Yevgeny Onegin

CHAPTER EIGHT

Fare thee well! and if for ever—

Still for ever, fare thee well.

BYRON

1

Long since, when young and at my gayest,

Through the school gardens I would go,

Lost in the lines of Apuleius,

Having no time for Cicero.

In spring I strolled secluded valleys,

Where swimming swans sang out their challenge

And waters glistened placidly.

’Twas then the Muse first came to me.

She lit my cell and made it precious,

Spreading before me one great feast

Of youthful fancies new-released,

Singing of boyhood and its pleasures,

Of Russia’s glory, and the art

Of building dreams to thrill the heart. 2

The world smiled, finding her disarming.

We soared on wings of young success,

And pleased the elderly Derzhávin,

Who blessed us just before his death.

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Submitting to a special token—

The laws of passion and of whim—

I threw my feelings widely open,

And took my bright Muse where I’d been:

To rowdy feasts and noisy quarrels,

Midnight patrols enforcing morals—

And to these wild, outlandish dos

She brought her talents as a muse.

Revelling like a young bacchante,

She drank with us, sang with good cheer,

And the young bloods of yesteryear

Chased after her, raucous and frantic,

While I turned to my friends with pride,

With this bright mistress at my side. 4

But soon I called off all our meetings,

And fled afar… But she came too.

A ministering muse, she sweetened

The lonely journey I came through

With magic in her secret stories.

She was what Bürger’s young Lenore is.

She galloped the Caucasian heights

Along with me in the moonlight.

On the Crimean seashore, roaming,

I knew with her the evening mist,

And heard the sea, the whispered hiss

Of nereids once known to Homer,

The waves with their eternal skirl,

Hymning the Father of the World. 5

The capital fell from her favour

(All glitz and raucous merriment)

And in the sadness of Moldavia

She visited the humble tents

Of wandering tribesmen close to nature,

Where she became a savage creature,

Leaving the language of the gods

For tongues that sounded poor and odd,

And songs the lovely steppe had taught her…

But all of this she soon forgot,

Becoming, in my garden plot,

A rural landowner’s young daughter

With sadness in her eyes, intense,

Holding a novelette in French. 6

Now for the first time let us summon

My muse to a smart party. Here,

The charms of this wild-country woman

I watch with jealous pride and fear.

As diplomats crowd through the entry

With soldiers brave and landed gentry,

She glides in past proud party queens

And looks on, sitting there serene,

Enjoying all the crush and clamour,

The gorgeous clothes, the clever talk,

The shuffling guests, queueing to walk

By the young hostess in her glamour,

Ladies with men ranged at their back—

A pretty picture framed in black. 7

She loves the oligarchic order

Which fixes all the verbiage,

The cold conceit in every corner,

The blending in of rank and age.

But who is this among the chosen,

Standing in hazy silence, frozen?

He’s like a stranger with no grasp

Of any faces that go past

Like tedious phantoms come to visit.

His face shows pained conceit, or spleen.

Which is it, and what does this mean?

Who’s this? It’s not Yevgeny, is it?

Yevgeny? You’re not serious?

It is him, wafted back to us. 8

Is he the same man? Has he mellowed

Or is he the oddball of old?

What has he come back for, this fellow?

How will he play his future role?

Who will he be? Melmoth the wanderer?

Globetrotter? A pro-Russian thunderer?

Childe Harold? Quaker? Hypocrite?

What other likeness could he fit?

Or is he just a fine young person

Like all of us, and just as nice?

Well, anyway, here’s my advice:

Old styles call out to be converted.

He’s fooled us all since long ago.

So, do you know him? Yes and no. 9

Why are you so unsympathetic

Towards Onegin as a man?

Because we are so energetic

In criticizing all we can?

Charged minds are prone to indiscretion,

Which small, smug nobodies may question

As laughable, offensive smut.

Wit wanders, and will not stay put.

Small talk is cheap, and we too often

Take it for active interest.

Foolishness flaunts its silliness;

Top people thrive on what is rotten.

With mediocrity we blend,

Treating it as our closest friend. 10

Blest he who, as a youth, was youthful,

Blest he who in due time grows old

And steadily becomes more rueful

While finding out that life is cold,

Who entertains no idle fancies,

Who with the rabble takes his chances,

At twenty, dandified hothead,

At thirty profitably wed,

At fifty owing not a penny

To other people or the state,

And who has been prepared to wait

For reputation, rank and money,

Of whom they’ve said throughout his span

So-and-so’s such a lovely man. 11

It’s sad that youth turned out so useless,

So futile and perfidious.

