Русское зазеркалье (двуязычная версия)

An unconscionable time a-dying—there is the picture (“I am afraid, gentlemen,”) of your life and of mine. The sands run out, and the hours are “numbered and imputed,” and the days go by; and when the last of these finds us, we have been a long time dying, and what else? The very length is something, if we reach that hour of separation undishonoured; and to have lived at all is doubtless (in the soldierly expression) to have served. There is a tale in Tacitus of how the veterans mutinied in the German wilderness; of how they mobbed Germanicus, clamouring to go home; and of how, seizing their general's hand, these old, war-worn exiles passed his finger along their toothless gums. Sunt lacrymae rerum [Latin for ‘There are tears for things’]: this was the most eloquent of the songs of Simeon. And when a man has lived to a fair age, he bears his marks of service. He may have never been remarked upon the breach at the head of the army; at least he shall have lost his teeth on the camp bread.

Our live, when seen from this perspective, is not much more than a long term that we serve in the army, at the end of which term there is time for us to ‘lay in earth’ (and this is precisely what the Russian song promises that we will do). Sunt lacrymae rerum, indeed (the phrase itself derives from Book I, line 462 of the Aeneid by Virgil; I would be happy to hear your own interpretation of it). Even things have their tears, much more us humans; but even so, it still makes sense to live, because—allow me to repeat it—‘[t]he very length is something, if we reach that hour of separation undishonoured.’ (Does it sound as Mandarin Chinese to you, I wonder?)

Let me dwell upon three or maybe four essential details of this song before we finish, the first of them being the musical genre it belongs to. Technically speaking, it is a waltz, and a very quiet one: it calms you down, it gives you a few minutes of deep relaxation that I guess a soldier in the frontline needs so much. Let me please share with you some personal, very personal details: twice in my life, I was very close to ‘deserting the army,’ to use the metaphor by Robert Louis Stevenson. It was some very calm and soothing songs that helped me go through these periods both times, ‘In a Frontline Forest’ being one of them. I do say that the song has an almost psychotherapeutic effect—on me, at least.