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!”