ALEXANDER PUSHKIN

FEAST DURING THE PLAGUE

(FROM WILSON'S TRAGEDY: CITY OF THE PLAGUE)

A street. A table is set. Several feasting men and women.

YOUNG MAN

Most honorable chairman! Let's remember
A friend and colleague, a man we all knew well.
He, who by jest and witty storytelling,
Sharp observation, cutting repartees,
So acid in their strange and solemn humor,
Enlightened thus our table's conversation.
He helped dispel and chase away the darkness
The plague, our uninvited guest, has cast
Upon our best and brightest brilliant minds.
Two days ago in unison our laughter
Played to his stories. No, it cannot be
That in our merry feasting we forget him,
Old Jackson! That joker! Look now, how empty
His chair stands waiting, as if expecting
Him to return. But he is gone from here
For colder parts, that underground estateÉ
Although a sharper tongue has never fared
From here into the coffin's dusty silence;
But we are many left alive, so there's
No reason to be sorrowful. And now,
Let's raise a toast in memory of Jackson,
Let glasses ring and lift our voices higher
As if he were alive.

CHAIRMAN

It was the first death
To strike our friendly table. So let us drink
To his honor in silence.

YOUNG MAN

Be it so.
All drink in silence.

CHAIRMAN

Your voice, my dear, brings forth with wild perfection
The hidden beauty of your country song.
Sing, Mary, sing? long laments of broken hearts
So we may turn to merriment more madly,
As one who has been torn away by visions
Returns with passion to his worldly matters.

MARY (singing)

Once upon a time our village
Was so peaceful to behold:
Every Sunday early morning
Church was filled with young and old;
Our children's happy voices
From the noisy school sang sweet,
Busy scythe and gleaming sickle
Flickered over fields of wheat.

Now the church is still and empty;
And the schoolhouse stands forlorn;
Darkness falls upon the forest;
And in vain stands ripe the corn;
House and home are burned and blackened,
Village ruined on the hill.
All is quiet, but the graveyard,
seldom empty, never still.

Every minute corpses carried;
And the groans of those who live
Call on God their sins to pardon
And eternal rest to give.
Every minute numbers growing,
Shovels work around the clock,
And the graves, they crowd together,
Lined up like a frightened flock.

If my youthful spring is fated,
Destined to an early grave,
You whom I have loved so dearly,
You, to whom my life I gave &endash;
Stay away, I pray, from Jenny,
To her corpse do not come near,
You must never touch her dead lips,
For your own life, pray, have fear.

And then after I am buried,
Go, forget this ghostly town!
There's a place, you'll find another
Who will wear the wedding gown.
When, at last, the plague is over,
Visit my poor dust, I pray;
And in heaven faithful Jenny
Will besides her Edmund stay!

CHAIRMAN

Our gratitude, dear melancholy Mary,
We thank you for sentimental song.
In bygone days, a plague like ours seems to
Have visited your country's hills and valleys,
And moaning pitiful laments had sounded
Down brooks and streams, along the shores of rivers,
Which now run peacefully and happy
Throughout your native land's wild paradise;
That gloomy year when myriad had fallen
Good hearted, proud, pure noble souls,
That year's dark mem'ry barely left a trace
In some forgotten simple shepherd's song,
So mournful and so pleasing. No, there is naught
That brings such sadness to our celebration
As the pining sound that echoes in the heart.

MARY

Oh, had I never sung outside the cottage
Where I lived with my parents as a child.
Oh, how they loved the voice of their dear Mary.
I hear my own self singing in the old days
Before I stepped across my native threshold.
My voice was sweeter in those days, it was
The golden voice of innocence.

LUISA

These ditties
Are out of fashion now. But even still
There are some simple spirits quick to soften
At women's tears and blindly follow them.
She seems quite confident her tear-filled glances
Men cannot resist; if she thought also
A bit about her smile, I'd bet a pound
She would be grinning. Poor Walsingham,
He praises barking northern beauties: that's why
She tries so hard to whimper. How I hate
That shitty yellow of that Scottish hair!

CHAIRMAN

Shh... Listen: I hear the clattering of wheels.

A cart passes, filled with dead bodies. A black man drives it.

CHAIRMAN

What now! Luisa fainted. But judging
By her tongue I thought she had a manly heart.
You seeÉ the cruel is weaker than the tender,
And fear inhabits souls tortured by passions.
Some water, Mary, on her face. She's better.

MARY

Rest now, dear sister of my shame and sorrow,
Recline upon my breast.

LUISA (regaining herself)

I had a vision:
As dark as night, a white eyed, horrid demon.
He beckoned me into his carriage. There
Lay gruesome bodies -- and they muttered
A speech unknown, so horrible, so strange.
Please tell me now, this was a dream, a vision;
Or has a hearse passed really?

YOUNG MAN

Come, Luisa,
Come, lighten up, although the street is ours,
A silent haven from the hands of death,
Where we can hold our feast without disturbance,
ButÉ as you know, this black and ugly carriage
Holds the right to travel where it chooses &endash;
We can do naught to block its path! But listen,
Old Walsingham: To put an end to quarrels
And female fainting's consequences, sing us
A ballad, sing a free and lively ballad,
And none? of that tedious Scottish melancholy &endash;
A booming, thund'rous, bacchanalian song,
Conceived with frothing chalice in your hand.

