Boris Pasternak
(1890-1960)
В больнице
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Стояли как перед витриной,
Почти запрудив тротуар.
Носилки втолкнули в машину.
В кабину вскочил санитар.
И скорая помощь, минуя
Панели, подъезды, зевак,
Сумятицу улиц ночную,
Нырнула огнями во мрак.
Милиция, улицы, лица
Мелькали в свету фонаря.
Покачивалась фельдшерица
Со склянкою нашатыря.
Шел дождь, и в приемном покое
Уныло шумел водосток,
Меж тем как строка за строкою
Марали опросный листок.
Его положили у входа.
Все в корпусе было полно.
Разило парами иода,
И с улицы дуло в окно.
Окно обнимало квадратом
Часть сада и неба клочок.
К палатам, полам и халатам
Присматривался новичок.
Как вдруг из расспросов сиделки,
Покачивавшей головой,
Он понял, что из переделки
Едва ли он выйдет живой.
Тогда он взглянул благодарно
В окно, за которым стена
Была точно искрой пожарной
Из города озарена.
Там в зареве рдела застава,
И, в отсвете города, клен
Отвешивал веткой корявой
Больному прощальный поклон.
"О господи, как совершенны
Дела твои, думал больной,
Постели, и люди, и стены,
Ночь смерти и город ночной.
Я принял снотворного дозу
И плачу, платок теребя.
О боже, волнения слезы
Мешают мне видеть тебя.
Мне сладко при свете неярком,
Чуть падающем на кровать,
Себя и свой жребий подарком
Бесценным твоим сознавать.
Кончаясь в больничной постели,
Я чувствую рук твоих жар.
Ты держишь меня, как изделье,
И прячешь, как перстень, в футляр".
1956
Literal
Translation
In the Hospital
They stood as if
in front of a show window,
Almost blocking
off the pavement.
They shoved the
stretcher into the ambulance,
The medic jumped
into the front seat.
And passing by sidewalks,
courtyards
And gapers, the chaos
of the night streets,
The first-aid
vehicle dove, headlights-first,
Into the
darkness.
Policemen,
streets, faces
Flashed by in the
light of the streetlamp.
Holding a phial
of ammonium chloride,
The nurse’s
assistant swayed from side to side.
Rain fell, and in
the reception room
The drain dripped
water drearily,
While line after
scribbled line,
They filled in
the entry form.
They put him in a
cot by the entrance,
For the wing was
totally full.
The place reeked
of iodine steam,
And a draught
blew through the window from the street.
The window
embraced in its square
Part of the
garden and a patch of sky.
The new arrival
trained his eyes
On the wards, the
floors and white coats.
When suddenly
from the sick nurse’s questions,
As she shook her
head, side to side,
He realized that
he was not likely
To come out of
this mess alive.
Then, with
gratitude, he glanced out
The window, beyond
which a wall
Was illumined, as
if
By the spark from
a fire in the city.
The gates of the
city glowed red,
And in the gleam
of the city lights
A maple tree’s
gnarled branches
Bowed their
farewell to the sick man.
“O Lord, how
consummate
Are Thy works,”
thought the patient;
“The beds and the
people and walls,
This night of
death and the night city.
“I’ve taken a
sleeping draught
And I cry as I
clutch at my handerchief.
O God, my
distraught tears
Hinder my seeing
of Thee.
“By the dim light
that falls faintly
On my bed it is
sweet for me to know
That I and my
destiny
Are Thy precious
gift.
“Dying in this
hospital cot,
I feel the warmth
of Thy hands.
Thou holdest me
like a hand-made artifact,
And hide me away
like a ring in a jewel case.”
Literary
Translation/Adaptation by U.R. Bowie
In the Hospital
They stood almost
blocking the pavement and stores,
As if scanning the
wares in a show window’s glare;
The stretcher slid
though past the ambulance doors,
The medics jumped
in; they drove into the square.
And passing by
sidewalks, by courtyards and gapers,
Through tumult
and chaos of streets in the night,
The rescue squad’s
headlights massaged the soft vapors,
Dove into opaqueness
devoid of all light.
Policemen and
faces, a bleak alleyway
Flashed by all agleam
as the vehicle sped;
Clutching an
atropine phial and a spray,
The EMT tech scanned
the roof overhead.
Rain fell as they
bore him to ER reception,
Where a querulous
drain dripped and slurred.
Line after line
in his dim apperception,
On forms for
admittance the scribbled words blurred.
They gave him a
cot by the entryway rooms,
For the wing was jam-packed
with the ill.
