Eugene Onegin

CHAPTER VI

La, sotto i giorni nubilosi e brevi,

Nasce una gente a cui ‘l morir non dole.¹

Petrarch

1

On noticing his friend had vanished,

Onegin stayed at Olga’s side,

Pensive, again to boredom banished,

Content with vengeance satisfied,

Now Olen’ka like him was yawning,

Her eyes in search of Lensky turning,

While the cotillion’s endless stream

Oppressed her like a grievous dream.

But it has ended. Supper’s ready.

The beds are made. The guests are all

Assigned their place from entrance-hall

To housemaids’ quarters. All are needy

Of restful sleep. Alone Eugene

Drives home from this domestic scene.

2

All’s calm: from the salon ascended

The snores of heavy Pustyakov,

Beside his heavy wife extended.

Gvozdin, Buyanov, Petushkov

And Flyanov (somewhat over-sated)

Were on the dinner chairs located,

And on the floor Monsieur Triquet

In vest and ancient nightcap lay.

The rooms of Olga and Tatiana

Were full of sleeping girls. Alone

And sad, Tatiana shone,

Illuminated by Diana;

To sleep, poor thing, she could not yield

And gazed upon the darkened field.

3

Tatiana to her soul is riven

By Eugene’s unexpected call,

The sudden tender look he’d given,

His strange approach to Olga – all

Distresses her and makes her wonder,

To understand him’s quite beyond her:

A jealous anguish makes her start,

As if a cold hand pressed her heart,

As if a chasm, black and frightful,

Had opened, roaring, under her.

‘I’ll die,’ she says, but does not stir,

‘To die from him will be delightful.²

I shan’t complain, for I confess

He cannot bring me happiness.’

4

But onward, onward with my story!

Another character arrives.

Five versts away from Krasnogorye

(Lensky’s estate) there lives and thrives

In philosophical seclusion

Still to this day, without intrusion,

Zaretsky, once a brawler and

The hetman³ of a gaming band,

Chieftain of rakes, a pub declaimer,

But now, benign and simple, he

Maintains a bachelor family;

A steadfast friend, a squire grown tamer,

He’s even honest – thus our age

Improves itself at every stage.⁴

5

Time was, he stood upon a pedestal,

Society flattered him with praise:

He was a maestro with a pistol

Who could at twelve yards hit an ace,

And once, engaged in actual battle,

Enraptured, he displayed his mettle

By falling from his Kalmuck steed

Into the mud at daring speed;

Drunk as a swine, this precious hostage

Surrendered to a Gallic squad,

A modern Regulus,⁵ honour’s god,

Prepared to yield again to bondage,

To drain on credit two or three

Carafes each morning chez Véry.⁶

6

To tease was once his recreation,

He’d dupe a fool or stupefy

A man of educated station,

In public gaze or on the sly,

Although some tricks he perpetrated

Did not remain uncastigated,

And sometimes, like a simple chap,

He’d fall himself into a trap.

He could dispute and be amusing,

Respond with answers, smart or dumb,

At times judiciously keep mum

Or be judiciously abusing,

Encourage two young friends to strife

And set them duelling for their life,

7

Alternatively reconcile them,

Arrange a breakfast for the three,

And, later, secretly revile them

With merry jokes and braggartry.

Sed alia tempora!⁷Audacity

(Like lover’s dream, another vanity)

Departs when lively youth has fled.

And my Zaretsky, as I said,

Lives like a sage, discovering solace

Where bird cherry, acacia climb;⁸

Sheltered from storms, he spends his time

In planting cabbages, like Horace,⁹

And breeding ducks and geese, is free

To teach his kids their ABC.

8

He was not stupid; and, despising

The heart in him, Eugene admired

The spirit of his judgements, prizing

The sound opinions he’d acquired.

Eugene was always pleased to meet him

And so was not surprised to greet him

When, in the morning, Eugene saw

His neighbour standing at the door.

With salutations done, Zaretsky

Broke off the chat that they’d begun

And, eyes a-twinkle with the fun,

Passed on to him a note from Lensky.

Onegin to the window went

And read the note the poet sent.

9

It was a gentlemanly letter,

A challenge or cartel¹⁰ he’d penned;

Polite and cold and to the matter

He sought a duel with his friend.

