EUGENE ONEGIN A Novel in Verse by Aleksandr Pushkin
Pétri de vanité il avait encore plus de cette espèce d'orgueil qui fait avouer avec la même indifférence les bonnes comme les mauvaises actions, suite d'un sentiment de supériorité, peut-être imaginaire.
Not thinking to amuse the haughty world,
having grown fond of friendship's heed,
I wish I could present you with a gage
4 that would be worthier of you —
be worthier of a fine soul
full of a holy dream,
of live and limpid poetry,
8 of high thoughts and simplicity.
But so be it. With partial hand
take this collection of pied chapters:
half droll, half sad,
12 plain-folk, ideal,
the careless fruit of my amusements,
insomnias, light inspirations,
unripe and withered years,
16 the intellect's cold observations,
and the heart's sorrowful remarks.
CHAPTER ONE
To live it hurries and to feel it hastes.
I
“My uncle has most honest principles:
when he was taken gravely ill,
he forced one to respect him
4 and nothing better could invent.
To others his example is a lesson;
but, good God, what a bore to sit
by a sick person day and night, not stirring
8 a step away!
What base perfidiousness
to entertain one half-alive,
adjust for him his pillows,
12 sadly serve him his medicine,
sigh — and think inwardly
when will the devil take you?”
II
Thus a young scapegrace thought
as with post horses in the dust he flew,
by the most lofty will of Zeus
4 the heir of all his kin.
Friends of Lyudmila and Ruslan!
The hero of my novel,
without preambles, forthwith,
8 I'd like to have you meet:
Onegin, a good pal of mine,
was born upon the Neva's banks,
where maybe you were born,
12 or used to shine, my reader!
There formerly I too promenaded —
but harmful is the North to me.1
III
Having served excellently, nobly,
his father lived by means of debts;
gave three balls yearly
4 and squandered everything at last.
Fate guarded Eugene:
at first, Madame looked after him;
later, Monsieur replaced her.
8 The child was boisterous but charming.
Monsieur l'Abbé, a poor wretch of a Frenchman,
not to wear out the infant,
taught him all things in play,
12 bothered him not with stern moralization,
scolded him slightly for his pranks,
and to the Letniy Sad took him for walks.
IV
Then, when the season of tumultuous youth
for Eugene came,
season of hopes and tender melancholy,
4 Monsieur was ousted from the place.
Now my Onegin is at large:
hair cut after the latest fashion,
dressed like a London Dandy2 —
8 and finally he saw the World.
In French impeccably
he could express himself and write,
danced the mazurka lightly, and
12 bowed unconstrainedly —
what would you more? The World decided
that he was clever and most charming.
V
All of us had a bit of schooling
in something and somehow:
hence in our midst it is not hard,
4 thank God, to flaunt one's education.
Onegin was, in the opinion
of many (judges resolute and stern),
a learned fellow but a pedant.
8 He had the happy talent,
without constraint, in conversation
slightly to touch on everything,
keep silent, with an expert's learned air,
12 during a grave discussion, and provoke
the smiles of ladies with the fire
of unexpected epigrams.
VI
Latin has gone at present out of fashion;
still, to tell you the truth,
he had enough knowledge of Latin
4 to make out epigraphs,
expatiate on Juvenal,
put at the bottom of a letter vale,
and he remembered, though not without fault,
8 two lines from the Aeneid.
He had no inclination
to rummage in the chronological
dust of the earth's historiography,
12 but anecdotes of days gone by,
from Romulus to our days,
he did keep in his memory.
VII
Lacking the lofty passion not to spare
life for the sake of sounds,
an iamb from a trochee —
4 no matter how we strove — he could not tell apart.
Theocritus and Homer he disparaged,
but read, in compensation, Adam Smith,
and was a deep economist:
8 that is, he could assess the way
a state grows rich,
what it subsists upon, and why
it needs not gold
12 when it has got the simple product.
His father could not understand him,
and mortgaged his lands.
VIII
All Eugene knew besides
I have no leisure to recount;
but where he was a veritable genius,
4 what he more firmly knew than all the arts,
what since his prime had been to him
toil, torment, and delight,
what occupied the livelong day
8 his fretting indolence —
was the art of soft passion
which Naso sang,
wherefore a sufferer
12 his brilliant and unruly span
he ended, in Moldavia,
deep in the steppes, far from his Italy.
IX.
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X
How early he was able to dissemble,
conceal a hope, show jealousy,
shake one's belief, make one believe,
4 seem gloomy, pine away,
appear proud and obedient,
attentive or indifferent!
How languorously he was silent,
8 how fierily eloquent,
in letters of the heart, how casual!
With one thing breathing, one thing loving,
how self-oblivious he could be!
12 How quick and tender was his gaze,
bashful and daring, while at times
it shone with an obedient tear!
XI
How he was able to seem new,
in jest astonish innocence,
alarm with ready desperation,
4 amuse with pleasant flattery,
capture the minute of softheartedness;
the prejudices of innocent years
conquer by means of wits and passion,
8 wait for involuntary favors,
beg or demand avowals,
eavesdrop upon a heart's first sound,
pursue love — and all of a sudden
12 obtain a secret assignation,
and afterward, alone with her,
amid the stillness give her lessons!
XII
How early he already could disturb
the hearts of the professed coquettes!
Or when he wanted to annihilate
4 his rivals,
how bitingly he'd tattle!
What snares prepare for them!
But you, blest husbands,
8 you remained friends with him:
him petted the sly spouse,
Faublas' disciple of long standing,
and the distrustful oldster,
12 and the majestical cornuto,
always pleased with himself,
his dinner, and his wife.
XIII. XIV.
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XV
It happened, he'd be still in bed
when little billets would be brought him.
What? Invitations? Yes, indeed,
4 to a soiree three houses bid him:
here, there will be a ball; elsewhere, a children's fete.
So whither is my scamp to scurry?
Whom will he start with? Never mind:
8 'tis simple to get everywhere in time.
Meanwhile, in morning dress,
having donned a broad bolivar3,
Onegin drives to the boulevard
12 and there goes strolling unconfined
till vigilant Bréguet
to him chimes dinner.
XVI
'Tis dark by now. He gets into a sleigh.
The cry “Way, way!” resounds.
With frostdust silvers
4 his beaver collar.
To Talon's4 he has dashed off: he is certain
that there already waits for him [Kavérin];
has entered — and the cork goes ceilingward,
8 the flow of comet wine spurts forth,
a bloody roast beef is before him,
and truffles, luxury of youthful years,
the best flower of French cookery,
12 and a decayless Strasbourg pie
between a living Limburg cheese
and a golden ananas.
XVII
Thirst is still clamoring for beakers
to drown the hot fat of the cutlets;
but Bréguet's chime reports to them
4 that a new ballet has begun.
The theater's unkind
lawgiver; the inconstant
adorer of enchanting actresses;
8 an honorary citizen of the coulisses,
Onegin has flown to the theater,
where, breathing criticism,
each is prepared to clap an entrechat,
12 hiss Phaedra, Cleopatra,
call out Moëna — for the purpose
merely of being heard.
XVIII
A magic region! There in olden years
the sovereign of courageous satire,
sparkled Fonvízin, freedom's friend,
4 and imitational Knyazhnín;
there Ózerov involuntary tributes
of public tears, of plaudits
shared with the young Semyónova;
8 there our Katénin resurrected
Corneille's majestic genius;
there caustic Shahovskóy brought forth the noisy
swarm of his comedies;
12 there, too, Didelot did crown himself with glory;
there, there, beneath the shelter of coulisses,
my young days sped.
XIX
My goddesses! What has become of you?
Where are you? Hearken to my woeful voice:
Are all of you the same? Have other maidens
4 taken your place without replacing you?
Am I to hear again your choruses?
Am I to see Russian Terpsichore's
soulful volation?
8 Or will the mournful gaze not find
familiar faces on the dreary stage,
and at an alien world having directed
a disenchanted lorgnette,
12 shall I, indifferent spectator
of merriment, yawn wordlessly
and bygones recollect?
XX
By now the house is full; the boxes blaze;
parterre and stalls — all seethes;
in the top gallery impatiently they clap,
4 and, soaring up, the curtain swishes.
Resplendent, half ethereal,
obedient to the magic bow,
surrounded by a throng of nymphs,
8 Istómina stands: she,
while touching with one foot the floor,
gyrates the other slowly,
and lo! a leap, and lo! she flies,
12 she flies like fluff from Eol's lips,
now twines and now untwines her waist
and beats one swift small foot against the other.
XXI
All clap as one. Onegin enters:
he walks — on people's toes — between the stalls;
askance, his double lorgnette trains
4 upon the loges of strange ladies;
he has scanned all the tiers;
he has seen everything; with faces, garb,
he's dreadfully displeased;
8 with men on every side
he has exchanged salutes; then at the stage
in great abstraction he has glanced,
has turned away, and yawned,
12 and uttered: “Time all were replaced;
ballets I long have suffered,
but even of Didelot I've had enough.”5
XXII
Amors, diaboli, and dragons
still on the stage jump and make noise;
still at the carriage porch the weary footmen
4 on the pelisses are asleep;
still people have not ceased to stamp,
blow noses, cough, hiss, clap;
still, outside and inside,
8 lamps glitter everywhere;
still, chilled, the horses fidget,
bored with their harness,
and round the fires the coachmen curse their masters
12 and beat their palms together;
and yet Onegin has already left;
he's driving home to dress.
XXIII
Shall I present a faithful picture
of the secluded cabinet,
where fashions' model pupil
4 is dressed, undressed, and dressed again?
Whatever, for the lavish whim,
London the trinkleter deals in
and o'er the Baltic waves to us
8 ships in exchange for timber and for tallow;
whatever hungry taste in Paris,
choosing a useful trade,
invents for pastimes,
12 for luxury, for modish mollitude;
all this adorned the cabinet
of a philosopher at eighteen years of age.
XXIV
Amber on Tsargrad's pipes,
porcelain and bronzes on a table,
and — joyance of the pampered senses —
4 perfumes in crystal cut with facets;
combs, little files of steel,
straight scissors, curvate ones, and brushes
of thirty kinds —
8 these for the nails, those for the teeth.
Rousseau (I shall observe in passing) was unable
to understand how the dignified Grimm
dared clean his nails in front of him,
The advocate of liberty and rights
was in the present case not right at all.
XXV
One can be an efficient man —
and mind the beauty of one's nails:
why vainly argue with the age?
4 Custom is despot among men.
My Eugene, a second [Chadáev],
being afraid of jealous censures,
was in his dress a pedant
8 and what we've called a fop.
Three hours, at least,
he spent in front of glasses,
and from his dressing room came forth
12 akin to giddy Venus
when, having donned a masculine attire,
the goddess drives to a masqued ball.
XXVI
With toilette in the latest taste
having engaged your curious glance,
I might before the learned world
4 describe here his attire;
this would, no doubt, be daring;
however, 'tis my business to describe;
but “dress coat,” “waistcoat,” “pantaloons” —
8 in Russian all these words are not;
in fact, I see (my guilt I lay before you)
that my poor idiom as it is
might be diversified much less
12 with words of foreign stock,
though I did erstwhile dip
into the Academic Dictionary.
XXVII
Not this is our concern at present:
we'd better hurry to the ball
whither headlong in a hack coach
4 already my Onegin has sped off.
In front of darkened houses,
alongst the sleeping street in rows
the twin lamps of coupés
8 pour forth a cheerful light
and project rainbows on the snow.
Studded around with lampions,
glitters a splendid house;
12 across its whole-glassed windows shadows move:
there come and go the profiled heads
of ladies and of modish quizzes.
XXVIII
Up to the porch our hero now has driven;
past the hall porter, like a dart,
he has flown up the marble steps,
4 has run his fingers through his hair,
has entered. The ballroom is full of people;
the music has already tired of dinning;
the crowd is occupied with the mazurka;
8 there's all around both noise and squeeze;
there clink the cavalier guard's spurs;
the little feet of winsome ladies flit;
upon their captivating tracks
12 flit flaming glances,
and by the roar of violins is drowned
the jealous whispering of fashionable women.
XXIX
In days of gaieties and desires
I was mad about balls:
there is no safer spot for declarations
4 and for the handing of a letter.
O you, respected husbands!
I'll offer you my services;
pray, mark my speech:
8 I wish to warn you.
You too, mammas: most strictly
follow your daughters with your eyes;
hold up your lorgnettes straight!
12 Or else... else — God forbid!
If this I write it is because
I have long ceased to sin.
XXX
Alas, on various pastimes I have wasted
a lot of life!
But to this day, if morals did not suffer,
4 I'd still like balls.
I like riotous youth,
the crush, the glitter, and the gladness,
and the considered dresses of the ladies;
8 I like their little feet; but then 'tis doubtful
that in all Russia you will find
three pairs of shapely feminine feet.
Ah me, I long could not forget
12 two little feet!... Despondent, fervorless,
I still remember them, and in sleep they
disturb my heart.
XXXI
So when and where, in what desert, will you
forget them, madman? Little feet,
ah, little feet! Where are you now?
4 Where do you trample vernant blooms?
Brought up in Oriental mollitude,
on the Northern sad snow
you left no prints:
8 you liked the sumptuous contact
of yielding rugs.
Is it long since I would forget for you
the thirst for fame and praises,
12 the country of my fathers, and confinement?
The happiness of youthful years has vanished
as on the meadows your light trace.
XXXII
Diana's bosom, Flora's cheeks, are charming,
dear friends! Nevertheless, for me
something about it makes more charming
4 the small foot of Terpsichore.
By prophesying to the gaze
an unpriced recompense,
with token beauty it attracts the willful
8 swarm of desires.
I like it, dear Elvina,
beneath the long napery of tables,
in springtime on the turf of meads,
12 in winter on the hearth's cast iron,
on mirrory parquet of halls,
by the sea on granite of rocks.
XXXIII
I recollect the sea before a tempest:
how I envied the waves
running in turbulent succession
4 with love to lie down at her feet!
How much I wished then with the waves
to touch the dear feet with my lips!
No, never midst the fiery days
8 of my ebullient youth
did I long with such anguish
to kiss the lips of young Armidas,
or the roses of flaming cheeks,
12 or bosoms full of languor —
no, never did the surge of passions
thus rive my soul!
XXXIV
I have remembrance of another time:
in chary fancies now and then
I hold the happy stirrup
4 and feel a small foot in my hand.
Again imagination seethes,
again that touch has kindled
the blood within my withered heart,
8 again the ache, again the love!
But 'tis enough extolling haughty ones
with my loquacious lyre:
they are not worth either the passions
12 or songs by them inspired;
the words and gaze of the said charmers
are as deceptive as their little feet.
XXXV
And my Onegin? Half asleep,
he drives from ball to bed,
while indefatigable Petersburg
4 is roused already by the drum.
The merchant's up, the hawker's out,
the cabby to the hack stand drags,
the Okhta girl hastes with her jug,
8 the morning snow creaks under her.
Morn's pleasant hubbub has awoken,
unclosed are shutters, chimney smoke
ascends in a blue column, and the baker,
12 a punctual German in a cotton cap,
has more than once already
opened his vasisdas.
XXXVI
But by the tumult of the ball fatigued,
and turning morning into midnight,
sleeps peacefully in blissful shade
4 the child of pastimes and of luxury.
He will awake past midday, and again
till morn his life will be prepared,
monotonous and motley, and tomorrow
8 'twill be the same as yesterday.
But was my Eugene happy —
free, in the bloom of the best years,
amidst resplendent conquests,
12 amidst delights of every day?
Was it to him of no avail
midst banquets to be rash and hale?
XXXVII
No, feelings early cooled in him.
Tedious to him became the social hum.
The fairs remained not long
4 the object of his customary thoughts.
Betrayals had time to fatigue him. Friends
and friendship palled,
since plainly not always could he
8 beefsteaks and Strasbourg pie
sluice with a champagne bottle
and scatter piquant sayings when
he had the headache;
12 and though he was a fiery scapegrace,
he lost at last his liking
for strife, saber and lead.
XXXVIII
A malady, the cause of which
'tis high time were discovered,
similar to the English “spleen” —
4 in short, the Russian “chondria” —
possessed him by degrees.
To shoot himself, thank God,
he did not care to try,
8 but toward life became quite cold.
He like Childe Harold, gloomy, languid,
appeared in drawing rooms;
neither the gossip of the monde nor boston,
12 neither a winsome glance nor an immodest sigh,
nothing touched him;
he noticed nothing.
XXXIX. XL. XLI.
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XLII
Capricious belles of the grand monde!
Before all others you he left;
and it is true that in our years
4 the upper ton is rather tedious.
Although, perhaps, this or that dame
interprets Say and Bentham,
in general their conversation
8 is insupportable, though harmless tosh.
On top of that they are so pure,
so stately, so intelligent,
so full of piety,
12 so circumspect, so scrupulous,
so inaccessible to men,
that the mere sight of them begets the spleen.7
XLIII
And you, young beauties, whom
at a late hour daredevil droshkies
carry away over the pavement
4 of Petersburg,
you also were abandoned by my Eugene.
Apostate from the turbulent delights,
Onegin locked himself indoors;
8 yawning, took up a pen;
wanted to write; but persevering toil
to him was loathsome: nothing
from his pen issued, and he did not get
12 into the cocky guild of people
on whom I pass no judgment — for the reason
that I belong to them.
XLIV
And once again to idleness consigned,
oppressed by emptiness of soul,
he settled down with the laudable aim
4 to make his own another's mind;
he crammed a shelf with an array of books,
and read, and read — and all for nothing:
here there was dullness; there, deceit and raving;
8 this one lacked conscience; that one, sense;
on all of them were different fetters;
and outworn was the old, and the new raved
about the old.
12 As he'd left women, he left books
and, with its dusty tribe, the shelf
with funerary taffeta he curtained.
XLV
Having cast off the burden of the monde's conventions,
having, as he, from vain pursuits desisted,
with him I made friends at that time.
4 I liked his traits,
to dreams the involuntary addiction,
nonimitative oddity,
and sharp, chilled mind;
8 I was embittered, he was gloomy;
the play of passions we knew both;
on both, life weighed;
in both, the heart's glow had gone out;
12 for both, there was in store the rancor
of blind Fortuna and of men
at the very morn of our days.
XLVI
He who has lived and thought
cannot help in his soul despising men;
him who has felt disturbs
4 the ghost of irrecoverable days;
for him there are no more enchantments;
him does the snake of memories,
him does repentance gnaw.
8 All this often imparts
great charm to conversation.
At first, Onegin's language
would disconcert me; but I grew
12 accustomed to his biting argument
and banter blent halfwise with bile
and virulence of somber epigrams.
XLVII
How oft in summertide, when limpid
and luminous is the nocturnal sky
above the Neva,8 and the gay
4 glass of the waters
does not reflect Diana's visage —
rememorating intrigues of past years,
rememorating a past love,
8 impressible, carefree again,
the breath of the benignant night
we mutely quaffed!
As to the greenwood from a prison
12 a slumbering clogged convict is transferred,
so we'd be carried off in fancy
to the beginning of young life.
XLVIII
With soul full of regrets,
and leaning on the granite,
Eugene stood pensive — as himself
'Twas stillness all; only night sentries
to one another called,
and the far clip-clop of some droshky
8 resounded suddenly from Million Street;
only a boat, oars swinging,
swam on the dozing river,
and, in the distance, captivated us
12 a horn and a brave song.
But, 'mid the night's diversions, sweeter
is the strain of Torquato's octaves.
XLIX
Adrian waves,
O Brenta! Nay, I'll see you
and, filled anew with inspiration,
4 I'll hear your magic voice!
'Tis sacred to Apollo's nephews;
through the proud lyre of Albion
to me 'tis known, to me 'tis kindred.
8 In the voluptuousness of golden
Italy's nights at liberty I'll revel,
with a youthful Venetian,
now talkative, now mute,
12 swimming in a mysterious gondola;
with her my lips will find
the tongue of Petrarch and of love.
L
Will the hour of my freedom come?
'Tis time, 'tis time! To it I call;
I roam above the sea,10 I wait for the right weather,
4 I beckon to the sails of ships.
Under the cope of storms, with waves disputing,
on the free crossway of the sea
when shall I start on my free course?
8 'Tis time to leave the dull shore of an element
inimical to me,
and sigh, 'mid the meridian swell, beneath the
sky of my Africa,11
12 for somber Russia, where
I suffered, where I loved,
where I buried my heart.
LI
Onegin was prepared with me
to see strange lands;
but soon we were to be by fate
4 sundered for a long time.
'Twas then his father died.
Before Onegin there assembled
a greedy host of creditors.
8 Each has a mind and notion of his own.
Eugene, detesting litigations,
contented with his lot,
abandoned the inheritance to them,
12 perceiving no great loss therein,
or precognizing from afar
the demise of his aged uncle.
LII
All of a sudden he indeed
got from the steward
a report that his uncle was nigh death in bed
4 and would be glad to bid farewell to him.
Eugene, the sad epistle having read,
incontinently to the rendezvous
drove headlong, traveling post,
8 and yawned already in anticipation,
preparing, for the sake of money,
for sighs, boredom, and guile
(and 'tis with this that I began my novel);
12 but when he reached apace his uncle's manor,
he found him laid already on the table
as a prepared tribute to earth.
LIII
He found the grounds full of attendants;
to the dead man from every side
came driving foes and friends,
4 enthusiasts for funerals.
The dead man was interred,
the priests and guests ate, drank,
and solemnly dispersed thereafter,
8 as though they had been sensibly engaged.
Now our Onegin is a rural dweller,
of workshops, waters, forests, lands,
absolute lord (while up to then he'd been
12 an enemy of order and a wastrel),
and very glad to have exchanged
his former course for something.
LIV
For two days new to him
seemed the secluded fields,
the coolness of the somber park,
4 the bubbling of the quiet brook;
by the third day, grove, hill, and field
did not engage him any more;
then somnolence already they induced;
8 then plainly he perceived
that in the country, too, the boredom was the same,
although there were no streets, no palaces,
no cards, no balls, no verses.
12 The hyp was waiting for him on the watch,
and it kept running after him
like a shadow or faithful wife.
LV
I was born for the peaceful life,
for country quiet:
the lyre's voice in the wild is more resounding,
4 creative dreams are more alive.
To harmless leisures consecrated,
I wander by a wasteful lake
and far niente is my rule.
8 By every morn I am awakened
unto sweet mollitude and freedom;
little I read, a lot I sleep,
volatile fame do not pursue.
12 Was it not thus in former years,
that in inaction, in the [shade],
I spent my happiest days?
LVI
Flowers, love, the country, idleness,
ye fields! my soul is vowed to you.
I'm always glad to mark the difference
4 between Onegin and myself,
lest a sarcastic reader
or else some publisher
of complicated calumny,
8 collating here my traits,
repeat thereafter shamelessly
that I have scrawled my portrait
like Byron, the poet of pride
12 — as if we were no longer able
to write long poems
on any other subject than ourselves!
LVII
In this connection I'll observe: all poets
are friends of fancifying love.
It used to happen that dear objects
4 I'd dream of, and my soul
preserved their secret image;
the Muse revived them later:
thus I, carefree, would sing
8 a maiden of the mountains, my ideal,
as well as captives of the Salgir's banks.
From you, my friends, at present
not seldom do I hear the question:
12 “For whom does your lyre sigh?
To whom did you, among the throng
of jealous maidens, dedicate its strain?
LVIII
Whose gaze, while stirring inspiration,
with a dewy caress rewarded
your pensive singing? Whom did your
4 verse idolize?”
Faith, nobody, my friends, I swear!
Love's mad anxiety
I cheerlessly went through.
8 Happy who blent with it the fever
of rhymes: thereby the sacred frenzy
of poetry he doubled,
striding in Petrarch's tracks;
12 as to the heart's pangs, he allayed them
and meanwhile fame he captured too —
but I, when loving, was stupid and mute.
LIX
Love passed, the Muse appeared,
and the dark mind cleared up.
Once free, I seek again the concord
4 of magic sounds, feelings, and thoughts;
I write, and the heart does not pine;
the pen draws not, lost in a trance,
next to unfinished lines,
8 feminine feet or heads;
extinguished ashes will not flare again;
I still feel sad; but there are no more tears,
and soon, soon the storm's trace
12 will hush completely in my soul:
then I shall start to write a poem
in twenty-five cantos or so.
LX
I've thought already of a form of plan
and how my hero I shall call.
Meantime, my novel's
4 first chapter I have finished;
all this I have looked over closely;
the inconsistencies are very many,
but to correct them I don't wish.
8 I shall pay censorship its due
and give away my labors' fruits
to the reviewers for devourment.
Be off, then, to the Neva's banks,
12 newborn work! And deserve for me
fame's tribute: false interpretations,
noise, and abuse!
To live it hurries and to feel it hastes.
I
“My uncle has most honest principles:
when he was taken gravely ill,
he forced one to respect him
4 and nothing better could invent.
To others his example is a lesson;
but, good God, what a bore to sit
by a sick person day and night, not stirring
8 a step away!
What base perfidiousness
to entertain one half-alive,
adjust for him his pillows,
12 sadly serve him his medicine,
sigh — and think inwardly
when will the devil take you?”
II
Thus a young scapegrace thought
as with post horses in the dust he flew,
by the most lofty will of Zeus
4 the heir of all his kin.
Friends of Lyudmila and Ruslan!
The hero of my novel,
without preambles, forthwith,
8 I'd like to have you meet:
Onegin, a good pal of mine,
was born upon the Neva's banks,
where maybe you were born,
12 or used to shine, my reader!
There formerly I too promenaded —
but harmful is the North to me.1
III
Having served excellently, nobly,
his father lived by means of debts;
gave three balls yearly
4 and squandered everything at last.
Fate guarded Eugene:
at first, Madame looked after him;
later, Monsieur replaced her.
8 The child was boisterous but charming.
Monsieur l'Abbé, a poor wretch of a Frenchman,
not to wear out the infant,
taught him all things in play,
12 bothered him not with stern moralization,
scolded him slightly for his pranks,
and to the Letniy Sad took him for walks.
IV
Then, when the season of tumultuous youth
for Eugene came,
season of hopes and tender melancholy,
4 Monsieur was ousted from the place.
Now my Onegin is at large:
hair cut after the latest fashion,
dressed like a London Dandy2 —
8 and finally he saw the World.
In French impeccably
he could express himself and write,
danced the mazurka lightly, and
12 bowed unconstrainedly —
what would you more? The World decided
that he was clever and most charming.
V
All of us had a bit of schooling
in something and somehow:
hence in our midst it is not hard,
4 thank God, to flaunt one's education.
Onegin was, in the opinion
of many (judges resolute and stern),
a learned fellow but a pedant.
8 He had the happy talent,
without constraint, in conversation
slightly to touch on everything,
keep silent, with an expert's learned air,
12 during a grave discussion, and provoke
the smiles of ladies with the fire
of unexpected epigrams.
VI
Latin has gone at present out of fashion;
still, to tell you the truth,
he had enough knowledge of Latin
4 to make out epigraphs,
expatiate on Juvenal,
put at the bottom of a letter vale,
and he remembered, though not without fault,
8 two lines from the Aeneid.
He had no inclination
to rummage in the chronological
dust of the earth's historiography,
12 but anecdotes of days gone by,
from Romulus to our days,
he did keep in his memory.
VII
Lacking the lofty passion not to spare
life for the sake of sounds,
an iamb from a trochee —
4 no matter how we strove — he could not tell apart.
Theocritus and Homer he disparaged,
but read, in compensation, Adam Smith,
and was a deep economist:
8 that is, he could assess the way
a state grows rich,
what it subsists upon, and why
it needs not gold
12 when it has got the simple product.
His father could not understand him,
and mortgaged his lands.
VIII
All Eugene knew besides
I have no leisure to recount;
but where he was a veritable genius,
4 what he more firmly knew than all the arts,
what since his prime had been to him
toil, torment, and delight,
what occupied the livelong day
8 his fretting indolence —
was the art of soft passion
which Naso sang,
wherefore a sufferer
12 his brilliant and unruly span
he ended, in Moldavia,
deep in the steppes, far from his Italy.
IX.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
X
How early he was able to dissemble,
conceal a hope, show jealousy,
shake one's belief, make one believe,
4 seem gloomy, pine away,
appear proud and obedient,
attentive or indifferent!
How languorously he was silent,
8 how fierily eloquent,
in letters of the heart, how casual!
With one thing breathing, one thing loving,
how self-oblivious he could be!
12 How quick and tender was his gaze,
bashful and daring, while at times
it shone with an obedient tear!
XI
How he was able to seem new,
in jest astonish innocence,
alarm with ready desperation,
4 amuse with pleasant flattery,
capture the minute of softheartedness;
the prejudices of innocent years
conquer by means of wits and passion,
8 wait for involuntary favors,
beg or demand avowals,
eavesdrop upon a heart's first sound,
pursue love — and all of a sudden
12 obtain a secret assignation,
and afterward, alone with her,
amid the stillness give her lessons!
XII
How early he already could disturb
the hearts of the professed coquettes!
Or when he wanted to annihilate
4 his rivals,
how bitingly he'd tattle!
What snares prepare for them!
But you, blest husbands,
8 you remained friends with him:
him petted the sly spouse,
Faublas' disciple of long standing,
and the distrustful oldster,
12 and the majestical cornuto,
always pleased with himself,
his dinner, and his wife.
XIII. XIV.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
XV
It happened, he'd be still in bed
when little billets would be brought him.
What? Invitations? Yes, indeed,
4 to a soiree three houses bid him:
here, there will be a ball; elsewhere, a children's fete.
So whither is my scamp to scurry?
Whom will he start with? Never mind:
8 'tis simple to get everywhere in time.
Meanwhile, in morning dress,
having donned a broad bolivar3,
Onegin drives to the boulevard
12 and there goes strolling unconfined
till vigilant Bréguet
to him chimes dinner.
XVI
'Tis dark by now. He gets into a sleigh.
The cry “Way, way!” resounds.
With frostdust silvers
4 his beaver collar.
To Talon's4 he has dashed off: he is certain
that there already waits for him [Kavérin];
has entered — and the cork goes ceilingward,
8 the flow of comet wine spurts forth,
a bloody roast beef is before him,
and truffles, luxury of youthful years,
the best flower of French cookery,
12 and a decayless Strasbourg pie
between a living Limburg cheese
and a golden ananas.
XVII
Thirst is still clamoring for beakers
to drown the hot fat of the cutlets;
but Bréguet's chime reports to them
4 that a new ballet has begun.
The theater's unkind
lawgiver; the inconstant
adorer of enchanting actresses;
8 an honorary citizen of the coulisses,
Onegin has flown to the theater,
where, breathing criticism,
each is prepared to clap an entrechat,
12 hiss Phaedra, Cleopatra,
call out Moëna — for the purpose
merely of being heard.
XVIII
A magic region! There in olden years
the sovereign of courageous satire,
sparkled Fonvízin, freedom's friend,
4 and imitational Knyazhnín;
there Ózerov involuntary tributes
of public tears, of plaudits
shared with the young Semyónova;
8 there our Katénin resurrected
Corneille's majestic genius;
there caustic Shahovskóy brought forth the noisy
swarm of his comedies;
12 there, too, Didelot did crown himself with glory;
there, there, beneath the shelter of coulisses,
my young days sped.
XIX
My goddesses! What has become of you?
Where are you? Hearken to my woeful voice:
Are all of you the same? Have other maidens
4 taken your place without replacing you?
Am I to hear again your choruses?
Am I to see Russian Terpsichore's
soulful volation?
8 Or will the mournful gaze not find
familiar faces on the dreary stage,
and at an alien world having directed
a disenchanted lorgnette,
12 shall I, indifferent spectator
of merriment, yawn wordlessly
and bygones recollect?
XX
By now the house is full; the boxes blaze;
parterre and stalls — all seethes;
in the top gallery impatiently they clap,
4 and, soaring up, the curtain swishes.
Resplendent, half ethereal,
obedient to the magic bow,
surrounded by a throng of nymphs,
8 Istómina stands: she,
while touching with one foot the floor,
gyrates the other slowly,
and lo! a leap, and lo! she flies,
12 she flies like fluff from Eol's lips,
now twines and now untwines her waist
and beats one swift small foot against the other.
XXI
All clap as one. Onegin enters:
he walks — on people's toes — between the stalls;
askance, his double lorgnette trains
4 upon the loges of strange ladies;
he has scanned all the tiers;
he has seen everything; with faces, garb,
he's dreadfully displeased;
8 with men on every side
he has exchanged salutes; then at the stage
in great abstraction he has glanced,
has turned away, and yawned,
12 and uttered: “Time all were replaced;
ballets I long have suffered,
but even of Didelot I've had enough.”5
XXII
Amors, diaboli, and dragons
still on the stage jump and make noise;
still at the carriage porch the weary footmen
4 on the pelisses are asleep;
still people have not ceased to stamp,
blow noses, cough, hiss, clap;
still, outside and inside,
8 lamps glitter everywhere;
still, chilled, the horses fidget,
bored with their harness,
and round the fires the coachmen curse their masters
12 and beat their palms together;
and yet Onegin has already left;
he's driving home to dress.
XXIII
Shall I present a faithful picture
of the secluded cabinet,
where fashions' model pupil
4 is dressed, undressed, and dressed again?
Whatever, for the lavish whim,
London the trinkleter deals in
and o'er the Baltic waves to us
8 ships in exchange for timber and for tallow;
whatever hungry taste in Paris,
choosing a useful trade,
invents for pastimes,
12 for luxury, for modish mollitude;
all this adorned the cabinet
of a philosopher at eighteen years of age.
XXIV
Amber on Tsargrad's pipes,
porcelain and bronzes on a table,
and — joyance of the pampered senses —
4 perfumes in crystal cut with facets;
combs, little files of steel,
straight scissors, curvate ones, and brushes
of thirty kinds —
8 these for the nails, those for the teeth.
Rousseau (I shall observe in passing) was unable
to understand how the dignified Grimm
dared clean his nails in front of him,
The advocate of liberty and rights
was in the present case not right at all.
XXV
One can be an efficient man —
and mind the beauty of one's nails:
why vainly argue with the age?
4 Custom is despot among men.
My Eugene, a second [Chadáev],
being afraid of jealous censures,
was in his dress a pedant
8 and what we've called a fop.
Three hours, at least,
he spent in front of glasses,
and from his dressing room came forth
12 akin to giddy Venus
when, having donned a masculine attire,
the goddess drives to a masqued ball.
XXVI
With toilette in the latest taste
having engaged your curious glance,
I might before the learned world
4 describe here his attire;
this would, no doubt, be daring;
however, 'tis my business to describe;
but “dress coat,” “waistcoat,” “pantaloons” —
8 in Russian all these words are not;
in fact, I see (my guilt I lay before you)
that my poor idiom as it is
might be diversified much less
12 with words of foreign stock,
though I did erstwhile dip
into the Academic Dictionary.
XXVII
Not this is our concern at present:
we'd better hurry to the ball
whither headlong in a hack coach
4 already my Onegin has sped off.
In front of darkened houses,
alongst the sleeping street in rows
the twin lamps of coupés
8 pour forth a cheerful light
and project rainbows on the snow.
Studded around with lampions,
glitters a splendid house;
12 across its whole-glassed windows shadows move:
there come and go the profiled heads
of ladies and of modish quizzes.
XXVIII
Up to the porch our hero now has driven;
past the hall porter, like a dart,
he has flown up the marble steps,
4 has run his fingers through his hair,
has entered. The ballroom is full of people;
the music has already tired of dinning;
the crowd is occupied with the mazurka;
8 there's all around both noise and squeeze;
there clink the cavalier guard's spurs;
the little feet of winsome ladies flit;
upon their captivating tracks
12 flit flaming glances,
and by the roar of violins is drowned
the jealous whispering of fashionable women.
XXIX
In days of gaieties and desires
I was mad about balls:
there is no safer spot for declarations
4 and for the handing of a letter.
O you, respected husbands!
I'll offer you my services;
pray, mark my speech:
8 I wish to warn you.
You too, mammas: most strictly
follow your daughters with your eyes;
hold up your lorgnettes straight!
12 Or else... else — God forbid!
If this I write it is because
I have long ceased to sin.
XXX
Alas, on various pastimes I have wasted
a lot of life!
But to this day, if morals did not suffer,
4 I'd still like balls.
I like riotous youth,
the crush, the glitter, and the gladness,
and the considered dresses of the ladies;
8 I like their little feet; but then 'tis doubtful
that in all Russia you will find
three pairs of shapely feminine feet.
Ah me, I long could not forget
12 two little feet!... Despondent, fervorless,
I still remember them, and in sleep they
disturb my heart.
XXXI
So when and where, in what desert, will you
forget them, madman? Little feet,
ah, little feet! Where are you now?
4 Where do you trample vernant blooms?
Brought up in Oriental mollitude,
on the Northern sad snow
you left no prints:
8 you liked the sumptuous contact
of yielding rugs.
Is it long since I would forget for you
the thirst for fame and praises,
12 the country of my fathers, and confinement?
The happiness of youthful years has vanished
as on the meadows your light trace.
XXXII
Diana's bosom, Flora's cheeks, are charming,
dear friends! Nevertheless, for me
something about it makes more charming
4 the small foot of Terpsichore.
By prophesying to the gaze
an unpriced recompense,
with token beauty it attracts the willful
8 swarm of desires.
I like it, dear Elvina,
beneath the long napery of tables,
in springtime on the turf of meads,
12 in winter on the hearth's cast iron,
on mirrory parquet of halls,
by the sea on granite of rocks.
XXXIII
I recollect the sea before a tempest:
how I envied the waves
running in turbulent succession
4 with love to lie down at her feet!
How much I wished then with the waves
to touch the dear feet with my lips!
No, never midst the fiery days
8 of my ebullient youth
did I long with such anguish
to kiss the lips of young Armidas,
or the roses of flaming cheeks,
12 or bosoms full of languor —
no, never did the surge of passions
thus rive my soul!
XXXIV
I have remembrance of another time:
in chary fancies now and then
I hold the happy stirrup
4 and feel a small foot in my hand.
Again imagination seethes,
again that touch has kindled
the blood within my withered heart,
8 again the ache, again the love!
But 'tis enough extolling haughty ones
with my loquacious lyre:
they are not worth either the passions
12 or songs by them inspired;
the words and gaze of the said charmers
are as deceptive as their little feet.
XXXV
And my Onegin? Half asleep,
he drives from ball to bed,
while indefatigable Petersburg
4 is roused already by the drum.
The merchant's up, the hawker's out,
the cabby to the hack stand drags,
the Okhta girl hastes with her jug,
8 the morning snow creaks under her.
Morn's pleasant hubbub has awoken,
unclosed are shutters, chimney smoke
ascends in a blue column, and the baker,
12 a punctual German in a cotton cap,
has more than once already
opened his vasisdas.
XXXVI
But by the tumult of the ball fatigued,
and turning morning into midnight,
sleeps peacefully in blissful shade
4 the child of pastimes and of luxury.
He will awake past midday, and again
till morn his life will be prepared,
monotonous and motley, and tomorrow
8 'twill be the same as yesterday.
But was my Eugene happy —
free, in the bloom of the best years,
amidst resplendent conquests,
12 amidst delights of every day?
Was it to him of no avail
midst banquets to be rash and hale?
XXXVII
No, feelings early cooled in him.
Tedious to him became the social hum.
The fairs remained not long
4 the object of his customary thoughts.
Betrayals had time to fatigue him. Friends
and friendship palled,
since plainly not always could he
8 beefsteaks and Strasbourg pie
sluice with a champagne bottle
and scatter piquant sayings when
he had the headache;
12 and though he was a fiery scapegrace,
he lost at last his liking
for strife, saber and lead.
XXXVIII
A malady, the cause of which
'tis high time were discovered,
similar to the English “spleen” —
4 in short, the Russian “chondria” —
possessed him by degrees.
To shoot himself, thank God,
he did not care to try,
8 but toward life became quite cold.
He like Childe Harold, gloomy, languid,
appeared in drawing rooms;
neither the gossip of the monde nor boston,
12 neither a winsome glance nor an immodest sigh,
nothing touched him;
he noticed nothing.
XXXIX. XL. XLI.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
XLII
Capricious belles of the grand monde!
Before all others you he left;
and it is true that in our years
4 the upper ton is rather tedious.
Although, perhaps, this or that dame
interprets Say and Bentham,
in general their conversation
8 is insupportable, though harmless tosh.
On top of that they are so pure,
so stately, so intelligent,
so full of piety,
12 so circumspect, so scrupulous,
so inaccessible to men,
that the mere sight of them begets the spleen.7
XLIII
And you, young beauties, whom
at a late hour daredevil droshkies
carry away over the pavement
4 of Petersburg,
you also were abandoned by my Eugene.
Apostate from the turbulent delights,
Onegin locked himself indoors;
8 yawning, took up a pen;
wanted to write; but persevering toil
to him was loathsome: nothing
from his pen issued, and he did not get
12 into the cocky guild of people
on whom I pass no judgment — for the reason
that I belong to them.
XLIV
And once again to idleness consigned,
oppressed by emptiness of soul,
he settled down with the laudable aim
4 to make his own another's mind;
he crammed a shelf with an array of books,
and read, and read — and all for nothing:
here there was dullness; there, deceit and raving;
8 this one lacked conscience; that one, sense;
on all of them were different fetters;
and outworn was the old, and the new raved
about the old.
12 As he'd left women, he left books
and, with its dusty tribe, the shelf
with funerary taffeta he curtained.
XLV
Having cast off the burden of the monde's conventions,
having, as he, from vain pursuits desisted,
with him I made friends at that time.
4 I liked his traits,
to dreams the involuntary addiction,
nonimitative oddity,
and sharp, chilled mind;
8 I was embittered, he was gloomy;
the play of passions we knew both;
on both, life weighed;
in both, the heart's glow had gone out;
12 for both, there was in store the rancor
of blind Fortuna and of men
at the very morn of our days.
XLVI
He who has lived and thought
cannot help in his soul despising men;
him who has felt disturbs
4 the ghost of irrecoverable days;
for him there are no more enchantments;
him does the snake of memories,
him does repentance gnaw.
8 All this often imparts
great charm to conversation.
At first, Onegin's language
would disconcert me; but I grew
12 accustomed to his biting argument
and banter blent halfwise with bile
and virulence of somber epigrams.
XLVII
How oft in summertide, when limpid
and luminous is the nocturnal sky
above the Neva,8 and the gay
4 glass of the waters
does not reflect Diana's visage —
rememorating intrigues of past years,
rememorating a past love,
8 impressible, carefree again,
the breath of the benignant night
we mutely quaffed!
As to the greenwood from a prison
12 a slumbering clogged convict is transferred,
so we'd be carried off in fancy
to the beginning of young life.
XLVIII
With soul full of regrets,
and leaning on the granite,
Eugene stood pensive — as himself
'Twas stillness all; only night sentries
to one another called,
and the far clip-clop of some droshky
8 resounded suddenly from Million Street;
only a boat, oars swinging,
swam on the dozing river,
and, in the distance, captivated us
12 a horn and a brave song.
But, 'mid the night's diversions, sweeter
is the strain of Torquato's octaves.
XLIX
Adrian waves,
O Brenta! Nay, I'll see you
and, filled anew with inspiration,
4 I'll hear your magic voice!
'Tis sacred to Apollo's nephews;
through the proud lyre of Albion
to me 'tis known, to me 'tis kindred.
8 In the voluptuousness of golden
Italy's nights at liberty I'll revel,
with a youthful Venetian,
now talkative, now mute,
12 swimming in a mysterious gondola;
with her my lips will find
the tongue of Petrarch and of love.
L
Will the hour of my freedom come?
'Tis time, 'tis time! To it I call;
I roam above the sea,10 I wait for the right weather,
4 I beckon to the sails of ships.
Under the cope of storms, with waves disputing,
on the free crossway of the sea
when shall I start on my free course?
8 'Tis time to leave the dull shore of an element
inimical to me,
and sigh, 'mid the meridian swell, beneath the
sky of my Africa,11
12 for somber Russia, where
I suffered, where I loved,
where I buried my heart.
LI
Onegin was prepared with me
to see strange lands;
but soon we were to be by fate
4 sundered for a long time.
'Twas then his father died.
Before Onegin there assembled
a greedy host of creditors.
8 Each has a mind and notion of his own.
Eugene, detesting litigations,
contented with his lot,
abandoned the inheritance to them,
12 perceiving no great loss therein,
or precognizing from afar
the demise of his aged uncle.
LII
All of a sudden he indeed
got from the steward
a report that his uncle was nigh death in bed
4 and would be glad to bid farewell to him.
Eugene, the sad epistle having read,
incontinently to the rendezvous
drove headlong, traveling post,
8 and yawned already in anticipation,
preparing, for the sake of money,
for sighs, boredom, and guile
(and 'tis with this that I began my novel);
12 but when he reached apace his uncle's manor,
he found him laid already on the table
as a prepared tribute to earth.
