Eugene Onéguine [onegin], by Alexander Pushkin

A SHORT BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF ALEXANDER PUSHKIN.

Alexander Sergévitch Pushkin was born in 1799 at Pskoff, and was a scion of an ancient Russian family. In one of his letters it is recorded that no less than six Pushkins signed the Charta declaratory of the election of the Románoff family to the throne of Russia, and that two more affixed their marks from inability to write.

In 1811 he entered the Lyceum, an aristocratic educational establishment at Tsarskoe Selo, near St. Petersburg, where he was the friend and schoolmate of Prince Gortchakoff the Russian Chancellor. As a scholar he displayed no remarkable amount of capacity, but was fond of general reading and much given to versification. Whilst yet a schoolboy he wrote many lyrical compositions and commenced Ruslan and Liudmila , his first poem of any magnitude, and, it is asserted, the first readable one ever produced in the Russian language. During his boyhood he came much into contact with the poets Dmitrieff and Joukóvski, who were intimate with his father, and his uncle, Vassili Pushkin, himself an author of no mean repute. The friendship of the historian Karamzine must have exercised a still more beneficial influence upon him.

In 1817 he quitted the Lyceum and obtained an appointment in the Foreign Office at St. Petersburg. Three years of reckless dissipation in the capital, where his lyrical talent made him universally popular, resulted in 1818 in a putrid fever which was near carrying him off. At this period of his life he scarcely slept at all; worked all day and dissipated at night. Society was open to him from the palace of the prince to the officers’ quarters of the Imperial Guard. The reflection of this mode of life may be noted in the first canto of Eugene Onéguine and the early dissipations of the “Philosopher just turned eighteen,”— the exact age of Pushkin when he commenced his career in the Russian capital.

In 1820 he was transferred to the bureau of Lieutenant-General Inzoff, at Kishineff in Bessarabia. This event was probably due to his composing and privately circulating an “Ode to Liberty,” though the attendant circumstances have never yet been thoroughly brought to light. An indiscreet admiration for Byron most likely involved the young poet in this scrape. The tenor of this production, especially its audacious allusion to the murder of the emperor Paul, father of the then reigning Tsar, assuredly deserved, according to aristocratic ideas, the deportation to Siberia which was said to have been prepared for the author. The intercession of Karamzine and Joukóvski procured a commutation of his sentence. Strangely enough, Pushkin appeared anxious to deceive the public as to the real cause of his sudden disappearance from the capital; for in an Ode to Ovid composed about this time he styles himself a “voluntary exile.” (See Note 4 to this volume.)

During the four succeeding years he made numerous excursions amid the beautiful countries which from the basin of the Euxine—and amongst these the Crimea and the Caucasus. A nomad life passed amid the beauties of nature acted powerfully in developing his poetical genius. To this period he refers in the final canto of Eugene Onéguine (st. v.), when enumerating the various influences which had contributed to the formation of his Muse:

     “Then, the far capital forgot,
     Its splendour and its blandishments,
     In poor Moldavia cast her lot,
     She visited the humble tents
     Of migratory gipsy hordes,” etc. etc.

During these pleasant years of youth he penned some of his most delightful poetical works: amongst these, The Prisoner of the Caucasus, The Fountain of Baktchiserai , and the Gipsies . Of the two former it may be said that they are in the true style of the Giaour and the Corsair . In fact, just at that point of time Byron’s fame—like the setting sun—shone out with dazzling lustre and irresistibly charmed the mind of Pushkin amongst many others. The Gipsies is more original; indeed the poet himself has been identified with Aleko, the hero of the tale, which may well be founded on his own personal adventures without involving the guilt of a double murder. His undisguised admiration for Byron doubtless exposed him to imputations similar to those commonly levelled against that poet. But Pushkin’s talent was too genuine for him to remain long subservient to that of another, and in a later period of his career he broke loose from all trammels and selected a line peculiarly his own. Before leaving this stage in our narrative we may point out the fact that during the whole of this period of comparative seclusion the poet was indefatigably occupied in study. Not only were the standard works of European literature perused, but two more languages—namely Italian and Spanish—were added to his original stock: French, English, Latin and German having been acquired at the Lyceum. To this happy union of literary research with the study of nature we must attribute the sudden bound by which he soon afterwards attained the pinnacle of poetic fame amongst his own countrymen.

In 1824 he once more fell under the imperial displeasure. A letter seized in the post, and expressive of atheistical sentiments (possibly but a transient vagary of his youth) was the ostensible cause of his banishment from Odessa to his paternal estate of Mikhailovskoe in the province of Pskoff. Some, however, aver that personal pique on the part of Count Vorontsoff, the Governor of Odessa, played a part in the transaction. Be this as it may, the consequences were serious for the poet, who was not only placed under the surveillance of the police, but expelled from the Foreign Office by express order of the Tsar “for bad conduct.” A letter on this subject, addressed by Count Vorontsoff to Count Nesselrode, is an amusing instance of the arrogance with which stolid mediocrity frequently passes judgment on rising genius. I transcribe a portion thereof:

     Odessa, 28th March (7th April) 1824

Count—Your Excellency is aware of the reasons for which, some time ago, young Pushkin was sent with a letter from Count Capo d’Istria to General Inzoff. I found him already here when I arrived, the General having placed him at my disposal, though he himself was at Kishineff. I have no reason to complain about him. On the contrary, he is much steadier than formerly. But a desire for the welfare of the young man himself, who is not wanting in ability, and whose faults proceed more from the head than from the heart, impels me to urge upon you his removal from Odessa. Pushkin’s chief failing is ambition. He spent the bathing season here, and has gathered round him a crowd of adulators who praise his genius. This maintains in him a baneful delusion which seems to turn his head—namely, that he is a “distinguished writer;” whereas, in reality he is but a feeble imitator of an author in whose favour very little can be said (Byron). This it is which keeps him from a serious study of the great classical poets, which might exercise a beneficial effect upon his talents—which cannot be denied him—and which might make of him in course of time a “distinguished writer.”

The best thing that can be done for him is to remove him hence....

The Emperor Nicholas on his accession pardoned Pushkin and received him once more into favour. During an interview which took place it is said that the Tsar promised the poet that he alone would in future be the censor of his productions. Pushkin was restored to his position in the Foreign Office and received the appointment of Court Historian. In 1828 he published one of his finest poems, Poltava , which is founded on incidents familiar to English readers in Byron’s Mazeppa . In 1829 the hardy poet accompanied the Russian army which under Paskevitch captured Erzeroum. In 1831 he married a beautiful lady of the Gontchareff family and settled in the neighbourhood of St. Petersburg, where he remained for the remainder of his life, only occasionally visiting Moscow and Mikhailovskoe. During this period his chief occupation consisted in collecting and investigating materials for a projected history of Peter the Great, which was undertaken at the express desire of the Emperor. He likewise completed a history of the revolt of Pougatchoff, which occurred in the reign of Catherine II. [Note: this individual having personated Peter III, the deceased husband of the Empress, raised the Orenburg Cossacks in revolt. This revolt was not suppressed without extensive destruction of life and property.] In 1833 the poet visited Orenburg, the scene of the dreadful excesses he recorded; the fruit of his journey being one of the most charming tales ever written, The Captain’s Daughter . [Note: Translated in Russian Romance , by Mrs. Telfer, 1875.]

The remaining years of Pushkin’s life, spent in the midst of domestic bliss and grateful literary occupation, were what lookers-on style “years of unclouded happiness.” They were, however, drawing rapidly to a close. Unrivalled distinction rarely fails to arouse bitter animosity amongst the envious, and Pushkin’s existence had latterly been embittered by groundless insinuations against his wife’s reputation in the shape of anonymous letters addressed to himself and couched in very insulting language. He fancied he had traced them to one Georges d’Anthés, a Frenchman in the Cavalier Guard, who had been adopted by the Dutch envoy Heeckeren. D’Anthés, though he had espoused Madame Pushkin’s sister, had conducted himself with impropriety towards the former lady. The poet displayed in this affair a fierce hostility quite characteristic of his African origin but which drove him to his destruction. D’Anthés, it was subsequently admitted, was not the author of the anonymous letters; but as usual when a duel is proposed, an appeal to reason was thought to smack of cowardice. The encounter took place in February 1837 on one of the islands of the Neva. The weapons used were pistols, and the combat was of a determined, nay ferocious character. Pushkin was shot before he had time to fire, and, in his fall, the barrel of his pistol became clogged with snow which lay deep upon the ground at the time. Raising himself on his elbow, the wounded man called for another pistol, crying, “I’ve strength left to fire my shot!” He fired, and slightly wounded his opponent, shouting “Bravo!” when he heard him exclaim that he was hit. D’Anthés was, however, but slightly contused whilst Pushkin was shot through the abdomen. He was transported to his residence and expired after several days passed in extreme agony. Thus perished in the thirty-eighth year of his age this distinguished poet, in a manner and amid surroundings which make the duel scene in the sixth canto of this poem seem almost prophetic. His reflections on the premature death of Lenski appear indeed strangely applicable to his own fate, as generally to the premature extinction of genius.

Pushkin was endowed with a powerful physical organisation. He was fond of long walks, unlike the generality of his countrymen, and at one time of his career used daily to foot it into St. Petersburg and back, from his residence in the suburbs, to conduct his investigations in the Government archives when employed on the History of Peter the Great. He was a good swordsman, rode well, and at one time aspired to enter the cavalry; but his father not being able to furnish the necessary funds he declined serving in the less romantic infantry. Latterly he was regular in his habits; rose early, retired late, and managed to get along with but very little sleep. On rising he betook himself forthwith to his literary occupations, which were continued till afternoon, when they gave place to physical exercise. Strange as it will appear to many, he preferred the autumn months, especially when rainy, chill and misty, for the production of his literary compositions, and was proportionally depressed by the approach of spring. (Cf. Canto VII st. ii.)

     “Mournful is thine approach to me,
     O Spring, thou chosen time of love,” etc.

He usually left St. Petersburg about the middle of September and remained in the country till December. In this space of time it was his custom to develop and perfect the inspirations of the remaining portion of the year. He was of an impetuous yet affectionate nature and much beloved by a numerous circle of friends. An attractive feature in his character was his unalterable attachment to his aged nurse, a sentiment which we find reflected in the pages of Eugene Onéguine and elsewhere.

The preponderating influence which Byron exercised in the formation of his genius has already been noticed. It is indeed probable that we owe Onéguine to the combined impressions of Childe Harold and Don Juan upon his mind. Yet the Russian poem excels these masterpieces of Byron in a single particular—namely, in completeness of narrative, the plots of the latter being mere vehicles for the development of the poet’s general reflections. There is ground for believing that Pushkin likewise made this poem the record of his own experience. This has doubtless been the practice of many distinguished authors of fiction whose names will readily occur to the reader. Indeed, as we are never cognizant of the real motives which actuate others, it follows that nowhere can the secret springs of human action be studied to such advantage as within our own breasts. Thus romance is sometimes but the reflection of the writer’s own individuality, and he adopts the counsel of the American poet:

     Look then into thine heart and write!

But a further consideration of this subject would here be out of place. Perhaps I cannot more suitably conclude this sketch than by quoting from his Ode to the Sea the poet’s tribute of admiration to the genius of Napoleon and Byron, who of all contemporaries seem the most to have swayed his imagination.

     Farewell, thou pathway of the free,
     For the last time thy waves I view
     Before me roll disdainfully,
     Brilliantly beautiful and blue.

     Why vain regret? Wherever now
     My heedless course I may pursue
     One object on thy desert brow
     I everlastingly shall view—

     A rock, the sepulchre of Fame!
     The poor remains of greatness gone
     A cold remembrance there became,
     There perished great Napoleon.

     In torment dire to sleep he lay;
     Then, as a tempest echoing rolls,
     Another genius whirled away,
     Another sovereign of our souls.

     He perished. Freedom wept her child,
     He left the world his garland bright.
     Wail, Ocean, surge in tumult wild,
     To sing of thee was his delight.

     Impressed upon him was thy mark,
     His genius moulded was by thee;
     Like thee, he was unfathomed, dark
     And untamed in his majesty.

Note: It may interest some to know that Georges d’Anthés was tried by court-martial for his participation in the duel in which Pushkin fell, found guilty, and reduced to the ranks; but, not being a Russian subject, he was conducted by a gendarme across the frontier and then set at liberty.

EUGENE ONÉGUINE

Pétri de vanité, il avait encore plus de cette espèce d’orgueil, qui fait avouer avec la même indifference les bonnes comme les mauvaises actions, suite d’un sentiment de supériorité, peut-être imaginaire.— Tiré d’une lettre particulière .

[Note: Written in 1823 at Kishineff and Odessa.]

CANTO THE FIRST

     ‘The Spleen’

     ‘He rushes at life and exhausts the passions.’
                                Prince Viazemski

   Canto the First

   I

   “My uncle’s goodness is extreme,
   If seriously he hath disease;
   He hath acquired the world’s esteem
   And nothing more important sees;
   A paragon of virtue he!
   But what a nuisance it will be,
   Chained to his bedside night and day
   Without a chance to slip away.
   Ye need dissimulation base
   A dying man with art to soothe,
   Beneath his head the pillow smooth,
   And physic bring with mournful face,
   To sigh and meditate alone:
   When will the devil take his own!”

   II

   Thus mused a madcap young, who drove
   Through clouds of dust at postal pace,
   By the decree of Mighty Jove,
   Inheritor of all his race.
   Friends of Liudmila and Ruslan,(1)
   Let me present ye to the man,
   Who without more prevarication
   The hero is of my narration!
   Onéguine, O my gentle readers,
   Was born beside the Neva, where
   It may be ye were born, or there
   Have shone as one of fashion’s leaders.
   I also wandered there of old,
   But cannot stand the northern cold.(2)

   [Note 1: Ruslan and Liudmila, the title of Pushkin’s first
   important work, written 1817-20. It is a tale relating the adventures
   of the knight-errant Ruslan in search of his fair lady Liudmila, who
   has been carried off by a kaldoon, or magician.]

   [Note 2: Written in Bessarabia.]