CHAIRMAN

There's none I know. But I will sing a hymn
To you in honor of our guest, the plague &endash;
Last night I wrote it after our parting.
A want to rhyme had fallen on me strangely,
The first time in my life! Prick up your ears:
My voice is hoarse &endash; the better for the song.

MANY VOICES

Hymn to the plague! Now hear the chairman sing!
Hymn to the plague! How wonderful! Hooray!

CHAIRMAN (singing)

When great and mighty winter stirs
And, like a chieftain wrapped in furs,
Upon us sends its shaggy soldiers
Of biting frost and stinging snow &endash;
It's met with fire's crackling smolder,
And wintry warmth of feasts aglow.
*
Her Terrible Majesty, the Plague
Herself does now offensive take,
Rich harvest reaps herself to flatter;
Upon our windows day and night

Her graveyard shovel knocks and clatters...
What can be done? How can we fight?
*
As from the Winter pest we hide
We'll also lock the Plague outside!
We'll fires light, we'll fill our chalice,
And merrily our minds we'll drown
And, brewing feasts and balls for solace,
We'll glorify the Plague's new crown.
*
There's rapture in a battle, bliss
Upon the brink of the abyss,
And in the raging ocean's fury,
Midst angry waves and darkness vague,
And in the desert whirlwind's hurry ,
And in the breeze that brings the Plague.
*
All, all that threatens us with death,
Hides for the mortal in its depth
An inexplicable enchantment &endash;
A promise of eternal life!
He's lucky who in dire moments
Has tasted of these sweet delights.
*
We sing your praise, long live the Plague!
We do not fear the darkest grave,
We will not shy from your endeavor!
We'll drink the maiden's rosy breath
And clang our foaming cups together &endash;
And both are filled, perhaps... with death.

Enter an old clergyman.

PRIEST

What godless feast is this! What godless madmen!
You with your feasting and your ribald singing
Throw insult on the gloomy silence which
Has now been spread by death in all directions!
Amidst the horror of the mournful burials
I pray, amidst pale faces at the graveyard.
And meanwhile your detestable delight
Embarrasses the quiet of the graves
And shakes the trembling earth above dead bodies!
If not for prayers of aged men and youthful
Maidens that bless the common mortal pit &endash;
I would have thought thes sounds to be of demons
Tormenting some poor atheistic soul
And dragging it into the pitch with laughter.

VOICES FROM THE CROWD

PRIEST

Now I beseech you by the sacred blood
Of He who has been crucified to save us:
Break up your monstrous feast if you do hope
To meet in heaven beloved souls that you
Have lost on earth. Go to your homes!

CHAIRMAN

Our homes
Are filled with sorrow &endash; youth loves entertainment.

PRIEST

Can it be you, you Walsingham? The same
Who just three weeks ago I witnessed kneeling,
His mother's corpse clasped to his sobbing chest,
And howling, beat himself above her gravestone?
Or do you think that now she is not weeping,
Not shedding bitter tears in that high heaven,
From where she sees her only son reveling
At a perverted feast, and hears your voice
These frantic songs of madness singing, midst
Both holy prayer and sighing lamentations?
Come, follow me!

CHAIRMAN

What for do you come here
Thus to disturb me? No, I can't, I must not,
I will not follow you. What keeps me here?
These memories, this hopeless desperation,
The knowledge of my lawless, evil ways;
I'm kept here by the horror of my home
That greets me with a silence, dead and empty;
The novelty of these wild entertainments;
And by the loving poison of this chalice;
(Forgive me god!) I tarry for the love
And kisses of this lost but lovely creatureÉ
Nor could my mother's ghost call me from here.
But it's too late. I hear your warning voice,
The voice that calls me. I thank you for your efforts
To save my soul. Now go in peace, believer;
But damned to hell be he who follows you!

MANY

Bravo! Bravo! Well-spoken, worthy chairman!
You've got your sermon now! Be gone! Be gone!

PRIEST

Matilda's saintly spirit summons you.

CHAIRMAN (rising)

Swear to me now to leave it in the grave,
Lift up your pale and withered hand and promise
To never speak that heaven-silenced name.
O, that a wall of darkness hid this sight
From her immortal eyes! She, my beloved,
Once thought my spirit pure, and proud, and free,
And my embrace was paradise to her.
But now? Oh, holy child of light! I see you &endash;
I see you there, where my far-fallen soul
Can never hope to soar.

A WOMAN'S VOICE

Look, he's a madman!
He's talking to his wife, dead and buried!

PRIEST

Come, come my son.

CHAIRMAN

For God's sake, holy father,
Leave me be.

PRIEST

Almighty God, have mercy
On your soul.

He exits. The feast continues.
The chairman remains, sunken in deep thought.

1830

(Translated by M.E. Yankelevich, c.1999.)