Владимир Набоков - Стихотворения

He happens to be a French poet, that thin,
book-carrying man with a bristly gray chin;
        you meet him wherever you go
across the bright campus, past ivy-clad walls.
The wind which is driving him mad (this recalls
        a rather good line in Hugo),
keeps making blue holes in the waterproof gloss
of college-bred poplars that rustle and toss
        their slippery shadows at pied
young beauties, all legs, as they bicycle through
his shoulder, his armpit, his heart, and the two
        big books that are hurting his side.

Verlaine had been also a teacher. Somewhere
in England. And what about great Baudelaire,
        alone in his Belgian hell?
This ivy resembles the eyes of the deaf.
Come, leaf, name a country beginning with «f»;
        for instance, «forget» or «farewell».
Thus dimly he muses and dreamily heeds
his eavesdropping self as his body recedes,
        dissolving in sun-shattered shade.
L'Envoi: Those poor chairs in the Bois, one of which
legs up, stuck half-drowned in the slime of a ditch
        while others were grouped in a glade.

When he was small, when he would fall,
on sand or carpet he would lie
quite flat and still until he knew
what he would do: get up or cry.

After the battle, flat and still
upon a hillside now he lies —
but there is nothing to decide,
for he can neither cry nor rise.

«Now it is coming, and the sooner
the better», said my swooning soul —
and in the sudden blinding lunar
landscape, out of a howling hole

a one-legged child that howled with laughter
hopped and went hopping hopping after
a bloody and bewildered bone,
a limb that walked away alone.

Perhaps the window shade had billowed
and slapped the darkness on the face;
but when I had picked up and pillowed
the book of sleep and found the place,

I saw him haltingly returning
out of the dust, back to the burning
hole of his three-walled home — that boy
hugging a new, a nameless toy.

Moons on the lawn replace the suns
that mowers happily had missed.
Where age would stoop, a babe will squat
and rise with star-fluff in its first.

Spell «night». Spell «pebbles»: Pebbles in the Night.
Peep, crated chicks on lonely station! This
Is now the ABC of the abyss,
The Desperanto we must learn to write.

Salieri They say there is no justice on the earth.
I know now there is none in Heaven. Plain
as seven simple notes! I have loved the art
from birth; when I was but a little child
in our old church and the organ boomed sublimely,
I listened and was lost — shedding delicious
involuntary tears. I turned away
from foolish pastimes early; found repellent
all studies foreign to my music — ay,
from all I turned with obstinate disdain,
determined thence to dedicate myself
to music, music only. The start is hard,
the first steps make dull going. I surmounted
the initial obstacles; I grounded firmly
that craft that makes the pedestal for art;
a craftsman I became: I trained my fingers
to dry obedient proficiency,
brought sureness to my ear. Stunning the sounds,
I cut up music like a corpse; I tested
the laws of harmony by mathematics.
Then only, rich in learning, dared I yield
to blandishments of sweet creative fancy.
I dared compose — but silently, in secret,
nor could I venture yet to dream of glory.
How often, in my solitary cell,
having toiled for days, having sat unbroken hours,
forgetting food and sleep, and having tasted
the rapture and the tears of inspiration,
I'd burn my work and coldly watch the flame
as my own melodies and meditations
flared up and smoked a little and were gone.
Nay, even more: when the great Gluck appeared,
when he unveiled to us new marvels, deep
enchanting marvels — did I not forsake
all I had known, and loved so well and trusted?
Did I not follow him with eager stride,
obedient as one who'd lost his way
and met a passerby who knew the turning?
By dint of stubborn steadfast perseverance
upon the endless mountainside of art
I reached at last a lofty level. Fame
smiled on me; and I found in others' hearts
responses to the sounds I had assembled.
Came happy days: in quiet I enjoyed
Work and success and fame — enjoying also
the works and the successes of my friends,
my comrades in that art divine we served.
Oh, never did I envy know. Nay, never!
Not even when Piccini found a way
to captivate the ears of savage Paris —
not even when I heard for the first time
the plangent opening strains of «Iphigenia».
Is there a man alive who'll say Salieri
has ever stooped to envy — played the snake
that, trampled underfoot, still writhes and bites
the gravel and the dust in helpless spite?
Not one!.. Yet now — I needs must say it — now
I am an envious man. I envy — deeply,
to agony, I envy. — Tell me, Heaven!
where now is justice when the holiest gift,
when genius and its immortality,
come not as a reward for fervent love,
for abnegation, prayer and dogged labor —
but lights its radiance in the head of folly,
of idle wantonness? …Oh, Mozart, Mozart!