How frequently we have traduced her,

And she has disappointed us.

To think we watched our strongest yearnings,

Our purest aspirations, turning

Successively to dark decay,

Like leaves on a wet autumn day.

Unbearable, the future beckons,

With life an endless dining club

With decent membership and grub,

Where others lead and we come second.

At odds with them, we tag along,

Though we share nothing with the throng. 12

Unbearable (you won’t deny it)

To suffer many a jibe and slur

From decent folk, who, on the quiet,

Call one an oddball, a poseur,

Or maybe a pathetic madman,

Or a Satanic beast, a bad man,

Even the demon that I drew.

Onegin, to begin anew,

Took off after the fatal duel

With no clear plan, living for kicks,

Until the age of twenty-six—

An idle life with no renewal

Nor anything to which to cling,

Sans work, sans wife, sans everything. 13

He felt a jolt, a sudden flurry,

A longing for a change of air

(The kind of agonizing worry

That few of us would want to bear).

He quitted his estate, thus losing

The woods, the meadows, the seclusion,

The places where a bleeding shade

Arose before him every day,

And set off on sporadic travels,

With one idea to travel for,

But travel soon became a bore—

For travel, like all things, unravels.

He’s back “like Chatsky” (someone wrote),

“Straight to the ballroom from the boat.” 14

But then the throng was stirred and furrowed,

A whisper shimmered through the hall.

A lady neared the hostess, followed

By an imposing general.

Serenely she came, not stand-offish,

Not talkative, not cold or snobbish,

Devoid of hauteur, not too grand,

Devoid of self-importance, and

Without a trace of facial grimace

Or any ingratiating glance…

Easy and calm in her advance,

She showed herself the very image

Du comme il faut. (Shishkóv, forgive!

I can’t translate the adjective.) 15

Ladies came up to her more closely,

The old ones smiled as she went by,

The men bowed lower to her, mostly

Endeavouring to catch her eye.

Girls up ahead lowered their voices.

Tallest of all, and much the haughtiest,

The general then followed her

With nose and shoulders in the air.

No one could say she was a beauty,

But nothing could have been applied

To her that might have been described,

Out of some fashionable duty,

By London’s loftiest citizen

As vulgar. (Here we go again… 16

This is a favourite expression

That I’m unable to translate.

Because it is quite new in Russia

It hasn’t taken—as of late.

In epigrams it could score greatly.)

But—let us go back to our lady.

Her charm was to be wondered at:

Gracing the table, there she sat

With lovely Nina Voronskáya,

Our Cleopatra of the north,

Whose sculpted beauty was not worth

Enough to set her any higher

Than her delightful vis-à-vis,

However stunning she might be. 17

“I don’t believe it,” thinks Yevgeny.

“Not her. Not her! It cannot be!

What, that girl from the backwoods?” Straining

With a voracious eyeglass, he

Homes in and out, keenly exploring

The sight of her, vaguely recalling

Features forgotten ages since.

“I say, who is that lady, Prince,

There in the raspberry-coloured beret,

Near the ambassador from Spain?”

The prince looks once, and looks again.

“You’ve been away from things. Don’t worry.

I’ll introduce you, on my life.”

“Who is she, though?” “She is my wife.” 18

“Married? I didn’t know. Such drama!

Since when?” “Two years back, more or less.”

“Who is she?” “Larina.” “Tatyana?”

“You know her?” “We were neighbours. Yes.”

“Come on then.” And the prince, engaging,

Goes to her and presents Onegin

As a relation and a pal.

She looks. Her eyes seem natural.

Whatever may have stirred her spirit,

However deeply she was shocked,

However wonderstruck or rocked,

Nothing has changed her yet, nor will it.

She kept her former tone somehow,

And gave the normal, formal bow. 19

Indeed, her movements were no quicker,

Her features neither blanched nor blushed,

Her eyelids failed to show a flicker,

Her lips showed not the slightest crush.

Although he gazed and sought to garner

Some vestige of the old Tatyana,

Onegin could see none. He fought

To speak with her—it came to naught;

He could not manage it. She asked him

When he’d arrived, whence had he come.

Could it be where they had come from?

She found her spouse by staring past him

With weary eyes—then she was gone.

