What’s this house here,
it’s submersed in haze,
On the seven free
and quickly-passing gusts,

To a long, deep ravine
with each window faced,
With its entrance -
to a highway pass?!

Although I was tired, I unharnessed my steed
"Come out and help - anyone here alive?!"
Not a soul - in the hall just a shadow appeared
And a carrion crow descended nearby.

Walked inside and there -
just a bar, no more,
And the folks out there, -
every third’s a foe.

Uninvited here, -
thus they’ll grin at you.
Corner icons hang, -
even they’re askew.

And a chatter began, deceptive and brief.
Someone slapped the guitar, singing in strife.
And a sick epileptic - a fool and a thief -
Under the table, - bluntly showed me a knife.

"Answer me, what’s this place
you’ve got?
In the dark, as though
some pestiferous hut?

Icon-lamps are dimmed,
there’s no air to breathe,
Have you all forgotten
how the people live?

The doors - opened wide, but the soul here is wronged!
Who’s the host over here? - pour me some wine!.."
They replied thus to me: "You have traveled too long,
You’ve forgotten the folk - thus we lived all the time.

We chew grass alone, -
all day on sorrel,
Live a simple life, -
with our souls we fell,

We had fun with wine,
and among ourselves,
Burglarized and fought
even hung ourselves..."

"I’ve worn out by steed, - fled from wolves on the way,
Show me that place, where the icons are bright
Show me that place, that I’ve sought every day, -
Where the people have fun, far away from this blight!"

"Of the places like that -
we have never heard.
For a very long tim -
grew accustomed to dirt.

From beginning we live -
in whisper and sin
Under icons in soot,
all our lives we have been"

From the stench, where icons are hanging awry,
I would flee on a whim, with the lash I would heave,
Anywhere with my horse, I shall follow my eye,
To where people live - the way people live...

How much passed since then!
All was coarse and rough,
Life would toss me hard, -
but not far enough,

Or perhaps I’ve sung
with a flaw, in sloth -
"Black mysterious eyes,
white table-cloth..."