Leaving the Tobakoff cinema hall, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) murmurs a humorous bad-sailor excuse:
Van, however, did not understand until much later (when he saw — had to see; and then see again and again — the entire film, with its melancholy and grotesque ending in Donna Anna’s castle) that what seemed an incidental embrace constituted the Stone Cuckold’s revenge. In fact, being upset beyond measure, he decided to go even before the olive-grove sequence dissolved. Just then three old ladies with stony faces showed their disapproval of the picture by rising from beyond Lucette (who was slim enough to remain seated) and brushing past Van (who stood up) in three jerky shuffles. Simultaneously he noticed two people, the long-lost Robinsons, who apparently had been separated from Lucette by those three women, and were now moving over to her. Beaming and melting in smiles of benevolence and self-effacement, they sidled up and plumped down next to Lucette, who turned to them with her last, last, last free gift of staunch coul1esy that was stronger than failure and death. They were craning already across her, with radiant wrinkles and twittery fingers toward Van when he pounced upon their intrusion to murmur a humorous bad-sailor excuse and leave the cinema hall to its dark lurching. (3.5)
In his Zapisi ob Aleksandre Bloke (“The Notes about Alexander Blok”) Evgeniy Ivanov describes his trip with Blok to Ozerki (a railway station near St. Petersburg) where they drank red wine and Blok told Ivanov how he composed his poem Neznakomka (“The Unknown Woman,” 1906):
«Женя, я пришел, чтоб ехать с тобою в Озерки. Гулять. Хочешь?»
Пошли в Сашину комнату. Он объяснил: «Вечером хотел пойти к Чулкову, но к Чулкову не пошел, а поехал “на острова” на пароходе и вдруг сам решил, лучше в “Озерки” и “пить”»66. У него такая тоска была, что оставалось только напиться.
Доволен, что я согласился вместе.
Поехали на пароходе. Вышли у Новой деревни. Заехали в Озерки на поезде Озерковском.
Прекрасно на площадках: сидеть можно. Чудный воздух.
Приехали. Пошли на озеро, где «скрипят уключины» и «визг женский». В. Шувалово прошли. Там у вокзала кафе. В кафе пили кофе. Потом Саша с какой-то нежностью ко мне, как Вергилий к Данте, указывал на позолоченный «крендель булочной», на вывески кафе. Все это он показывал с большой любовью. Как бы желая ввести меня в тот путь, которым велся он тогда в тот вечер, как появилась Незнакомка. Наконец привел на вокзал Озерковский (Сестрорецкой ж. д.) Из большого венецианского окна видны «шлагбаумы», на все это он указывал по стихам. В окне видна железная дорога, Финляндская ж. д. Поезда часто проносятся мимо… Зеленеющий в заре кусок неба то закрывается, то открывается. С этими пролетающими машинами и связано появление в окне незнакомки.
«Теперь выпьем, Женя».
«Я насчет пьяниц с глазами кроликов».
«Послушайте!» — говорит, постукивая рукояткой ножа по столу. Лицо серьезное, надменно маскированно. Мне смешно, ему тоже, но роль выдерживает.
«Послушайте, дайте нам одну бутылку красного вина» (показывает на прейс-курант).
Я ощущаю себя в положении девицы, которую привез развращать злодей.
Смеемся.
Пьем вино. Вино не дорогое, но «терпкое», главное — с «лиловатым отливом» ночной фиалки, в этом вся тайна.
Подал лакей сонный бутылку. Откупорив, поставил два стакана.
Пьем и говорим серьезно. То есть он говорит. Я молчу.
О «Незнакомке».
Я начинаю почти видеть ее. Черное платье, точно она, или вернее весь стан ее прошел в окне, как пиковая дама перед Германом, скользнул и сел за столик. Одна, без спутников.
Саша в самом деле ждет, что кто-то придет, она, «Незнакомка». Верно, действительно, кто-то ходит.
По правде сказать, мне тревожно, не знаю «как» тут. Делаю глаза невинной жертвы.
