And this tenderness was not like That which a certain poet At the beginning of the century called true And, for some reason, quiet. No, not at allย It rang out, like the first waterfall, It crunched like the crust of bluish ice And it prayed with a swanlike voice, And it broke down right before our eyes.
Anna AkhmatovaDuring the terrible years of the Yekhov terror I spent seventeen months in the prison queues in Leningrad. One day someone โidentifiedโ 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 earโ(we all spoke in whispers there): โCould you describe this?โ I said, โI can!โ Then something resembling a smile slipped over what had once been her face.
Anna AkhmatovaWe learned not to meet anymore, We don't raise our eyes to one another, But we ourselves won't guarantee What could happen to us in an hour.
Anna Akhmatova