Мне чудится в Рождественское утро мой легкий, мой...

It seems to me on Christmas morning
my light, my airy Petersburg ...
I wander along the embankment ... the sun
rose as a misty rose. Plump layer
snow stretches along the convex railing.
And the trotters under the colored nets
rush like fabulous birds;
and in the distance, beyond the snowy expanse, they melt
in azure blue pink jets
over roofs; like a golden ghost,
the fortress flickers (a cannon thumps at noon:
first smoke, then a ringing roll);
and green turquoise on the snow
the squares of cut ice floes are burning.

The squat trailer is dark blue,
with a pen gliding along a thin wire,
across the fluffy Neva along the rails
a toy-like running to himself; and next
cleared sparkling path
between the Christmas trees, turned into the drifts:
used to sit in a chair on the pine
runners - guy in yellow mittens
grab the back - and now in blue
pushes the buzzing ice, hard
throwing back his legs, putting
skate knives, rope somehow
bolted to felt boots, stupid,
the same as in Pushkin winters ...

I wander around my native city,
through the mysteriously wide streets,
I look from bridges to white canals,
at the pier and fish pans.
Skating rinks, skating rinks - on the Moika, on the Fontanka,
in the Yusupov silver paradise:
who learns with their arms outstretched funny,
who describes smooth arcs,
and runners in woolen leggings
chasing in a circle, bending over,
clutching a case from these long
their skates, sparkling like razors,
on the sonorous glossy ice.

And in the city garden - my beloved -
between the Neva and the smoky cathedral,
shining, light visions
through branches bend over the snow,
over the booths, over the stone camel
Przhevalsky, over the shackled pool, -
and children from the mountains ride, thunder,
lying prone on a velvet sled.

I remember everything: the Senate is ocher, pedestals
and their cast-iron chains around
gray-haired rocks, from where it breaks into the sky
cool greenish bronze delight.
And there, in the distance, above the silvery net,
over the lace of wondrous trees -
there it floats majestically in azure
Isaky, charmed by frost:
an air ray - on a foggy dome,
on the columns tugged with frost ...

My virgin, my ghostly! .. Forever
in my soul, like a miracle, will remain
your light face, your air is incomparable,
your gardens, and gave, and channels,
your winter, high as a dream
about the harmony of the alien ...
You melted away
you flew away, and I drag visions
in other parts - on the squares of mirrors,
on decks sliding ... It's hard for me ...
But sometimes in my sleep I hear sounds
distant, I can hear it in paradise
about Petersburg Pushkin clear-eyed
talking to another poet, late
who came into the world and departed mournfully,
who loved their incomprehensible city
sobbing and soaring love ...

And I can hear Pushkin remember
all the little things are winged, shades
and echoes: "I remember, - he says, -
flying snow, and the Summer Garden, and babbling
Olenina ... I remember how, married,
I was returning from slow balls
in a carriage rattling along Millionnaya,
and rainbows passed on the glass;
but believe me, I remember most vividly
that light bridge where I met Danzas
on a January day, before the very duel ... "

<Berlin, no later than January 14, 1923>

Vladimir Nabokov