Song falls silent, music is dumb, But the air burns with their fragrance, And white winter, on its knees, Observes everything with reverent attention.

Though you are three times more beautiful than angels, Though you are the sister of the river willows, I will kill you with my singing, Without spilling your blood on the ground. Not touching you with my hand, Not giving you one glance, I will stop loving you, But with your unimaginable groans I will finally slake my thirst. From her, who wandered the earth before me, Crueler than ice, more fiery than flame, From her, who still exists in the ether— From her you will set me free.

No, not under the vault of another sky, not under the shelter of other wings. I was with my people then, there where my people were doomed to be.

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.

Courage: Great Russian word, fit for the songs of our children's children, pure on their tongues, and free.

You do not know just what you've been forgiven.

Rising from the past, my shadow Is running in silence to meet me.