“We are all carousers and loose women here;How unhappy we are together!”

“It is good here: rustle and snow-crunch...Ski tracks on the splendid fineryof the snow; a memorythat long ages agowe passed here together.”

“We learned not to meet anymore,We don't raise our eyes to one another,But we ourselves won't guaranteeWhat could happen to us in an hour.”

“How the miracle of our meetingShone there and sang,I didn't want to returnFrom there to anywhere.Happiness instead of dutyWas bitter delight to me.Not obliged to speak to anyone,I spoke for a long while.Let passions stifle lovers,Demanding answers,We, my dear, are only soulsAt the limits of the world.”

“The celebrationsOf secret nonmeetings are empty,Unspoken conversations,Unuttered words.Glances that don't intersectDon't know where to come to rest.And only the tears rejoiceBecause they can flow and flow. Sweetbrier around Moscow,Alas! Somehow it is here ...And all this they will callLove eternal.”

“During the terrible years of the Yekhov terror I spent seventeen months in the prison queues in Leningrad. One day someone ‘identified’ me. Then a woman with lips blue with cold who was standing behind me, and of course had never heard of my name, came out of the numbness which affected us all and whispered in my ear—(we all spoke in whispers there): ‘Could you describe this?’I said, ‘I can!’Then something resembling a smile slipped over what had once been her face.”

“Let my heiress have full rights,Live in my house, sing songs that I composed.Yet how slowly my strength ebbs,How the tortured breast craves air.The love of my friends, my enemies' rancorAnd the yellow roses in my bushy garden,And a lover's burning tenderness—all thisI bestow upon you, messenger of dawn.Also the glory for which I was born,For which my star, like some whirlwind, soaredAnd now falls. Look, its fallingProphesies your power, love and inspiration.Preserving my generous bequest,You will live long and worthily.Thus it will be. You see, I am content,Be happy, but remember me.”