LIII
He found the grounds full of attendants;
to the dead man from every side
came driving foes and friends,
4 enthusiasts for funerals.
The dead man was interred,
the priests and guests ate, drank,
and solemnly dispersed thereafter,
8 as though they had been sensibly engaged.
Now our Onegin is a rural dweller,
of workshops, waters, forests, lands,
absolute lord (while up to then he'd been
12 an enemy of order and a wastrel),
and very glad to have exchanged
his former course for something.
LIV
For two days new to him
seemed the secluded fields,
the coolness of the somber park,
4 the bubbling of the quiet brook;
by the third day, grove, hill, and field
did not engage him any more;
then somnolence already they induced;
8 then plainly he perceived
that in the country, too, the boredom was the same,
although there were no streets, no palaces,
no cards, no balls, no verses.
12 The hyp was waiting for him on the watch,
and it kept running after him
like a shadow or faithful wife.
LV
I was born for the peaceful life,
for country quiet:
the lyre's voice in the wild is more resounding,
4 creative dreams are more alive.
To harmless leisures consecrated,
I wander by a wasteful lake
and far niente is my rule.
8 By every morn I am awakened
unto sweet mollitude and freedom;
little I read, a lot I sleep,
volatile fame do not pursue.
12 Was it not thus in former years,
that in inaction, in the [shade],
I spent my happiest days?
LVI
Flowers, love, the country, idleness,
ye fields! my soul is vowed to you.
I'm always glad to mark the difference
4 between Onegin and myself,
lest a sarcastic reader
or else some publisher
of complicated calumny,
8 collating here my traits,
repeat thereafter shamelessly
that I have scrawled my portrait
like Byron, the poet of pride
12 — as if we were no longer able
to write long poems
on any other subject than ourselves!
LVII
In this connection I'll observe: all poets
are friends of fancifying love.
It used to happen that dear objects
4 I'd dream of, and my soul
preserved their secret image;
the Muse revived them later:
thus I, carefree, would sing
8 a maiden of the mountains, my ideal,
as well as captives of the Salgir's banks.
From you, my friends, at present
not seldom do I hear the question:
12 “For whom does your lyre sigh?
To whom did you, among the throng
of jealous maidens, dedicate its strain?
LVIII
Whose gaze, while stirring inspiration,
with a dewy caress rewarded
your pensive singing? Whom did your
4 verse idolize?”
Faith, nobody, my friends, I swear!
Love's mad anxiety
I cheerlessly went through.
8 Happy who blent with it the fever
of rhymes: thereby the sacred frenzy
of poetry he doubled,
striding in Petrarch's tracks;
12 as to the heart's pangs, he allayed them
and meanwhile fame he captured too —
but I, when loving, was stupid and mute.
LIX
Love passed, the Muse appeared,
and the dark mind cleared up.
Once free, I seek again the concord
4 of magic sounds, feelings, and thoughts;
I write, and the heart does not pine;
the pen draws not, lost in a trance,
next to unfinished lines,
8 feminine feet or heads;
extinguished ashes will not flare again;
I still feel sad; but there are no more tears,
and soon, soon the storm's trace
12 will hush completely in my soul:
then I shall start to write a poem
in twenty-five cantos or so.
LX
I've thought already of a form of plan
and how my hero I shall call.
Meantime, my novel's
4 first chapter I have finished;
all this I have looked over closely;
the inconsistencies are very many,
but to correct them I don't wish.
8 I shall pay censorship its due
and give away my labors' fruits
to the reviewers for devourment.
Be off, then, to the Neva's banks,
12 newborn work! And deserve for me
fame's tribute: false interpretations,
noise, and abuse!
CHAPTER TWO
O rus!
O Rus'!
I
The country place where Eugene
moped was a charming nook;
a friend of innocent delights
4 might have blessed heaven there.
The manor house, secluded,
screened from the winds by a hill, stood
above a river; in the distance,
8 before it, freaked and flowered, lay
meadows and golden grainfields;
one could glimpse hamlets here and there;
herds roamed the meadows;
12 and its dense coverts spread
a huge neglected garden, the retreat
of pensive dryads.
II
The venerable castle
was built as castles should be built:
excellent strong and comfortable
4 in the taste of sensible ancientry.
Tall chambers everywhere,
hangings of damask in the drawing room,
portraits of grandsires on the walls,
8 and stoves with varicolored tiles.
All this today is obsolete,
I really don't know why;
and anyway it was a matter
12 of very little moment to my friend,
since he yawned equally amidst
modish and olden halls.
III
He settled in that chamber where the rural
old-timer had for forty years or so
squabbled with his housekeeper,
4 looked through the window, and squashed flies.
It all was plain: a floor of oak, two cupboards,
a table, a divan of down,
and not an ink speck anywhere. Onegin
8 opened the cupboards; found in one
a notebook of expenses and in the other
a whole array of fruit liqueurs,
pitchers of eau-de-pomme,
12 and the calendar for eighteen-eight:
having a lot to do, the old man never
looked into any other books.
IV
Alone midst his possessions,
merely to while away the time,
at first conceived the plan our Eugene
4 of instituting a new system.
In his backwoods a solitary sage,
the ancient corvée's yoke
by the light quitrent he replaced;
8 the muzhik blessed fate,
while in his corner went into a huff,
therein perceiving dreadful harm,
his thrifty neighbor.
12 Another slyly smiled,
and all concluded with one voice that he
was a most dangerous eccentric.
V
At first they all would call on him,
but since to the back porch
habitually a Don stallion
4 for him was brought
as soon as one made out along the highway
the sound of their domestic runabouts —
outraged by such behavior,
8 they all ceased to be friends with him.
“Our neighbor is a boor; acts like a crackbrain;
he's a Freemason; he
drinks only red wine, by the tumbler;
12 he won't go up to kiss a lady's hand;
'tis all ‘yes,’ ‘no’ — he'll not say ‘yes, sir,’
or ‘no, sir.’ ” This was the general voice.
VI
At that same time a new landowner
had driven down to his estate
and in the neighborhood was giving cause
4 for just as strict a scrutiny.
By name Vladimir Lenski,
with a soul really Göttingenian,
a handsome chap, in the full bloom of years,
8 Kant's votary, and a poet.
From misty Germany
he'd brought the fruits of learning:
liberty-loving dreams, a spirit
12 impetuous and rather queer,
a speech always enthusiastic,
and shoulder-length black curls.
VII
From the world's cold depravity
not having yet had time to wither,
his soul was warmed by a friend's greeting,
4 by the caress of maidens.
He was in matters of the heart
a charming dunce. Hope nursed him,
and the globe's new glitter and noise
8 still captivated his young mind.
With a sweet fancy he amused
his heart's incertitudes.
The purpose of our life to him
12 was an enticing riddle;
he racked his brains
over it and suspected marvels.
VIII
He believed that a kindred soul
to him must be united;
that, cheerlessly pining away,
4 she daily kept awaiting him;
he believed that his friends were ready to accept
chains for his honor
and that their hands would falter not in smashing
8 the vessel of his slanderer;
that there were some chosen by fate
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
12 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
IX
Indignation, compassion,
pure love of Good,
and fame's delicious torment
4 early had stirred his blood.
He wandered with a lyre on earth.
Under the sky of Schiller and of Goethe,
with their poetic fire
8 his soul had kindled;
and the exalted Muses of the art
he, happy one, did not disgrace:
he proudly in his songs retained
12 always exalted sentiments,
the surgings of a virgin fancy, and the charm
of grave simplicity.
X
To love submissive, love he sang,
and his song was as clear
as a naïve maid's thoughts,
4 as the sleep of an infant, as the moon
in the untroubled deserts of the sky,
goddess of mysteries and tender sighs.
He sang parting and sadness,
8 and a vague something, and the dim
remoteness, and romantic roses.
He sang those distant lands
where long into the bosom of the stillness
12 flowed his live tears.
He sang life's faded bloom
at not quite eighteen years of age.
XI
In the wilderness where Eugene alone
was able to appreciate his gifts,
he cared not for the banquets of the masters
4 of neighboring manors;
he fled their noisy concourse.
Their reasonable talk
of haymaking, of liquor,
8 of kennel, of their kin,
no doubt did not sparkle with feeling,
or with poetic fire,
or sharp wit, or intelligence,
12 or with the art of sociability;
but the talk of their sweet wives was
much less intelligent.
XII
Wealthy, good-looking, Lenski everywhere
was as a marriageable man received:
such is the country custom;
4 all for their daughters planned a match
with the half-Russian neighbor.
Whenever he drops in, at once the conversation
broaches a word, obliquely,
8 about the tedium of bachelor life;
the neighbor is invited to the samovar,
and Dunya pours the tea;
they whisper to her: “Dunya, mark!”
12 Then the guitar (that, too) is brought,
and she will start to shrill (good God!):
“Come to me in my golden castle!..”12
XIII
But Lenski, having no desire, of course,
to bear the bonds of marriage,
wished cordially to strike up with Onegin
4 a close acquaintanceship.
They got together; wave and stone,
verse and prose, ice and flame,
were not so different from one another.
8 At first, because of mutual
disparity, they found each other dull;
then liked each other; then
met riding every day on horseback,
12 and soon became inseparable.
Thus people — I'm the first to own it —
out of do-nothingness are friends.
XIV
But among us there's even no such friendship:
having destroyed all prejudices, we
deem all men naughts
4 and ourselves units.
We all aspire to be Napoleons;
for us the millions
of two-legged creatures are but tools;
8 feeling to us is weird and ludicrous.
More tolerant than many was Eugene,
though he, of course, knew men
and on the whole despised them;
12 but no rules are without exceptions:
some people he distinguished greatly
and, though estranged from it, respected feeling.
XV
He listened with a smile to Lenski:
the poet's fervid conversation,
and mind still vacillant in judgments,
4 and gaze eternally inspired —
all this was novel to Onegin;
the chilling word
on his lips he tried to restrain,
8 and thought: foolish of me
to interfere with his brief rapture;
without me just as well that time will come;
meanwhile let him live and believe
12 in the perfection of the world;
let us forgive the fever of young years
both its young ardor and young ravings.
XVI
Between them everything engendered
discussions and led to reflection:
the pacts of bygone races,
4 the fruits of learning, Good and Evil,
and centuried prejudices,
and the grave's fateful mysteries,
destiny and life in their turn —
8 all was subjected to their judgment.
The poet in the heat of his contentions
recited, in a trance, meantime,
fragments of Nordic poems,
12 and lenient Eugene,
although he did not understand them much,
would dutifully listen to the youth.
XVII
But passions occupied more often
the minds of my two anchorets.
Having escaped from their tumultuous power,
4 Onegin spoke of them
with an involuntary sigh of regret.
Happy who knew their agitations
and finally detached himself from them;
8 still happier who did not know them, who
cooled love with separation, enmity
with obloquy; sometimes
with friends and wife yawned, undisturbed
12 by jealous torment,
and the safe capital of forefathers
did not entrust to a perfidious deuce!
XVIII
When we have flocked under the banner
of sage tranquillity,
when the flame of the passions has gone out
4 and laughable become to us
their waywardness
or surgings and belated echoes;
reduced to sense not without trouble,
8 sometimes we like to listen
to the tumultuous language of the passions
of others, and it stirs our heart;
exactly thus an old disabled soldier
12 does willingly bend an assiduous ear
to the yarns of young mustached braves,
[while he remains] forgotten in his shack.
XIX
Now flaming youthhood, on the other hand,
cannot hide anything:
enmity, love, sadness, and joy
4 'tis ready to blab out.
Deemed invalided as to love,
with a grave air Onegin listened
as, loving the confession of the heart,
8 the poet his whole self expressed.
His trustful conscience
naïvely he laid bare.
Eugene learned without trouble
12 the youthful story of his love —
a tale abounding in emotions
long since not new to us.
XX
Ah, he loved as one loves
no longer in our years; as only
the mad soul of a poet
4 is still condemned to love:
always, and everywhere, one reverie,
one customary wish,
one customary woe!
8 Neither the cooling distance,
nor the long years of separation,
nor hours given to the Muses,
nor foreign beauties,
12 nor noise of merriments, nor studies,
had changed in him a soul
warmed by a virgin fire.
XXI
When scarce a boy, by Olga captivated,
not having known yet torments of the heart,
he'd been a tender witness
4 of her infantine frolics.
He, in the shade of a protective park,
had shared her frolics,
and for these children wedding crowns
8 their fathers, who were friends and neighbors, destined.
In the backwoods, beneath a humble roof,
full of innocent charm,
she under the eyes of her parents
12 bloomed like a hidden lily of the valley
which is unknown in the dense grass
to butterflies or to the bee.
XXII
She gave the poet the first dream
of youthful transports,
and the thought of her animated
4 his pipe's first moan.
Farewell, golden games! He
began to like thick groves,
seclusion, stillness, and the night,
8 and the stars, and the moon —
the moon, celestial lamp,
to which we dedicated
walks midst the evening darkness,
12 and tears, of secret pangs the solace...
But now we only see in her
a substitute for bleary lanterns.
XXIII
Always modest, always obedient,
always as merry as the morn,
as naïve as a poet's life,
4 as winsome as love's kiss;
her eyes, as azure as the sky,
smile, flaxen locks,
movements, voice, light waist — everything
8 in Olga... but take any novel,
and you will surely find
her portrait; it is very sweet;
I liked it once myself,
12 but it has come to bore me beyond measure.
Let me, my reader,
take up the elder sister.
XXIV
Her sister
was called Tatiana.13
For the first time a novel's tender pages
4 with such a name we willfully shall grace.
What of it? It is pleasing, sonorous,
but from it, I know, is inseparable
the memory of ancientry
8 or housemaids' quarters. We must all
admit that we have very little
taste even in our names
(to say nothing of verses);
12 enlightenment does not suit us,
and what we have derived from it
is affectation — nothing more.
XXV
So she was called
Tatiana. Neither with her sister's beauty
nor with her [sister's] rosy freshness
4 would she attract one's eyes.
Sauvage, sad, silent,
as timid as the sylvan doe,
in her own family
8 she seemed a strangeling.
She knew not how to snuggle up
to her father or mother;
a child herself, among a crowd of children,
12 she never wished to play and skip,
and often all day long, alone,
she sat in silence by the window.
XXVI
Pensiveness, her companion,
even from cradle days,
adorned for her with dreams
4 the course of rural leisure.
Her delicate fingers
knew needles not; over the tambour bendin
with a silk pattern she
8 did not enliven linen.
Sign of the urge to domineer:
the child with her obedient doll
prepares in play
12 for etiquette, law of the monde,
and gravely to her doll repeats the lessons
of her mamma;
XXVII
but even in those years Tatiana
did not take in her hands a doll;
about town news, about the fashions,
4 did not converse with it;
and childish pranks
to her were foreign; grisly tales
in winter, in the dark of nights,
8 charmed more her heart.
Whenever nurse assembled
for Olga, on the spacious lawn,
all her small girl companions,
12 she did not play at barleybreaks,
dull were to her both ringing laughter
and noise of their giddy diversions.
XXVIII
She on the balcony
liked to prevene Aurora's rise,
when, in the pale sky, disappears
4 the choral dance of stars,
and earth's rim softly lightens,
and, morning's herald, the wind whiffs,
and rises by degrees the day.
8 In winter, when night's shade
possesses longer half the world,
and longer in the idle stillness,
by the bemisted moon,
12 the lazy orient sleeps,
awakened at her customary hour
she would get up by candles.
XXIX
She early had been fond of novels;
for her they replaced all;
she grew enamored with the fictions
4 of Richardson and of Rousseau.
Her father was a kindly fellow
who lagged in the precedent age
but saw no harm in books;
8 he, never reading,
deemed them an empty toy,
nor did he care
what secret tome his daughter had
12 dozing till morn under her pillow.
As to his wife, she was herself
mad upon Richardson.
XXX
The reason she loved Richardson
was not that she had read him,
and not that Grandison
4 to Lovelace she preferred;14
but anciently, Princess Alina,
her Moscow maiden cousin,
would often talk to her about them.
8 Her husband at that time still was
her fiancé, but against her will.
She sighed after another
whose heart and mind
12 were much more to her liking;
that Grandison was a great dandy,
a gamester, and an Ensign in the Guards.
XXXI
Like him, she always
dressed in the fashion and becomingly;
but without asking her advice
4 they took the maiden to the altar;
and to dispel her grief
the sensible husband repaired
soon to his countryseat, where she,
8 God knows by whom surrounded, tossed
and wept at first,
almost divorced her husband, then
got occupied with household matters, grew
12 habituated, and became content.
Habit to us is given from above:
it is a substitute for happiness.15
XXXII
Habit allayed the grief
that nothing else could ward;
a big discovery soon came
4 to comfort her completely.
Between the dally and the do
a secret she discovered: how to govern
her husband monocratically,
8 and forthwith everything went right.
She would drive out to supervise the farming,
she pickled mushrooms for the winter,
she kept the books, “shaved foreheads,”
12 to the bathhouse would go on Saturdays,
walloped her maids when cross —
all this without asking her husband's leave.
XXXIII
Time was, she wrote in blood
in tender maidens' albums,
would call Praskóvia “Polína,”
4 and speak in singsong tones;
very tight stays she wore,
and knew how to pronounce a Russian n
as if it were a French one, through the nose;
8 but soon all this ceased to exist; stays, album,
Princess [Alina],
cahier of sentimental verselets, she
forgot, began to call
12 “Akúl'ka” the one-time “Selína,”
and finally inaugurated
the quilted chamber robe and mobcap.
XXXIV
But dearly did her husband love her,
he did not enter in her schemes,
on every score lightheartedly believed her
4 whilst in his dressing gown he ate and drank
His life rolled comfortably on;
at evenfall sometimes assembled
a kindly group of neighbors,
8 unceremonious friends,
to rue, to tattle,
to chuckle over this or that.
Time passed; meanwhile
12 Olga was told to prepare tea;
then supper came, and then 'twas bedtime,
and off the guests would drive.
XXXV
They in their peaceful life preserved
the customs of dear ancientry:
with them, during fat Butterweek
4 Russian pancakes were wont to be.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
12 kvas was as requisite to them as air,
and at their table dishes were presented
to guests in order of their rank.
XXXVI
And thus they both grew old,
and the grave's portals
opened at last before the husband,
4 and a new crown upon him was bestowed.
He died at the hour before the midday meal,
bewailed by neighbor,
children, and faithful wife,
8 more candidly than some.
He was a simple and kind squire,
and there where lies his dust
the monument above the grave proclaims:
12 “The humble sinner Dmitri Larin,
slave of our Lord, and Brigadier,
enjoyeth peace beneath this stone.”
XXXVII
Restored to his penates,
Vladimir Lenski visited
his neighbor's humble monument,
4 and to the ashes consecrated
a sigh, and long his heart was melancholy.
“Poor Yorick!”16 mournfully he uttered, “he
hath borne me in his arms.
8 How oft I played in childhood
with his Ochákov medal!
He destined Olga to wed me;
he used to say: ‘Shall I be there
12 to see the day?’ ” and full of sincere sadness,
Vladimir there and then set down for him
a gravestone madrigal.
XXXVIII
And with a sad inscription,
in tears, he also honored there his father's
and mother's patriarchal dust.
4 Alas! Upon life's furrows,
in a brief harvest, generations
by Providence's secret will
rise, ripen, and must fall;
8 others in their tracks follow.... Thus
our giddy race
waxes, stirs, seethes,
and tombward crowds its ancestors.
12 Our time likewise will come, will come,
and one fine day our grandsons
out of the world will crowd us too.
XXXIX
Meanwhile enjoy your fill of it
— of this lightsome life, friends!
Its insignificance I realize
4 and little am attached to it;
to phantoms I have closed my eyelids;
but distant hopes
sometimes disturb my heart:
8 without an imperceptible trace, I'd be sorry
to leave the world.
I live, I write not for the sake of praise;
but my sad lot, meseems,
12 I would desire to glorify,
so that a single sound at least
might, like a faithful friend, remind one about me.
XL
And it will touch
the heart of someone; and preserved by fate,
perhaps in Lethe will not drown
4 the strophe made by me;
perhaps — flattering hope! —
a future dunce will point
at my famed portrait
8 and utter: “That now was a poet!”
So do accept my thanks, admirer
of the peaceful Aonian maids,
0 you whose memory will preserve
12 my volatile creations,
you whose benevolent hand will pat
the old man's laurels!
O rus!
O Rus'!
I
The country place where Eugene
moped was a charming nook;
a friend of innocent delights
4 might have blessed heaven there.
The manor house, secluded,
screened from the winds by a hill, stood
above a river; in the distance,
8 before it, freaked and flowered, lay
meadows and golden grainfields;
one could glimpse hamlets here and there;
herds roamed the meadows;
12 and its dense coverts spread
a huge neglected garden, the retreat
of pensive dryads.
II
The venerable castle
was built as castles should be built:
excellent strong and comfortable
4 in the taste of sensible ancientry.
Tall chambers everywhere,
hangings of damask in the drawing room,
portraits of grandsires on the walls,
8 and stoves with varicolored tiles.
All this today is obsolete,
I really don't know why;
and anyway it was a matter
12 of very little moment to my friend,
since he yawned equally amidst
modish and olden halls.
III
He settled in that chamber where the rural
old-timer had for forty years or so
squabbled with his housekeeper,
4 looked through the window, and squashed flies.
It all was plain: a floor of oak, two cupboards,
a table, a divan of down,
and not an ink speck anywhere. Onegin
8 opened the cupboards; found in one
a notebook of expenses and in the other
a whole array of fruit liqueurs,
pitchers of eau-de-pomme,
12 and the calendar for eighteen-eight:
having a lot to do, the old man never
looked into any other books.
IV
Alone midst his possessions,
merely to while away the time,
at first conceived the plan our Eugene
4 of instituting a new system.
In his backwoods a solitary sage,
the ancient corvée's yoke
by the light quitrent he replaced;
8 the muzhik blessed fate,
while in his corner went into a huff,
therein perceiving dreadful harm,
his thrifty neighbor.
12 Another slyly smiled,
and all concluded with one voice that he
was a most dangerous eccentric.
V
At first they all would call on him,
but since to the back porch
habitually a Don stallion
4 for him was brought
as soon as one made out along the highway
the sound of their domestic runabouts —
outraged by such behavior,
8 they all ceased to be friends with him.
“Our neighbor is a boor; acts like a crackbrain;
he's a Freemason; he
drinks only red wine, by the tumbler;
12 he won't go up to kiss a lady's hand;
'tis all ‘yes,’ ‘no’ — he'll not say ‘yes, sir,’
or ‘no, sir.’ ” This was the general voice.
VI
At that same time a new landowner
had driven down to his estate
and in the neighborhood was giving cause
4 for just as strict a scrutiny.
By name Vladimir Lenski,
with a soul really Göttingenian,
a handsome chap, in the full bloom of years,
8 Kant's votary, and a poet.
From misty Germany
he'd brought the fruits of learning:
liberty-loving dreams, a spirit
12 impetuous and rather queer,
a speech always enthusiastic,
and shoulder-length black curls.
VII
From the world's cold depravity
not having yet had time to wither,
his soul was warmed by a friend's greeting,
4 by the caress of maidens.
He was in matters of the heart
a charming dunce. Hope nursed him,
and the globe's new glitter and noise
8 still captivated his young mind.
With a sweet fancy he amused
his heart's incertitudes.
The purpose of our life to him
12 was an enticing riddle;
he racked his brains
over it and suspected marvels.
VIII
He believed that a kindred soul
to him must be united;
that, cheerlessly pining away,
4 she daily kept awaiting him;
he believed that his friends were ready to accept
chains for his honor
and that their hands would falter not in smashing
8 the vessel of his slanderer;
that there were some chosen by fate
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
12 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
IX
Indignation, compassion,
pure love of Good,
and fame's delicious torment
4 early had stirred his blood.
He wandered with a lyre on earth.
Under the sky of Schiller and of Goethe,
with their poetic fire
8 his soul had kindled;
and the exalted Muses of the art
he, happy one, did not disgrace:
he proudly in his songs retained
12 always exalted sentiments,
the surgings of a virgin fancy, and the charm
of grave simplicity.
X
To love submissive, love he sang,
and his song was as clear
as a naïve maid's thoughts,
4 as the sleep of an infant, as the moon
in the untroubled deserts of the sky,
goddess of mysteries and tender sighs.
He sang parting and sadness,
8 and a vague something, and the dim
remoteness, and romantic roses.
He sang those distant lands
where long into the bosom of the stillness
12 flowed his live tears.
He sang life's faded bloom
at not quite eighteen years of age.
XI
In the wilderness where Eugene alone
was able to appreciate his gifts,
he cared not for the banquets of the masters
4 of neighboring manors;
he fled their noisy concourse.
Their reasonable talk
of haymaking, of liquor,
8 of kennel, of their kin,
no doubt did not sparkle with feeling,
or with poetic fire,
or sharp wit, or intelligence,
12 or with the art of sociability;
but the talk of their sweet wives was
much less intelligent.
XII
Wealthy, good-looking, Lenski everywhere
was as a marriageable man received:
such is the country custom;
4 all for their daughters planned a match
with the half-Russian neighbor.
Whenever he drops in, at once the conversation
broaches a word, obliquely,
8 about the tedium of bachelor life;
the neighbor is invited to the samovar,
and Dunya pours the tea;
they whisper to her: “Dunya, mark!”
12 Then the guitar (that, too) is brought,
and she will start to shrill (good God!):
“Come to me in my golden castle!..”12
XIII
But Lenski, having no desire, of course,
to bear the bonds of marriage,
wished cordially to strike up with Onegin
4 a close acquaintanceship.
They got together; wave and stone,
verse and prose, ice and flame,
were not so different from one another.
8 At first, because of mutual
disparity, they found each other dull;
then liked each other; then
met riding every day on horseback,
12 and soon became inseparable.
Thus people — I'm the first to own it —
out of do-nothingness are friends.
XIV
But among us there's even no such friendship:
having destroyed all prejudices, we
deem all men naughts
4 and ourselves units.
We all aspire to be Napoleons;
for us the millions
of two-legged creatures are but tools;
8 feeling to us is weird and ludicrous.
More tolerant than many was Eugene,
though he, of course, knew men
and on the whole despised them;
12 but no rules are without exceptions:
some people he distinguished greatly
and, though estranged from it, respected feeling.
XV
He listened with a smile to Lenski:
the poet's fervid conversation,
and mind still vacillant in judgments,
4 and gaze eternally inspired —
all this was novel to Onegin;
the chilling word
on his lips he tried to restrain,
8 and thought: foolish of me
to interfere with his brief rapture;
without me just as well that time will come;
meanwhile let him live and believe
12 in the perfection of the world;
let us forgive the fever of young years
both its young ardor and young ravings.
XVI
Between them everything engendered
discussions and led to reflection:
the pacts of bygone races,
4 the fruits of learning, Good and Evil,
and centuried prejudices,
and the grave's fateful mysteries,
destiny and life in their turn —
8 all was subjected to their judgment.
The poet in the heat of his contentions
recited, in a trance, meantime,
fragments of Nordic poems,
12 and lenient Eugene,
although he did not understand them much,
would dutifully listen to the youth.
XVII
But passions occupied more often
the minds of my two anchorets.
Having escaped from their tumultuous power,
4 Onegin spoke of them
with an involuntary sigh of regret.
Happy who knew their agitations
and finally detached himself from them;
8 still happier who did not know them, who
cooled love with separation, enmity
with obloquy; sometimes
with friends and wife yawned, undisturbed
12 by jealous torment,
and the safe capital of forefathers
did not entrust to a perfidious deuce!
XVIII
When we have flocked under the banner
of sage tranquillity,
when the flame of the passions has gone out
4 and laughable become to us
their waywardness
or surgings and belated echoes;
reduced to sense not without trouble,
8 sometimes we like to listen
to the tumultuous language of the passions
of others, and it stirs our heart;
exactly thus an old disabled soldier
12 does willingly bend an assiduous ear
to the yarns of young mustached braves,
[while he remains] forgotten in his shack.
XIX
Now flaming youthhood, on the other hand,
cannot hide anything:
enmity, love, sadness, and joy
4 'tis ready to blab out.
Deemed invalided as to love,
with a grave air Onegin listened
as, loving the confession of the heart,
8 the poet his whole self expressed.
His trustful conscience
naïvely he laid bare.
Eugene learned without trouble
12 the youthful story of his love —
a tale abounding in emotions
long since not new to us.
XX
Ah, he loved as one loves
no longer in our years; as only
the mad soul of a poet
4 is still condemned to love:
always, and everywhere, one reverie,
one customary wish,
one customary woe!
8 Neither the cooling distance,
nor the long years of separation,
nor hours given to the Muses,
nor foreign beauties,
12 nor noise of merriments, nor studies,
had changed in him a soul
warmed by a virgin fire.
XXI
When scarce a boy, by Olga captivated,
not having known yet torments of the heart,
he'd been a tender witness
4 of her infantine frolics.
He, in the shade of a protective park,
had shared her frolics,
and for these children wedding crowns
8 their fathers, who were friends and neighbors, destined.
In the backwoods, beneath a humble roof,
full of innocent charm,
she under the eyes of her parents
12 bloomed like a hidden lily of the valley
which is unknown in the dense grass
to butterflies or to the bee.
XXII
She gave the poet the first dream
of youthful transports,
and the thought of her animated
4 his pipe's first moan.
Farewell, golden games! He
began to like thick groves,
seclusion, stillness, and the night,
8 and the stars, and the moon —
the moon, celestial lamp,
to which we dedicated
walks midst the evening darkness,
12 and tears, of secret pangs the solace...
But now we only see in her
a substitute for bleary lanterns.
XXIII
Always modest, always obedient,
always as merry as the morn,
as naïve as a poet's life,
4 as winsome as love's kiss;
her eyes, as azure as the sky,
smile, flaxen locks,
movements, voice, light waist — everything
8 in Olga... but take any novel,
and you will surely find
her portrait; it is very sweet;
I liked it once myself,
12 but it has come to bore me beyond measure.
Let me, my reader,
take up the elder sister.
XXIV
Her sister
was called Tatiana.13
For the first time a novel's tender pages
4 with such a name we willfully shall grace.
What of it? It is pleasing, sonorous,
but from it, I know, is inseparable
the memory of ancientry
8 or housemaids' quarters. We must all
admit that we have very little
taste even in our names
(to say nothing of verses);
12 enlightenment does not suit us,
and what we have derived from it
is affectation — nothing more.
XXV
So she was called
Tatiana. Neither with her sister's beauty
nor with her [sister's] rosy freshness
4 would she attract one's eyes.
Sauvage, sad, silent,
as timid as the sylvan doe,
in her own family
8 she seemed a strangeling.
She knew not how to snuggle up
to her father or mother;
a child herself, among a crowd of children,
12 she never wished to play and skip,
and often all day long, alone,
she sat in silence by the window.
XXVI
Pensiveness, her companion,
even from cradle days,
adorned for her with dreams
4 the course of rural leisure.
Her delicate fingers
knew needles not; over the tambour bendin
with a silk pattern she
8 did not enliven linen.
Sign of the urge to domineer:
the child with her obedient doll
prepares in play
12 for etiquette, law of the monde,
and gravely to her doll repeats the lessons
of her mamma;
XXVII
but even in those years Tatiana
did not take in her hands a doll;
about town news, about the fashions,
4 did not converse with it;
and childish pranks
to her were foreign; grisly tales
in winter, in the dark of nights,
8 charmed more her heart.
Whenever nurse assembled
for Olga, on the spacious lawn,
all her small girl companions,
12 she did not play at barleybreaks,
dull were to her both ringing laughter
and noise of their giddy diversions.
XXVIII
She on the balcony
liked to prevene Aurora's rise,
when, in the pale sky, disappears
4 the choral dance of stars,
and earth's rim softly lightens,
and, morning's herald, the wind whiffs,
and rises by degrees the day.
8 In winter, when night's shade
possesses longer half the world,
and longer in the idle stillness,
by the bemisted moon,
12 the lazy orient sleeps,
awakened at her customary hour
she would get up by candles.
XXIX
She early had been fond of novels;
for her they replaced all;
she grew enamored with the fictions
4 of Richardson and of Rousseau.
Her father was a kindly fellow
who lagged in the precedent age
but saw no harm in books;
8 he, never reading,
deemed them an empty toy,
nor did he care
what secret tome his daughter had
12 dozing till morn under her pillow.
As to his wife, she was herself
mad upon Richardson.
XXX
The reason she loved Richardson
was not that she had read him,
and not that Grandison
4 to Lovelace she preferred;14
but anciently, Princess Alina,
her Moscow maiden cousin,
would often talk to her about them.
8 Her husband at that time still was
her fiancé, but against her will.
She sighed after another
whose heart and mind
12 were much more to her liking;
that Grandison was a great dandy,
a gamester, and an Ensign in the Guards.
XXXI
Like him, she always
dressed in the fashion and becomingly;
but without asking her advice
4 they took the maiden to the altar;
and to dispel her grief
the sensible husband repaired
soon to his countryseat, where she,
8 God knows by whom surrounded, tossed
and wept at first,
almost divorced her husband, then
got occupied with household matters, grew
12 habituated, and became content.
Habit to us is given from above:
it is a substitute for happiness.15
XXXII
Habit allayed the grief
that nothing else could ward;
a big discovery soon came
4 to comfort her completely.
Between the dally and the do
a secret she discovered: how to govern
her husband monocratically,
8 and forthwith everything went right.
She would drive out to supervise the farming,
she pickled mushrooms for the winter,
she kept the books, “shaved foreheads,”
12 to the bathhouse would go on Saturdays,
walloped her maids when cross —
all this without asking her husband's leave.
XXXIII
Time was, she wrote in blood
in tender maidens' albums,
would call Praskóvia “Polína,”
4 and speak in singsong tones;
very tight stays she wore,
and knew how to pronounce a Russian n
as if it were a French one, through the nose;
8 but soon all this ceased to exist; stays, album,
Princess [Alina],
cahier of sentimental verselets, she
forgot, began to call
12 “Akúl'ka” the one-time “Selína,”
and finally inaugurated
the quilted chamber robe and mobcap.
XXXIV
But dearly did her husband love her,
he did not enter in her schemes,
on every score lightheartedly believed her
4 whilst in his dressing gown he ate and drank
His life rolled comfortably on;
at evenfall sometimes assembled
a kindly group of neighbors,
8 unceremonious friends,
to rue, to tattle,
to chuckle over this or that.
Time passed; meanwhile
12 Olga was told to prepare tea;
then supper came, and then 'twas bedtime,
and off the guests would drive.
XXXV
They in their peaceful life preserved
the customs of dear ancientry:
with them, during fat Butterweek
4 Russian pancakes were wont to be.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
12 kvas was as requisite to them as air,
and at their table dishes were presented
to guests in order of their rank.
XXXVI
And thus they both grew old,
and the grave's portals
opened at last before the husband,
4 and a new crown upon him was bestowed.
He died at the hour before the midday meal,
bewailed by neighbor,
children, and faithful wife,
8 more candidly than some.
He was a simple and kind squire,
and there where lies his dust
the monument above the grave proclaims:
12 “The humble sinner Dmitri Larin,
slave of our Lord, and Brigadier,
enjoyeth peace beneath this stone.”
XXXVII
Restored to his penates,
Vladimir Lenski visited
his neighbor's humble monument,
4 and to the ashes consecrated
a sigh, and long his heart was melancholy.
“Poor Yorick!”16 mournfully he uttered, “he
hath borne me in his arms.
8 How oft I played in childhood
with his Ochákov medal!
He destined Olga to wed me;
he used to say: ‘Shall I be there
12 to see the day?’ ” and full of sincere sadness,
Vladimir there and then set down for him
a gravestone madrigal.
XXXVIII
And with a sad inscription,
in tears, he also honored there his father's
and mother's patriarchal dust.
4 Alas! Upon life's furrows,
in a brief harvest, generations
by Providence's secret will
rise, ripen, and must fall;
8 others in their tracks follow.... Thus
our giddy race
waxes, stirs, seethes,
and tombward crowds its ancestors.
12 Our time likewise will come, will come,
and one fine day our grandsons
out of the world will crowd us too.
XXXIX
Meanwhile enjoy your fill of it
— of this lightsome life, friends!
Its insignificance I realize
4 and little am attached to it;
to phantoms I have closed my eyelids;
but distant hopes
sometimes disturb my heart:
8 without an imperceptible trace, I'd be sorry
to leave the world.
I live, I write not for the sake of praise;
but my sad lot, meseems,
12 I would desire to glorify,
so that a single sound at least
might, like a faithful friend, remind one about me.
XL
And it will touch
the heart of someone; and preserved by fate,
perhaps in Lethe will not drown
4 the strophe made by me;
perhaps — flattering hope! —
a future dunce will point
at my famed portrait
8 and utter: “That now was a poet!”
So do accept my thanks, admirer
of the peaceful Aonian maids,
0 you whose memory will preserve
12 my volatile creations,
you whose benevolent hand will pat
the old man's laurels!
CHAPTER THREE
Elle était fille; elle était amoureuse.
I
“Whither? Ah me, those poets!”
“Good-by, Onegin. Time for me to leave.”
“I do not hold you, but where do
4 you spend your evenings?” “At the Larins'.”
“Now, that's a fine thing. Mercy, man —
and you don't find it difficult
thus every evening to kill time?”
8 “Not in the least.” “I cannot understand.
From here I see what it is like:
first — listen, am I right? —
a simple Russian family,
12 a great solicitude for guests,
jam, never-ending talk
of rain, of flax, of cattle yard.”
II
“So far I do not see what's bad about it.”
“Ah, but the boredom — that is bad, my friend.”
“Your fashionable world I hate;
4 dearer to me is the domestic circle
in which I can…” “Again an eclogue!
Ah, that will do, old boy, for goodness' sake.
Well, so you're off; I'm very sorry.
8 Oh, Lenski, listen — is there any way
for me to see this Phyllis,
subject of thoughts, and pen,
and tears, and rhymes, et cetera?
12 Present me.” “You are joking.” “No.”
“I'd gladly.” “When?” “Now, if you like.
They will be eager to receive us.”
III
“Let's go.” And off the two friends drove;
they have arrived; on them are lavished
the sometimes onerous attentions
4 of hospitable ancientry.
The ritual of the treat is known:
in little dishes jams are brought,
on an oilcloth'd small table there is set
8 a jug of lingonberry water.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
12 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
IV
They by the shortest road
fly home at full career.17
Now let us eavesdrop furtively
4 upon our heroes' conversation.
“Well now, Onegin, you are yawning.”
“A habit, Lenski.” “But somehow
you are more bored than ever.” “No, the same.
8 I say, it's dark already in the field;
faster! come on, come on, Andryushka!
What silly country!
Ah, apropos: Dame Larin
12 is simple but a very nice old lady;
I fear that lingonberry water
may not unlikely do me harm.
V
“Tell me, which was Tatiana?”
“Oh, she's the one who, sad
and silent like Svetlana,
4 came in and sat down by the window.”
“Can it be it's the younger one
that you're in love with?” “Why not?” “I'd have chosen
the other, had I been like you a poet.
8 In Olga's features there's no life,
just as in a Vandyke Madonna:
she's round and fair of face
as is that silly moon
12 up in that silly sky.”
Vladimir answered curtly
and thenceforth the whole way was silent.
VI
Meanwhile Onegin's apparition
at the Larins' produced
on everyone a great impression
4 and regaled all the neighbors.
Conjecture on conjecture followed.
All started furtively to talk,
to joke, to comment not without some malice,
8 a suitor for Tatiana to assign.
Some folks asserted even that
the wedding was quite settled,
but had been stayed because
12 of fashionable rings' not being got.
Concerning Lenski's wedding, long ago
they had it all arranged.
VII
Tatiana listened with vexation
to gossip of that sort; but secretly
she with ineffable elation
4 could not help thinking of it;
and the thought sank into her heart;
the time had come — she fell in love.
Thus, dropped into the earth, a seed
8 is quickened by the fire of spring.
For long had her imagination,
consumed with mollitude and anguish,
craved for the fatal food;
12 for long had the heart's languishment
constrained her youthful bosom;
her soul waited — for somebody.
VIII
And not in vain it waited. Her eyes opened;
she said: “'Tis he!”
Alas! now both the days and nights,
4 and hot, lone sleep,
all's full of him; to the dear girl
unceasingly with magic force
all speaks of him. To her are tedious
8 alike the sounds of friendly speeches
and the gaze of assiduous servants.
Immersed in gloom,
to visitors she does not listen,
12 and imprecates their leisures,
their unexpected
arrival and protracted sitting down.
IX
With what attention does she now
read some delicious novel,
with what vivid enchantment
4 imbibe the ravishing illusion!
Creations by the happy power
of dreaming animated,
the lover of Julie Wolmar,
8 Malek-Adhel, and de Linar,
and Werther, restless martyr,
and the inimitable Grandison,18
who brings upon us somnolence —
12 all for the tender, dreamy girl
have been invested with a single image,
have in Onegin merged alone.
X
Imagining herself the heroine
of her beloved authors —
Clarissa, Julia, Delphine —
4 Tatiana in the stillness of the woods
alone roams with a dangerous book;
in it she seeks and finds
her secret ardency, her dreams,
8 the fruits of the heart's fullness;
she sighs, and having made her own
another's ecstasy, another's woe,
she whispers in a trance, by heart,
12 a letter to the amiable hero.
But our hero, whoever he might be,
was certainly no Grandison.
XI
His style to a grave strain having attuned,
time was, a fervid author
used to present to us
4 his hero as a model of perfection.
He'd furnish the loved object —
always iniquitously persecuted —
with a sensitive soul, intelligence,
8 and an attractive face.
Nursing the ardor of the purest passion,
the always enthusiastic hero
was ready for self-sacrifice,
12 and by the end of the last part, vice always
got punished,
and virtue got a worthy crown.
XII
But nowadays all minds are in a mist,
a moral brings upon us somnolence,
vice is attractive in a novel, too,
4 and there, at least, it triumphs.
The fables of the British Muse
disturb the young girl's sleep,
and now her idol has become
8 either the pensive Vampyre,
or Melmoth, gloomy vagabond,
or the Wandering Jew, or the Corsair,
or the mysterious Sbogar.19
12 Lord Byron, by an opportune caprice,
in woebegone romanticism
draped even hopeless egotism.
XIII
My friends, what sense is there in this?
Perhaps, by heaven's will,
I'll cease to be a poet; a new demon
4 will enter into me;
and having scorned the threats of Phoebus,
I shall descend to humble prose:
a novel in the ancient strain
8 will then engage my gay decline.
There, not the secret pangs of crime
shall I grimly depict,
but simply shall detail to you
12 the legends of a Russian family,
love's captivating dreams,
and manners of our ancientry.
XIV
I shall detail a father's, an old uncle's,
plain speeches; the assigned
trysts of the children
4 by the old limes, by the small brook;
the throes of wretched jealousy,
parting, reconciliation's tears;
once more I'll have them quarrel, and at last
8 conduct them to the altar. I'll recall
the accents of impassioned languish,
the words of aching love,
which in days bygone at the feet
12 of a fair mistress
came to my tongue;
from which I now have grown disused.
XV
Tatiana, dear Tatiana!
I now shed tears with you.
Into a fashionable tyrant's hands
4 your fate already you've relinquished.
Dear, you shall perish; but before,
in dazzling hope,
you summon somber bliss,
8 you learn the dulcitude of life,
you quaff the magic poison of desires,
daydreams pursue you:
you fancy everywhere
12 retreats for happy trysts;
everywhere, everywhere before you,
is your fateful enticer.
XVI
The ache of love chases Tatiana,
and to the garden she repairs to brood,
and all at once her moveless eyes she lowers
4 and is too indolent farther to step;
her bosom has risen, her cheeks
are covered with an instant flame,
her breath has died upon her lips,
8 and there's a singing in her ears, a flashing
before her eyes. Night comes; the moon
patrols the distant vault of heaven,
and in the gloam of trees the nightingale
12 intones sonorous chants.
Tatiana in the darkness does not sleep
and in low tones talks with her nurse.
XVII
“I can't sleep, nurse: 'tis here so stuffy!
Open the window and sit down by me.”
“Why, Tanya, what's the matter with you?” “I am dull.
4 Let's talk about old days.”
“Well, what about them, Tanya? Time was, I
stored in my memory no dearth
of ancient haps and never-haps
8 about dire sprites and about maidens;
but everything to me is dark now, Tanya:
I have forgotten what I knew. Yes, things
have come now to a sorry pass!
12 I'm all befuddled.” “Nurse,
tell me about your old times. Were you then
in love?”
XVIII
“Oh, come, come, Tanya! In those years
we never heard of love;
elsewise my late mother-in-law
4 would have chased me right off the earth.”
“But how, then, were you wedded, nurse?”
