Translation of Poem by IVAN BUNIN, "The Artist" (on CHEKHOV) Иван Бунин, «Художник» (А.П. Чехов)

Chekhov Home/Museum, Near Yalta

         150 ЛЕТ СО ДНЯ РОЖДЕНИЯ ИВАНА АЛЕКСЕЕВИЧА БУНИНА: 1870-2020

Иван Бунин

(1870-1953)

«Художник»

Хрустя по серой гальке, он прошел
Покатый сад, взглянул по водоемам,
Сел на скамью… За новым белым домом
Хребет Яйлы и близок и тяжел.

Томясь от зноя, грифельный журавль
Стоит в кусте. Опущена косица,
Нога – как трость… Он говорит: «Что, птица?
Недурно бы на Волгу, в Ярославль!»

Он, улыбаясь, думает о том,
Как будут выносить его – как сизы
На жарком солнце траурные ризы,
Как желт огонь, как бел на синем дом.

«С крыльца с кадилом сходит толстый поп,
Выводит хор… Журавль, пугаясь хора,
Защелкает, взовьется от забора –
И ну плясать и стукать клювом в гроб!»

В груди першит. С шоссе несется пыль,
Горячая, особенно сухая.
Он снял пенсне и думает, перхая:
«Да-с, водевиль… Все прочее есть гиль».

d

Literal Translation

The Artist

Crunching through the leaden shingle [pebbles], he went past

The sloping garden, glanced at the reservoirs,

Sat down on a bench . . . Beyond the new white house

The Yaila mountain range loomed near, oppressive.

Languishing in the heat, a slate-gray crane

Stands in a bush. Tailfeathers drooping,

On one leg like a cane . . . He says: “How now,

Birdie? Time to fly off to the Volga, to Yaroslavl?”

With a smile he thinks of how

They’ll bear him out [of the house],

How dove-blue against the hot sun the funereal chasubles

Will look, how yellow the [candle] flames, how white the house against the blue.

“A fat priest with a censer descends from the porch,

Followed by the choir . . . Frightened by the choir, that crane

Clacks with his bill, soars up from the fence,

And down on the coffin he comes, dances about, and pecks it with his beak.”

A rasping in his chest. From the highroad dust

Drifts down, a hot, particularly dry dust.

He takes off his pince-nez, clears his throat, thinks:

“Yeah, vaudeville’s all we need; all the rest is crap.”


                                    


                                    Literary Translation/Adaptation by U.R. Bowie

The Artist

He passed the sloping garden, crunched through the grayish gravel,

Took note of reservoirs of water faraway marooned,

Sat on a bench and peered at Yaila mountain range that loomed 

Beyond the new white house in sunglare-dazzle.

Tail drooping, on one leg in bush nearby 

Stood languishing in heat a slate-gray crane.

He called out, “Birdie, what’s up? Take the train!

Up north you’ll find a cooler place to fly.”

He mused and smiled, thought how they’d bear him through

The house’s entryway, feet first, pace stately, slow,

How stoles of priests in rays of searing sun look indigo,

The candle flames, the house so white against sky-blue.

“Choir at his heels and censer in his hands, a stout priest next

Goes hobbling down the porch’s steps; the hymns

Affright the crane, who, clacks his bill, spreads wings,

Then soars and lands on coffin top and flutters, pecks.”

A rasping in his chest, the dust from highroad’s sizzle

Blows hot and dry, wafts up and swirls, then sinks;

He clears his throat, removes his pince-nez, thinks,

Vaudeville, there’s the ticket, folks; all the rest is drivel.

d

Translator’s Notes

This poem describes Anton Chekhov in his valetudinarian years, when his severe consumption kept him living most of each year in the warmer climate of the Crimean Peninsula. Bunin met Chekhov in Yalta in 1899, and they remained close friends until Chekhov’s death in 1904. Bunin often visited him at the Yalta house, called “the white house” by locals, which is now a museum. While living in this house (1899-1904), where his mother and sister Masha lived with him, Chekhov wrote, among other things, two of his best plays, Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard, and his most well-known story, “The Lady with the Dog.”

At an event organized by the Moscow Art Theater in honor of what would have been Chekhov’s fiftieth birthday (January 17, 1910), Bunin read from his memoirs of Chekhov and caused a sensation when he played out several conversations, perfectly mimicking Chekhov’s voice and intonations. The great writer’s mother and sister, who were in the audience, were brought to tears.

The poem above, first published in 1913, imagines Chekhov in his final years in Yalta, anticipating his own death and funeral at the so-called “white house.” But, so it turned out, he died not in Yalta, but in Germany, where he had gone with his wife Olga Knipper to seek medical treatment. He is buried at the Novodevichy Convent Cemetery in Moscow.

The slate-gray crane described in the poem is probably a demoiselle crane. The final line is a catchphrase in Russian, originating in Griboedov’s famous play, “Woe from Wit” (1824). The expression is used as ironic commentary on someone’s passion for cheap spectacles, or as a derogatory evaluation of low-grade art. Chekhov himself, whose writing career began with little sketches written for the popular press, rather liked vaudeville. Once, in commenting on the artistic merit of Lermontov’s story, “Taman,” he remarked, “I can’t understand how he could write something like that when he was still little more than a boy! You write a work that good, plus just one fine vaudeville, and you can die happy.”

                                                    Bunin and Chekhov