Mozart Aha! you saw me! I was just preparing
to take you by surprise — a little joke.

Salieri You here? — When did you come?

Mozart            This very minute. I
was on my way to you to show you something
when, passing near a tavern, all at once
I heard a fiddle.... Oh, my dear Salieri!
You never in your life heard anything
so funny.... Than blind fiddler in a pothouse
playing Voi сhe sapete. Marvelous!
I simply had to bring him here to have you
enjoy his art. — Step in!

          Some Mozart, please!

Salieri And you can laugh?

Mozart           Oh, come, can't you?

Salieri                                 I cannot.
I am not amused by miserable daubers
who make a mess of Raphael's Madonna;
I am not amused by despicable zanies
whose parodies dishonor Alighieri.
Be off, old man.

Mozart                 Wait; here's some money for you —
you'll drink my health.

                  It seems to me, Salieri,
You're out of sorts to-day. I'll come to see you
some other time.

Salieri          What have you brought?

Mozart                                      Oh, nothing —
a trifle. My insomnia last night
was troubling me, and one or two ideas
entered my head. Today I dashed them down.
I wanted your opinion; but just now
you're in no mood for me.

Salieri                                  Ah, Mozart! Mozart!
When is my mood averse to you? Sit down.
I'm listening.

Mozart (at the piano)                  I want you to imagine…
Whom shall we say?… well, let's suppose myself
a little younger — and in love — not deeply,
but just a little — sitting with a damsel
or with a bosom friend — yourself, let's say —
I am merry.... All at once: a ghostly vision,
a sudden gloom, or something of the sort....
Well, this is how it goes.

Salieri           You were bringing this,
and you could stop to linger at a tavern
and listen to a blind man with a fiddle!
Ah, Mozart, you are unworthy of yourself.

Mozart You like it, do you?

Salieri                                        What profoundity!
What daring and what grace! Why, you're a god,
and do not know it; but I know, I know.

Mozart What, really? Maybe so… If so His Godhead
is getting to be hungry.

Salieri                                       Listen, Mozart:
Let's dine together at the Golden Lion.

Mozart A capital idea. But let me first
go home a moment: I must tell my wife
she's not to wait for me.

Salieri           Don't fail me now.
— Nay, now can I no longer fight with fate:
my destiny's to stop him — else we perish,
we all, the priests, the ministers of music,
not I alone with my dull-sounding fame....
What worth are we if Mozart lives and reaches
new summits still? Will this exalt our art?
Nay: art will sink so soon as he departs:
he will leave us no successor — will have served
no useful purpose. Like a seraph swooping,
he brought us certain songs from Paradise,
only to stab us, children of the dust,
with helpless wingless longing, and fly off!
— So fly away! — the sooner now, the better.

