Dmitry Shostakovich

We live without preparing to die, therefore we forget the shame, but Madonna's invisible conscience stands at any intersection.

And her children and grandchildren wander with a vagabond's hook and bag - pangs of conscience - strange pangs on a land unconscionable to so many.

From gate to gate again, from the threshold again to the threshold they wander like calicoes, who have God in their bosom.

Are they not with immortal reproach? with a dull fingernail they tapped secretly into the mica windows of stinkers, and in the mansions of kings - with a fist?

Aren't they on the hunted troika? rushed Pushkin into the darkness of the blizzard, Dostoevsky was sent to prison and they whispered to Tolstoy: “Run!”

The executioners understood perfectly well: “The one who suffers is a troublemaker. Pangs of conscience are dangerous. Let’s beat out your conscience so that there is no torment.”

But it’s like alarm bells, shaking their blood at night, pangs of conscience - terrible pangs penetrated to the executioners themselves.

After all, those who are on guard against falsehood who has long lost his honor, if you don’t even have a conscience - There seems to be pangs of conscience.

And as long as the world is white, where no one is sinless, no one, in someone you can hear: “What have I done?” you can do something with the earth.

I don't believe in prophets in the second or thousandth Rome, I believe in the quiet: “What are you doing?” I believe in the bitter: “What are we doing?”

And I kiss your dark hands near faithlessness on a slippery edge, pangs of conscience - light pangs for my last faith.