“It looks as if God willed it so. My Vanya
was younger than myself, my sweet,
8 and I was thirteen. For two weeks or so
a woman matchmaker kept visiting
my kinsfolk, and at last
my father blessed me. Bitterly
12 I cried for fear; and, crying, they unbraided
my tress and, chanting,
they led me to the church.
XIX
“And so I entered a strange family.
But you're not listening to me.”
“Oh, nurse, nurse, I feel dismal,
4 I'm sick at heart, my dear,
I'm on the point of crying, sobbing!”
“My child, you are not well;
the Lord have mercy upon us and save us!
8 What would you like, do ask.
Here, let me sprinkle you with holy water,
you're all a-burning.” “I'm not ill;
I'm... do you know, nurse... I'm in love.”
12 “My child, the Lord be with you!”
And, uttering a prayer, the nurse
crossed with decrepit hand the girl.
XX
“I am in love,” anew she murmured
to the old woman mournfully.
“Sweetheart, you are not well.”
4 “Leave me. I am in love.”
And meantime the moon shone
and with dark light irradiated
the pale charms of Tatiana
8 and her loose hair,
and drops of tears, and, on a benchlet,
before the youthful heroine,
a kerchief on her hoary head, the little
12 old crone in a long “body warmer”;
and in the stillness everything
dozed by the inspirative moon.
XXI
And far away Tatiana's heart was ranging
as she looked at the moon....
All of a sudden in her mind a thought was born....
4 “Go, let me be alone.
Give me, nurse, a pen, paper, and move up
the table; I shall soon lie down.
Good night.” Now she's alone,
8 all's still. The moon gives light to her.
Tatiana, leaning on her elbow, writes,
and Eugene's ever present in her mind,
and in an unconsidered letter
12 the love of an innocent maid breathes forth.
The letter now is ready, folded.
Tatiana! Whom, then, is it for?
XXII
I've known belles inaccessible,
cold, winter-chaste;
inexorable, incorruptible,
4 unfathomable by the mind;
I marveled at their modish morgue,
at their natural virtue,
and, to be frank, I fled from them,
8 and I, meseems, with terror read
above their eyebrows Hell's inscription:
“Abandon hope for evermore!”20
To inspire love is bale for them,
12 to frighten folks for them is joyance.
Perhaps, on the banks of the Neva
similar ladies you have seen.
XXIII
Amidst obedient admirers,
other odd females I have seen,
conceitedly indifferent
4 to sighs impassioned and to praise.
But what, to my amazement, did I find?
While, by austere demeanor,
they frightened timid love,
8 they had the knack of winning it again,
at least by their condolence;
at least the sound of spoken words
sometimes would seem more tender,
12 and with credulous blindness
again the youthful lover
pursued sweet vanity.
XXIV
Why is Tatiana, then, more guilty?
Is it because in sweet simplicity
deceit she knows not and believes
4 in her elected dream?
Is it because she loves without art, being
obedient to the bent of feeling?
Is it because she is so trustful
8 and is endowed by heaven
with a restless imagination,
intelligence, and a live will,
and headstrongness,
12 and a flaming and tender heart?
Are you not going to forgive her
the thoughtlessness of passions?
XXV
The coquette reasons coolly;
Tatiana in dead earnest loves
and unconditionally yields
4 to love like a sweet child.
She does not say: Let us defer;
thereby we shall augment love's value,
inveigle into toils more surely;
8 let us first prick vainglory
with hope; then with perplexity
exhaust a heart, and then
revive it with a jealous fire,
12 for otherwise, cloyed with delight,
the cunning captive from his shackles
hourly is ready to escape.
XXVI
Another problem I foresee:
saving the honor of my native land,
undoubtedly I shall have to translate
4 Tatiana's letter. She
knew Russian badly,
did not read our reviews,
and in her native tongue expressed herself
8 with difficulty. So,
she wrote in French.
What's to be done about it! I repeat again;
as yet a lady's love
12 has not expressed itself in Russian,
as yet our proud tongue has not got accustomed
to postal prose.
XXVII
I know: some would make ladies
read Russian. Horrible indeed!
Can I image them
4 with The Well-Meaner21 in their hands?
My poets, I appeal to you!
Is it not true that the sweet objects
for whom, to expiate your sins,
8 in secret you wrote verses,
to whom your hearts you dedicated —
did not they all, wielding the Russian language
poorly, and with difficulty,
12 so sweetly garble it,
and on their lips did not a foreign language
become a native one?
XXVIII
The Lord forbid my meeting at a ball
or at its breakup, on the porch,
a seminarian in a yellow shawl
4 or an Academician in a bonnet!
As vermeil lips without a smile,
without grammatical mistakes
I don't like Russian speech.
8 Perchance (it would be my undoing!)
a generation of new belles,
heeding the magazines' entreating voice,
to Grammar will accustom us;
12 verses will be brought into use.
Yet I... what do I care?
I shall be true to ancientry.
XXIX
An incorrect and careless patter,
an inexact delivery of words,
as heretofore a flutter of the heart
4 will in my breast produce;
in me there's no force to repent;
to me will Gallicisms remain
as sweet as the sins of past youth,
8 as Bogdanóvich's verse.
But that will do. 'Tis time I busied
myself with my fair damsel's letter;
my word I've given — and what now? Yea, yea!
12 I'm ready to back out of it.
I know: tender Parny's
pen in our days is out of fashion.
XXX
Bard of The Feasts and languorous sadness,22
if you were still with me,
I would have troubled you,
4 dear fellow, with an indiscreet request:
that into magic melodies
you would transpose
a passionate maiden's foreign words.
8 Where are you? Come! My rights
I with a bow transfer to you....
But in the midst of melancholy rocks,
his heart disused from praises,
12 alone, under the Finnish sky
he wanders, and his soul
hears not my worry.
XXXI
Tatiana's letter is before me;
religiously I keep it;
I read it with a secret heartache
4 and cannot get my fill of reading it.
Who taught her both this tenderness
and amiable carelessness of words?
Who taught her all that touching tosh,
8 mad conversation of the heart
both fascinating and injurious?
I cannot understand. But here's
an incomplete, feeble translation,
12 the pallid copy of a vivid picture,
or Freischütz executed by the fingers
of timid female learners.
Tatiana's Letter To Onegin
I write to you — what would one more?
What else is there that I could say?
'Tis now, I know, within your will
4 to punish me with scorn.
But you, preserving for my hapless lot
at least one drop of pity,
you'll not abandon me.
8 At first, I wanted to be silent;
believe me: of my shame
you never would have known
if I had had the hope but seldom,
12 but once a week,
to see you at our country place,
only to hear you speak,
to say a word to you, and then
16 to think and think about one thing,
both day and night, till a new meeting.
But, they say, you're unsociable;
in backwoods, in the country, all bores you,
20 while we... in no way do we shine,
though simpleheartedly we welcome you.
Why did you visit us?
In the backwoods of a forgotten village,
24 I would have never known you
nor have known this bitter torment.
The turmoil of an inexperienced soul
having subdued with time (who knows?),
28 I would have found a friend after my heart,
have been a faithful wife
and a virtuous mother.
Another!... No, to nobody on earth
32 would I have given my heart away!
That has been destined in a higher council,
that is the will of heaven: I am thine;
my entire life has been the gage
36 of a sure tryst with you;
I know that you are sent to me by God,
you are my guardian to the tomb....
You had appeared to me in dreams,
40 unseen, you were already dear to me,
your wondrous glance would trouble me,
your voice resounded in my soul
long since.... No, it was not a dream!
44 Scarce had you entered, instantly I knew you,
I felt all faint, I felt aflame,
and in my thoughts I uttered: It is he!
Is it not true that it was you I heard:
48 you in the stillness spoke to me
when I would help the poor
or assuage with a prayer
the anguish of my agitated soul?
52 And even at this very moment
was it not you, dear vision,
that slipped through the transparent darkness
and gently bent close to my bed head?
56 Was it not you that with delight and love
did whisper words of hope to me?
Who are you? My guardian angel
or a perfidious tempter?
60 Resolve my doubts.
Perhaps, 'tis nonsense all,
an inexperienced soul's delusion, and there's destined
something quite different....
64 But so be it! My fate
henceforth I place into your hands,
before you I shed tears,
for your defense I plead.
68 Imagine: I am here alone,
none understands me,
my reason sinks,
and, silent, I must perish.
72 I wait for you: revive
my heart's hopes with a single look
or interrupt the heavy dream
with a rebuke — alas, deserved!
76 I close. I dread to read this over.
I'm faint with shame and fear... But to me
your honor is a pledge,
and boldly I entrust myself to it.
XXXII
By turns Tatiana sighs and ohs.
The letter trembles in her hand;
the rosy wafer dries
4 upon her fevered tongue.
Her poor head shoulderward has sunk;
her light chemise
has slid down from her charming shoulder.
8 But now the moonbeam's radiance
already fades. Anon the valley
grows through the vapor clear. Anon the stream
starts silvering. Anon the herdsman's horn
12 wakes up the villager.
Here's morning; all have risen long ago:
to my Tatiana it is all the same.
XXXIII
She takes no notice of the sunrise;
she sits with lowered head
and on the letter does not
4 impress her graven seal.
But, softly opening the door,
now gray Filatievna brings her
tea on a tray.
8 “'Tis time, my child, get up;
why, pretty one,
you're ready! Oh, my early birdie!
I was so anxious yesternight —
12 but glory be to God, you're well!
No trace at all of the night's fret!
Your face is like a poppy flower.”
XXXIV
“Oh, nurse, do me a favor.”
“Willingly, darling, order me.”
“Now do not think... Really... Suspicion...
4 But you see... Oh, do not refuse!”
“My dear, to you God is my pledge.”
“Well, send your grandson quietly
with this note to O… to that… to
8 the neighbor. And let him be told
that he ought not to say a word,
that he ought not to name me.”
“To whom, my precious?
12 I'm getting muddled nowadays.
Neighbors around are many; it's beyond me
even to count them over.”
XXXV
“Oh, nurse, how slow-witted you are!”
“Sweetheart, I am already old,
I'm old; the mind gets blunted, Tanya;
4 but time was, I used to be sharp:
time was, one word of master's wish.”
“Oh, nurse, nurse, is this relevant?
What matters your intelligence to me?
8 You see, it is about a letter, to
Onegin.” “Well, this now makes sense.
Do not be cross with me, my soul;
I am, you know, not comprehensible.
12 But why have you turned pale again?”
“Never mind, nurse, 'tis really nothing.
Send, then, your grandson.”
XXXVI
But the day lapsed, and there's no answer.
Another came up; nothing yet.
Pale as a shade, since morning dressed,
4 Tatiana waits: when will the answer come?
Olga's adorer drove up. “Tell me,
where's your companion?” was to him
the question of the lady of the house;
8 “He seems to have forgotten us entirely.”
Tatiana, flushing, quivered.
“He promised he would be today,”
Lenski replied to the old dame,
12 “but evidently the mail has detained him.”
Tatiana dropped her eyes
as if she'd heard a harsh rebuke.
XXXVII
'Twas darkling; on the table, shining,
the evening samovar
hissed as it warmed the Chinese teapot;
4 light vapor undulated under it.
Poured out by Olga's hand,
into the cups, in a dark stream,
the fragrant tea already
8 ran, and a footboy served the cream;
Tatiana stood before the window;
breathing on the cold panes,
lost in thought, the dear soul
12 wrote with her charming finger
on the bemisted glass
the cherished monogram: an O and E.
XXXVIII
And meantime her soul ached,
and full of tears was her languorous gaze.
Suddenly, hoof thuds! Her blood froze.
4 Now nearer! Coming fast... and in the yard
is Eugene! “Ach!” — and lighter than a shade
Tatiana skips into another hallway,
from porch outdoors, and straight into the garden;
8 she flies, flies — dares not
glance backward; in a moment has traversed
the platbands, little bridges, lawn,
the avenue to the lake, the bosquet;
12 she breaks the lilac bushes as she flies
across the flower plots to the brook,
and, panting, on a bench
XXXIX
she drops. “He's here! Eugene is here!
Good God, what did he think!”
Her heart, full of torments, retains
4 an obscure dream of hope;
she trembles, and she hotly glows, and waits:
does he not come? But hears not. In the orchard
girl servants, on the beds,
8 were picking berries in the bushes
and singing by decree in chorus
(a decree based on that
sly mouths would not in secret
12 eat the seignioral berry
and would be occupied by singing; a device
of rural wit!):
The Song Of The Girls
Maidens, pretty maidens,
darling girl companions,
romp unhindered, maidens,
4 have your fling, my dears!
Start to sing a ditty,
sing our private ditty,
and allure a fellow
8 to our choral dance.
When we lure a fellow,
when afar we see him,
let us scatter, dearies,
12 pelting him with cherries,
cherries and raspberries,
and red currants too.
XL
They sing; and carelessly
attending to their ringing voice,
Tatiana with impatience waits
4 for the heart's tremor to subside in her,
for her cheeks to cease flaming;
but in her breasts there's the same trepidation,
nor ceases the glow of her cheeks:
8 yet brighter, brighter do they burn.
Thus a poor butterfly both flashes
and beats an iridescent wing,
captured by a school prankster; thus
12 a small hare trembles in the winter corn
upon suddenly seeing from afar
the shotman in the bushes crouch.
XLI
But finally she sighed
and from her bench arose;
started to go; but hardly had she turned
4 into the avenue when straight before her,
eyes blazing, Eugene
stood, similar to some grim shade,
and as one seared by fire
8 she stopped.
But to detail the consequences
of this unlooked-for meeting I, dear friends,
have not the strength today;
12 after this long discourse I need
a little jaunt, a little rest;
some other time I'll tell the rest.
Elle était fille; elle était amoureuse.
I
“Whither? Ah me, those poets!”
“Good-by, Onegin. Time for me to leave.”
“I do not hold you, but where do
4 you spend your evenings?” “At the Larins'.”
“Now, that's a fine thing. Mercy, man —
and you don't find it difficult
thus every evening to kill time?”
8 “Not in the least.” “I cannot understand.
From here I see what it is like:
first — listen, am I right? —
a simple Russian family,
12 a great solicitude for guests,
jam, never-ending talk
of rain, of flax, of cattle yard.”
II
“So far I do not see what's bad about it.”
“Ah, but the boredom — that is bad, my friend.”
“Your fashionable world I hate;
4 dearer to me is the domestic circle
in which I can…” “Again an eclogue!
Ah, that will do, old boy, for goodness' sake.
Well, so you're off; I'm very sorry.
8 Oh, Lenski, listen — is there any way
for me to see this Phyllis,
subject of thoughts, and pen,
and tears, and rhymes, et cetera?
12 Present me.” “You are joking.” “No.”
“I'd gladly.” “When?” “Now, if you like.
They will be eager to receive us.”
III
“Let's go.” And off the two friends drove;
they have arrived; on them are lavished
the sometimes onerous attentions
4 of hospitable ancientry.
The ritual of the treat is known:
in little dishes jams are brought,
on an oilcloth'd small table there is set
8 a jug of lingonberry water.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
12 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
IV
They by the shortest road
fly home at full career.17
Now let us eavesdrop furtively
4 upon our heroes' conversation.
“Well now, Onegin, you are yawning.”
“A habit, Lenski.” “But somehow
you are more bored than ever.” “No, the same.
8 I say, it's dark already in the field;
faster! come on, come on, Andryushka!
What silly country!
Ah, apropos: Dame Larin
12 is simple but a very nice old lady;
I fear that lingonberry water
may not unlikely do me harm.
V
“Tell me, which was Tatiana?”
“Oh, she's the one who, sad
and silent like Svetlana,
4 came in and sat down by the window.”
“Can it be it's the younger one
that you're in love with?” “Why not?” “I'd have chosen
the other, had I been like you a poet.
8 In Olga's features there's no life,
just as in a Vandyke Madonna:
she's round and fair of face
as is that silly moon
12 up in that silly sky.”
Vladimir answered curtly
and thenceforth the whole way was silent.
VI
Meanwhile Onegin's apparition
at the Larins' produced
on everyone a great impression
4 and regaled all the neighbors.
Conjecture on conjecture followed.
All started furtively to talk,
to joke, to comment not without some malice,
8 a suitor for Tatiana to assign.
Some folks asserted even that
the wedding was quite settled,
but had been stayed because
12 of fashionable rings' not being got.
Concerning Lenski's wedding, long ago
they had it all arranged.
VII
Tatiana listened with vexation
to gossip of that sort; but secretly
she with ineffable elation
4 could not help thinking of it;
and the thought sank into her heart;
the time had come — she fell in love.
Thus, dropped into the earth, a seed
8 is quickened by the fire of spring.
For long had her imagination,
consumed with mollitude and anguish,
craved for the fatal food;
12 for long had the heart's languishment
constrained her youthful bosom;
her soul waited — for somebody.
VIII
And not in vain it waited. Her eyes opened;
she said: “'Tis he!”
Alas! now both the days and nights,
4 and hot, lone sleep,
all's full of him; to the dear girl
unceasingly with magic force
all speaks of him. To her are tedious
8 alike the sounds of friendly speeches
and the gaze of assiduous servants.
Immersed in gloom,
to visitors she does not listen,
12 and imprecates their leisures,
their unexpected
arrival and protracted sitting down.
IX
With what attention does she now
read some delicious novel,
with what vivid enchantment
4 imbibe the ravishing illusion!
Creations by the happy power
of dreaming animated,
the lover of Julie Wolmar,
8 Malek-Adhel, and de Linar,
and Werther, restless martyr,
and the inimitable Grandison,18
who brings upon us somnolence —
12 all for the tender, dreamy girl
have been invested with a single image,
have in Onegin merged alone.
X
Imagining herself the heroine
of her beloved authors —
Clarissa, Julia, Delphine —
4 Tatiana in the stillness of the woods
alone roams with a dangerous book;
in it she seeks and finds
her secret ardency, her dreams,
8 the fruits of the heart's fullness;
she sighs, and having made her own
another's ecstasy, another's woe,
she whispers in a trance, by heart,
12 a letter to the amiable hero.
But our hero, whoever he might be,
was certainly no Grandison.
XI
His style to a grave strain having attuned,
time was, a fervid author
used to present to us
4 his hero as a model of perfection.
He'd furnish the loved object —
always iniquitously persecuted —
with a sensitive soul, intelligence,
8 and an attractive face.
Nursing the ardor of the purest passion,
the always enthusiastic hero
was ready for self-sacrifice,
12 and by the end of the last part, vice always
got punished,
and virtue got a worthy crown.
XII
But nowadays all minds are in a mist,
a moral brings upon us somnolence,
vice is attractive in a novel, too,
4 and there, at least, it triumphs.
The fables of the British Muse
disturb the young girl's sleep,
and now her idol has become
8 either the pensive Vampyre,
or Melmoth, gloomy vagabond,
or the Wandering Jew, or the Corsair,
or the mysterious Sbogar.19
12 Lord Byron, by an opportune caprice,
in woebegone romanticism
draped even hopeless egotism.
XIII
My friends, what sense is there in this?
Perhaps, by heaven's will,
I'll cease to be a poet; a new demon
4 will enter into me;
and having scorned the threats of Phoebus,
I shall descend to humble prose:
a novel in the ancient strain
8 will then engage my gay decline.
There, not the secret pangs of crime
shall I grimly depict,
but simply shall detail to you
12 the legends of a Russian family,
love's captivating dreams,
and manners of our ancientry.
XIV
I shall detail a father's, an old uncle's,
plain speeches; the assigned
trysts of the children
4 by the old limes, by the small brook;
the throes of wretched jealousy,
parting, reconciliation's tears;
once more I'll have them quarrel, and at last
8 conduct them to the altar. I'll recall
the accents of impassioned languish,
the words of aching love,
which in days bygone at the feet
12 of a fair mistress
came to my tongue;
from which I now have grown disused.
XV
Tatiana, dear Tatiana!
I now shed tears with you.
Into a fashionable tyrant's hands
4 your fate already you've relinquished.
Dear, you shall perish; but before,
in dazzling hope,
you summon somber bliss,
8 you learn the dulcitude of life,
you quaff the magic poison of desires,
daydreams pursue you:
you fancy everywhere
12 retreats for happy trysts;
everywhere, everywhere before you,
is your fateful enticer.
XVI
The ache of love chases Tatiana,
and to the garden she repairs to brood,
and all at once her moveless eyes she lowers
4 and is too indolent farther to step;
her bosom has risen, her cheeks
are covered with an instant flame,
her breath has died upon her lips,
8 and there's a singing in her ears, a flashing
before her eyes. Night comes; the moon
patrols the distant vault of heaven,
and in the gloam of trees the nightingale
12 intones sonorous chants.
Tatiana in the darkness does not sleep
and in low tones talks with her nurse.
XVII
“I can't sleep, nurse: 'tis here so stuffy!
Open the window and sit down by me.”
“Why, Tanya, what's the matter with you?” “I am dull.
4 Let's talk about old days.”
“Well, what about them, Tanya? Time was, I
stored in my memory no dearth
of ancient haps and never-haps
8 about dire sprites and about maidens;
but everything to me is dark now, Tanya:
I have forgotten what I knew. Yes, things
have come now to a sorry pass!
12 I'm all befuddled.” “Nurse,
tell me about your old times. Were you then
in love?”
XVIII
“Oh, come, come, Tanya! In those years
we never heard of love;
elsewise my late mother-in-law
4 would have chased me right off the earth.”
“But how, then, were you wedded, nurse?”
“It looks as if God willed it so. My Vanya
was younger than myself, my sweet,
8 and I was thirteen. For two weeks or so
a woman matchmaker kept visiting
my kinsfolk, and at last
my father blessed me. Bitterly
12 I cried for fear; and, crying, they unbraided
my tress and, chanting,
they led me to the church.
XIX
“And so I entered a strange family.
But you're not listening to me.”
“Oh, nurse, nurse, I feel dismal,
4 I'm sick at heart, my dear,
I'm on the point of crying, sobbing!”
“My child, you are not well;
the Lord have mercy upon us and save us!
8 What would you like, do ask.
Here, let me sprinkle you with holy water,
you're all a-burning.” “I'm not ill;
I'm... do you know, nurse... I'm in love.”
12 “My child, the Lord be with you!”
And, uttering a prayer, the nurse
crossed with decrepit hand the girl.
XX
“I am in love,” anew she murmured
to the old woman mournfully.
“Sweetheart, you are not well.”
4 “Leave me. I am in love.”
And meantime the moon shone
and with dark light irradiated
the pale charms of Tatiana
8 and her loose hair,
and drops of tears, and, on a benchlet,
before the youthful heroine,
a kerchief on her hoary head, the little
12 old crone in a long “body warmer”;
and in the stillness everything
dozed by the inspirative moon.
XXI
And far away Tatiana's heart was ranging
as she looked at the moon....
All of a sudden in her mind a thought was born....
4 “Go, let me be alone.
Give me, nurse, a pen, paper, and move up
the table; I shall soon lie down.
Good night.” Now she's alone,
8 all's still. The moon gives light to her.
Tatiana, leaning on her elbow, writes,
and Eugene's ever present in her mind,
and in an unconsidered letter
12 the love of an innocent maid breathes forth.
The letter now is ready, folded.
Tatiana! Whom, then, is it for?
XXII
I've known belles inaccessible,
cold, winter-chaste;
inexorable, incorruptible,
4 unfathomable by the mind;
I marveled at their modish morgue,
at their natural virtue,
and, to be frank, I fled from them,
8 and I, meseems, with terror read
above their eyebrows Hell's inscription:
“Abandon hope for evermore!”20
To inspire love is bale for them,
12 to frighten folks for them is joyance.
Perhaps, on the banks of the Neva
similar ladies you have seen.
XXIII
Amidst obedient admirers,
other odd females I have seen,
conceitedly indifferent
4 to sighs impassioned and to praise.
But what, to my amazement, did I find?
While, by austere demeanor,
they frightened timid love,
8 they had the knack of winning it again,
at least by their condolence;
at least the sound of spoken words
sometimes would seem more tender,
12 and with credulous blindness
again the youthful lover
pursued sweet vanity.
XXIV
Why is Tatiana, then, more guilty?
Is it because in sweet simplicity
deceit she knows not and believes
4 in her elected dream?
Is it because she loves without art, being
obedient to the bent of feeling?
Is it because she is so trustful
8 and is endowed by heaven
with a restless imagination,
intelligence, and a live will,
and headstrongness,
12 and a flaming and tender heart?
Are you not going to forgive her
the thoughtlessness of passions?
XXV
The coquette reasons coolly;
Tatiana in dead earnest loves
and unconditionally yields
4 to love like a sweet child.
She does not say: Let us defer;
thereby we shall augment love's value,
inveigle into toils more surely;
8 let us first prick vainglory
with hope; then with perplexity
exhaust a heart, and then
revive it with a jealous fire,
12 for otherwise, cloyed with delight,
the cunning captive from his shackles
hourly is ready to escape.
XXVI
Another problem I foresee:
saving the honor of my native land,
undoubtedly I shall have to translate
4 Tatiana's letter. She
knew Russian badly,
did not read our reviews,
and in her native tongue expressed herself
8 with difficulty. So,
she wrote in French.
What's to be done about it! I repeat again;
as yet a lady's love
12 has not expressed itself in Russian,
as yet our proud tongue has not got accustomed
to postal prose.
XXVII
I know: some would make ladies
read Russian. Horrible indeed!
Can I image them
4 with The Well-Meaner21 in their hands?
My poets, I appeal to you!
Is it not true that the sweet objects
for whom, to expiate your sins,
8 in secret you wrote verses,
to whom your hearts you dedicated —
did not they all, wielding the Russian language
poorly, and with difficulty,
12 so sweetly garble it,
and on their lips did not a foreign language
become a native one?
XXVIII
The Lord forbid my meeting at a ball
or at its breakup, on the porch,
a seminarian in a yellow shawl
4 or an Academician in a bonnet!
As vermeil lips without a smile,
without grammatical mistakes
I don't like Russian speech.
8 Perchance (it would be my undoing!)
a generation of new belles,
heeding the magazines' entreating voice,
to Grammar will accustom us;
12 verses will be brought into use.
Yet I... what do I care?
I shall be true to ancientry.
XXIX
An incorrect and careless patter,
an inexact delivery of words,
as heretofore a flutter of the heart
4 will in my breast produce;
in me there's no force to repent;
to me will Gallicisms remain
as sweet as the sins of past youth,
8 as Bogdanóvich's verse.
But that will do. 'Tis time I busied
myself with my fair damsel's letter;
my word I've given — and what now? Yea, yea!
12 I'm ready to back out of it.
I know: tender Parny's
pen in our days is out of fashion.
XXX
Bard of The Feasts and languorous sadness,22
if you were still with me,
I would have troubled you,
4 dear fellow, with an indiscreet request:
that into magic melodies
you would transpose
a passionate maiden's foreign words.
8 Where are you? Come! My rights
I with a bow transfer to you....
But in the midst of melancholy rocks,
his heart disused from praises,
12 alone, under the Finnish sky
he wanders, and his soul
hears not my worry.
XXXI
Tatiana's letter is before me;
religiously I keep it;
I read it with a secret heartache
4 and cannot get my fill of reading it.
Who taught her both this tenderness
and amiable carelessness of words?
Who taught her all that touching tosh,
8 mad conversation of the heart
both fascinating and injurious?
I cannot understand. But here's
an incomplete, feeble translation,
12 the pallid copy of a vivid picture,
or Freischütz executed by the fingers
of timid female learners.
Tatiana's Letter To Onegin
I write to you — what would one more?
What else is there that I could say?
'Tis now, I know, within your will
4 to punish me with scorn.
But you, preserving for my hapless lot
at least one drop of pity,
you'll not abandon me.
8 At first, I wanted to be silent;
believe me: of my shame
you never would have known
if I had had the hope but seldom,
12 but once a week,
to see you at our country place,
only to hear you speak,
to say a word to you, and then
16 to think and think about one thing,
both day and night, till a new meeting.
But, they say, you're unsociable;
in backwoods, in the country, all bores you,
20 while we... in no way do we shine,
though simpleheartedly we welcome you.
Why did you visit us?
In the backwoods of a forgotten village,
24 I would have never known you
nor have known this bitter torment.
The turmoil of an inexperienced soul
having subdued with time (who knows?),
28 I would have found a friend after my heart,
have been a faithful wife
and a virtuous mother.
Another!... No, to nobody on earth
32 would I have given my heart away!
That has been destined in a higher council,
that is the will of heaven: I am thine;
my entire life has been the gage
36 of a sure tryst with you;
I know that you are sent to me by God,
you are my guardian to the tomb....
You had appeared to me in dreams,
40 unseen, you were already dear to me,
your wondrous glance would trouble me,
your voice resounded in my soul
long since.... No, it was not a dream!
44 Scarce had you entered, instantly I knew you,
I felt all faint, I felt aflame,
and in my thoughts I uttered: It is he!
Is it not true that it was you I heard:
48 you in the stillness spoke to me
when I would help the poor
or assuage with a prayer
the anguish of my agitated soul?
52 And even at this very moment
was it not you, dear vision,
that slipped through the transparent darkness
and gently bent close to my bed head?
56 Was it not you that with delight and love
did whisper words of hope to me?
Who are you? My guardian angel
or a perfidious tempter?
60 Resolve my doubts.
Perhaps, 'tis nonsense all,
an inexperienced soul's delusion, and there's destined
something quite different....
64 But so be it! My fate
henceforth I place into your hands,
before you I shed tears,
for your defense I plead.
68 Imagine: I am here alone,
none understands me,
my reason sinks,
and, silent, I must perish.
72 I wait for you: revive
my heart's hopes with a single look
or interrupt the heavy dream
with a rebuke — alas, deserved!
76 I close. I dread to read this over.
I'm faint with shame and fear... But to me
your honor is a pledge,
and boldly I entrust myself to it.
XXXII
By turns Tatiana sighs and ohs.
The letter trembles in her hand;
the rosy wafer dries
4 upon her fevered tongue.
Her poor head shoulderward has sunk;
her light chemise
has slid down from her charming shoulder.
8 But now the moonbeam's radiance
already fades. Anon the valley
grows through the vapor clear. Anon the stream
starts silvering. Anon the herdsman's horn
12 wakes up the villager.
Here's morning; all have risen long ago:
to my Tatiana it is all the same.
XXXIII
She takes no notice of the sunrise;
she sits with lowered head
and on the letter does not
4 impress her graven seal.
But, softly opening the door,
now gray Filatievna brings her
tea on a tray.
8 “'Tis time, my child, get up;
why, pretty one,
you're ready! Oh, my early birdie!
I was so anxious yesternight —
12 but glory be to God, you're well!
No trace at all of the night's fret!
Your face is like a poppy flower.”
XXXIV
“Oh, nurse, do me a favor.”
“Willingly, darling, order me.”
“Now do not think... Really... Suspicion...
4 But you see... Oh, do not refuse!”
“My dear, to you God is my pledge.”
“Well, send your grandson quietly
with this note to O… to that… to
8 the neighbor. And let him be told
that he ought not to say a word,
that he ought not to name me.”
“To whom, my precious?
12 I'm getting muddled nowadays.
Neighbors around are many; it's beyond me
even to count them over.”
XXXV
“Oh, nurse, how slow-witted you are!”
“Sweetheart, I am already old,
I'm old; the mind gets blunted, Tanya;
4 but time was, I used to be sharp:
time was, one word of master's wish.”
“Oh, nurse, nurse, is this relevant?
What matters your intelligence to me?
8 You see, it is about a letter, to
Onegin.” “Well, this now makes sense.
Do not be cross with me, my soul;
I am, you know, not comprehensible.
12 But why have you turned pale again?”
“Never mind, nurse, 'tis really nothing.
Send, then, your grandson.”
XXXVI
But the day lapsed, and there's no answer.
Another came up; nothing yet.
Pale as a shade, since morning dressed,
4 Tatiana waits: when will the answer come?
Olga's adorer drove up. “Tell me,
where's your companion?” was to him
the question of the lady of the house;
8 “He seems to have forgotten us entirely.”
Tatiana, flushing, quivered.
“He promised he would be today,”
Lenski replied to the old dame,
12 “but evidently the mail has detained him.”
Tatiana dropped her eyes
as if she'd heard a harsh rebuke.
XXXVII
'Twas darkling; on the table, shining,
the evening samovar
hissed as it warmed the Chinese teapot;
4 light vapor undulated under it.
Poured out by Olga's hand,
into the cups, in a dark stream,
the fragrant tea already
8 ran, and a footboy served the cream;
Tatiana stood before the window;
breathing on the cold panes,
lost in thought, the dear soul
12 wrote with her charming finger
on the bemisted glass
the cherished monogram: an O and E.
XXXVIII
And meantime her soul ached,
and full of tears was her languorous gaze.
Suddenly, hoof thuds! Her blood froze.
4 Now nearer! Coming fast... and in the yard
is Eugene! “Ach!” — and lighter than a shade
Tatiana skips into another hallway,
from porch outdoors, and straight into the garden;
8 she flies, flies — dares not
glance backward; in a moment has traversed
the platbands, little bridges, lawn,
the avenue to the lake, the bosquet;
12 she breaks the lilac bushes as she flies
across the flower plots to the brook,
and, panting, on a bench
XXXIX
she drops. “He's here! Eugene is here!
Good God, what did he think!”
Her heart, full of torments, retains
4 an obscure dream of hope;
she trembles, and she hotly glows, and waits:
does he not come? But hears not. In the orchard
girl servants, on the beds,
8 were picking berries in the bushes
and singing by decree in chorus
(a decree based on that
sly mouths would not in secret
12 eat the seignioral berry
and would be occupied by singing; a device
of rural wit!):
The Song Of The Girls
Maidens, pretty maidens,
darling girl companions,
romp unhindered, maidens,
4 have your fling, my dears!
Start to sing a ditty,
sing our private ditty,
and allure a fellow
8 to our choral dance.
When we lure a fellow,
when afar we see him,
let us scatter, dearies,
12 pelting him with cherries,
cherries and raspberries,
and red currants too.
XL
They sing; and carelessly
attending to their ringing voice,
Tatiana with impatience waits
4 for the heart's tremor to subside in her,
for her cheeks to cease flaming;
but in her breasts there's the same trepidation,
nor ceases the glow of her cheeks:
8 yet brighter, brighter do they burn.
Thus a poor butterfly both flashes
and beats an iridescent wing,
captured by a school prankster; thus
12 a small hare trembles in the winter corn
upon suddenly seeing from afar
the shotman in the bushes crouch.
XLI
But finally she sighed
and from her bench arose;
started to go; but hardly had she turned
4 into the avenue when straight before her,
eyes blazing, Eugene
stood, similar to some grim shade,
and as one seared by fire
8 she stopped.
But to detail the consequences
of this unlooked-for meeting I, dear friends,
have not the strength today;
12 after this long discourse I need
a little jaunt, a little rest;
some other time I'll tell the rest.
CHAPTER FOUR
La morale est dans la nature des choses.
VII
The less we love a woman
the easier 'tis to be liked by her,
and thus more surely we undo her
4 among bewitching toils.
Time was when cool debauch
was lauded as the art of love,
trumpeting everywhere about itself,
8 taking its pleasure without loving.
But that grand game
is worthy of old sapajous
of our forefathers' vaunted times;
12 the fame of Lovelaces has faded
with the fame of red heels
and of majestic periwigs.
VIII
Who does not find it tedious to dissemble;
diversely to repeat the same;
try gravely to convince one
4 of what all have been long convinced;
to hear the same objections,
annihilate the prejudices
which never had and hasn't
8 a little girl of thirteen years!
Who will not grow weary of threats,
entreaties, vows, feigned fear,
notes running to six pages,
12 betrayals, gossiping, rings, tears,
surveillances of aunts, of mothers,
and the onerous friendship of husbands!
IX
Exactly thus my Eugene thought.
In his first youth
he had been victim of tempestuous errings
4 and of unbridled passions.
Spoiled by a habitude of life,
with one thing for a while
enchanted, disenchanted with another,
8 irked slowly by desire,
irked, too, by volatile success,
hearkening in the hubbub and the hush
to the eternal mutter of his soul,
12 smothering yawns with laughter:
this was the way he killed eight years,
having lost life's best bloom.
X
With belles no longer did he fall in love,
but dangled after them just anyhow;
when they refused, he solaced in a twinkle;
4 when they betrayed, was glad to rest.
He sought them without rapture,
while he left them without regret,
hardly remembering their love and spite.
8 Exactly thus does an indifferent guest
drive up for evening whist:
sits down; then, when the game is over,
he drives off from the place,
12 at home falls peacefully asleep,
and in the morning does not know himself
where he will drive to in the evening.
XI
But on receiving Tanya's missive,
Onegin was profoundly touched:
the language of a maiden's daydreams
4 stirred up in him a swarm of thoughts;
and he recalled winsome Tatiana's
pale color, mournful air;
and in a sweet and sinless dream
8 his soul became absorbed.
Perhaps an ancient glow of feelings
possessed him for a minute;
but he did not wish to deceive
12 an innocent soul's trustfulness.
Now we'll flit over to the garden where Tatiana
encountered him.
XII
For a few seconds they were silent;
Onegin then went up to her
and quoth: “You wrote to me.
4 Do not deny it. I have read
a trustful soul's avowals,
an innocent love's outpourings;
your candidness appeals to me,
8 in me it has excited
emotions long grown silent.
But I don't want to praise you —
I will repay you for it
12 with an avowal likewise void of art;
hear my confession;
unto your judgment I submit.
XIII
“If I by the domestic circle
had wanted to bound life;
if to be father, husband,
4 a pleasant lot had ordered me;
if with the familistic picture
I were but for one moment captivated;
then, doubtlessly, save you alone
8 no other bride I'd seek.
I'll say without madrigal spangles:
my past ideal having found,
I'd doubtlessly have chosen you alone
12 for mate of my sad days, in gage
of all that's beautiful, and would have been
happy — in so far as I could!
XIV
“But I'm not made for bliss;
my soul is strange to it;
in vain are your perfections:
4 I'm not at all worthy of them.
Believe me (conscience is thereof the pledge),
wedlock to us would be a torment.
However much I loved you,
8 having grown used, I'd cease to love at once;
you would begin to weep; your tears
would fail to touch my heart —
they merely would exasperate it.
12 Judge, then, what roses
Hymen would lay in store for us —
and, possibly, for many days!
XV
“What in the world can be
worse than a family where the poor wife frets
over an undeserving husband
4 and day and evening is alone;
where the dull husband,
knowing her worth (yet cursing fate),
is always sullen, silent, cross,
8 and coldly jealous?
Thus I. And is it this you sought
with pure flaming soul when
with such simplicity,
12 with such intelligence, to me you wrote?
Can it be true that such a portion
is by stern fate assigned to you?
XVI
“For dreams and years there's no return;
I shall not renovate my soul.
I love you with a brother's love
4 and maybe still more tenderly.
So listen to me without wrath:
a youthful maid will more than once
for dreams exchange light dreams;
8 a sapling thus its leaves
changes with every spring.
By heaven thus 'tis evidently destined.
Again you will love; but.
12 learn to control yourself;
not everyone as I will understand you;
to trouble inexperience leads.”
XVII
Thus Eugene preached.
Nought seeing through her tears,
scarce breathing, without protests,
4 Tatiana listened to him.
His arm to her he offered. Sadly
(as it is said: “mechanically”),
Tatiana leaned on it in silence,
8 bending her languid little head;
homeward [they] went around the kitchen garden;
together they arrived, and none
dreamt of reproving them for this:
12 its happy rights
has country freedom
as well as haughty Moscow has.
XVIII
You will agree, my reader,
that very nicely did our pal
act toward melancholy Tanya;
4 not for the first time here did he reveal
a real nobility of soul,
though people's ill will
spared nothing in him:
8 his foes, his friends
(which, maybe, are the same)
upbraided him this way and that.
Foes upon earth has everyone,
12 but God preserve us from our friends!
Ah me, those friends, those friends!
Not without cause have I recalled them.
XIX
What's that? Oh, nothing. I am lulling
empty black reveries;
I only in parenthesis observe
4 that there's no despicable slander
spawned in a garret by a babbler
and by the rabble of the monde encouraged,
that there's no such absurdity,
8 nor vulgar epigram,
that with a smile your friend
in a circle of decent people
without the slightest malice or design
12 will not repeat a hundred times in error;
yet he professes to stand up for you:
he loves you so!... Oh, like a kinsman!
XX
Hm, hm, gent reader,
are all your kindred well?
Allow me; you might want, perhaps,
4 to learn from me now what exactly
is meant by “kinsfolks”?
Well, here's what kinsfolks are:
we are required to pet them, love them,
8 esteem them cordially,
and, following popular custom,
come Christmas, visit them, or else
congratulate them postally,
12 so that for the remainder of the year
they will not think about us.
So grant them, God, long life!
XXI
As to the love of tender beauties,
'tis surer than friendship or kin:
even mid restless tempests you retain
4 rights over it.
No doubt, so. But one has to reckon
with fashion's whirl, with nature's waywardness,
with the stream of the monde's opinion —
8 while the sweet sex is light as fluff.
Moreover, the opinions of her husband
should by a virtuous wife
be always honored;
12 your faithful mistress thus
may in a trice be swept away:
with love jokes Satan.
XXII
Whom, then, to love? Whom to believe?
Who is the only one that won't betray us?
Who measures all deeds and all speeches
4 obligingly by our own foot rule?
Who does not sow slander about us?
Who coddles us with care?
To whom our vice is not so bad?
8 Who never bores us?
Efforts in vain not wasting
(as would a futile phantom-seeker),
love your own self,
12 my worthly honored reader.
A worthy object! Surely, nothing
more amiable exists.
XXIII
What was the consequence of the interview?
Alas, it is not hard to guess!
Love's frenzied sufferings
4 did not stop agitating
the youthful soul avid of sadness;
nay, poor Tatiana more intensely
with joyless passion burns;
8 sleep shuns her bed;
health, life's bloom and its sweetness,
smile, virginal tranquillity —
all, like an empty sound, have ceased to be,
12 and gentle Tanya's youth is darkling:
thus a storm's shadow clothes
the scarce-born day.
XXIV
Alas, Tatiana fades away,
grows pale, is wasting, and is mute!
Nothing beguiles her
4 or moves her soul.
Shaking gravely their heads,
among themselves the neighbors whisper:
Time, time she married!...
8 But that will do. I must make haste
to cheer the imagination with the picture
of happy love.
I cannot help, my dears,
12 being constrained by pity;
forgive me: I do love so much
my dear Tatiana!
XXV
From hour to hour more captivated
by the attractions of young Olga,
Vladimir to delicious thralldom
4 fully gave up his soul.
He's ever with her. In her chamber
they sit together in the dark;
or in the garden, arm in arm,
8 they stroll at morningtide;
and what of it? With love intoxicated,
in the confusion of a tender shame,
he only dares sometimes,
12 by Olga's smile encouraged,
play with an unwound curl
or kiss the border of her dress.
XXVI
Sometimes he reads to Olya
a moralistic novel —
in which the author
4 knows nature better than Chateaubriand —
and, meanwhile, two-three pages
(empty chimeras, fables,
for hearts of maidens dangerous)
8 he blushingly leaves out.
Retiring far from everybody,
over the chessboard they,
leaning their elbows on the table,
12 at times sit deep in thought,
and Lenski in abstraction takes
with a pawn his own rook.
XXVII
When he drives home, at home he also
is with his Olga occupied,
the volatile leaves of an album
4 assiduously adorns for her:
now draws therein agrestic views,
a gravestone, the temple of Cypris,
or a dove on a lyre
8 (using a pen and, slightly, colors);
now on the pages of remembrance,
beneath the signatures of others,
he leaves a tender verse —
12 mute monument of reverie,
an instant thought's light trace,
still, after many years, the same.
XXVIII
You have, of course, seen more than once the album
of a provincial miss, by all her girl friends
scrawled over from the end,
4 from the beginning, and around.
Here, in defiance of orthography,
lines without meter, [passed on] by tradition,
in token of faithful friendship are entered,
8 diminished, lengthened.
On the first leaf you are confronted with:
Qu' écrirez-vous sur ces tablettes?
signed: toute à vous Annette;
12 and on the last one you will read:
“Whoever more than I loves you,
let him write farther than I do.”
XXIX
Here you are sure to find
two hearts, a torch, and flowerets;
here you will read no doubt
4 love's vows “Unto the tomb slab”;
some military poetaster
here has dashed off a roguish rhyme.
In such an album, to be frank, my friends,
8 I too am glad to write,
at heart being convinced
that any zealous trash of mine
will merit an indulgent glance
12 and that thereafter, with a wicked smile,
one will not solemnly examine
if I could babble wittily or not.
XXX
But you, odd volumes
from the bibliotheca of the devils,
the gorgeous albums,
4 the rack of fashionable rhymesters;
you, nimbly ornamented
by Tolstoy's wonder-working brush,
or Baratïnski's pen,
8 let the Lord's levin burn you!
Whenever her in-quarto a resplendent lady
proffers to me,
a tremor and a waspishness possess me,
12 and at the bottom of my soul
there stirs an epigram —
but madrigals you have to write for them!
