Save! Save! Oh horror, oh horror! I don’t surface any more, if I dive, - I shall swim a little, I shall make a big effort, But threngths will leave me - and I shall drown. You could secretly answer me: Am I a fishy mouse or a mousy fish? .. I lay quietly in the comfortable hole. Read, dreamed and ate puree. And suddenly - the sea nearby, Only as if a cat had cried, - I have been in it soaked like a mouse, And chilled to the marrow like a dog... Save! Save! I want as before, Into the hole - on the divan of dried reed! .. Here swim girls in outer clothing, Who don’t love mice at all. And so I shiver from the ankle bones to the palms, And they tell me about terriers and cats! And suddenly a catlot will fall upon me, Will decide falsely, that I am a mouselot! .. There it was! I chattered with the teeth Of cold and fear, - I am here soaked like a mouse, Chilled to the marrow like a dog.
© Elisabeth Jelinek. Translation, 2018