«Еще бутылочку».
Сейчас же лакей подает еще бутылочку.
Выпиваем вторую. Значит, каждый по бутылке.
«Саша, не надо. Я не буду. — Будешь? Дайте еще бутылку».
Надо, чтоб пол начал качаться немного.
«Женя, оставь, это я угощаю».
«Теперь пойдем. Посмотри, как пол немного покачивается, как на палубе. Корабль».
Верно, действительно, точно онемели ноги немного, пол, как при легкой качке на пароходе, поднимается и опускается.
Незнакомки не дождались, поехали тем же путем. Вышли у Летнего сада. Меня сильно мутило с одной бутылки. Вино было подкрашенное, по-видимому, но терпкое и лиловое.
10 мая. Для кого как, а для меня еще истины в вине нет. Такая теперь гадость! Тошнит, травит до рвоты. Морская болезнь от незнакомки. (May 9-10, 1906)
According to E. Ivanov (a teetotaler who got drunk after one bottle so that the buffet’s floor felt like a ship’s deck during a slight rocking), he was sea sick from Neznakomka. Describing his meeting with Lucette in Paris (also known on Antiterra as Lute), Van compares Lucette to Blok’s Incognita:
The concierge returned shaking his head. Out of the goodness of his heart Van gave him a Goal guinea and said he’d call again at one-thirty. He walked through the lobby (where the author of Agonic Lines and Mr Eliot, affalés, with a great amount of jacket over their shoulders, dans des fauteuils, were comparing cigars) and, leaving the hotel by a side exit, crossed the rue des Jeunes Martyres for a drink at Ovenman’s.
Upon entering, he stopped for a moment to surrender his coat; but he kept his black fedora and stick-slim umbrella as he had seen his father do in that sort of bawdy, albeit smart, place which decent women did not frequent — at least, unescorted. He headed for the bar, and as he was in the act of wiping the lenses of his black-framed spectacles, made out, through the optical mist (Space’s recent revenge!), the girl whose silhouette he recalled having seen now and then (much more distinctly!) ever since his pubescence, passing alone, drinking alone, always alone, like Blok’s Incognita. It was a queer feeling — as of something replayed by mistake, part of a sentence misplaced on the proof sheet, a scene run prematurely, a repeated blemish, a wrong turn of time. He hastened to reequip his ears with the thick black bows of his glasses and went up to her in silence. For a minute he stood behind her, sideways to remembrance and reader (as she, too, was in regard to us and the bar), the crook of his silk-swathed cane lifted in profile almost up to his mouth. There she was, against the aureate backcloth of a sakarama screen next to the bar, toward which she was sliding, still upright, about to be seated, having already placed one white-gloved hand on the counter. She wore a high-necked, long-sleeved romantic black dress with an ample skirt, fitted bodice and ruffy collar, from the black soft corolla of which her long neck gracefully rose. With a rake’s morose gaze we follow the pure proud line of that throat, of that tilted chin. The glossy red lips are parted, avid and fey, offering a side gleam of large upper teeth. We know, we love that high cheekbone (with an atom of powder puff sticking to the hot pink skin), and the forward upsweep of black lashes and the painted feline eye — all this in profile, we softly repeat. From under the wavy wide brim of her floppy hat of black faille, with a great black bow surmounting it, a spiral of intentionally disarranged, expertly curled bright copper descends her flaming cheek, and the light of the bar’s ‘gem bulbs’ plays on her bouffant front hair, which, as seen laterally, convexes from beneath the extravagant brim of the picture hat right down to her long thin eyebrow. Her Irish profile sweetened by a touch of Russian softness, which adds a look of mysterious expectancy and wistful surprise to her beauty, must be seen, I hope, by the friends and admirers of my memories, as a natural masterpiece incomparably finer and younger than the portrait of the similarily postured lousy jade with her Parisian gueule de guenon on the vile poster painted by that wreck of an artist for Ovenman.