Onegin stood there, looking on. 20

Could this have been the same Tatyana

Whom he had faced alone that time

At the beginning of our drama

In such a dead and distant clime,

When he had striven to direct her

In that warm, moralizing lecture?

The same young girl from whom he’d kept

That letter from her heartfelt depths,

So forthright and naively open?

The same girl—was it just a dream?—

He had rejected, who had been

Left lonely, downcast and heartbroken?

How could she have turned out so cold,

So independent and so bold? 21

But soon he leaves the crowded dancing

To drive home, wallowing in thoughts

(All hope of quick sleep being chancy)

Part beautiful but largely fraught.

He wakes… A letter… Oh, that writing…

It is the prince humbly inviting

Him to a soirée. “Her house. Oh!

I must accept, I will, I’ll go!”

A nice response is quickly scribbled.

Is this a weird dream? So absurd!

What is this deep thing that has stirred

Within a soul grown old and shrivelled?

Pique? Vanity? Or—heavens above!—

That ailment of the young ones—love? 22

Onegin counts the minutes, harassed.

How sluggishly the day has crept!

The clock chimes ten—he’s in his carriage,

Flying along, then at the steps.

He comes to see the princess, quaking.

Tatyana is alone and waiting.

They sit together some time, dumb.

Time passes, and the words won’t come,

Not from Onegin. He looks awkward

And surly. All that he has said

Is not a real response. His head

Holds but a single thought. Still gawking,

He watches her. She, if you please,

Sits there serenely at her ease. 23

In comes her husband, nicely ending

A most unpleasant tête-à-tête.

Soon, with Onegin, he’s remembering

Their jokes and tricks when they were mates.

There’s laughter, and guests cut across it

With salty bits of social gossip,

Which lift a conversation that

Tatyana looked on as light chat,

Easy and sparkling, unpretentious,

Now and then turning, it would seem,

To measured thoughts on serious themes,

But not to deep truths or sharp censure.

It flowed on, causing no distress

With its unbridled joyfulness. 24

These talkers are top Petersburgers,

Quality people, dernier cri,

And recognizable. These others

Are fools from whom you cannot flee.

Here are some older dames, delightful

In caps and roses, and yet spiteful.

Here are some young girls, all equipped

With frigidly unsmiling lips.

Here, talking politics with passion,

Stands an ambassador. Here too

A greybeard strongly perfumed, who

Tells jokes; his manner is old-fashioned,

With witticisms dry as dust,

Subtle but, nowadays, ludicrous. 25

A man of aphoristic thinking

Says everything’s deplorable:

The tea’s too sweet, not fit for drinking,

The men are boorish, women dull,

Some novel is too vague and misty,

Some badge has gone to two young sisters.

He rails against the war, the strife,

Journals that lie, the snow, his wife…

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Here is Prolásov, labouring under

The weight of being known as mean;

In every album he has blunted

The pencils used by you, Saint-Priest.

Here stands another ball dictator,

A model for an illustrator,

A pussy-willow babe, pink-faced,

Mute, motionless, tight round the waist.

Here’s someone who came unexpected,

An overstarched young blade. The guests,

Much taken by his prettiness,

Smile at behaviour so affected.

The wordless glances slyly cast

Show the shared sentence on him passed. 27

But all that evening my Onegin

Was transfixed by Tatyana, though

He followed not the lovelorn maiden,

Poor, plain and shy, of long ago;

He saw the princess, independent,

A goddess out of reach, resplendent

In royal Russia. As for you,

Good people, you are like unto

Ancestral Eve, our first relation:

What’s granted you don’t like at all,

You want the serpent’s ceaseless call,

The mystic tree that brings temptation…

You must have the forbidden fruit

Or paradise will never suit. 28

This is a deeply changed Tatyana,

Who knows her role from first to last.

She’s mastered the constraining manner,

The tight routine of rank and class.

Is that young girl, once sweet and tender,

This paragon of grace and splendour,

This legislatrix of the ball?

And he had held her heart in thrall!

It was for him that, in night’s darkness,

Waiting for Morpheus and relief,

She used to grieve her young girl’s grief,

Her moonstruck eyes gone dull and sparkless,

Believing in some future dream—

A humble life lived out with him. 29

Love is the master of all ages.