Here's poison: the last gift of my Isora.
For eighteen years I've kept it, let it season —
and often life would seem to me a wound
too bitter to be borne — I have often sat
with some unwary enemy at table,
yet never did that inward whisper win me;
though I'm no coward and feel insult deeply,
and care not much for life. Still did I tarry,
tormented by the thirst for death, yet brooding:
why should I die? Perchance the future yet
holds unexpected benefits; perchance
I may be visited by Orphic rapture,
my night of inspiration and creation;
perchance another Haydn may achieve
some great new thing — and I shall live in him…
While I was feasting with some hated guest,
perchance, I'd muse, I'll find an enemy
more hateful still; perchance a sharper insult
may come to blast me from a prouder eminence

— then you will not be lost, Isora's gift!
And I was right! At last I have encountered
my perfect enemy: another Haydn
has made me taste divine delight!. The hour
draws nigh at last. Most sacred gift of love:
You'll pass to-night into the cup of friendship.

Salieri What makes you look so gloomy?

Mozart           Gloomy? No.

Salieri Mozart, there's surely something on your mind.
The dinner's good, the wine is excellent,
but you, you frown and brood.

Mozart                                 I must confess it:
            I'm worried about my Requiem.

Salieri                   Oh, you're writing
a Requiem? Since when?

Mozart           Three weeks or so.
But the queer part… didn't I tell you?

Salieri                         No.

Mozart                                 Well, listen:
three weeks ago I got home rather late —
they told me someone had been there to see me.
All night — I know not why — I lay and wondered
who it could be and what he wanted of me.
Next day the same thing happened: the man came;
I was not in. The third day — I was playing
upon the carpet with my little boy —
there came a knock: they called me, and I went;
a man, black-coated, with a courteous bow,
ordered a Requiem and disappeared.
So I sat down at once and started writing.
Now from that day to this my man in black
has never come again. — Not that I mind.
I hate the thought of parting with my work,
though now it's done. Yet in the meantime I…

Salieri You what?

Mozart           I'm ashamed to say it.

Salieri                                    To say what?

Mozart I am haunted by that man, that man in black.
He never leaves me day or night. He follows
behind me like a shadow. Even now
I seem to see him sitting here with us,
making a third.

Salieri                 Come, come! what childish terrors!
Dispel these hollow fancies, Beaumarchais
was wont to say to me: «Look here, old friend,
when black thoughts trouble you, uncork a bottle
of bright champagne, or reread „Figaro“».

Mozart Yes, you and Beaumarchais were boon companions,
of course — you wrote «Tarare» for Beaumarchais.
A splendid piece — especially one tune —
I always find I hum it when I'm gay:
ta-tá, ta-tá… Salieri, was it true
that Beaumarchais once poisoned someone?

Salieri                                                No,
I doubt it. He was much too droll a fellow
for such a trade.

Mozart                   And then he was a genius
like you and me. And villainy and genius
are two things that don't go together, do they?

Salieri You think so?

          Drink your wine.

Mozart                          Your health, dear friend:
here's to the frank and loyal brotherhood
of Mozart and Salieri, sons of Music.

Salieri Wait, wait! You've drunk it off. You've left me out.

Mozart (throwing his napkin on the table)                                 Enough:
I've eaten.

            Listen to this, Salieri:
my Requiem.

              Are you weeping?

Salieri                          These are tears
I've never shed before — painful yet anodyne,
as if I had discharged a heavy debt,
as if the surgeon's knife had lopped away
a sick and throbbing limb! These tears, dear Mozart…
You must not mind them. Oh, play on, make haste,
flooding my soul with sound…

Mozart                                   If all could feel
like you the force of harmony! But no;
the world would crumble then; for none would care
to bother with the baser needs of life;
then all would seek art's franchise. We are few,
the chosen ones, the happy idlers, we
who have no use for what is merely useful,
who worship only beauty — do we not,
dear friend? — But I'm not well — some leaden languor…
I must have sleep. Adieu!

Salieri                                 Until we meet.

Your sleep will be a long one, Mozart! — Nay,
it cannot be that what he said was true,
and I no genius. «Villainy and genius,
two things that do not go together». Wait:
that's false — for surely there was Buonarroti.
— Or is that but a legend, but a lie,
bred by the stupid mob, by their inane
vulgarity, and that great soul who wrought
the Vatican had never sunk to murder?