   III

   Having performed his service truly,
   Deep into debt his father ran;
   Three balls a year he gave ye duly,
   At last became a ruined man.
   But Eugene was by fate preserved,
   For first “madame” his wants observed,
   And then “monsieur” supplied her place;(3)
   The boy was wild but full of grace.
   “Monsieur l’Abbé” a starving Gaul,
   Fearing his pupil to annoy,
   Instructed jestingly the boy,
   Morality taught scarce at all;
   Gently for pranks he would reprove
   And in the Summer Garden rove.

   [Note 3: In Russia foreign tutors and governesses are commonly
   styled “monsieur” or “madame.”]

   IV

   When youth’s rebellious hour drew near
   And my Eugene the path must trace—
   The path of hope and tender fear—
   Monsieur clean out of doors they chase.
   Lo! my Onéguine free as air,
   Cropped in the latest style his hair,
   Dressed like a London dandy he
   The giddy world at last shall see.
   He wrote and spoke, so all allowed,
   In the French language perfectly,
   Danced the mazurka gracefully,
   Without the least constraint he bowed.
   What more’s required? The world replies,
   He is a charming youth and wise.

   V

   We all of us of education
   A something somehow have obtained,
   Thus, praised be God! a reputation
   With us is easily attained.
   Onéguine was—so many deemed
   [Unerring critics self-esteemed],
   Pedantic although scholar like,
   In truth he had the happy trick
   Without constraint in conversation
   Of touching lightly every theme.
   Silent, oracular ye’d see him
   Amid a serious disputation,
   Then suddenly discharge a joke
   The ladies’ laughter to provoke.

   VI

   Latin is just now not in vogue,
   But if the truth I must relate,
   Onéguine knew enough, the rogue
   A mild quotation to translate,
   A little Juvenal to spout,
   With “vale” finish off a note;
   Two verses he could recollect
   Of the Æneid, but incorrect.
   In history he took no pleasure,
   The dusty chronicles of earth
   For him were but of little worth,
   Yet still of anecdotes a treasure
   Within his memory there lay,
   From Romulus unto our day.

   VII

   For empty sound the rascal swore he
   Existence would not make a curse,
   Knew not an iamb from a choree,
   Although we read him heaps of verse.
   Homer, Theocritus, he jeered,
   But Adam Smith to read appeared,
   And at economy was great;
   That is, he could elucidate
   How empires store of wealth unfold,
   How flourish, why and wherefore less
   If the raw product they possess
   The medium is required of gold.
   The father scarcely understands
   His son and mortgages his lands.

   VIII

   But upon all that Eugene knew
   I have no leisure here to dwell,
   But say he was a genius who
   In one thing really did excel.
   It occupied him from a boy,
   A labour, torment, yet a joy,
   It whiled his idle hours away
   And wholly occupied his day—
   The amatory science warm,
   Which Ovid once immortalized,
   For which the poet agonized
   Laid down his life of sun and storm
   On the steppes of Moldavia lone,
   Far from his Italy—his own.(4)

   [Note 4: Referring to Tomi, the reputed place of exile of Ovid.
   Pushkin, then residing in Bessarabia, was in the same predicament
   as his predecessor in song, though he certainly did not plead
   guilty to the fact, since he remarks in his ode to Ovid:
                          To exile self-consigned,
      With self, society, existence, discontent,
      I visit in these days, with melancholy mind,
      The country whereunto a mournful age thee sent.

   Ovid thus enumerates the causes which brought about his banishment:

      “Perdiderint quum me duo crimina, carmen et error,
      Alterius facti culpa silenda mihi est.”
                        Ovidii Nasonis Tristium, lib. ii. 207.]

   IX

   How soon he learnt deception’s art,
   Hope to conceal and jealousy,
   False confidence or doubt to impart,
   Sombre or glad in turn to be,
   Haughty appear, subservient,
   Obsequious or indifferent!
   What languor would his silence show,
   How full of fire his speech would glow!
   How artless was the note which spoke
   Of love again, and yet again;
   How deftly could he transport feign!
   How bright and tender was his look,
   Modest yet daring! And a tear
   Would at the proper time appear.

   X

   How well he played the greenhorn’s part
   To cheat the inexperienced fair,
   Sometimes by pleasing flattery’s art,
   Sometimes by ready-made despair;
   The feeble moment would espy
   Of tender years the modesty
   Conquer by passion and address,
   Await the long-delayed caress.
   Avowal then ’twas time to pray,
   Attentive to the heart’s first beating,
   Follow up love—a secret meeting
   Arrange without the least delay—
   Then, then—well, in some solitude
   Lessons to give he understood!

   XI

   How soon he learnt to titillate
   The heart of the inveterate flirt!
   Desirous to annihilate
   His own antagonists expert,
   How bitterly he would malign,
   With many a snare their pathway line!
   But ye, O happy husbands, ye
   With him were friends eternally:
   The crafty spouse caressed him, who
   By Faublas in his youth was schooled,(5)
   And the suspicious veteran old,
   The pompous, swaggering cuckold too,
   Who floats contentedly through life,
   Proud of his dinners and his wife!

   [Note 5: Les Aventures du Chevalier de Faublas, a romance of a
   loose character by Jean Baptiste Louvet de Couvray, b. 1760,
   d. 1797, famous for his bold oration denouncing Robespierre,
   Marat and Danton.]

   XII

   One morn whilst yet in bed he lay,
   His valet brings him letters three.
   What, invitations? The same day
   As many entertainments be!
   A ball here, there a children’s treat,
   Whither shall my rapscallion flit?
   Whither shall he go first? He’ll see,
   Perchance he will to all the three.
   Meantime in matutinal dress
   And hat surnamed a “Bolivar”(6)
   He hies unto the “Boulevard,”
   To loiter there in idleness
   Until the sleepless Bréguet chime(7)
   Announcing to him dinner-time.

   [Note 6: A la “Bolivar,” from the founder of Bolivian independence.]

   [Note 7: M. Bréguet, a celebrated Parisian watchmaker—hence a
   slang term for a watch.]

   XIII

   ’Tis dark. He seats him in a sleigh,
   “Drive on!” the cheerful cry goes forth,
   His furs are powdered on the way
   By the fine silver of the north.
   He bends his course to Talon’s, where(8)
   He knows Kaverine will repair.(9)
   He enters. High the cork arose
   And Comet champagne foaming flows.
   Before him red roast beef is seen
   And truffles, dear to youthful eyes,
   Flanked by immortal Strasbourg pies,
   The choicest flowers of French cuisine,
   And Limburg cheese alive and old
   Is seen next pine-apples of gold.

   [Note 8: Talon, a famous St. Petersburg restaurateur.]

   [Note 9: Paul Petròvitch Kaverine, a friend for whom Pushkin in
   his youth appears to have entertained great respect and
   admiration. He was an officer in the Hussars of the Guard, and
   a noted “dandy” and man about town. The poet on one occasion
   addressed the following impromptu to his friend’s portrait:

      “Within him daily see the the fires of punch and war,
      Upon the fields of Mars a gallant warrior,
      A faithful friend to friends, of ladies torturer,
                          But ever the Hussar.”]

   XIV

   Still thirst fresh draughts of wine compels
   To cool the cutlets’ seething grease,
   When the sonorous Bréguet tells
   Of the commencement of the piece.
   A critic of the stage malicious,
   A slave of actresses capricious,
   Onéguine was a citizen
   Of the domains of the side-scene.
   To the theatre he repairs
   Where each young critic ready stands,
   Capers applauds with clap of hands,
   With hisses Cleopatra scares,
   Moina recalls for this alone
   That all may hear his voice’s tone.

   XV

   Thou fairy-land! Where formerly
   Shone pungent Satire’s dauntless king,
   Von Wisine, friend of liberty,
   And Kniajnine, apt at copying.
   The young Simeonova too there
   With Ozeroff was wont to share
   Applause, the people’s donative.
   There our Katènine did revive
   Corneille’s majestic genius,
   Sarcastic Shakhovskoi brought out
   His comedies, a noisy rout,
   There Didelot became glorious,
   There, there, beneath the side-scene’s shade
   The drama of my youth was played.(10)

   [Note 10: Denis Von Wisine (1741-92), a favourite Russian
   dramatist. His first comedy “The Brigadier,” procured him the
   favour of the second Catherine. His best, however, is the
   “Minor” (Niedorosl). Prince Potemkin, after witnessing it,
   summoned the author, and greeted him with the exclamation,
   “Die now, Denis!” In fact, his subsequent performances were
   not of equal merit.

   Jacob Borissovitch Kniajnine (1742-91), a clever adapter of
   French tragedy.

   Simeonova, a celebrated tragic actress, who retired from
   the stage in early life and married a Prince Gagarine.

   Ozeroff, one of the best-known Russian dramatists of the
   period; he possessed more originality than Kniajnine. “Œdipus
   in Athens,” “Fingal,” “Demetrius Donskoi,” and “Polyxena,” are
   the best known of his tragedies.

   Katènine translated Corneille’s tragedies into Russian.

   Didelot, sometime Director of the ballet at the Opera at
   St. Petersburg.]

   XVI

   My goddesses, where are your shades?
   Do ye not hear my mournful sighs?
   Are ye replaced by other maids
   Who cannot conjure former joys?
   Shall I your chorus hear anew,
   Russia’s Terpsichore review
   Again in her ethereal dance?
   Or will my melancholy glance
   On the dull stage find all things changed,
   The disenchanted glass direct
   Where I can no more recollect?—
   A careless looker-on estranged
   In silence shall I sit and yawn
   And dream of life’s delightful dawn?

   XVII

   The house is crammed. A thousand lamps
   On pit, stalls, boxes, brightly blaze,
   Impatiently the gallery stamps,
   The curtain now they slowly raise.
   Obedient to the magic strings,
   Brilliant, ethereal, there springs
   Forth from the crowd of nymphs surrounding
   Istomina(*) the nimbly-bounding;
   With one foot resting on its tip
   Slow circling round its fellow swings
   And now she skips and now she springs
   Like down from Aeolus’s lip,
   Now her lithe form she arches o’er
   And beats with rapid foot the floor.

   [Note: Istomina—A celebrated Circassian dancer of the day, with
   whom the poet in his extreme youth imagined himself in love.]

   XVIII

   Shouts of applause! Onéguine passes
   Between the stalls, along the toes;
   Seated, a curious look with glasses
   On unknown female forms he throws.
   Free scope he yields unto his glance,
   Reviews both dress and countenance,
   With all dissatisfaction shows.
   To male acquaintances he bows,
   And finally he deigns let fall
   Upon the stage his weary glance.
   He yawns, averts his countenance,
   Exclaiming, “We must change ’em all!
   I long by ballets have been bored,
   Now Didelot scarce can be endured!”

   XIX

   Snakes, satyrs, loves with many a shout
   Across the stage still madly sweep,
   Whilst the tired serving-men without
   Wrapped in their sheepskins soundly sleep.
   Still the loud stamping doth not cease,
   Still they blow noses, cough, and sneeze,
   Still everywhere, without, within,
   The lamps illuminating shine;
   The steed benumbed still pawing stands
   And of the irksome harness tires,
   And still the coachmen round the fires(11)
   Abuse their masters, rub their hands:
   But Eugene long hath left the press
   To array himself in evening dress.

   [Note 11: In Russia large fires are lighted in winter time in front
   of the theatres for the benefit of the menials, who, considering
   the state of the thermometer, cannot be said to have a jovial
   time of it. But in this, as in other cases, “habit” alleviates
   their lot, and they bear the cold with a wonderful equanimity.]

   XX

   Faithfully shall I now depict,
   Portray the solitary den
   Wherein the child of fashion strict
   Dressed him, undressed, and dressed again?
   All that industrial London brings
   For tallow, wood and other things
   Across the Baltic’s salt sea waves,
   All which caprice and affluence craves,
   All which in Paris eager taste,
   Choosing a profitable trade,
   For our amusement ever made
   And ease and fashionable waste,—
   Adorned the apartment of Eugene,
   Philosopher just turned eighteen.

   XXI

   China and bronze the tables weight,
   Amber on pipes from Stamboul glows,
   And, joy of souls effeminate,
   Phials of crystal scents enclose.
   Combs of all sizes, files of steel,
   Scissors both straight and curved as well,
   Of thirty different sorts, lo! brushes
   Both for the nails and for the tushes.
   Rousseau, I would remark in passing,(12)
   Could not conceive how serious Grimm
   Dared calmly cleanse his nails ’fore him,
   Eloquent raver all-surpassing,—
   The friend of liberty and laws
   In this case quite mistaken was.

   [Note 12: “Tout le monde sut qu’il (Grimm) mettait du blanc; et
   moi, qui n’en croyait rien, je commençai de le croire, non
   seulement par l’embellissement de son teint, et pour avoir trouvé
   des tasses de blanc sur la toilette, mais sur ce qu’entrant un
   matin dans sa chambre, je le trouvais brossant ses ongles avec
   une petite vergette faite exprès, ouvrage qu’il continua fièrement
   devant moi. Je jugeai qu’un homme qui passe deux heures tous les
   matins à brosser ses ongles peut bien passer quelques instants à
   remplir de blanc les creux de sa peau.”
                             Confessions de J. J. Rousseau]

   XXII

   The most industrious man alive
   May yet be studious of his nails;
   What boots it with the age to strive?
   Custom the despot soon prevails.
   A new Kaverine Eugene mine,
   Dreading the world’s remarks malign,
   Was that which we are wont to call
   A fop, in dress pedantical.
   Three mortal hours per diem he
   Would loiter by the looking-glass,
   And from his dressing-room would pass
   Like Venus when, capriciously,
   The goddess would a masquerade
   Attend in male attire arrayed.

   XXIII

   On this artistical retreat
   Having once fixed your interest,
   I might to connoisseurs repeat
   The style in which my hero dressed;
   Though I confess I hardly dare
   Describe in detail the affair,
   Since words like pantaloons, vest, coat,
   To Russ indigenous are not;
   And also that my feeble verse—
   Pardon I ask for such a sin—
   With words of foreign origin
   Too much I’m given to intersperse,
   Though to the Academy I come
   And oft its Dictionary thumb.(13)

   [Note 13: Refers to Dictionary of the Academy, compiled during the
   reign of Catherine II under the supervision of Lomonossoff.]