‘Hullo there, Ed,’ said Van to the barman, and she turned at the sound of his dear rasping voice.
‘I didn’t expect you to wear glasses. You almost got le paquet, which I was preparing for the man supposedly "goggling" my hat. Darling Van! Dushka moy!’
‘Your hat,’ he said, ‘is positively lautrémontesque — I mean, lautrecaquesque — no, I can’t form the adjective.’
Ed Barton served Lucette what she called a Chambéryzette.
‘Gin and bitter for me.’
‘I’m so happy and sad,’ she murmured in Russian. ‘Moyo grustnoe schastie! How long will you be in old Lute?’
Van answered he was leaving next day for England, and then on June 3 (this was May 31) would be taking the Admiral Tobakoff back to the States. She would sail with him, she cried, it was a marvelous idea, she didn’t mind whither to drift, really, West, East, Toulouse, Los Teques. He pointed out that it was far too late to obtain a cabin (on that not very grand ship so much shorter than Queen Guinevere), and changed the subject. (3.3)
In the Tobakoff cinema hall Van and Lucette watch Don Juan’s Last Fling, a movie in which Ada played the gitanilla. In his “Notes about Alexander Blok” E. Ivanov mentions Pushkin’s little tragedy Kamennyi gost’ (“The Stone Guest,” 1830) and says that Blok was not afraid of the Stone Guest, should the latter come and take him by the hand, like Don Juan:
20 ноября. Был А. Блок у меня. «Каменный гость» Пушкина — автомат, через него судьба стучит в дверь. Связь «Незнакомки» с «Каменным гостем» через картонность. Саша Блок говорит, что ему уж не страшно, если он придёт и за руку возьмёт, как Дон-Жуана.
Я вдруг что-то понял, что не понимал. (Nov. 20, 1906)
According to E. Ivanov, Blok saw in Pushkin's "Stone Guest" an automaton through which Fate knocks at the door. After the end of the film Van's and Ada's half-sister Lucette commits suicide jumping into the Atlantic.
Lucette tells the Robinsons (the proselytical teetotalists who invited her to their Tobakoff cabin) that the rock and roll are getting worse:
After he had stolen away, she had remained trapped between the cozy Robinsons (Rachel, dangling a big handbag, had squeezed by immediately to the place Van had vacated, and Bob had moved one seat up). Because of a sort of pudeur she did not inform them that the actress (obscurely and fleetingly billed as ‘Theresa Zegris’ in the ‘going-up’ lift-list at the end of the picture) who had managed to obtain the small but not unimportant part of the fatal gipsy was none other than the pallid schoolgirl they might have seen in Ladore. They invited Lucette to a Coke with them — proselytical teetotalists — in their cabin, which was small and stuffy and badly insulated, one could hear every word and whine of two children being put to bed by a silent seasick nurse, so late, so late — no, not children, but probably very young, very much disappointed honeymooners.
‘We understand,’ said Robert Robinson going for another supply to his portable fridge, ‘we understand perfectly that Dr Veen is deeply immersed in his Inter Resting Work — personally, I sometimes regret having retired — but do you think, Lucy, prosit! that he might accept to have dinner tomorrow with you and us and maybe Another Couple, whom he’ll certainly enjoy meeting? Shall Mrs Robinson send him a formal invitation? Would you sign it, too?’