An iodine reek
blew about noxious fumes;
A breeze from the
street touched the window and sill.
One smidgen of
garden, a portion of sky
Were posed in the
window-frame square.
The just-arrived
patient trained keen avid eye
On ward floors
and white coats and stair.
But the soft
reverie of his mind unattended
Was jolted by
inquiries the duty nurse made.
Her head-shaking
mien and her glum look portended:
A sad end to this
mess you’re not apt to evade.
Then he gazed out
with gratitude flooding his soul
At the wall that
was gleaming beyond window’s frame.
On that wall, as
if sparks from bituminous coal,
Did the lights of
the city their message declaim.
In sunset’s
reflection a far gate glowed red,
The blaze of a
maple tree smoldered, and now
A long gnarly
branch of that tree tossed its head,
Then sent to the
sick man a low farewell bow.
“O Lord (thought
the patient), “how perfect thy ways,
Thy people, and
walls and the scope of thy breath;
The beds and the parquet,
the warmth of thy gaze,
And the black of
the city on the night of my death.
“A
sleeping-draught dosage I’ve taken for rest,
And I clutch at
my handkerchief, weep;
O God, all the
tears of emotions distressed
Are blinding my
eyes while thy soft face I seek.
“Faint glimmers
on walls make the air radiate,
Illumining beds
and the ward tossed adrift;
How sweet is the
thought that my self and my fate,
All my heartbeats
and days are Thy own precious gift.
“As I fade into
death in this hospital bed
I can sense Thy warm
touch while life lingers;
Like a filigreed
ring, with a promise unsaid,
Blessed hands hold
me tight in smooth fingers.”
Translator’s
Notes
From an Article in
Russian by David Aidelman on the Website LiveJournal
In the autumn of
1952 Boris Pasternak was having troubles with his teeth. Dentures were made
for him, but they did not fit properly. Returning from a visit to the dentist
on October 20, 1952, Pasternak suddenly lost consciousness. His wife phoned
for an ambulance, and the emergency crew arrived very quickly. The doctor on
the team suspected a heart attack; he administered injections of camphor and
Pantopon. Regaining consciousness, Pasternak complained of sharp pains in his
chest.
The ambulance
rushed him to the Botkin Hospital in Moscow; on the way there he began
vomiting blood. The cardiological ward had no room for him, so he was given a
bed in the corridor. In accord with normal practice in Soviet hospitals, his
wife was not allowed to remain with him, and she returned home. Pasternak
later described numerous times what happened next. Instead of feeling anxious
and fearful in the face of death, Pasternak experienced a sudden euphoria,
paroxysms of happiness. Here is how he describes the experience in a letter
to Nina Tabidze:
“When that
happened and they took me away [to the hospital], I spent the first five
hours lying that evening in the reception area; then I spent the whole night
in the corridor of a normal huge and overcrowded Soviet hospital. In the
intervals between loss of consciousness and attacks of nausea and vomiting, I
was suffused with such feelings of serenity and beatitude!
“I thought that
should I die nothing inopportune or irremediable would happen. Zina and
Lyonechka [wife and son] have the means to make do for six months or a year,
and after that they’ll get their bearings and find some way to cope. They’ll
have friends; nobody will offend them. And my end won’t come suddenly, when
I’m in the middle of working furiously on some project I haven’t been able to
finish. What little I’ve managed to get done in spite of the obstacles time
has placed in my way is complete now (translations of Shakespeare, Faust,
Baratashvili).
“And nearby
everything moved along in such a familiar way, all things grouped themselves
together in such distinct outlines, the shadows were laid down in such sharp
contrast. Enveloped in darkness and silence, the long corridor with bodies of
sleeping patients ended with a window that looked out on the garden, with its
ink-black murk of a rainy night and the reflection of lights from the city,
the glow of Moscow beyond the crowns of the trees. And that corridor, and the
green of the lampshade on the desk of the duty nurse by the window, and the
silence, and the shadows of the night nurses, and the nearness of death
beyond that window and behind my own back, all of that taken in the aggregate
was such a boundless, such a superhuman piece of poetry!
“At the moment
that seemed the last in my life more than ever before I wanted to speak with
God, to sing praises to what I saw, to capture and imprint it in my memory. ‘Lord,’
I whispered, “I thank Thee for having laid on the coloring of the paints so
thickly, for having made life and death such that Thy language is grandeur
and music, for having made me an artist, whose creativity is Thy school, for
the whole of my life preparing me for this night.’ And I rejoiced and wept
with happiness.”
FOR THOSE WHO
READ RUSSIAN HERE IS THE WHOLE OF THAT POSTING
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