Yesterday thoroughly
bad news were sent to us:
It was said to us,
that Alyosha had given up his ghost.

How can that be?
He tolds us, that he enjoys life,
That in a week he will begin
to celebrate the wedding!

The girl will not see
this wedding,
Because at a fight
he fell on a knife.

Because it is bad -
but not for the first time,
Alyosha got
a new hole in his soul.

If he patched up for that
his soul like a shirt,
To be killed when drunk
in a fight by the riff-raff!

If everything were in order,
we should go today to the wedding,
But he was found in the morning
with a knife in the shoulderblade.

What now, the girl
is broken.
What now, she is in dispair -
and the tears dry,

And then, without a sigh,
she opens the door to everybody.
It doesn’t matter, Alyosha,
you don’t care now.

We shall bury him
very modestly. Why sob!
There is nobody
to tell about the burial.

Because nobody knows,
where Alyosha’s home is.
That is, such a crazy death
is then awaiting all of us.

What now, the girl
is broken.
What now, she is in dispair -
and the tears dry,

An then, without a sigh,
she opens the door to everybody.
God forgives, Alyosha!
It doesn’t matter to him now.