Eugene Onegin

CHAPTER II

O rus!

Horace

O Rus’!

I

The country place where Eugene suffered

Was a delightful little spot;

The innocent might there have offered

Blessings to heaven for their lot.

The manor house stood in seclusion,

Screened by a hill from wind’s intrusion,

Above a stream. Far off, there stretched

Meadows and golden cornfields, patched

With dazzling, multi-coloured flowers;

Small hamlets could be glimpsed around,

Herds wandered through the meadow ground,

And, in its thick, entangled bowers

A vast, neglected garden nursed

Dryads, in pensive mood immersed.

2

The noble castle was constructed

As castles should be: solid-based,

Designed for comfort, unaffected,

In sensible and ancient taste,

With lofty rooms throughout the dwelling

A salon damasked floor to ceiling,

Portraits of Tsars upon the walls

And stoves with multi-coloured tiles.

Today all this is antiquated,

I really cannot fathom why;

My friend, however, walked right by,

Unable to appreciate it,

Since he would yawn, indifferent to

An old interior or a new.

3

Into that very room he settled,

Where, forty years, till his demise,

With housekeeper the old man battled,

Looked through the window, swatted flies.

All was quite simple; oaken floorboards,

Table, divan of down, two cupboards,

And not an ink stain anywhere;

He opened up the cupboards there:

The first housed an expenses manual,

The second rows of fruit liqueurs

And eau-de-pomme in jugs and jars

Beside an 1808 annual:

The old man, by much work perplexed,

Consulted not another text.

4

Alone among his acquisitions,

Merely to while away the time,

At first, our Eugene made provisions

To introduce a new regime.

A sage in rural isolation,

He eased the peasant yoke, replacing

The old corvée with light quit-rent;

The serf blessed fate for what it sent.

But Eugene’s thrifty neighbour, flurried,

Sat sulking; in his corner he

Envisaged some catastrophe;

Another slyly smiled, unworried,

But they were all unanimous:

Here was a crank most dangerous.

5

At first, they all rode up to greet him;

But at the back porch every day

A stallion from the Don would meet him

As soon as on the carriage way

Their country carts could be detected,

When off he’d gallop, undeflected.

Outraged by this behaviour, they

Withdrew their friendship straightaway.

‘Our neighbour is a boor, as mad as

A freemason, a crack-brained ass;

Drinks only red wine by the glass;

Won’t stoop to kiss the hands of ladies;

It’s “yes” and “no”, not “yes, sir”, “no,

sir”.’ All agreed this was de trop.

6

A new landowner, at that moment,

Had driven down to his estate

And offered equal cause for comment

And stringent neighbourhood debate.

By name Vladimir Lensky, wholly

Endowed with Göttingenian soul,¹ he

Was handsome, in his youthful prime,

A devotee of Kant² and rhyme.

He brought with him the fruits of learning

From mist-enveloped Germany:

Those dreams extolling liberty,

That fervent spirit, oddly yearning,

That language with its ardent flair

And curling, shoulder-length black hair.

7

By chill corruption not yet blighted,

Not having fallen yet from grace,

In friendly greetings he delighted

And in a maiden’s sweet embrace.

Of heart’s affairs he had no knowledge,

Hope nursed his feelings, gave him courage,

And worldly noise and glitter still

Lent his young mind a novel thrill.

With a sweet fancy he would cradle

His doubting heart’s uncertainty;

For him our life and destiny

Appeared as an enticing riddle,

To solve which he would rack his mind,

Suspecting wonders of mankind.

8

He thought that he should be united

With a congenial soul, that she

Would pine, whenever he departed,

And keep awaiting him each day;

He thought that friends would, in like manner,

Don fetters to defend his honour,

And that their hands would never spare

The vessel³ of his slanderer;

That there were some whom fate had chosen,

Blest comrades of humanity;

That their immortal family

Would in a future time emblazon

Us all with overwhelming rays

And grace the world with blissful days.

9

Compassion, righteous indignation,

Pure love directed to the good,

And fame’s sweet pain, inebriation

Had stirred from early days his blood.

He with his lyre roamed ever further;

Beneath the sky of Schiller, Goethe,⁴

In sudden flame his soul burst forth,

Kindled at their poetic hearth,

And, happy one, without degrading

The art’s exalted Muses, he

Nursed proudly in his poetry

Exalted feelings, never fading,

Surges of virgin reverie,

And charms of grave simplicity.

10

He sang of love, to love obedient,

His song possessed the clarity

Of simple maidens’ thoughts, of infant

Slumber and of the moon, when she

Shines in the sky’s untroubled spaces,

Goddess of sighs and secret places;

He sang of parting and despond,

Of something and the dim beyond,

He sang, too, of romantic roses;

He sang of distant lands, those spheres

Where he had long shed living tears,

Where silently the world reposes;

He sang of life’s decaying scene,

While he was not yet quite eighteen.

