In a word, by now his life has been skirting the years when all breath of spontaneity in a man has shriveled; when the mighty bow’s music has lost its ability to reach the soul and fails to coil its piercing sounds about the heart; when beauty’s touch no longer causes virginal powers to turn into fire and brimstone; instead, all these burnt-out senses perceive gold’s ringing more readily, heed more closely its seductive music, which, as they allow it, gradually and imperceptibly, puts them to sleep entirely.
Is it about me?
It’s about me.
Yes, my life is skirting that time. Yes, my senses are burned out. And none of your fire and brimstone in sight, just ashes of former trials and torments, soaring ascents and lofty glidings, whether in a dream or while awake. Meanwhile, the gold in all those bank accounts and on credit cards rings softly, putting me to sleep, drugging me. Not that there is a lot of it, I mean gold, one would wish for more, but there is some, ringing, no comparison with what used to be just ten years ago, when one could hardly dream of thousands in freely convertible currency.
But what’s truly awful is that this is the “normal course of events,” and this seductive music, whose leitmotifs had been hummed by Gobseck and the Miserly Knight, is a lot sweeter to the soul than the subversive rock-and-rolling airs caught in the seventies from “over there,” and overheard in the eighties “over here.” Perhaps, in a poet’s words, “ praise the madman, bestowing the blessing of a golden dream on our kind”?*

Stop!
What if within soul’s recesses these words do wring something, somewhere, where tears are born? What if after candidly confessing to all the sweetness of the music of piastres’ and doubloon’s, credit cards and credits, in spite of it all, something within this soul shyly commissions a different kind of music (while, truth be told, it cannot match the worth of those piastres and doubloons) - does that mean…. that it all can turn around? Does it mean that even at my age, having been thoroughly worked on by life, the touch of beauty is still capable of dispersing the charms of pragmatism, and the mighty bow can reach the soul completely and awaken it whole, with no part untouched, so that it would rise from its slumber, a wholesome soul, all in one piece, speaking in one tongue, not forked into two or twenty as it does now while asleep? And if my soul can hear all this and if these words can grip it to such an extent, could it mean that it’s wakeful already?
…A chirp from my computer signals a new message in my inbox. I must read this message right away, answer it immediately, act on it without delay…
“OK, I’ll think it through later, when I’m done with my work. Meanwhile, let’s “slumber” some more. No time for awakening yet. Rest up, my soul. I’m busy, love.”

* A popular quote from V. S. Kurochkin’s loose translation of Pierre Jean Béranger’s song “Madmen” – “Les fous.” In the original, the dream is a “happy” one, not “golden.” (T.N.)