XXXI
Not madrigals does Lenski
write in the album of young Olga;
his pen breathes love —
4 it does not glitter frigidly with wit.
Whatever he notes, whatever he hears
concerning Olga, this he writes about;
and full of vivid truth
8 flow, riverlike, his elegies.
Thus you, inspired Yazïkov,
sing, in the surgings of your heart,
God knows whom, and the precious code
12 of elegies
will represent for you someday
the entire story of your fate.
XXXII
But soft! You hear? A critic stern
commands us to throw off
the sorry wreath of elegies;
4 and to our brotherhood of rhymesters
cries: “Do stop whimpering
and croaking always the same thing,
regretting 'the foregone, the past';
8 enough! Sing about something else!” —
You're right, and surely you'll point out
to us the trumpet, mask, and dagger,
and everywhence a dead stock of ideas
12 bid us revive.
Thus friend? — “Nowise!
Far from it! Write odes, gentlemen,
XXXIII
“as in a mighty age one wrote them,
as was in times of yore established.”
Nothing but solemn odes?
4 Oh, come, friend; what's this to the purpose?
Recall what said the satirist!
Does the shrewd lyrist in “As Others See It”
seem more endurable to you
8 than our glum rhymesters? —
“But in the elegy all is so null;
its empty aim is pitiful;
whilst the aim of the ode is lofty
12 and noble.” Here I might
argue with you, but I keep still:
I do not want to make two ages quarrel.
XXXIV
A votary of fame and freedom,
in the excitement of his stormy thoughts,
Vladimir might have written odes,
4 only that Olga did not read them.
Have ever chanced larmoyant poets
to read their works before the eyes
of their beloved ones? It is said, no higher
8 rewards are in the world.
And, verily, blest is the modest lover
reading his daydreams to the object
of songs and love,
12 a pleasantly languorous belle!
Blest — though perhaps by something
quite different she is diverted.
XXXV
But I the products of my fancies
and of harmonious device
read but to an old nurse,
4 companion of my youth;
or after a dull dinner, when a neighbor
strays in to see me — having caught
him by a coat skirt unexpectedly —
8 I choke him in a corner with a tragedy,
or else (but that's apart from jesting),
haunted by yearnings and by rhymes,
roaming along my lake,
12 I scare a flock of wild ducks; they, on heeding
the chant of sweet-toned strophes,
fly off the banks.
XXXVII
But what about Onegin? By the way,
brothers! I beg your patience:
his daily occupations in detail
4 I shall describe to you.
Onegin anchoretically lived;
he rose in summer between six and seven
and, lightly clad, proceeded to the river
8 that ran under the hillside. Imitating
the songster of Gulnare,
across this Hellespont he swam,
then drank his coffee, while he flipped
12 through some wretched review,
and dressed
XXXIX
Rambles, and reading, and sound sleep,
the sylvan shade, the purl of streams,
sometimes a white-skinned, dark-eyed girl's
4 young and fresh kiss,
a horse of mettle, bridle-true,
a rather fancy dinner,
a bottle of bright wine,
8 seclusion, quiet —
this was Onegin's saintly life;
and he insensibly to it
surrendered, the fair summer days
12 in carefree mollitude not counting,
oblivious of both town and friends
and of the boredom of festive devices.
XL
But our Northern summer is a caricature
of Southern winters;
it will glance by and vanish: this is known,
4 though to admit it we don't wish.
The sky already breathed of autumn,
the sun already shone more seldom,
the day was growing shorter,
8 the woods' mysterious canopy
with a sad murmur bared itself,
mist settled on the fields,
the caravan of clamorous geese
12 was tending southward; there drew near
a rather tedious period;
November stood already at the door.
XLI
Dawn rises in cold murk;
stilled in the grainfields is the noise of labors;
with his hungry female, the wolf
4 comes out upon the road;
the road horse, sensing him,
snorts, and the wary traveler
goes tearing uphill at top speed;
8 no longer does the herdsman drive at sunrise
the cows out of the shippon,
and at the hour of midday in a circle
his horn does not call them together;
12 in her small hut singing, the maiden23
spins and, the friend of winter nights,
in front of her the splintlight crackles.
XLII
And now the frosts already crackle
and silver 'mid the fields
(the reader now expects the rhyme “froze-rose” —
4 here, take it quick!).
Neater than modish parquetry,
the ice-clad river shines.
The gladsome crew of boys24
8 cut with their skates resoundingly the ice;
a heavy goose with red feet, planning
to swim upon the bosom of the waters,
steps carefully upon the ice,
12 slidders, and falls. The gay
first snow flicks, whirls,
falling in stars upon the bank.
XLIII
What can one do at this time in the wilds?
Walk? But the country at that time
is an involuntary eyesore
4 in its unbroken nakedness.
Go galloping in the harsh prairie?
But, catching with a blunted shoe
the treacherous ice, one's mount
8 is likely any moment to come down.
Stay under your desolate roof,
read; here is Pradt, here's Walter Scott!
Don't want to? Verify expenses,
12 grumble or drink, and the long evening
somehow will pass; and next day the same thing,
and famously you'll spend the winter.
XLIV
Onegin like a regular Childe Harold
lapsed into pensive indolence:
right after sleep he takes a bath with ice,
4 and then, at home all day,
alone, absorbed in calculations, armed
with a blunt cue,
using two balls,
8 ever since morn plays billiards.
The country evening comes; abandoned
are billiards, the cue is forgot.
Before the fireplace the table is laid;
12 Eugene waits; here comes Lenski,
borne by a troika of roan horses;
quick, let's have dinner!
XLV
Of Veuve Clicquot or of Moët
the blesséd wine
in a chilled bottle for the poet
4 is brought at once upon the table.
It sparkles Hippocrenelike;25
with its briskness and froth
(a simile of this and that)
8 it used to captivate me: for its sake
my last poor lepton I was wont
to give away — remember, friends?
Its magic stream engendered
12 no dearth of foolishness,
but also lots of jokes, and verses,
and arguments, and merry dreams!
XLVI
But with its noisy froth
it plays false to my stomach,
and nowadays sedate Bordeaux
4 already I've preferred to it.
For Ay I'm no longer fit,
Ay is like
a mistress, brilliant, volatile, vivacious,
8 and whimsical, and shallow.
But you, Bordeaux, are like a friend
who in grief and misfortune
is always, everywhere, a comrade,
12 ready to render us a service
or share our quiet leisure.
Long live Bordeaux, our friend!
XLVII
The fire is out; barely with ashes
is filmed the golden coal;
in a barely distinguishable stream
4 the vapor weaves, and the grate faintly
exhales some warmth. The smoke of pipes
goes up the chimney. The bright goblet
amid the table fizzes yet.
8 The evening gloam comes on
(I'm fond of friendly prate
and of a friendly bowl of wine
at that time which is called
12 time between wolf and dog —
though why, I do not see).
Now the two friends converse.
XLVIII
“Well, how are the fair neighbors? How's Tatiana?
How is your sprightly Olga?”
“Pour me half a glass more....
4 That'll do, dear chap.... The entire family
is well; they send you salutations....
Ah, my dear chap, how beautiful the shoulders
of Olga have become!
8 Ah, what a bosom! What a soul!... Someday
let's visit them; they will appreciate it;
or else, my friend, judge for yourself —
you dropped in twice, and after that
12 you never even showed your nose.
In fact — well, what a dolt I am!
You are invited there next week.”
XLIX
“I?” “Yes, Tatiana's name day
is Saturday. Ólinka and the mother
bade me ask you, and there's no reason
4 you should not come in answer to their call.”
“But there will be a mass of people
and all kinds of such scum.”
“Oh, nobody, I am quite certain.
8 Who might be there? The family only.
Let's go, do me the favor.
Well?” “I consent.” “How nice you are!”
And with these words he drained
12 his glass, a toast to the fair neighbor —
and then waxed voluble again,
talking of Olga. Such is love!
L
Merry he was. A fortnight hence
the blissful date was set,
and the nuptial bed's mystery
4 and love's sweet crown awaited
his transports.
Hymen's cares, woes,
yawnings' chill train,
8 he never visioned.
Whereas we, enemies of Hymen,
perceive in home life but a series
of tedious images,
12 a novel in the genre of Lafontaine.26
O my poor Lenski! For the said
life he at heart was born.
LI
He was loved — or at least
he thought so — and was happy.
Blest hundredfold is he who is devoted
4 to faith; who, having curbed cold intellect,
in the heart's mollitude reposes
as, bedded for the night, a drunken traveler,
or (more tenderly) as a butterfly
8 absorbed in a spring flower;
but pitiful is he who foresees all,
whose head is never in a whirl,
who hates all movements and all words
12 in their interpretation,
whose heart is by experience
chilled and forbidden to get lost in dreams.
La morale est dans la nature des choses.
VII
The less we love a woman
the easier 'tis to be liked by her,
and thus more surely we undo her
4 among bewitching toils.
Time was when cool debauch
was lauded as the art of love,
trumpeting everywhere about itself,
8 taking its pleasure without loving.
But that grand game
is worthy of old sapajous
of our forefathers' vaunted times;
12 the fame of Lovelaces has faded
with the fame of red heels
and of majestic periwigs.
VIII
Who does not find it tedious to dissemble;
diversely to repeat the same;
try gravely to convince one
4 of what all have been long convinced;
to hear the same objections,
annihilate the prejudices
which never had and hasn't
8 a little girl of thirteen years!
Who will not grow weary of threats,
entreaties, vows, feigned fear,
notes running to six pages,
12 betrayals, gossiping, rings, tears,
surveillances of aunts, of mothers,
and the onerous friendship of husbands!
IX
Exactly thus my Eugene thought.
In his first youth
he had been victim of tempestuous errings
4 and of unbridled passions.
Spoiled by a habitude of life,
with one thing for a while
enchanted, disenchanted with another,
8 irked slowly by desire,
irked, too, by volatile success,
hearkening in the hubbub and the hush
to the eternal mutter of his soul,
12 smothering yawns with laughter:
this was the way he killed eight years,
having lost life's best bloom.
X
With belles no longer did he fall in love,
but dangled after them just anyhow;
when they refused, he solaced in a twinkle;
4 when they betrayed, was glad to rest.
He sought them without rapture,
while he left them without regret,
hardly remembering their love and spite.
8 Exactly thus does an indifferent guest
drive up for evening whist:
sits down; then, when the game is over,
he drives off from the place,
12 at home falls peacefully asleep,
and in the morning does not know himself
where he will drive to in the evening.
XI
But on receiving Tanya's missive,
Onegin was profoundly touched:
the language of a maiden's daydreams
4 stirred up in him a swarm of thoughts;
and he recalled winsome Tatiana's
pale color, mournful air;
and in a sweet and sinless dream
8 his soul became absorbed.
Perhaps an ancient glow of feelings
possessed him for a minute;
but he did not wish to deceive
12 an innocent soul's trustfulness.
Now we'll flit over to the garden where Tatiana
encountered him.
XII
For a few seconds they were silent;
Onegin then went up to her
and quoth: “You wrote to me.
4 Do not deny it. I have read
a trustful soul's avowals,
an innocent love's outpourings;
your candidness appeals to me,
8 in me it has excited
emotions long grown silent.
But I don't want to praise you —
I will repay you for it
12 with an avowal likewise void of art;
hear my confession;
unto your judgment I submit.
XIII
“If I by the domestic circle
had wanted to bound life;
if to be father, husband,
4 a pleasant lot had ordered me;
if with the familistic picture
I were but for one moment captivated;
then, doubtlessly, save you alone
8 no other bride I'd seek.
I'll say without madrigal spangles:
my past ideal having found,
I'd doubtlessly have chosen you alone
12 for mate of my sad days, in gage
of all that's beautiful, and would have been
happy — in so far as I could!
XIV
“But I'm not made for bliss;
my soul is strange to it;
in vain are your perfections:
4 I'm not at all worthy of them.
Believe me (conscience is thereof the pledge),
wedlock to us would be a torment.
However much I loved you,
8 having grown used, I'd cease to love at once;
you would begin to weep; your tears
would fail to touch my heart —
they merely would exasperate it.
12 Judge, then, what roses
Hymen would lay in store for us —
and, possibly, for many days!
XV
“What in the world can be
worse than a family where the poor wife frets
over an undeserving husband
4 and day and evening is alone;
where the dull husband,
knowing her worth (yet cursing fate),
is always sullen, silent, cross,
8 and coldly jealous?
Thus I. And is it this you sought
with pure flaming soul when
with such simplicity,
12 with such intelligence, to me you wrote?
Can it be true that such a portion
is by stern fate assigned to you?
XVI
“For dreams and years there's no return;
I shall not renovate my soul.
I love you with a brother's love
4 and maybe still more tenderly.
So listen to me without wrath:
a youthful maid will more than once
for dreams exchange light dreams;
8 a sapling thus its leaves
changes with every spring.
By heaven thus 'tis evidently destined.
Again you will love; but.
12 learn to control yourself;
not everyone as I will understand you;
to trouble inexperience leads.”
XVII
Thus Eugene preached.
Nought seeing through her tears,
scarce breathing, without protests,
4 Tatiana listened to him.
His arm to her he offered. Sadly
(as it is said: “mechanically”),
Tatiana leaned on it in silence,
8 bending her languid little head;
homeward [they] went around the kitchen garden;
together they arrived, and none
dreamt of reproving them for this:
12 its happy rights
has country freedom
as well as haughty Moscow has.
XVIII
You will agree, my reader,
that very nicely did our pal
act toward melancholy Tanya;
4 not for the first time here did he reveal
a real nobility of soul,
though people's ill will
spared nothing in him:
8 his foes, his friends
(which, maybe, are the same)
upbraided him this way and that.
Foes upon earth has everyone,
12 but God preserve us from our friends!
Ah me, those friends, those friends!
Not without cause have I recalled them.
XIX
What's that? Oh, nothing. I am lulling
empty black reveries;
I only in parenthesis observe
4 that there's no despicable slander
spawned in a garret by a babbler
and by the rabble of the monde encouraged,
that there's no such absurdity,
8 nor vulgar epigram,
that with a smile your friend
in a circle of decent people
without the slightest malice or design
12 will not repeat a hundred times in error;
yet he professes to stand up for you:
he loves you so!... Oh, like a kinsman!
XX
Hm, hm, gent reader,
are all your kindred well?
Allow me; you might want, perhaps,
4 to learn from me now what exactly
is meant by “kinsfolks”?
Well, here's what kinsfolks are:
we are required to pet them, love them,
8 esteem them cordially,
and, following popular custom,
come Christmas, visit them, or else
congratulate them postally,
12 so that for the remainder of the year
they will not think about us.
So grant them, God, long life!
XXI
As to the love of tender beauties,
'tis surer than friendship or kin:
even mid restless tempests you retain
4 rights over it.
No doubt, so. But one has to reckon
with fashion's whirl, with nature's waywardness,
with the stream of the monde's opinion —
8 while the sweet sex is light as fluff.
Moreover, the opinions of her husband
should by a virtuous wife
be always honored;
12 your faithful mistress thus
may in a trice be swept away:
with love jokes Satan.
XXII
Whom, then, to love? Whom to believe?
Who is the only one that won't betray us?
Who measures all deeds and all speeches
4 obligingly by our own foot rule?
Who does not sow slander about us?
Who coddles us with care?
To whom our vice is not so bad?
8 Who never bores us?
Efforts in vain not wasting
(as would a futile phantom-seeker),
love your own self,
12 my worthly honored reader.
A worthy object! Surely, nothing
more amiable exists.
XXIII
What was the consequence of the interview?
Alas, it is not hard to guess!
Love's frenzied sufferings
4 did not stop agitating
the youthful soul avid of sadness;
nay, poor Tatiana more intensely
with joyless passion burns;
8 sleep shuns her bed;
health, life's bloom and its sweetness,
smile, virginal tranquillity —
all, like an empty sound, have ceased to be,
12 and gentle Tanya's youth is darkling:
thus a storm's shadow clothes
the scarce-born day.
XXIV
Alas, Tatiana fades away,
grows pale, is wasting, and is mute!
Nothing beguiles her
4 or moves her soul.
Shaking gravely their heads,
among themselves the neighbors whisper:
Time, time she married!...
8 But that will do. I must make haste
to cheer the imagination with the picture
of happy love.
I cannot help, my dears,
12 being constrained by pity;
forgive me: I do love so much
my dear Tatiana!
XXV
From hour to hour more captivated
by the attractions of young Olga,
Vladimir to delicious thralldom
4 fully gave up his soul.
He's ever with her. In her chamber
they sit together in the dark;
or in the garden, arm in arm,
8 they stroll at morningtide;
and what of it? With love intoxicated,
in the confusion of a tender shame,
he only dares sometimes,
12 by Olga's smile encouraged,
play with an unwound curl
or kiss the border of her dress.
XXVI
Sometimes he reads to Olya
a moralistic novel —
in which the author
4 knows nature better than Chateaubriand —
and, meanwhile, two-three pages
(empty chimeras, fables,
for hearts of maidens dangerous)
8 he blushingly leaves out.
Retiring far from everybody,
over the chessboard they,
leaning their elbows on the table,
12 at times sit deep in thought,
and Lenski in abstraction takes
with a pawn his own rook.
XXVII
When he drives home, at home he also
is with his Olga occupied,
the volatile leaves of an album
4 assiduously adorns for her:
now draws therein agrestic views,
a gravestone, the temple of Cypris,
or a dove on a lyre
8 (using a pen and, slightly, colors);
now on the pages of remembrance,
beneath the signatures of others,
he leaves a tender verse —
12 mute monument of reverie,
an instant thought's light trace,
still, after many years, the same.
XXVIII
You have, of course, seen more than once the album
of a provincial miss, by all her girl friends
scrawled over from the end,
4 from the beginning, and around.
Here, in defiance of orthography,
lines without meter, [passed on] by tradition,
in token of faithful friendship are entered,
8 diminished, lengthened.
On the first leaf you are confronted with:
Qu' écrirez-vous sur ces tablettes?
signed: toute à vous Annette;
12 and on the last one you will read:
“Whoever more than I loves you,
let him write farther than I do.”
XXIX
Here you are sure to find
two hearts, a torch, and flowerets;
here you will read no doubt
4 love's vows “Unto the tomb slab”;
some military poetaster
here has dashed off a roguish rhyme.
In such an album, to be frank, my friends,
8 I too am glad to write,
at heart being convinced
that any zealous trash of mine
will merit an indulgent glance
12 and that thereafter, with a wicked smile,
one will not solemnly examine
if I could babble wittily or not.
XXX
But you, odd volumes
from the bibliotheca of the devils,
the gorgeous albums,
4 the rack of fashionable rhymesters;
you, nimbly ornamented
by Tolstoy's wonder-working brush,
or Baratïnski's pen,
8 let the Lord's levin burn you!
Whenever her in-quarto a resplendent lady
proffers to me,
a tremor and a waspishness possess me,
12 and at the bottom of my soul
there stirs an epigram —
but madrigals you have to write for them!
XXXI
Not madrigals does Lenski
write in the album of young Olga;
his pen breathes love —
4 it does not glitter frigidly with wit.
Whatever he notes, whatever he hears
concerning Olga, this he writes about;
and full of vivid truth
8 flow, riverlike, his elegies.
Thus you, inspired Yazïkov,
sing, in the surgings of your heart,
God knows whom, and the precious code
12 of elegies
will represent for you someday
the entire story of your fate.
XXXII
But soft! You hear? A critic stern
commands us to throw off
the sorry wreath of elegies;
4 and to our brotherhood of rhymesters
cries: “Do stop whimpering
and croaking always the same thing,
regretting 'the foregone, the past';
8 enough! Sing about something else!” —
You're right, and surely you'll point out
to us the trumpet, mask, and dagger,
and everywhence a dead stock of ideas
12 bid us revive.
Thus friend? — “Nowise!
Far from it! Write odes, gentlemen,
XXXIII
“as in a mighty age one wrote them,
as was in times of yore established.”
Nothing but solemn odes?
4 Oh, come, friend; what's this to the purpose?
Recall what said the satirist!
Does the shrewd lyrist in “As Others See It”
seem more endurable to you
8 than our glum rhymesters? —
“But in the elegy all is so null;
its empty aim is pitiful;
whilst the aim of the ode is lofty
12 and noble.” Here I might
argue with you, but I keep still:
I do not want to make two ages quarrel.
XXXIV
A votary of fame and freedom,
in the excitement of his stormy thoughts,
Vladimir might have written odes,
4 only that Olga did not read them.
Have ever chanced larmoyant poets
to read their works before the eyes
of their beloved ones? It is said, no higher
8 rewards are in the world.
And, verily, blest is the modest lover
reading his daydreams to the object
of songs and love,
12 a pleasantly languorous belle!
Blest — though perhaps by something
quite different she is diverted.
XXXV
But I the products of my fancies
and of harmonious device
read but to an old nurse,
4 companion of my youth;
or after a dull dinner, when a neighbor
strays in to see me — having caught
him by a coat skirt unexpectedly —
8 I choke him in a corner with a tragedy,
or else (but that's apart from jesting),
haunted by yearnings and by rhymes,
roaming along my lake,
12 I scare a flock of wild ducks; they, on heeding
the chant of sweet-toned strophes,
fly off the banks.
XXXVII
But what about Onegin? By the way,
brothers! I beg your patience:
his daily occupations in detail
4 I shall describe to you.
Onegin anchoretically lived;
he rose in summer between six and seven
and, lightly clad, proceeded to the river
8 that ran under the hillside. Imitating
the songster of Gulnare,
across this Hellespont he swam,
then drank his coffee, while he flipped
12 through some wretched review,
and dressed
XXXIX
Rambles, and reading, and sound sleep,
the sylvan shade, the purl of streams,
sometimes a white-skinned, dark-eyed girl's
4 young and fresh kiss,
a horse of mettle, bridle-true,
a rather fancy dinner,
a bottle of bright wine,
8 seclusion, quiet —
this was Onegin's saintly life;
and he insensibly to it
surrendered, the fair summer days
12 in carefree mollitude not counting,
oblivious of both town and friends
and of the boredom of festive devices.
XL
But our Northern summer is a caricature
of Southern winters;
it will glance by and vanish: this is known,
4 though to admit it we don't wish.
The sky already breathed of autumn,
the sun already shone more seldom,
the day was growing shorter,
8 the woods' mysterious canopy
with a sad murmur bared itself,
mist settled on the fields,
the caravan of clamorous geese
12 was tending southward; there drew near
a rather tedious period;
November stood already at the door.
XLI
Dawn rises in cold murk;
stilled in the grainfields is the noise of labors;
with his hungry female, the wolf
4 comes out upon the road;
the road horse, sensing him,
snorts, and the wary traveler
goes tearing uphill at top speed;
8 no longer does the herdsman drive at sunrise
the cows out of the shippon,
and at the hour of midday in a circle
his horn does not call them together;
12 in her small hut singing, the maiden23
spins and, the friend of winter nights,
in front of her the splintlight crackles.
XLII
And now the frosts already crackle
and silver 'mid the fields
(the reader now expects the rhyme “froze-rose” —
4 here, take it quick!).
Neater than modish parquetry,
the ice-clad river shines.
The gladsome crew of boys24
8 cut with their skates resoundingly the ice;
a heavy goose with red feet, planning
to swim upon the bosom of the waters,
steps carefully upon the ice,
12 slidders, and falls. The gay
first snow flicks, whirls,
falling in stars upon the bank.
XLIII
What can one do at this time in the wilds?
Walk? But the country at that time
is an involuntary eyesore
4 in its unbroken nakedness.
Go galloping in the harsh prairie?
But, catching with a blunted shoe
the treacherous ice, one's mount
8 is likely any moment to come down.
Stay under your desolate roof,
read; here is Pradt, here's Walter Scott!
Don't want to? Verify expenses,
12 grumble or drink, and the long evening
somehow will pass; and next day the same thing,
and famously you'll spend the winter.
XLIV
Onegin like a regular Childe Harold
lapsed into pensive indolence:
right after sleep he takes a bath with ice,
4 and then, at home all day,
alone, absorbed in calculations, armed
with a blunt cue,
using two balls,
8 ever since morn plays billiards.
The country evening comes; abandoned
are billiards, the cue is forgot.
Before the fireplace the table is laid;
12 Eugene waits; here comes Lenski,
borne by a troika of roan horses;
quick, let's have dinner!
XLV
Of Veuve Clicquot or of Moët
the blesséd wine
in a chilled bottle for the poet
4 is brought at once upon the table.
It sparkles Hippocrenelike;25
with its briskness and froth
(a simile of this and that)
8 it used to captivate me: for its sake
my last poor lepton I was wont
to give away — remember, friends?
Its magic stream engendered
12 no dearth of foolishness,
but also lots of jokes, and verses,
and arguments, and merry dreams!
XLVI
But with its noisy froth
it plays false to my stomach,
and nowadays sedate Bordeaux
4 already I've preferred to it.
For Ay I'm no longer fit,
Ay is like
a mistress, brilliant, volatile, vivacious,
8 and whimsical, and shallow.
But you, Bordeaux, are like a friend
who in grief and misfortune
is always, everywhere, a comrade,
12 ready to render us a service
or share our quiet leisure.
Long live Bordeaux, our friend!
XLVII
The fire is out; barely with ashes
is filmed the golden coal;
in a barely distinguishable stream
4 the vapor weaves, and the grate faintly
exhales some warmth. The smoke of pipes
goes up the chimney. The bright goblet
amid the table fizzes yet.
8 The evening gloam comes on
(I'm fond of friendly prate
and of a friendly bowl of wine
at that time which is called
12 time between wolf and dog —
though why, I do not see).
Now the two friends converse.
XLVIII
“Well, how are the fair neighbors? How's Tatiana?
How is your sprightly Olga?”
“Pour me half a glass more....
4 That'll do, dear chap.... The entire family
is well; they send you salutations....
Ah, my dear chap, how beautiful the shoulders
of Olga have become!
8 Ah, what a bosom! What a soul!... Someday
let's visit them; they will appreciate it;
or else, my friend, judge for yourself —
you dropped in twice, and after that
12 you never even showed your nose.
In fact — well, what a dolt I am!
You are invited there next week.”
XLIX
“I?” “Yes, Tatiana's name day
is Saturday. Ólinka and the mother
bade me ask you, and there's no reason
4 you should not come in answer to their call.”
“But there will be a mass of people
and all kinds of such scum.”
“Oh, nobody, I am quite certain.
8 Who might be there? The family only.
Let's go, do me the favor.
Well?” “I consent.” “How nice you are!”
And with these words he drained
12 his glass, a toast to the fair neighbor —
and then waxed voluble again,
talking of Olga. Such is love!
L
Merry he was. A fortnight hence
the blissful date was set,
and the nuptial bed's mystery
4 and love's sweet crown awaited
his transports.
Hymen's cares, woes,
yawnings' chill train,
8 he never visioned.
Whereas we, enemies of Hymen,
perceive in home life but a series
of tedious images,
12 a novel in the genre of Lafontaine.26
O my poor Lenski! For the said
life he at heart was born.
LI
He was loved — or at least
he thought so — and was happy.
Blest hundredfold is he who is devoted
4 to faith; who, having curbed cold intellect,
in the heart's mollitude reposes
as, bedded for the night, a drunken traveler,
or (more tenderly) as a butterfly
8 absorbed in a spring flower;
but pitiful is he who foresees all,
whose head is never in a whirl,
who hates all movements and all words
12 in their interpretation,
whose heart is by experience
chilled and forbidden to get lost in dreams.
CHAPTER FIVE
Never know these frightful dreams,
You, O my Svetlana!
I
That year autumnal weather
was a long time abroad;
nature kept waiting and waiting for winter.
4 Snow only fell in January,
on the night of the second. Waking early,
Tatiana from the window saw
at morn the whitened yard,
8 flower beds, roofs, and fence;
delicate patterns on the panes;
the trees in winter silver,
gay magpies outside,
12 and the hills softly overspread
with winter's brilliant carpeting.
All's bright, all's white around.
II
Winter! The peasant, celebrating,
in a flat sledge inaugurates the track;
his naggy, having sensed the snow,
4 shambles at something like a trot.
Plowing up fluffy furrows,
a bold kibitka flies:
the driver sits upon his box
8 in sheepskin coat, red-sashed.
Here runs about a household lad,
upon a hand sled having seated “blackie,”
having transformed himself into the steed;
12 the scamp already has frozen a finger.
He finds it both painful and funny — while
his mother, from the window, threatens him...
III
But, maybe, pictures of this kind
will not attract you;
all this is lowly nature;
4 there is not much refinement here.
Warmed by the god of inspiration,
another poet in luxurious language
for us has painted the first snow
8 and all the shades of winter's delectations.27
He'll captivate you, I am sure of it,
when he depicts in flaming verses
secret promenades in sleigh;
12 but I have no intention of contending
either with him at present or with you,
singer of the young Finnish Maid!28
IV
Tatiana (being Russian
at heart, herself not knowing why)
loved, in all its cold beauty,
4 a Russian winter:
rime in the sun upon a frosty day,
and sleighs, and, at late dawn,
the radiance of the rosy snows,
8 and gloam of Twelfthtide eves.
Those evenings in the ancient fashion
were celebrated in their house:
the servant girls from the whole stead
12 told their young ladies' fortunes
and every year made prophecies to them
of military husbands and the march.
V
Tatiana credited the lore
of plain-folk ancientry,
dreams, cartomancy,
4 prognostications by the moon.
Portents disturbed her:
mysteriously all objects
foretold her something,
8 presentiments constrained her breast.
The mannered tomcat sitting on the stove,
purring, would wash his muzzlet with his paw:
to her 'twas an indubitable sign
12 that guests were coming. Seeing all at once
the young two-horned moon's visage
in the sky on her left,
VI
she trembled and grew pale.
Or when a falling star
along the dark sky flew
4 and dissipated, then
in agitation Tanya hastened
to whisper, while the star still rolled,
her heart's desire to it.
8 When anywhere she happened
a black monk to encounter,
or a swift hare amid the fields
would run across her path,
12 so scared she knew not what to undertake,
full of grievous forebodings,
already she expected some mishap.
VII
Yet — in her very terror
she found a secret charm:
thus has created us
4 nature, inclined to contradictions.
Yuletide is here. Now that is joy!
Volatile youth divines —
who nought has to regret,
8 in front of whom the faraway of life
extends luminous, boundless;
old age divines, through spectacles,
at its sepulchral slab,
12 all having irrecoverably lost;
nor does it matter: hope to them
lies with its childish lisp.
VIII
Tatiana with a curious gaze
looks at the submerged wax:
with its wondrously cast design,
4 to her a wondrous something it proclaims.
From a dish full of water
rings come out in succession;
and when her ring turned up,
8 'twas to a ditty of the ancient days:
“There all the countrymen are rich;
they heap up silver by the spadeful!
To those we sing to will come Good
12 and Glory!” But portends bereavements
the pitiful tune of this dit:
to maidens' hearts sweeter is “Kit.”29
IX
The night is frosty; the whole sky is clear;
the splendid choir of heavenly luminaries
so gently, so unisonally flows....
4 Tatiana, in her low-cut frock,
into the wide courtyard comes out;
she trains a mirror on the moon;
but in the dark glass only
8 the sad moon trembles....
Hark!... the snow creaks... a passer-by; the maiden
flits up to him on tiptoe —
and her little voice sounds
12 more tender than a reed pipe's strain:
“What is your name?”30 He looks,
and answers: “Agafón.”
X
On the nurse's advice, Tatiana,
planning that night to conjure,
has ordered in the bathhouse secretly
4 a table to be laid for two.
But suddenly Tatiana is afraid....
And I — at the thought of Svetlana —
I am afraid; so let it be...
8 we're not to conjure with Tatiana.
Tatiana has removed
her silken sash, undressed,
and gone to bed. Lel hovers over her,
12 while under her pillow of down
there lies a maiden's looking glass.
Now all is hushed. Tatiana sleeps.
XI
And dreams a wondrous dream Tatiana.
She dreams that she
over a snowy lawn is walking,
4 surrounded by sad gloom.
In front of her, between the snowdrifts,
dins, swirls its wave
a churning, dark, and hoary torrent,
8 by the winter not chained; two thin poles, glued
together by a piece of ice
(a shaky, perilous small bridge),
are laid across the torrent; and before
12 the dinning deep,
full of perplexity,
she stopped.
XII
As at a vexing separation,
Tatiana murmurs at the brook;
sees nobody who from the other side
4 might offer her a hand.
But suddenly a snowdrift stirred,
and who appeared from under it?
A large bear with a ruffled coat;
8 Tatiana uttered “Ach!” and he went roaring
and a paw with sharp claws
stretched out to her. Nerving herself,
she leaned on it with trembling hand
12 and worked her way with apprehensive steps
across the brook; walked on —
and what then? The bear followed her.
XIII
She, to look back not daring,
accelerates her hasty step;
but from the shaggy footman
4 can in no way escape;
grunting, the odious bear keeps lumbering on.
Before them is a wood; the pines
are stirless in their frowning beauty;
8 all their boughs are weighed down
by snow flocks; through the summits
of aspens, birches, lindens bare
the beam of the night luminaries shines;
12 there is no path; shrubs, precipices, all
are drifted over by the blizzard,
plunged deep in snow.
XIV
Into the forest goes Tatiana; the bear follows;
up to her knee comes yielding snow;
now by the neck a long branch suddenly
4 catches her, or by force it tears
out of her ears their golden pendants;
now in the crumbly snow sticks fast
a small wet shoe come off her charming foot;
8 now she lets fall her handkerchief —
she has no time to pick it up,
is frightened, hears the bear behind her,
and even is too shy to raise
12 with tremulous hand the hem of her dress;
she runs; he keeps behind her;
and then she has no force to run.
XV
Into the snow she's fallen; the bear deftly
snatches her up and carries her;
she is insensibly submissive;
4 stirs not, breathes not;
he rushes her along a forest road;
sudden, 'mongst trees, there is a humble hut;
dense wildwood all around; from every side
8 'tis drifted over with desolate snow,
and brightly glows a window;
and in the hut are cries and noise;
the bear quoth: “Here's my gossip,
12 do warm yourself a little in his home!”
and straight he goes into the hallway
and on the threshold lays her down.
XVI
Tatiana comes to, looks:
no bear; she's in a hallway;
behind the door there's shouting and the jingle
4 of glasses as at some big funeral.
Perceiving not a drop of sense in this,
she furtively looks through the chink
— and what then? She sees... at a table
8 monsters are seated in a circle:
one horned and dog-faced;
another with a rooster's head;
here is a witch with a goat's beard;
12 here, prim and proud, a skeleton;
yonder, a dwarf with a small tail; and there,
something half crane, half cat.
XVII
More frightful still, and still more wondrous:
there is a crab astride a spider;
there on a goose's neck
4 twirls a red-calpacked skull;
there a windmill the squat-jig dances
and rasps and waves its vanes.
Barks, laughter, singing, whistling, claps,
8 the parle of man, the stamp of steed!31
But what were the thoughts of Tatiana
when 'mongst the guests she recognized
him who was dear to her and awesome —
12 the hero of our novel!
Onegin at the table sits
and through the door stealthily gazes.
XVIII
He gives the signal — and all bustle;
he drinks — all drink and all cry out;
he laughs — all burst out laughing;
4 knits his brows — all are silent;
he is the master there, 'tis plain;
and Tanya is already not so awestruck,
and being curious now she opens
8 the door a little....
Sudden the wind blows, putting out
the light of the nocturnal flambeaux;
the gang of goblins flinches;
12 Onegin, his eyes flashing,
making a clatter rises from the table;
all rise; he marches to the door.
XIX
And fear assails her; hastily
Tatiana strains to flee:
not possible; impatiently
4 tossing about, she wants to scream —
cannot; Eugene has pushed the door,
and to the gaze of the infernal specters
the girl appears; ferocious laughter
8 wildly resounds; the eyes of all,
hooves, curved proboscises,
tufted tails, tusks,
mustaches, bloody tongues,
12 horns, and fingers of bone —
all point as one at her,
and everybody cries: “Mine! Mine!”
XX
“Mine!” Eugene fiercely said,
and in a trice the whole gang vanished;
the youthful maid remained with him
4 twain in the frosty dark;
Onegin gently draws Tatiana32
into a corner and deposits her
upon a shaky bench
8 and lets his head sink on her shoulder;
all of a sudden Olga enters,
followed by Lenski; light gleams forth;
Onegin brings back his raised arm
12 and wildly his eyes roam,
and he berates the unbidden guests;
Tatiana lies barely alive.
XXI
The argument grows louder, louder: Eugene
suddenly snatches a long knife, and Lenski
forthwith is felled; the shadows awesomely
4 have thickened; an excruciating cry
resounds... the cabin lurches...
and Tanya wakes in terror....
She looks — 'tis light already in the room;
8 dawn's crimson ray
plays in the window through the frozen pane;
the door opens. Olga flits in to her
rosier than Northern Aurora
12 and lighter than a swallow. “Well,”
she says, “do tell me,
whom did you see in dream?”
XXII
But she, not noticing her sister,
lies with a book in bed,
page after page
4 keeps turning over, and says nothing.
Although that book displayed
neither the sweet inventions of a poet,
nor sapient truths, nor pictures,
8 yet neither Virgil, nor Racine, nor Scott, nor Byron,
nor Seneca, nor even
the Magazine of Ladies' Fashions
ever engrossed anybody so much:
12 it was, friends, Martin Zadeck,33
head of Chaldean sages,
divinistre, interpreter of dreams.
XXIII
This profound work
a roving trader had one day
peddled into their solitude,
4 and for Tatiana finally
with a broken set of Malvina
had ceded for three rubles fifty,
moreover taking for them a collection
8 of vulgar fables,
a grammar,
two “Petriads,” plus Marmontel, tome three.
Later with Tanya Martin Zadeck
12 became a favorite. He gives her joyance
in all her sorrows and beside her,
never absenting himself, sleeps.
XXIV
The dream disturbs her.
Not knowing what to make of it,
the import of the dread chimera
4 Tatiana wishes to discover.
Tatiana finds in the brief index,
in alphabetic order,
the words: bear, blizzard, bridge,
8 dark, fir, fir forest, hedgehog, raven, storm,
and so forth. Martin Zadeck
will not resolve her doubts,
but the ominous dream portends
12 to her a lot of sad adventures.
For several days thereafter she
kept worrying about it.
XXV
But lo, with crimson hand34
Aurora from the morning dales
leads forth, with the sun, after her
4 the merry name-day festival.
Since morn Dame Larin's house is full
of guests; in entire families
the neighbors have converged, in sledded coaches,
8 kibitkas, britskas, sleighs.
There's in the vestibule jostling, commotion;
there's in the drawing room the meeting of new people,
the bark of pugs, girls' smacking kisses,
12 noise, laughter, a crush at the threshold,
the bows, the scraping of the guests,
wet nurses' shouts, and children's cry.
XXVI
With his well-nourished spouse
there came fat Pustyakóv;
Gvozdín, an admirable landlord,
4 owner of destitute muzhiks;
a gray-haired couple, the Skotínins,
with children of all ages, counting
from thirty years to two;
8 the district fopling, Petushkóv;
Buyánov, my first cousin,
covered with fluff, in a peaked cap35
(as he, of course, is known to you);
12 and the retired counselor Flyánov,
a heavy scandalmonger, an old rogue,
glutton, bribetaker, and buffoon.
XXVII
With the family of Panfíl Harlikóv
there also came Monsieur Triquét,
a wit, late from Tambóv,
4 bespectacled and russet-wigged.
As a true Frenchman, in his pocket
Triquet has brought a stanza for Tatiana
fitting an air to children known:
8 “Réveillez-vous, belle endormie.”
Among an almanac's decrepit songs
this stanza had been printed;
Triquet — resourceful poet —
12 out of the dust brought it to light
and boldly in the place of “belle Niná”
put “belle Tatianá.”
XXVIII
And now from the near borough,
the idol of ripe misses,
the joy of district mothers,
4 a Company Commander has arrived;
he enters.... Ah, news — and what news!
there will be regimental music:
“the Colonel's sending it himself.”
8 What fun! There is to be a ball!
The young things skip beforehand.36
But dinner's served. In pairs,
they go to table, arm in arm.
12 The misses cluster near Tatiana,
the men are opposite; and the crowd buzzes
as all, crossing themselves, sit down to table.
XXIX
Talks for a moment have subsided;
mouths chew. On all sides plates
and covers clatter, and the jingle
4 of rummers sounds.
But soon the guests raise by degrees
a general hullabaloo.
None listens; they shout, laugh,
8 dispute, and squeal. All of a sudden —
the door leaves are flung open: Lenski
comes in, and with him [comes] Onegin. “Oh, my Maker!”
cries out the lady of the house. “At last!”
12 The guests make room, each moves aside
covers, chairs quick;
they call, they seat the pair of friends
XXX
— seat them directly facing Tanya,
and paler than the morning moon,
and more tremulous than the hunted doe,
4 her darkening eyes
she does not raise. In her stormily pulses
a passionate glow; she suffocates, feels faint;
the two friends' greetings
8 she hears not; the tears from her eyes
are on the point of trickling; the poor thing
is on the point of swooning;
but will and reason's power
12 prevailed. A word or two
she uttered through her teeth in a low voice
and managed to remain at table.
XXXI
Tragiconervous scenes,
the fainting fits of maidens, tears,
long since Eugene could not abide:
4 enough of them he had endured.
Finding himself at a huge feast,
the odd chap was already cross. But noting
the languid maid's tremulous impulse,
8 out of vexation lowering his gaze,
he went into a huff and, fuming,
swore he would madden Lenski,
and thoroughly, in fact, avenge himself.
12 Now, in advance exulting,
he inwardly began to sketch
caricatures of all the guests.
XXXII
Of course, not only Eugene might have seen
Tanya's confusion; but the target
of looks and comments at the time
4 was a rich pie
(unfortunately, oversalted);
and here, in bottle sealed with pitch,
between the meat course and the blancmangér,
8 Tsimlyanski wine is brought already,
followed by an array of narrow, long
wineglasses, similar to your waist,
Zizí, crystal of my soul, object
12 of my innocent verse,
love's luring vial, you, of whom
drunken I used to be!
XXXIII
Ridding itself of its damp cork,
the bottle pops; the wine
fizzes; and now with solemn mien,
4 long tortured by his stanza,
Triquet stands up; before him the assembly
maintains deep silence.
Tatiana's scarce alive; Triquet,
8 addressing her, a slip of paper in his hand,
proceeds to sing, off key. Claps, acclamations,
salute him. She
must drop the bard a curtsy;
12 whereat the poet, modest although great,
is first to drink her health
and hands to her the stanza.
XXXIV
Now greetings come, congratulations;
Tatiana thanks them all.
Then, when the turn of Eugene
4 arrived, the maiden's languid air,
her discomposure, lassitude,
engendered pity in his soul:
he bowed to her in silence,
8 but somehow the look of his eyes
was wondrous tender. Whether
because he verily was touched
or he, coquetting, jested,
12 whether unwillfully or by free will,
but tenderness this look expressed:
it revived Tanya's heart.
XXXV
The chairs, as they are pushed back, clatter;
the crowd presses into the drawing room:
thus bees out of the luscious hive
4 fly meadward in a noisy swarm.
Pleased with the festive dinner,
neighbor in front of neighbor wheezes;
the ladies by the hearth have settled;
8 the maidens whisper in a corner;
the green-baized tables are unfolded:
to mettlesome cardplayers call
boston and omber of the old,
12 and whist, up to the present famous:
monotonous family,
all sons of avid boredom.
XXXVI
Eight rubbers have already played
whist's heroes; eight times they
have changed their seats —
4 and tea is brought. I like defining
the hour by dinner, tea,
and supper. In the country
we know the time without great fuss:
8 the stomach is our accurate Bréguet;
and, apropos, I'll parenthetically note
that in my strophes I discourse
as frequently on feasts, on various
12 dishes and corks,
as you, divine Homer, you, idol
of thirty centuries!
XXXIX
But tea is brought: scarce have the damsels
demurely of their saucers taken hold
when from behind the door of the long hall
4 bassoon and flute sound suddenly.
Elated by the thunder of the music,
leaving his cup of tea with rum, the Paris
of the surrounding townlets, Petushkóv,
8 goes up to Olga; Lenski, to Tatiana;
Miss Harlikov, a marriageable maid
of overripe years, is secured
by my Tambovan poet;
12 Buyánov has whirled off Dame Pustyakóv;
and all have spilled into the hall,
and in full glory shines the ball.
XL
At the beginning of my novel
(see the first fascicle)
I wanted in Albano's manner
4 a Petersburg ball to describe;
but, by an empty reverie diverted,
I got engrossed in recollecting
the little feet of ladies known to me.
8 Upon your narrow tracks, O little feet,
enough roving astray!