‘I don’t know, I’m very tired,’ she said, ‘and the rock and roll are getting worse. I guess I’ll go up to my hutch and take your Quietus. Yes, by all means, let’s have dinner, all of us. I really needed that lovely cold drink.’ (5.3)
Describing Lucette’s suicide, Van mentions Oceanus Nox:
The sky was also heartless and dark, and her body, her head, and particularly those damned thirsty trousers, felt clogged with Oceanus Nox, n,o,x. At every slap and splash of cold wild salt, she heaved with anise-flavored nausea and there was an increasing number, okay, or numbness, in her neck and arms. As she began losing track of herself, she thought it proper to inform a series of receding Lucettes — telling them to pass it on and on in a trick-crystal regression — that what death amounted to was only a more complete assortment of the infinite fractions of solitude. (5.3)
Old Van spells out Nox ("night" in Latin) for the benefit of his typist, Violet Knox (who seems to be Ada’s granddaughter and whom old Ada calls Fialochka). In his “Notes about Alexander Blok” E. Ivanov mentions Blok’s poem Nochnaya Fialka (“The Night Violet,” 1906) subtitled “A Dream:”
6 мая. Был у Блоков. Он кончил Университет по первому разряду. Пришел утром. Саша Блок читал стихи «Незнакомка». Кончается «in vino veritas». И затем 3-ью часть поэмы «Ночная фиалка». Красное вино, говорит, фиолетового цвета, а фиалка ведь белая, а не красная, говорю я.
Любе не нравится, тревога. А мне очень близко и напоминает сон кружения мой. Поразительно, что поэма тоже сон. Описанный сон видел на 16 ноября 1905 г. Он мне писал. (May 6, 1906)
According to E. Ivanov, a violet is white, not red. Violet Knox is a blond girl:
Violet Knox [now Mrs Ronald Oranger. Ed.], born in 1940, came to live with us in 1957. She was (and still is — ten years later) an enchanting English blonde with doll eyes, a velvet carnation and a tweed-cupped little rump […..]; but such designs, alas, could no longer flesh my fancy. She has been responsible for typing out this memoir — the solace of what are, no doubt, my last ten years of existence. A good daughter, an even better sister, and half-sister, she had supported for ten years her mother’s children from two marriages, besides laying aside [something]. I paid her [generously] per month, well realizing the need to ensure unembarrassed silence on the part of a puzzled and dutiful maiden. Ada called her ‘Fialochka’ and allowed herself the luxury of admiring ‘little Violet’ ‘s cameo neck, pink nostrils, and fair pony-tail. Sometimes, at dinner, lingering over the liqueurs, my Ada would consider my typist (a great lover of Koo-Ahn-Trow) with a dreamy gaze, and then, quick-quick, peck at her flushed cheek. The situation might have been considerably more complicated had it arisen twenty years earlier. (5.4)
July 21 is Ada's birthday. On July 22 (the nameday of Blok's aunt Maria Andreevna), 1906, Blok read his "Night Violet" from beginning to end (Blok's wife Lyubov began to doze):
22 июля. Именины Марии Андреевны. Разговор за утренним чаем чрезвычайно значительный о том, что семья берет всё, а сама ничего не даёт. И что — «ах, зачем едим?!»
Весело вечером пели. Я — Лоэнгрина, Люба — русские песни. Кружился на носках. Саша тоже: смеялись — понравилось, сам стал <…> В конце Саша прочёл всю «Ночную фиалку». Поразительно близко! Люба стала дремать. — «Люба, ты спишь?» (July 22, 1906)
Blok called his friend Evgeniy Ivanov Ryzhiy Zhenya (Red Eugene). Lucette’s father, Daniel Veen was known in society as Durak Walter or simply Red Veen:
On April 23, 1869, in drizzly and warm, gauzy and green Kaluga, Aqua, aged twenty-five and afflicted with her usual vernal migraine, married Walter D. Veen, a Manhattan banker of ancient Anglo-Irish ancestry who had long conducted, and was soon to resume intermittently, a passionate affair with Marina. The latter, some time in 1871, married her first lover’s first cousin, also Walter D. Veen, a quite as opulent, but much duller, chap.
The ‘D’ in the name of Aqua’s husband stood for Demon (a form of Demian or Dementius), and thus was he called by his kin. In society he was generally known as Raven Veen or simply Dark Walter to distinguish him from Marina’s husband, Durak Walter or simply Red Veen. Demon’s twofold hobby was collecting old masters and young mistresses. He also liked middle-aged puns. (1.1).
