Читать книгу The bronze Horseman / Медный всадник. Книга для чтения на английском языке - Александр Сергеевич Пушкин, Александр Пушкин, Pushkin Aleksandr - Страница 5

But now, with rack and ruin sated

And weary of her insolence

And uproar, Neva, still elated

With her rebellious turbulence,

Stole back, and left her booty stranded

And unregarded. So a bandit

Bursts with his horde upon a village

To smash an slay, destroy and pillage;

Whence yells, and violence, and alarms,

Gritting of teeth, and grievous harms

And wailing’s; then the evildoers

Rush home; but dreading the pursuers

And sagging with the stolen load

They drop their plunder on the road.

Meanwhile the water had abated

And pavements now uncovered lay;

And our Evgeny, by dismay

And hope and longing agitated,

Sore-hearted to the river sped.

But still it lay disquieted

And still the wicked waves were seething

In pride of victory, as though

A flame was smoldering below;

And heavily was Neva breathing

Like to a horse besprent with foam

Who gallops from the battle home.

Evgeny watches, and descrying

By happy chance a boat, goes bluing

To hail the ferryman; and he,

Unhired and idle, willingly

Convoys him for a threepence, plying

Through that intimidating sea.

The old tried oarsman long contended

With the wild waters, hour by hour,

Sunk in the trough, the skiff descended

Mid rollers, ready to devour

Rash crew and all – at last contriving

To make the farther shore.

                                                Arriving,

Evgeny – evil is his lot! —

Runs to the old street, – and knows it not.

All, to his horror, is demolished,

Leveled or ruined or abolished.

Houses are twisted all awry,

And some are altogether shattered,

Some shifted by the seas; and scattered

Are bodies, flung as bodies lie

On battlefields. Unthinkingly,

Half-fainting, and excruciated,

Evgeny rushes on, awaited

By destiny with unrevealed

Tidings, as in a letter sealed.

He scours the suburb; and discerning

The bay, he knows the house is near;

And then stops short, ah, what is here?

Retreating, and again returning,

He looks – advances – look again.

‘Tis there they dwelt, the marks are plain;

There is the willow. Surely yonder

The gate was standing, in the past;

Now, washt away! No house! – O’ercast

With care, behold Evgeny wander

Forever rounds and rounds the place,

And talk aloud, and strike his face

With his bare hand. A moment after,

He breaks into a roar of laughter.

The vapors of the night came down

Upon the terror-stricken town,

But all the people long debated

The doings of the day, and waited

And could not sleep. The morning light

From pale and weary clouds gleamed bright

On the still capital; no traces

Now of the woes of yesternight!

With royal purple it effaces

The mischief; all things are proceeding

In form and order as of old;

The people are already treading,

Impassive, in their fashion, cold,

Through the cleared thoroughfares, inheeding;

And now official folk forsake

Their last night’s refuge, as they make

Their way to duty. Greatly daring,

The huckster now takes heart, unbarring

His cellar, late the prey and sack

Of Neva, – hoping to get back

His heavy loss and wasted labor

Out of the pockets of his neighbor.

The drifted boats from each courtyard

Are carried.

                        To a certain bard,

A count, a favorite of heaven

To one Khvostov, the theme was given

To chant in his immortal song

How Neva’s shores had suffered wrong.

But my Evgeny, poor, sick fellow! —

Alas, the tumult in his brain

Had left him powerless to sustain

Those shocks of terror. For the bellow

Of riotous winds and Neva near

Resounded always in his ear;

A host of hideous thoughts attacked him,

A kind of nightmare rent and racked him,

And on he wandered silently;

And as the week, the month, went by,

Never came home. His habitation,

As time ran out, the landlord took,

And leased the now deserted nook

For a poor poet’s occupation.

Nor ever came Evgeny home

For his belongings; he would roam,

A stranger to the world; his ration

A morsel tendered in compassion

Out of a window; he would tramp

All day, and on the quay would camp

To sleep; his garments, old and fraying,

Were all in tatters and decaying.

And the malicious boys would pelt

The man with stones; and of the felt

The cabman’s whiplash on him flicking;

For he had lost the skill of picking

His footsteps, – deafened, it may be,

By fears that clamored inwardly.

