EHRENBURG, Ilya

Someone else’s woe — like a gadfly...

The strangest affliction it is, like a gadfly:

You brush it away, but it comes back madly.

You want to go out, but it's too late to do it.

It's hot humid air, you cannot breathe through it

You stifle and gasp in the storm-atmospheric.

It pays you no heed, like a woman hysteric;

It comes in the night, it's a night-time ranger,

And what can one do with it, grief, the stranger?

Translated by Walter C. May