April 23 is Shakespeare's and VN’s birthday. But, as pointed out by E. Ivanov, it is also the name-day of Blok’s mother Aleksandra Andreevna:
23 апреля. Был у Блоков Сегодня именины Александры Андреевны. Замечательно все-таки явление божие.
Любовь Дмитриевна ужасно красива, даже жутко становится порой, жутко!
Когда пришел, то Белый прощался с Любой. Он был в белом. Сказала, чтоб я с Сашей отошел туда, к окну говорить, а сама пошла в прихожую договорить с Белым. Потом все пошли в столовую.
Белый неизвестно когда уедет. Ответ на мой вопрос: «Люба, ты не знаешь?»
Вообще в доме опять неблагополучно. (Apr. 23, 1906)
The action in Ada takes place on Demonia, Earth’s twin planet also known as Antiterra. The two main characters, Van and Ada are the children of Demon Veen and Marina Durmanov (Aqua’s twin sister). In his “Notes about Alexander Blok” E. Ivanov (who seems to express Blok’s thoughts) mentions Lermontov’s Demon and says that everything what is new comes to the world in a demonic way and seems to be a devilry:
25 января. Мысль Ал. Блока о двоеверии большая, очень большая, мысль. Но это не в прежнем смысле раздвоения двоеверного в историческом совмещении языческого и христианского. Нет, чувствуется нечто новое. Какая-то «новая красота» (О ней где-то у Лермонтова в «Демоне») и «красота древняя» не новая, историческая красота ангелов-богов, не знающих еще суда о «новой» — Демона, не знающих суда Сына Человеческого.
Исторически небо выдвигает правду этой «красоты», которая ни от богов и ангелов, ни от диавола и бесов, а от странного образа Демона, ибо Демон не диавол и не ангел, а до времени ожесточенный, омраченный человек, в нем страдание человека и «Бог не пощадил и мир не спас», но кто же спасет? Сын человеческий. Потому Демон как бы имеет крылья нового предтечи сына человеческого, приготовляет путь Ему в будущем, до времени вместе и антихристу, но Дева (Тамара — Татьяна) «она его за муки полюбила, а он ее за состраданье к ним» — первая отличает и выводит его на свет, эту «новую красоту», — Демона человека в отверженности небом и землей — миром. Все новорожденное в мире приходит демонически и кажется бесовщиной. Всему новому мир противится, восклицая: «что за новость, черт!» <…>
У Ибсена женщины то сами самовластны, то хотят власти над собой, кого-то сильного. В иных то и другое вместе. Они то демоничны, то ангелообразны. Что женщины Ибсена, анархичны или монархичны? Не то ли и другое вместе <…> (Jan. 25, 1905)
In Blok’s poem Vozmezdie (“Retribution,” 1910-21) the hero’s father is known in society as Demon. At the family dinner in “Ardis the Second” Demon Veen uses the phrase s glazami (with the eyes) and mentions Dr Krolik (the local entomologist, Ada’s beloved teacher of natural history):
Marina,’ murmured Demon at the close of the first course. ‘Marina,’ he repeated louder. ‘Far from me’ (a locution he favored) ‘to criticize Dan’s taste in white wines or the manners de vos domestiques. You know me, I’m above all that rot, I’m…’ (gesture); ‘but, my dear,’ he continued, switching to Russian, ‘the chelovek who brought me the pirozhki — the new man, the plumpish one with the eyes (s glazami) —’
‘Everybody has eyes,’ remarked Marina drily.
‘Well, his look as if they were about to octopus the food he serves. But that’s not the point. He pants, Marina! He suffers from some kind of odïshka (shortness of breath). He should see Dr Krolik. It’s depressing. It’s a rhythmic pumping pant. It made my soup ripple.’
‘Look, Dad,’ said Van, ‘Dr Krolik can’t do much, because, as you know quite well, he’s dead, and Marina can’t tell her servants not to breathe, because, as you also know, they’re alive.’