Eugene’s immediate reaction

To this demand for satisfaction

Was swift enough. Discussion spared,

He said he’d ‘always be prepared’.

Zaretsky rose without explaining,

Not wishing to prolong his stay,

For household business claimed the day,

He left forthwith; Eugene, remaining

Alone, encountering his soul,

Was not contented with his role.

10

Indeed, a strict examination

Before a secret, inner court

Engendered much self-accusation:

First, that he’d not the right to sport

Last evening in such casual fashion

With Lensky’s timid, tender passion;

Then… why not let a poet play

The fool at eighteen, while he may.

Eugene, who loved him as a brother,

Might well have proved, by seeking peace,

To be no ball of prejudice

That’s batted one way or another,

No fiery boy, no fighting kind,

But man of honour, with a mind.

11

He might have manifested feeling

Instead of bristling like a beast,

He should have set about the healing

Of Lensky’s heart. Such thoughts soon ceased.

‘Too late now, everything is settled,

Now this old duellist has meddled

In the affair, what’s left to do?

He’s vicious and a gossip, too.

The answer to his droll dominion

Should be contempt, of course, but then

The whispers, laughs of stupid men…’

And there it is – public opinion!¹¹

Our idol, honour’s spring, which, wound,

Ensures our universe goes round.

12

Lensky, at home, with hatred blazing,

Awaits the answer fretfully;

His neighbour in the finest phrasing

Conveys it with solemnity.

This sets the jealous poet cheering;

The prankster might – so he’d been fearing –

Treat the occasion as a jest,

And by some ruse avert his breast

And duck the pistol by retreating.

These doubts resolved, tomorrow they

Must at the mill ere break of day

Embark upon their fateful meeting,

To raise the cock and, taking aim,

A temple or a thigh to claim.¹²

13

Detesting a coquette so cruel,

Still seething, Lensky sought to shun

A rendezvous before the duel,

He kept consulting watch and sun.

The wish to meet, though, was compelling,

Soon Lensky’s at the sisters’ dwelling.

Olga, he thought, would be upset

And agitated when they met;

But not a bit of it: on spying

The desolate bard, as in the past

She skipped down from the porch as fast

As giddy hope, towards him flying,

Light-hearted, free of care, serene –

In fact, as she had always been.

14

‘Last night, why did you leave so early?’

Was what his Olen’ka first said.

His senses clouded, and he merely,

Without replying, hung his head.

Vexation, jealousy were banished,

Before her shining look they vanished,

Before her soft simplicity,

Before her soul’s vivacity!

He gazes with sweet feeling, heartened

To see that he’s still loved; and longs

Already, burdened by his wrongs,

To ask her whether he’ll be pardoned,

He trembles, can’t think what to say,

He’s happy, almost well today…

[15, 16]¹³

17

Pensive again, again dejected,

Vladimir, under Olga’s sway,

Is not sufficiently collected

To speak to her of yesterday;

‘I,’ he reflects, ‘will be her saviour.

I shall not suffer that depraver

To tempt a maiden’s innocence

With fiery sighs and compliments;

Nor let a worm with venom slither

A lily’s stalklet to enfold,

Nor see a flower two days old,

Half-opened still, condemned to wither.’

All this, friends, signified: I shall

Soon fire a bullet at my pal.

18

If he had known what wound was burning

My dear Tatiana’s heart! If she

Had been aware, in some way learning,

If she’d been able to foresee

That Lensky, Eugene would be vying

To find a grave for one to lie in;

Who knows, her love perhaps might then

Have reconciled the friends again!

But no one had as yet discovered,

Even by chance, their angry feud.

On everything Eugene was mute,

Tatiana quietly pined and suffered;

The nurse might just have known of it,

But she, alas, was slow of wit.

19

All evening Lensky was abstracted,

Now taciturn, now gay. Somehow,

A person by the Muse protected,

Is always thus: with knitted brow,

To the clavier he’d wander, playing

A string of chords, no more assaying,

Or whisper, seeing Olga near,

‘I’m happy, am I not, my dear?’

But it was late, his heart was aching,

He must depart, yet as he bade

Goodbye to her, his youthful maid,

His heart was on the point of breaking.

She looks at him: ‘What is it?’ ‘Oh,

It’s nothing, Olga, I must go.’