   XXIV

   But such is not my project now,
   So let us to the ball-room haste,
   Whither at headlong speed doth go
   Eugene in hackney carriage placed.
   Past darkened windows and long streets
   Of slumbering citizens he fleets,
   Till carriage lamps, a double row,
   Cast a gay lustre on the snow,
   Which shines with iridescent hues.
   He nears a spacious mansion’s gate,
   By many a lamp illuminate,
   And through the lofty windows views
   Profiles of lovely dames he knows
   And also fashionable beaux.

   XXV

   Our hero stops and doth alight,
   Flies past the porter to the stair,
   But, ere he mounts the marble flight,
   With hurried hand smooths down his hair.
   He enters: in the hall a crowd,
   No more the music thunders loud,
   Some a mazurka occupies,
   Crushing and a confusing noise;
   Spurs of the Cavalier Guard clash,
   The feet of graceful ladies fly,
   And following them ye might espy
   Full many a glance like lightning flash,
   And by the fiddle’s rushing sound
   The voice of jealousy is drowned.

   XXVI

   In my young days of wild delight
   On balls I madly used to dote,
   Fond declarations they invite
   Or the delivery of a note.
   So hearken, every worthy spouse,
   I would your vigilance arouse,
   Attentive be unto my rhymes
   And due precautions take betimes.
   Ye mothers also, caution use,
   Upon your daughters keep an eye,
   Employ your glasses constantly,
   For otherwise—God only knows!
   I lift a warning voice because
   I long have ceased to offend the laws.

   XXVII

   Alas! life’s hours which swiftly fly
   I’ve wasted in amusements vain,
   But were it not immoral I
   Should dearly like a dance again.
   I love its furious delight,
   The crowd and merriment and light,
   The ladies, their fantastic dress,
   Also their feet—yet ne’ertheless
   Scarcely in Russia can ye find
   Three pairs of handsome female feet;
   Ah! I still struggle to forget
   A pair; though desolate my mind,
   Their memory lingers still and seems
   To agitate me in my dreams.

   XXVIII

   When, where, and in what desert land,
   Madman, wilt thou from memory raze
   Those feet? Alas! on what far strand
   Do ye of spring the blossoms graze?
   Lapped in your Eastern luxury,
   No trace ye left in passing by
   Upon the dreary northern snows,
   But better loved the soft repose
   Of splendid carpets richly wrought.
   I once forgot for your sweet cause
   The thirst for fame and man’s applause,
   My country and an exile’s lot;
   My joy in youth was fleeting e’en
   As your light footprints on the green.

   XXIX

   Diana’s bosom, Flora’s cheeks,
   Are admirable, my dear friend,
   But yet Terpsichore bespeaks
   Charms more enduring in the end.
   For promises her feet reveal
   Of untold gain she must conceal,
   Their privileged allurements fire
   A hidden train of wild desire.
   I love them, O my dear Elvine,(14)
   Beneath the table-cloth of white,
   In winter on the fender bright,
   In springtime on the meadows green,
   Upon the ball-room’s glassy floor
   Or by the ocean’s rocky shore.

   [Note 14: Elvine, or Elvina, was not improbably the owner of the
   seductive feet apostrophized by the poet, since, in 1816, he wrote
   an ode, “To Her,” which commences thus:

   “Elvina, my dear, come, give me thine hand,” and so forth.]

   XXX

   Beside the stormy sea one day
   I envied sore the billows tall,
   Which rushed in eager dense array
   Enamoured at her feet to fall.
   How like the billow I desired
   To kiss the feet which I admired!
   No, never in the early blaze
   Of fiery youth’s untutored days
   So ardently did I desire
   A young Armida’s lips to press,
   Her cheek of rosy loveliness
   Or bosom full of languid fire,—
   A gust of passion never tore
   My spirit with such pangs before.

   XXXI

   Another time, so willed it Fate,
   Immersed in secret thought I stand
   And grasp a stirrup fortunate—
   Her foot was in my other hand.
   Again imagination blazed,
   The contact of the foot I raised
   Rekindled in my withered heart
   The fires of passion and its smart—
   Away! and cease to ring their praise
   For ever with thy tattling lyre,
   The proud ones are not worth the fire
   Of passion they so often raise.
   The words and looks of charmers sweet
   Are oft deceptive—like their feet.

   XXXII

   Where is Onéguine? Half asleep,
   Straight from the ball to bed he goes,
   Whilst Petersburg from slumber deep
   The drum already doth arouse.
   The shopman and the pedlar rise
   And to the Bourse the cabman plies;
   The Okhtenka with pitcher speeds,(15)
   Crunching the morning snow she treads;
   Morning awakes with joyous sound;
   The shutters open; to the skies
   In column blue the smoke doth rise;
   The German baker looks around
   His shop, a night-cap on his head,
   And pauses oft to serve out bread.

   [Note 15: i.e. the milkmaid from the Okhta villages, a suburb of St.
   Petersburg on the right bank of the Neva chiefly inhabited by the
   labouring classes.]

   XXXIII

   But turning morning into night,
   Tired by the ball’s incessant noise,
   The votary of vain delight
   Sleep in the shadowy couch enjoys,
   Late in the afternoon to rise,
   When the same life before him lies
   Till morn—life uniform but gay,
   To-morrow just like yesterday.
   But was our friend Eugene content,
   Free, in the blossom of his spring,
   Amidst successes flattering
   And pleasure’s daily blandishment,
   Or vainly ’mid luxurious fare
   Was he in health and void of care?—

   XXXIV

   Even so! His passions soon abated,
   Hateful the hollow world became,
   Nor long his mind was agitated
   By love’s inevitable flame.
   For treachery had done its worst;
   Friendship and friends he likewise curst,
   Because he could not gourmandise
   Daily beefsteaks and Strasbourg pies
   And irrigate them with champagne;
   Nor slander viciously could spread
   Whene’er he had an aching head;
   And, though a plucky scatterbrain,
   He finally lost all delight
   In bullets, sabres, and in fight.

   XXXV

   His malady, whose cause I ween
   It now to investigate is time,
   Was nothing but the British spleen
   Transported to our Russian clime.
   It gradually possessed his mind;
   Though, God be praised! he ne’er designed
   To slay himself with blade or ball,
   Indifferent he became to all,
   And like Childe Harold gloomily
   He to the festival repairs,
   Nor boston nor the world’s affairs
   Nor tender glance nor amorous sigh
   Impressed him in the least degree,—
   Callous to all he seemed to be.

   XXXVI

   Ye miracles of courtly grace,
   He left you first, and I must own
   The manners of the highest class
   Have latterly vexatious grown;
   And though perchance a lady may
   Discourse of Bentham or of Say,
   Yet as a rule their talk I call
   Harmless, but quite nonsensical.
   Then they’re so innocent of vice,
   So full of piety, correct,
   So prudent, and so circumspect
   Stately, devoid of prejudice,
   So inaccessible to men,
   Their looks alone produce the spleen.(16)

   [Note 16: Apropos of this somewhat ungallant sentiment, a Russian
   scholiast remarks:—“The whole of this ironical stanza is but a
   refined eulogy of the excellent qualities of our countrywomen.
   Thus Boileau, in the guise of invective, eulogizes Louis XIV.
   Russian ladies unite in their persons great acquirements,
   combined with amiability and strict morality; also a species of
   Oriental charm which so much captivated Madame de Stael.” It will
   occur to most that the apologist of the Russian fair “doth
   protest too much.” The poet in all probability wrote the offending
   stanza in a fit of Byronic “spleen,” as he would most likely
   himself have called it. Indeed, since Byron, poets of his school
   seem to assume this virtue if they have it not, and we take their
   utterances under its influence for what they are worth.]

   XXXVII

   And you, my youthful damsels fair,
   Whom latterly one often meets
   Urging your droshkies swift as air
   Along Saint Petersburg’s paved streets,
   From you too Eugene took to flight,
   Abandoning insane delight,
   And isolated from all men,
   Yawning betook him to a pen.
   He thought to write, but labour long
   Inspired him with disgust and so
   Nought from his pen did ever flow,
   And thus he never fell among
   That vicious set whom I don’t blame—
   Because a member I became.

   XXXVIII

   Once more to idleness consigned,
   He felt the laudable desire
   From mere vacuity of mind
   The wit of others to acquire.
   A case of books he doth obtain—
   He reads at random, reads in vain.
   This nonsense, that dishonest seems,
   This wicked, that absurd he deems,
   All are constrained and fetters bear,
   Antiquity no pleasure gave,
   The moderns of the ancients rave—
   Books he abandoned like the fair,
   His book-shelf instantly doth drape
   With taffety instead of crape.

   XXXIX

   Having abjured the haunts of men,
   Like him renouncing vanity,
   His friendship I acquired just then;
   His character attracted me.
   An innate love of meditation,
   Original imagination,
   And cool sagacious mind he had:
   I was incensed and he was sad.
   Both were of passion satiate
   And both of dull existence tired,
   Extinct the flame which once had fired;
   Both were expectant of the hate
   With which blind Fortune oft betrays
   The very morning of our days.

   XL

   He who hath lived and living, thinks,
   Must e’en despise his kind at last;
   He who hath suffered ofttimes shrinks
   From shades of the relentless past.
   No fond illusions live to soothe,
   But memory like a serpent’s tooth
   With late repentance gnaws and stings.
   All this in many cases brings
   A charm with it in conversation.
   Onéguine’s speeches I abhorred
   At first, but soon became inured
   To the sarcastic observation,
   To witticisms and taunts half-vicious
   And gloomy epigrams malicious.

   XLI

   How oft, when on a summer night
   Transparent o’er the Neva beamed
   The firmament in mellow light,
   And when the watery mirror gleamed
   No more with pale Diana’s rays,(17)
   We called to mind our youthful days—
   The days of love and of romance!
   Then would we muse as in a trance,
   Impressionable for an hour,
   And breathe the balmy breath of night;
   And like the prisoner’s our delight
   Who for the greenwood quits his tower,
   As on the rapid wings of thought
   The early days of life we sought.

   [Note 17: The midsummer nights in the latitude of St. Petersburg
   are a prolonged twilight.]

   XLII

   Absorbed in melancholy mood
   And o’er the granite coping bent,
   Onéguine meditative stood,
   E’en as the poet says he leant.(18)
   ’Tis silent all! Alone the cries
   Of the night sentinels arise
   And from the Millionaya afar(19)
   The sudden rattling of a car.
   Lo! on the sleeping river borne,
   A boat with splashing oar floats by,
   And now we hear delightedly
   A jolly song and distant horn;
   But sweeter in a midnight dream
   Torquato Tasso’s strains I deem.

   [Note 18: Refers to Mouravieff’s “Goddess of the Neva.” At St.
   Petersburg the banks of the Neva are lined throughout with
   splendid granite quays.]

   [Note 19:
   A street running parallel to the Neva, and leading from
   the Winter Palace to the Summer Palace and Garden.]

   XLIII

   Ye billows of blue Hadria’s sea,
   O Brenta, once more we shall meet
   And, inspiration firing me,
   Your magic voices I shall greet,
   Whose tones Apollo’s sons inspire,
   And after Albion’s proud lyre (20)
   Possess my love and sympathy.
   The nights of golden Italy
   I’ll pass beneath the firmament,
   Hid in the gondola’s dark shade,
   Alone with my Venetian maid,
   Now talkative, now reticent;
   From her my lips shall learn the tongue
   Of love which whilom Petrarch sung.

   [Note 20: The strong influence exercised by Byron’s genius on the
   imagination of Pushkin is well known. Shakespeare and other
   English dramatists had also their share in influencing his mind,
   which, at all events in its earlier developments, was of an
   essentially imitative type. As an example of his Shakespearian
   tastes, see his poem of “Angelo,” founded upon “Measure for Measure.”]

   XLIV

   When will my hour of freedom come!
   Time, I invoke thee! favouring gales
   Awaiting on the shore I roam
   And beckon to the passing sails.
   Upon the highway of the sea
   When shall I wing my passage free
   On waves by tempests curdled o’er!
   ’Tis time to quit this weary shore
   So uncongenial to my mind,
   To dream upon the sunny strand
   Of Africa, ancestral land,(21)
   Of dreary Russia left behind,
   Wherein I felt love’s fatal dart,
   Wherein I buried left my heart.

   [Note 21: The poet was, on his mother’s side, of African extraction,
   a circumstance which perhaps accounts for the southern fervour of
   his imagination. His great-grandfather, Abraham Petròvitch Hannibal,
   was seized on the coast of Africa when eight years of age by a
   corsair, and carried a slave to Constantinople. The Russian
   Ambassador bought and presented him to Peter the Great who caused
   him to be baptized at Vilnius. Subsequently one of Hannibal’s
   brothers made his way to Constantinople and thence to St. Petersburg
   for the purpose of ransoming him; but Peter would not surrender his
   godson who died at the age of ninety-two, having attained the rank
   of general in the Russian service.]

   XLV

   Eugene designed with me to start
   And visit many a foreign clime,
   But Fortune cast our lots apart
   For a protracted space of time.
   Just at that time his father died,
   And soon Onéguine’s door beside
   Of creditors a hungry rout
   Their claims and explanations shout.
   But Eugene, hating litigation
   And with his lot in life content,
   To a surrender gave consent,
   Seeing in this no deprivation,
   Or counting on his uncle’s death
   And what the old man might bequeath.

   XLVI

   And in reality one day
   The steward sent a note to tell
   How sick to death his uncle lay
   And wished to say to him farewell.
   Having this mournful document
   Perused, Eugene in postchaise went
   And hastened to his uncle’s side,
   But in his heart dissatisfied,
   Having for money’s sake alone
   Sorrow to counterfeit and wail—
   Thus we began our little tale—
   But, to his uncle’s mansion flown,
   He found him on the table laid,
   A due which must to earth be paid.

   XLVII

   The courtyard full of serfs he sees,
   And from the country all around
   Had come both friends and enemies—
   Funeral amateurs abound!
   The body they consigned to rest,
   And then made merry pope and guest,
   With serious air then went away
   As men who much had done that day.
   Lo! my Onéguine rural lord!
   Of mines and meadows, woods and lakes,
   He now a full possession takes,
   He who economy abhorred,
   Delighted much his former ways
   To vary for a few brief days.

