Translation of Atanas Dalchev

August, 2011

  1. Translation of Atanas Dalchev

    August 18, 2011 by Christopher Buxton

    Novella

    The windows – shut tight and blackened,

    And blackened and shut tight, the door,

    And the door bears the fluttering message

    “The owner has gone to America.”

    And I am the home’s only owner

    Where nobody’s made his abode

    And I’ve set out for nowhere

    And from nowhere I’ve returned

    I never take a step from my house

    And the years are my only visitors,

    But so often the gardens have yellowed,

    And I’m certainly not the same chap.

    All the books have been read long ago

    And all memory’s paths have been trampled

    And how here as if for a hundred years

    I talk exclusively to the portraits.

    And day and night and night and day the clock

    Swings its brass sun pendulum.

    Occasionally I pose before the mirror

    So as not to be always alone.

    And my days slowly climb the walls

    In the flicker of dying embers:

    My life passes away without a trace

    Of a single love or incident

    It’s as if I’ve never lived at all

    And my existence is an evil fantasy.

    If someone happens to enter the house,

    They’ll find nobody in.

    They’ll only see the dusty portraits,

    The perfidious empty mirror

    And on the door a yellowing message:

    “The owner has gone to America.”

    Atanas Dalchev 1925