All as before: against the dining-room windows

Beats the scattered windswept snow,

And I have not changed either,

But a man came to me.

I asked: “What do you want?”

He replied: “To be with you in Hell.”

I laughed: “Oh, you’ll foredoom

Us both to disaster.”

But lifting his dry hand

He lightly touched the flowers:

“Tell me how men kiss you,

Tell me how you kiss men.”

And his lusterless eyes

Did not move from my ring.

Not a single muscle quivered

On his radiantly evil face.

Oh, I know: his delight

Is the tense and passionate knowledge

That he needs nothing,

That I can refuse him nothing.

"

— Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966) - The Guest, January 1, 1914