After Hearing a Waltz by Bartók
117 lines✦
ut why did I kill him? Why? Why?In the small, gilded room, near the stair?My ears rack and throb with his cry,And his eyes goggle under his hair,As my fingers sink into the fairWhite skin of his throat. It was I! I killed him! My God! Don't you hear?I shook him until his red tongueHung flapping out through the black, queer,Swollen lines of his lips. And I clungWith my nails drawing blood, while I flungThe loose, heavy body in fear. Fear lest he should still not be dead.I was drunk with the lust of his life.The blood-drops oozed slow from his headAnd dabbled a chair. And our strifeLasted one reeling second, his knifeLay and winked in the lights overhead. And the waltz from the ballroom I heard,When I called him a low, sneaking cur.And the wail of the violins stirredMy brute anger with visions of her.As I throttled his windpipe, the purrOf his breath with the waltz became blurred. I have ridden ten miles through the dark,With that music, an infernal din,Pounding rhythmic inside me. Just Hark!One! Two! Three! And my fingers sink inTo his flesh when the violins, thinAnd straining with passion, grow stark. One! Two! Three! Oh, the horror of sound!While she danced I was crushing his throat.He had tasted the joy of her, woundRound her body, and I heard him gloatOn the favour. That instant I smote.One! Two! Three! How the dancers swirl round! He is here in the room, in my arm,His limp body hangs on the spinOf the waltz we are dancing, a swarmOf blood-drops is hemming us in!Round and round! One! Two! Three! And his sinIs red like his tongue lolling warm. One! Two! Three! And the drums are his knell.He is heavy, his feet beat the floorAs I drag him about in the swellOf the waltz. With a menacing roar,The trumpets crash in through the door.One! Two! Three! clangs his funeral bell. One! Two! Three! In the chaos of spaceRolls the earth to the hideous gleeOf death! And so cramped is this place,I stifle and pant. One! Two! Three!Round and round! God! 'Tis he throttles me!He has covered my mouth with his face! And his blood has dripped into my heart!And my heart beats and labours. One! Two!Three! His dead limbs have coiled every partOf my body in tentacles. ThroughMy ears the waltz jangles. Like glueHis dead body holds me athwart. One! Two! Three! Give me air! Oh! My God!One! Two! Three! I am drowning in slime!One! Two! Three! And his corpse, like a clod,Beats me into a jelly! The chime,One! Two! Three! And his dead legs keep time.Air! Give me air! Air! My God! Clear, with Light, Variable Winds The fountain bent and straightened itselfIn the night wind,Blowing like a flower.It gleamed and glittered,A tall white lily,Under the eye of the golden moon.From a stone seat,Beneath a blossoming lime,The man watched it.And the spray patteredOn the dim grass at his feet. The fountain tossed its water,Up and up, like silver marbles.Is that an arm he sees?And for one momentDoes he catch the moving curveOf a thigh?The fountain gurgled and splashed,And the man's face was wet. Is it singing that he hears?A song of playing at ball?The moonlight shines on the straight column of water,And through it he sees a woman,Tossing the water-balls.Her breasts point outwards,And the nipples are like buds of peonies.Her flanks ripple as she plays,And the water is not more undulatingThan the lines of her body. "Come," she sings, "Poet!Am I not more worth than your day ladies,Covered with awkward stuffs,Unreal, unbeautiful?What do you fear in taking me?Is not the night for poets?I am your dream,Recurrent as water,Gemmed with the moon!" She steps to the edge of the poolAnd the water runs, rustling, down her sides.She stretches out her arms,And the fountain streams behind herLike an opened veil. * * * * * In the morning the gardeners came to their work."There is something in the fountain," said one.They shuddered as they laid their dead masterOn the grass."I will close his eyes," said the head gardener,"It is uncanny to see a dead man staring at the sun."
✦