   XLVIII

   For two whole days it seemed a change
   To wander through the meadows still,
   The cool dark oaken grove to range,
   To listen to the rippling rill.
   But on the third of grove and mead
   He took no more the slightest heed;
   They made him feel inclined to doze;
   And the conviction soon arose,
   Ennui can in the country dwell
   Though without palaces and streets,
   Cards, balls, routs, poetry or fêtes;
   On him spleen mounted sentinel
   And like his shadow dogged his life,
   Or better,—like a faithful wife.

   XLIX

   I was for calm existence made,
   For rural solitude and dreams,
   My lyre sings sweeter in the shade
   And more imagination teems.
   On innocent delights I dote,
   Upon my lake I love to float,
   For law I far niente take
   And every morning I awake
   The child of sloth and liberty.
   I slumber much, a little read,
   Of fleeting glory take no heed.
   In former years thus did not I
   In idleness and tranquil joy
   The happiest days of life employ?

   L

   Love, flowers, the country, idleness
   And fields my joys have ever been;
   I like the difference to express
   Between myself and my Eugene,
   Lest the malicious reader or
   Some one or other editor
   Of keen sarcastic intellect
   Herein my portrait should detect,
   And impiously should declare,
   To sketch myself that I have tried
   Like Byron, bard of scorn and pride,
   As if impossible it were
   To write of any other elf
   Than one’s own fascinating self.

   LI

   Here I remark all poets are
   Love to idealize inclined;
   I have dreamed many a vision fair
   And the recesses of my mind
   Retained the image, though short-lived,
   Which afterwards the muse revived.
   Thus carelessly I once portrayed
   Mine own ideal, the mountain maid,
   The captives of the Salguir’s shore.(22)
   But now a question in this wise
   Oft upon friendly lips doth rise:
   Whom doth thy plaintive Muse adore?
   To whom amongst the jealous throng
   Of maids dost thou inscribe thy song?

   [Note 22: Refers to two of the most interesting productions of
   the poet. The former line indicates the Prisoner of the
   Caucasus, the latter, The Fountain of Baktchiserai. The
   Salguir is a river of the Crimea.]

   LII

   Whose glance reflecting inspiration
   With tenderness hath recognized
   Thy meditative incantation—
   Whom hath thy strain immortalized?
   None, be my witness Heaven above!
   The malady of hopeless love
   I have endured without respite.
   Happy who thereto can unite
   Poetic transport. They impart
   A double force unto their song
   Who following Petrarch move along
   And ease the tortures of the heart—
   Perchance they laurels also cull—
   But I, in love, was mute and dull.

   LIII

   The Muse appeared, when love passed by
   And my dark soul to light was brought;
   Free, I renewed the idolatry
   Of harmony enshrining thought.
   I write, and anguish flies away,
   Nor doth my absent pen portray
   Around my stanzas incomplete
   Young ladies’ faces and their feet.
   Extinguished ashes do not blaze—
   I mourn, but tears I cannot shed—
   Soon, of the tempest which hath fled
   Time will the ravages efface—
   When that time comes, a poem I’ll strive
   To write in cantos twenty-five.

   LIV

   I’ve thought well o’er the general plan,
   The hero’s name too in advance,
   Meantime I’ll finish whilst I can
   Canto the First of this romance.
   I’ve scanned it with a jealous eye,
   Discovered much absurdity,
   But will not modify a tittle—
   I owe the censorship a little.
   For journalistic deglutition
   I yield the fruit of work severe.
   Go, on the Neva’s bank appear,
   My very latest composition!
   Enjoy the meed which Fame bestows—
   Misunderstanding, words and blows.

   END OF CANTO THE FIRST

CANTO THE SECOND

   The Poet

   “O Rus!”—Horace

   Canto The Second

   [Note: Odessa, December 1823.]

   I

   The village wherein yawned Eugene
   Was a delightful little spot,
   There friends of pure delight had been
   Grateful to Heaven for their lot.
   The lonely mansion-house to screen
   From gales a hill behind was seen;
   Before it ran a stream. Behold!
   Afar, where clothed in green and gold
   Meadows and cornfields are displayed,
   Villages in the distance show
   And herds of oxen wandering low;
   Whilst nearer, sunk in deeper shade,
   A thick immense neglected grove
   Extended—haunt which Dryads love.

   II

   ’Twas built, the venerable pile,
   As lordly mansions ought to be,
   In solid, unpretentious style,
   The style of wise antiquity.
   Lofty the chambers one and all,
   Silk tapestry upon the wall,
   Imperial portraits hang around
   And stoves of various shapes abound.
   All this I know is out of date,
   I cannot tell the reason why,
   But Eugene, incontestably,
   The matter did not agitate,
   Because he yawned at the bare view
   Of drawing-rooms or old or new.

   III

   He took the room wherein the old
   Man—forty years long in this wise—
   His housekeeper was wont to scold,
   Look through the window and kill flies.
   ’Twas plain—an oaken floor ye scan,
   Two cupboards, table, soft divan,
   And not a speck of dirt descried.
   Onéguine oped the cupboards wide.
   In one he doth accounts behold,
   Here bottles stand in close array,
   There jars of cider block the way,
   An almanac but eight years old.
   His uncle, busy man indeed,
   No other book had time to read.

   IV

   Alone amid possessions great,
   Eugene at first began to dream,
   If but to lighten Time’s dull rate,
   Of many an economic scheme;
   This anchorite amid his waste
   The ancient barshtchina replaced
   By an obrok’s indulgent rate:(23)
   The peasant blessed his happy fate.
   But this a heinous crime appeared
   Unto his neighbour, man of thrift,
   Who secretly denounced the gift,
   And many another slily sneered;
   And all with one accord agreed,
   He was a dangerous fool indeed.

   [Note 23: The barshtchina was the corvée, or forced labour
   of three days per week rendered previous to the emancipation
   of 1861 by the serfs to their lord.

   The obrok was a species of poll-tax paid by a serf, either
   in lieu of the forced labour or in consideration of being
   permitted to exercise a trade or profession elsewhere. Very
   heavy obroks have at times been levied on serfs possessed of
   skill or accomplishments, or who had amassed wealth; and
   circumstances may be easily imagined which, under such a
   system, might lead to great abuses.]

   V

   All visited him at first, of course;
   But since to the backdoor they led
   Most usually a Cossack horse
   Upon the Don’s broad pastures bred
   If they but heard domestic loads
   Come rumbling up the neighbouring roads,
   Most by this circumstance offended
   All overtures of friendship ended.
   “Oh! what a fool our neighbour is!
   He’s a freemason, so we think.
   Alone he doth his claret drink,
   A lady’s hand doth never kiss.
   ’Tis yes! no! never madam! sir!”(24)
   This was his social character.

   [Note 24: The neighbours complained of Onéguine’s want of courtesy.
   He always replied “da” or “nyet,” yes or no, instead of “das”
   or “nyets”—the final s being a contraction of “sudar” or
   “sudarinia,” i.e. sir or madam.]

   VI

   Into the district then to boot
   A new proprietor arrived,
   From whose analysis minute
   The neighbourhood fresh sport derived.
   Vladimir Lenski was his name,
   From Gottingen inspired he came,
   A worshipper of Kant, a bard,
   A young and handsome galliard.
   He brought from mystic Germany
   The fruits of learning and combined
   A fiery and eccentric mind,
   Idolatry of liberty,
   A wild enthusiastic tongue,
   Black curls which to his shoulders hung.

   VII

   The pervert world with icy chill
   Had not yet withered his young breast.
   His heart reciprocated still
   When Friendship smiled or Love caressed.
   He was a dear delightful fool—
   A nursling yet for Hope to school.
   The riot of the world and glare
   Still sovereigns of his spirit were,
   And by a sweet delusion he
   Would soothe the doubtings of his soul,
   He deemed of human life the goal
   To be a charming mystery:
   He racked his brains to find its clue
   And marvels deemed he thus should view.

   VIII

   This he believed: a kindred spirit
   Impelled to union with his own
   Lay languishing both day and night—
   Waiting his coming—his alone!
   He deemed his friends but longed to make
   Great sacrifices for his sake!
   That a friend’s arm in every case
   Felled a calumniator base!
   That chosen heroes consecrate,
   Friends of the sons of every land,
   Exist—that their immortal band
   Shall surely, be it soon or late,
   Pour on this orb a dazzling light
   And bless mankind with full delight.

   IX

   Compassion now or wrath inspires
   And now philanthropy his soul,
   And now his youthful heart desires
   The path which leads to glory’s goal.
   His harp beneath that sky had rung
   Where sometime Goethe, Schiller sung,
   And at the altar of their fame
   He kindled his poetic flame.
   But from the Muses’ loftiest height
   The gifted songster never swerved,
   But proudly in his song preserved
   An ever transcendental flight;
   His transports were quite maidenly,
   Charming with grave simplicity.

   X

   He sang of love—to love a slave.
   His ditties were as pure and bright
   As thoughts which gentle maidens have,
   As a babe’s slumber, or the light
   Of the moon in the tranquil skies,
   Goddess of lovers’ tender sighs.
   He sang of separation grim,
   Of what not, and of distant dim,
   Of roses to romancers dear;
   To foreign lands he would allude,
   Where long time he in solitude
   Had let fall many a bitter tear:
   He sang of life’s fresh colours stained
   Before he eighteen years attained.

   XI

   Since Eugene in that solitude
   Gifts such as these alone could prize,
   A scant attendance Lenski showed
   At neighbouring hospitalities.
   He shunned those parties boisterous;
   The conversation tedious
   About the crop of hay, the wine,
   The kennel or a kindred line,
   Was certainly not erudite
   Nor sparkled with poetic fire,
   Nor wit, nor did the same inspire
   A sense of social delight,
   But still more stupid did appear
   The gossip of their ladies fair.

   XII

   Handsome and rich, the neighbourhood
   Lenski as a good match received,—
   Such is the country custom good;
   All mothers their sweet girls believed
   Suitable for this semi-Russian.
   He enters: rapidly discussion
   Shifts, tacks about, until they prate
   The sorrows of a single state.
   Perchance where Dunia pours out tea
   The young proprietor we find;
   To Dunia then they whisper: Mind!
   And a guitar produced we see,
   And Heavens! warbled forth we hear:
   Come to my golden palace, dear!(25)

   [Note 25: From the lay of the Russalka, i.e. mermaid of the Dnieper.]

   XIII

   But Lenski, having no desire
   Vows matrimonial to break,
   With our Onéguine doth aspire
   Acquaintance instantly to make.
   They met. Earth, water, prose and verse,
   Or ice and flame, are not diverse
   If they were similar in aught.
   At first such contradictions wrought
   Mutual repulsion and ennui,
   But grown familiar side by side
   On horseback every day they ride—
   Inseparable soon they be.
   Thus oft—this I myself confess—
   Men become friends from idleness.

   XIV

   But even thus not now-a-days!
   In spite of common sense we’re wont
   As cyphers others to appraise,
   Ourselves as unities to count;
   And like Napoleons each of us
   A million bipeds reckons thus
   One instrument for his own use—
   Feeling is silly, dangerous.
   Eugene, more tolerant than this
   (Though certainly mankind he knew
   And usually despised it too),
   Exceptionless as no rule is,
   A few of different temper deemed,
   Feeling in others much esteemed.

   XV

   With smiling face he Lenski hears;
   The poet’s fervid conversation
   And judgment which unsteady veers
   And eye which gleams with inspiration—
   All this was novel to Eugene.
   The cold reply with gloomy mien
   He oft upon his lips would curb,
   Thinking: ’tis foolish to disturb
   This evanescent boyish bliss.
   Time without me will lessons give,
   So meantime let him joyous live
   And deem the world perfection is!
   Forgive the fever youth inspires,
   And youthful madness, youthful fires.

   XVI

   The gulf between them was so vast,
   Debate commanded ample food—
   The laws of generations past,
   The fruits of science, evil, good,
   The prejudices all men have,
   The fatal secrets of the grave,
   And life and fate in turn selected
   Were to analysis subjected.
   The fervid poet would recite,
   Carried away by ecstasy,
   Fragments of northern poetry,
   Whilst Eugene condescending quite,
   Though scarcely following what was said,
   Attentive listened to the lad.

   XVII

   But more the passions occupy
   The converse of our hermits twain,
   And, heaving a regretful sigh,
   An exile from their troublous reign,
   Eugene would speak regarding these.
   Thrice happy who their agonies
   Hath suffered but indifferent grown,
   Still happier he who ne’er hath known!
   By absence who hath chilled his love,
   His hate by slander, and who spends
   Existence without wife or friends,
   Whom jealous transport cannot move,
   And who the rent-roll of his race
   Ne’er trusted to the treacherous ace.

   XVIII

   When, wise at length, we seek repose
   Beneath the flag of Quietude,
   When Passion’s fire no longer glows
   And when her violence reviewed—
   Each gust of temper, silly word,
   Seems so unnatural and absurd:
   Reduced with effort unto sense,
   We hear with interest intense
   The accents wild of other’s woes,
   They stir the heart as heretofore.
   So ancient warriors, battles o’er,
   A curious interest disclose
   In yarns of youthful troopers gay,
   Lost in the hamlet far away.

   XIX

   And in addition youth is flame
   And cannot anything conceal,
   Is ever ready to proclaim
   The love, hate, sorrow, joy, we feel.
   Deeming himself a veteran scarred
   In love’s campaigns Onéguine heard
   With quite a lachrymose expression
   The youthful poet’s fond confession.
   He with an innocence extreme
   His inner consciousness laid bare,
   And Eugene soon discovered there
   The story of his young love’s dream,
   Where plentifully feelings flow
   Which we experienced long ago.

   XX

   Alas! he loved as in our times
   Men love no more, as only the
   Mad spirit of the man who rhymes
   Is still condemned in love to be;
   One image occupied his mind,
   Constant affection intertwined
   And an habitual sense of pain;
   And distance interposed in vain,
   Nor years of separation all
   Nor homage which the Muse demands
   Nor beauties of far distant lands
   Nor study, banquet, rout nor ball
   His constant soul could ever tire,
   Which glowed with virginal desire.

   XXI

   When but a boy he Olga loved
   Unknown as yet the aching heart,
   He witnessed tenderly and moved
   Her girlish gaiety and sport.
   Beneath the sheltering oak tree’s shade
   He with his little maiden played,
   Whilst the fond parents, friends thro’ life,
   Dreamed in the future man and wife.
   And full of innocent delight,
   As in a thicket’s humble shade,
   Beneath her parents’ eyes the maid
   Grew like a lily pure and white,
   Unseen in thick and tangled grass
   By bee and butterfly which pass.

