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Oct. 29th, 2016 at 9:11 AM
13. ВУРДАЛАК.
Трусоват был Ваня бедный: Раз он позднею порой, Весь в поту, от страха бледный, Чрез кладбище шел домой. Poor Vanya was somewhat cowardly: One time, late in the evening, Covered with sweat, pale with fear, He was walking home through the cemetery.
Бедный Ваня еле дышит
Спотыкаясь, чуть бредет
По могилам; вдруг он слышит,
Кто-то кость, ворча, грызет.
Poor Vanya is hardly breathing,
Stumbling, he drags his feet slowly
Across the graves; suddenly he hears
Someone, grumbling, is gnawing on a bone.
Ваня стал; - шагнуть не может.
Боже! думает бедняк,
Это верно кости гложет
Красногубый вурдалак.
Vanya stood stock-still; he can't take another step.
"Oh my God," the poor boy thinks,
"It must be a red-lipped ghoul
Chewing on the bones."
Горе! малый я не сильный;
Съест упырь меня совсем,
Если сам земли могильной
Я с молитвою не съем.
"Woe is me! I'm not a strong fellow;
This ghoul will eat me whole,
Unless I first say a prayer
And eat a handful of earth from atop a grave."
Что же? вместо вурдалака -
(Вы представьте Вани злость!)
В темноте пред ним собака
На могиле гложет кость.
Well then? instead of a ghoul--
(you must just imagine Vanya's anger!)
In the darkness, in front of him,
A dog Is gnawing on a bone, on top of a grave. (Pushkin)
Comments
(...he has a number of risque ones, too, I understand...)
The Turkish Trench-Dog
Night held me as I crawled and scrambled near
The Turkish lines. Above, the mocking stars
Silvered the curving parapet, and clear
Cloud-latticed beams o'erflecked the land with bars;
I, crouching, lay between
Tense-listening armies peering through the night,
Twin giants bound by tentacles unseen
Here in dim-shadowed light
I saw him, as a sudden movement turned
His eyes towards me, glowing eyes that burned
A moment ere his snuffling muzzle found
My trail; and then as serpents mesmerise
He chained me with those unrelenting eyes,
That muscle-sliding rhythm, knit and bound
In spare-limbed symmetry, those perfect jaws
And soft-approaching pitter-patter paws.
Nearer and nearer like a wolf he crept --
That moment had my swift revolver leapt --
But terror seized me, terror born of shame
Brought flooding revelation. For he came
As one who offers comradeship deserved,
An open ally of the human race,
And sniffling at my prostrate form unnerved
He licked my face!
by Geoffrey Dearmer