Those weddings in wartime! The deceiving comfort!
The dishonesty of words about living.
Sonorous snowy roads.
In the wind’s wicked teeth I hurry down them
to a hasty wedding at the next village.
With worn-out tread and hair down in my eyes
I go inside, I famous for my dancing,
into the noisy house.
In there tensed up with nerves and with emotion
among a crowd of friends and family,
called up, distraught, the bridegroom
sitting beside his Vera, his bride.
Will in a few days put his greatcoat on
and set out coated for the war.
Will see new country, carry a rifle.
May also drop if he is hit.
His glass is fizzing but he can’t drink it.
The first night may be the last night.
And sadly eyeing me and bitter-minded
he leans in his despair across the table
and says, ‘Come on then, dance.’
Drinks are forgotten. Everyone looks round.
Out I twirl to begin. Clap of my feet.
Shake.
Scrape the floor with my toe-cap.
Whistle. Whistle. Slap hands,
Faster, leaping ceiling-high.
Moving the posters pinned up on the walls:
Hitler Kaput.

Her eyes streaming with tears.
Already soaked in sweat and out of breath -
‘Dance’
They cry out in despair and I dance.

When I get home my feet are log-heavy:
some drunken people from another wedding
turn up behind me. Mother must let me go.
The scene again: I see it, and again
beside the edge of a trailing tablecloth
I squat down to dance.

She weeping
and her friends weeping.
I frightened
don’t feel like dancing, but you can’t not dance.

1955, Trans. P Levy and RR Milner-Gulland

Yevgeny Yevtushenko (Евге́ний Алекса́ндрович Евтуше́нко, 1933-2017) was a Siberian-born poet who was well-known in the USSR.