With the betrayal of my youth
'tis time I grew more sensible,
12 improved in doings and in diction,
and this fifth fascicle
cleansed from digressions.
XLI
Monotonous and mad
like young life's whirl, the noisy
whirl of the waltz revolves,
4 pair after pair flicks by.
Nearing the minute of revenge,
Onegin, chuckling secretly,
goes up to Olga, rapidly with her
8 spins near the guests,
then seats her on a chair,
proceeds to talk of this and that;
a minute or two having lapsed, he then
12 again with her the waltz continues;
all are amazed. Lenski himself
does not believe his proper eyes.
XLII
There the mazurka sounds. Time was,
when the mazurka's thunder dinned,
in a huge ballroom everything vibrated,
4 the parquetry cracked under heel,
the window frames shook, rattled;
now 'tis not thus: we, too, like ladies,
glide o'er the lacquered boards.
8 But in [small] towns
and country places, the mazurka
has still retained its pristine charms:
saltos, heel-play, mustachios
12 remain the same; them has not altered
highhanded fashion,
our tyrant, sickness of the latest Russians.
XLIV
Buyánov, my mettlesome cousin,
toward our hero leads Tatiana
with Olga; deft
4 Onegin goes with Olga.
He steers her, gliding nonchalantly,
and, bending, whispers tenderly to her
some common madrigal, and squeezes
8 her hand — and brighter glows
on her conceited face
the rosy flush. My Lenski
has seen it all; flares up, beside himself;
12 in jealous indignation,
the poet waits for the end of the mazurka
and invites her for the cotillion.
XLV
But no, she cannot. Cannot? But what is it?
Why, Olga has given her word
already to Onegin. Ah, good God, good God!
4 What does he hear? She could...
How is it possible? Scarce out of swaddling clothes —
and a coquette, a giddy child!
Already she is versed in guile,
8 has learned already to betray!
Lenski has not the strength to bear the blow;
cursing the tricks of women,
he leaves, calls for a horse,
12 and gallops off. A brace of pistols,
two bullets — nothing more —
shall in a trice decide his fate.
Never know these frightful dreams,
You, O my Svetlana!
I
That year autumnal weather
was a long time abroad;
nature kept waiting and waiting for winter.
4 Snow only fell in January,
on the night of the second. Waking early,
Tatiana from the window saw
at morn the whitened yard,
8 flower beds, roofs, and fence;
delicate patterns on the panes;
the trees in winter silver,
gay magpies outside,
12 and the hills softly overspread
with winter's brilliant carpeting.
All's bright, all's white around.
II
Winter! The peasant, celebrating,
in a flat sledge inaugurates the track;
his naggy, having sensed the snow,
4 shambles at something like a trot.
Plowing up fluffy furrows,
a bold kibitka flies:
the driver sits upon his box
8 in sheepskin coat, red-sashed.
Here runs about a household lad,
upon a hand sled having seated “blackie,”
having transformed himself into the steed;
12 the scamp already has frozen a finger.
He finds it both painful and funny — while
his mother, from the window, threatens him...
III
But, maybe, pictures of this kind
will not attract you;
all this is lowly nature;
4 there is not much refinement here.
Warmed by the god of inspiration,
another poet in luxurious language
for us has painted the first snow
8 and all the shades of winter's delectations.27
He'll captivate you, I am sure of it,
when he depicts in flaming verses
secret promenades in sleigh;
12 but I have no intention of contending
either with him at present or with you,
singer of the young Finnish Maid!28
IV
Tatiana (being Russian
at heart, herself not knowing why)
loved, in all its cold beauty,
4 a Russian winter:
rime in the sun upon a frosty day,
and sleighs, and, at late dawn,
the radiance of the rosy snows,
8 and gloam of Twelfthtide eves.
Those evenings in the ancient fashion
were celebrated in their house:
the servant girls from the whole stead
12 told their young ladies' fortunes
and every year made prophecies to them
of military husbands and the march.
V
Tatiana credited the lore
of plain-folk ancientry,
dreams, cartomancy,
4 prognostications by the moon.
Portents disturbed her:
mysteriously all objects
foretold her something,
8 presentiments constrained her breast.
The mannered tomcat sitting on the stove,
purring, would wash his muzzlet with his paw:
to her 'twas an indubitable sign
12 that guests were coming. Seeing all at once
the young two-horned moon's visage
in the sky on her left,
VI
she trembled and grew pale.
Or when a falling star
along the dark sky flew
4 and dissipated, then
in agitation Tanya hastened
to whisper, while the star still rolled,
her heart's desire to it.
8 When anywhere she happened
a black monk to encounter,
or a swift hare amid the fields
would run across her path,
12 so scared she knew not what to undertake,
full of grievous forebodings,
already she expected some mishap.
VII
Yet — in her very terror
she found a secret charm:
thus has created us
4 nature, inclined to contradictions.
Yuletide is here. Now that is joy!
Volatile youth divines —
who nought has to regret,
8 in front of whom the faraway of life
extends luminous, boundless;
old age divines, through spectacles,
at its sepulchral slab,
12 all having irrecoverably lost;
nor does it matter: hope to them
lies with its childish lisp.
VIII
Tatiana with a curious gaze
looks at the submerged wax:
with its wondrously cast design,
4 to her a wondrous something it proclaims.
From a dish full of water
rings come out in succession;
and when her ring turned up,
8 'twas to a ditty of the ancient days:
“There all the countrymen are rich;
they heap up silver by the spadeful!
To those we sing to will come Good
12 and Glory!” But portends bereavements
the pitiful tune of this dit:
to maidens' hearts sweeter is “Kit.”29
IX
The night is frosty; the whole sky is clear;
the splendid choir of heavenly luminaries
so gently, so unisonally flows....
4 Tatiana, in her low-cut frock,
into the wide courtyard comes out;
she trains a mirror on the moon;
but in the dark glass only
8 the sad moon trembles....
Hark!... the snow creaks... a passer-by; the maiden
flits up to him on tiptoe —
and her little voice sounds
12 more tender than a reed pipe's strain:
“What is your name?”30 He looks,
and answers: “Agafón.”
X
On the nurse's advice, Tatiana,
planning that night to conjure,
has ordered in the bathhouse secretly
4 a table to be laid for two.
But suddenly Tatiana is afraid....
And I — at the thought of Svetlana —
I am afraid; so let it be...
8 we're not to conjure with Tatiana.
Tatiana has removed
her silken sash, undressed,
and gone to bed. Lel hovers over her,
12 while under her pillow of down
there lies a maiden's looking glass.
Now all is hushed. Tatiana sleeps.
XI
And dreams a wondrous dream Tatiana.
She dreams that she
over a snowy lawn is walking,
4 surrounded by sad gloom.
In front of her, between the snowdrifts,
dins, swirls its wave
a churning, dark, and hoary torrent,
8 by the winter not chained; two thin poles, glued
together by a piece of ice
(a shaky, perilous small bridge),
are laid across the torrent; and before
12 the dinning deep,
full of perplexity,
she stopped.
XII
As at a vexing separation,
Tatiana murmurs at the brook;
sees nobody who from the other side
4 might offer her a hand.
But suddenly a snowdrift stirred,
and who appeared from under it?
A large bear with a ruffled coat;
8 Tatiana uttered “Ach!” and he went roaring
and a paw with sharp claws
stretched out to her. Nerving herself,
she leaned on it with trembling hand
12 and worked her way with apprehensive steps
across the brook; walked on —
and what then? The bear followed her.
XIII
She, to look back not daring,
accelerates her hasty step;
but from the shaggy footman
4 can in no way escape;
grunting, the odious bear keeps lumbering on.
Before them is a wood; the pines
are stirless in their frowning beauty;
8 all their boughs are weighed down
by snow flocks; through the summits
of aspens, birches, lindens bare
the beam of the night luminaries shines;
12 there is no path; shrubs, precipices, all
are drifted over by the blizzard,
plunged deep in snow.
XIV
Into the forest goes Tatiana; the bear follows;
up to her knee comes yielding snow;
now by the neck a long branch suddenly
4 catches her, or by force it tears
out of her ears their golden pendants;
now in the crumbly snow sticks fast
a small wet shoe come off her charming foot;
8 now she lets fall her handkerchief —
she has no time to pick it up,
is frightened, hears the bear behind her,
and even is too shy to raise
12 with tremulous hand the hem of her dress;
she runs; he keeps behind her;
and then she has no force to run.
XV
Into the snow she's fallen; the bear deftly
snatches her up and carries her;
she is insensibly submissive;
4 stirs not, breathes not;
he rushes her along a forest road;
sudden, 'mongst trees, there is a humble hut;
dense wildwood all around; from every side
8 'tis drifted over with desolate snow,
and brightly glows a window;
and in the hut are cries and noise;
the bear quoth: “Here's my gossip,
12 do warm yourself a little in his home!”
and straight he goes into the hallway
and on the threshold lays her down.
XVI
Tatiana comes to, looks:
no bear; she's in a hallway;
behind the door there's shouting and the jingle
4 of glasses as at some big funeral.
Perceiving not a drop of sense in this,
she furtively looks through the chink
— and what then? She sees... at a table
8 monsters are seated in a circle:
one horned and dog-faced;
another with a rooster's head;
here is a witch with a goat's beard;
12 here, prim and proud, a skeleton;
yonder, a dwarf with a small tail; and there,
something half crane, half cat.
XVII
More frightful still, and still more wondrous:
there is a crab astride a spider;
there on a goose's neck
4 twirls a red-calpacked skull;
there a windmill the squat-jig dances
and rasps and waves its vanes.
Barks, laughter, singing, whistling, claps,
8 the parle of man, the stamp of steed!31
But what were the thoughts of Tatiana
when 'mongst the guests she recognized
him who was dear to her and awesome —
12 the hero of our novel!
Onegin at the table sits
and through the door stealthily gazes.
XVIII
He gives the signal — and all bustle;
he drinks — all drink and all cry out;
he laughs — all burst out laughing;
4 knits his brows — all are silent;
he is the master there, 'tis plain;
and Tanya is already not so awestruck,
and being curious now she opens
8 the door a little....
Sudden the wind blows, putting out
the light of the nocturnal flambeaux;
the gang of goblins flinches;
12 Onegin, his eyes flashing,
making a clatter rises from the table;
all rise; he marches to the door.
XIX
And fear assails her; hastily
Tatiana strains to flee:
not possible; impatiently
4 tossing about, she wants to scream —
cannot; Eugene has pushed the door,
and to the gaze of the infernal specters
the girl appears; ferocious laughter
8 wildly resounds; the eyes of all,
hooves, curved proboscises,
tufted tails, tusks,
mustaches, bloody tongues,
12 horns, and fingers of bone —
all point as one at her,
and everybody cries: “Mine! Mine!”
XX
“Mine!” Eugene fiercely said,
and in a trice the whole gang vanished;
the youthful maid remained with him
4 twain in the frosty dark;
Onegin gently draws Tatiana32
into a corner and deposits her
upon a shaky bench
8 and lets his head sink on her shoulder;
all of a sudden Olga enters,
followed by Lenski; light gleams forth;
Onegin brings back his raised arm
12 and wildly his eyes roam,
and he berates the unbidden guests;
Tatiana lies barely alive.
XXI
The argument grows louder, louder: Eugene
suddenly snatches a long knife, and Lenski
forthwith is felled; the shadows awesomely
4 have thickened; an excruciating cry
resounds... the cabin lurches...
and Tanya wakes in terror....
She looks — 'tis light already in the room;
8 dawn's crimson ray
plays in the window through the frozen pane;
the door opens. Olga flits in to her
rosier than Northern Aurora
12 and lighter than a swallow. “Well,”
she says, “do tell me,
whom did you see in dream?”
XXII
But she, not noticing her sister,
lies with a book in bed,
page after page
4 keeps turning over, and says nothing.
Although that book displayed
neither the sweet inventions of a poet,
nor sapient truths, nor pictures,
8 yet neither Virgil, nor Racine, nor Scott, nor Byron,
nor Seneca, nor even
the Magazine of Ladies' Fashions
ever engrossed anybody so much:
12 it was, friends, Martin Zadeck,33
head of Chaldean sages,
divinistre, interpreter of dreams.
XXIII
This profound work
a roving trader had one day
peddled into their solitude,
4 and for Tatiana finally
with a broken set of Malvina
had ceded for three rubles fifty,
moreover taking for them a collection
8 of vulgar fables,
a grammar,
two “Petriads,” plus Marmontel, tome three.
Later with Tanya Martin Zadeck
12 became a favorite. He gives her joyance
in all her sorrows and beside her,
never absenting himself, sleeps.
XXIV
The dream disturbs her.
Not knowing what to make of it,
the import of the dread chimera
4 Tatiana wishes to discover.
Tatiana finds in the brief index,
in alphabetic order,
the words: bear, blizzard, bridge,
8 dark, fir, fir forest, hedgehog, raven, storm,
and so forth. Martin Zadeck
will not resolve her doubts,
but the ominous dream portends
12 to her a lot of sad adventures.
For several days thereafter she
kept worrying about it.
XXV
But lo, with crimson hand34
Aurora from the morning dales
leads forth, with the sun, after her
4 the merry name-day festival.
Since morn Dame Larin's house is full
of guests; in entire families
the neighbors have converged, in sledded coaches,
8 kibitkas, britskas, sleighs.
There's in the vestibule jostling, commotion;
there's in the drawing room the meeting of new people,
the bark of pugs, girls' smacking kisses,
12 noise, laughter, a crush at the threshold,
the bows, the scraping of the guests,
wet nurses' shouts, and children's cry.
XXVI
With his well-nourished spouse
there came fat Pustyakóv;
Gvozdín, an admirable landlord,
4 owner of destitute muzhiks;
a gray-haired couple, the Skotínins,
with children of all ages, counting
from thirty years to two;
8 the district fopling, Petushkóv;
Buyánov, my first cousin,
covered with fluff, in a peaked cap35
(as he, of course, is known to you);
12 and the retired counselor Flyánov,
a heavy scandalmonger, an old rogue,
glutton, bribetaker, and buffoon.
XXVII
With the family of Panfíl Harlikóv
there also came Monsieur Triquét,
a wit, late from Tambóv,
4 bespectacled and russet-wigged.
As a true Frenchman, in his pocket
Triquet has brought a stanza for Tatiana
fitting an air to children known:
8 “Réveillez-vous, belle endormie.”
Among an almanac's decrepit songs
this stanza had been printed;
Triquet — resourceful poet —
12 out of the dust brought it to light
and boldly in the place of “belle Niná”
put “belle Tatianá.”
XXVIII
And now from the near borough,
the idol of ripe misses,
the joy of district mothers,
4 a Company Commander has arrived;
he enters.... Ah, news — and what news!
there will be regimental music:
“the Colonel's sending it himself.”
8 What fun! There is to be a ball!
The young things skip beforehand.36
But dinner's served. In pairs,
they go to table, arm in arm.
12 The misses cluster near Tatiana,
the men are opposite; and the crowd buzzes
as all, crossing themselves, sit down to table.
XXIX
Talks for a moment have subsided;
mouths chew. On all sides plates
and covers clatter, and the jingle
4 of rummers sounds.
But soon the guests raise by degrees
a general hullabaloo.
None listens; they shout, laugh,
8 dispute, and squeal. All of a sudden —
the door leaves are flung open: Lenski
comes in, and with him [comes] Onegin. “Oh, my Maker!”
cries out the lady of the house. “At last!”
12 The guests make room, each moves aside
covers, chairs quick;
they call, they seat the pair of friends
XXX
— seat them directly facing Tanya,
and paler than the morning moon,
and more tremulous than the hunted doe,
4 her darkening eyes
she does not raise. In her stormily pulses
a passionate glow; she suffocates, feels faint;
the two friends' greetings
8 she hears not; the tears from her eyes
are on the point of trickling; the poor thing
is on the point of swooning;
but will and reason's power
12 prevailed. A word or two
she uttered through her teeth in a low voice
and managed to remain at table.
XXXI
Tragiconervous scenes,
the fainting fits of maidens, tears,
long since Eugene could not abide:
4 enough of them he had endured.
Finding himself at a huge feast,
the odd chap was already cross. But noting
the languid maid's tremulous impulse,
8 out of vexation lowering his gaze,
he went into a huff and, fuming,
swore he would madden Lenski,
and thoroughly, in fact, avenge himself.
12 Now, in advance exulting,
he inwardly began to sketch
caricatures of all the guests.
XXXII
Of course, not only Eugene might have seen
Tanya's confusion; but the target
of looks and comments at the time
4 was a rich pie
(unfortunately, oversalted);
and here, in bottle sealed with pitch,
between the meat course and the blancmangér,
8 Tsimlyanski wine is brought already,
followed by an array of narrow, long
wineglasses, similar to your waist,
Zizí, crystal of my soul, object
12 of my innocent verse,
love's luring vial, you, of whom
drunken I used to be!
XXXIII
Ridding itself of its damp cork,
the bottle pops; the wine
fizzes; and now with solemn mien,
4 long tortured by his stanza,
Triquet stands up; before him the assembly
maintains deep silence.
Tatiana's scarce alive; Triquet,
8 addressing her, a slip of paper in his hand,
proceeds to sing, off key. Claps, acclamations,
salute him. She
must drop the bard a curtsy;
12 whereat the poet, modest although great,
is first to drink her health
and hands to her the stanza.
XXXIV
Now greetings come, congratulations;
Tatiana thanks them all.
Then, when the turn of Eugene
4 arrived, the maiden's languid air,
her discomposure, lassitude,
engendered pity in his soul:
he bowed to her in silence,
8 but somehow the look of his eyes
was wondrous tender. Whether
because he verily was touched
or he, coquetting, jested,
12 whether unwillfully or by free will,
but tenderness this look expressed:
it revived Tanya's heart.
XXXV
The chairs, as they are pushed back, clatter;
the crowd presses into the drawing room:
thus bees out of the luscious hive
4 fly meadward in a noisy swarm.
Pleased with the festive dinner,
neighbor in front of neighbor wheezes;
the ladies by the hearth have settled;
8 the maidens whisper in a corner;
the green-baized tables are unfolded:
to mettlesome cardplayers call
boston and omber of the old,
12 and whist, up to the present famous:
monotonous family,
all sons of avid boredom.
XXXVI
Eight rubbers have already played
whist's heroes; eight times they
have changed their seats —
4 and tea is brought. I like defining
the hour by dinner, tea,
and supper. In the country
we know the time without great fuss:
8 the stomach is our accurate Bréguet;
and, apropos, I'll parenthetically note
that in my strophes I discourse
as frequently on feasts, on various
12 dishes and corks,
as you, divine Homer, you, idol
of thirty centuries!
XXXIX
But tea is brought: scarce have the damsels
demurely of their saucers taken hold
when from behind the door of the long hall
4 bassoon and flute sound suddenly.
Elated by the thunder of the music,
leaving his cup of tea with rum, the Paris
of the surrounding townlets, Petushkóv,
8 goes up to Olga; Lenski, to Tatiana;
Miss Harlikov, a marriageable maid
of overripe years, is secured
by my Tambovan poet;
12 Buyánov has whirled off Dame Pustyakóv;
and all have spilled into the hall,
and in full glory shines the ball.
XL
At the beginning of my novel
(see the first fascicle)
I wanted in Albano's manner
4 a Petersburg ball to describe;
but, by an empty reverie diverted,
I got engrossed in recollecting
the little feet of ladies known to me.
8 Upon your narrow tracks, O little feet,
enough roving astray!
With the betrayal of my youth
'tis time I grew more sensible,
12 improved in doings and in diction,
and this fifth fascicle
cleansed from digressions.
XLI
Monotonous and mad
like young life's whirl, the noisy
whirl of the waltz revolves,
4 pair after pair flicks by.
Nearing the minute of revenge,
Onegin, chuckling secretly,
goes up to Olga, rapidly with her
8 spins near the guests,
then seats her on a chair,
proceeds to talk of this and that;
a minute or two having lapsed, he then
12 again with her the waltz continues;
all are amazed. Lenski himself
does not believe his proper eyes.
XLII
There the mazurka sounds. Time was,
when the mazurka's thunder dinned,
in a huge ballroom everything vibrated,
4 the parquetry cracked under heel,
the window frames shook, rattled;
now 'tis not thus: we, too, like ladies,
glide o'er the lacquered boards.
8 But in [small] towns
and country places, the mazurka
has still retained its pristine charms:
saltos, heel-play, mustachios
12 remain the same; them has not altered
highhanded fashion,
our tyrant, sickness of the latest Russians.
XLIV
Buyánov, my mettlesome cousin,
toward our hero leads Tatiana
with Olga; deft
4 Onegin goes with Olga.
He steers her, gliding nonchalantly,
and, bending, whispers tenderly to her
some common madrigal, and squeezes
8 her hand — and brighter glows
on her conceited face
the rosy flush. My Lenski
has seen it all; flares up, beside himself;
12 in jealous indignation,
the poet waits for the end of the mazurka
and invites her for the cotillion.
XLV
But no, she cannot. Cannot? But what is it?
Why, Olga has given her word
already to Onegin. Ah, good God, good God!
4 What does he hear? She could...
How is it possible? Scarce out of swaddling clothes —
and a coquette, a giddy child!
Already she is versed in guile,
8 has learned already to betray!
Lenski has not the strength to bear the blow;
cursing the tricks of women,
he leaves, calls for a horse,
12 and gallops off. A brace of pistols,
two bullets — nothing more —
shall in a trice decide his fate.
CHAPTER SIX
Là, sotto i giorni nubilosi e brevi,
Nasce una gente a cui '1 morir non dole.
I
On noticing that Vladimir had vanished,
Onegin, by ennui pursued again,
by Olga's side sank into meditation,
4 pleased with his vengeance.
After him Ólinka yawned too,
sought Lenski with her eyes,
and the endless cotillion
8 irked her like an oppressive dream.
But it has ended. They go in to supper.
The beds are made. Guests are assigned
night lodgings — from the entrance hall
12 even to the maids' quarters. Restful sleep
by all is needed. My Onegin
alone has driven home to sleep.
II
All has grown quiet. In the drawing room
the heavy Pustyakov
snores with his heavy better half.
4 Gvozdin, Buyanov, Petushkov,
and Flyanov (who is not quite well)
have bedded in the dining room on chairs,
with, on the floor, Monsieur Triquet
8 in underwaistcoat and old nightcap.
All the young ladies, in Tatiana's
and Olga's rooms, are wrapped in sleep.
Alone, sadly by Dian's beam
12 illumined at the window, poor Tatiana
is not asleep
and gazes out on the dark field.
III
With his unlooked-for apparition,
the momentary softness of his eyes,
and odd conduct with Olga,
4 to the depth of her soul
she's penetrated. She is quite unable
to understand him. Jealous
anguish perturbs her,
8 as if a cold hand pressed
her heart; as if beneath her an abyss
yawned black and dinned....
“I shall perish,” says Tanya,
12 “but perishing from him is sweet.
I murmur not: why murmur?
He cannot give me happiness.”
IV
Forward, forward, my story!
A new persona claims us.
Five versts from Krasnogórie,
4 Lenski's estate, there lives
and thrives up to the present time
in philosophical reclusion
Zarétski, formerly a brawler,
8 the hetman of a gaming gang,
chieftain of rakehells, pothouse tribune,
but now a kind and simple
bachelor paterfamilias,
12 a steadfast friend, a peaceable landowner,
and even an honorable man:
thus does our age correct itself!
V
Time was, the monde's obsequious voice
used to extol his wicked pluck:
he, it is true, could from a pistol
4 at twelve yards hit an ace,
and, furthermore, in battle too
once, in real rapture, he distinguished
himself by toppling from his Kalmuk steed
8 boldly into the mud,
swine drunk, and to the French
fell prisoner (prized hostage!) —
a modern Regulus, the god of honor,
12 ready to yield anew to bonds
so as to drain on credit at Véry's37
two or three bottles every morning.
VI
Time was, he bantered drolly,
knew how to gull a fool
and capitally fool a clever man,
4 for all to see or on the sly;
though some tricks of his, too,
did not remain unchastised;
though sometimes he himself, too, got
8 trapped like a simpleton.
He knew how to conduct a gay dispute,
make a reply keen or obtuse,
now craftily to hold his tongue,
12 now craftily to raise a rumpus,
how to get two young friends to quarrel
and place them on the marked-out ground,
VII
or have them make it up
so as to lunch all three,
and later secretly defame them
4 with a gay quip, with prate....
Sed alia tempora! Daredevilry
(like love's dream, yet another caper)
passes with lively youth.
8 As I've said, my Zarétski,
beneath the racemosas and the pea trees
having at last found shelter
from tempests, lives like a true sage,
12 plants cabbages like Horace,
breeds ducks and geese,
and teaches [his] children the A B C.
VIII
He was not stupid; and my Eugene,
while rating low the heart in him,
liked both the spirit of his judgments
4 and his sane talk of this and that.
He would frequent him
with pleasure, and therefore was not at all
surprised at morn
8 when he saw him;
the latter, after the first greeting, interrupting
the started conversation,
with eyes atwinkle, to Onegin
12 handed a billet from the poet.
Onegin went up to the window
and read it to himself.
IX
It was a pleasant, gentlemanly,
brief challenge or cartel:
politely, with cold clearness, to a duel
4 Lenski called out his friend.
Onegin, on a first impulsion
to the envoy of such an errand
turning, without superfluous words
8 said he was “always ready.”
Zaretski got up without explanations —
did not want to stay longer,
having at home a lot of things to do —
12 and forthwith left; but Eugene,
alone remaining with his soul,
felt ill-contented with himself.
X
And serve him right: on strict examination,
he, having called his own self to a secret court,
accused himself of much:
4 first, it had been already wrong of him
to make fun of a timid, tender love
so casually yesternight;
and secondly: why, let a poet
8 indulge in nonsense! At eighteen
'tis pardonable. Eugene,
loving the youth with all his heart,
ought to have shown himself to be
12 no bandyball of prejudices,
no fiery boy, no scrapper, but a man
of honor and of sense.
XI
He might have manifested feelings
instead of bristling like a beast;
he ought to have disarmed
4 the youthful heart. “But now
too late; the time has flown away....
Moreover,” he reflects, “in this affair
an old duelist has intervened;
8 he's wicked, he's a gossip, he talks glibly....
Of course, contempt should be the price
of his droll sallies; but the whisper,
the snickering of fools...”
12 And here it is — public opinion!38
Honor's mainspring, our idol!
And here is what the world turns on!
XII
The poet, with impatient enmity
boiling, awaits at home the answer.
And here the answer solemnly
4 by the grandiloquent neighbor is brought.
Now, what a boon 'tis for the jealous one!
He had kept fearing that the scamp
might joke his way out somehow,
8 a trick devising and his breast
averting from the pistol.
The doubts are now resolved:
tomorrow to the mill they must
12 drive before daybreak,
at one another raise the cock,
and at the thigh or at the temple aim.
XIII
Having decided to detest
the coquette, boiling Lenski did not wish
to see before the duel Olga.
4 The sun, his watch he kept consulting;
at last he gave it up —
and found himself at the fair neighbors'.
He thought he would embarrass Ólinka,
8 confound her by his coming;
but nothing of the sort: just as before
to welcome the poor songster
Olinka skipped down from the porch,
12 akin to giddy hope,
spry, carefree, gay — in fact, exactly
the same as she had been.
XIV
“Why did you vanish yesternight so early?”
was Olinka's first question.
In Lenski all the senses clouded,
4 and silently he hung his head.
Jealousy and vexation disappeared
before this clarity of glance,
before this soft simplicity,
8 before this sprightly soul!...
He gazes with sweet tenderness;
he sees: he is still loved!
Already, by remorse beset,
12 he is prepared to beg her pardon,
he quivers, can't find words:
he's happy, he is almost well....
XVII
And pensive, spiritless again
before his darling Olga,
Vladimir cannot make himself remind her
4 of yesterday;
“I,” he reflects, “shall be her savior.
I shall not suffer a depraver
with fire of sighs and compliments
8 to tempt a youthful heart,
nor let a despicable, venomous
worm gnaw a lily's little stalk,
nor have a blossom two morns old
12 wither while yet half blown.”
All this, friends, meant:
I have a pistol duel with a pal.
XVIII
If he had known what a wound burned
the heart of my Tatiana! If Tatiana
had been aware, if she
4 could have known that tomorrow
Lenski and Eugene
were to compete for the tomb's shelter,
ah, then, perhaps, her love
8 might have united the two friends again!
But none, even by chance, had yet discovered
that passion.
Onegin about everything was silent;
12 Tatiana pined away in secret;
alone the nurse
might have known — but she was slow-witted.
XIX
All evening Lenski was abstracted,
now taciturn, now gay again;
but he who has been fostered by the Muse
4 is always thus; with knitted brow
he'd sit down at the clavichord
and play but chords on it;
or else, his gaze directing toward Olga,
8 he'd whisper, “I am happy, am I not?”
But it is late; time to depart. In him
the heart contracted, full of anguish;
as he took leave of the young maiden,
12 it seemed to break asunder.
She looks him in the face. “What is the matter with you?”
“Nothing.” And he makes for the porch.
XX
On coming home his pistols he inspected,
then back into their case
he put them, and, undressed,
4 by candle opened Schiller;
but there's one thought infolding him;
the sad heart in him does not slumber:
Olga, in beauty
8 ineffable, he sees before him.
Vladimir shuts the book,
takes up his pen; his verses —
full of love's nonsense — sound
12 and flow. Aloud
he reads them in a lyric fever,
like drunken D[elvig] at a feast.
XXI
The verses chanced to be preserved;
I have them; here they are:
Whither, ah! whither are ye fled,
4 my springtime's golden days?
“What has the coming day in store for me?
In vain my gaze attempts to grasp it;
in deep gloom it lies hidden.
8 It matters not; fate's law is just.
Whether I fall, pierced by the dart, or whether
it flies by — all is right:
of waking and of sleep
12 comes the determined hour;
blest is the day of cares,
blest, too, is the advent of darkness!
XXII
“The ray of dawn will gleam tomorrow,
and brilliant day will scintillate;
whilst I, perhaps — I shall descend
4 into the tomb's mysterious shelter,
and the young poet's memory
slow Lethe will engulf;
the world will forget me; but thou,
8 wilt thou come, maid of beauty,
to shed a tear over the early urn
and think: he loved me,
to me alone he consecrated
12 the doleful daybreak of a stormy life!...
Friend of my heart, desired friend, come,
come: I'm thy spouse!”
XXIII
Thus did he write, “obscurely
and limply” (what we call romanticism —
though no romanticism at all
4 do I see here; but what is that to us?),
and finally, before dawn, letting sink
his weary head,
upon the fashionable word
8 “ideal,” Lenski dozed off gently;
but hardly had he lost himself
in sleep's bewitchment when the neighbor
entered the silent study
12 and wakened Lenski with the call,
“Time to get up: past six already.
Onegin's sure to be awaiting us.”
XXIV
But he was wrong: at that time Eugene
was sleeping like the dead.
The shadows of the night now wane,
4 and Vesper by the cock is greeted;
Onegin soundly sleeps away.
By now the sun rides high,
and shifting flurries
8 sparkle and spin; but still his bed
Onegin has not left,
still slumber hovers over him.
Now he awakes at last
12 and draws apart the curtain's flaps;
looks — and sees that already
it is long since time to drive off.
XXV
Quickly he rings — and his French valet,
Guillot, comes running in,
offers him dressing gown and slippers,
4 and hands him linen.
Onegin hastes to dress,
orders his valet to get ready
to drive together with him and to take
8 along with him also the combat case.
The racing sleigh is ready; in he gets;
flies to the mill. Apace they come.
He bids his valet carry after him
and has the horses moved away
into a field toward two oaklings.
XXVI
On the dam leaning, Lenski had been waiting
impatiently for a long time;
meanwhile Zaretski, a rural mechanic,
4 with the millstone was finding fault.
Onegin with apologies came up.
“But where,” quoth with amazement
Zaretski, “where's your second?”
8 In duels classicist and pedant, he
liked method out of feeling and allowed
to stretch one's man not anyhow
but by the strict rules of the art
12 according to all the traditions
of ancientry
(which we must praise in him).
XXVII
“My second?” Eugene said.
“Here's he: my friend, Monsieur Guillot.
I don't foresee
4 objections to my presentation:
although he is an unknown man,
quite surely he's an honest chap.”
Zaretski bit his lip. Onegin
8 asked Lenski: “Well, are we to start?”
“Let's start if you are willing,” said
Vladimir. And they went
behind the mill.
12 While, at a distance, our Zaretski and the “honest chap”
enter into a solemn compact,
the two foes stand with lowered eyes.
XXVIII
Foes! Is it long since bloodthirst
turned them away from one another?
Is it long since they shared their hours of leisure,
4 meals, thoughts, and doings
in friendliness? Now, wickedly,
similar to hereditary foes,
as in a frightful, enigmatic dream,
8 in silence, for each other they
prepare destruction coolly....
Should they not burst out laughing while
their hand is not yet crimsoned?
12 Should they not amiably part?...
But wildly beau-monde enmity
is of false shame afraid.
XXIX
The pistols now have gleamed. The mallet clanks
against the ramrod. The balls go
into the polyhedral barrel,
4 and the cock clicks for the first time.
The powder in a grayish streamlet
now pours into the pan. The jagged,
securely screwed-in flint
8 anew is drawn back. Disconcerted
Guillot behind a near stump takes his stand.
The two foes shed their cloaks.
Zaretski paces off thirty-two steps
12 with excellent accuracy; his friends
apart he places at the farthest mark,
and each takes up his pistol.
XXX
“Now march.” The two foes, coolly,
not aiming yet,
with firm tread, slowly, steadily
4 traversed four paces,
four mortal stairs.
His pistol Eugene then,
not ceasing to advance,
8 gently the first began to raise.
Now they have stepped five paces more,
and Lenski, closing his left eye,
started to level also — but right then
12 Onegin fired.... The clock of fate
has struck: the poet
in silence drops his pistol.
XXXI
Softly he lays his hand upon his breast
and falls. His misty gaze
expresses death, not pain.
4 Thus, slowly, down the slope of hills,
shining with sparkles in the sun,
a lump of snow descends.
Deluged with instant cold,
8 Onegin hastens to the youth,
looks, calls him... vainly:
he is no more. The young bard has
found an untimely end!
12 The storm has blown; the beauteous bloom
has withered at sunrise; the fire
upon the altar has gone out!...
XXXII
Stirless he lay, and strange
was his brow's languid peace.
Under the breast he had been shot clean through;
4 steaming, the blood flowed from the wound.
One moment earlier
in this heart inspiration,
enmity, hope, and love had throbbed,
8 life effervesced, blood burned;
now, as in a deserted house,
all in it is both still and dark,
it has become forever silent.
12 The window boards are shut. The panes with chalk
are whitened over. The chatelaine is gone.
But where, God wot. All trace is lost.
XXXIII
With an insolent epigram
'tis pleasant to enrage a bungling foe;
pleasant to see how, bending stubbornly
4 his buttsome horns, he in the mirror
looks at himself involuntarily
and is ashamed to recognize himself;
more pleasant, friends, if, as the fool he is,
8 he howls out: It is I!
Still pleasanter — in silence to prepare
an honorable grave for him
and quietly at his pale forehead
12 aim, at a gentlemanly distance;
but to dispatch him to his fathers
will hardly pleasant be for you.
XXXIV
What, then, if by your pistol
be smitten a young pal
who with a saucy glance or repartee
4 or any other bagatelle
insulted you over the bottle,
or even himself, in fiery vexation,
to combat proudly challenged you?
8 Say: what sensation
would take possession of your soul
when, motionless upon the ground,
in front of you, with death upon his brow,
12 he by degrees would stiffen,
when he'd be deaf
and silent to your desperate appeal?
XXXV
In anguish of the heart's remorse,
his hand squeezing the pistol,
at Lenski Eugene looks.
4 “Well, what — he's dead,” pronounced the neighbor.
Dead!... With this dreadful interjection
smitten, Onegin with a shudder
walks hence and calls his men.
8 Zaretski carefully lays on the sleigh
the frozen corpse;
home he is driving the dread lading.
Sensing the corpse,
12 the horses snort and jib,
with white foam wetting the steel bit,
and like an arrow off they fly.
XXXVI
My friends, you're sorry for the poet:
in the bloom of glad hopes,
not having yet fulfilled them for the world,
4 scarce out of infant clothes,
withered! Where is the ardent stir,
the noble aspiration
of young emotions and young thoughts,
8 exalted, tender, bold?
Where are love's turbulent desires,
the thirst for knowledges and work,
the dread of vice and shame,
12 and you, fond musings,
you, [token] of unearthly life,
you, dreams of sacred poetry!
XXXVII
Perhaps, for the world's good
or, at the least, for glory he was born;
his silenced lyre might have aroused
4 a resonant, uninterrupted ringing
throughout the ages. There awaited
the poet, on the stairway of the world,
perhaps, a lofty stair.
8 His martyred shade has carried
away with him, perhaps,
a sacred mystery, and for us
dead is a life-creating voice,
12 and to his shade beyond the tomb's confines
will not rush up the hymn of races,
the blessing of the ages.
XXXIX
And then again: perhaps,
an ordinary lot awaited
the poet. Years of youth would have elapsed:
4 in him the soul's fire would have cooled.
He would have changed in many ways,
have parted with the Muses, married,
up in the country, happy and cornute,
8 have worn a quilted dressing gown;
learned life in its reality,
at forty, had the gout,
drunk, eaten, moped, got fat, decayed,
12 and in his bed, at last,
died in the midst of children,
weepy females, and medicos.
XL
But, reader, be it as it may,
alas, the young lover, the poet,
the pensive dreamer, has been killed
4 by a friend's hand!
There is a spot: left of the village
where inspiration's nursling dwelt,
two pine trees grow, united at the roots;
8 beneath them have meandered streamlets
of the neighboring valley's brook.
'Tis there the plowman likes to rest
and women reapers come to dip
12 their ringing pitchers in the waves;
there, by the brook, in the dense shade
a simple monument is set.
XLI
Beneath it (as begins to drip
spring rain upon the herb of fields)
the herdsman, plaiting his pied shoe of bast,
4 sings of the Volga fishermen;
and the young townswoman who spends
the summer in the country,
when headlong on horseback, alone,
8 she scours the fields,
before it halts her steed,
tightening the leathern rein;
and, turning up the gauze veil of her hat,
12 she reads with skimming eyes
the plain inscription — and a tear
dims her soft eyes.
XLII
And at a walk she rides in open champaign,
sunk in a reverie;
a long time, willy-nilly,
4 her soul is full of Lenski's fate;
and she reflects: “What has become of Olga?
Did her heart suffer long?
Or did the season of her tears soon pass?
8 And where's her sister now? And where, that shunner
of people and the world,
of modish belles the modish foe,
where's that begloomed eccentric,
12 the slayer of the youthful poet?”
In due time I shall give you an account
in detail about everything.
XLIII
But not now. Though with all my heart
I love my hero;
though I'll return to him, of course;
4 but now I am not in the mood for him.
The years to austere prose incline,
the years chase pranksome rhyme away,
and I — with a sigh I confess —
8 more indolently dangle after her.
My pen has not its ancient disposition
to mar with scribblings fleeting leaves;
other chill dreams,
12 other stern cares,
both in the social hum and in the still
disturb my soul's sleep.
XLIV
I have learned the voice of other desires,
I've come to know new sadness;
I have no expectations for the first,
4 and the old sadness I regret.
Dreams, dreams! Where is your dulcitude?
Where is (its stock rhyme) juventude?
Can it be really true
8 that withered, withered is at last its garland?
Can it be true that really and indeed,
without elegiac conceits,
the springtime of my days is fled
12 (as I in jest kept saying hitherto),
and has it truly no return?
Can it be true that I'll be thirty soon?
XLV
So! My noontide is come, and this
I must, I see, admit.
But, anyway, as friends let's part,
4 O my light youth!
My thanks for the delights,
the melancholy, the dear torments,
the hum, the storms, the feasts,
8 for all, for all your gifts
my thanks to you. In you
amidst turmoils and in the stillness
I have delighted... and in full.
12 Enough! With a clear soul
I now set out on a new course
to rest from my old life.
XLVI
Let me glance back. Farewell now, coverts
where in the backwoods flowed my days,
fulfilled with passions and with indolence
4 and with the dreamings of a pensive soul.
And you, young inspiration,
stir my imagination,
the slumber of the heart enliven,
8 into my nook more often fly,
let not a poet's soul grow cold,
callous, crust-dry,
and finally be turned to stone
12 in the World's deadening intoxication
in that slough where with you
I bathe, dear friends!40
Là, sotto i giorni nubilosi e brevi,
Nasce una gente a cui '1 morir non dole.
I
On noticing that Vladimir had vanished,
Onegin, by ennui pursued again,
by Olga's side sank into meditation,
4 pleased with his vengeance.
After him Ólinka yawned too,
sought Lenski with her eyes,
and the endless cotillion
8 irked her like an oppressive dream.
But it has ended. They go in to supper.
The beds are made. Guests are assigned
night lodgings — from the entrance hall
12 even to the maids' quarters. Restful sleep
by all is needed. My Onegin
alone has driven home to sleep.
II
All has grown quiet. In the drawing room
the heavy Pustyakov
snores with his heavy better half.
4 Gvozdin, Buyanov, Petushkov,
and Flyanov (who is not quite well)
have bedded in the dining room on chairs,
with, on the floor, Monsieur Triquet
8 in underwaistcoat and old nightcap.
All the young ladies, in Tatiana's
and Olga's rooms, are wrapped in sleep.
Alone, sadly by Dian's beam
12 illumined at the window, poor Tatiana
is not asleep
and gazes out on the dark field.
III
With his unlooked-for apparition,
the momentary softness of his eyes,
and odd conduct with Olga,
4 to the depth of her soul
she's penetrated. She is quite unable
to understand him. Jealous
anguish perturbs her,
8 as if a cold hand pressed
her heart; as if beneath her an abyss
yawned black and dinned....
“I shall perish,” says Tanya,
12 “but perishing from him is sweet.
I murmur not: why murmur?
He cannot give me happiness.”
IV
Forward, forward, my story!
A new persona claims us.
Five versts from Krasnogórie,
4 Lenski's estate, there lives
and thrives up to the present time
in philosophical reclusion
Zarétski, formerly a brawler,
8 the hetman of a gaming gang,
chieftain of rakehells, pothouse tribune,
but now a kind and simple
bachelor paterfamilias,
12 a steadfast friend, a peaceable landowner,
and even an honorable man:
thus does our age correct itself!
V
Time was, the monde's obsequious voice
used to extol his wicked pluck:
he, it is true, could from a pistol
4 at twelve yards hit an ace,
and, furthermore, in battle too
once, in real rapture, he distinguished
himself by toppling from his Kalmuk steed
8 boldly into the mud,
swine drunk, and to the French
fell prisoner (prized hostage!) —
a modern Regulus, the god of honor,
12 ready to yield anew to bonds
so as to drain on credit at Véry's37
two or three bottles every morning.
VI
Time was, he bantered drolly,
knew how to gull a fool
and capitally fool a clever man,
4 for all to see or on the sly;
though some tricks of his, too,
did not remain unchastised;
though sometimes he himself, too, got
8 trapped like a simpleton.
He knew how to conduct a gay dispute,
make a reply keen or obtuse,
now craftily to hold his tongue,
12 now craftily to raise a rumpus,
how to get two young friends to quarrel
and place them on the marked-out ground,
VII
or have them make it up
so as to lunch all three,
and later secretly defame them
4 with a gay quip, with prate....
Sed alia tempora! Daredevilry
(like love's dream, yet another caper)
passes with lively youth.
8 As I've said, my Zarétski,
beneath the racemosas and the pea trees
having at last found shelter
from tempests, lives like a true sage,
12 plants cabbages like Horace,
breeds ducks and geese,
and teaches [his] children the A B C.
VIII
He was not stupid; and my Eugene,
while rating low the heart in him,
liked both the spirit of his judgments
4 and his sane talk of this and that.
He would frequent him
with pleasure, and therefore was not at all
surprised at morn
8 when he saw him;
the latter, after the first greeting, interrupting
the started conversation,
with eyes atwinkle, to Onegin
12 handed a billet from the poet.
Onegin went up to the window
and read it to himself.
IX
It was a pleasant, gentlemanly,
brief challenge or cartel:
politely, with cold clearness, to a duel
4 Lenski called out his friend.
Onegin, on a first impulsion
to the envoy of such an errand
turning, without superfluous words
8 said he was “always ready.”
Zaretski got up without explanations —
did not want to stay longer,
having at home a lot of things to do —
12 and forthwith left; but Eugene,
alone remaining with his soul,
felt ill-contented with himself.
X
And serve him right: on strict examination,
he, having called his own self to a secret court,
accused himself of much:
4 first, it had been already wrong of him
to make fun of a timid, tender love
so casually yesternight;
and secondly: why, let a poet
8 indulge in nonsense! At eighteen
'tis pardonable. Eugene,
loving the youth with all his heart,
ought to have shown himself to be
12 no bandyball of prejudices,
no fiery boy, no scrapper, but a man
of honor and of sense.
