EVIL PERFUME I'm dispatching a letter again, slightly touching with kisses its pages. And releasing your evil perfume, toxic fragrance I gladly inhale. Then it calls me to clearly behold birds abandoning misery cages. Black and slender, they fly to the South from the flask of "Nuit de Noel". Spring is coming apace. And in Venice, the young violinists will sing out your grief, dance away your despair and your gloom. Then blue faults will be easy to pass, and the sins will be sweet and diminished. Do not spare tender kisses in springtime, when almond trees break into bloom. Don't be missing me long, lovely friend. I'm a gloomy and frozen old creature. At command of my rigorous master I'm dancing and tending to weep. While withdrawing the tickets of fortune, I am looking at lachrymose features and to tedious moans of street organ I am helplessly falling asleep. Spring is coming apace. Soon the nasty grey slush will be drying. Shortly primroses, violets, and dreams will be blooming afield. But we can't come to spring just by songs, and we can't come to spring just by crying: with the organ we got badly careworn and already despairingly ill. I'm dispatching a letter again, slightly touching with kisses its pages. Don't be sad for the dismal finale and poisoning words that I tell. It's your evil perfume and my thoughts, black as birds bringing tears through the ages. Black and slender, they fly to the South from the flask of "Nuit de Noel".
EditTranslated by Boris Garbuzov and Kate Savostianova (http://spintongues.vladivostok.com/vertinsky.html), edited by IGor.