11

Where only Eugene in their desert

Could judge his gifts and quality,

He had no appetite to hazard

His neighbours’ hospitality;

He fled their noisy conversations:

Their sensible deliberations

Regarding haymaking, the wine,

The kennels and their kith and kind

Were not, of course, lit up with feeling,

Poetic fire, perceptive wit,

Intelligence, nor with the art

That made society appealing;

The talk, though, of their spouses dear

Was far less meaningful to hear.

12

Lensky, a wealthy youth and handsome,

Was looked upon as marriageable;

Such in the country was the custom;

All daughters were eligible

To court their semi-Russian neighbour;

When he arrived, the guests would labour

At once, by hinting, to deplore

The dull life of a bachelor;

The samovar’s inviting Lensky.

And Dunya pours him out a cup,

They whisper to her: ‘Watch, look up!’

They bring in a guitar, too, then she

Begins to shrill (good God!) and call:

Oh come into my golden hall…

13

But Lensky, not, of course, intending

To wear the ties of marriage yet,

Looked forward warmly to befriending

Onegin, whom he’d newly met.

Not ice and flame, not stone and water,

Not verse and prose are from each other

So different as these men were.

At first, since so dissimilar,

They found each other dull, ill-suited;

Then got to like each other; then

Each day met riding. Soon the men

Could simply not be separated.

Thus (I’m the first one to confess)

People are friends from idleness.

14

But friendship even of this order

We cannot boast of. Having fought

All prejudices, we consider

Ourselves the ones, all others nought.

We all aspire to be Napoleons;

Two-legged creatures in their millions

Are no more than a tool for us,

Feelings we find ridiculous.

While fairer in his preconceptions

Than many, Eugene was inclined

In toto to despise mankind,

But (as each rule has its exceptions)

Some individuals he spared,

And feelings, too, by him unshared.

15

He heeded Lensky with indulgence.

The poet’s fervent talk and mind,

Still hesitant in forming judgements,

His look of inspiration blind –

All this was novel to Onegin;

He tried to stop his lips from making

A chilling comment, and he thought:

I’d really be a fool to thwart

His moment’s bliss with my rejection;

His time, without me, will arrive;

But for the moment let him thrive,

Believing in the world’s perfection;

Forgive the fever of the young,

Their ardour and their raving tongue.

16

All things promoted disputations

And led them to reflect: they would

Discuss the pacts of vanished nations,

The fruits of learning, evil, good,

And centuries-old prejudices,

The secrets of the grave’s abysses,

And life and destiny in turn –

All these were subjects of concern.

The poet, heatedly contending,

Recited in a reverie

Fragments of Nordic balladry,

And Eugene, gently condescending,

While little grasping what he heard,

Attended to his every word.

17

More often, though, it was the passions

That occupied my anchorites.

Free from their stormy depredations,

Onegin sighed with some regrets

As he recounted their abatement.

Happy who tasted their excitement

And in the end could leave it, but

Happier still who knew it not,

Who cooled his love with separation,

Hostility with calumny,

Who yawned with wife and company,

Immune to jealousy’s invasion,

And who ensured he did not lose

His fortune to a crafty deuce.

18

When to the banner we’ve foregathered

Of sensible tranquillity,

When passion’s flame at last is smothered,

And we as an absurdity

Consider its caprices, surges,

Belated repetitions, urges –

Resigned, but not without a tear,

We sometimes like to lend an ear

To tales of other people’s passions,

And hearing them stirs up our heart.

Thus an old soldier takes delight

In eavesdropping on the confessions

Of young, mustachioed blades who strut,

While he’s forgotten in his hut.

19

But flaming youth is quite unable

To hide a feeling or a thought

And ever is prepared to babble

Love, hatred, joy and sorrow out.

Himself by passion invalided,

With solemn mien Onegin heeded

The poet who confessed his heart

With love and using all his art;

A simple soul, not seeking glory,

He laid his trusting conscience bare.

Eugene with ease discovered there

The poet’s young, romantic story

With its abundant feelings that

To us have long since been old hat.

20

He loved, ah, as we cannot know it,

Today such love’s anomalous,

Only the mad soul of a poet

Is still condemned to loving thus:

Always and everywhere one vision,

One customary, single mission,

One customary, single grief.

Not cooling distance’s relief,

Nor lengthy years of separation,

Nor hours devoted to the Muse,

Nor foreign beauties he could choose,

Nor merry noise, nor meditation

Had changed in him a soul whose fire

Was lit by virginal desire.