   XXII

   ’Twas she who first within his breast
   Poetic transport did infuse,
   And thoughts of Olga first impressed
   A mournful temper on his Muse.
   Farewell! thou golden days of love!
   ’Twas then he loved the tangled grove
   And solitude and calm delight,
   The moon, the stars, and shining night—
   The moon, the lamp of heaven above,
   To whom we used to consecrate
   A promenade in twilight late
   With tears which secret sufferers love—
   But now in her effulgence pale
   A substitute for lamps we hail!

   XXIII

   Obedient she had ever been
   And modest, cheerful as the morn,
   As a poetic life serene,
   Sweet as the kiss of lovers sworn.
   Her eyes were of cerulean blue,
   Her locks were of a golden hue,
   Her movements, voice and figure slight,
   All about Olga—to a light
   Romance of love I pray refer,
   You’ll find her portrait there, I vouch;
   I formerly admired her much
   But finally grew bored by her.
   But with her elder sister I
   Must now my stanzas occupy.

   XXIV

   Tattiana was her appellation.
   We are the first who such a name
   In pages of a love narration
   With such a perversity proclaim.
   But wherefore not?—’Tis pleasant, nice,
   Euphonious, though I know a spice
   It carries of antiquity
   And of the attic. Honestly,
   We must admit but little taste
   Doth in us or our names appear(26)
   (I speak not of our poems here),
   And education runs to waste,
   Endowing us from out her store
   With affectation,—nothing more.

   [Note 26: The Russian annotator remarks: “The most euphonious
   Greek names, e.g. Agathon, Philotas, Theodora, Thekla, etc.,
   are used amongst us by the lower classes only.”]

   XXV

   And so Tattiana was her name,
   Nor by her sister’s brilliancy
   Nor by her beauty she became
   The cynosure of every eye.
   Shy, silent did the maid appear
   As in the timid forest deer,
   Even beneath her parents’ roof
   Stood as estranged from all aloof,
   Nearest and dearest knew not how
   To fawn upon and love express;
   A child devoid of childishness
   To romp and play she ne’er would go:
   Oft staring through the window pane
   Would she in silence long remain.

   XXVI

   Contemplativeness, her delight,
   E’en from her cradle’s earliest dream,
   Adorned with many a vision bright
   Of rural life the sluggish stream;
   Ne’er touched her fingers indolent
   The needle nor, o’er framework bent,
   Would she the canvas tight enrich
   With gay design and silken stitch.
   Desire to rule ye may observe
   When the obedient doll in sport
   An infant maiden doth exhort
   Polite demeanour to preserve,
   Gravely repeating to another
   Recent instructions of its mother.

   XXVII

   But Tania ne’er displayed a passion
   For dolls, e’en from her earliest years,
   And gossip of the town and fashion
   She ne’er repeated unto hers.
   Strange unto her each childish game,
   But when the winter season came
   And dark and drear the evenings were,
   Terrible tales she loved to hear.
   And when for Olga nurse arrayed
   In the broad meadow a gay rout,
   All the young people round about,
   At prisoner’s base she never played.
   Their noisy laugh her soul annoyed,
   Their giddy sports she ne’er enjoyed.

   XXVIII

   She loved upon the balcony
   To anticipate the break of day,
   When on the pallid eastern sky
   The starry beacons fade away,
   The horizon luminous doth grow,
   Morning’s forerunners, breezes blow
   And gradually day unfolds.
   In winter, when Night longer holds
   A hemisphere beneath her sway,
   Longer the East inert reclines
   Beneath the moon which dimly shines,
   And calmly sleeps the hours away,
   At the same hour she oped her eyes
   And would by candlelight arise.

   XXIX

   Romances pleased her from the first,
   Her all in all did constitute;
   In love adventures she was versed,
   Rousseau and Richardson to boot.
   Not a bad fellow was her father
   Though superannuated rather;
   In books he saw nought to condemn
   But, as he never opened them,
   Viewed them with not a little scorn,
   And gave himself but little pain
   His daughter’s book to ascertain
   Which ’neath her pillow lay till morn.
   His wife was also mad upon
   The works of Mr. Richardson.

   XXX

   She was thus fond of Richardson
   Not that she had his works perused,
   Or that adoring Grandison
   That rascal Lovelace she abused;
   But that Princess Pauline of old,
   Her Moscow cousin, often told
   The tale of these romantic men;
   Her husband was a bridegroom then,
   And she despite herself would waste
   Sighs on another than her lord
   Whose qualities appeared to afford
   More satisfaction to her taste.
   Her Grandison was in the Guard,
   A noted fop who gambled hard.

   XXXI

   Like his, her dress was always nice,
   The height of fashion, fitting tight,
   But contrary to her advice
   The girl in marriage they unite.
   Then, her distraction to allay,
   The bridegroom sage without delay
   Removed her to his country seat,
   Where God alone knows whom she met.
   She struggled hard at first thus pent,
   Night separated from her spouse,
   Then became busy with the house,
   First reconciled and then content;
   Habit was given us in distress
   By Heaven in lieu of happiness.

   XXXII

   Habit alleviates the grief
   Inseparable from our lot;
   This great discovery relief
   And consolation soon begot.
   And then she soon ’twixt work and leisure
   Found out the secret how at pleasure
   To dominate her worthy lord,
   And harmony was soon restored.
   The workpeople she superintended,
   Mushrooms for winter salted down,
   Kept the accounts, shaved many a crown,(*)
   The bath on Saturdays attended,
   When angry beat her maids, I grieve,
   And all without her husband’s leave.

   [Note: The serfs destined for military service used to have
   a portion of their heads shaved as a distinctive mark.]

   XXXIII

   In her friends’ albums, time had been,
   With blood instead of ink she scrawled,
   Baptized Prascovia Pauline,
   And in her conversation drawled.
   She wore her corset tightly bound,
   The Russian N with nasal sound
   She would pronounce à la Française;
   But soon she altered all her ways,
   Corset and album and Pauline,
   Her sentimental verses all,
   She soon forgot, began to call
   Akulka who was once Celine,
   And had with waddling in the end
   Her caps and night-dresses to mend.

   XXXIV

   As for her spouse he loved her dearly,
   In her affairs ne’er interfered,
   Entrusted all to her sincerely,
   In dressing-gown at meals appeared.
   Existence calmly sped along,
   And oft at eventide a throng
   Of friends unceremonious would
   Assemble from the neighbourhood:
   They growl a bit—they scandalise—
   They crack a feeble joke and smile—
   Thus the time passes and meanwhile
   Olga the tea must supervise—
   ’Tis time for supper, now for bed,
   And soon the friendly troop hath fled.

   XXXV

   They in a peaceful life preserved
   Customs by ages sanctified,
   Strictly the Carnival observed,
   Ate Russian pancakes at Shrovetide,
   Twice in the year to fast were bound,
   Of whirligigs were very fond,
   Of Christmas carols, song and dance;
   When people with long countenance
   On Trinity Sunday yawned at prayer,
   Three tears they dropt with humble mein
   Upon a bunch of lovage green;
   Kvass needful was to them as air;
   On guests their servants used to wait
   By rank as settled by the State.(27)

   [Note 27: The foregoing stanza requires explanation. Russian
   pancakes or “blinni” are consumed vigorously by the lower
   orders during the Carnival. At other times it is difficult
   to procure them, at any rate in the large towns.

   The Russian peasants are childishly fond of whirligigs, which
   are also much in vogue during the Carnival.

   “Christmas Carols” is not an exact equivalent for the Russian
   phrase. “Podbliudni pessni,” are literally “dish songs,” or
   songs used with dishes (of water) during the “sviatki” or Holy
   Nights, which extend from Christmas to Twelfth Night, for
   purposes of divination. Reference will again be made to this
   superstitious practice, which is not confined to Russia. See Note 52.

   “Song and dance,” the well-known “khorovod,” in which the dance
   proceeds to vocal music.

   “Lovage,” the Levisticum officinalis, is a hardy plant growing
   very far north, though an inhabitant of our own kitchen gardens.
   The passage containing the reference to the three tears and
   Trinity Sunday was at first deemed irreligious by the Russian
   censors, and consequently expunged.

   Kvass is of various sorts: there is the common kvass of
   fermented rye used by the peasantry, and the more expensive
   kvass of the restaurants, iced and flavoured with various fruits.

   The final two lines refer to the “Tchin,” or Russian social
   hierarchy. There are fourteen grades in the Tchin assigning
   relative rank and precedence to the members of the various
   departments of the State, civil, military, naval, court,
   scientific and educational. The military and naval grades from
   the 14th up to the 7th confer personal nobility only, whilst
   above the 7th hereditary rank is acquired. In the remaining
   departments, civil or otherwise, personal nobility is only
   attained with the 9th grade, hereditary with the 4th.]

   XXXVI

   Thus age approached, the common doom,
   And death before the husband wide
   Opened the portals of the tomb
   And a new diadem supplied.(28)
   Just before dinner-time he slept,
   By neighbouring families bewept,
   By children and by faithful wife
   With deeper woe than others’ grief.
   He was an honest gentleman,
   And where at last his bones repose
   The epitaph on marble shows:
   Demetrius Larine, sinful man,
   Servant of God and brigadier,
   Enjoyeth peaceful slumber here.

   [Note 28: A play upon the word “venetz,” crown, which also
   signifies a nimbus or glory, and is the symbol of marriage
   from the fact of two gilt crowns being held over the heads
   of the bride and bridegroom during the ceremony. The literal
   meaning of the passage is therefore: his earthly marriage
   was dissolved and a heavenly one was contracted.]

   XXXVII

   To his Penates now returned,
   Vladimir Lenski visited
   His neighbour’s lowly tomb and mourned
   Above the ashes of the dead.
   There long time sad at heart he stayed:
   “Poor Yorick,” mournfully he said,
   “How often in thine arms I lay;
   How with thy medal I would play,
   The Medal Otchakoff conferred!(29)
   To me he would his Olga give,
   Would whisper: shall I so long live?”—
   And by a genuine sorrow stirred,
   Lenski his pencil-case took out
   And an elegiac poem wrote.

   [Note 29: The fortress of Otchakoff was taken by storm on the
   18th December 1788 by a Russian army under Prince Potemkin.
   Thirty thousand Turks are said to have perished during the
   assault and ensuing massacre.]

   XXXVIII

   Likewise an epitaph with tears
   He writes upon his parents’ tomb,
   And thus ancestral dust reveres.
   Oh! on the fields of life how bloom
   Harvests of souls unceasingly
   By Providence’s dark decree!
   They blossom, ripen and they fall
   And others rise ephemeral!
   Thus our light race grows up and lives,
   A moment effervescing stirs,
   Then seeks ancestral sepulchres,
   The appointed hour arrives, arrives!
   And our successors soon shall drive
   Us from the world wherein we live.

   XXXIX

   Meantime, drink deeply of the flow
   Of frivolous existence, friends;
   Its insignificance I know
   And care but little for its ends.
   To dreams I long have closed mine eyes,
   Yet sometimes banished hopes will rise
   And agitate my heart again;
   And thus it is ’twould cause me pain
   Without the faintest trace to leave
   This world. I do not praise desire,
   Yet still apparently aspire
   My mournful fate in verse to weave,
   That like a friendly voice its tone
   Rescue me from oblivion.

   XL

   Perchance some heart ’twill agitate,
   And then the stanzas of my theme
   Will not, preserved by kindly Fate,
   Perish absorbed by Lethe’s stream.
   Then it may be, O flattering tale,
   Some future ignoramus shall
   My famous portrait indicate
   And cry: he was a poet great!
   My gratitude do not disdain,
   Admirer of the peaceful Muse,
   Whose memory doth not refuse
   My light productions to retain,
   Whose hands indulgently caress
   The bays of age and helplessness.

   End of Canto the Second.

CANTO THE THIRD

   The Country Damsel

   ‘Elle était fille, elle était amoureuse’—Malfilatre

   Canto The Third

   [Note: Odessa and Mikhailovskoe, 1824.]

   I

   “Whither away? Deuce take the bard!”—
   “Good-bye, Onéguine, I must go.”—
   “I won’t detain you; but ’tis hard
   To guess how you the eve pull through.”—
   “At Làrina’s.”—“Hem, that is queer!
   Pray is it not a tough affair
   Thus to assassinate the eve?”—
   “Not at all.”—“That I can’t conceive!
   ’Tis something of this sort I deem.
   In the first place, say, am I right?
   A Russian household simple quite,
   Who welcome guests with zeal extreme,
   Preserves and an eternal prattle
   About the rain and flax and cattle.”—

   II

   “No misery I see in that”—
   “Boredom, my friend, behold the ill—”
   “Your fashionable world I hate,
   Domestic life attracts me still,
   Where—”—“What! another eclogue spin?
   For God’s sake, Lenski, don’t begin!
   What! really going? ’Tis too bad!
   But Lenski, I should be so glad
   Would you to me this Phyllis show,
   Fair source of every fine idea,
   Verses and tears et cetera.
   Present me.”—“You are joking.”—“No.”—
   “Delighted.”—“When?”—“This very night.
   They will receive us with delight.”

   III

   Whilst homeward by the nearest route
   Our heroes at full gallop sped,
   Can we not stealthily make out
   What they in conversation said?—
   “How now, Onéguine, yawning still?”—
   “’Tis habit, Lenski.”—“Is your ill
   More troublesome than usual?”—“No!
   How dark the night is getting though!
   Hallo, Andriushka, onward race!
   The drive becomes monotonous—
   Well! Làrina appears to us
   An ancient lady full of grace.—
   That bilberry wine, I’m sore afraid,
   The deuce with my inside has played.”

   IV

   “Say, of the two which was Tattiana?”
   “She who with melancholy face
   And silent as the maid Svetlana(30)
   Hard by the window took her place.”—
   “The younger, you’re in love with her!”
   “Well!”—“I the elder should prefer,
   Were I like you a bard by trade—
   In Olga’s face no life’s displayed.
   ’Tis a Madonna of Vandyk,
   An oval countenance and pink,
   Yon silly moon upon the brink
   Of the horizon she is like!”—
   Vladimir something curtly said
   Nor further comment that night made.

