A Fable by Daniil Kharms

One short man said: “I would give anything if only I were even a tiny bit taller.”

He barely said it when he saw a lady medegician standing in front of him.

“What do you want?” says the medegician.

But the short man just stands there so frightened he can’t even speak.

“Well?” says the medegician.

The short man just stands there and says nothing. The medegician vanishes.

And the shortman started crying and biting his nails. First he chewed off all the nails on his fingers, and then on his toes.

—–

Reader! Think this fable over and it will make you somewhat uncomfortable.

 

by Даниил Иванович Хармс (Daniil Ivanovich Kharms)

a.k.a. Даниил Иванович Ювачёв (Daniil Ivanovich Yuvachov)

(1935)

translated by Matvei Yankelevich and Eugene Ostashevsky

Where Can I Hide In This January? by Osip Mandelstam

Where can I hide in this January?

Wide-open city with a mad death-grip…

Can I be drunk from sealed doors? –

I want to bellow from locks and knots…

 

And the socks of barking back roads,

and the hovels on twisted streets –

and deadbeats hurry into corners

and hurriedly dart back out again…

 

And into the pit, into the warty dark

I slide, into waterworks of ice,

and I stumble, I eat dead air,

and fevered crows exploding everywhere –

 

But I cry after them, shouting at

some wickerwork of frozen wood:

A reader! A councillor! A doctor!

A conversation on the spiny stair!

 

by Осип Эмильевич Мандельштам (Osip Emilyevich Mandelshtam. His surname is commonly latinised as Mandelstam)

(1937)

translated by Andrew Davis