21

Mere boy, by Olga captivated,

Not knowing a tormented heart,

He witnessed, tenderly elated,

Her childish merriments and sport.

In leafy shade, by oaks protected,

He shared the games that she selected;

Their fathers – friends and neighbours, they –

Destined the children’s wedding day.

Beneath a backwoods porch the maiden,

In girlish innocence and grace,

Blossomed beneath her parents’ gaze,

A lily of the valley, hidden

In densest grass, unnoticed by

The passing bee or butterfly.

22

By her the poet first was given

His youthful dream of ecstasy,

And thoughts about her would enliven

His pipe’s first moan of melody.

Farewell to golden games, for ever!

He took instead to groveland cover,

Seclusion, stillness and the night,

The stars and heaven’s brightest light,

The moon amid her constellation,

The moon, to whom when evening nears,

We dedicated walks and tears,

Our secret sorrow’s consolation…

But now we only see in her

A substitute for lamplight’s blur.

23

Forever modest and submissive,

Forever merry as the day,

As charming as a lover’s kisses,

As artless as the poet’s way,

Her eyes as azure as the heaven,

Her flaxen curls, her smile so even,

Her voice, her slender waist and stance

These made up Olga… but just glance

At any novel at your leisure,

You’ll find her portrait there – it’s sweet,

Once I myself found it a treat,

But now it bores me beyond measure.

Reader, I shall, if you’ll allow,

Turn to the elder sister now.

24

Her elder sister was Tatiana…

This is the first time that we grace

A tender novel in this manner

With such a name, so out of place.

What of it? It is pleasing, resonant;

I know, of course, that it is redolent

Of memories of ancientness

Or maids’ rooms! We must all confess:

That even in the names we’re given

There’s very little taste on show

(We will not mention verses now);

Enlightenment we don’t believe in,

We’ve simply utilized it for

Mere affectation – nothing more.

25

And so then she was called Tatiana.

Lacking her sister’s beauty, poise,

Her rosy freshness, in no manner

Would she attract a person’s gaze.

A wayward, silent, sad young maiden,

Shy as a doe, in forest hidden,

She seemed inside her family

A stranger, an anomaly.

She could not snuggle up to father

Or mother; and herself a child,

By children’s games was not beguiled

To skip or play, but often, rather,

Would at a window silently

Sit on her own throughout the day.

26

Of contemplative disposition

Beginning with her cradle days,

She coloured with a dreamy vision

The idle flow of rural ways.

Her slender fingers knew not needles;

Embroidery seemed made of riddles;

With silken patterns she was loath

To animate a linen cloth.

A sign of the desire to govern,

The child with her obedient doll

Rehearses for the protocol

Of etiquette and worldly canon,

And to her doll with gravity

Imparts mamma’s morality.

27

But even in those years Tatiana

Possessed no doll nor made pretence

To tell it in an adult manner

About town fashions and events.

And childish escapades were foreign

To her: in winter, tales of horror,

Told in the darkness of the night,

Gave to her heart much more delight.

Whenever nurse, obeying Olga,

Brought all her little playmates down

To play upon the spacious lawn,

She found the games of catch too vulgar,

The ringing laughs and jollity

Were boring to her equally.

28

Upon her balcony, preceding

The rising of the dawn, she loved

To watch the dancing stars receding

That on the pale horizon moved,

When earth’s fine edge is softly glowing,

The wind that heralds morn is blowing,

And by degrees the day grows bright.

In winter when the shade of night

Possesses half the world much longer,

And longer, too, the lazy East,

In moonlight overcome by mist,

Continues to repose in languor,

Awakened at her usual time,

By candlelight from bed she’d climb.

29

Fond early on of reading novels,

For which all else she would forgo,

She grew enamoured of the marvels

Of Richardson⁵ and of Rousseau.

Her father was a decent fellow,

Of the preceding age and mellow,

Who saw no harm in books, which he,

Not having read at all, would see

As empty playthings, unengrossing,

And did not care what secret tome

Lay until morning, in his home,

Beneath his daughter’s pillow dozing.

As for his wife, she’d also gone

Quite crazy over Richardson.

30

Her love for him was not connected

With having read her Richardson,

Nor was it that she had rejected

A Lovelace for a Grandison.⁶

But in the past Princess Alina,

Her Moscow cousin, when she’d seen her,

Had talked about these gentlemen.

Her husband was her fiance then,

A bond to which she’d not consented;

She sighed after another one

Who, with his heart and mind, had won

Her liking more than her intended:

This Grandison was smart at cards,

A fop and Ensign in the Guards.

31

Like him, she dressed to match the fashion

In keeping with good taste, well bred;

But all at once without discussion

The girl was to the altar led.