To pure young hearts it is revealed

In little sudden, wholesome rages,

Like spring storms watering the fields;

In streams of passion the fields freshen,

Renewed and ripening. The blessing

Of life’s strength germinates new shoots,

Luxuriant growth and sugared fruits.

But in the late and barren season

When life is in decline for us

Dead signs of love are fatuous.

Our autumn tempests, nearly freezing,

Turn meadows into liquid mud

And strip bare the surrounding woods. 30

Alas, there is no doubt: Yevgeny

Loves our Tatyana like a child,

His days and nights devoted mainly

To lovelorn dreams. He is beguiled.

Against the call of reason, gently

Each day he drives up to the entry

Of her house, the glass doors. He woos her,

And like a shadow he pursues her,

Happy to drape around her shoulders

A fluffy boa, or place his warm

Fingers upon her passing arm,

Or ease her forward and control her

Through motley flunkies, or retrieve

Her soft, discarded handkerchief. 31

Tatyana doesn’t even notice

His desperate efforts. Neat and prim,

At home she plays the perfect hostess;

When out, she scarcely speaks to him.

A single nod she might award him,

But otherwise she just ignores him.

(Flirtation is now at a stop,

Condemned by people at the top.)

Onegin withers, weak and pallid;

She doesn’t see, or doesn’t care.

Onegin wastes away. Beware:

Is this consumption? Question valid.

They send him where the doctors are;

The doctors recommend a spa. 32

But he won’t go. No, he would rather

Commune with ancestors and plead

For union with them soon. Tatyana,

True to her sex, pays little heed,

While he stands firm and unrelenting.

He hopes, he harasses. If anything,

He gains new strength from weakness, and

Manages with a feeble hand

To pen a heartfelt missive to her

(Though letters, rightly, he esteemed

As meaningless in the extreme).

He was, and played, the anxious wooer,

Agonized, lovelorn and disturbed.

Here is his letter word for word: ONEGIN’S LETTER TO TATYANA

I know you’re certain to resent

The secret sadness in this message.

I see the bile in your expression,

Your proud eyes brimming with contempt!

What do I want? What is my purpose

In coming to you to confess?

Does this allow you to feel virtuous

While revelling in vindictiveness?

We met by chance one day, and Venus

Lit up a spark of warmth between us,

Though I could not believe in it,

Spurning good sense for no good reason,

Obsessed by loathsome thoughts of freedom

In which I would not yield one bit.

Another thing that separates us

Is Lensky, wretched victim, dead…

From everything the heart holds sacred

I tore myself away, and fled,

From each and everybody running,

Thinking that being calm and free

Would pass for happiness. Dear me,

How wrong I was, how harshly punished!

Now, minutes spent with you I prize,

The merest chance to trail behind you,

To see you smile and watch your eyes,

To launch a loving glance and find you,

To listen to your voice, to see

Fulfilment in your perfect spirit,

To faint and fade in agony—

This is my pain; my bliss lies in it.

But I’m denied that. All I do

Is shamble after you at random,

Pledging dear hours, dear days to you.

To futile tedium I abandon

Days measured out to me by Fate;

They cloy and oversatiate.

My day is done—time gives due warning—

But, yearning to prolong my stay,

I must be certain every morning

That I’ll see you during the day.

I fear this humble supplication

Will strike your dark, discerning eye

As shabby, sly and calculating,

And I can hear your angry cry.

If you but knew my ghastly torment,

My weary heart, my thirst for love,

My hope that reason, one fine moment,

Might cool the boiling of my blood…

I would fall down before you, choking

And sobbing, while I hug your knees,

Outpouring all that could be spoken—

Reproaches, declarations, pleas…

But, no, with simulated froideur

I gird my gaze and speech, and try

To chat and look you in the eye,

Like one who goes from glad to gladder.

That’s it. I cannot fight myself;

I have no stomach for the battle.

The die is cast. Now nothing matters.

My fate’s with you, and no one else. 33

No answer comes. In swift resumption

He sends a second note, a third.

No answer… One day, at some function

He enters… and runs into… her,

Straight opposite. She, strict and sombre,

Ignores him. Not a word comes from her.

Oh dear, she has been crystallized

In January’s coldest ice.

As if to stifle indignation,

She stands with tightness in her lips.

Onegin gawps. His eyes are gripped—

Where is her sympathy, her patience?

Where are the tear stains? Not a trace.

