Chekhov Home/Museum, Near Yalta
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. BowieThe 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 Note
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
ЮРИЙ ЛЕВИТАНСКИЙ
(1922-1996)
ЯЛТИНСКИЙ
ДОМИК
Вежливый доктор в старинном пенсне и с бородкой,
вежливый доктор с улыбкой застенчиво-кроткой,
как мне ни странно и как ни печально, увы, —
старый мой доктор, я старше сегодня, чем вы.
Годы проходят, и, как говорится, сик транзит
глория мунди, — и все-таки это нас дразнит.
Годы куда-то уносятся, чайки летят.
Ружья на стенах висят, да стрелять не хотят.
Грустная желтая лампа в окне мезонина.
Чай на веранде, вечерних теней мешанина.
Белые бабочки вьются над желтым огнем.
Дом заколочен, и
все позабыли о нем.
Дом заколочен, и нас в этом доме забыли.
Мы еще будем когда-то, но мы уже были.
Письма на полке пылятся — забыли прочесть.
Мы уже были когда-то, но мы еще есть.
Пахнет грозою, в погоде видна перемена.
Это ружье еще выстрелит — о, непременно!
Съедутся гости, покинутый дом оживет.
Маятник медный качнется, струна запоет...
Дышит в саду запустелом ночная прохлада.
Мы старомодны, как запах вишневого сада.
Нет ни гостей, ни хозяев, покинутый дом.
Мы уже были, но
мы еще будем потом.
Старые ружья на выцветших старых обоях.
Двое идут по аллее — мне жаль их обоих.
Тихий, спросонья, гудок парохода в порту.
Зелень крыжовника, вкус кисловатый во рту.
1976
d
Literary
Translation/Adaptation by U.R. Bowie
The House in Yalta
The kind-hearted doctor in beard
with an ancient pince-nez,
courteous doctor with diffident
smile somewhat fey;
how strangely it moves me, and
renders my sad thoughts askew—
to think, dear old doctor, that
now I am older than you.
The years hasten by, and sic
transit the glory, they say,
and we feel peeved, for we’d like
all the glory to stay.
The years are borne off, while the
seagulls to new heights aspire,
and rifles on walls go on hanging,
reluctant to fire.
A sad yellow lamp in the mezzanine
window burns doggedly.
Tea-time on veranda in gloaming’s
mishmash-gallimaufry.
Whitish small moths hover over the
yellow lamp-glow.
Boarded up is the house, left
behind by relentless time’s flow.
The house is deserted, and we in
the house are forgotten.
We’ll come here again, to this
place where we feel misbegotten.
Letters in dust on the mantle;
they lie there unread.
We once had our being, but we are
still living, not dead.
The air smells of rainstorms, a
change in the weather it seems.
That rifle will fire at long last,
oh yes, by all means!
The guests are assembling, the
house with new life will soon ring.
The pendulum swings and the taut
string when broken will sing . . .
In desolate garden the cool of the
evening breathes.
We are old-fashioned, like smell
of a cherry grove’s leaves.
The house is forsaken, no guests
and no residents home.
We once had our being; we’ll be in
a new monochrome.
Wallpaper faded with pictures of
rifles antique.
Two persons strolling in allée
through pity most bleak.
Soft hoot sleepy-toned of a
steamship in port faraway.
The green of a gooseberry, tasting
of sour decay.
Translator's Note
Some of the allusions to Chekhov's fiction in the Levitansky poem:
Second Stanza: "seagulls" allusion to Chekhov's play "The Seagull"
Rifles that don't fire: allusion to Chekhov's famous remark that if you have a gun on the wall in the first act of your play it must fire by the final act (see also Fifth Stanza).
Fifth Stanza: Chekhov uses the sound of a broken string offstage in his play, "The Cherry Orchard." The actual orchard is mentioned in the following (Sixth) stanza.
Seventh Stanza: allusion to Chekhov's story "Gooseberries."
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