‘The Veen wit, the Veen wit,’ murmured Demon. (1.38)
In his “Notes about Alexander Blok” (see the quote above) E. Ivanov mentions p’yanitsy s glazami krolikov (the drunks with the eyes of rabbits) who in Blok’s “Unknown Woman” cry out: “In vino veritas!”
Durak (cf. Durak Walter) means “fool.” In Blok’s poem Pristal ko mne nishchiy durak… (“A destitute fool keeps pestering me,” 1913) the fool follows the poet like znakomyi (an acquaintance):
Пристал ко мне нищий дурак,
Идет по пятам, как знакомый.
"Где деньги твои?" - "Снес в кабак". -
"Где сердце?" - "Закинуто в омут".
"Чего ж тебе надо?" - "Того,
Чтоб стал ты, как я, откровенен,
Как я, в униженьи, смиренен,
А больше, мой друг, ничего".
"Что лезешь ты в сердце чужое?
Ступай, проходи, сторонись!" -
"Ты думаешь, милый, нас двое?
Напрасно: смотри, оглянись..."
И правда (ну, задал задачу!)
Гляжу - близь меня никого...
В карман посмотрел - ничего...
Взглянул в свое сердце... и плачу.
In the first poem of his cycle Plyaski smerti (“The Dances of Death”), Kak tyazhko mertvetsu sredi lyudey… (“How difficult for a dead man to pretend…” 1912), Blok mentions khozyayka – dura i suprug – durak (the fool a hostess and the fool her husband) who give a benevolent smile to their guest (a dead man):
В зал многолюдный и многоколонный
Спешит мертвец. На нём — изящный фрак.
Его дарят улыбкой благосклонной
Хозяйка — дура и супруг — дурак.
According to Lucette, Miss Condor (as Lucette called a mulatto girl on Admiral Tobakoff) gave Van a big jungle smile:
Two half-naked children in shrill glee came running toward the pool. A Negro nurse brandished their diminutive bras in angry pursuit. Out of the water a bald head emerged by spontaneous generation and snorted. The swimming coach appeared from the dressing room. Simultaneously, a tall splendid creature with trim ankles and repulsively fleshy thighs, stalked past the Veens, all but treading on Lucette’s emerald-studded cigarette case. Except for a golden ribbon and a bleached mane, her long, ripply, beige back was bare all the way down to the tops of her slowly and lusciously rolling buttocks, which divulged, in alternate motion, their nether bulges from under the lamé loincloth. Just before disappearing behind a rounded white corner, the Titianesque Titaness half-turned her brown face and greeted Van with a loud ‘hullo!’
Lucette wanted to know: kto siya pava? (who’s that stately dame?)
‘I thought she addressed you,’ answered Van, ‘I did not distinguish her face and do not remember that bottom,’
‘She gave you a big jungle smile,’ said Lucette, readjusting her green helmet, with touchingly graceful movements of her raised wings, and touchingly flashing the russet feathering of her armpits. (3.5)
Kondor ("Condor," 1921) and My vse Robinzony ("We all are the Robinsons," 1921) are poems by Valeriy Bryusov. In her memoir essay on Bryusov, Geroy truda ("The Hero of Toil," 1925), Marina Tsvetaev (or rather her eight-year-old daughter Alya) compares Bryusov to Shere Khan (the tiger in Kipling's Jungle Book) and Bryusov's mistress Adalis, to a young wolf from Shere Khan's retinue:
Москва, начало декабря 1920 г.
Несколько дней спустя, читая "Джунгли".
— Марина! Вы знаете — кто Шер-Хан? — Брюсов! — Тоже хромой и одинокий, и у него там тоже Адалис. (Приводит:) «А старый Шер-Хан ходил и открыто принимал лесть»… Я так в этом узнала Брюсова! А Адалис — приблуда, из молодых волков.
Telling Van about Miss Condor, Lucette quotes Kipling:
He clutched at a red rope and they entered the lounge.
‘Whom did she look like?’ asked Lucette. ‘En laid et en lard?’
‘I don’t know,’ he lied. ‘Whom?’