20

Arriving home, he first inspected

His pistols, ready for the fight,

Put them away, undressed, reflected

On Schiller’s verse by candlelight.

But by one thought he’s overtaken,

His melancholy does not slacken:

He sees before him Olga full

Of beauty inexplicable.

Vladimir closes Schiller’s verses,

Takes up his pen and writes his own –

Nonsense to which a lover’s prone;

It sings and flows. And he rehearses

His lines aloud, by fervour seized,

Like drunken Delvig¹⁴ at a feast.

21

By chance his verse can still be read now,

I have it, ready for your gaze:¹⁵

‘Whither, ah whither are you fled now,

My springtime’s ever-golden days?

What is the coming day’s decision?

Alas, it lies beyond my vision,

Enshrouded in the deepest night.

No matter, fate’s decree is right.

Whether I’m pierced by an arrow

Or whether it should miss – all’s well:

A predetermined hour will tell

If we’re to wake or sleep tomorrow:

Blest are the cares that day contrives,

Blest is the darkness that arrives!

22

‘When daybreak comes with rays ascending

And sparkling day dispels the gloom,

Then I, perhaps – I’ll be descending

Into the mystery of the tomb,

Slow Lethe will engulf for ever

My young poetical endeavour;

I’ll be forgot, but you’ll return

To weep on my untimely urn,

And, maid of beauty, in your sorrow,

You will reflect: he loved me, sworn

To me alone in his sad dawn,

Bereft now of its stormy morrow!…

Come, heartfelt friend, come, longed-for friend,

I’ll be your husband to the end.’

23

And so he wrote obscurely, limply

(Romantic¹⁶ is the term we’ve coined,

Though what’s Romantic here I simply

Have no idea; and what’s the point?),

And finally, as night was ending,

His head towards his shoulder bending,

Vladimir dozed, while lingering still

Upon the modish word ideal;

But scarcely lost in sleep’s enchantment,

He does not hear his neighbour, who

Enters the silent study to

Awaken him with a commandment:

‘Time to get up, past six, we’re late,

Onegin will not want to wait.’

24

But he was wrong: Eugene unheeding

Still sleeps a sleep that nought can mar.

Night’s shades already are receding,

The cock salutes the morning star,

Onegin sleeps on at his leisure,

The sun climbs high into the azure,

A passing snowstorm overhead

Glitters and whirls. But from his bed

Our dormant hero has not started,

Sleep hovers still before his eyes.

At last he wakes, prepares to rise,

The curtains of his bed he’s parted;

He looks outside – and sees, alack,

He should have started some time back.

25

He rings: his valet, French and chipper,

Reaches his chamber in a flash,

Guillot brings dressing-gown and slipper,

And hands him linen with panache.

Onegin hurries with his dressing,

Informs his man that time is pressing,

That he must take the duelling-case,

That they must leave, that they must race.

The sleigh is ready; Eugene, seated,

Flies to the mill, the horses strain.

He tells his valet to retain

Lepage’s fatal tubes¹⁷ till needed,

And have the horses moved to where

Two oaklings stand, and leave them there.

26

Leaning upon the dam stood Lensky

Who’d waited there impatiently,

While rural engineer Zaretsky

Surveyed the millstone critically.

Eugene arrives and makes excuses.

‘That’s very well, but where the deuce is

Your second, then?’ Zaretsky cried.

In duels he took a pedant’s pride,

Methodical by intuition:

To stretch out someone on the ground

Any old how was quite unsound,

One must obey a strict tradition

And follow rules of ancient days

(For which we should accord him praise).

27

‘My second? Yes, let me present him,

He’s here: Monsieur Guillot, my friend,

I do not see what should prevent him,

He’s someone I can recommend.

Although he’s not a well-known figure,

He is an honest guy and eager.’

Zaretsky bit his lip, appalled.

Onegin then to Lensky called:

‘Shall we not start now?’ ‘If you’re willing,’

Vladimir said. Behind the mill

They went. At some remove, meanwhile,

Zaretsky solemnly is sealing

A contract with the ‘honest guy’.

The two foes stand with lowered eye.

28

How long since they from one another

Were parted by a thirst to kill?

