silence, exile, and cunning

Век мой, зверь мой, кто сумеет Заглянуть в твои зрачки И своею кровью склеит Двух столетий позвонки?

Кровь-строительница хлещет Горлом из земных вещей, Захребетник лишь трепещет На пороге новых дней.

Тварь, покуда жизнь хватает, Донести хребет должна, И невидимым играет Позвоночником волна.

Словно нежный хрящ ребенка, Век младенческой земли. Снова в жертву, как ягненка, Темя жизни принесли.

Чтобы вырвать век из плена, Чтобы новый мир начать, Узловатых дней колена Нужно флейтою связать.

Это век волну колышет Человеческой тоской, И в траве гадюка дышит Мерой века золотой.

И еще набухнут почки, Брызнет зелени побег, Но разбит твой позвоночник, Мой прекрасный жалкий век!

И с бессмысленной улыбкой Вспять глядишь, жесток и слаб, Словно зверь, когда-то гибкий, На следы своих же лап.

Кровь-строительница хлещет Горлом из земных вещей И горячей рыбой мещет В берег теплый хрящ морей.

И с высокой сетки птичьей, От лазурных влажных глыб Льется, льется безразличье На смертельный твой ушиб.

Моим стихам, написанным так рано, Что и не знала я, что я — поэт, Сорвавшимся, как брызги из фонтана, Как искры из ракет,

Ворвавшимся, как маленькие черти, В святилище, где сон и фимиам, Моим стихам о юности и смерти, — Нечитанным стихам! —

Разбросанным в пыли по магазинам Где их никто не брал и не берет, Моим стихам, как драгоценным винам, Настанет свой черед.

He’s greedy and jealous. He’d like to cook all the omelettes, all the pies, all the cutlets, and bake all the bread himself. He’d like to engender the food himself. He gave birth to “The Quarter.”

And his child is growing. The Quarter is going to be a gigantic establishment: the largest dining room, the largest kitchen in existence. A two-course dinner will cost a quarter.

War has been declared on ordinary kitchens.

A thousand kitchens can already be considered captured.

He’s going to put an end to do-it-yourself cooking, “small-family” sizes, half-bottles, and so on. He will combine all the meat grinders, camp stoves, frying pans, faucets … It is going to be what you might call the industrialization of the kitchen.

He’s organized a number of commissions. His vegetable peelers, produced in a Soviet factory, turned out to be excellent. A German engineer is building the kitchen. Numerous plants are filling Babichev’s orders.

I’ve learned the following about him:

One morning he, the Director of a Trust, with his briefcase under his arm, a very solid citizen, an obviously official personage, mounted an unfamiliar staircase amidst all the charms of a rear entrance and knocked on the first door he came to. In this Harun al-Rashid manner he descended upon a kitchen in a workers’ tenement somewhere on the edge of town. He saw soot, dirt, demented furies tearing about in the smoke, and weeping children. He was immediately set upon. He was in everyone’s way, this enormous man, taking up their space, light, and air. Besides that, he had a briefcase, a pince-nez, and an elegant and cleanly air about him. The furies decided that he must be a member of some commission. Arms akimbo, they lit into him. He left. Thanks to him (they screamed after him) the kerosene stove had gone out, a glass had been broken, and the soup had been oversalted. He left without having said what he’d meant to say. He has no imagination. What he meant to say was:

“Women! We shall blow the soot off you, cleanse your nostrils of smoke, and your ears of this infernal racket— we shall force the potato to discard its own peel by magic, instantaneously, we shall restore to you all those hours that the kitchen has stolen from you—you’ll get half your life back. You, young wife, you make soup for your husband. And half your day goes into that miserable puddle of soup! We are going to transform those miserable puddles of soup of yours into glistening seas, borscht into oceans of borscht, heap up kasha in mounds, unleash glaciers of fruit jelly. Listen to me, housewives, just wait. We promise you: The sunshine will flood across your tile floors, copper kettles will glow like fire, your plates will be as clean as lilies, your milk as thick as mercury, and your soup so fragrant that the very flowers upon the table will be envious.”