Любовь
Я дважды пробуждался этой ночью
и брел к окну , и фонари в окне ,
обрывок фразы, сказанной во сне,
сводя на нет, подобно многоточью
не приносили утешенья мне.
Ты снилась мне беременной, и вот,
проживши столько лет с тобой в разлуке,
я чувствовал вину свою, и руки,
ощупывая с радостью живот,
на практике нашаривали брюки
и выключатель. И бредя к окну ,
я знал, что оставлял тебя одну
там, в темноте, во сне, где терпеливо
ждала ты, и не ставила в вину,
когда я возвращался, перерыва
умышленного. Ибо в темноте ‐
там длится то, что сорвалось при свете.
Мы там женаты, венчаны, мы те
двуспинные чудовища, и дети
лишь оправданье нашей наготе
в какую-нибудь будущую ночь
ты вновь придешь усталая, худая,
и я увижу сына или дочь,
еще никак не названных ‐ тогда я
не дернусь к выключателю и прочь
руки не протяну уже, не вправе
оставить вас в том царствии теней,
безмолвных, перед изгородью дней,
впадающих в зависимость от яви,
с моей недосягаемостью в ней.
Иосиф Бродский (1940-1996) |
On Love
Twice I woke up tonight and wandered to
the window. And the lights down on the street,
like pale omission points, tried to complete
the fragment of a sentence spoken through
sleep, but diminished darkness, too.
I’d dreamt that you were pregnant, and in spite
of having lived so many years apart
I still felt guilty and my heartened palm
caressed your belly as, by the bedside,
it fumbled for my trousers and the light-
switch on the wall. And with the bulb turned on
I knew that I was leaving you alone
there, in the darkness, in the dream, where calmly
you waited till I might return,
not trying to reproach or scold me
for the unnatural hiatus. For
darkness restores what light cannot repair.
There we are married, blest, we make once more
the two-backed beast and children are the fair
excuse of what we’re naked for.
Some future night you will appear again.
You’ll come to me, worn out and thin now, after
things in between, and I’ll see son or daughter
not named as yet. This time I will restrain
my hand from groping for the switch, afraid
and feeling that I have no right
to leave you both like shadows by that sever-
ing fence of days that bar your sight,
voiceless, negated by the real light
that keeps me unattainable forever.
Joseph Brodsky
Translated by Daniel Weissbort with the author |
Love
Twice I awoke and plodded to the window
this night, and street lamps, like omission dots,
reduced to naught with their glaring shots
the fragment of a phrase said in the limbo
of what I dreamed, but couldn’t soothe my thoughts.
I dreamed of you being pregnant, I was rapt;
after the years we had been separated
I felt the guilt in me, while, elated,
my hands caressed your belly, but, in fact,
they fumbled for my pants; then concentrated
to find the light switch. While plodding on,
I knew that I was leaving you alone
within the dreamy dark, where you were waiting
with patience and forgave me for my long
escapes, which had been so devastating,
but willful, too, since there, in the black,
continues what has failed in the glow.
We’re married there, we’re the double-back
monstrosities, and children that we grow
but justify the nakedness we stack.
You’ll come again one night that’s dark like pitch,
so weary and thin, and then I’ll see my
still nameless son or daughter, and, bewitched,
won’t pluck myself to drive away the seeming,
won’t move my hand towards the wicked switch ‐
I have no right to part with the surreal
and leave you both in that shady haze,
leave speechless there, by the fence of days,
becoming so dependant on the real,
in which I can’t be reached in time and space.
Joseph Brodsky
Translated by Evgeny Matusov |
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