   [Note 30: “Svetlana,” a short poem by Joukóvski, upon which his
   fame mainly rests. Joukóvski was an unblushing plagiarist. Many
   eminent English poets have been laid under contribution by him,
   often without going through the form of acknowledging the
   source of inspiration. Even the poem in question cannot be
   pronounced entirely original, though its intrinsic beauty is
   unquestionable. It undoubtedly owes its origin to Burger’s poem
   “Leonora,” which has found so many English translators. Not
   content with a single development of Burger’s ghastly production
   the Russian poet has directly paraphrased “Leonora” under its
   own title, and also written a poem “Liudmila” in imitation of it.
   The principal outlines of these three poems are as follows: A
   maiden loses her lover in the wars; she murmurs at Providence
   and is vainly reproved for such blasphemy by her mother.
   Providence at length loses patience and sends her lover’s spirit,
   to all appearances as if in the flesh, who induces the unfortunate
   maiden to elope. Instead of riding to a church or bridal chamber
   the unpleasant bridegroom resorts to the graveyard and repairs to
   his own grave, from which he has recently issued to execute his
   errand. It is a repulsive subject. “Svetlana,” however, is more
   agreeable than its prototype “Leonora,” inasmuch as the whole
   catastrophe turns out a dream brought on by “sorcery,” during the
   “sviatki” or Holy Nights (see Canto V. st. x), and the dreamer
   awakes to hear the tinkling of her lover’s sledge approaching.
   “Svetlana” has been translated by Sir John Bowring.]

   V

   Meantime Onéguine’s apparition
   At Làrina’s abode produced
   Quite a sensation; the position
   To all good neighbours’ sport conduced.
   Endless conjectures all propound
   And secretly their views expound.
   What jokes and guesses now abound,
   A beau is for Tattiana found!
   In fact, some people were assured
   The wedding-day had been arranged,
   But the date subsequently changed
   Till proper rings could be procured.
   On Lenski’s matrimonial fate
   They long ago had held debate.

   VI

   Of course Tattiana was annoyed
   By such allusions scandalous,
   Yet was her inmost soul o’erjoyed
   With satisfaction marvellous,
   As in her heart the thought sank home,
   I am in love, my hour hath come!
   Thus in the earth the seed expands
   Obedient to warm Spring’s commands.
   Long time her young imagination
   By indolence and languor fired
   The fated nutriment desired;
   And long internal agitation
   Had filled her youthful breast with gloom,
   She waited for—I don’t know whom!

   VII

   The fatal hour had come at last—
   She oped her eyes and cried: ’tis he!
   Alas! for now before her passed
   The same warm vision constantly;
   Now all things round about repeat
   Ceaselessly to the maiden sweet
   His name: the tenderness of home
   Tiresome unto her hath become
   And the kind-hearted servitors:
   Immersed in melancholy thought,
   She hears of conversation nought
   And hated casual visitors,
   Their coming which no man expects,
   And stay whose length none recollects.

   VIII

   Now with what eager interest
   She the delicious novel reads,
   With what avidity and zest
   She drinks in those seductive deeds!
   All the creations which below
   From happy inspiration flow,
   The swain of Julia Wolmar,
   Malek Adel and De Linar,(31)
   Werther, rebellious martyr bold,
   And that unrivalled paragon,
   The sleep-compelling Grandison,
   Our tender dreamer had enrolled
   A single being: ’twas in fine
   No other than Onéguine mine.

   [Note 31: The heroes of two romances much in vogue in Pushkin’s
   time: the former by Madame Cottin, the latter by the famous
   Madame Krudener. The frequent mention in the course of this
   poem of romances once enjoying a European celebrity but now
   consigned to oblivion, will impress the reader with the
   transitory nature of merely mediocre literary reputation. One
   has now to search for the very names of most of the popular
   authors of Pushkin’s day and rummage biographical dictionaries
   for the dates of their births and deaths. Yet the poet’s prime
   was but fifty years ago, and had he lived to a ripe old age he
   would have been amongst us still. He was four years younger
   than the late Mr. Thomas Carlyle. The decadence of Richardson’s
   popularity amongst his countrymen is a fact familiar to all.]

   IX

   Dreaming herself the heroine
   Of the romances she preferred,
   Clarissa, Julia, Delphine,—(32)
   Tattiana through the forest erred,
   And the bad book accompanies.
   Upon those pages she descries
   Her passion’s faithful counterpart,
   Fruit of the yearnings of the heart.
   She heaves a sigh and deep intent
   On raptures, sorrows not her own,
   She murmurs in an undertone
   A letter for her hero meant:
   That hero, though his merit shone,
   Was certainly no Grandison.

   [Note 32: Referring to Richardson’s “Clarissa Harlowe,” “La
   Nouvelle Heloise,” and Madame de Stael’s “Delphine.”]

   X

   Alas! my friends, the years flit by
   And after them at headlong pace
   The evanescent fashions fly
   In motley and amusing chase.
   The world is ever altering!
   Farthingales, patches, were the thing,
   And courtier, fop, and usurer
   Would once in powdered wig appear;
   Time was, the poet’s tender quill
   In hopes of everlasting fame
   A finished madrigal would frame
   Or couplets more ingenious still;
   Time was, a valiant general might
   Serve who could neither read nor write.

   XI

   Time was, in style magniloquent
   Authors replete with sacred fire
   Their heroes used to represent
   All that perfection could desire;
   Ever by adverse fate oppressed,
   Their idols they were wont to invest
   With intellect, a taste refined,
   And handsome countenance combined,
   A heart wherein pure passion burnt;
   The excited hero in a trice
   Was ready for self-sacrifice,
   And in the final tome we learnt,
   Vice had due punishment awarded,
   Virtue was with a bride rewarded.

   XII

   But now our minds are mystified
   And Virtue acts as a narcotic,
   Vice in romance is glorified
   And triumphs in career erotic.
   The monsters of the British Muse
   Deprive our schoolgirls of repose,
   The idols of their adoration
   A Vampire fond of meditation,
   Or Melmoth, gloomy wanderer he,
   The Eternal Jew or the Corsair
   Or the mysterious Sbogar.(33)
   Byron’s capricious phantasy
   Could in romantic mantle drape
   E’en hopeless egoism’s dark shape.

   [Note 33: “Melmoth,” a romance by Maturin, and “Jean Sbogar,” by
   Ch. Nodier. “The Vampire,” a tale published in 1819, was
   erroneously attributed to Lord Byron. “Salathiel; the Eternal
   Jew,” a romance by Geo. Croly.]

   XIII

   My friends, what means this odd digression?
   May be that I by heaven’s decrees
   Shall abdicate the bard’s profession,
   And shall adopt some new caprice.
   Thus having braved Apollo’s rage
   With humble prose I’ll fill my page
   And a romance in ancient style
   Shall my declining years beguile;
   Nor shall my pen paint terribly
   The torment born of crime unseen,
   But shall depict the touching scene
   Of Russian domesticity;
   I will descant on love’s sweet dream,
   The olden time shall be my theme.

   XIV

   Old people’s simple conversations
   My unpretending page shall fill,
   Their offspring’s innocent flirtations
   By the old lime-tree or the rill,
   Their Jealousy and separation
   And tears of reconciliation:
   Fresh cause of quarrel then I’ll find,
   But finally in wedlock bind.
   The passionate speeches I’ll repeat,
   Accents of rapture or despair
   I uttered to my lady fair
   Long ago, prostrate at her feet.
   Then they came easily enow,
   My tongue is somewhat rusty now.

   XV

   Tattiana! sweet Tattiana, see!
   What bitter tears with thee I shed!
   Thou hast resigned thy destiny
   Unto a ruthless tyrant dread.
   Thou’lt suffer, dearest, but before,
   Hope with her fascinating power
   To dire contentment shall give birth
   And thou shalt taste the joys of earth.
   Thou’lt quaff love’s sweet envenomed stream,
   Fantastic images shall swarm
   In thy imagination warm,
   Of happy meetings thou shalt dream,
   And wheresoe’er thy footsteps err,
   Confront thy fated torturer!

   XVI

   Love’s pangs Tattiana agonize.
   She seeks the garden in her need—
   Sudden she stops, casts down her eyes
   And cares not farther to proceed;
   Her bosom heaves whilst crimson hues
   With sudden flush her cheeks suffuse,
   Barely to draw her breath she seems,
   Her eye with fire unwonted gleams.
   And now ’tis night, the guardian moon
   Sails her allotted course on high,
   And from the misty woodland nigh
   The nightingale trills forth her tune;
   Restless Tattiana sleepless lay
   And thus unto her nurse did say:

   XVII

   “Nurse, ’tis so close I cannot rest.
   Open the window—sit by me.”
   “What ails thee, dear?”—“I feel depressed.
   Relate some ancient history.”
   “But which, my dear?—In days of yore
   Within my memory I bore
   Many an ancient legend which
   In monsters and fair dames was rich;
   But now my mind is desolate,
   What once I knew is clean forgot—
   Alas! how wretched now my lot!”
   “But tell me, nurse, can you relate
   The days which to your youth belong?
   Were you in love when you were young?”—

   XVIII

   “Alack! Tattiana,” she replied,
   “We never loved in days of old,
   My mother-in-law who lately died(34)
   Had killed me had the like been told.”
   “How came you then to wed a man?”—
   “Why, as God ordered! My Ivan
   Was younger than myself, my light,
   For I myself was thirteen quite;(35)
   The matchmaker a fortnight sped,
   Her suit before my parents pressing:
   At last my father gave his blessing,
   And bitter tears of fright I shed.
   Weeping they loosed my tresses long(36)
   And led me off to church with song.”

   [Note 34: A young married couple amongst Russian peasants
   reside in the house of the bridegroom’s father till the
   “tiaglo,” or family circle is broken up by his death.]

   [Note 35: Marriages amongst Russian serfs used formerly to
   take place at ridiculously early ages. Haxthausen asserts
   that strong hearty peasant women were to be seen at work
   in the fields with their infant husbands in their arms. The
   inducement lay in the fact that the “tiaglo” (see previous
   note) received an additional lot of the communal land for
   every male added to its number, though this could have formed
   an inducement in the southern and fertile provinces of Russia
   only, as it is believed that agriculture in the north is so
   unremunerative that land has often to be forced upon the
   peasants, in order that the taxes, for which the whole Commune
   is responsible to Government, may be paid. The abuse of early
   marriages was regulated by Tsar Nicholas.]

   [Note 36: Courtships were not unfrequently carried on in the
   larger villages, which alone could support such an individual,
   by means of a “svakha,” or matchmaker. In Russia unmarried
   girls wear their hair in a single long plait or tail, “kossa;”
   the married women, on the other hand, in two, which are twisted
   into the head-gear.]

   XIX

   “Then amongst strangers I was left—
   But I perceive thou dost not heed—”
   “Alas! dear nurse, my heart is cleft,
   Mortally sick I am indeed.
   Behold, my sobs I scarce restrain—”
   “My darling child, thou art in pain.—
   The Lord deliver her and save!
   Tell me at once what wilt thou have?
   I’ll sprinkle thee with holy water.—
   How thy hands burn!”—“Dear nurse, I’m well.
   I am—in love—you know—don’t tell!”
   “The Lord be with thee, O my daughter!”—
   And the old nurse a brief prayer said
   And crossed with trembling hand the maid.

   XX

   “I am in love,” her whispers tell
   The aged woman in her woe:
   “My heart’s delight, thou art not well.”—
   “I am in love, nurse! leave me now.”
   Behold! the moon was shining bright
   And showed with an uncertain light
   Tattiana’s beauty, pale with care,
   Her tears and her dishevelled hair;
   And on the footstool sitting down
   Beside our youthful heroine fair,
   A kerchief round her silver hair
   The aged nurse in ample gown,(37)
   Whilst all creation seemed to dream
   Enchanted by the moon’s pale beam.

   [Note 37: It is thus that I am compelled to render a female
   garment not known, so far as I am aware, to Western Europe.
   It is called by the natives “doushegreika,” that is to say,
   “warmer of the soul”—in French, chaufferette de l’âme. It
   is a species of thick pelisse worn over the “sarafan,” or
   gown.]

   XXI

   But borne in spirit far away
   Tattiana gazes on the moon,
   And starting suddenly doth say:
   “Nurse, leave me. I would be alone.
   Pen, paper bring: the table too
   Draw near. I soon to sleep shall go—
   Good-night.” Behold! she is alone!
   ’Tis silent—on her shines the moon—
   Upon her elbow she reclines,
   And Eugene ever in her soul
   Indites an inconsiderate scroll
   Wherein love innocently pines.
   Now it is ready to be sent—
   For whom, Tattiana, is it meant?

   XXII

   I have known beauties cold and raw
   As Winter in their purity,
   Striking the intellect with awe
   By dull insensibility,
   And I admired their common sense
   And natural benevolence,
   But, I acknowledge, from them fled;
   For on their brows I trembling read
   The inscription o’er the gates of Hell
   “Abandon hope for ever here!”(38)
   Love to inspire doth woe appear
   To such—delightful to repel.
   Perchance upon the Neva e’en
   Similar dames ye may have seen.

   [Note 38: A Russian annotator complains that the poet has
   mutilated Dante’s famous line.]

   XXIII

   Amid submissive herds of men
   Virgins miraculous I see,
   Who selfishly unmoved remain
   Alike by sighs and flattery.
   But what astonished do I find
   When harsh demeanour hath consigned
   A timid love to banishment?—
   On fresh allurements they are bent,
   At least by show of sympathy;
   At least their accents and their words
   Appear attuned to softer chords;
   And then with blind credulity
   The youthful lover once again
   Pursues phantasmagoria vain.

   XXIV

   Why is Tattiana guiltier deemed?—
   Because in singleness of thought
   She never of deception dreamed
   But trusted the ideal she wrought?—
   Because her passion wanted art,
   Obeyed the impulses of heart?—
   Because she was so innocent,
   That Heaven her character had blent
   With an imagination wild,
   With intellect and strong volition
   And a determined disposition,
   An ardent heart and yet so mild?—
   Doth love’s incautiousness in her
   So irremissible appear?