XI
He might have manifested feelings
instead of bristling like a beast;
he ought to have disarmed
4 the youthful heart. “But now
too late; the time has flown away....
Moreover,” he reflects, “in this affair
an old duelist has intervened;
8 he's wicked, he's a gossip, he talks glibly....
Of course, contempt should be the price
of his droll sallies; but the whisper,
the snickering of fools...”
12 And here it is — public opinion!38
Honor's mainspring, our idol!
And here is what the world turns on!
XII
The poet, with impatient enmity
boiling, awaits at home the answer.
And here the answer solemnly
4 by the grandiloquent neighbor is brought.
Now, what a boon 'tis for the jealous one!
He had kept fearing that the scamp
might joke his way out somehow,
8 a trick devising and his breast
averting from the pistol.
The doubts are now resolved:
tomorrow to the mill they must
12 drive before daybreak,
at one another raise the cock,
and at the thigh or at the temple aim.
XIII
Having decided to detest
the coquette, boiling Lenski did not wish
to see before the duel Olga.
4 The sun, his watch he kept consulting;
at last he gave it up —
and found himself at the fair neighbors'.
He thought he would embarrass Ólinka,
8 confound her by his coming;
but nothing of the sort: just as before
to welcome the poor songster
Olinka skipped down from the porch,
12 akin to giddy hope,
spry, carefree, gay — in fact, exactly
the same as she had been.
XIV
“Why did you vanish yesternight so early?”
was Olinka's first question.
In Lenski all the senses clouded,
4 and silently he hung his head.
Jealousy and vexation disappeared
before this clarity of glance,
before this soft simplicity,
8 before this sprightly soul!...
He gazes with sweet tenderness;
he sees: he is still loved!
Already, by remorse beset,
12 he is prepared to beg her pardon,
he quivers, can't find words:
he's happy, he is almost well....
XVII
And pensive, spiritless again
before his darling Olga,
Vladimir cannot make himself remind her
4 of yesterday;
“I,” he reflects, “shall be her savior.
I shall not suffer a depraver
with fire of sighs and compliments
8 to tempt a youthful heart,
nor let a despicable, venomous
worm gnaw a lily's little stalk,
nor have a blossom two morns old
12 wither while yet half blown.”
All this, friends, meant:
I have a pistol duel with a pal.
XVIII
If he had known what a wound burned
the heart of my Tatiana! If Tatiana
had been aware, if she
4 could have known that tomorrow
Lenski and Eugene
were to compete for the tomb's shelter,
ah, then, perhaps, her love
8 might have united the two friends again!
But none, even by chance, had yet discovered
that passion.
Onegin about everything was silent;
12 Tatiana pined away in secret;
alone the nurse
might have known — but she was slow-witted.
XIX
All evening Lenski was abstracted,
now taciturn, now gay again;
but he who has been fostered by the Muse
4 is always thus; with knitted brow
he'd sit down at the clavichord
and play but chords on it;
or else, his gaze directing toward Olga,
8 he'd whisper, “I am happy, am I not?”
But it is late; time to depart. In him
the heart contracted, full of anguish;
as he took leave of the young maiden,
12 it seemed to break asunder.
She looks him in the face. “What is the matter with you?”
“Nothing.” And he makes for the porch.
XX
On coming home his pistols he inspected,
then back into their case
he put them, and, undressed,
4 by candle opened Schiller;
but there's one thought infolding him;
the sad heart in him does not slumber:
Olga, in beauty
8 ineffable, he sees before him.
Vladimir shuts the book,
takes up his pen; his verses —
full of love's nonsense — sound
12 and flow. Aloud
he reads them in a lyric fever,
like drunken D[elvig] at a feast.
XXI
The verses chanced to be preserved;
I have them; here they are:
Whither, ah! whither are ye fled,
4 my springtime's golden days?
“What has the coming day in store for me?
In vain my gaze attempts to grasp it;
in deep gloom it lies hidden.
8 It matters not; fate's law is just.
Whether I fall, pierced by the dart, or whether
it flies by — all is right:
of waking and of sleep
12 comes the determined hour;
blest is the day of cares,
blest, too, is the advent of darkness!
XXII
“The ray of dawn will gleam tomorrow,
and brilliant day will scintillate;
whilst I, perhaps — I shall descend
4 into the tomb's mysterious shelter,
and the young poet's memory
slow Lethe will engulf;
the world will forget me; but thou,
8 wilt thou come, maid of beauty,
to shed a tear over the early urn
and think: he loved me,
to me alone he consecrated
12 the doleful daybreak of a stormy life!...
Friend of my heart, desired friend, come,
come: I'm thy spouse!”
XXIII
Thus did he write, “obscurely
and limply” (what we call romanticism —
though no romanticism at all
4 do I see here; but what is that to us?),
and finally, before dawn, letting sink
his weary head,
upon the fashionable word
8 “ideal,” Lenski dozed off gently;
but hardly had he lost himself
in sleep's bewitchment when the neighbor
entered the silent study
12 and wakened Lenski with the call,
“Time to get up: past six already.
Onegin's sure to be awaiting us.”
XXIV
But he was wrong: at that time Eugene
was sleeping like the dead.
The shadows of the night now wane,
4 and Vesper by the cock is greeted;
Onegin soundly sleeps away.
By now the sun rides high,
and shifting flurries
8 sparkle and spin; but still his bed
Onegin has not left,
still slumber hovers over him.
Now he awakes at last
12 and draws apart the curtain's flaps;
looks — and sees that already
it is long since time to drive off.
XXV
Quickly he rings — and his French valet,
Guillot, comes running in,
offers him dressing gown and slippers,
4 and hands him linen.
Onegin hastes to dress,
orders his valet to get ready
to drive together with him and to take
8 along with him also the combat case.
The racing sleigh is ready; in he gets;
flies to the mill. Apace they come.
He bids his valet carry after him
and has the horses moved away
into a field toward two oaklings.
XXVI
On the dam leaning, Lenski had been waiting
impatiently for a long time;
meanwhile Zaretski, a rural mechanic,
4 with the millstone was finding fault.
Onegin with apologies came up.
“But where,” quoth with amazement
Zaretski, “where's your second?”
8 In duels classicist and pedant, he
liked method out of feeling and allowed
to stretch one's man not anyhow
but by the strict rules of the art
12 according to all the traditions
of ancientry
(which we must praise in him).
XXVII
“My second?” Eugene said.
“Here's he: my friend, Monsieur Guillot.
I don't foresee
4 objections to my presentation:
although he is an unknown man,
quite surely he's an honest chap.”
Zaretski bit his lip. Onegin
8 asked Lenski: “Well, are we to start?”
“Let's start if you are willing,” said
Vladimir. And they went
behind the mill.
12 While, at a distance, our Zaretski and the “honest chap”
enter into a solemn compact,
the two foes stand with lowered eyes.
XXVIII
Foes! Is it long since bloodthirst
turned them away from one another?
Is it long since they shared their hours of leisure,
4 meals, thoughts, and doings
in friendliness? Now, wickedly,
similar to hereditary foes,
as in a frightful, enigmatic dream,
8 in silence, for each other they
prepare destruction coolly....
Should they not burst out laughing while
their hand is not yet crimsoned?
12 Should they not amiably part?...
But wildly beau-monde enmity
is of false shame afraid.
XXIX
The pistols now have gleamed. The mallet clanks
against the ramrod. The balls go
into the polyhedral barrel,
4 and the cock clicks for the first time.
The powder in a grayish streamlet
now pours into the pan. The jagged,
securely screwed-in flint
8 anew is drawn back. Disconcerted
Guillot behind a near stump takes his stand.
The two foes shed their cloaks.
Zaretski paces off thirty-two steps
12 with excellent accuracy; his friends
apart he places at the farthest mark,
and each takes up his pistol.
XXX
“Now march.” The two foes, coolly,
not aiming yet,
with firm tread, slowly, steadily
4 traversed four paces,
four mortal stairs.
His pistol Eugene then,
not ceasing to advance,
8 gently the first began to raise.
Now they have stepped five paces more,
and Lenski, closing his left eye,
started to level also — but right then
12 Onegin fired.... The clock of fate
has struck: the poet
in silence drops his pistol.
XXXI
Softly he lays his hand upon his breast
and falls. His misty gaze
expresses death, not pain.
4 Thus, slowly, down the slope of hills,
shining with sparkles in the sun,
a lump of snow descends.
Deluged with instant cold,
8 Onegin hastens to the youth,
looks, calls him... vainly:
he is no more. The young bard has
found an untimely end!
12 The storm has blown; the beauteous bloom
has withered at sunrise; the fire
upon the altar has gone out!...
XXXII
Stirless he lay, and strange
was his brow's languid peace.
Under the breast he had been shot clean through;
4 steaming, the blood flowed from the wound.
One moment earlier
in this heart inspiration,
enmity, hope, and love had throbbed,
8 life effervesced, blood burned;
now, as in a deserted house,
all in it is both still and dark,
it has become forever silent.
12 The window boards are shut. The panes with chalk
are whitened over. The chatelaine is gone.
But where, God wot. All trace is lost.
XXXIII
With an insolent epigram
'tis pleasant to enrage a bungling foe;
pleasant to see how, bending stubbornly
4 his buttsome horns, he in the mirror
looks at himself involuntarily
and is ashamed to recognize himself;
more pleasant, friends, if, as the fool he is,
8 he howls out: It is I!
Still pleasanter — in silence to prepare
an honorable grave for him
and quietly at his pale forehead
12 aim, at a gentlemanly distance;
but to dispatch him to his fathers
will hardly pleasant be for you.
XXXIV
What, then, if by your pistol
be smitten a young pal
who with a saucy glance or repartee
4 or any other bagatelle
insulted you over the bottle,
or even himself, in fiery vexation,
to combat proudly challenged you?
8 Say: what sensation
would take possession of your soul
when, motionless upon the ground,
in front of you, with death upon his brow,
12 he by degrees would stiffen,
when he'd be deaf
and silent to your desperate appeal?
XXXV
In anguish of the heart's remorse,
his hand squeezing the pistol,
at Lenski Eugene looks.
4 “Well, what — he's dead,” pronounced the neighbor.
Dead!... With this dreadful interjection
smitten, Onegin with a shudder
walks hence and calls his men.
8 Zaretski carefully lays on the sleigh
the frozen corpse;
home he is driving the dread lading.
Sensing the corpse,
12 the horses snort and jib,
with white foam wetting the steel bit,
and like an arrow off they fly.
XXXVI
My friends, you're sorry for the poet:
in the bloom of glad hopes,
not having yet fulfilled them for the world,
4 scarce out of infant clothes,
withered! Where is the ardent stir,
the noble aspiration
of young emotions and young thoughts,
8 exalted, tender, bold?
Where are love's turbulent desires,
the thirst for knowledges and work,
the dread of vice and shame,
12 and you, fond musings,
you, [token] of unearthly life,
you, dreams of sacred poetry!
XXXVII
Perhaps, for the world's good
or, at the least, for glory he was born;
his silenced lyre might have aroused
4 a resonant, uninterrupted ringing
throughout the ages. There awaited
the poet, on the stairway of the world,
perhaps, a lofty stair.
8 His martyred shade has carried
away with him, perhaps,
a sacred mystery, and for us
dead is a life-creating voice,
12 and to his shade beyond the tomb's confines
will not rush up the hymn of races,
the blessing of the ages.
XXXIX
And then again: perhaps,
an ordinary lot awaited
the poet. Years of youth would have elapsed:
4 in him the soul's fire would have cooled.
He would have changed in many ways,
have parted with the Muses, married,
up in the country, happy and cornute,
8 have worn a quilted dressing gown;
learned life in its reality,
at forty, had the gout,
drunk, eaten, moped, got fat, decayed,
12 and in his bed, at last,
died in the midst of children,
weepy females, and medicos.
XL
But, reader, be it as it may,
alas, the young lover, the poet,
the pensive dreamer, has been killed
4 by a friend's hand!
There is a spot: left of the village
where inspiration's nursling dwelt,
two pine trees grow, united at the roots;
8 beneath them have meandered streamlets
of the neighboring valley's brook.
'Tis there the plowman likes to rest
and women reapers come to dip
12 their ringing pitchers in the waves;
there, by the brook, in the dense shade
a simple monument is set.
XLI
Beneath it (as begins to drip
spring rain upon the herb of fields)
the herdsman, plaiting his pied shoe of bast,
4 sings of the Volga fishermen;
and the young townswoman who spends
the summer in the country,
when headlong on horseback, alone,
8 she scours the fields,
before it halts her steed,
tightening the leathern rein;
and, turning up the gauze veil of her hat,
12 she reads with skimming eyes
the plain inscription — and a tear
dims her soft eyes.
XLII
And at a walk she rides in open champaign,
sunk in a reverie;
a long time, willy-nilly,
4 her soul is full of Lenski's fate;
and she reflects: “What has become of Olga?
Did her heart suffer long?
Or did the season of her tears soon pass?
8 And where's her sister now? And where, that shunner
of people and the world,
of modish belles the modish foe,
where's that begloomed eccentric,
12 the slayer of the youthful poet?”
In due time I shall give you an account
in detail about everything.
XLIII
But not now. Though with all my heart
I love my hero;
though I'll return to him, of course;
4 but now I am not in the mood for him.
The years to austere prose incline,
the years chase pranksome rhyme away,
and I — with a sigh I confess —
8 more indolently dangle after her.
My pen has not its ancient disposition
to mar with scribblings fleeting leaves;
other chill dreams,
12 other stern cares,
both in the social hum and in the still
disturb my soul's sleep.
XLIV
I have learned the voice of other desires,
I've come to know new sadness;
I have no expectations for the first,
4 and the old sadness I regret.
Dreams, dreams! Where is your dulcitude?
Where is (its stock rhyme) juventude?
Can it be really true
8 that withered, withered is at last its garland?
Can it be true that really and indeed,
without elegiac conceits,
the springtime of my days is fled
12 (as I in jest kept saying hitherto),
and has it truly no return?
Can it be true that I'll be thirty soon?
XLV
So! My noontide is come, and this
I must, I see, admit.
But, anyway, as friends let's part,
4 O my light youth!
My thanks for the delights,
the melancholy, the dear torments,
the hum, the storms, the feasts,
8 for all, for all your gifts
my thanks to you. In you
amidst turmoils and in the stillness
I have delighted... and in full.
12 Enough! With a clear soul
I now set out on a new course
to rest from my old life.
XLVI
Let me glance back. Farewell now, coverts
where in the backwoods flowed my days,
fulfilled with passions and with indolence
4 and with the dreamings of a pensive soul.
And you, young inspiration,
stir my imagination,
the slumber of the heart enliven,
8 into my nook more often fly,
let not a poet's soul grow cold,
callous, crust-dry,
and finally be turned to stone
12 in the World's deadening intoxication
in that slough where with you
I bathe, dear friends!40
CHAPTER SEVEN
Moscow! Russia's favorite daughter!
Where is your equal to be found?
How not to love one's native Moscow?
“Reviling Moscow! This is what
comes from seeing the world! Where is it better, then?”
“Where we are not.”
I
Chased by the vernal beams,
down the surrounding hills the snows already
have run in turbid streams
4 onto the inundated fields.
With a serene smile, nature
greets through her sleep the morning of the year.
Bluing, the heavens shine.
8 The yet transparent woods
as if with down are greening.
The bee flies from her waxen cell
after the tribute of the field.
12 The dales grow dry and varicolored.
The herds are noisy, and the nightingale
has sung already in the hush of nights.
II
How sad your apparition is to me,
spring, spring, season of love!
What a dark stir there is
4 in my soul, in my blood!
With what oppressive tenderness
I revel in the whiff
of spring fanning my face
8 in the lap of the rural stillness!
Or is enjoyment strange to me,
and all that gladdens, animates,
all that exults and gleams,
12 casts spleen and languishment
upon a soul long dead
and all looks dark to it?
III
Or gladdened not by the return
of leaves that perished in the autumn,
a bitter loss we recollect,
4 harking to the new murmur of the woods;
or with reanimated nature we
compare in troubled thought
the withering of our years,
8 for which there is no renovation?
Perhaps there comes into our thoughts,
midst a poetical reverie,
some other ancient spring,
12 which sets our heart aquiver
with the dream of a distant clime,
a marvelous night, a moon....
IV
Now is the time: good lazybones,
epicurean sages; you,
equanimous fortunates;
4 you, fledglings of the Lyóvshin41 school;
you, country Priams;
and sentimental ladies, you;
spring calls you to the country,
8 season of warmth, of flowers, of labors,
of inspired rambles,
and of seductive nights.
Friends! to the fields, quick, quick;
12 in heavy loaden chariots;
with your own horses or with posters;
out of the towngates start to trek!
V
And you, indulgent reader,
in your imported calash, leave
the indefatigable city
4 where in the winter you caroused;
let's go with my capricious Muse
to hear the murmur of a park
above a nameless river, in the country place,
8 where my Eugene, an idle and despondent
recluse, but recently
dwelt in the winter, in the neighborhood
of youthful Tanya,
12 of my dear dreamer;
but where he is no longer now...
where a sad trace he left.
VI
'Mid hills disposed in a half circle,
let us go thither where a rill,
winding, by way of a green meadow,
4 runs to the river through a linden bosquet.
The nightingale, spring's lover,
sings there all night; the cinnamon rose
blooms, and the babble of the fount is heard.
8 There a tombstone is seen
in the shade of two ancient pines.
The scripture to the stranger says:
“Here lies Vladimir Lenski,
12 who early died the death of the courageous,
in such a year, at such an age.
Repose, boy poet!”
VII
On the inclined bough of a pine,
time was, the early breeze
above that humble urn
4 swayed a mysterious wreath;
time was, during late leisures,
two girl companions hither used to come;
and, by the moon, upon the grave,
8 embraced, they wept;
but now... the drear memorial is
forgot. The wonted trail to it,
weed-choked. No wreath is on the bough.
12 Alone, beneath it, gray and feeble,
the herdsman as before keeps singing
and plaiting his poor footgear.
X
My poor Lenski! Pining away,
she did not weep for long.
Alas! The young fiancée
4 is to her woe untrue.
Another ravished her attention,
another managed with love's flattery
to lull to sleep her suffering:
8 an uhlan knew how to enthrall her,
an uhlan by her soul is loved;
and lo! with him already at the altar
she modestly beneath the bridal crown
12 stands with bent head,
fire in her lowered eyes,
a light smile on her lips.
XI
My poor Lenski! Beyond the grave,
in the confines of deaf eternity,
was the despondent bard perturbed
4 by the fell news of the betrayal?
Or on the Lethe lulled to sleep,
blest with insensibility, the poet
no longer is perturbed by anything,
8 and closed and mute is earth to him?...
'Tis so! Indifferent oblivion
beyond the sepulcher awaits us.
The voice of foes, of friends, of loves abruptly
12 falls silent. Only over the estate
the angry chorus of the heirs
starts an indecent squabble.
XII
And soon the ringing voice of Olya
was in the Larin family stilled.
A captive of his lot, the uhlan
4 had to rejoin his regiment with her.
Bitterly shedding floods of tears,
the old dame, as she took leave of her daughter,
seemed scarce alive,
8 but Tanya could not cry;
only a deadly pallor covered
her melancholy face.
When everybody came out on the porch,
12 and one and all, taking leave, bustled
around the chariot of the newly wed,
Tatiana saw them off.
XIII
And long did she, as through a mist,
gaze after them...
And now Tatiana is alone, alone!
4 Alas! Companion of so many years,
her youthful doveling,
her own dear bosom friend,
has been by fate borne far away,
8 has been from her forever separated.
She, like a shade, roams aimlessly;
now into the deserted garden looks.
Nowhere, in nothing, are there joys for her,
12 and she finds no relief
for tears suppressed,
and torn asunder is her heart.
XIV
And in the cruel solitude
stronger her passion burns,
and louder does her heart of distant
4 Onegin speak to her.
She will not see him;
she must abhor in him
the slayer of her brother;
8 the poet perished... but already none
remembers him, already to another
his promised bride has given herself.
The poet's memory has sped by
12 as smoke across an azure sky;
perhaps there are two hearts that yet
grieve for him.... Wherefore grieve?
XV
'Twas evening. The sky darkened. Waters
streamed quietly. The beetle churred.
The choral throngs already were dispersing.
4 Across the river, smoking, glowed already
the fire of fishermen. In open country
by the moon's silvery light,
sunk in her dreams,
8 long did Tatiana walk alone. She walked,
she walked. And suddenly before her from a hill
she sees a manor house, a village,
a grove below hill, and a garden
12 above a luminous river.
She gazes, and the heart in her
faster and harder has begun to beat.
XVI
Doubts trouble her:
“Shall I go on? Shall I go back?... He is not here.
They do not know me.... I shall glance
4 at the house, at that garden.”
And so downhill Tatiana walks,
scarce breathing; casts around
a gaze full of perplexity...
8 and enters a deserted courtyard.
Dogs toward her
dash, barking… At her frightened cry
a household brood of serf boys
12 has noisily converged. Not without fighting
the boys dispersed the hounds,
taking the lady under their protection.
XVII
“I wonder, can one see the master house?”
asked Tanya. Speedily
the children to Anisia ran
4 to get the hallway keys from her.
Anisia came forth to her promptly, and the door
before them opened,
and Tanya stepped into the empty house,
8 where recently our hero had been living.
She looked: in the reception room forgotten,
a cue reposed upon the billiard table;
upon a rumpled sofa lay
12 a riding crop. Tanya went on.
The old crone said to her: “And here's the fireplace;
here master used to sit alone.
XVIII
“Here in the winter the late Lenski,
our neighbor, used to dine with him.
This way, please, follow me.
4 This was the master's study;
he used to sleep here, take his coffee, listen
to the steward's reports,
and in the morning read a book....
8 And the old master lived here too;
on Sundays, at this window here,
time was, donning his spectacles,
he'd deign to play ‘tomfools’ with me.
12 God grant salvation to his soul
and peace to his dear bones
in the grave, in damp mother earth!”
XIX
Tatiana looks with melting gaze
at everything around her,
and all to her seems priceless,
4 all quickens her languorous soul
with a half-painful joyance:
the desk with its extinguished lamp,
a pile of books, and at the window
8 a carpet-covered bed, and from the window
the prospect through the lunar gloom,
and this pale half-light, and Lord Byron's portrait,
and a small column
12 with a cast-iron statuette
with clouded brow under a hat,
with arms crosswise compressed.
XX
Tatiana in the modish cell
stands long as one bewitched.
But it is late. A cold wind has arisen.
4 It's dark in the dale. The grove sleeps
above the misted river;
the moon has hid behind the hill,
and it is time, high time,
8 that the young pilgrimess went home;
and Tanya, hiding her excitement,
and not without a sigh,
starts out on her way back;
12 but first she asks permission
to visit the deserted castle
so as to read books there alone.
XXI
Beyond the gate Tatiana parted
with the housekeeper. A day later,
early at morn this time, again she came
4 to the abandoned shelter,
and in the silent study, for a while
to all on earth oblivious, she
remained at last alone,
8 and long she wept.
Then to the books she turned.
At first she was not in a mood for them,
but their choice seemed to her
12 bizarre. Tatiana fell to reading
with avid soul; and there revealed itself
a different world to her.
XXII
Although we know that Eugene
had long ceased to like reading,
still, several works
4 he had exempted from disgrace:
the singer of the Giaour and Juan
and, with him, also two or three
novels in which the epoch is reflected
8 and modern man
rather correctly represented
with his immoral soul,
selfish and dry,
12 to dreaming measurelessly given,
with his embittered mind
boiling in empty action.
XXIII
Many pages preserved
the trenchant mark of fingernails;
the eyes of the attentive maiden
4 are fixed on them more eagerly.
Tatiana sees with trepidation
by what thought, observation
Onegin would be struck,
8 what he agreed with tacitly.
The dashes of his pencil she
encounters in their margins.
Unconsciously Onegin's soul
12 has everywhere expressed itself —
now by a succinct word, now by a cross,
now by an interrogatory crotchet.
XXIV
And my Tatiana by degrees
begins to understand
more clearly now — thank God —
4 him for whom by imperious fate
she is sentenced to sigh.
A sad and dangerous eccentric,
creature of hell or heaven,
8 this angel, this proud fiend, what, then, is he?
Can it be, he's an imitation,
an insignificant phantasm, or else
a Muscovite in Harold's mantle,
12 a glossary of alien vagaries,
a complete lexicon of words in vogue?...
Might he not be, in fact, a parody?
XXV
Can she have solved the riddle?
Can “the word” have been found?
The hours run; she has forgotten
4 that she is long due home —
where two neighbors have got together,
and where the talk is about her.
“What should one do? Tatiana is no infant,”
8 quoth the old lady with a groan.
“Why, Olinka is younger.... It is time,
yea, yea, the maiden were established;
but then — what can I do with her?
12 She turns down everybody with the same
curt ‘I'll not marry,’ and keeps brooding,
and wanders in the woods alone.”
XXVI
“Might she not be in love?” “With whom, then?
Buyánov offered: was rejected.
Same thing with Ivan Petushkóv.
4 There guested with us a hussar, Pïhtín;
oh my, how sweet he was on Tanya,
how he bestirred himself, the coax!
Thought I: perchance, she will accept;
8 far from it! And again the deal was off.”
“Why, my dear lady, what's the hindrance?
To Moscow, to the mart of brides!
One hears, the vacant places there are many.”
12 “Och, my good sir! My income's scanty.”
“Sufficient for a single winter;
if not, just borrow — say, from me.”
XXVII
Much did the old dame like
the sensible and sound advice;
she checked accounts — and there and then decided
4 in winter to set out for Moscow;
and Tanya hears this news....
Unto the judgment
of the exacting beau monde to present
8 the clear traits of provincial
simplicity, and antiquated finery,
and antiquated turns of speech;
the mocking glances
12 of Moscow fops and Circes to attract....
O terror! No, better and safer,
back in the woods for her to stay.
XXVIII
With the first rays arising
she hastens now into the fields
and, with soft-melting eyes
4 surveying them, she says:
“Farewell, pacific dales,
and you, familiar hilltops,
and you, familiar woods!
8 Farewell, celestial beauty,
farewell, glad nature!
I am exchanging a dear quiet world
for the hum of resplendent vanities!...
12 And you, my freedom, farewell, too!
Whither, wherefore, do I bear onward?
What does my fate hold out for me?”
XXIX
Her walks last longer.
At present, here a hillock, there a brook,
cannot help stopping
4 Tatiana with their charm.
She, as with ancient friends,
with her groves, meadows,
still hastens to converse.
8 But the fleet summer flies.
The golden autumn has arrived.
Nature, tremulous, pale,
is like a victim richly decked....
12 Now, driving clouds along, the North
has blown, has howled, and now herself
Winter the sorceress comes.
XXX
She came, scattered herself; in flocks
hung on the limbs of oaks;
in wavy carpets lay
4 amid the fields, about the hills;
the banks with the immobile river
made level with a puffy pall.
Frost gleamed. And we are gladdened
8 by Mother Winter's pranks.
By them not gladdened is but Tanya's heart:
she does not go to meet the winter,
inhale the frostdust,
12 and with the first snow from the bathhouse roof
wash face, shoulders, and breast.
Tatiana dreads the winter way.
XXXI
The day of leaving is long overdue;
the last term now goes by. Inspected,
relined, made solid is the sledded coach
4 that to oblivion had been cast.
The usual train of three kibitkas
carries the household chattels:
pans, chairs, trunks, jams in jars,
8 mattresses, feather beds,
cages with roosters, pots,
basins, et cetera —
well, plenty of all kinds of goods.
12 And now, among the servants in the log hut,
a hubbub rises, farewell weeping:
into the courtyard eighteen nags are led.
XXXII
They to the master coach are harnessed;
men cooks prepare lunch; the kibitkas
are loaded mountain-high;
4 serf women, coachmen brawl.
Upon a lean and shaggy jade a bearded
postilion sits. Retainers at the gate
have gathered, running,
8 to bid their mistresses farewell. And now
they've settled, and the venerable sleigh-coach
beyond the gate creeps, gliding.
“Farewell, pacific sites!
12 Farewell, secluded refuge!
Shall I see you?” And from the eyes
of Tanya flows a stream of tears.
XXXIII
When we the boundaries of beneficial
enlightenment move farther out,
in due time (by the computation
4 of philosophic tabulae,
in some five hundred years) roads, surely,
at home will change immeasurably.
Paved highways at this point and that
8 uniting Russia will traverse her;
cast-iron bridges o'er the waters
in ample arcs will stride;
we shall part mountains; under water
12 dig daring tunnels;
and Christendom will institute
at every stage a tavern.
XXXIV
The roads at home are bad at present;42
forgotten bridges rot;
at stages the bedbugs and fleas
4 do not give one a minute's sleep.
No taverns. In a cold log hut
there hangs for show a highfalutin
but meager bill of fare, and teases
8 one's futile appetite,
while the rural Cyclopes
in front of a slow fire
treat with a Russian hammer
12 Europe's light article,
blessing the ruts
and ditches of the fatherland.
XXXV
Now, on the other hand, driving in winter's
cold season is agreeable and easy.
As in a modish song a verse devoid of thought,
4 smooth is the winter track.
Alert are our Automedons,
our troikas never tire,
and mileposts, humoring the idle gaze,
8 before one's eyes flick like a fence.43
Unluckily, Dame Larin dragged along,
fearing expensive stages,
with her own horses, not with posters,
12 and our maid tasted
viatic tedium in full:
they traveled seven days and nights.
XXXVI
But now 'tis near. Before them
the ancient tops of white-stone Moscow
already glow
4 with golden crosses, ember-bright.
Ah, chums, how pleased I was
when, all at once, the hemicircle
of churches and of belfries,
8 of gardens, domes, opened before me!
How often during woeful separation,
in my wandering fate,
Moscow, I thought of you!
12 Moscow!... How much within that sound
is blended for a Russian heart!
How much is echoed there!
XXXVII
Here is, surrounded by its park,
Petrovskiy Castle. Somberly
it prides itself on recent glory.
4 In vain Napoleon, intoxicated
with his last fortune, waited
for kneeling Moscow with the keys
of the old Kremlin: no,
8 to him my Moscow did not go
with craven brow;
not revelry, not gifts of bienvenue —
a conflagration she prepared
12 for the impatient hero.
From here, in meditation sunk,
he watched the formidable flame.
XXXVIII
Good-by, witness of fallen glory,
Petrovskiy Castle. Hup! Don't stop,
get on! The turnpike posts already
4 show white. Along Tverskaya Street
the coach now hies across the dips.
There flicker by: watch boxes, peasant women,
urchins, shops, street lamps,
8 palaces, gardens, monasteries,
Bokharans, sledges, kitchen gardens,
merchants, small shacks, muzhiks,
boulevards, towers, Cossacks,
12 pharmacies, fashion shops,
balconies, lions on the gates,
and flocks of jackdaws on the crosses.
XL
In this exhausting promenade
an hour elapses, then another,
and in a lane hard by St. Chariton's
4 the sleigh-coach at a gate before a house
now stops. To an old aunt,
for the fourth year ill with consumption,
at present they have come.
8 The door is opened wide for them
by a bespectacled gray Kalmuk,
in torn caftan, a stocking in his hand.
There meets them in the drawing room
12 the cry of the princess
on a divan prostrated. The old ladies,
weeping, embrace, and exclamations pour:
XLI
“Princess, mon ange!” “Pachette!” “Aline!”
“Who would have thought?” “How long it's been!”
“For how much time?” “Dear! Cousin!”
4 “Sit down — how queer it is!
I'd swear the scene is from a novel!”
“And this is my daughter Tatiana.”
“Ah, Tanya! Come up here to me —
8 I seem to be delirious in my sleep.
Coz, you remember Grandison?”
“What, Grandison? Oh, Grandison!
Why, yes, I do, I do. Well, where is he?”
12 “In Moscow — dwelling by St. Simeon's;
on Christmas Eve he called on me:
got a son married recently.
XLII
“As to the other... But we'll tell it all
later, won't we? To all her kin
straightway tomorrow we'll show Tanya.
4 Pity that paying visits is for me
too much — can hardly drag my feet.
But you are worn out from the journey;
let's go and have a rest together...
8 Oh, I've no strength... my chest is tired...
now even joy, not only woe,
oppressive is to me. My dear,
I am already good for nothing...
12 When one starts getting old, life is so horrid.”
And here, exhausted utterly,
in tears, she broke into a coughing fit.
XLIII
The invalid's kindness and gladness touch
Tatiana; but in her
new domicile she's ill at ease,
4 used as she is to her own chamber.
Beneath a silken curtain,
in a new bed sleep does not come to her,
and the early peal of church bells,
8 forerunner of the morning tasks,
arouses her from bed.
Tanya sits down beside the window.
The darkness thins; but she
12 does not discern her fields:
there is before her a strange yard,
a stable, kitchen house, and fence.
XLIV
And now, on rounds of family dinners
Tanya they trundle daily to present
to grandsires and to grandams
4 her abstract indolence.
For kin come from afar
there's everywhere a kind reception,
and exclamations, and good cheer.
8 “How Tanya's grown! Such a short while
it seems since I godmothered you!”
“And since I bore you in my arms!”
“And since I pulled you by the ears!”
12 “And since I fed you gingerbread!”
And the grandmothers keep repeating
in chorus: “How our years do fly!”
XLV
But one can see no change in them;
in them all follows the old pattern:
the spinster princess, Aunt Eléna,
4 has got the very same tulle mob;
still cerused is Lukéria Lvóvna;
the same lies tells Lyubóv Petróvna;
Iván Petróvich is as stupid;
8 Semyón Petróvich as tightfisted;
and Palagéya Nikolávna
has the same friend, Monsieur Finemouche,
and the same spitz, and the same husband —
12 while he is still the sedulous clubman,
is just as meek, is just as deaf,
still eats and drinks enough for two.
XLVI
Their daughters embrace Tanya.
Moscow's young graces
at first in silence
4 from head to foot survey Tatiana;
find her somewhat bizarre,
provincial, and affected,
and somewhat pale and thin,
8 but on the whole not bad at all;
then, to nature submitting, they
befriend her, lead her to their rooms,
kiss her, squeeze tenderly her hands,
12 fluff up her curls after the fashion,
and in their singsong tones impart
the secrets of the heart, secrets of maidens,
XLVII
conquests of others and their own,
hopes, pranks, daydreams.
The innocent talks flow,
4 embellished with slight calumny.
Then, in requital for their patter,
her heart's confession they
sweetly request.
8 But Tanya in a kind of daze
their speeches hears without response,
understands nothing,
and her heart's secret,
12 fond treasure of both tears and bliss,
she mutely guards meantime
and shares with none.
XLVIII
Tatiana wishes to make out
the talks, the general conversation;
but there engages everybody in the drawing room
4 such incoherent, common rot;
all about them is so pale, neutral;
they even slander dully.
In this sterile aridity of speeches,
8 interrogations, talebearing, and news,
not once in four-and-twenty hours does thought
flash forth, even by chance, even at random;
the languid mind won't smile,
12 the heart even in jest won't quiver;
and even some droll foolishness in you
one will not meet with, hollow monde!
XLIX
The “archival youths” in a crowd
look priggishly at Tanya
and about her among themselves
4 unfavorably speak.
One melancholy coxcomb finds
she is “ideal”
and, leaning 'gainst a doorpost,
8 prepares an elegy for her.
At a dull aunt's having met Tanya,
once V[yazemski] sat down beside her
and managed to engage her soul;
12 and, near him having noticed her,
an old man, straightening his wig,
inquires about her.
L
But where stormy Melpomene's
protracted wail resounds,
where she her spangled mantle waves
4 before the frigid crowd;
where dozes quietly Thalia
and hearkens not to friendly plaudits;
where at Terpsichore alone
8 the young spectator marvels
(as it was, too, in former years,
in your time and in mine),
toward her did not turn
12 either jealous lorgnettes of ladies
or spyglasses of modish connoisseurs
from boxes or the rows of stalls.
LI
To the Sobránie, too, they bring her:
the crush there, the excitement, heat,
the music's crash, the tapers' glare,
4 the flicker, whirl of rapid pairs,
the light attires of belles,
the galleries freaked with people,
of marriageable girls the ample hemicycle,
8 at once strike all the senses.
Here finished fops display
their impudence, their waistcoats,
and negligent lorgnettes.
12 Hither hussars on leave
haste to arrive, to thunder by,
flash, captivate, and wing away.
LII
The night has many charming stars,
in Moscow there are many belles;
but brighter in the airy blue
4 than all her skymates is the moon;
but she, whom with my lyre
disturb I dare not,
like the majestic moon,
8 'mid dames and maidens shines alone.
With what celestial pride
the earth she touches!
With what voluptuousness her breast is filled!
12 How languorous her wondrous gaze!...
But 'tis enough, enough; do cease:
to folly you have paid your due.
LIII
Noise, laughter, scampering, bows,
galope, mazurka, waltz... Meantime,
between two aunts, beside a column,
4 noted by none,
Tatiana looks and does not see,
detests the agitation of the monde;
she stifles here... she strains in fancy
8 toward campestral life,
the country, the poor villagers,
to that secluded nook
where flows a limpid brooklet,
12 toward her flowers, toward her novels,
and to the gloom of linden avenues,
thither where he used to appear to her
LIV
Thus does her thought roam far away:
high life and noisy ball are both forgotten,
but meantime does not take his eyes off her
4 a certain imposing general.
The aunts exchanged a wink and both
as one nudged Tanya with their elbows,
and each whispered to her:
8 “Look quickly to your left.”
“My left? Where? What is there?”
“Well, whatsoever there be, look....
In that group, see? In front....
12 There where you see those two in uniform....
Now he has moved off... now he stands in profile.”
“Who? That fat general?”
LV
But here we shall congratulate
my dear Tatiana on a conquest
and turn our course aside,
4 lest I forget of whom I sing....
And by the way, here are two words about it:
“I sing a youthful pal
and many eccentricities of his.
8 Bless my long labor,
O you, Muse of the Epic!
And having handed me a trusty staff,
let me not wander aslant and askew.”
12 Enough! The load come off my shoulders!
To classicism I have paid my respects:
though late, but there's an introduction.
Moscow! Russia's favorite daughter!
Where is your equal to be found?
How not to love one's native Moscow?
“Reviling Moscow! This is what
comes from seeing the world! Where is it better, then?”
“Where we are not.”
I
Chased by the vernal beams,
down the surrounding hills the snows already
have run in turbid streams
4 onto the inundated fields.
With a serene smile, nature
greets through her sleep the morning of the year.
Bluing, the heavens shine.
8 The yet transparent woods
as if with down are greening.
The bee flies from her waxen cell
after the tribute of the field.
12 The dales grow dry and varicolored.
The herds are noisy, and the nightingale
has sung already in the hush of nights.
II
How sad your apparition is to me,
spring, spring, season of love!
What a dark stir there is
4 in my soul, in my blood!
With what oppressive tenderness
I revel in the whiff
of spring fanning my face
8 in the lap of the rural stillness!
Or is enjoyment strange to me,
and all that gladdens, animates,
all that exults and gleams,
12 casts spleen and languishment
upon a soul long dead
and all looks dark to it?
III
Or gladdened not by the return
of leaves that perished in the autumn,
a bitter loss we recollect,
4 harking to the new murmur of the woods;
or with reanimated nature we
compare in troubled thought
the withering of our years,
8 for which there is no renovation?
Perhaps there comes into our thoughts,
midst a poetical reverie,
some other ancient spring,
12 which sets our heart aquiver
with the dream of a distant clime,
a marvelous night, a moon....
IV
Now is the time: good lazybones,
epicurean sages; you,
equanimous fortunates;
4 you, fledglings of the Lyóvshin41 school;
you, country Priams;
and sentimental ladies, you;
spring calls you to the country,
8 season of warmth, of flowers, of labors,
of inspired rambles,
and of seductive nights.
Friends! to the fields, quick, quick;
12 in heavy loaden chariots;
with your own horses or with posters;
out of the towngates start to trek!
V
And you, indulgent reader,
in your imported calash, leave
the indefatigable city
4 where in the winter you caroused;
let's go with my capricious Muse
to hear the murmur of a park
above a nameless river, in the country place,
8 where my Eugene, an idle and despondent
recluse, but recently
dwelt in the winter, in the neighborhood
of youthful Tanya,
12 of my dear dreamer;
but where he is no longer now...
where a sad trace he left.
VI
'Mid hills disposed in a half circle,
let us go thither where a rill,
winding, by way of a green meadow,
4 runs to the river through a linden bosquet.
The nightingale, spring's lover,
sings there all night; the cinnamon rose
blooms, and the babble of the fount is heard.
8 There a tombstone is seen
in the shade of two ancient pines.
The scripture to the stranger says:
“Here lies Vladimir Lenski,
12 who early died the death of the courageous,
in such a year, at such an age.
Repose, boy poet!”
VII
On the inclined bough of a pine,
time was, the early breeze
above that humble urn
4 swayed a mysterious wreath;
time was, during late leisures,
two girl companions hither used to come;
and, by the moon, upon the grave,
8 embraced, they wept;
but now... the drear memorial is
forgot. The wonted trail to it,
weed-choked. No wreath is on the bough.
12 Alone, beneath it, gray and feeble,
the herdsman as before keeps singing
and plaiting his poor footgear.
X
My poor Lenski! Pining away,
she did not weep for long.
Alas! The young fiancée
4 is to her woe untrue.
Another ravished her attention,
another managed with love's flattery
to lull to sleep her suffering:
8 an uhlan knew how to enthrall her,
an uhlan by her soul is loved;
and lo! with him already at the altar
she modestly beneath the bridal crown
12 stands with bent head,
fire in her lowered eyes,
a light smile on her lips.
XI
My poor Lenski! Beyond the grave,
in the confines of deaf eternity,
was the despondent bard perturbed
4 by the fell news of the betrayal?
Or on the Lethe lulled to sleep,
blest with insensibility, the poet
no longer is perturbed by anything,
8 and closed and mute is earth to him?...
'Tis so! Indifferent oblivion
beyond the sepulcher awaits us.
The voice of foes, of friends, of loves abruptly
12 falls silent. Only over the estate
the angry chorus of the heirs
starts an indecent squabble.
XII
And soon the ringing voice of Olya
was in the Larin family stilled.
A captive of his lot, the uhlan
4 had to rejoin his regiment with her.
Bitterly shedding floods of tears,
the old dame, as she took leave of her daughter,
seemed scarce alive,
8 but Tanya could not cry;
only a deadly pallor covered
her melancholy face.
When everybody came out on the porch,
12 and one and all, taking leave, bustled
around the chariot of the newly wed,
Tatiana saw them off.
XIII
And long did she, as through a mist,
gaze after them...
And now Tatiana is alone, alone!
4 Alas! Companion of so many years,
her youthful doveling,
her own dear bosom friend,
has been by fate borne far away,
8 has been from her forever separated.
She, like a shade, roams aimlessly;
now into the deserted garden looks.
Nowhere, in nothing, are there joys for her,
12 and she finds no relief
for tears suppressed,
and torn asunder is her heart.
XIV
And in the cruel solitude
stronger her passion burns,
and louder does her heart of distant
4 Onegin speak to her.
She will not see him;
she must abhor in him
the slayer of her brother;
8 the poet perished... but already none
remembers him, already to another
his promised bride has given herself.
The poet's memory has sped by
12 as smoke across an azure sky;
perhaps there are two hearts that yet
grieve for him.... Wherefore grieve?
XV
'Twas evening. The sky darkened. Waters
streamed quietly. The beetle churred.
The choral throngs already were dispersing.
4 Across the river, smoking, glowed already
the fire of fishermen. In open country
by the moon's silvery light,
sunk in her dreams,
8 long did Tatiana walk alone. She walked,
she walked. And suddenly before her from a hill
she sees a manor house, a village,
a grove below hill, and a garden
12 above a luminous river.
She gazes, and the heart in her
faster and harder has begun to beat.
XVI
Doubts trouble her:
“Shall I go on? Shall I go back?... He is not here.
They do not know me.... I shall glance
4 at the house, at that garden.”
And so downhill Tatiana walks,
scarce breathing; casts around
a gaze full of perplexity...
8 and enters a deserted courtyard.
Dogs toward her
dash, barking… At her frightened cry
a household brood of serf boys
12 has noisily converged. Not without fighting
the boys dispersed the hounds,
taking the lady under their protection.
XVII
“I wonder, can one see the master house?”
asked Tanya. Speedily
the children to Anisia ran
4 to get the hallway keys from her.
Anisia came forth to her promptly, and the door
before them opened,
and Tanya stepped into the empty house,
8 where recently our hero had been living.
She looked: in the reception room forgotten,
a cue reposed upon the billiard table;
upon a rumpled sofa lay
12 a riding crop. Tanya went on.
