The Bronze Horseman
A Tale of St. Petersburg
Alexander Pushkin
Second Part
But behold, sated with destruction
And weary of insolent riot,
The Neva has retreated,
Gloating over its uprising
And abandoning without a thought
Its spoils. Just so the fiend,
Who with his savage gang
Bursts into the village, smashes, slaughters,
Destroys and sacks; screams, shrieks,
Outrage, cursing, alarm, wailing!...
And weighed down by plunder,
Afraid of pursuers, weary,
The bandits hurry home,
Dropping their spoils as they go.
The flood has receded, and the roads
opened up, and my Eugene
Is quick, his heart sinking
In expectation, fear, and anguish,
To reach the just subdued river.
But, replete with triumphant victories,
The waves still boiled with rage,
As if a fire smoldered below them,
And, covered with foam,
The Neva breathed hard,
Like a steed come running from the battle.
Eugene looks: he spies a boat;
He runs to it as if it were a prize;
He calls to the ferryman -
And the ferryman, not a care in the world,
For a ten-kopek piece, gladly
Takes him out on the fearful waves.
And so the skilled oarsman struggled
A long while on the heavy seas,
And every so often the boat seemed ready
To disappear deep in a trough
Along with its bold crew - till at last
It made landing.
Wretched
He runs down a familiar street
To familiar places. He looks,
But cannot recognize. A frightening sight!
It lies all in heaps;
That which is tossed away, that which is demolished;
Shacks badly leaning, and others
Shoved aside by the waves; all around,
As if on a field of battle,
Bodies are strewn. Eugene
Headlong, without a thought,
Exhausted by anguish,
Runs where fate awaits him
With news unknown,
Like an unopened letter.
And now he’s running in the suburbs,
And here’s the bay, right up to the house…
But what’s this?...
He stood still.
He walked back and forth.
He looks…he walks…looks again.
It’s here, this is where the house was;
Here’s the willow. There was a gate there,
They seem to be blown away. Where’s the house?
And full of dark troubles,
He walks, walks all around,
He proclaims loudly to himself -
And suddenly, slapping himself on the forehead,
He bursts out laughing.
The dark of night
Descended on the trembling city;
But for a good while the inhabitants didn’t sleep
But spoke amongst themselves
About the day just gone by.
Morning’s light
Through the weary, white clouds
Shone over the silent capital
And no longer found traces
Of yesterday’s disaster; a purple cloak
Already covered the damage.
Everything was back in its place.
Already along the cleared streets
With cold indifference
People walked. Civil servants,
Having left that night’s shelter,
Went to work. A brave merchant,
Undaunted, unlocked
A plundered cellar on the Neva,
Getting ready to recoup
From a neighbor his substantial losses.
Boats were cleared from the courtyard.
Count Khrostov,
A poet, beloved by heaven,
Has already sung in immortal verse
Of the calamity on the Neva’s banks.
But my poor, poor Eugene…
Alas! His troubled mind
In the face of such frightful shocks
Did not hold up. The riotous noise
Of the Neva and the wind blasted
His ears. With horrifying thoughts
Filled, silently he roamed.
A kind of dream bedeviled him.
A week went by, then a month - he
Never returned home.
His room, abandoned, his lease expired,
His landlord had rented out
To a destitute poet.
Eugene didn’t go back
For his things. He soon became
To the world a stranger. All day
he wandered on foot, and slept on the pier;
Crumbs of food were handed him from a window.
His raggedy clothes were
Torn and falling apart. Wicked children
Threw stones at him.
He often came under
The coachman’s whip as
He was no longer able to make out
The road; it seemed like he
Took no notice. He was stunned
By his inner alarms.
So in this way his unhappy days
Were drawn out, neither man nor beast,
Neither this nor that, not living creature
Nor specter of the dead…
Once he slept
On the Neva landing. The days of summer
Were turning to fall. A nasty
Wind was blowing. A somber wave
Splashed the landing, grumbling with foam
And banging on the slicked steps
Like a supplicant at the door
Of a judge who was paid no attention.
The beggar awoke. It was dark:
It was drizzling, the wind howled dismally,
And somewhere off in the gloom of night
A sentry was sounding off…
Eugene lept up; memories of terrors past
Flashed before him; hastily
He drew himself up, started to walk away,
And suddenly stopped - and in silence
Began to cast his eyes about
With a look of savage fear.
He discovered himself beneath the columns
Of the grand house. On the porch
With upraised paws as if alive
Stood the sentinel lions,
And, just there, rising in the darkness
Over the fenced edge,
An idol with hand outstretched
Sat on a bronze horse.
Eugene shuddered. His thoughts
Became dreadfully clear. He recognized:
The place where the deluge had sported,
Where the ravenous waves had swarmed
In angry rebellion around it,
And the lions, and the plaza, and He
Who towered motionless
With his head of brass in the darkness,
He, by whose fateful will
The city had been settled below the sea…
How ghastly he is in the enveloping fog!
What sort of thoughts are on his mind!
What power is hidden in him!
And, in his steed, what fire!
Where will your hooves land
O mighty prince of destiny?
Is this not the very way
That, with an iron bridle, you
Pulled up Russia at the brink of the abyss?
Around the idol’s pedestal
Circled the penniless madman
And aimed his wild looks
At the ruler of half the world.
His chest tightened. His brow
Was pressed to the cold railing.
His eyes fogged over,
Flames raced through his heart,
His blood boiled. Somber he stood
Before the haughty idol
And, clenching his teeth, squeezing his fists,
As if possessed by a dark power,
“Very well, miraculous architect!”
He whispered, shaking with rage,
“You just wait!...” And he suddenly took off
Running headlong. It seemed to him
That the dreadful tzar had,
That very moment, consumed with anger,
Slowly turned his head…
And, as across the empty square
He ran, he heard behind him,
Like the rumble of thunder,
A galloping, weighty and resonant,
On the quaking pavement.
And, in the light of the pale moon,
His hand reaching on high,
The Bronze Horseman, mounted on his steed,
Is rushing upon him at a clamorous gallop;
And so all night, no matter where he turned,
Behind the poor madman the Bronze Horseman
Galloped with a pounding tread.
And ever since then, whenever he happened
To pass through that square,
His face turned a picture
Of turmoil. He would hastily
Press his hand to his heart
As though to quiet his suffering,
His shabby cap he would doff,
And kept his distance,
Not lifting his flustered eyes.
A small island
Can be seen from the shore. Sometimes
A fisherman running late with his catch
Will moor there with his net
And cook his simple dinner,
Or a government clerk will cross over
In a boat to the deserted island
On Sunday, his day off. Not a thing grows
There, not a blade of grass. There
The flood, as a joke, has born
A little, beat up, house. Left
Behind by the water like a black shrub.
Last spring it was taken
Away on a barge. It was empty
And utterly destroyed. In the doorway
They found my madman,
And, on that spot, gave his body
A christian burial.
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