   XXV

   O ye whom tender love hath pained
   Without the ken of parents both,
   Whose hearts responsive have remained
   To the impressions of our youth,
   The all-entrancing joys of love—
   Young ladies, if ye ever strove
   The mystic lines to tear away
   A lover’s letter might convey,
   Or into bold hands anxiously
   Have e’er a precious tress consigned,
   Or even, silent and resigned,
   When separation’s hour drew nigh,
   Have felt love’s agitated kiss
   With tears, confused emotions, bliss,—

   XXVI

   With unanimity complete,
   Condemn not weak Tattiana mine;
   Do not cold-bloodedly repeat
   The sneers of critics superfine;
   And you, O maids immaculate,
   Whom vice, if named, doth agitate
   E’en as the presence of a snake,
   I the same admonition make.
   Who knows? with love’s consuming flame
   Perchance you also soon may burn,
   Then to some gallant in your turn
   Will be ascribed by treacherous Fame
   The triumph of a conquest new.
   The God of Love is after you!

   XXVII

   A coquette loves by calculation,
   Tattiana’s love was quite sincere,
   A love which knew no limitation,
   Even as the love of children dear.
   She did not think “procrastination
   Enhances love in estimation
   And thus secures the prey we seek.
   His vanity first let us pique
   With hope and then perplexity,
   Excruciate the heart and late
   With jealous fire resuscitate,
   Lest jaded with satiety,
   The artful prisoner should seek
   Incessantly his chains to break.”

   XXVIII

   I still a complication view,
   My country’s honour and repute
   Demands that I translate for you
   The letter which Tattiana wrote.
   At Russ she was by no means clever
   And read our newspapers scarce ever,
   And in her native language she
   Possessed nor ease nor fluency,
   So she in French herself expressed.
   I cannot help it I declare,
   Though hitherto a lady ne’er
   In Russ her love made manifest,
   And never hath our language proud
   In correspondence been allowed.(39)

   [Note 39: It is well known that until the reign of the late Tsar
   French was the language of the Russian court and of Russian
   fashionable society. It should be borne in mind that at the time
   this poem was written literary warfare more or less open was
   being waged between two hostile schools of Russian men of
   letters. These consisted of the Arzamass, or French school, to
   which Pushkin himself together with his uncle Vassili Pushkin
   the “Nestor of the Arzamass” belonged, and their opponents who
   devoted themselves to the cultivation of the vernacular.]

   XXIX

   They wish that ladies should, I hear,
   Learn Russian, but the Lord defend!
   I can’t conceive a little dear
   With the “Well-Wisher” in her hand!(40)
   I ask, all ye who poets are,
   Is it not true? the objects fair,
   To whom ye for unnumbered crimes
   Had to compose in secret rhymes,
   To whom your hearts were consecrate,—
   Did they not all the Russian tongue
   With little knowledge and that wrong
   In charming fashion mutilate?
   Did not their lips with foreign speech
   The native Russian tongue impeach?

   [Note 40: The “Blago-Namièrenni,” or “Well-Wisher,” was an
   inferior Russian newspaper of the day, much scoffed at by
   contemporaries. The editor once excused himself for some
   gross error by pleading that he had been “on the loose.”]

   XXX

   God grant I meet not at a ball
   Or at a promenade mayhap,
   A schoolmaster in yellow shawl
   Or a professor in tulle cap.
   As rosy lips without a smile,
   The Russian language I deem vile
   Without grammatical mistakes.
   May be, and this my terror wakes,
   The fair of the next generation,
   As every journal now entreats,
   Will teach grammatical conceits,
   Introduce verse in conversation.
   But I—what is all this to me?
   Will to the old times faithful be.

   XXXI

   Speech careless, incorrect, but soft,
   With inexact pronunciation
   Raises within my breast as oft
   As formerly much agitation.
   Repentance wields not now her spell
   And gallicisms I love as well
   As the sins of my youthful days
   Or Bogdanovitch’s sweet lays.(41)
   But I must now employ my Muse
   With the epistle of my fair;
   I promised!—Did I so?—Well, there!
   Now I am ready to refuse.
   I know that Parny’s tender pen(42)
   Is no more cherished amongst men.

   [Note 41: Hippolyte Bogdanovitch—b. 1743, d. 1803—though
   possessing considerable poetical talent was like many other
   Russian authors more remarkable for successful imitation
   than for original genius. His most remarkable production
   is “Doushenka,” “The Darling,” a composition somewhat in
   the style of La Fontaine’s “Psyche.” Its merit consists in
   graceful phraseology, and a strong pervading sense of humour.]

   [Note 42: Parny—a French poet of the era of the first Napoleon,
   b. 1753, d. 1814. Introduced to the aged Voltaire during
   his last visit to Paris, the patriarch laid his hands upon
   the youth’s head and exclaimed: “Mon cher Tibulle.” He is
   chiefly known for his erotic poetry which attracted the
   affectionate regard of the youthful Pushkin when a student
   at the Lyceum. We regret to add that, having accepted a
   pension from Napoleon, Parny forthwith proceeded to damage
   his literary reputation by inditing an “epic” poem entitled
   “Goddam! Goddam! par un French—Dog.” It is descriptive
   of the approaching conquest of Britain by Napoleon, and
   treats the embryo enterprise as if already conducted to a
   successful conclusion and become matter of history. A good
   account of the bard and his creations will be found in the
   Saturday Review of the 2d August 1879.]

   XXXII

   Bard of the “Feasts,” and mournful breast,(43)
   If thou wert sitting by my side,
   With this immoderate request
   I should alarm our friendship tried:
   In one of thine enchanting lays
   To russify the foreign phrase
   Of my impassioned heroine.
   Where art thou? Come! pretensions mine
   I yield with a low reverence;
   But lonely beneath Finnish skies
   Where melancholy rocks arise
   He wanders in his indolence;
   Careless of fame his spirit high
   Hears not my importunity!

   [Note 43: Evgeny Baratynski, a contemporary of Pushkin and a
   lyric poet of some originality and talent. The “Feasts” is
   a short brilliant poem in praise of conviviality. Pushkin
   is therein praised as the best of companions “beside the
   bottle.”]

   XXXIII

   Tattiana’s letter I possess,
   I guard it as a holy thing,
   And though I read it with distress,
   I’m o’er it ever pondering.
   Inspired by whom this tenderness,
   This gentle daring who could guess?
   Who this soft nonsense could impart,
   Imprudent prattle of the heart,
   Attractive in its banefulness?
   I cannot understand. But lo!
   A feeble version read below,
   A print without the picture’s grace,
   Or, as it were, the Freischutz’ score
   Strummed by a timid schoolgirl o’er.

   Tattiana’s Letter to Onéguine

   I write to you! Is more required?
   Can lower depths beyond remain?
   ’Tis in your power now, if desired,
   To crush me with a just disdain.
   But if my lot unfortunate
   You in the least commiserate
   You will not all abandon me.
   At first, I clung to secrecy:
   Believe me, of my present shame
   You never would have heard the name,
   If the fond hope I could have fanned
   At times, if only once a week,
   To see you by our fireside stand,
   To listen to the words you speak,
   Address to you one single phrase
   And then to meditate for days
   Of one thing till again we met.
   ’Tis said you are a misanthrope,
   In country solitude you mope,
   And we—an unattractive set—
   Can hearty welcome give alone.
   Why did you visit our poor place?
   Forgotten in the village lone,
   I never should have seen your face
   And bitter torment never known.
   The untutored spirit’s pangs calmed down
   By time (who can anticipate?)
   I had found my predestinate,
   Become a faithful wife and e’en
   A fond and careful mother been.

   Another! to none other I
   My heart’s allegiance can resign,
   My doom has been pronounced on high,
   ’Tis Heaven’s will and I am thine.
   The sum of my existence gone
   But promise of our meeting gave,
   I feel thou wast by God sent down
   My guardian angel to the grave.
   Thou didst to me in dreams appear,
   Unseen thou wast already dear.
   Thine eye subdued me with strange glance,
   I heard thy voice’s resonance
   Long ago. Dream it cannot be!
   Scarce hadst thou entered thee I knew,
   I flushed up, stupefied I grew,
   And cried within myself: ’tis he!
   Is it not truth? in tones suppressed
   With thee I conversed when I bore
   Comfort and succour to the poor,
   And when I prayer to Heaven addressed
   To ease the anguish of my breast.
   Nay! even as this instant fled,
   Was it not thou, O vision bright,
   That glimmered through the radiant night
   And gently hovered o’er my head?
   Was it not thou who thus didst stoop
   To whisper comfort, love and hope?
   Who art thou? Guardian angel sent
   Or torturer malevolent?
   Doubt and uncertainty decide:
   All this may be an empty dream,
   Delusions of a mind untried,
   Providence otherwise may deem—
   Then be it so! My destiny
   From henceforth I confide to thee!
   Lo! at thy feet my tears I pour
   And thy protection I implore.
   Imagine! Here alone am I!
   No one my anguish comprehends,
   At times my reason almost bends,
   And silently I here must die—
   But I await thee: scarce alive
   My heart with but one look revive;
   Or to disturb my dreams approach
   Alas! with merited reproach.

   ’Tis finished. Horrible to read!
   With shame I shudder and with dread—
   But boldly I myself resign:
   Thine honour is my countersign!

   XXXIV

   Tattiana moans and now she sighs
   And in her grasp the letter shakes,
   Even the rosy wafer dries
   Upon her tongue which fever bakes.
   Her head upon her breast declines
   And an enchanting shoulder shines
   From her half-open vest of night.
   But lo! already the moon’s light
   Is waning. Yonder valley deep
   Looms gray behind the mist and morn
   Silvers the brook; the shepherd’s horn
   Arouses rustics from their sleep.
   ’Tis day, the family downstairs,
   But nought for this Tattiana cares.

   XXXV

   The break of day she doth not see,
   But sits in bed with air depressed,
   Nor on the letter yet hath she
   The image of her seal impressed.
   But gray Phillippevna the door
   Opened with care, and entering bore
   A cup of tea upon a tray.
   “’Tis time, my child, arise, I pray!
   My beauty, thou art ready too.
   My morning birdie, yesternight
   I was half silly with affright.
   But praised be God! in health art thou!
   The pains of night have wholly fled,
   Thy cheek is as a poppy red!”

   XXXVI

   “Ah! nurse, a favour do for me!”—
   “Command me, darling, what you choose”—
   “Do not—you might—suspicious be;
   But look you—ah! do not refuse.”
   “I call to witness God on high—”
   “Then send your grandson quietly
   To take this letter to O— Well!
   Unto our neighbour. Mind you tell—
   Command him not to say a word—
   I mean my name not to repeat.”
   “To whom is it to go, my sweet?
   Of late I have been quite absurd,—
   So many neighbours here exist—
   Am I to go through the whole list?”

   XXXVII

   “How dull you are this morning, nurse!”
   “My darling, growing old am I!
   In age the memory gets worse,
   But I was sharp in times gone by.
   In times gone by thy bare command—”
   “Oh! nurse, nurse, you don’t understand!
   What is thy cleverness to me?
   The letter is the thing, you see,—
   Onéguine’s letter!”—“Ah! the thing!
   Now don’t be cross with me, my soul,
   You know that I am now a fool—
   But why are your cheeks whitening?”
   “Nothing, good nurse, there’s nothing wrong,
   But send your grandson before long.”

   XXXVIII

   No answer all that day was borne.
   Another passed; ’twas just the same.
   Pale as a ghost and dressed since morn
   Tattiana waits. No answer came!
   Olga’s admirer came that day:
   “Tell me, why doth your comrade stay?”
   The hostess doth interrogate:
   “He hath neglected us of late.”—
   Tattiana blushed, her heart beat quick—
   “He promised here this day to ride,”
   Lenski unto the dame replied,
   “The post hath kept him, it is like.”
   Shamefaced, Tattiana downward looked
   As if he cruelly had joked!

   XXXIX

   ’Twas dusk! Upon the table bright
   Shrill sang the samovar at eve,(44)
   The china teapot too ye might
   In clouds of steam above perceive.
   Into the cups already sped
   By Olga’s hand distributed
   The fragrant tea in darkling stream,
   And a boy handed round the cream.
   Tania doth by the casement linger
   And breathes upon the chilly glass,
   Dreaming of what not, pretty lass,
   And traces with a slender finger
   Upon its damp opacity,
   The mystic monogram, O. E.

   [Note 44: The samovar, i.e. “self-boiler,” is merely an
   urn for hot water having a fire in the center. We may observe
   a similar contrivance in our own old-fashioned tea-urns which
   are provided with a receptacle for a red-hot iron cylinder in
   center. The tea-pot is usually placed on the top of the
   samovar.]

   XL

   In the meantime her spirit sinks,
   Her weary eyes are filled with tears—
   A horse’s hoofs she hears—She shrinks!
   Nearer they come—Eugene appears!
   Ah! than a spectre from the dead
   More swift the room Tattiana fled,
   From hall to yard and garden flies,
   Not daring to cast back her eyes.
   She fears and like an arrow rushes
   Through park and meadow, wood and brake,
   The bridge and alley to the lake,
   Brambles she snaps and lilacs crushes,
   The flowerbeds skirts, the brook doth meet,
   Till out of breath upon a seat

   XLI

   She sank.—
      “He’s here! Eugene is here!
   Merciful God, what will he deem?”
   Yet still her heart, which torments tear,
   Guards fondly hope’s uncertain dream.
   She waits, on fire her trembling frame—
   Will he pursue?—But no one came.
   She heard of servant-maids the note,
   Who in the orchards gathered fruit,
   Singing in chorus all the while.
   (This by command; for it was found,
   However cherries might abound,
   They disappeared by stealth and guile,
   So mouths they stopt with song, not fruit—
   Device of rural minds acute!)

   The Maidens’ Song

   Young maidens, fair maidens,
   Friends and companions,
   Disport yourselves, maidens,
   Arouse yourselves, fair ones.
   Come sing we in chorus
   The secrets of maidens.
   Allure the young gallant
   With dance and with song.
   As we lure the young gallant,
   Espy him approaching,
   Disperse yourselves, darlings,
   And pelt him with cherries,
   With cherries, red currants,
   With raspberries, cherries.
   Approach not to hearken
   To secrets of virgins,
   Approach not to gaze at
   The frolics of maidens.

