Showing posts with label Yuri Trifonov. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Yuri Trifonov. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 02, 2013

The House On The Embankment by Yuri Trifonov (Abacus 1976)



Not one of those boys is alive today. Some were killed in the war, some died from sickness, some disappeared without a trace, while others, though still alive, have turned into different people; and if by some magic means those different people were to meet their past selves - in their cotton twill shirts and canvas shoes - they would no longer know what to say to them. I fear, in fact, that they would not even guess they were meeting themselves. Well, to hell, with them, if they're so imperceptive. They have no time to spare, anyway; they have to hurry on, to swim with the current, paddling with their hands, farther and farther, faster and faster, day after day, year after year; the shores change, the hills recede, the forests thin out and vanish, the sky darkens, the cold sets in, they have to hurry, hurry - and they no longer have the strength to look back at what is behind them and fading away like a cloud on the edge of the horizon.