Читать книгу The bronze Horseman / Медный всадник. Книга для чтения на английском языке - Александр Сергеевич Пушкин, Александр Пушкин, Pushkin Aleksandr - Страница 4

O’er darkened Petrograd there rolled

November’s breath of autumn cold,

And Neva with her boisterous billow

Splashed on her shapely bounding wall

And tossed in restless rise and fall

Like a sick man upon his pillow.

Twas late, and dark had fallen; the rain

Beat fiercely on the window-pane;

A wind that howled and wailed was blowing.

Twas then that young Evgeny came

Home from a party – I am going

To call our hero by that name,

For it sounds pleasing, and moreover

My pen once liked it; why discover

The needless surname? – True, it may

Have been illustrious in past ages,

– Rung, through tradition, in the pages

Of Karamzin; and yet, today

That name is never recollected,

By Rumour and the World rejected.

Our hero – somewhere – served the State;

He shunned the presence of the great;

Lived in Kolomna; for the fate

Cared not of forbears dead and rotten,

Or antique matters long forgotten.

So, home Evgeny came, and tossed

His cloak aside; undressed; and sinking

Sleepless upon his bed, was lost

In sundry meditations – thinking

Of what? – How poor he was; how pain

And toil might some day hope to gain

An honored, free, assured position;

How God, it might be, in addition

Would grant him better brains and pay.

Such idle folk there were, and they,

Lucky and lazy, not too brightly

Gifted, lived easily and lightly;

And he – was only in his second

Year at the desk.

                        He further reckoned

Those still the ugly weather held;

That still the river swelled and swelled;

That almost now from Neva’s eddy

The bridges had been moved already;

That from Parasha he must be

Parted for some two days, or three.

And all that night he lay, so dreaming,

And wishing sadly that the gale

Would bate its melancholy screaming

And that the rain would not assail

The glass so fiercely… But sleep closes

His eyes at last, and he reposes,

But see, the mists of that rough night

Thin out, and the pale day grows bright;

That dreadful day! – For Neva, leaping

Seaward all night against the blast

Was beaten in the strife at last,

Against the frantic tempest sweeping;

And on her banks at break of day

The people swarmed and crowded, curious,

And reveled in the towering spray

That spattered where the waves were furious.

But the wind driving from the bay

Dammed Neva back, and she receding

Came up, in wrath and riot speeding;

And soon the islands flooded lay.

Madder the weather grew, and ever

Higher upswelled the roaring river

And bubbled like a kettle, and whirled

And like a maddened beast was hurled

Swift on the city. And things routed

Fled from its path, and all about it

A sudden space was cleared; the flow

Dashed in the cellars down below;

Canals above their borders spouted.

Behold Petropol floating lie

Like Triton in the deep, waist-high!

A siege! The wicked waves, attacking

Climb thief-like through the windows;

          backing,

The boats sternforemost smite the glass;

Trays with their soaking wrappage pass;

And timbers, roofs, and huts all shattered,

The wares of thrifty traders scattered,

And the pale beggar’s chattels small,

Coffins from sodden graveyards – all

Swim in the streets!

                                    And contemplating

God’s wrath, the folk their doom are waiting.

All will be lost; ah, where shall they

Find food and shelter for today?

The glorious emperor, now departed,

In that grim year was sovereign

Of Russia still. He came, sick-hearted,

Out on his balcony, and in pain

He said: “No Tsar, with God, is master

Over God’s elements!” In thought

He sat, and gazed on the disaster

Sad-eyed, and on the evil wrought;

For now the squares with lakes

         were studded,

Their torrents broad the streets

         had flooded,

And now forlorn and islander

The palace seemed. The emperor said

One word: – and see, along the highways

His generals[2] hurrying, through the byways!

From city’s end to end they sped

Through storm and peril, bent on saving

The people, now in panic raving

And drowning in their houses there.

New-built, high up in Peter’s Square

A corner mansion then ascended;

And where its lofty perron ended

Two sentry lions stood at guard

Like living things, and kept their ward

With paw uplifted. Here, bare-headed,

Pale, rigid, arms across his breast,

Upon the creature’s marble crest

Sat poor Evgeny. But he dreaded

Nought for himself; he did not hear

The hungry rollers rising near

And on his very footsoles plashing,

Feel on his face the rainstorm lashing,

Or how the riotous, moaning blast

Had snatched his hat. His eyes were fast

Fixt on one spot in desperation

Where from the deeps in agitation

The wicked waves like mountains rose,

Where the storm howled, and round were driven

Fragments of wreck… There,

         God in Heaven!

Hard by the bay should stand,

         and close,

Alas, too close to the wild water,

A painless fence, a willow-tree,

And there a frail old house should be

Where dwelt a widow, with a daughter

Parasha – and his dream was she!

His dream – or was it but a vision,

All that he saw? Was life also

An idle dream which in derision

Fate sends to mock us here below?

And he, as though a man enchanted

And on the marble pinned and planted

Cannot descend, and round him lie

Only the waters. There, on high,

With Neva still beneath him churning,

Unshaken, on Evgeny turning

His back, and with an arm flung wide,

Behold the Image sit, and ride

Upon his brazen horse astride!