Eugene Onegin

CHAPTER X¹

1

A ruler, timorous and wily,

A balding fop, of toil a foe,

Minion of Fame by chance entirely,

Reigned over us those years ago.²

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2

We knew him not at all so regal,

When cooks, who were not ours, were sent

To pluck our double-headed eagle,

Where Bonaparte had pitched his tent.³

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3

The storm of 1812 descended –

Who was our rock here, who our rod?

Was it the rage the people vented?

Winter, Barcláy⁴ or Russia’s God?

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4

But God did help – murmurs abated,

And, shortly, by the force of things,

In Paris we had congregated

And Russia’s Tsar was king of kings.⁵

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5

And as he fattened,⁶ life grew heavier,

O you, our stupid Russian folk,

Say, why for God’s sake did you ever

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6

Maybe, O shibboleth of the nation,

I’ll dedicate an ode to you,

It seems, though, in anticipation

A high-born rhymester’s done it, too.⁷

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To Albion the seas are granted⁸

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7

Maybe the fraud,⁹ his rents forgetting,

Will move into a monastery,

Maybe Tsar Nicholas, regretting,

Will set Siberia’s captives free¹⁰

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Maybe they will repair the highways

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8

This man of fate, through wars progressing,

Before whom Europe’s kings would fawn,

This horseman, crowned with papal blessing,

Gone like a shadow of the dawn,

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Exhausted on the rack of leisure¹¹

9

The Pyrenees shook with foreboding,

Naples’ volcano was astir,

The one-armed prince was up and nodding

From Kishinev to the Morea.

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L’s dagger… B’s shadow¹²

10

I’ll curb all comers with my people. –

Our Tsar said in the congress hall,

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And does not give a damn about you,

You’re Alexander’s menial.¹³

11

Toy regiment of Peter-Titan,

A guard of old mustachios,

Whose fake protection of a tyrant

Betrayed him to his deadly foes.¹⁴

12

Russia again returned to quietness,

Still more the Tsar went revelling,

But sparks of quite another brightness,

Perhaps a long time smouldering,¹⁵

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13

Foregathering at private meetings,

Over a Russian vodka, wine,

They would, reciprocating greetings,¹⁶

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14

Grandiloquent and trenchant pleaders,

This group of friends would congregate

At either turbulent Nikita’s

Or cautious Ilya’s to debate.¹⁷

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15

Mars, Bacchus, Venus were his pleasures:

Here Lunin with audacity

Put forward his decisive measures,¹⁸

And muttered in a reverie.

Noëls were brought and read by Pushkin,¹⁹

While melancholical Yakushkin,²⁰

Had silently, it seemed, laid bare

A dagger meant to slay the Tsar.

With only Russia in his vision,

Pursuing his ideal, the lame

Turgenev²¹ hearkened to their aim

And, hating slavery’s oppression,

Predicted that this noble folk

Would free the peasants from their yoke.

16²²

All this on the Neva, iced over;

But where much sooner shines the spring

On Kamenka²³ in shady cover

And on the hilltops of Tul’chin,²⁴

Where Wittgenstein’s detachments quartered,

On plains by the Dnieper watered

And on the steppeland of the Bug,

These things took on a different look.

There Pestel²⁵… for the tyrants,

And a cool-headed general²⁶

Gathered supporters to his call,

And Muryavyov,²⁷ to him inclining,

Hastened with strength and boldness to

See the uprising carried through.

17

At first, these plots, initiated

‘Twixt a Lafitte and a Cliquot²⁸

Were in a friendly tone debated

And the rebellious science was slow

To kindle a defiant passion,

All this was mere ennui and fashion,

The idleness of youthful minds,

Games that a grown-up scamp designs,

It seemed…

But gradually…

From cell to cell…

And soon… by a secret network

Russia…

Our Tsar was dozing…