I lived with mother and father
On the Arbat - if it were always so.
And now I am in a hospital
In the bed, all in bandages.

What is for us glory, what is for us Klava -
The nurse and bright light?
My neighbour on the right died,
The one, who is on the left - not yet.

And once - like carbon monoxide fumes -
That neighbour, who is on the left,
Told me suddenly: - Now listen, buddy,
You have a leg less.

How come! That’s not true brother!
He, probably, joked?
- We only cut off toes, -
So the doctor told me.

But the neighbour, who is on the left,
Smiled all the time, joked all the time.
Even if nightly he was delirious -
He spoke about the leg.

Mockingly he said: You will not get up!
You won’t see, he said, your wife!
If you only could, comrade,
See yourself from the side.

If I were not a cripple
And could get down from the bed,
I’d the one, who is to the left,
Simply bite through the throat!

I implored nursie Klava
To show me what happened to me.
If the neighbour, who was on the left, were alive, -
He would tell me the truth...