Our Fedya loved the earth since childhood Home he would bring the granite and metal. One day he found and brought home something, That mom and dad were crying whole night through. He was a skilled, determined student, He wanted to make archeology renown, He would bring such things to the institute, That everyone around would sob like hell. Once from a practice He brought back two rusty pieces And confirmed that’s ancient treasure. Then once in Ellista He found some false teeth, The size of a home-brew apparatus. He wrote a diploma about the ancient relics, About tribes, about the pagan gods, At the same time he cursed in Latin, That ancients turned over in their graves. With such wild fury He searched for ancient structures, And often screamed with such loud voice, That there must exist a path On which you might meet a pithecanthropus, And he’d hit himself in the chest while saying that. Soon he decided to end his bachelor life, And began the search for his ideal. He used to say, "I’ll find myself such a wife, That all of you will cry from envy." He was in all corners of the globe - He was in Europe and in Asia - And soon he found his ideal, But the ideal didn’t give a damn For archeology one bit, And soon Fedya buried that ideal.
© Nathan Mer. Translation, 1991