‘Skip it,’ she said. ‘You’re mine tonight. Mine, mine, mine!’
She was quoting Kipling — the same phrase that Ada used to address to Dack. He cast around for a straw of Procrustean procrastination.
‘Please,’ said Lucette, ‘I’m tired of walking around, I’m frail, I’m feverish, I hate storms, let’s all go to bed!’
‘Hey, look!’ he cried, pointing to a poster. ‘They’re showing something called Don Juan’s Last Fling. It’s prerelease and for adults only. Topical Tobakoff!’
‘It’s going to be an unmethylated bore,’ said Lucy (Houssaie School, 1890) but he had already pushed aside the entrance drapery. (3.5)
The entrance drapery pushed aside by Van brings to mind Tyazhkiy, plotnyi zanaves u vkhoda (A thick, heavy curtain at the entrance), the opening line of Blok’s poem Shagi komandora (“The Commander’s Footsteps,” 1910-12):
Тяжкий, плотный занавес у входа,
За ночным окном - туман.
Что теперь твоя постылая свобода,
Страх познавший Дон-Жуан?
Холодно и пусто в пышной спальне,
Слуги спят и ночь глуха.
Из страны блаженной, незнакомой, дальней
Слышно пенье петуха.
Что изменнику блаженства звуки?
Миги жизни сочтены.
Донна Анна спит, скрестив на сердце руки,
Донна Анна видит сны...
Чьи черты жестокие застыли,
В зеркалах отражены?
Анна, Анна, сладко ль спать в могиле?
Сладко ль видеть неземные сны?
Жизнь пуста, безумна и бездонна!
Выходи на битву, старый рок!
И в ответ - победно и влюбленно -
В снежной мгле поет рожок...
Пролетает, брызнув в ночь огнями,
Черный, тихий, как сова, мотор,
Тихими, тяжелыми шагами
В дом вступает Командор...
Настежь дверь. Из непомерной стужи,
Словно хриплый бой ночных часов -
Бой часов: "Ты звал меня на ужин.
Я пришел. А ты готов?.."
На вопрос жестокий нет ответа,
Нет ответа - тишина.
В пышной спальне страшно в час рассвета,
Слуги спят, и ночь бледна.
В час рассвета холодно и странно,
В час рассвета - ночь мутна.
Дева Света! Где ты, донна Анна?
Анна! Анна! - Тишина.
Только в грозном утреннем тумане
Бьют часы в последний раз:
Донна Анна в смертный час твой встанет.
Анна встанет в смертный час.
A thick, heavy curtain at the entrance,
Mist beyond the nighttime window.
Now that you know fear, Don Juan
What's your hateful freedom worth?
Cold and empty is the lavish bedroom,
Servants sleep in the still night.
From a blissful, foreign, distant land
Comes a rooster's song.
What are sounds of bliss to a betrayer
When his time is up?
Donna Anna sleeps, arms crossed above her heart,
Donna Anna's dreaming...
When his cruel features have frozen,
Echoed within mirrors?
Anna, Anna, is the grave's sleep sweet?
Is it sweet to have unearthly dreams?
Life is empty, crazy , fathomless!
Step outside to fight, old fate!
And in answer - smitten and triumphant -
A horn sounds in snowy darkness...
Splashing light into the night, a car
Rushes by, as black and quiet as an owl.
With his quiet, heavy footsteps
The Commander steps inside the house...
The door gapes. Through the excessive frost
Hoarsely like the tolling of the midnightclocks -
The hour tolls: "You called me here to dinner.
I have come. Are you prepared?.."
To this brutal question there's no answer,
There's no answer – only silence.
Frightening at daybreak is the lavish bedroom,
Servants sleep in the pale night.
Cold and strange is break of day
Night is dim at break of day.
Bride of Light! O, Donna Anna where are you?
Anna! Anna! – only silence.
In the horrifying morning mist
The hour tolls one final time:
In your dying hour Donna Anna will arise.
Anna will arise in the hour of your death.