How long since, each to each a brother,

They’d shared their leisure time, a meal

And thoughts? But now with grim impatience,

As in a feud of generations

Or frightful dream that makes no sense

Each, cool and silent, must commence

To wreak the other one’s destruction…

Should they not stop and laugh instead

Before their hands have turned blood red,

Should they not spurn the duel’s seduction?…

But what the world cannot abide

Are bogus shame and lack of pride.

29

The pistols glistened; soon the mallets

Resoundingly on ramrods flicked,

Through cut-steel barrels went the bullets,

The cock has for the first time clicked.

A greyish powder was decanted

Into the pan, and the indented,

Securely screwed-in flint raised high

Once more. Behind a stump nearby

Guillot was standing, disconcerted.

The foes cast off their cloaks, meanwhile

Zaretsky measured off in style

Thirty-two steps and then diverted

His friends towards the farthest pace,

Each took his pistol to the place.¹⁸

30

‘Now march,’ came the command. And readily,

As if the two had never met,

The erstwhile comrades slowly, steadily

Advanced four steps, not aiming yet,

Four fatal steps the two had taken.

And then, advancing still, Onegin

Raised by degrees his pistol first.

Five further paces they traversed.

And likewise Lensky calculated,

Closed his left eye, as he took aim –

But, with a sudden burst of flame,

Onegin fired… the moment fated

Had struck: the poet, with no sound,

Let drop his pistol to the ground.

31

His hand upon his breast he presses

Softly, and falls, as, misty-eyed,

His gaze not pain, but death expresses.

Thus, slowly, on a mountain-side

A mound of snow, already teetering,

Descends with sunny sparkles glittering.

Onegin, shuddering, swiftly flies

To where the young Vladimir lies,

He looks and calls… but there’s no power

Can bring him back. The youthful bard

Has met an end untimely. Hard

The storm has blown, the finest flower

Has withered at the morning’s dawn,

The fire upon the altar’s gone.

32

He lay inert; uncanny-seeming,

A languid peace showed on his brow.

Beneath his breast the blood flowed, steaming,

The shot had gone right through him. How

One moment earlier inspiration

And love and hate, and aspiration

Had in this heart vibrated, churned,

How life had revelled, blood had burned;

But now, as in a house forsaken,

All it contains is dark and still,

A home forever silent, chill,

The windows shuttered, chalked and vacant,

The mistress vanished from the place

To God knows where, without a trace.

33

It’s pleasant with a verse to chasten

A dunderheaded clown and foe,

Pleasant to watch the fellow hasten

With butting horns descending low

To view his image in a mirror

And turn from it in shame and horror;

More pleasant, friends, if he howls out:

‘Oh look, that’s me there!’ like a lout;

Still pleasanter with quiet persistence

To plan a grave that lauds his name

And at his pallid brow take aim

From proper gentlemanly distance;

It’s hardly pleasant, though, you’ll find

To send him off to meet his kind.

34

What happens if your young companion

Is slaughtered by your pistol shot

For some presumptuous glance, opinion

Or repartee worth not a jot,

Insulting you while you were drinking,

Or if, in fiery pique, not thinking,

He calls you proudly to a duel,

Tell me the feelings that would rule

Your soul, when without motion lying

In front of you upon the earth,

Upon his brow the hue of death,

He slowly stiffens, ossifying,

When to your desperate appeal

He is insensitive and still?

35

With sharpening contrition growing,

Gripping the pistol in his hand,

Onegin watched Vladimir’s going.

‘Well then, he’s dead, you understand,’

Pronounced the neighbour. Dead! Onegin,

Crushed by the utterance, walks off, quaking,

To call his people.¹⁹ Straightaway,

Zaretsky gently on the sleigh

Settles the frozen corpse, escorting

The dreadful treasure to its home.

Sensing the corpse, the horses foam,

Wetting the steel bit, chafing, snorting,

But when they’re ready to depart,

They fly as swiftly as a dart.

36

My friends, you’re sorry for the poet:

Amid the bloom of hope, desire

From which the world will never profit,

And scarcely out of child’s attire,

Gone! Where’s the ardent agitation,

Where is the noble aspiration

Of youthful feeling, youthful thought,

Audacious, tender, highly wrought?

Where, too, is love’s acclaimed impatience,

The thirst for knowledge, thirst for work,

The dread where vice and shame may lurk,

And you, most cherished ruminations,

You, phantoms of unearthly life,

You, dreams with sacred verses rife!