Only annoyance on that face, 34

And possibly a secret worry

That her spouse, or the world, might guess

Her bygone lapse, her youthful folly,

All that Onegin knows… Oh, yes,

His hopes are dashed! He sets off, cursing

The dark, demented disconcertion

Which leaves him now so deeply hurt…

And, once again, he shuns the world.

Back in his silent study, brooding,

He called to mind how things had been

In those days when a kind of spleen

Had stalked the brash world and pursued him,

Collaring him, locking him in hell,

Abandoned in an unlit cell. 35

He now reads anything: not only

The works of Gibbon and Rousseau,

Herder and Chamfort and Manzoni,

Madame de Staël, Bichat, Tissot,

But also, keeping things eclectic,

Of Fontenelle and Bayle, the sceptic,

And Russians, specially perhaps,

Rejecting nothing by our chaps,

As well as almanacs and journals

All sermonizing, smart and slick,

In which today I get some stick

In bits and pieces, fancy-worded,

About me, published now and then.

E sempre bene, gentlemen. 36

So what? His eyes may have been reading,

But he was miles away in thought;

Daydreams, desires and hapless pleadings

Rendered him soul-destroyed, distraught.

He read between the lines as printed;

In spirit, though, his eyes were glimpsing

Some other lines; he was immersed

Deeply in these lines from the first.

These were the stuff of myth and legend

With age-old, well-loved, secret themes,

Of random, unconnected dreams,

And threats, tales, promises and pledges,

Or letters that had been conveyed

To his hands from a sweet young maid. 37

But gradually his thoughts and feelings

Were lulled to sleep, and from afar

Imagination came forth, dealing

Him images like playing cards.

First, melting snow… Then something odder,

A figure like a sleeping lodger,

A rigid youth resting his head.

And then a voice… “Let’s look… He’s dead.”

Now he sees enemies forgotten,

Vile gossips, even viler rats,

A swarm of women, faithless cats,

Companions altogether rotten,

And then the house, the window sill,

And always her… She stands there still. 38

Soon this was so familiar to him

He almost lost his mind. He seemed

Almost inclined to write some poems.

(Oh what a thrill that would have been!)

Yes, moved by forces called “galvanic”,

He’d gone through Russian verse mechanics

And almost mastered form and line—

A student (uninspired) of mine.

He looked a poet to the letter

When he sat in his corner seat

And, by the hearth in all the heat,

Hummed ‘Idol Mio’… ‘Benedetta’…

And in the fire he sometimes dropped

Slipper or journal with a plop. 39

The days raced by, and frozen winter

Found warmer air was to be had.

He wrote no poems for the printer,

He did not die, did not go mad.

Spring energized him. One clear morning

He left his closed rooms without warning,

Abandoning the places where

He’d hibernated like a bear.

Fleeing the hearth and double windows,

He speeds the Neva in a sleigh.

The sunlight aims its dancing rays

At blocks of blue ice, slabs and splinters,

At streets of dirty, churned-up snow.

But racing on, where will he go, 40

Onegin? Your guess, incidentally,

Is right—you see this as it is.

My unreformable eccentric

Rushed to Tatyana’s—she was his.

Once in (looking like a dead body),

He meets with no one in the lobby,

The hall, or further in—there’s not

A soul. On through the next door. What

Now stops him in his tracks? He’s met her—

Here is the princess, much distressed,

Sitting there, pallid and half-dressed,

Engrossed in what looks like a letter.

Tears tumble down her face in streaks,

And one hand underpins her cheek. 41

Who could have failed to see Tatyana

In that quick spell of mute distress,

The former girl in a new drama,

Poor Tanya, in the new princess?

Oozing regret, half-crazed and straining,

Before her feet he fell, Yevgeny.

She shuddered, speechless, but her eyes

Glared at Onegin, unsurprised

And not vindictively, not raging…

His eyes, so lifeless and careworn,

His pleading pose, his silent scorn—

She sees it all. The country maiden

Felt dreams and thoughts of yesteryear

Restored to life again in her. 42

Tatyana leaves Onegin kneeling.

She stares; her focus never slips,

Her hand is cold, devoid of feeling;

She leaves it on his hungry lips…

Where are her dreams? Are they inspiring?…

Time passes in the lonely silence.

And then she speaks in a low hiss.

“Enough. Stand up. Listen to this.

I need to speak to you directly.

Do you recall that garden walk

Destined for us to meet and talk,

Where I endured your moral lecture

Because I was so young and meek?