So, dragging out his days, ill-fated,

He seemed like something mistreated,

No beast, nor yet of human birth,

Neither a denizen of earth

Nor phantom of the dead.

                                                Belated

One night, on Neva wharf he slept.

Now summer days toward autumn crept;

A wet and stormy wind was blowing,

And Neva’s sullen waters flowing

Plashed on the wharf and muttered there

Complaining – beat the slippery stair

As suitors beat in supplication

Unheeded at a judge’s door.

In gloom and rain, amid the roar

Of winds, – a sound of desolation

With cries of watchmen interchanged

Afar, who through the darkness ranged, —

Our poor Evgeny woke; and dounted,

By well-remembered terrors haunted,

He started sharply, rose in haste,

And forth upon his wanderings paced;

      – And halted on a sudden, staring

About him silently, and wearing

A look of wild alarm and awe.

Where had he come? For now he saw

The pillars of that lofty dwelling

Where, on the perron sentinelling,

Two lion-figures stand at guard

Like living things, keep watch and ward

With lifted paw. Upright and glooming,

Above the stony barrier looming,

The Image, with arm flung wide,

Sat on his brazen horse astride.[3]

And now Evgeny, with a shiver

Of terror, felt his reason clear.

He knew the place, for it was here

The flood had gamboled, here the river

Had surged; here, rioting in their wrath,

The wicked waves had swept a path

And with their tumult had surrounded

Evgeny, lions, square, – and Him

Who, moveless and aloft and dim,

Our city by the sea had founded,

Whose will was Fate. Appalling there

He sat begirt with and air.

What thoughts engrave his blow! What hidden

Power and authority he claims!

What fire in yonder charger flames!

Proud charger, whither art thou ridden,

Where leanest thou? And where, on whom,

Wilt plants thy hoof? – Ah, lord of doom

And potentate, ‘twas thus, appearing

Above the void, and in thy hold

A curb of iron, thou sat’st of old

O’er Russian, on her haunches rearing!

About the Image, at its base,

Poor mad Evgeny circled, straining

His wild gaze upward at the face

That once o’er half the world was reigning.

His eye was dimmed, cramped was his breast,

His brow on the cold grill was pressed,

While through his heart a flame was creeping

And in his veins the blood was leaping.

He halted sullenly beneath

The haughty Image, clenched his teeth

And clasped his hands, as though some devil

Possessed him, some dark, power of evil,

And shuddered, whispering angrily,

“Ay, architect, with thy creation

Of marvels… Ah, beware of me!”

And then, in wild precipitation

                                                   He fled.

For now he seemed to see

The awful Emperor, quietly,

With momentary anger burning,

His visage to Evgeny turning!

And rushing through the empty square,

He hears behind him as it were

Thunders that rattle in a chorus,

A gallop ponderous, sonorous,

That shakes the pavement. At full height,

Illumined by the pale moonlight,

With arm outflung, behind him riding

See, the bronze horseman comes, bestriding

The charger, clanging in his flight.

All night the madman flees; no matter

Where he may wander at his will,

Hard on his track with heavy clatter

There the bronze horseman gallops still.

Thereafter, whensoever straying

Across that square Evgeny went

By chance, his face was still betraying

Disturbance and bewilderment.

As though to ease a heart tormented

His hand upon it he would clap

In haste, put off his shabby cap,

And never raise his eyes demented,

And seek some byway unfrequented.

A little island lies in view

Along the shore; and here, belated,

Sometimes with nets a fisher-crew

Will moor and cook their long awaited

And meagre supper. Hither too

Some civil servant, idly floating,

Will come upon a Sunday, boating.

That isle is desolate and bare;

No blade of grass springs anywhere.

Once the great flood has sported, driving

The frail hut thither. Long surviving,

It floated on the water there

Like some black bush. A vessel plying

Bore it, last spring, upon her deck.

They found it empty, all the wreck;

And also, cold and dead and lying

Upon the threshold, they had found

My crazy hero. In the ground

His poor cold body there they hurried,

And left it to God’s mercy, buried.