37

Perhaps he was for good intended

Or at the very least for fame;

His silenced lyre might have extended

Its sound through centuries to come

With ringing music. There awaited

Perhaps a special niche created

For him at an exalted site.

Perhaps his martyred shade in flight

Carried away a holy secret,

Remaining with him, and the joys

Are lost of an uplifting voice,

While from beyond the gravestone’s remit

No hymn will rush to where he’s laid,

Nor peoples come to bless his shade.

[38]²⁰

39

But then again the poet’s portion

Might well have been quite commonplace.

The years of youth give way to caution,

Slowing the soul’s impetuous pace.

Of poetry he might have wearied,

And, parting from the Muses, married;

A happy squire, with cuckold’s crown,

Wearing a quilted dressing gown;

He might have learned life’s true dimension,

At forty he’d have had the gout,

Drunk, eaten, moped, declined, got stout

And died according to convention

As children thronged and women cried

And village quacks stood by his side.

40

But, reader, we shall never know it;

Sufficient that upon a field

A youthful lover, dreamer, poet

Has by a friendly hand been killed!

A leftward path from the location

Where dwelt that child of inspiration

Leads to two pines with roots entwined,

Beneath which tiny currents wind

Out of the valley’s brook they border.

The ploughman rests beside their brink

And female reapers come to sink

Their ringing pitchers in the water;

There, by the brook, in deepest shade,

A simple monument is laid.²¹

41

A herdsman to the tomb retreating

Sings (as the spring rain dots the grass)

Of Volga fishermen, while plaiting

His mottled sandals made of bast.

A young townswoman who is spending

Her summer in the country, wending

On horseback through the fields alone,

Rides headlong, comes upon the stone

And halts her steed, before it pausing,

As, tightening the leather leads,

She lifts her veil of gauze and reads

The plain inscription quickly, causing

A tear to dim her tender eyes

At Lensky’s premature demise.

42

And, at a trot, she rides through meadows,

Sunk a long time in reverie,

Her soul pervaded by the shadows

Cast by the poet’s destiny;

And wonders: ‘How did Olga suffer?²²

Was it for long she mourned her lover?

Or did she only briefly rue?

And where’s her sister now? Where, too,

Is he, the fugitive, the hermit,

Of modish belles the modish foe,

Where did that gloomy oddball go,

The slayer of the youthful poet?’

I promise in due time I’ll bring

A full account of everything,

43

But not today. Although my feeling

For Eugene has not changed a bit,

Though I’ll return to him, unfailing,

Right now I am not up to it.

To Spartan prose the years are turning,

Coquettish rhyme the years are spurning;

And I – I with a sigh confess –

I’m running after her much less.

My pen has lost its former pleasures

Of daubing fleeting leaves, it seems,

Today, quite different, chilling dreams;

Quite different, unrelenting pressures,

In stillness or in social noise,

Disturb the sleep my soul enjoys.

44

I’ve come to know new aspirations,

I’ve come to know new sadness, too;

The former hold no expectations,

And earlier sadness still I rue.

Where are my dreams, the dreams I cherished?

What rhyme now follows, if not ‘perished’?²³

And is the garland of my youth

Withered at last, is this the truth?

Is it the truth, all plain, unvarnished,

Not in an elegiac cloak,

That (hitherto said as a joke)

The springtime of my days has vanished,

Can’t be brought back and that I’m near

Already to my thirtieth year?²⁴

45

The noontide of my life is starting,

Which I must needs accept, I know;

But oh, my light youth, if we’re parting,

I want you as a friend to go!

My thanks to you for the enjoyments,

The sadness and the pleasant torments,

The hubbub, storms, festivity,

For all that you have given me;

My thanks to you. I have delighted

In you when times were turbulent,

When times were calm… to full extent;

Enough now! With a soul clear-sighted

I set out on another quest

And from my old life take a rest.

46

Let me glance back. Farewell, you arbours

Where, in the backwoods, I recall

Days filled with indolence and ardours

And dreamings of a pensive soul.

And you, my youthful inspiration.

Keep stirring my imagination,

My heart’s inertia vivify,

More often to my corner fly.

Let not a poet’s soul be frozen,

Made rough and hard, reduced to bone

And finally be turned to stone

In that benumbing world he goes in,

In that intoxicating slough

Where, friends, we bathe together now.²⁵