Well now it’s my turn. I shall speak. 43

Back then, Onegin, I was younger,

And no doubt better-looking too.

I loved you with a young girl’s hunger,

And what did I receive from you?

An answer grim and supercilious.

Isn’t that true? You were familiar

With love from shy girls none too old.

And still today my blood runs cold

When I recall that dreadful sermon

And your cold eyes… But I don’t say

You did me wrong that awful day.

No, you did well. You were determined

To treat me nicely from the start.

I thank you now with all my heart. 44

In those days, hidden in the country,

Far from cheap gossip, you felt cold

Towards me. Now you have the effrontery

To persecute me and make bold!

Why have you picked me for a target?

Am I now such a better bargain

At this new social level, which

Makes me well known as well as rich?

Is it my husband, a war hero

With court connections and some fame?

Or would you just enjoy my shame,

To make sure you got noticed, merely

To stand out in the world of style,

And bask in glory for a while? 45

Excuse these tears… Let me direct you

To memories within our reach…

I’d sooner bear your stinging lecture,

The chilling tenor of your speech

(If I had some choice in this matter,)

Than all of your impassioned patter,

Your longing letters and your tears.

I’d keep the dreams of my young years—

In those days you displayed some pity,

Consideration for my youth.

But now! What brings you here to stoop

Beneath my feet? What jot or tittle?

How could your heart and mind somehow

Become slaves to emotion now? 46

For me this world of pomp and glamour,

These trappings of a life I loathe,

Social success with all its clamour,

Fine house, the soirées that I hold—

What do they mean to me, Onegin?

I’d give up this mean masquerading,

The blare, the glitter and the fumes,

And go back to our humble rooms,

A shelf of books, the rambling garden,

Those country places that I knew,

Where for the first time I met you,

The graveyard of our dear departed…

Where there’s a cross, and branches shade

My poor beloved Nanny’s grave. 47

But happiness was standing next to us,

So very close! Now everything

Is fixed for me. I’ve been impetuous,

Or maybe that’s what people think.

My mother wept, begged and besought me,

I didn’t care what fortune brought me;

It made no difference, yes or no.

I married. Now, I beg you, go.

Please leave me. Do as you are bidden.

I know your heart will be your guide

With all its honour and its pride.

I do love you—that can’t be hidden—

But now that I’m another’s wife,

I shall stay faithful all my life.” 48

She left the room. Yevgeny, reeling,

Stands thunderstruck before the burst

Of tumult and tempestuous feeling

In which his heart is now immersed.

But what is this? Spurs jingling gently,

Tatyana’s husband makes his entry…

Acute embarrassment is nigh.

But here, dear reader, you and I

Shall leave him, and our separation

Will last… for ever. Far have we

Meandered in close company,

But that’s enough. Congratulations—

We’re home at last! Let’s shout, “Hooray!”

Not before time, I hear you say. 49

Dear reader, be you friend or foeman,

My feeling now is that we ought

To part in friendship and good odour.

Goodbye. Whatever you have sought

In reading through these trivial stanzas—

Memory’s wild extravaganzas,

A break from work, artistic strokes,

Or silly little witty jokes,

Or, it may be, mistakes of grammar—

God grant within this book you find

For love, fun or a dreaming mind,

Or for the journalistic hammer,

Some crumb at least. Now you and I

Must go our separate ways. Goodbye! 50

And you, my wayfaring companion,

Goodbye. Goodbye, the vision pure.

Goodbye, my small work of long standing.

Along with you I’ve kept secure

All things that could delight a poet.

Flight from the stormy world—I know it;

Good conversation—it is mine.

The days have flown… It’s a long time

Since Tanya, youthful and reflective,

With my Onegin next to her,

Came to me in a dreamy blur.

My novel had a free perspective;

Hard though I scanned my crystal ball,

I couldn’t make it out at all. 51

And what of those good friends who listened

To my first stanzas freshly made?

“Some are no more, and some are distant,”

As Sadi said. Without their aid

Onegin’s portrait has been painted.

What of the girl who first acquainted

Me with Tatyana, perfect, pure?…

Fate steals things from us, that’s for sure!…

Blest he who leaves a little early

Life’s banquet without eating up

Or seeing the bottom of his cup,

Who drops his novel prematurely,

Bidding it suddenly adieu,

As I Yevgeny Onegin do.

THE END