The old crone said to her: “And here's the fireplace;
here master used to sit alone.
XVIII
“Here in the winter the late Lenski,
our neighbor, used to dine with him.
This way, please, follow me.
4 This was the master's study;
he used to sleep here, take his coffee, listen
to the steward's reports,
and in the morning read a book....
8 And the old master lived here too;
on Sundays, at this window here,
time was, donning his spectacles,
he'd deign to play ‘tomfools’ with me.
12 God grant salvation to his soul
and peace to his dear bones
in the grave, in damp mother earth!”
XIX
Tatiana looks with melting gaze
at everything around her,
and all to her seems priceless,
4 all quickens her languorous soul
with a half-painful joyance:
the desk with its extinguished lamp,
a pile of books, and at the window
8 a carpet-covered bed, and from the window
the prospect through the lunar gloom,
and this pale half-light, and Lord Byron's portrait,
and a small column
12 with a cast-iron statuette
with clouded brow under a hat,
with arms crosswise compressed.
XX
Tatiana in the modish cell
stands long as one bewitched.
But it is late. A cold wind has arisen.
4 It's dark in the dale. The grove sleeps
above the misted river;
the moon has hid behind the hill,
and it is time, high time,
8 that the young pilgrimess went home;
and Tanya, hiding her excitement,
and not without a sigh,
starts out on her way back;
12 but first she asks permission
to visit the deserted castle
so as to read books there alone.
XXI
Beyond the gate Tatiana parted
with the housekeeper. A day later,
early at morn this time, again she came
4 to the abandoned shelter,
and in the silent study, for a while
to all on earth oblivious, she
remained at last alone,
8 and long she wept.
Then to the books she turned.
At first she was not in a mood for them,
but their choice seemed to her
12 bizarre. Tatiana fell to reading
with avid soul; and there revealed itself
a different world to her.
XXII
Although we know that Eugene
had long ceased to like reading,
still, several works
4 he had exempted from disgrace:
the singer of the Giaour and Juan
and, with him, also two or three
novels in which the epoch is reflected
8 and modern man
rather correctly represented
with his immoral soul,
selfish and dry,
12 to dreaming measurelessly given,
with his embittered mind
boiling in empty action.
XXIII
Many pages preserved
the trenchant mark of fingernails;
the eyes of the attentive maiden
4 are fixed on them more eagerly.
Tatiana sees with trepidation
by what thought, observation
Onegin would be struck,
8 what he agreed with tacitly.
The dashes of his pencil she
encounters in their margins.
Unconsciously Onegin's soul
12 has everywhere expressed itself —
now by a succinct word, now by a cross,
now by an interrogatory crotchet.
XXIV
And my Tatiana by degrees
begins to understand
more clearly now — thank God —
4 him for whom by imperious fate
she is sentenced to sigh.
A sad and dangerous eccentric,
creature of hell or heaven,
8 this angel, this proud fiend, what, then, is he?
Can it be, he's an imitation,
an insignificant phantasm, or else
a Muscovite in Harold's mantle,
12 a glossary of alien vagaries,
a complete lexicon of words in vogue?...
Might he not be, in fact, a parody?
XXV
Can she have solved the riddle?
Can “the word” have been found?
The hours run; she has forgotten
4 that she is long due home —
where two neighbors have got together,
and where the talk is about her.
“What should one do? Tatiana is no infant,”
8 quoth the old lady with a groan.
“Why, Olinka is younger.... It is time,
yea, yea, the maiden were established;
but then — what can I do with her?
12 She turns down everybody with the same
curt ‘I'll not marry,’ and keeps brooding,
and wanders in the woods alone.”
XXVI
“Might she not be in love?” “With whom, then?
Buyánov offered: was rejected.
Same thing with Ivan Petushkóv.
4 There guested with us a hussar, Pïhtín;
oh my, how sweet he was on Tanya,
how he bestirred himself, the coax!
Thought I: perchance, she will accept;
8 far from it! And again the deal was off.”
“Why, my dear lady, what's the hindrance?
To Moscow, to the mart of brides!
One hears, the vacant places there are many.”
12 “Och, my good sir! My income's scanty.”
“Sufficient for a single winter;
if not, just borrow — say, from me.”
XXVII
Much did the old dame like
the sensible and sound advice;
she checked accounts — and there and then decided
4 in winter to set out for Moscow;
and Tanya hears this news....
Unto the judgment
of the exacting beau monde to present
8 the clear traits of provincial
simplicity, and antiquated finery,
and antiquated turns of speech;
the mocking glances
12 of Moscow fops and Circes to attract....
O terror! No, better and safer,
back in the woods for her to stay.
XXVIII
With the first rays arising
she hastens now into the fields
and, with soft-melting eyes
4 surveying them, she says:
“Farewell, pacific dales,
and you, familiar hilltops,
and you, familiar woods!
8 Farewell, celestial beauty,
farewell, glad nature!
I am exchanging a dear quiet world
for the hum of resplendent vanities!...
12 And you, my freedom, farewell, too!
Whither, wherefore, do I bear onward?
What does my fate hold out for me?”
XXIX
Her walks last longer.
At present, here a hillock, there a brook,
cannot help stopping
4 Tatiana with their charm.
She, as with ancient friends,
with her groves, meadows,
still hastens to converse.
8 But the fleet summer flies.
The golden autumn has arrived.
Nature, tremulous, pale,
is like a victim richly decked....
12 Now, driving clouds along, the North
has blown, has howled, and now herself
Winter the sorceress comes.
XXX
She came, scattered herself; in flocks
hung on the limbs of oaks;
in wavy carpets lay
4 amid the fields, about the hills;
the banks with the immobile river
made level with a puffy pall.
Frost gleamed. And we are gladdened
8 by Mother Winter's pranks.
By them not gladdened is but Tanya's heart:
she does not go to meet the winter,
inhale the frostdust,
12 and with the first snow from the bathhouse roof
wash face, shoulders, and breast.
Tatiana dreads the winter way.
XXXI
The day of leaving is long overdue;
the last term now goes by. Inspected,
relined, made solid is the sledded coach
4 that to oblivion had been cast.
The usual train of three kibitkas
carries the household chattels:
pans, chairs, trunks, jams in jars,
8 mattresses, feather beds,
cages with roosters, pots,
basins, et cetera —
well, plenty of all kinds of goods.
12 And now, among the servants in the log hut,
a hubbub rises, farewell weeping:
into the courtyard eighteen nags are led.
XXXII
They to the master coach are harnessed;
men cooks prepare lunch; the kibitkas
are loaded mountain-high;
4 serf women, coachmen brawl.
Upon a lean and shaggy jade a bearded
postilion sits. Retainers at the gate
have gathered, running,
8 to bid their mistresses farewell. And now
they've settled, and the venerable sleigh-coach
beyond the gate creeps, gliding.
“Farewell, pacific sites!
12 Farewell, secluded refuge!
Shall I see you?” And from the eyes
of Tanya flows a stream of tears.
XXXIII
When we the boundaries of beneficial
enlightenment move farther out,
in due time (by the computation
4 of philosophic tabulae,
in some five hundred years) roads, surely,
at home will change immeasurably.
Paved highways at this point and that
8 uniting Russia will traverse her;
cast-iron bridges o'er the waters
in ample arcs will stride;
we shall part mountains; under water
12 dig daring tunnels;
and Christendom will institute
at every stage a tavern.
XXXIV
The roads at home are bad at present;42
forgotten bridges rot;
at stages the bedbugs and fleas
4 do not give one a minute's sleep.
No taverns. In a cold log hut
there hangs for show a highfalutin
but meager bill of fare, and teases
8 one's futile appetite,
while the rural Cyclopes
in front of a slow fire
treat with a Russian hammer
12 Europe's light article,
blessing the ruts
and ditches of the fatherland.
XXXV
Now, on the other hand, driving in winter's
cold season is agreeable and easy.
As in a modish song a verse devoid of thought,
4 smooth is the winter track.
Alert are our Automedons,
our troikas never tire,
and mileposts, humoring the idle gaze,
8 before one's eyes flick like a fence.43
Unluckily, Dame Larin dragged along,
fearing expensive stages,
with her own horses, not with posters,
12 and our maid tasted
viatic tedium in full:
they traveled seven days and nights.
XXXVI
But now 'tis near. Before them
the ancient tops of white-stone Moscow
already glow
4 with golden crosses, ember-bright.
Ah, chums, how pleased I was
when, all at once, the hemicircle
of churches and of belfries,
8 of gardens, domes, opened before me!
How often during woeful separation,
in my wandering fate,
Moscow, I thought of you!
12 Moscow!... How much within that sound
is blended for a Russian heart!
How much is echoed there!
XXXVII
Here is, surrounded by its park,
Petrovskiy Castle. Somberly
it prides itself on recent glory.
4 In vain Napoleon, intoxicated
with his last fortune, waited
for kneeling Moscow with the keys
of the old Kremlin: no,
8 to him my Moscow did not go
with craven brow;
not revelry, not gifts of bienvenue —
a conflagration she prepared
12 for the impatient hero.
From here, in meditation sunk,
he watched the formidable flame.
XXXVIII
Good-by, witness of fallen glory,
Petrovskiy Castle. Hup! Don't stop,
get on! The turnpike posts already
4 show white. Along Tverskaya Street
the coach now hies across the dips.
There flicker by: watch boxes, peasant women,
urchins, shops, street lamps,
8 palaces, gardens, monasteries,
Bokharans, sledges, kitchen gardens,
merchants, small shacks, muzhiks,
boulevards, towers, Cossacks,
12 pharmacies, fashion shops,
balconies, lions on the gates,
and flocks of jackdaws on the crosses.
XL
In this exhausting promenade
an hour elapses, then another,
and in a lane hard by St. Chariton's
4 the sleigh-coach at a gate before a house
now stops. To an old aunt,
for the fourth year ill with consumption,
at present they have come.
8 The door is opened wide for them
by a bespectacled gray Kalmuk,
in torn caftan, a stocking in his hand.
There meets them in the drawing room
12 the cry of the princess
on a divan prostrated. The old ladies,
weeping, embrace, and exclamations pour:
XLI
“Princess, mon ange!” “Pachette!” “Aline!”
“Who would have thought?” “How long it's been!”
“For how much time?” “Dear! Cousin!”
4 “Sit down — how queer it is!
I'd swear the scene is from a novel!”
“And this is my daughter Tatiana.”
“Ah, Tanya! Come up here to me —
8 I seem to be delirious in my sleep.
Coz, you remember Grandison?”
“What, Grandison? Oh, Grandison!
Why, yes, I do, I do. Well, where is he?”
12 “In Moscow — dwelling by St. Simeon's;
on Christmas Eve he called on me:
got a son married recently.
XLII
“As to the other... But we'll tell it all
later, won't we? To all her kin
straightway tomorrow we'll show Tanya.
4 Pity that paying visits is for me
too much — can hardly drag my feet.
But you are worn out from the journey;
let's go and have a rest together...
8 Oh, I've no strength... my chest is tired...
now even joy, not only woe,
oppressive is to me. My dear,
I am already good for nothing...
12 When one starts getting old, life is so horrid.”
And here, exhausted utterly,
in tears, she broke into a coughing fit.
XLIII
The invalid's kindness and gladness touch
Tatiana; but in her
new domicile she's ill at ease,
4 used as she is to her own chamber.
Beneath a silken curtain,
in a new bed sleep does not come to her,
and the early peal of church bells,
8 forerunner of the morning tasks,
arouses her from bed.
Tanya sits down beside the window.
The darkness thins; but she
12 does not discern her fields:
there is before her a strange yard,
a stable, kitchen house, and fence.
XLIV
And now, on rounds of family dinners
Tanya they trundle daily to present
to grandsires and to grandams
4 her abstract indolence.
For kin come from afar
there's everywhere a kind reception,
and exclamations, and good cheer.
8 “How Tanya's grown! Such a short while
it seems since I godmothered you!”
“And since I bore you in my arms!”
“And since I pulled you by the ears!”
12 “And since I fed you gingerbread!”
And the grandmothers keep repeating
in chorus: “How our years do fly!”
XLV
But one can see no change in them;
in them all follows the old pattern:
the spinster princess, Aunt Eléna,
4 has got the very same tulle mob;
still cerused is Lukéria Lvóvna;
the same lies tells Lyubóv Petróvna;
Iván Petróvich is as stupid;
8 Semyón Petróvich as tightfisted;
and Palagéya Nikolávna
has the same friend, Monsieur Finemouche,
and the same spitz, and the same husband —
12 while he is still the sedulous clubman,
is just as meek, is just as deaf,
still eats and drinks enough for two.
XLVI
Their daughters embrace Tanya.
Moscow's young graces
at first in silence
4 from head to foot survey Tatiana;
find her somewhat bizarre,
provincial, and affected,
and somewhat pale and thin,
8 but on the whole not bad at all;
then, to nature submitting, they
befriend her, lead her to their rooms,
kiss her, squeeze tenderly her hands,
12 fluff up her curls after the fashion,
and in their singsong tones impart
the secrets of the heart, secrets of maidens,
XLVII
conquests of others and their own,
hopes, pranks, daydreams.
The innocent talks flow,
4 embellished with slight calumny.
Then, in requital for their patter,
her heart's confession they
sweetly request.
8 But Tanya in a kind of daze
their speeches hears without response,
understands nothing,
and her heart's secret,
12 fond treasure of both tears and bliss,
she mutely guards meantime
and shares with none.
XLVIII
Tatiana wishes to make out
the talks, the general conversation;
but there engages everybody in the drawing room
4 such incoherent, common rot;
all about them is so pale, neutral;
they even slander dully.
In this sterile aridity of speeches,
8 interrogations, talebearing, and news,
not once in four-and-twenty hours does thought
flash forth, even by chance, even at random;
the languid mind won't smile,
12 the heart even in jest won't quiver;
and even some droll foolishness in you
one will not meet with, hollow monde!
XLIX
The “archival youths” in a crowd
look priggishly at Tanya
and about her among themselves
4 unfavorably speak.
One melancholy coxcomb finds
she is “ideal”
and, leaning 'gainst a doorpost,
8 prepares an elegy for her.
At a dull aunt's having met Tanya,
once V[yazemski] sat down beside her
and managed to engage her soul;
12 and, near him having noticed her,
an old man, straightening his wig,
inquires about her.
L
But where stormy Melpomene's
protracted wail resounds,
where she her spangled mantle waves
4 before the frigid crowd;
where dozes quietly Thalia
and hearkens not to friendly plaudits;
where at Terpsichore alone
8 the young spectator marvels
(as it was, too, in former years,
in your time and in mine),
toward her did not turn
12 either jealous lorgnettes of ladies
or spyglasses of modish connoisseurs
from boxes or the rows of stalls.
LI
To the Sobránie, too, they bring her:
the crush there, the excitement, heat,
the music's crash, the tapers' glare,
4 the flicker, whirl of rapid pairs,
the light attires of belles,
the galleries freaked with people,
of marriageable girls the ample hemicycle,
8 at once strike all the senses.
Here finished fops display
their impudence, their waistcoats,
and negligent lorgnettes.
12 Hither hussars on leave
haste to arrive, to thunder by,
flash, captivate, and wing away.
LII
The night has many charming stars,
in Moscow there are many belles;
but brighter in the airy blue
4 than all her skymates is the moon;
but she, whom with my lyre
disturb I dare not,
like the majestic moon,
8 'mid dames and maidens shines alone.
With what celestial pride
the earth she touches!
With what voluptuousness her breast is filled!
12 How languorous her wondrous gaze!...
But 'tis enough, enough; do cease:
to folly you have paid your due.
LIII
Noise, laughter, scampering, bows,
galope, mazurka, waltz... Meantime,
between two aunts, beside a column,
4 noted by none,
Tatiana looks and does not see,
detests the agitation of the monde;
she stifles here... she strains in fancy
8 toward campestral life,
the country, the poor villagers,
to that secluded nook
where flows a limpid brooklet,
12 toward her flowers, toward her novels,
and to the gloom of linden avenues,
thither where he used to appear to her
LIV
Thus does her thought roam far away:
high life and noisy ball are both forgotten,
but meantime does not take his eyes off her
4 a certain imposing general.
The aunts exchanged a wink and both
as one nudged Tanya with their elbows,
and each whispered to her:
8 “Look quickly to your left.”
“My left? Where? What is there?”
“Well, whatsoever there be, look....
In that group, see? In front....
12 There where you see those two in uniform....
Now he has moved off... now he stands in profile.”
“Who? That fat general?”
LV
But here we shall congratulate
my dear Tatiana on a conquest
and turn our course aside,
4 lest I forget of whom I sing....
And by the way, here are two words about it:
“I sing a youthful pal
and many eccentricities of his.
8 Bless my long labor,
O you, Muse of the Epic!
And having handed me a trusty staff,
let me not wander aslant and askew.”
12 Enough! The load come off my shoulders!
To classicism I have paid my respects:
though late, but there's an introduction.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Fare thee well, and if for ever,
Still for ever, fare thee well.
I
In those days when in the Lyceum's gardens
I bloomed serenely,
would eagerly read Apuleius,
4 did not read Cicero;
in those days, in mysterious valleys,
in springtime, to the calls of swans,
near waters shining in the stillness,
8 the Muse began to visit me.
My student cell was all at once
radiant with light: in it the Muse
opened a banquet of young fancies,
12 sang childish gaieties,
and glory of our ancientry,
and the heart's tremulous dreams.
II
And with a smile the world received her;
the first success provided us with wings;
the aged Derzhavin noticed us — and blessed us
4 as he descended to the grave.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
12 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
III
And I, setting myself for law
only the arbitrary will of passions,
sharing emotions with the crowd,
4 I led my frisky Muse into the hubbub
of feasts and turbulent discussions —
the terror of midnight patrols;
and to them, in mad feasts,
8 she brought her gifts,
and like a little bacchante frisked,
over the bowl sang for the guests;
and the young people of past days
12 would turbulently dangle after her;
and I was proud 'mong friends
of my volatile mistress.
IV
But I dropped out of their alliance —
and fled afar... she followed me.
How often the caressive Muse
4 for me would sweeten the mute way
with the bewitchment of a secret tale!
How often on Caucasia's crags,
Lenorelike, by the moon,
8 with me she'd gallop on a steed!
How often on the shores of Tauris
she in the gloom of night
led me to listen the sound of the sea,
12 Nereid's unceasing murmur,
the deep eternal chorus of the billows,
the praiseful hymn to the sire of the worlds.
V
And the far capital's glitter and noisy feasts
having forgotten in the wilds
of sad Moldavia,
4 she visited the humble tents
of wandering tribes;
and among them grew savage, and forgot
the language of the gods
8 for scant, strange tongues,
for songs of the steppe dear to her.
Suddenly everything around
changed, and lo! in my garden she appeared
12 as a provincial miss,
with a sad thought in her eyes, with a French
book in her hands.
VI
And now my Muse for the first time
I'm taking to a high-life rout;44
at her steppe charms
4 with jealous apprehensiveness I look.
Through a dense series of aristocrats,
of military fops, of diplomats
and haughty dames, she glides; now quietly
8 she has sat down and looks, admiring
the noisy crush,
the flickering of dress and speech,
the apparition of slow guests
12 in front of the young hostess,
and the dark frame of men
around ladies, as about pictures.
VII
She likes the stately order
of oligarchic colloquies,
and the chill of calm pride,
4 and this mixture of ranks and years.
But who's that standing in the chosen throng,
silent and nebulous?
To everyone he seems a stranger.
8 Before him faces come and go
like a series of tedious specters.
What is it — spleen or smarting morgue
upon his face? Why is he here?
12 Who is he? Is it really — Eugene?
He, really? So, 'tis he, indeed.
— Since when has he been blown our way?
VIII
Is he the same, or grown more peaceful?
Or does he still play the eccentric?
Say, in what guise has he returned?
4 What will he stage for us meanwhile?
As what will he appear now? As a Melmoth?
a cosmopolitan? a patriot?
a Harold? a Quaker? a bigot?
8 Or will he sport some other mask?
Or else be simply a good fellow
like you and me, like the whole world?
At least here's my advice:
12 to drop an antiquated fashion.
Sufficiently he's gulled the world...
— You know him? — Yes and no.
IX
— Why so unfavorably then
do you report on him?
Because we indefatigably
4 fuss, judge of everything?
Because of fiery souls the rashness
to smug nonentity is either
insulting or absurd?
8 Because, by liking room, wit cramps?
Because too often conversations
we're glad to take for deeds,
because stupidity is volatile and wicked?
12 Because to grave men grave are trifles,
and mediocrity alone
is to our measure and not odd?
X
Blest who was youthful in his youth;
blest who matured at the right time;
who, with the years, the chill of life
4 was gradually able to withstand;
who never was addicted to strange dreams;
who did not shun the fashionable rabble;
who was at twenty fop or dasher,
8 and then at thirty, profitably married;
who rid himself at fifty
of private and of other debts;
who gained repute, money, and rank
12 calmly in turn;
about whom lifelong one kept saying:
N. N. is an excellent man.
XI
But it is sad to think that youth
was given us in vain,
that we betrayed it every hour,
4 that it duped us;
that our best aspirations,
that our fresh dreamings,
in quick succession have decayed
8 like leaves in putrid autumn.
It is unbearable to see before one
only of dinners a long series,
to look on life as on a rite,
12 and in the wake of the decorous crowd
to go, not sharing with it either
the general opinions or the passions.
XII
When one becomes the subject
of noisy comments, it's unbearable
(you will agree) to pass among
4 sensible people for a feigned eccentric
or a sad crackbrain,
or a satanic monster,
or even for my Demon.
8 Onegin (let me take him up again),
having in single combat killed his friend,
having without a goal, without exertions,
lived to the age of twenty-six,
12 irked by the inactivity of leisure,
without employment, wife, or occupation,
could think of nothing to take up.
XIII
A restlessness took hold of him,
the inclination to a change of places
(a most excruciating property,
4 a cross that few deliberately bear).
He left his countryseat,
the solitude of woods and fields,
where an ensanguined shade
8 daily appeared to him,
and started upon travels without aim,
accessible to one sensation;
and to him journeys,
12 like everything on earth,
grew boring. He returned and found himself,
like Chatski, come from boat to ball.
XIV
But lo! the throng has undulated,
a murmur through the hall has run....
Toward the hostess there advanced a lady,
4 followed by an imposing general.
She was unhurried,
not cold, not talkative,
without a flouting gaze for everyone,
8 without pretensions to success,
without those little mannerisms,
without mimetic artifices....
All about her was quiet, simple.
12 She seemed a faithful reproduction
du comme il faut.... ([Shishkov,] forgive me:
I do not know how to translate.)
XV
Closer to her the ladies moved;
old women smiled to her;
the men bowed lower, sought
4 to catch her gaze;
maidens before her passed more quietly
across the room; and higher
than anyone lifted his nose and shoulders
8 the general who had come in with her.
None could have called her
a beauty; but from head to foot
none could have found in her
12 what is by autocratic fashion
in the high London circle
called “vulgar.” (I'm unable —
XVI
— of that word I am very fond,
but am unable to translate it; in our midst
for the time being it is new
4 and hardly bound to be in favor;
it might do nicely in an epigram....
But to our lady let me turn.)
Winsome with carefree charm,
8 she at a table sat
with brilliant Nina Voronskóy,
that Cleopatra of the Neva;
and, surely, you would have agreed
12 that Nina with her marble beauty
could not — though dazzling —
eclipse her neighbor.
XVII
“Can it be possible?” thinks Eugene.
“Can it be she?... But really... No...
What! From outback steppe villages...”
4 and a tenacious quizzing glass
he keeps directing every minute
at her whose aspect vaguely has
recalled to him forgotten features.
8 “Tell me, Prince, you don't know
who is it there in the framboise beret
talking with the Spanish ambassador?”
The prince looks at Onegin:
12 “Aha! Indeed, long have you not been in the monde.
Wait, I'll present you.”
“But who is she?” “My wife.”
XVIII
“So you are married! Didn't know before.
How long?” “About two years.”
“To whom?” “The Larin girl.” “Tatiana!”
4 “She knows you?” “I'm their neighbor.”
“Oh, then, come on.” The prince goes up
to his wife and leads up to her
his kin and friend.
8 The princess looks at him... and whatsoever
troubled her soul,
however greatly
she was surprised, astounded,
12 nothing betrayed her,
her ton remained the same,
her bow was just as quiet.
XIX
Forsooth! It was not merely that she didn't
flinch, or blanch suddenly, or flush —
she simply never moved an eyebrow,
4 did not even compress her lips.
Though he looked with the utmost care,
not even traces of the old Tatiana could
Onegin find.
8 With her he wished to start a conversation —
and... and could not. She asked: How long
had he been there? And whence came he —
from their own parts, maybe?
12 Then on her spouse she turned a look
of lassitude; glided away....
And moveless he remained.
XX
Could it be that the same Tatiana
to whom, alone with her,
at the beginning of our novel
4 back in a stagnant, distant region,
in the fine fervor of moralization
precepts he once had preached;
the one from whom a letter he preserves
8 where the heart speaks,
where all is out, all unrestrained;
that little girl — or is he dreaming? —
that little girl whom in her humble state
12 he had passed over — could it be that now
she had been so indifferent,
so bold with him?
XXI
He leaves the close-packed rout,
he drives home, pensive; by a fancy —
now sad, now charming,
4 his first sleep is disturbed.
He wakes; is brought
a letter: Prince N. begs the honor of his presence
at a soiree. Good God — to her?
8 I will, I will! And rapidly a courteous
reply he scrawls. What is the matter
with him? In what strange daze is he?
What has stirred at the bottom of that cold
12 and sluggish soul?
Vexation? Vanity? Or once again
youth's worry — love?
XXII
Once more Onegin counts the hours,
once more he can't wait for the day to end.
But ten strikes: he drives off,
4 he has flown forth, he's at the porch;
with tremor he goes in to the princess:
he finds Tatiana
alone, and for some minutes
8 they sit together. From Onegin's lips
the words come not. Ill-humored,
awkward, he barely, barely
replies to her. His head
12 is full of a persistent thought.
Persistently he looks: she sits
easy and free.
XXIII
The husband comes. He interrupts
this painful tête-à-tête;
he with Onegin recollects
4 the pranks, the jests of former years.
They laugh. Guests enter.
Now with the large-grained salt of high-life malice
the conversation starts to be enlivened.
8 Before the lady of the house, light nonsense
flashed without stupid affectation,
and meantime interrupted it
sensible talk, without trite topics,
12 eternal truths, or pedantry,
nor did its free vivacity
shock anybody's ears.
XXIV
Yet here was the flower of the capital,
both high nobility and paragons of fashion;
the faces one meets everywhere,
4 the fools one cannot go without;
here were, in mobcaps and in roses,
elderly ladies, wicked-looking;
here were several maidens —
8 unsmiling faces;
here was an envoy, speaking
of state affairs;
here was, with fragrant hoary hair,
12 an old man in the old way joking —
with eminent subtility and wit,
which is somewhat absurd today!
XXV
Here was, to epigrams addicted
a gentleman cross with everything:
with the too-sweet tea of the hostess,
4 the ladies' platitudes, the ton of men,
the comments on a foggy novel,
the badge two sisters had been granted,
the falsehoods in reviews, the war,
8 the snow, and his own wife.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
12 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
XXVI
Here was […], who had gained
distinction by the baseness of his soul
and blunted in all albums,
4 Saint-P[riest], your pencils;
in the doorway another ball dictator
stood like a fashion plate,
as rosy as a Palm Week cherub,
8 tight-coated, mute and motionless;
and a far-flung traveler,
an overstarched jackanapes,
provoked a smile among the guests
12 by his studied deportment,
and an exchange of silent glances was
his universal condemnation.
XXVII
But my Onegin the whole evening heeds
only Tatiana:
not the shy little maiden,
4 enamored, poor and simple —
but the indifferent princess,
the inaccessible
goddess of the luxurious, queenly Neva.
8 O humans! All of you resemble
ancestress Eve:
what's given to you does not lure,
incessantly the serpent calls you
12 to him, to the mysterious tree:
you must have the forbidden fruit supplied to you,
for paradise without that is no paradise to you.
XXVIII
How changed Tatiana is!
Into her role how firmly she has entered!
The ways of a constricting rank
4 how fast she has adopted!
Who'd dare to seek the tender little lass
in this majestic,
this careless legislatrix of salons?
8 And he had stirred her heart!
About him in the dark of night,
as long as Morpheus had not come flying,
time was, she virginally brooded,
12 raised to the moon a dying eye,
dreaming that someday she might make
with him life's humble journey!
XXIX
All ages are to love submissive;
but to young virgin hearts
its impulses are beneficial
4 as are spring storms to fields.
They freshen in the rain of passions,
and renovate themselves, and ripen,
and vigorous life gives
8 both rich bloom and sweet fruit.
But at a late and barren age,
at the turn of our years,
sad is the trace of a dead passion....
12 Thus storms of the cold autumn
into a marsh transform the meadow
and strip the woods around.
XXX
There is no doubt: alas! Eugene
in love is with Tatiana like a child.
In throes of amorous designs
4 he spends both day and night.
Not harking to the mind's stern protests,
up to her porch, glass vestibule,
daily he drives.
8 He chases like a shadow after her;
he's happy if he casts
the fluffy boa on her shoulders,
or touches torridly
12 her hand, or if he parts in front of her
the motley host of liveries, or picks up
her handkerchief.
XXXI
She does not notice him,
no matter how he strives — even to death;
receives him freely at her house; at those
4 of others says two or three words to him;
sometimes welcomes with a mere bow,
sometimes does not take any notice:
there's not a drop of coquetry in her,
8 the high world does not tolerate it.
Onegin is beginning to grow pale;
she does not see or does not care;
Onegin wastes away:
12 he's practically phthisical.
All send Onegin to physicians;
in chorus these send him to spas.
XXXII
Yet he's not going. He beforehand
is ready to his forefathers to write
of an impending meeting; yet Tatiana
4 cares not one bit (such is their sex).
But he is stubborn, won't desist,
still hopes, bestirs himself;
a sick man bolder than one hale,
8 he with a weak hand to the princess
writes an impassioned missive.
Though generally little sense in letters
he saw, not without reason;
12 but evidently torment of the heart
had now passed his endurance.
Here you have his letter word for word.
Onegin'S Letter To Tatiana
I foresee everything: the explanation
of a sad secret will offend you.
What bitter scorn
4 your proud glance will express!
What do I want? What is my object
in opening my soul to you?
What wicked merriment
8 perhaps I give occasion to!
Chancing to meet you once,
noting in you a spark of tenderness,
I did not venture to believe in it:
12 did not give way to a sweet habit;
my tedious freedom
I did not wish to lose. Another thing
yet separated us:
16 a hapless victim Lenski fell.
From all that to the heart is dear
then did I tear my heart away;
alien to everybody, tied by nothing,
20 I thought: liberty and peace are
a substitute for happiness. Good God!
How wrong I was, how I am punished!
No — every minute to see you; to follow
24 you everywhere;
the smile of your lips, movement of your eyes,
to try to capture with enamored eyes;
to listen long to you, to comprehend
28 all your perfection with one's soul;
to melt in agonies before you,
grow pale and waste away... that's rapture!
And I'm deprived of that; for you
32 I drag myself at random everywhere;
to me each day is dear, each hour is dear,
while I in futile dullness squander
the days told off by fate — they are
36 sufficiently oppressive anyway.
I know: my span is well-nigh measured;
but that my life may be prolonged
I must be certain in the morning
40 of seeing you during the day.
I fear: in my meek plea
your severe gaze will see
the schemes of despicable cunning —
44 and I can hear your wrathful censure.
If you hut knew how terrible it is
to languish with the thirst of love,
burn — and by means of reason hourly
48 subdue the tumult in one's blood;
wish to embrace your knees
and, in a burst of sobbing, at your feet
pour out appeals, avowals, plaints,
52 all, all I could express,
and in the meantime with feigned coldness
arm speech and gaze,
maintain a placid conversation,
56 glance at you with a cheerful glance!...
But let it be: against myself
I've not the force to struggle any more;
all is decided: I am in your power,
60 and I surrender to my fate.
XXXIII
There is no answer. He sends a new missive.
To the second, to the third letter —
there is no answer. He drives out to some
4 reception. Hardly has he entered — there she is
coming in his direction. How severe!
He is not seen, to him no word is said.
Ugh! How surrounded she is now
8 with Twelfthtide cold!
How anxious are to hold back indignation
her stubborn lips!
Onegin peers with a keen eye:
12 where, where are discomposure, sympathy,
where the tearstains? None, none!
There's on that face but the imprint of wrath...
XXXIV
plus, possibly, a secret fear
lest husband or monde guess
the escapade, the casual foible,
4 all my Onegin knows....
There is no hope! He drives away,
curses his folly —
and, deeply plunged in it,
8 the monde he once again renounces
and in his silent study comes to him
the recollection of the time
when cruel chondria
12 pursued him in the noisy monde,
captured him, took him by the collar,
and shut him up in a dark hole.
XXXV
Again, without discrimination,
he started reading. He read Gibbon,
Rousseau, Manzoni, Herder,
4 Chamfort, Mme de Staël, Bichat, Tissot.
He read the skeptic Bayle,
he read the works of Fontenelle,
he read some [authors] of our own,
8 without rejecting anything —
the “almanacs” and the reviews
where sermons into us are drummed,
where I'm today abused so much
12 but where such madrigals addressed tome
I used to meet with now and then:
e sempre bene, gentlemen.
XXXVI
And lo — his eyes were reading, but his thoughts
were far away;
chimeras, desires, sorrows
4 kept crowding deep into his soul.
Between the printed lines
he with spiritual eyes
read other lines. It was in them
8 that he was utterly absorbed.
These were the secret legends of the heart's
dark ancientry;
dreams unconnected
12 with anything; threats, rumors, presages;
or the live tosh of a long tale,
or a young maiden's letters.
XXXVII
And by degrees into a lethargy
of feelings and of thoughts he falls,
while before him Imagination
4 deals out her motley faro deck.
Now he sees: on the melted snow,
as at a night's encampment sleeping,
stirless, a youth lies; and he hears
8 a voice: “Well, what — he's dead!”
Now he sees foes forgotten,
calumniators, and malicious cowards,
and a swarm of young traitresses,
12 and a circle of despicable comrades;
and now a country house, and by the window
sits she... and ever she!
XXXVIII
He grew so used to lose himself in this
that he almost went off his head
or else became a poet. (Frankly,
4 that would have been a boon, indeed!)
And true: by dint of magnetism,
the mechanism of Russian verses
my addleheaded pupil
8 at that time nearly grasped.
How much a poet he resembled
when in a corner he would sit alone,
and the hearth blazed in front of him,
12 and he hummed “Benedetta”
or “Idol mio,” and into the fire
dropped now a slipper, now his magazine!
XXXIX
Days rushed. In warmth-pervaded air
winter already was resolving;
and he did not become a poet,
4 he did not die, did not go mad.
Spring quickens him: for the first time
his close-shut chambers, where he had
been hibernating like a marmot,
8 his double windows, inglenook —
he leaves on a bright morning,
he fleets in sleigh along the Neva's bank.
Upon blue blocks of hewn-out ice
12 the sun plays. In the streets
the furrowed snow thaws muddily:
whither, upon it, his fast course
XL
directs Onegin? You beforehand
have guessed already. Yes, exactly:
apace to her, to his Tatiana,
4 my unreformed eccentric comes.
He walks in, looking like a corpse.
There's not a soul in the front hall.
He enters the reception room. On! No one.
8 A door he opens.... What is it
that strikes him with such force?
The princess before him, alone,
sits, unadorned, pale, reading
12 some kind of letter,
and softly sheds a flood of tears,
her cheek propped on her hand.
XLI
Ah! Her mute sufferings —
in this swift instant who would not have read!
Who would not have the former Tanya,
4 poor Tanya, recognized now in the princess?
In throes of mad regrets,
Eugene falls at her feet;
she gives a start,
8 and is silent, and looks,
without surprise, without wrath, at Onegin....
His sick, extinguished gaze,
imploring aspect, mute reproof,
12 she takes in everything. The simple maid,
with the dreams, with the heart of former days
again in her has resurrected now.
XLII
She does not bid him rise
and, not taking her eyes off him,
does not withdraw
4 her limp hand from his avid lips....
What is her dreaming now about?
A lengthy silence passes,
and finally she, softly:
8 “Enough; get up. I must
frankly explain myself to you.
Onegin, do you recollect that hour
when in the garden, in the avenue, fate brought us
12 together and so meekly
your lesson I heard out.
Today it is my turn.
XLIII
“Onegin, I was younger then,
I was, I daresay, better-looking,
and I loved you; and what then, what
4 did I find in your heart?
What answer? Mere severity.
There wasn't — was there? — novelty for you
in a meek little maiden's love?
8 Even today — good heavens! — my blood freezes
as soon as I remember
your cold glance and that sermon.... But I do not
accuse you; at that awful hour
12 you acted nobly,
you in regard to me were right,
to you with all my soul I'm grateful....
XLIV
“Then — is it not so? — in the wilderness,
far from vain Hearsay,
I was not to your liking.... Why, then, now
4 do you pursue me?
Why have you marked me out?
Might it not be because I must
now move in the grand monde;
8 because I have both wealth and rank;
because my husband has been maimed in battles;
because for that the Court is kind to us?
Might it not be because my disrepute
12 would be remarked by everybody now
and in society might bring you
scandalous honor?
XLV
“I'm crying.... If your Tanya
you've not forgotten yet,
then know: the sharpness of your blame,
4 cold, stern discourse,
if it were only in my power
I'd have preferred to an offensive passion,
and to these letters and tears.
8 For my infantine dreams
you had at least some pity then,
at least consideration for my age.
But now!... What to my feet
12 has brought you? What a trifle!
How, with your heart and mind,
be the slave of a trivial feeling?
XLVI
“But as to me, Onegin, this magnificence,
a wearisome life's tinsel, my successes
in the world's vortex,
4 my fashionable house and evenings,
what do I care for them?... At once I'd gladly
give all the frippery of this masquerade,
all this glitter, and noise, and fumes,
8 for a shelfful of books, for a wild garden,
for our poor dwelling,
for those haunts where for the first time,
Onegin, I saw you,
12 and for the humble churchyard where
there is a cross now and the shade
of branches over my poor nurse.
XLVII
“Yet happiness had been so possible,
so near!... But my fate is already
settled. Imprudently,
4 perhaps, I acted.
My mother with tears of conjurement
beseeched me. For poor Tanya
all lots were equal.
8 I married. You must,
I pray you, leave me;
I know: in your heart are
both pride and genuine honor.
12 I love you (why dissimulate?);
but to another I belong:
to him I shall be faithful all my life.”
XLVIII
She has gone. Eugene stands
as if by thunder struck.
In what a tempest of sensations
4 his heart is now immersed!
But there resounds a sudden clink of spurs,
and there appears Tatiana's husband,
and here my hero,
8 at an unfortunate minute for him,
reader, we now shall leave
for long... forever.... After him
sufficiently along one path
12 we've roamed the world. Let us congratulate
each other on attaining land. Hurrah!
It long (is it not true?) was time.
XLIX
Whoever, O my reader,
you be — friend, foe — I wish to part
with you at present as a pal.
4 Farewell. Whatever in these careless strophes
you might have looked for as you followed me —
tumultuous recollections,
relief from labors,
8 live images or witticisms,
or faults of grammar —
God grant that in this book, for recreation,
for dreaming, for the heart,
12 for jousts in journals,
you find at least a crumb.
Upon which, let us part, farewell!
L
You, too, farewell, my strange traveling companion,
and you, my true ideal,
and you, my live and constant,
4 though small, work. I have known with you
all that a poet covets:
obliviousness of life in the world's tempests,
the sweet discourse of friends.
8 Rushed by have many, many days
since young Tatiana, and with her
Onegin, in a blurry dream
appeared to me for the first time —
12 and the far stretch of a free novel
I through a magic crystal
still did not make out clearly.
LI
But those to whom at amicable meetings
its first strophes I read —
“Some are no more, others are distant,”
4 as erstwhiles Sadi said.
Without them was Onegin's picture finished.
And she from whom was fashioned
the dear ideal of “Tatiana”...
8 Ah, much, much has fate snatched away!
Blest who left life's feast early,
not having to the bottom drained
the goblet full of wine;
12 who never read life's novel to the end
and all at once could part with it
as I with my Onegin.
THE END
Fare thee well, and if for ever,
Still for ever, fare thee well.
I
In those days when in the Lyceum's gardens
I bloomed serenely,
would eagerly read Apuleius,
4 did not read Cicero;
in those days, in mysterious valleys,
in springtime, to the calls of swans,
near waters shining in the stillness,
8 the Muse began to visit me.
My student cell was all at once
radiant with light: in it the Muse
opened a banquet of young fancies,
12 sang childish gaieties,
and glory of our ancientry,
and the heart's tremulous dreams.
II
And with a smile the world received her;
the first success provided us with wings;
the aged Derzhavin noticed us — and blessed us
4 as he descended to the grave.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
12 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
III
And I, setting myself for law
only the arbitrary will of passions,
sharing emotions with the crowd,
4 I led my frisky Muse into the hubbub
of feasts and turbulent discussions —
the terror of midnight patrols;
and to them, in mad feasts,
8 she brought her gifts,
and like a little bacchante frisked,
over the bowl sang for the guests;
and the young people of past days
12 would turbulently dangle after her;
and I was proud 'mong friends
of my volatile mistress.
IV
But I dropped out of their alliance —
and fled afar... she followed me.
How often the caressive Muse
4 for me would sweeten the mute way
with the bewitchment of a secret tale!
How often on Caucasia's crags,
Lenorelike, by the moon,
8 with me she'd gallop on a steed!
How often on the shores of Tauris
she in the gloom of night
led me to listen the sound of the sea,
12 Nereid's unceasing murmur,
the deep eternal chorus of the billows,
the praiseful hymn to the sire of the worlds.
V
And the far capital's glitter and noisy feasts
having forgotten in the wilds
of sad Moldavia,
4 she visited the humble tents
of wandering tribes;
and among them grew savage, and forgot
the language of the gods
8 for scant, strange tongues,
for songs of the steppe dear to her.
Suddenly everything around
changed, and lo! in my garden she appeared
12 as a provincial miss,
with a sad thought in her eyes, with a French
book in her hands.
VI
And now my Muse for the first time
I'm taking to a high-life rout;44
at her steppe charms
4 with jealous apprehensiveness I look.
Through a dense series of aristocrats,
of military fops, of diplomats
and haughty dames, she glides; now quietly
8 she has sat down and looks, admiring
the noisy crush,
the flickering of dress and speech,
the apparition of slow guests
12 in front of the young hostess,
and the dark frame of men
around ladies, as about pictures.
VII
She likes the stately order
of oligarchic colloquies,
and the chill of calm pride,
4 and this mixture of ranks and years.
But who's that standing in the chosen throng,
silent and nebulous?
To everyone he seems a stranger.
8 Before him faces come and go
like a series of tedious specters.
What is it — spleen or smarting morgue
upon his face? Why is he here?
12 Who is he? Is it really — Eugene?
He, really? So, 'tis he, indeed.
— Since when has he been blown our way?
VIII
Is he the same, or grown more peaceful?
Or does he still play the eccentric?
Say, in what guise has he returned?
4 What will he stage for us meanwhile?
As what will he appear now? As a Melmoth?
a cosmopolitan? a patriot?
a Harold? a Quaker? a bigot?
8 Or will he sport some other mask?
Or else be simply a good fellow
like you and me, like the whole world?
At least here's my advice:
12 to drop an antiquated fashion.
Sufficiently he's gulled the world...
— You know him? — Yes and no.
IX
— Why so unfavorably then
do you report on him?
Because we indefatigably
4 fuss, judge of everything?
Because of fiery souls the rashness
to smug nonentity is either
insulting or absurd?
8 Because, by liking room, wit cramps?
Because too often conversations
we're glad to take for deeds,
because stupidity is volatile and wicked?
12 Because to grave men grave are trifles,
and mediocrity alone
is to our measure and not odd?
X
Blest who was youthful in his youth;
blest who matured at the right time;
who, with the years, the chill of life
4 was gradually able to withstand;
who never was addicted to strange dreams;
who did not shun the fashionable rabble;
who was at twenty fop or dasher,
8 and then at thirty, profitably married;
who rid himself at fifty
of private and of other debts;
who gained repute, money, and rank
12 calmly in turn;
about whom lifelong one kept saying:
N. N. is an excellent man.
XI
But it is sad to think that youth
was given us in vain,
that we betrayed it every hour,
4 that it duped us;
that our best aspirations,
that our fresh dreamings,
in quick succession have decayed
8 like leaves in putrid autumn.
It is unbearable to see before one
only of dinners a long series,
to look on life as on a rite,
12 and in the wake of the decorous crowd
to go, not sharing with it either
the general opinions or the passions.
