ANNA AKHMATOVA
(1889-1966)

Born near Odessa in a family of the naval engineer. The poetess' real name was Gorenko. Akhmatova spent her childhood in Tsarskoye Selo. In 1907 she graduated from the Kiev Gymnasium and went to St. Petersburg to study history and literature at the Higher School for Women. It was in that city where she spent practically the whole of her life. In 1910-1912 she travelled to Germany, France and Italy. Akhmatova's writings were first printed in 1907. Her very first books made her famous all over the Russia. Her poems were mostly about love. Later the range of her topics became wider and more complex. Books of Akhmatova published during her lifetime were "Evening" (1912), "Rosary" (1914), "The White Flock" (1917), "The Plantain" (1921), "Anno Domini MCMXXI" (1922), "From Six Books" (1940), "Poems" (1960) and "The Flow of Time" (1965). Her masterpiece, "The Requiem", was published only after the fall of the USSR. This large poem was showing the terrible situation in the USSR in Joseph Stalin's time and the truth behind the cult of his person.


***

He loved three things...

He loved these three things
White peacocks, evening songs,
And worn-out maps of America.
No crying of children,
No raspberry tea,
No women's hysterics…
I was married to him.


آنا آخماتووا


او در اين ‌دنيا سه ‌چيز را دوست داشت:‏
‏‌دعاي ‌شامگاهي، طاووس ‌سفيد
و نقشه رنگ‌پريده ‌آمريكا،
و سه ‌چيز را دوست نداشت:‏
‏‌گريه ‌كودكان
‏‌مرباي ‌تمشك با ‌چائي
و ‌پرخاشجويي زنانه.‏
و من همسر او بودم.‏

* * * * * * * * * *

Perrault, Charles
· Cendrillon


************
Time is too slow, for those who wait,
Too swift for those who fear,
Too long for those who grieve,
Too short for those who rejoice,
But for those who love... Time is ETERNITY.

************

• گفتگو با استاد

......................................................


Tu dis que tu aimes la nature et tu la pollues, tu dis que tu aimes les fleurs et tu les cueilles, tu dis que tu aimes tes amis, et tu les insultes. Alors ne t’étonnes pas si je pleure quand tu dis
que tu m’aimes,

· 100 les plus belles chansons

………………………………………


RAIN AND TEARS
Rain and tears, are the same
but in the sun
you've got to play the game
When you cry
in winter time
you can pretend
it's nothing but the rain

How many times I've seen
tears coming from your blue eyes

Rain and tears, are the same
but in the sun
you've got to play the game

[interlude]
Give me an answer of love
(o----ooohhh)
I need an answer of love
(o----ooohhh)
Rain and tears in the sun
But in your heart
you feel the rainbow waves
Rain and tears
both I shun
for in my heart there 'll never be a sun

Rain and tears, are the same
but in the sun
you've got to play the game
Game...

***************


THE SMALL GIRL WITH THE MATCHES
according to Hans Christian Andersen

-----------------------------------------


It really made very, very cold this day there; it snowed since the morning and now it made already sinks; the evening approached, the evening of the last day of the year. In the medium of the gusts, by this icy cold, a poor small girl walked naked feet in the street. When it had left to it this morning, it however had old shoes, but shoes too much large for its so small feet. Also it lost them when it ran to cross in front of a file of cars; the cars passed, she wanted to take them again, but a malicious kid fled by carrying one of them while laughing, and the other had been entirely crushed by the flood of the cars.

For this reason the unhappy child did not have anything any more to protect his small poor petons.

In its old apron, it carried matches: she held a box of it with the hand to try to sell it. But, this day, as it was the day before of New Year's day, everyone was busy and by this dreadful time, nobody had time to stop and consider the begging air of the small girl.
The day finished, and it had not sold only one box of matches yet. Trembling of cold and hunger, it trailed street in street.

Snowflakes covered its long hair now. Of all the windows shone of the lights and almost all the houses a delicious odor left poultry which one roasted for the feast of the evening.

After having last once offered in vain his package of matches, the child saw a corner between two houses. It sat down there, tired its long day, and y blottit, tie with it its small feet: but it grelotte and shivers even more than before and however it does not dare to return to it.
It would not bring back the small change to it, and his/her father would beat it.

The child had his small stiff shackles all.
"If I took a match, does she say herself, only one to heat my fingers?"
It is what it did. What a marvellous flame it was! It suddenly seemed to the small girl that she was in front of a large cast iron stove, as she had some saw one day. The small girl was going to extend her feet towards this stove to heat them, when the small flame of the match died out abruptly and the stove disappeared. The child remained there, holding in his frozen hand a small piece of wood with half flaring.
It rubbed one second match: the gleam was projected on the wall which became transparent. Behind this imaginary window, the table was put: it was covered with a beautiful white tablecloth, on which a superb china crockery shone. In the medium, a splendid roast goose, surrounded of jumped apples was spread out: and here is that the animal puts itself moving and, with a knife and a fork, comes to present itself in front of poor the small famished one. And then more nothing: the flame of the match dies out.
The child takes a third match, and it is seen transported close to a splendire Christmas tree. On its green branches, thousand candles of colors shone: on all sides, a crowd of wonders hung. The small girl extended the hand to seize one of them: the match dies out. The tree seems to go up towards the sky and its candles become stars. There is of them one which is detached and which goes down again towards the ground, leaving one trainée of fire. "Here are somebody who will die" says the small one.
His/her old grandmother, the only person who had liked it and cherished, and who had died very recently, had told him that when one sees a star which spins towards the ground that wanted to say that a heart went up towards the paradise.
She still rubbed a match: a great clearness spread and, in front of the child, was held the old grandmother. - Grandmother, exclaimed the small one, grandmother, takes me along. Oh! you also will leave me when the match is extinct: you will disappear like the so hot stove, goose all fûmante and the splendid Christmas tree. Remain, please!... or carries me with you.
And the child lit a new match, and then another, and finally all the package, to see his good grandmother longest possible. Then the grandmother took the small one in her arms and it carried it well high, in a place where there was neither cold no more, neither hunger, nor sorrow.

The next morning, the passers by found on the ground the body of the small girl to the matches; its cheeks were red, it seemed to smile: it had died of cold, during the night which had brought to so many others joys and pleasures. It held in its small hand, very stiffened, the remainders flarings of a package of matches.
- What a small stupid! known as a heartless person. How could it believe that that would heat it ?
Others poured tears on the child; but they did not know all the beautiful things that it had seen during the night of New Year's day, they were unaware of that, if it had suffered well, it tasted now, in the arms of his/her grandmother, the softest happiness.

The small girl with the matches

* * * * *
PAROLES, PAROLES
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