And, to dispel her dreadful sorrow,

Her husband wisely left, the morrow,

Taking her to his country seat,

Where God knows whom she was to meet.

At first, she strained and sobbed and ranted,

All but divorced her husband, too,

Then turned to household matters, grew

Acclimatized, became contented.

Habit is heaven’s gift to us:

A substitute for happiness.

32

Habit allayed the grief she suffered,

That nothing else could remedy;

A thing of note she soon discovered

That gave her equanimity:

Between domestic work and leisure

She ascertained the perfect measure

For governing her husband’s life,

And then became a proper wife.

She drove out to inspect the farmers,

She pickled mushrooms, saved and spent,

She shaved the conscripts’ foreheads,⁷ went

On Saturdays to use the bathhouse,

Beat servant girls who got her cross –

She, not her husband, was the boss.

33

Time was, she would have written in a

Shy maiden’s album with her blood,

Praskov’ya she’d have called Polina

And made a song of every word.

She’d wear tight stays to suit convention,

A Russian N just like a French one

She’d learned to utter through her nose;

But all this soon came to a close:

Stays, album, the Princess Alina,

The sentimental verselets, all

She now forgot, began to call

‘Akul’ka’ formerly ‘Selina’,

And finally appeared becapped

Inside a quilted housecoat wrapped.

34

But heartily her husband loved her,

On her designs he did not frown,

In all, he cheerfully believed her,

While dining in his dressing-gown;

His life rolled on without a hazard;

At eventide, sometimes, there gathered

A group of kindly neighbours, who,

Informally, arrived to rue

And tittle-tattle, who confided

And chuckled over this and that.

Hours passed – time that the tea was set,

They summoned Olga to provide it.

Then supper came and close of day,

And so the guests would drive away.

35

Their peaceful lives went on, retaining

The customs of antiquity;

At Shrovetide they’d be entertaining

With Russian pancakes (or bliny);

They fasted twice a year for sinning,

They loved round swings that sent them spinning,

The choral dances, guessing songs.

On Trinity, among the throngs

Of yawning peasants at thanksgiving,

They touchingly shed tears, three drops

Upon a bunch of buttercups;⁸

They needed kvas⁹ like air for living;

And at their table guests were served

With dishes, as their rank deserved.

36

And thus the two of them grew older

Until the grave invited down

The husband, squire and erstwhile soldier,

And he received a second crown.¹⁰

He died an hour before his dinner,

Mourned by the neighbour of the manor,

By children and a faithful wife,

More candidly than many a life.

He was a simple, kindly barin,¹¹

And there, above his last remains,

A solemn monument proclaims:

The humble sinner, Dmitry Larin,

Slave of the Lord and Brigadier

Beneath this stone reposeth here.

37

To his penates¹² now returning,

Vladimir Lensky visited

His neighbour’s humble gravestone, mourning,

With sighs, the ashes of the dead;

Long was his heart with grief afflicted,

‘Poor Yorick,’ he declared, dejected,

‘He used to hold me in his arms.

How, in my childhood, oftentimes,

I played with his Ochakov medal!¹³

He destined Olga for my bride,

Shall I be here that day…? he said.’

True sadness put him on his mettle,

Vladimir straightway felt a call

To write a gravestone madrigal.

38

And there, in tears, he wrote another

To mark the patriarchal dust

Of both his father and his mother…

Alas! each generation must

By Providence’s dispensation

Rise, ripen, fall, in quick succession,

Upon life’s furrows; in its wake

Others the selfsame journey take.

So, our light-headed tribe, now roaming,

Grows up, gets animated, seethes,

Sees off its ancestors with wreaths.

But our time, too, is coming, coming,

And one fine day our grandsons will

Bundle us out with equal zeal!

39

Meanwhile, enjoy, friends, till it’s ended,

This light existence, every dram!

Its nullity I’ve comprehended

And little bound to it I am;

I’ve shut my eyelids now to phantoms;

But distant hopes appear and sometimes

Continue to disturb my heart.

I’d find it sad now to depart

The world without some recognition.

Not courting praise, I live and write,

But still, it seems, I should delight

In glorifying my sad mission,

In having just a single sound

Recall me, like a friend that’s found.

40

And someone’s heart it will awaken;

And this new strophe that I nurse

Will not in Lethe¹⁴ drown, forsaken,

If destiny preserves my verse.

Perhaps some future ignoramus

(A flattering hope!), when I am famous,

Will point to my illustrious portrait

And say: now that man was a poet!

I offer you, then, my oblations,

Admirer of Aonia’s maids,¹⁵

O you, whose memory never fades

And saves my volatile creations,

Whose hand, that favours my renown,

Will pat the old man’s laurel crown!¹⁶