XII
When one becomes the subject
of noisy comments, it's unbearable
(you will agree) to pass among
4 sensible people for a feigned eccentric
or a sad crackbrain,
or a satanic monster,
or even for my Demon.
8 Onegin (let me take him up again),
having in single combat killed his friend,
having without a goal, without exertions,
lived to the age of twenty-six,
12 irked by the inactivity of leisure,
without employment, wife, or occupation,
could think of nothing to take up.
XIII
A restlessness took hold of him,
the inclination to a change of places
(a most excruciating property,
4 a cross that few deliberately bear).
He left his countryseat,
the solitude of woods and fields,
where an ensanguined shade
8 daily appeared to him,
and started upon travels without aim,
accessible to one sensation;
and to him journeys,
12 like everything on earth,
grew boring. He returned and found himself,
like Chatski, come from boat to ball.
XIV
But lo! the throng has undulated,
a murmur through the hall has run....
Toward the hostess there advanced a lady,
4 followed by an imposing general.
She was unhurried,
not cold, not talkative,
without a flouting gaze for everyone,
8 without pretensions to success,
without those little mannerisms,
without mimetic artifices....
All about her was quiet, simple.
12 She seemed a faithful reproduction
du comme il faut.... ([Shishkov,] forgive me:
I do not know how to translate.)
XV
Closer to her the ladies moved;
old women smiled to her;
the men bowed lower, sought
4 to catch her gaze;
maidens before her passed more quietly
across the room; and higher
than anyone lifted his nose and shoulders
8 the general who had come in with her.
None could have called her
a beauty; but from head to foot
none could have found in her
12 what is by autocratic fashion
in the high London circle
called “vulgar.” (I'm unable —
XVI
— of that word I am very fond,
but am unable to translate it; in our midst
for the time being it is new
4 and hardly bound to be in favor;
it might do nicely in an epigram....
But to our lady let me turn.)
Winsome with carefree charm,
8 she at a table sat
with brilliant Nina Voronskóy,
that Cleopatra of the Neva;
and, surely, you would have agreed
12 that Nina with her marble beauty
could not — though dazzling —
eclipse her neighbor.
XVII
“Can it be possible?” thinks Eugene.
“Can it be she?... But really... No...
What! From outback steppe villages...”
4 and a tenacious quizzing glass
he keeps directing every minute
at her whose aspect vaguely has
recalled to him forgotten features.
8 “Tell me, Prince, you don't know
who is it there in the framboise beret
talking with the Spanish ambassador?”
The prince looks at Onegin:
12 “Aha! Indeed, long have you not been in the monde.
Wait, I'll present you.”
“But who is she?” “My wife.”
XVIII
“So you are married! Didn't know before.
How long?” “About two years.”
“To whom?” “The Larin girl.” “Tatiana!”
4 “She knows you?” “I'm their neighbor.”
“Oh, then, come on.” The prince goes up
to his wife and leads up to her
his kin and friend.
8 The princess looks at him... and whatsoever
troubled her soul,
however greatly
she was surprised, astounded,
12 nothing betrayed her,
her ton remained the same,
her bow was just as quiet.
XIX
Forsooth! It was not merely that she didn't
flinch, or blanch suddenly, or flush —
she simply never moved an eyebrow,
4 did not even compress her lips.
Though he looked with the utmost care,
not even traces of the old Tatiana could
Onegin find.
8 With her he wished to start a conversation —
and... and could not. She asked: How long
had he been there? And whence came he —
from their own parts, maybe?
12 Then on her spouse she turned a look
of lassitude; glided away....
And moveless he remained.
XX
Could it be that the same Tatiana
to whom, alone with her,
at the beginning of our novel
4 back in a stagnant, distant region,
in the fine fervor of moralization
precepts he once had preached;
the one from whom a letter he preserves
8 where the heart speaks,
where all is out, all unrestrained;
that little girl — or is he dreaming? —
that little girl whom in her humble state
12 he had passed over — could it be that now
she had been so indifferent,
so bold with him?
XXI
He leaves the close-packed rout,
he drives home, pensive; by a fancy —
now sad, now charming,
4 his first sleep is disturbed.
He wakes; is brought
a letter: Prince N. begs the honor of his presence
at a soiree. Good God — to her?
8 I will, I will! And rapidly a courteous
reply he scrawls. What is the matter
with him? In what strange daze is he?
What has stirred at the bottom of that cold
12 and sluggish soul?
Vexation? Vanity? Or once again
youth's worry — love?
XXII
Once more Onegin counts the hours,
once more he can't wait for the day to end.
But ten strikes: he drives off,
4 he has flown forth, he's at the porch;
with tremor he goes in to the princess:
he finds Tatiana
alone, and for some minutes
8 they sit together. From Onegin's lips
the words come not. Ill-humored,
awkward, he barely, barely
replies to her. His head
12 is full of a persistent thought.
Persistently he looks: she sits
easy and free.
XXIII
The husband comes. He interrupts
this painful tête-à-tête;
he with Onegin recollects
4 the pranks, the jests of former years.
They laugh. Guests enter.
Now with the large-grained salt of high-life malice
the conversation starts to be enlivened.
8 Before the lady of the house, light nonsense
flashed without stupid affectation,
and meantime interrupted it
sensible talk, without trite topics,
12 eternal truths, or pedantry,
nor did its free vivacity
shock anybody's ears.
XXIV
Yet here was the flower of the capital,
both high nobility and paragons of fashion;
the faces one meets everywhere,
4 the fools one cannot go without;
here were, in mobcaps and in roses,
elderly ladies, wicked-looking;
here were several maidens —
8 unsmiling faces;
here was an envoy, speaking
of state affairs;
here was, with fragrant hoary hair,
12 an old man in the old way joking —
with eminent subtility and wit,
which is somewhat absurd today!
XXV
Here was, to epigrams addicted
a gentleman cross with everything:
with the too-sweet tea of the hostess,
4 the ladies' platitudes, the ton of men,
the comments on a foggy novel,
the badge two sisters had been granted,
the falsehoods in reviews, the war,
8 the snow, and his own wife.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
12 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
XXVI
Here was […], who had gained
distinction by the baseness of his soul
and blunted in all albums,
4 Saint-P[riest], your pencils;
in the doorway another ball dictator
stood like a fashion plate,
as rosy as a Palm Week cherub,
8 tight-coated, mute and motionless;
and a far-flung traveler,
an overstarched jackanapes,
provoked a smile among the guests
12 by his studied deportment,
and an exchange of silent glances was
his universal condemnation.
XXVII
But my Onegin the whole evening heeds
only Tatiana:
not the shy little maiden,
4 enamored, poor and simple —
but the indifferent princess,
the inaccessible
goddess of the luxurious, queenly Neva.
8 O humans! All of you resemble
ancestress Eve:
what's given to you does not lure,
incessantly the serpent calls you
12 to him, to the mysterious tree:
you must have the forbidden fruit supplied to you,
for paradise without that is no paradise to you.
XXVIII
How changed Tatiana is!
Into her role how firmly she has entered!
The ways of a constricting rank
4 how fast she has adopted!
Who'd dare to seek the tender little lass
in this majestic,
this careless legislatrix of salons?
8 And he had stirred her heart!
About him in the dark of night,
as long as Morpheus had not come flying,
time was, she virginally brooded,
12 raised to the moon a dying eye,
dreaming that someday she might make
with him life's humble journey!
XXIX
All ages are to love submissive;
but to young virgin hearts
its impulses are beneficial
4 as are spring storms to fields.
They freshen in the rain of passions,
and renovate themselves, and ripen,
and vigorous life gives
8 both rich bloom and sweet fruit.
But at a late and barren age,
at the turn of our years,
sad is the trace of a dead passion....
12 Thus storms of the cold autumn
into a marsh transform the meadow
and strip the woods around.
XXX
There is no doubt: alas! Eugene
in love is with Tatiana like a child.
In throes of amorous designs
4 he spends both day and night.
Not harking to the mind's stern protests,
up to her porch, glass vestibule,
daily he drives.
8 He chases like a shadow after her;
he's happy if he casts
the fluffy boa on her shoulders,
or touches torridly
12 her hand, or if he parts in front of her
the motley host of liveries, or picks up
her handkerchief.
XXXI
She does not notice him,
no matter how he strives — even to death;
receives him freely at her house; at those
4 of others says two or three words to him;
sometimes welcomes with a mere bow,
sometimes does not take any notice:
there's not a drop of coquetry in her,
8 the high world does not tolerate it.
Onegin is beginning to grow pale;
she does not see or does not care;
Onegin wastes away:
12 he's practically phthisical.
All send Onegin to physicians;
in chorus these send him to spas.
XXXII
Yet he's not going. He beforehand
is ready to his forefathers to write
of an impending meeting; yet Tatiana
4 cares not one bit (such is their sex).
But he is stubborn, won't desist,
still hopes, bestirs himself;
a sick man bolder than one hale,
8 he with a weak hand to the princess
writes an impassioned missive.
Though generally little sense in letters
he saw, not without reason;
12 but evidently torment of the heart
had now passed his endurance.
Here you have his letter word for word.
Onegin'S Letter To Tatiana
I foresee everything: the explanation
of a sad secret will offend you.
What bitter scorn
4 your proud glance will express!
What do I want? What is my object
in opening my soul to you?
What wicked merriment
8 perhaps I give occasion to!
Chancing to meet you once,
noting in you a spark of tenderness,
I did not venture to believe in it:
12 did not give way to a sweet habit;
my tedious freedom
I did not wish to lose. Another thing
yet separated us:
16 a hapless victim Lenski fell.
From all that to the heart is dear
then did I tear my heart away;
alien to everybody, tied by nothing,
20 I thought: liberty and peace are
a substitute for happiness. Good God!
How wrong I was, how I am punished!
No — every minute to see you; to follow
24 you everywhere;
the smile of your lips, movement of your eyes,
to try to capture with enamored eyes;
to listen long to you, to comprehend
28 all your perfection with one's soul;
to melt in agonies before you,
grow pale and waste away... that's rapture!
And I'm deprived of that; for you
32 I drag myself at random everywhere;
to me each day is dear, each hour is dear,
while I in futile dullness squander
the days told off by fate — they are
36 sufficiently oppressive anyway.
I know: my span is well-nigh measured;
but that my life may be prolonged
I must be certain in the morning
40 of seeing you during the day.
I fear: in my meek plea
your severe gaze will see
the schemes of despicable cunning —
44 and I can hear your wrathful censure.
If you hut knew how terrible it is
to languish with the thirst of love,
burn — and by means of reason hourly
48 subdue the tumult in one's blood;
wish to embrace your knees
and, in a burst of sobbing, at your feet
pour out appeals, avowals, plaints,
52 all, all I could express,
and in the meantime with feigned coldness
arm speech and gaze,
maintain a placid conversation,
56 glance at you with a cheerful glance!...
But let it be: against myself
I've not the force to struggle any more;
all is decided: I am in your power,
60 and I surrender to my fate.
XXXIII
There is no answer. He sends a new missive.
To the second, to the third letter —
there is no answer. He drives out to some
4 reception. Hardly has he entered — there she is
coming in his direction. How severe!
He is not seen, to him no word is said.
Ugh! How surrounded she is now
8 with Twelfthtide cold!
How anxious are to hold back indignation
her stubborn lips!
Onegin peers with a keen eye:
12 where, where are discomposure, sympathy,
where the tearstains? None, none!
There's on that face but the imprint of wrath...
XXXIV
plus, possibly, a secret fear
lest husband or monde guess
the escapade, the casual foible,
4 all my Onegin knows....
There is no hope! He drives away,
curses his folly —
and, deeply plunged in it,
8 the monde he once again renounces
and in his silent study comes to him
the recollection of the time
when cruel chondria
12 pursued him in the noisy monde,
captured him, took him by the collar,
and shut him up in a dark hole.
XXXV
Again, without discrimination,
he started reading. He read Gibbon,
Rousseau, Manzoni, Herder,
4 Chamfort, Mme de Staël, Bichat, Tissot.
He read the skeptic Bayle,
he read the works of Fontenelle,
he read some [authors] of our own,
8 without rejecting anything —
the “almanacs” and the reviews
where sermons into us are drummed,
where I'm today abused so much
12 but where such madrigals addressed tome
I used to meet with now and then:
e sempre bene, gentlemen.
XXXVI
And lo — his eyes were reading, but his thoughts
were far away;
chimeras, desires, sorrows
4 kept crowding deep into his soul.
Between the printed lines
he with spiritual eyes
read other lines. It was in them
8 that he was utterly absorbed.
These were the secret legends of the heart's
dark ancientry;
dreams unconnected
12 with anything; threats, rumors, presages;
or the live tosh of a long tale,
or a young maiden's letters.
XXXVII
And by degrees into a lethargy
of feelings and of thoughts he falls,
while before him Imagination
4 deals out her motley faro deck.
Now he sees: on the melted snow,
as at a night's encampment sleeping,
stirless, a youth lies; and he hears
8 a voice: “Well, what — he's dead!”
Now he sees foes forgotten,
calumniators, and malicious cowards,
and a swarm of young traitresses,
12 and a circle of despicable comrades;
and now a country house, and by the window
sits she... and ever she!
XXXVIII
He grew so used to lose himself in this
that he almost went off his head
or else became a poet. (Frankly,
4 that would have been a boon, indeed!)
And true: by dint of magnetism,
the mechanism of Russian verses
my addleheaded pupil
8 at that time nearly grasped.
How much a poet he resembled
when in a corner he would sit alone,
and the hearth blazed in front of him,
12 and he hummed “Benedetta”
or “Idol mio,” and into the fire
dropped now a slipper, now his magazine!
XXXIX
Days rushed. In warmth-pervaded air
winter already was resolving;
and he did not become a poet,
4 he did not die, did not go mad.
Spring quickens him: for the first time
his close-shut chambers, where he had
been hibernating like a marmot,
8 his double windows, inglenook —
he leaves on a bright morning,
he fleets in sleigh along the Neva's bank.
Upon blue blocks of hewn-out ice
12 the sun plays. In the streets
the furrowed snow thaws muddily:
whither, upon it, his fast course
XL
directs Onegin? You beforehand
have guessed already. Yes, exactly:
apace to her, to his Tatiana,
4 my unreformed eccentric comes.
He walks in, looking like a corpse.
There's not a soul in the front hall.
He enters the reception room. On! No one.
8 A door he opens.... What is it
that strikes him with such force?
The princess before him, alone,
sits, unadorned, pale, reading
12 some kind of letter,
and softly sheds a flood of tears,
her cheek propped on her hand.
XLI
Ah! Her mute sufferings —
in this swift instant who would not have read!
Who would not have the former Tanya,
4 poor Tanya, recognized now in the princess?
In throes of mad regrets,
Eugene falls at her feet;
she gives a start,
8 and is silent, and looks,
without surprise, without wrath, at Onegin....
His sick, extinguished gaze,
imploring aspect, mute reproof,
12 she takes in everything. The simple maid,
with the dreams, with the heart of former days
again in her has resurrected now.
XLII
She does not bid him rise
and, not taking her eyes off him,
does not withdraw
4 her limp hand from his avid lips....
What is her dreaming now about?
A lengthy silence passes,
and finally she, softly:
8 “Enough; get up. I must
frankly explain myself to you.
Onegin, do you recollect that hour
when in the garden, in the avenue, fate brought us
12 together and so meekly
your lesson I heard out.
Today it is my turn.
XLIII
“Onegin, I was younger then,
I was, I daresay, better-looking,
and I loved you; and what then, what
4 did I find in your heart?
What answer? Mere severity.
There wasn't — was there? — novelty for you
in a meek little maiden's love?
8 Even today — good heavens! — my blood freezes
as soon as I remember
your cold glance and that sermon.... But I do not
accuse you; at that awful hour
12 you acted nobly,
you in regard to me were right,
to you with all my soul I'm grateful....
XLIV
“Then — is it not so? — in the wilderness,
far from vain Hearsay,
I was not to your liking.... Why, then, now
4 do you pursue me?
Why have you marked me out?
Might it not be because I must
now move in the grand monde;
8 because I have both wealth and rank;
because my husband has been maimed in battles;
because for that the Court is kind to us?
Might it not be because my disrepute
12 would be remarked by everybody now
and in society might bring you
scandalous honor?
XLV
“I'm crying.... If your Tanya
you've not forgotten yet,
then know: the sharpness of your blame,
4 cold, stern discourse,
if it were only in my power
I'd have preferred to an offensive passion,
and to these letters and tears.
8 For my infantine dreams
you had at least some pity then,
at least consideration for my age.
But now!... What to my feet
12 has brought you? What a trifle!
How, with your heart and mind,
be the slave of a trivial feeling?
XLVI
“But as to me, Onegin, this magnificence,
a wearisome life's tinsel, my successes
in the world's vortex,
4 my fashionable house and evenings,
what do I care for them?... At once I'd gladly
give all the frippery of this masquerade,
all this glitter, and noise, and fumes,
8 for a shelfful of books, for a wild garden,
for our poor dwelling,
for those haunts where for the first time,
Onegin, I saw you,
12 and for the humble churchyard where
there is a cross now and the shade
of branches over my poor nurse.
XLVII
“Yet happiness had been so possible,
so near!... But my fate is already
settled. Imprudently,
4 perhaps, I acted.
My mother with tears of conjurement
beseeched me. For poor Tanya
all lots were equal.
8 I married. You must,
I pray you, leave me;
I know: in your heart are
both pride and genuine honor.
12 I love you (why dissimulate?);
but to another I belong:
to him I shall be faithful all my life.”
XLVIII
She has gone. Eugene stands
as if by thunder struck.
In what a tempest of sensations
4 his heart is now immersed!
But there resounds a sudden clink of spurs,
and there appears Tatiana's husband,
and here my hero,
8 at an unfortunate minute for him,
reader, we now shall leave
for long... forever.... After him
sufficiently along one path
12 we've roamed the world. Let us congratulate
each other on attaining land. Hurrah!
It long (is it not true?) was time.
XLIX
Whoever, O my reader,
you be — friend, foe — I wish to part
with you at present as a pal.
4 Farewell. Whatever in these careless strophes
you might have looked for as you followed me —
tumultuous recollections,
relief from labors,
8 live images or witticisms,
or faults of grammar —
God grant that in this book, for recreation,
for dreaming, for the heart,
12 for jousts in journals,
you find at least a crumb.
Upon which, let us part, farewell!
L
You, too, farewell, my strange traveling companion,
and you, my true ideal,
and you, my live and constant,
4 though small, work. I have known with you
all that a poet covets:
obliviousness of life in the world's tempests,
the sweet discourse of friends.
8 Rushed by have many, many days
since young Tatiana, and with her
Onegin, in a blurry dream
appeared to me for the first time —
12 and the far stretch of a free novel
I through a magic crystal
still did not make out clearly.
LI
But those to whom at amicable meetings
its first strophes I read —
“Some are no more, others are distant,”
4 as erstwhiles Sadi said.
Without them was Onegin's picture finished.
And she from whom was fashioned
the dear ideal of “Tatiana”...
8 Ah, much, much has fate snatched away!
Blest who left life's feast early,
not having to the bottom drained
the goblet full of wine;
12 who never read life's novel to the end
and all at once could part with it
as I with my Onegin.
NOTES TO EUGENE ONEGIN
1. Written in Bessarabia. >>
2. Dandy [Eng.], a fop. >>
3. Hat à la Bolivar. >>
4. Well-known restaurateur. >>
5. A trait of chilled sentiment worthy of Childe Harold. The ballets of Mr. Didelot are full of liveliness of fancy and extraordinary charm. One of our romantic writers found in them much more poetry than in the whole of French literature. >>
6. “Tout le monde sut qu'il mettoit du blanc, et moi qui n'en croyois rien je commençai de le croire, non seulement par l'embellissement de son teint, et pour avoir trouvé des tasses de blanc sur sa toilette, mais sur ce qu'entrant un matin dans sa chambre, je le trouvai brossant ses ongles avec une petite vergette faite exprès, ouvrage qu'il continua fi+èrement devant moi. Je jugeai qu'un homme qui passe deux heures tous les matins à brosser ses ongles peut bien passer quelques instans à remplir de blanc les creux de sa peau.”
Grimm was ahead of his age: nowadays people all over enlightened Europe clean their nails with a special brush. >>
7. The whole of this ironical stanza is nothing but a subtle compliment to our fair compatriots. Thus Boileau, under the guise of disapprobation, eulogizes Louis XIV. Our ladies combine enlightenment with amiability, and strict purity of morals with the Oriental charm that so captivated Mme de Staël
8. Readers remember the charming description of a Petersburg night in Gnedich's idyl:
Here's night; but the golden stripes of the clouds do not darken.
Though starless and moonless, the whole horizon lights up.
Far out in the [Baltic] gulf one can see the silvery sails
4 Of hardly discernible ships that seem in the blue sky to float.
With a gloomless radiance the night sky is radiant,
And the crimson of sunset blends with the Orient's gold,
As if Aurora led forth in the wake of evening
8 Her rosy morn. This is the aureate season
When the power of night is usurped by the summer days;
When the foreigner's gaze is bewitched by the Northern sky
Where shade and ambrosial light form a magical union
12 Which never adorns the sky of the South:
A limpidity similar to the charms of a Northern maiden
Whose light-blue eyes and rose-colored cheeks
Are but slightly shaded by auburn curls undulating.
16 Now above the Neva and sumptuous Petropolis
You see eves without gloom and brief nights without shadow.
Now as soon as Philomel ends her midnight songs
She starts the songs that welcome the rise of the day.
20 But 'tis late; a coolness wafts on the Nevan tundras;
The dew has descended;...
Here's midnight; after sounding all evening with thousands of oars,
The Neva does not stir; town guests have dispersed;
24 Not a voice on the shore, not a ripple astream, all is still.
Alone now and then o'er the water a rumble runs from the bridges,
Or a long-drawn cry flies forth from a distant suburb
Where in the night one sentinel calls to another.
28 All sleeps.... >>
9. Not in dream the ardent poet
the benignant goddess sees
as he spends a sleepless night
4 leaning on the granite.
10. Written in Odessa. >>
11. See the first edition of Eugene Onegin. >>
12. From the first part of Dneprovskaya Rusalka. >>
13. The most euphonious Greek names, such as, for instance, Agathon, Philetus, Theodora, Thecla, and so forth, are used with us only among the common people. >>
14. Grandison and Lovelace, the heroes of two famous novels. >>
15. “Si j'avais la folie de croire encore au bonheur, je le chercherais dans l'habitude.” Chateaubriand. >>
16. Poor Yorick! — Hamlet's exclamation over the skull of the fool (see Shakespeare and Sterne). >>
17. A misprint in the earlier edition [of the chapter] altered “homeward they fly” to “in winter they fly” (which did not make any sense whatsoever). Reviewers, not realizing this, saw an anachronism in the following stanzas. We venture to assert that, in our novel, the chronology has been worked out calendrically. >>
18. Julie Wolmar, the New Héloïse; Malek-Adhel, hero of a mediocre romance by Mme Cottin; Gustave de Linar, hero of a charming short novel by Baroness Krüdener. >>
19. The Vampyre, a short novel incorrectly attributed to Lord Byron; Melmoth, a work of genius, by Maturin; Jean Sbogar, the well-known romance by Charles Nodier. >>
20. Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch'entrate. Our modest author has translated only the first part of the famous verse. >>
21. A periodical that used to be conducted by the late A. Izmaylov rather negligently. He once apologized in print to the public, saying that during the holidays he had “caroused.” >>
22. E. A. Baratïnski. >>
23. Reviewers wondered how one could call a simple peasant girl “maiden” when, a little further, genteel misses are called “young things.” >>
24. “This signifies,” remarks one of our critics, “that the urchins are skating.” Right. >>
25. In my rosy years
the poetical Ay
pleased me with its noisy foam,
4 with this simile of love,
or of frantic youth.
26. August Lafontaine, author of numerous family novels. >>
27. See “First Snow,” a poem by Prince Vyazemski. >>
28. See the descriptions of the Finnish winter in Baratïnski's “Eda.” >>
29. Tomcat calls Kit
to sleep in the stove nook.
The presage of a wedding; the first song foretells death. >>
30. In this manner one finds out the name of one's future fiancé. >>
31. Reviewers condemned the words hlop [clap], molv' [parle], and top [stamp] as indifferent neologisms. These words are fundamentally Russian. “Bova stepped out of the tent for some fresh air and heard in the open country the parle of man and the stamp of steed” (“The Tale of Bova the Prince”). Hlop and ship are used in plain-folk speech instead of hlópanie [clapping] and shipénie [hissing]:
“he let out a hiss of the snaky sort”
One should not interfere with the freedom of our rich and beautiful language. >>
32. One of our critics, it would seem, finds in these lines an indecency incomprehensible to us. >>
33. Divinatory books in our country come out under the imprint of Martin Zadeck — a worthy person who never wrote divinatory books, as B. M. Fyodorov observes. >>
34. A parody of Lomonosov's well-known lines:
35. . . . . . . . . . . .Buyanov, my neighbor,
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
called yesterday on me: mustache unshaven,
4 tousled, fluff-covered, wearing a peaked cap.
36. Our critics, faithful admirers of the fair sex, strongly blamed the indecorum of this verse. >>
37. Parisian restaurateur. >>
38. Griboedov's line. >>
39. A famous arms fabricator. >>
40. In the first edition Chapter Six ended in the following:
And you, young inspiration,
stir my imagination,
the slumber of the heart enliven,
8 into my nook more often fly,
let not a poet's soul grow cold,
callous, crust-dry,
and finally be turned to stone
12 in the World's deadening intoxication,
amidst the soulless proudlings,
amidst the brilliant fools,
XLVII
amidst the crafty, the fainthearted,
crazy, spoiled children,
villains both ludicrous and dull,
4 obtuse, caviling judges;
amidst devout coquettes;
amidst the voluntary lackeys;
amidst the daily modish scenes,
8 courtly, affectionate betrayals;
amidst hardhearted vanity's
cold verdicts;
amidst the vexing emptiness
12 of schemes, of thoughts and conversations;
in that slough where with you
I bathe, dear friends! >>
41. Lyovshin, author of numerous works on rural econ omy. >>
42. Our roads are for the eyes a garden:
trees, ditches, and a turfy bank;
much toil, much glory,
4 but, sad to say, no passage now and then.
The trees that stand like sentries
bring little profit to the travelers;
the road, you'll say, is fine,
8 but you'll recall the verse: “for passers-by!”
Driving in Russia is unhampered
on two occasions only:
when our McAdam — or McEve — winter —
12 accomplishes, crackling with wrath,
its devastating raid
and with ice's cast-iron armors roads
while powder snow betimes
16 as if with fluffy sand covers the tracks;
or when the fields are permeated
with such a torrid drought
that with eyes closed a fly
20 can ford a puddle.
43. A simile borrowed from K., so well known for the playfulness of his fancy. K. related that, being one day sent as courier by Prince Potyomkin to the Empress, he drove so fast that his épée, one end of which stuck out of his carriage, rattled against the verstposts as along a palisade. >>
44. Rout [Eng.], an evening assembly without dances; means properly crowd [tolpa]. >>
1. Written in Bessarabia. >>
2. Dandy [Eng.], a fop. >>
3. Hat à la Bolivar. >>
4. Well-known restaurateur. >>
5. A trait of chilled sentiment worthy of Childe Harold. The ballets of Mr. Didelot are full of liveliness of fancy and extraordinary charm. One of our romantic writers found in them much more poetry than in the whole of French literature. >>
6. “Tout le monde sut qu'il mettoit du blanc, et moi qui n'en croyois rien je commençai de le croire, non seulement par l'embellissement de son teint, et pour avoir trouvé des tasses de blanc sur sa toilette, mais sur ce qu'entrant un matin dans sa chambre, je le trouvai brossant ses ongles avec une petite vergette faite exprès, ouvrage qu'il continua fi+èrement devant moi. Je jugeai qu'un homme qui passe deux heures tous les matins à brosser ses ongles peut bien passer quelques instans à remplir de blanc les creux de sa peau.”
Grimm was ahead of his age: nowadays people all over enlightened Europe clean their nails with a special brush. >>
7. The whole of this ironical stanza is nothing but a subtle compliment to our fair compatriots. Thus Boileau, under the guise of disapprobation, eulogizes Louis XIV. Our ladies combine enlightenment with amiability, and strict purity of morals with the Oriental charm that so captivated Mme de Staël
8. Readers remember the charming description of a Petersburg night in Gnedich's idyl:
Here's night; but the golden stripes of the clouds do not darken.
Though starless and moonless, the whole horizon lights up.
Far out in the [Baltic] gulf one can see the silvery sails
4 Of hardly discernible ships that seem in the blue sky to float.
With a gloomless radiance the night sky is radiant,
And the crimson of sunset blends with the Orient's gold,
As if Aurora led forth in the wake of evening
8 Her rosy morn. This is the aureate season
When the power of night is usurped by the summer days;
When the foreigner's gaze is bewitched by the Northern sky
Where shade and ambrosial light form a magical union
12 Which never adorns the sky of the South:
A limpidity similar to the charms of a Northern maiden
Whose light-blue eyes and rose-colored cheeks
Are but slightly shaded by auburn curls undulating.
16 Now above the Neva and sumptuous Petropolis
You see eves without gloom and brief nights without shadow.
Now as soon as Philomel ends her midnight songs
She starts the songs that welcome the rise of the day.
20 But 'tis late; a coolness wafts on the Nevan tundras;
The dew has descended;...
Here's midnight; after sounding all evening with thousands of oars,
The Neva does not stir; town guests have dispersed;
24 Not a voice on the shore, not a ripple astream, all is still.
Alone now and then o'er the water a rumble runs from the bridges,
Or a long-drawn cry flies forth from a distant suburb
Where in the night one sentinel calls to another.
28 All sleeps.... >>
9. Not in dream the ardent poet
the benignant goddess sees
as he spends a sleepless night
4 leaning on the granite.
10. Written in Odessa. >>
11. See the first edition of Eugene Onegin. >>
12. From the first part of Dneprovskaya Rusalka. >>
13. The most euphonious Greek names, such as, for instance, Agathon, Philetus, Theodora, Thecla, and so forth, are used with us only among the common people. >>
14. Grandison and Lovelace, the heroes of two famous novels. >>
15. “Si j'avais la folie de croire encore au bonheur, je le chercherais dans l'habitude.” Chateaubriand. >>
16. Poor Yorick! — Hamlet's exclamation over the skull of the fool (see Shakespeare and Sterne). >>
17. A misprint in the earlier edition [of the chapter] altered “homeward they fly” to “in winter they fly” (which did not make any sense whatsoever). Reviewers, not realizing this, saw an anachronism in the following stanzas. We venture to assert that, in our novel, the chronology has been worked out calendrically. >>
18. Julie Wolmar, the New Héloïse; Malek-Adhel, hero of a mediocre romance by Mme Cottin; Gustave de Linar, hero of a charming short novel by Baroness Krüdener. >>
19. The Vampyre, a short novel incorrectly attributed to Lord Byron; Melmoth, a work of genius, by Maturin; Jean Sbogar, the well-known romance by Charles Nodier. >>
20. Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch'entrate. Our modest author has translated only the first part of the famous verse. >>
21. A periodical that used to be conducted by the late A. Izmaylov rather negligently. He once apologized in print to the public, saying that during the holidays he had “caroused.” >>
22. E. A. Baratïnski. >>
23. Reviewers wondered how one could call a simple peasant girl “maiden” when, a little further, genteel misses are called “young things.” >>
24. “This signifies,” remarks one of our critics, “that the urchins are skating.” Right. >>
25. In my rosy years
the poetical Ay
pleased me with its noisy foam,
4 with this simile of love,
or of frantic youth.
26. August Lafontaine, author of numerous family novels. >>
27. See “First Snow,” a poem by Prince Vyazemski. >>
28. See the descriptions of the Finnish winter in Baratïnski's “Eda.” >>
29. Tomcat calls Kit
to sleep in the stove nook.
The presage of a wedding; the first song foretells death. >>
30. In this manner one finds out the name of one's future fiancé. >>
31. Reviewers condemned the words hlop [clap], molv' [parle], and top [stamp] as indifferent neologisms. These words are fundamentally Russian. “Bova stepped out of the tent for some fresh air and heard in the open country the parle of man and the stamp of steed” (“The Tale of Bova the Prince”). Hlop and ship are used in plain-folk speech instead of hlópanie [clapping] and shipénie [hissing]:
“he let out a hiss of the snaky sort”
One should not interfere with the freedom of our rich and beautiful language. >>
32. One of our critics, it would seem, finds in these lines an indecency incomprehensible to us. >>
33. Divinatory books in our country come out under the imprint of Martin Zadeck — a worthy person who never wrote divinatory books, as B. M. Fyodorov observes. >>
34. A parody of Lomonosov's well-known lines:
35. . . . . . . . . . . .Buyanov, my neighbor,
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
called yesterday on me: mustache unshaven,
4 tousled, fluff-covered, wearing a peaked cap.
36. Our critics, faithful admirers of the fair sex, strongly blamed the indecorum of this verse. >>
37. Parisian restaurateur. >>
38. Griboedov's line. >>
39. A famous arms fabricator. >>
40. In the first edition Chapter Six ended in the following:
And you, young inspiration,
stir my imagination,
the slumber of the heart enliven,
8 into my nook more often fly,
let not a poet's soul grow cold,
callous, crust-dry,
and finally be turned to stone
12 in the World's deadening intoxication,
amidst the soulless proudlings,
amidst the brilliant fools,
amidst the crafty, the fainthearted,
crazy, spoiled children,
villains both ludicrous and dull,
4 obtuse, caviling judges;
amidst devout coquettes;
amidst the voluntary lackeys;
amidst the daily modish scenes,
8 courtly, affectionate betrayals;
amidst hardhearted vanity's
cold verdicts;
amidst the vexing emptiness
12 of schemes, of thoughts and conversations;
in that slough where with you
I bathe, dear friends! >>
41. Lyovshin, author of numerous works on rural econ omy. >>
42. Our roads are for the eyes a garden:
trees, ditches, and a turfy bank;
much toil, much glory,
4 but, sad to say, no passage now and then.
The trees that stand like sentries
bring little profit to the travelers;
the road, you'll say, is fine,
8 but you'll recall the verse: “for passers-by!”
Driving in Russia is unhampered
on two occasions only:
when our McAdam — or McEve — winter —
12 accomplishes, crackling with wrath,
its devastating raid
and with ice's cast-iron armors roads
while powder snow betimes
16 as if with fluffy sand covers the tracks;
or when the fields are permeated
with such a torrid drought
that with eyes closed a fly
20 can ford a puddle.
43. A simile borrowed from K., so well known for the playfulness of his fancy. K. related that, being one day sent as courier by Prince Potyomkin to the Empress, he drove so fast that his épée, one end of which stuck out of his carriage, rattled against the verstposts as along a palisade. >>
44. Rout [Eng.], an evening assembly without dances; means properly crowd [tolpa]. >>
FRAGMENTS OF ONEGIN'S JOURNEY
The last [Eighth] Chapter of Eugene Onegin was published [1832] separately with the following foreword:
“The dropped stanzas gave rise more than once to reprehension and gibes (no doubt most just and witty). The author candidly confesses that he omitted from his novel a whole chapter in which Onegin's journey across Russia was described. It depended upon him to designate this omitted chapter by means of dots or a numeral; but to avoid ambiguity he decided it would be better to mark as number eight, instead of nine, the last chapter of Eugene Onegin, and to sacrifice one of its closing stanzas [Eight: XLVIIIa]:
'Tis time: the pen for peace is asking
nine cantos I have written;
my boat upon the joyful shore
4 by the ninth billow is brought out.
Praise be to you, O nine Camenae, etc.
“P[avel] A[leksandrovich] Katenin (whom a fine poetic talent does not prevent from being also a subtle critic) observed to us that this exclusion, though perhaps advantageous to readers, is, however, detrimental to the plan of the entire work since, through this, the transition from Tatiana the provincial miss to Tatiana the grande dame becomes too unexpected and unexplained: an observation revealing the experienced artist. The author himself felt the justice of this but decided to leave out the chapter for reasons important to him but not to the public. Some fragments [XVI–XIX, l–10] have been published [Jan. 1, 1830, Lit. Gaz.] ; we insert them here, subjoining to them several other stanzas.”
E. [sic] Onegin drives from Moscow to Nizhni Novgorod:
[IX]
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . before him
Makariev bustlingly bestirs itself,
4 with its abundance seethes.
Here the Hindu brought pearls,
the European, spurious wines,
the breeder from the steppes
8 drove a herd of cast steeds,
the gamester brought his decks,
fistful of complaisant dice,
the landowner ripe daughters,
12 and daughterlings, the fashions of last year;
each bustles, lies enough for two,
and everywhere there's a mercantile spirit.
[X]
Ennui!...
Onegin fares to Astrahan [XI], and from there to the[Caucasus:
[XII]
He sees the wayward Térek
eroding its steep banks;
before him soars a stately eagle,
4 a deer stands, with bent horns;
the camel lies in the cliff's shade;
in meadows courses the Circassian's steed,
and round nomadic tents
8 the sheep of Kalmuks graze.
Afar [loom] the Caucasian masses.
The way to them is clear. War penetrated
beyond their natural divide,
12 across their perilous barriers.
The banks of the Arágva and Kurá
saw Russian tents.
[XIII]
Now, the eternal watchman of the waste,
Beshtú, compressed around by hills,
stands up, sharp-peaked,
4 and, showing green, Mashúk,
Mashúk, of healing streams dispenser;
around its magic brooks
a pallid swarm of patients presses,
8 the victims, some of martial honor,
some of the Piles, and some of Cypris.
In waves miraculous the sufferer
plans to make firm the thread of life.
12 To leave the wicked years' offenses at the bottom
[plans] the coquette, and the old man
[plans] to grow young — if only for a moment.
[XIV]
Onegin, nursing bitter meditations,
among their sorry tribe,
with a gaze of regret
4 looks at the smoking streams and muses,
bedimmed with rue: Why in the breast
am I not wounded by a bullet?
Why am I not a feeble oldster
8 like that poor farmer-general?
Why like a councilman from Tula
am I not lying paralyzed?
Why in the shoulder do I not
12 at least feel rheumatism? Ah, Lord,
I'm young, life is robust in me,
what have I to expect? Ennui, ennui!...
Onegin then visits the Tauris [Crimea]:
[XV]
land sacred unto the imagination:
there with Orestes argued Pylades;
there Mithridates stabbed himself;
12 there sang inspired Mickiéwicz
and in the midst of coastal cliffs
recalled his Lithuania.
[XVI]
Beauteous are you, shores of the Tauris,
when from the ship one sees you by the light
of morning Cypris, as I saw you
4 for the first time.
You showed yourselves to me in nuptial splendor.
Against a blue and limpid sky
shone the amassments of your mountains.
8 The pattern of valleys, trees, villages
was spread before me.
And there, among the small huts of the Tatars...
What ardency awoke in me!
12 With what magical yearnfulness
my flaming bosom was compressed!
But, Muse, forget the past!
[XVII]
Whatever feelings then lay hidden
within me — now they are no more:
they went or changed....
4 Peace unto you, turmoils of former years!
To me seemed needful at the time
deserts, the pearly rims of waves,
and the sea's rote, and piles of rocks,
8 and the ideal of “proud maid,”
and nameless pangs.
Other days, other dreams;
you have become subdued,
12 my springtime's high-flung fancies,
and unto my poetic goblet
I have admixed a lot of water.
[XVIII]
Needful to me are other pictures:
I like a sandy hillside slope,
before a small isba two rowans,
4 a wicket gate, a broken fence,
up in the sky gray clouds,
before the thrash barn heaps of straw,
and in the shelter of dense willows
8 a pond — the franchise of young ducks.
I'm fond now of the balalaika
and of the trepak's drunken stomping
before the threshold of the tavern;
12 now my ideal is a housewife,
my wishes, peace
and “pot of shchi but big myself.”
[XIX]
The other day, during a rainy spell,
as I had dropped into the cattle yard —
Fie! Prosy divagations,
4 the Flemish School's variegated dross!
Was I like that when I was blooming?
Say, Fountain of Bahchisaray!
Were such the thoughts that to my mind
8 your endless purl suggested
when silently in front of you
Zaréma I imagined?...
Midst the sumptuous deserted halls
12 after the lapse of three years, in my tracks
in the same region wandering, Onegin
remembered me.
[XX]
I lived then in dusty Odessa....
There for a long time skies are clear.
There, stirring, an abundant trade
4 sets up its sails.
There all exhales, diffuses Europe,
all glitters with the South, and brindles
with live variety.
8 The tongue of golden Italy
resounds along the gay street where
walks the proud Slav,
Frenchman, Spaniard, Armenian,
12 and Greek, and the heavy Moldavian,
and the son of Egyptian soil,
the retired Corsair, Moralí.
[XXI]
Odessa in sonorous verses
our friend Tumanski has described,
but at the time with partial eyes
4 he gazed at it.
Upon arriving, he, like a true poet,
went off to roam with his lorgnette
alone above the sea; and then
8 with an enchanting pen
he glorified the gardens of Odessa.
All right — but there, in point of fact,
is a bare steppe around;
12 in a few places recent labor
has forced young boughs on sultry days
to give compulsory shade.
[XXII]
But where, pray, was my rambling tale? “In dusty
Odessa,” I had said.
I might have said “in muddy
4 Odessa” — and indeed would not have lied there either.
For five-six weeks a year
Odessa, by the will of stormy Zeus,
is flooded, is stopped up,
8 is in thick mud immersed.
Some two feet deep all houses are embedded.
Only on stilts does a pedestrian
dare ford the street. Chariots and people
12 sink in, get stuck; and hitched to droshkies
the ox, horns bent, replaces
the debile steed.
[XXIII]
But the sledge-hammer breaks up stones already,
and with a ringing pavement soon
the salvaged city will be covered
4 as with an armor of forged steel.
However, in this moist Odessa
there is another grave deficiency,
of — what would you think? Water.
8 Grievous exertions are required....
So what? This is not a great sorrow!
Particularly since wine is
imported free of duty.
12 But then the Southern sun, but then the sea...
What more, friends, could you want?
Blest climes!
[XXIV]
Time was, no sooner did the sunrise gun
roar from the ship
than, down the steep shore running,
4 I would be on my way toward the sea.
Then, sitting with a glowing pipe,
enlivened by the briny wave,
like in his paradise a Moslem, coffee
8 with Oriental grounds I quaff.
I go out for a stroll. Already the benevolent
Casino's open: the clatter of cups
resounds there; on the balcony
12 the marker, half asleep, emerges
with a broom in his hands, and at the porch
two merchants have converged already.
[XXV]
Anon the square grows freaked [with people].
All is alive now; here and there
they run, on business or not busy;
4 however, more on businesses.
The child of Calculation and of Venture,
the merchant goes to glance at ensigns,
to find out — are the skies
8 sending to him known sails?
What new wares have
entered today in quarantine?
Have the casks of expected wines arrived?
12> And how's the plague, and where the conflagrations,
and is not there some famine, war,
or novelty of a like kind?
[XXVI]
But we, fellows without a sorrow,
among the careful merchants,
expected only oysters
4 from Tsargrad's shores.
What news of oysters? They have come. O glee!
Off flies gluttonous juventy
to swallow from their sea shells
8 the plump, live cloisterers,
slightly asperged with lemon.
Noise, arguments; light wine
onto the table from the cellars
12 by complaisant Automne[2] is brought.
The hours fly by, and the grim bill
meantime invisibly augments.
[XXVII]
But the blue evening grows already darker.
Time to the opera we sped:
there 'tis the ravishing Rossini,
4 darling of Europe, Orpheus.
To severe criticism not harking, he
is ever selfsame, ever new;
he pours out melodies, they effervesce,
8 they flow, they burn
like youthful kisses, all
in mollitude, in flames of love,
like the stream and the golden spurtles of Ay
12 starting to fizz; but, gentlemen,
is it permitted to compare
do-re-mi-sol to wine?
[XXVIII]
And does that sum up the enchantments there?
And what about the explorative lorgnette?
And the assignments in the wings?
4 The prima donna? The ballet?
And the loge where, in beauty shining,
a trader's young wife, vain
and languorous,
8 is by a crowd of thralls surrounded?
She lists and does not list
the cavatina, the entreaties,
the banter blent halfwise with flattery,
12 while in a corner naps behind her
her husband; wakes up to cry “Fuora!”; yawns,
and snores again.
[XXIX]
There thunders the finale. The house empties;
with noise the outfall hastes;
the crowd onto the square
4 runs by the gleam of lamps and stars.
The sons of fortunate Ausonia hum
a playful tune
involuntarily retained —
8 while we roar the recitative.
But it is late. Sleeps quietly
Odessa; and breathless and warm
is the mute night. The moon has risen,
12 a veil, diaphanously light,
enfolds the sky. All's silent;
only the Black Sea sounds.
[XXX]
And so I lived then in Odessa.
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