«Человек, первым открывший Бродского Западу». Беседы с Джорджем Клайном

Should I bid you farewellas to a day that’s over?Men’s memories may wither,grow thin, and falllike hair. The trouble is,behind their backs are:

not double beds for lovers,hard sleep, the past,or days in shrinking filesbackstretched – but, rather,huge clouds, circling together,of butterflies.

XIV

You’re better than No-thing.That is, you’re nearer,more reachable, and clearer.Yet you’re akinto nothingness —

like it, you’re wholly empty.And if, in your life’s venture,No-thing takes flesh,that flesh will die.Yet while you live you offera frail and shifting buffer,

dividing it from me.1973

Глава 10. Томас Венцлова, «In Memory of a Poet: Variation on a Theme»[202] (перевод Джорджа Л. Клайна)

В Петербурге мы сойдемся снова.

Osip Mandelstam[203]