M.Lermontov, Confession I - Iv - Translation (Rus.) Poem by Lyudmila Purgina

I

The day was over; in a blue gown
Guadalkvivir (* the river in Spain) was flowing, whirling,
Without any trouble about
The world, existing there below.
Alien to happiness, filled with evil.
The south sun was shining, glaring
Brightly, abundandly at noon hour,
But never to a monastery,
To prison with a playing ray
Was coming. What joy it may
Bring to the closed there man!
With head declined in a sombre prison
Was sitting the young hermit, Spaniard,
In Spain he was born - and that's the reason
Of his deplorable, bad fate!
Why? No one could this explain,
But he was blamed, accused for crime;
And failed to search for justice, while
He knew the people and the law,
And hardly could wait a concern.

But one day steps he heard on stairs,
The doors're unlocked, an old man,
Rather descrepit and grey-haired,
Entered in silence the ward's area.
Why did he come that day, the question?
What do the pity or the words
Mean for the dying man? Would a care
Be the better chance for him in all?

II

'Here you're again! The fruitless effort
To tell again, that it's the God,
Who sentenced me for such an ending.
That are - the people, their force...
No, let me dye. My death, you know,
Will not continue their living,
And my days in the future, though,
They can't appropriate - and heat then
Their exhausted long ago
And cold hearts, with all my blood,
Of a crazy man, been so young;
A coffin without a simple cross
Will never satisfy desire,
And never it would be a stone
For their way to heaven, neither.
The ghost of the innocent will never
Give them the key to Paradise.
And I'm really not scared
Of grave, where the torture lies
And sleeps in the eternal state.
But I feel sorry to lose life;
I'm young, so young... Were you aware,
What is the youth, and its dreams bright?
You might not knew, or casted away,
How you were hating, how loved,
How your heart beated faster, faster
In a common view of sun and fields
From the corner of a tower, and lasting
Were then the air freshness; deep
In wall-groove there a child was sitting -
The young dove of other earth,
Was strongly frightened he with storm
Leaning against the cold stone!

Let this bright world became for you
So repelled - you're old, blind,
And you'd got out now, too,
Of habit to desire. - Never mind!
You lived - old chap; you have things to forget!
You lived! I also could do that!

III

'You have come to my prison now
To listen to confession - thank you, old;
I don't know, why such thought
Appeared in their mind? You learned
All my affairs to that time -
Can any soul them confide?
If I could open, unwrap my breast,
Then you can't read there trace
Of whether I'm a villain or a felon,
Though the monastic law'd accepted
To be the real law of heavens;
But in my heart exists the sacred,
Not lesser than your holy law;
It's justified me - all alone,
It is the ruler of my own;
Immutable I'll keep my secret
Till earth will take two friends in fixed time,
Friends, tied together so strong.
The life was only the captivity
Among that sullen walls before,
Where the childhood disappeared,
God knows, where far it's lost?
As dream, without joy and grief,
The shadows of my best days
Through my life passed and quickly sweeped,
I can't restore, in any way,
Them, through my being pity!
Why do you look at me in silence
In so stern manner? I am free...
I'm not the brother now to others.
The callous judges I don't curse...
But, say, old chap, my tongue shan't thank
No one of them, of course,
For that before the purple ray
Of evening dawn will stop its play
On that wall, I - so young and fresh -
Who stays in front of you and yet
Alive (more - five years before)
Shall turn to the only 'No' word!
To ashes, all deprived from Being,
That will be dust, not I, in real!

IV

And how could I in bright age
Leave the high court with soul, and
To live without passions under sun
Of native land? How really could I?
You did forget, that in that curls
You can't see a grey hair, no.
You did forget, that flame in heart
You can't cool either by the prey or fast.
When there is a tempest above chasm,
And thunder is rolling over skies,
Order to waves not to set out,
Order to heart not to hear now
In stormy weather the voice of love! ...
Yes, if this black attire could prevent
For the poison into heart to percolate,
Then I would have been guilty of all that;
But under my hair shirt I only man,
I'm only man, as the other one!
And you, the old chap, if you
Once have seen her, so beautiful,
So heavenly looking, even in your dream,
You should have become envious by this,
In ecstasy you should have also make a sin,
Denyng all - the law and honour,
You should have be the happiest lover
And bear for one word or gaze,
Or kindness - suffering and shame!