of course, with the help of the saintly Sonya, his hero finally receives God's grace:

"How it happened he himself did not know, but suddenly he seemed to be seized and cast at her feet. He clasped her knees and wept. For a moment she was terribly frightened, and her face grew white. . . . . But at once, in that instant, she understood. . . she no longer doubted that he loved her forever and that now, at last, the moment had come. . . . " (463).


Thing is, I don't believe a bit of this. Here we have a mentally ill character who goes round and round for 463 pages, alternating Christian love with satanic hatred, and suddenly he finds himself a salvation of sorts. The whole passage is, basically, made up of empty, forced rhetoric. The author, exasperated with his crazy character, prods him with a stick, forcing him, finally, over onto the lap of Jesus Christ:
"Come on, now. Get on over there! Stop resisting; I said you're saved!"

Of course, even Dostoevsky realizes the false note here. He starts hedging around almost immediately on the last two pages of the epilogue, suggesting that no, Raskolnikov is really not quite saved yet. He will still have a difficult struggle ahead of him. What has just happened, the clasping of Sonya's knees, the receipt of God's grace, is just the first step on his path to salvation.

Oddly enough, Dostoevsky ends Crime and Punishment by describing how the story is not over, suggesting that another whole novel might have to be written before the story is finally told:

"But that is the beginning of a new story, the story of the gradual renewal of a man, of his gradual regeneration, of his slow progress from one world to another, of how he learned to know a hitherto-undreamed-of reality. All that might be the subject of a new tale, but our present one is ended" (465).

This writing of a novel that is not finished when you get it written recalls Nikolai Gogol and his magnum opus, Dead Souls. Gogol ended the first volume (the only one published in his lifetime) on a lofty note, promising great things to come, including the redemption of his rogue hero Chichikov and many other wonderful developments for Russia in the two volumes to come. In his megalomania Gogol seemed to believe that when he finished the trilogy of Dead Souls he would find the secret to the meaning of Russian reality and of life itself. He never finished even the second volume to his satisfaction, and when his great dream died he went crazy and starved himself to death.

The one thing that the endings of Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment and Turgenev's Fathers and Sons have in common is that both authors, at the ends of their works, were doing a lot of wishful thinking. See previous posting on Turgenev ["The Open-Ended Novel (1)]. At least Turgenev's epilogue is an epilogue that wraps things up. Dostoevsky's is an epilogue that leaves the book totally open-ended.

THE OPEN-ENDED NOVEL: (1) IVAN TURGENEV, "Fathers and Sons"

The first of the great Russian realist writers to achieve popularity abroad was Ivan Turgenev. His
most famous work, "Fathers and Sons," was published in 1862. It is actually Fathers and Children in the original Russian, Отцы и дети,but translators have a point in rendering the title as they have, since the novel treats relationships between fathers and sons, and not between fathers and daughters.

The time of the open-ended novel had not yet quite begun in Russian literature when Turgenev published Fathers and Sons. He concludes the novel with an epilogue, a device that soon was to become old-fashioned.

"This would seem to be the end. But perhaps some of our readers would care to know what each of the characters we have introduced is doing in the present, the actual present. We are ready to satisfy him" (Norton Critical Edition of F and S, Matlaw translation, p. 163).

As we see right at the start, the writer is digging himself into a hole. Especially when he mentions "the actual present," which I'm guessing is about 1862 or 1863 in Turgenev's conception of time, but is certainly much a different thing for the reader, say, of 1940.

After this Turgenev goes on for almost three more pages, telling us what has become of the characters, those still living at the end of Fathers and Sons. The reader may be interested in two or three of the the central characters, but Turgenev tells us about the fortunes of even some whom we care very little about.

Of course, the main character, Bazarov, does not survive to make it into the epilogue, but Turgenev gives him his due by ending the book with a description of his grave.

"There is a small village graveyard in one of the most remote corners of Russia. Like almost all of our graveyards it presents a wretched appearance; the ditches surrounding it are long overgrown; the gray wooden crosses lie fallen and rotting . . . . . the tombstones are all displaced, as if someone were pushing them up from beneath; two or three ragged trees scarcely give scant shade; the sheep wander unchecked among the tombs. . .

"But among them is one untouched by man, untrampled by beast, only the birds perch upon it and sing at daybreak. An iron railing runs around it; two young fir-trees have been planted, one at each end. Evgeny Bazarov is buried in this tomb.

"Often from the little village not far off, two quite feeble old people come to visit it--a husband and wife. Supporting one another, they move to the tomb with heavy steps; they go up to the railing, fall down and remain on their knees, and long and bitterly they weep, and intently they gaze at the mute stone, under which their son is lying. They exchange some brief word, wipe away the dust from the stone, set straight a branch of a fir tree, and pray again, and they cannot tear themselves from this place, where they seem to be nearer to their son, to their memories of him.

"Can it be that their tears and their prayers are fruitless? Can it be that love, sacred, devoted love, is not all-powerful? Oh, no! However passionate, sinning, and rebellious the heart hidden in the tomb, the flowers growing over it peep serenely at us with their innocent eyes; they tell us not of eternal peace peace alone, of that great peace of 'indifferent' nature. They tell us, as well, of eternal reconciliation and of life without end" (165-66).


The book could well end with the last paragraph omitted. Without that paragraph Turgenev might have himself a better ending, but he would lose the rhetorical flourish, the sort of thing that Hollywood does so well-- when the music rises and the camera draws back at the end, and the little hairs on the neck of the viewer stand tall, and tears well up in the eyes.

After all, I don't think it would be too cynical of me to suggest that, to look life squarely in the eye, the single quotes on the word 'indifferent' above don't really belong there. Nor can you read the way flowers look at you and conclude with a message of eternal reconciliation and life without end.

But we do like endings like this, don't we? Could be we even need endings like this.

FAMOUS WRITERS SPEAK OF "ANNA KARENINA" (Chekhov, Faulkner)

"Dear Sweet Anna"

In March, 1887, Anton Chekhov's brother Aleksandr fell ill with typhus. Anton Pavlovich immediately set off to see him, taking the train from Moscow to St. Petersburg. His only consolation on the trip there was "dear sweet Anna" ( the novel Anna Karenina), which he read all the way to Moscow.

ILLUSTRATIONS TO "ANNA KARENINA," BY OREST VEREJSKY

Chekhov was not impressed by Turgenev's female characters:

"When you think of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, all of Turgenev's gentlewomen with their seductive shoulders vanish into thin air" (letter to Suvorin, cited in Troyat biography of Chekhov, p. 162).

WHAT THREE NOVELS SHOULD A YOUNG WRITER READ?

Asked once what three novels he would most recommend to a student in creative writing, Faulkner said, "Anna Karenina, Anna Karenina, Anna Karenina" (Tom Wolfe in Harper's, Nov, 1989, p.51).