# Thomas Speaking

B A Slutzky

Перевод стихотворения Бориса Абрамовича Слуцкого (1919-1986) "Говорит Фома". Время написания неизвестно

Thomas speaking

by Boris Slutzky


Nowadays I don't trust nothing.

My eyes I don't trust,

My ears I don't trust.

If I touch it, then I'll probably trust it.

Touching is always free of cheating.


I do remember the gloomy Germans,

Sad POWs of the '45, before me,

Standing attention while interrogated.

I ask them questions, they answer.


"Do you trust Hitler?" - "No, I don't trust him."

"Do you trust Göring?" - "No, I don't trust him."

"Do you trust Göbbels?" - "Ah, propaganda!"

"And do you trust me?" - A minute of silence.

"Herr Commissar, I don't trust you either.

It's all propaganda. Whole world, propaganda."


If I became again a schoolboy,

And a teacher told me such a truth from textbooks

That Volga flows into the Caspian -

Not that I really wouldn't trust it.

But first I'd find that river Volga

Downstream I'd go to that sea he spoke of,

I'd wash my face in its muddy waters,

And only then I'd finally trust it.


Horses eat oats and hay - but do they?

Lie! Back in the '33, in winter

I lived in Ukraine; and rake-thin was it.

The horses ate straw while there was left some,

Then those roofs which were still thatched,

Then they were led to Kharkov's junkyards.

I saw with my own eyes them roaming,

Grave, serious, almost haughty,

Bay, chestnut, and palomino,

Silently, slowly walking the junkyard.

Walking, then standing, then falling and resting;

Rest they could long before they died.

Oats and hay, say you? Lie, propaganda!

It's all propaganda. Whole world, propaganda.