   XLII

   They sang, whilst negligently seated,
   Attentive to the echoing sound,
   Tattiana with impatience waited
   Until her heart less high should bound—
   Till the fire in her cheek decreased;
   But tremor still her frame possessed,
   Nor did her blushes fade away,
   More crimson every moment they.
   Thus shines the wretched butterfly,
   With iridescent wing doth flap
   When captured in a schoolboy’s cap;
   Thus shakes the hare when suddenly
   She from the winter corn espies
   A sportsman who in covert lies.

   XLIII

   But finally she heaves a sigh,
   And rising from her bench proceeds;
   But scarce had turned the corner nigh,
   Which to the neighbouring alley leads,
   When Eugene like a ghost did rise
   Before her straight with roguish eyes.
   Tattiana faltered, and became
   Scarlet as burnt by inward flame.
   But this adventure’s consequence
   To-day, my friends, at any rate,
   I am not strong enough to state;
   I, after so much eloquence,
   Must take a walk and rest a bit—
   Some day I’ll somehow finish it.

   End of Canto the Third

CANTO THE FOURTH

   Rural Life

   ‘La Morale est dans la nature des choses.’—Necker

   Canto The Fourth

   [Mikhailovskoe, 1825]

   I

   The less we love a lady fair
   The easier ’tis to gain her grace,
   And the more surely we ensnare
   Her in the pitfalls which we place.
   Time was when cold seduction strove
   To swagger as the art of love,
   Everywhere trumpeting its feats,
   Not seeking love but sensual sweets.
   But this amusement delicate
   Was worthy of that old baboon,
   Our fathers used to dote upon;
   The Lovelaces are out of date,
   Their glory with their heels of red
   And long perukes hath vanishèd.

   II

   For who imposture can endure,
   A constant harping on one tune,
   Serious endeavours to assure
   What everybody long has known;
   Ever to hear the same replies
   And overcome antipathies
   Which never have existed, e’en
   In little maidens of thirteen?
   And what like menaces fatigues,
   Entreaties, oaths, fictitious fear,
   Epistles of six sheets or near,
   Rings, tears, deceptions and intrigues,
   Aunts, mothers and their scrutiny,
   And husbands’ tedious amity?

   III

   Such were the musings of Eugene.
   He in the early years of life
   Had a deluded victim been
   Of error and the passions’ strife.
   By daily life deteriorated,
   Awhile this beauty captivated,
   And that no longer could inspire.
   Slowly exhausted by desire,
   Yet satiated with success,
   In solitude or worldly din,
   He heard his soul’s complaint within,
   With laughter smothered weariness:
   And thus he spent eight years of time,
   Destroyed the blossom of his prime.

   IV

   Though beauty he no more adored,
   He still made love in a queer way;
   Rebuffed—as quickly reassured,
   Jilted—glad of a holiday.
   Without enthusiasm he met
   The fair, nor parted with regret,
   Scarce mindful of their love and guile.
   Thus a guest with composure will
   To take a hand at whist oft come:
   He takes his seat, concludes his game,
   And straight returning whence he came,
   Tranquilly goes to sleep at home,
   And in the morning doth not know
   Whither that evening he will go.

   V

   However, Tania’s letter reading,
   Eugene was touched with sympathy;
   The language of her girlish pleading
   Aroused in him sweet reverie.
   He called to mind Tattiana’s grace,
   Pallid and melancholy face,
   And in a vision, sinless, bright,
   His spirit sank with strange delight.
   May be the empire of the sense,
   Regained authority awhile,
   But he desired not to beguile
   Such open-hearted innocence.
   But to the garden once again
   Wherein we lately left the twain.

   VI

   Two minutes they in silence spent,
   Onéguine then approached and said:
   “You have a letter to me sent.
   Do not excuse yourself. I read
   Confessions which a trusting heart
   May well in innocence impart.
   Charming is your sincerity,
   Feelings which long had ceased to be
   It wakens in my breast again.
   But I came not to adulate:
   Your frankness I shall compensate
   By an avowal just as plain.
   An ear to my confession lend;
   To thy decree my will I bend.

   VII

   “If the domestic hearth could bless—
   My sum of happiness contained;
   If wife and children to possess
   A happy destiny ordained:
   If in the scenes of home I might
   E’en for an instant find delight,
   Then, I say truly, none but thee
   I would desire my bride to be—
   I say without poetic phrase,
   Found the ideal of my youth,
   Thee only would I choose, in truth,
   As partner of my mournful days,
   Thee only, pledge of all things bright,
   And be as happy—as I might.

   VIII

   “But strange am I to happiness;
   ’Tis foreign to my cast of thought;
   Me your perfections would not bless;
   I am not worthy them in aught;
   And honestly ’tis my belief
   Our union would produce but grief.
   Though now my love might be intense,
   Habit would bring indifference.
   I see you weep. Those tears of yours
   Tend not my heart to mitigate,
   But merely to exasperate;
   Judge then what roses would be ours,
   What pleasures Hymen would prepare
   For us, may be for many a year.

   IX

   “What can be drearier than the house,
   Wherein the miserable wife
   Deplores a most unworthy spouse
   And leads a solitary life?
   The tiresome man, her value knowing,
   Yet curses on his fate bestowing,
   Is full of frigid jealousy,
   Mute, solemn, frowning gloomily.
   Such am I. This did ye expect,
   When in simplicity ye wrote
   Your innocent and charming note
   With so much warmth and intellect?
   Hath fate apportioned unto thee
   This lot in life with stern decree?

   X

   “Ideas and time ne’er backward move;
   My soul I cannot renovate—
   I love you with a brother’s love,
   Perchance one more affectionate.
   Listen to me without disdain.
   A maid hath oft, may yet again
   Replace the visions fancy drew;
   Thus trees in spring their leaves renew
   As in their turn the seasons roll.
   ’Tis evidently Heaven’s will
   You fall in love again. But still—
   Learn to possess more self-control.
   Not all will like myself proceed—
   And thoughtlessness to woe might lead.”

   XI

   Thus did our friend Onéguine preach:
   Tattiana, dim with tears her eyes,
   Attentive listened to his speech,
   All breathless and without replies.
   His arm he offers. Mute and sad
   (Mechanically, let us add),
   Tattiana doth accept his aid;
   And, hanging down her head, the maid
   Around the garden homeward hies.
   Together they returned, nor word
   Of censure for the same incurred;
   The country hath its liberties
   And privileges nice allowed,
   Even as Moscow, city proud.

   XII

   Confess, O ye who this peruse,
   Onéguine acted very well
   By poor Tattiana in the blues;
   ’Twas not the first time, I can tell
   You, he a noble mind disclosed,
   Though some men, evilly disposed,
   Spared him not their asperities.
   His friends and also enemies
   (One and the same thing it may be)
   Esteemed him much as the world goes.
   Yes! every one must have his foes,
   But Lord! from friends deliver me!
   The deuce take friends, my friends, amends
   I’ve had to make for having friends!

   XIII

   But how? Quite so. Though I dismiss
   Dark, unavailing reverie,
   I just hint, in parenthesis,
   There is no stupid calumny
   Born of a babbler in a loft
   And by the world repeated oft,
   There is no fishmarket retort
   And no ridiculous report,
   Which your true friend with a sweet smile
   Where fashionable circles meet
   A hundred times will not repeat,
   Quite inadvertently meanwhile;
   And yet he in your cause would strive
   And loves you as—a relative!

   XIV

   Ahem! Ahem! My reader noble,
   Are all your relatives quite well?
   Permit me; is it worth the trouble
   For your instruction here to tell
   What I by relatives conceive?
   These are your relatives, believe:
   Those whom we ought to love, caress,
   With spiritual tenderness;
   Whom, as the custom is of men,
   We visit about Christmas Day,
   Or by a card our homage pay,
   That until Christmas comes again
   They may forget that we exist.
   And so—God bless them, if He list.

   XV

   In this the love of the fair sex
   Beats that of friends and relatives:
   In love, although its tempests vex,
   Our liberty at least survives:
   Agreed! but then the whirl of fashion,
   The natural fickleness of passion,
   The torrent of opinion,
   And the fair sex as light as down!
   Besides the hobbies of a spouse
   Should be respected throughout life
   By every proper-minded wife,
   And this the faithful one allows,
   When in as instant she is lost,—
   Satan will jest, and at love’s cost.

   XVI

   Oh! where bestow our love? Whom trust?
   Where is he who doth not deceive?
   Who words and actions will adjust
   To standards in which we believe?
   Oh! who is not calumnious?
   Who labours hard to humour us?
   To whom are our misfortunes grief
   And who is not a tiresome thief?
   My venerated reader, oh!
   Cease the pursuit of shadows vain,
   Spare yourself unavailing pain
   And all your love on self bestow;
   A worthy object ’tis, and well
   I know there’s none more amiable.

   XVII

   But from the interview what flowed?
   Alas! It is not hard to guess.
   The insensate fire of love still glowed
   Nor discontinued to distress
   A spirit which for sorrow yearned.
   Tattiana more than ever burned
   With hopeless passion: from her bed
   Sweet slumber winged its way and fled.
   Her health, life’s sweetness and its bloom,
   Her smile and maidenly repose,
   All vanished as an echo goes.
   Across her youth a shade had come,
   As when the tempest’s veil is drawn
   Across the smiling face of dawn.

   XVIII

   Alas! Tattiana fades away,
   Grows pale and sinks, but nothing says;
   Listless is she the livelong day
   Nor interest in aught betrays.
   Shaking with serious air the head,
   In whispers low the neighbours said:
   ’Tis time she to the altar went!
   But enough! Now, ’tis my intent
   The imagination to enliven
   With love which happiness extends;
   Against my inclination, friends,
   By sympathy I have been driven.
   Forgive me! Such the love I bear
   My heroine, Tattiana dear.

   XIX

   Vladimir, hourly more a slave
   To youthful Olga’s beauty bright,
   Into delicious bondage gave
   His ardent soul with full delight.
   Always together, eventide
   Found them in darkness side by side,
   At morn, hand clasped in hand, they rove
   Around the meadow and the grove.
   And what resulted? Drunk with love,
   But with confused and bashful air,
   Lenski at intervals would dare,
   If Olga smilingly approve,
   Dally with a dishevelled tress
   Or kiss the border of her dress.

   XX

   To Olga frequently he would
   Some nice instructive novel read,
   Whose author nature understood
   Better than Chateaubriand did
   Yet sometimes pages two or three
   (Nonsense and pure absurdity,
   For maiden’s hearing deemed unfit),
   He somewhat blushing would omit:
   Far from the rest the pair would creep
   And (elbows on the table) they
   A game of chess would often play,
   Buried in meditation deep,
   Till absently Vladimir took
   With his own pawn alas! his rook!

   XXI

   Homeward returning, he at home
   Is occupied with Olga fair,
   An album, fly-leaf of the tome,
   He leisurely adorns for her.
   Landscapes thereon he would design,
   A tombstone, Aphrodite’s shrine,
   Or, with a pen and colours fit,
   A dove which on a lyre doth sit;
   The “in memoriam” pages sought,
   Where many another hand had signed
   A tender couplet he combined,
   A register of fleeting thought,
   A flimsy trace of musings past
   Which might for many ages last.

   XXII

   Surely ye all have overhauled
   A country damsel’s album trim,
   Which all her darling friends have scrawled
   From first to last page to the rim.
   Behold! orthography despising,
   Metreless verses recognizing
   By friendship how they were abused,
   Hewn, hacked, and otherwise ill-used.
   Upon the opening page ye find:
   Qu’ecrirer-vouz sur ces tablettes?
   Subscribed, toujours à vous, Annette;
   And on the last one, underlined:
   Who in thy love finds more delight
   Beyond this may attempt to write.

   XXIII

   Infallibly you there will find
   Two hearts, a torch, of flowers a wreath,
   And vows will probably be signed:
   Affectionately yours till death.
   Some army poet therein may
   Have smuggled his flagitious lay.
   In such an album with delight
   I would, my friends, inscriptions write,
   Because I should be sure, meanwhile,
   My verses, kindly meant, would earn
   Delighted glances in return;
   That afterwards with evil smile
   They would not solemnly debate
   If cleverly or not I prate.

   XXIV

   But, O ye tomes without compare,
   Which from the devil’s bookcase start,
   Albums magnificent which scare
   The fashionable rhymester’s heart!
   Yea! although rendered beauteous
   By Tolstoy’s pencil marvellous,
   Though Baratynski verses penned,(45)
   The thunderbolt on you descend!
   Whene’er a brilliant courtly dame
   Presents her quarto amiably,
   Despair and anger seize on me,
   And a malicious epigram
   Trembles upon my lips from spite,—
   And madrigals I’m asked to write!

   [Note 45: Count Tolstoy, a celebrated artist who subsequently
   became Vice-President of the Academy of Arts at St. Petersburg.
   Baratynski, see Note 43.]

   XXV

   But Lenski madrigals ne’er wrote
   In Olga’s album, youthful maid,
   To purest love he tuned his note
   Nor frigid adulation paid.
   What never was remarked or heard
   Of Olga he in song averred;
   His elegies, which plenteous streamed,
   Both natural and truthful seemed.
   Thus thou, Yazykoff, dost arise(46)
   In amorous flights when so inspired,
   Singing God knows what maid admired,
   And all thy precious elegies,
   Sometime collected, shall relate
   The story of thy life and fate.

   [Note 46: Yazykoff, a poet contemporary with Pushkin. He was
   an author of promise—unfulfilled.]

   XXVI

   Since Fame and Freedom he adored,
   Incited by his stormy Muse
   Odes Lenski also had outpoured,
   But Olga would not such peruse.
   When poets lachrymose recite
   Beneath the eyes of ladies bright
   Their own productions, some insist
   No greater pleasure can exist
   Just so! that modest swain is blest
   Who reads his visionary theme
   To the fair object of his dream,
   A beauty languidly at rest,
   Yes, happy—though she at his side
   By other thoughts be occupied.

   XXVII

   But I the products of my Muse,
   Consisting of harmonious lays,
   To my old nurse alone peruse,
   Companion of my childhood’s days.
   Or, after dinner’s dull repast,
   I by the button-hole seize fast
   My neighbour, who by chance drew near,
   And breathe a drama in his ear.
   Or else (I deal not here in jokes),
   Exhausted by my woes and rhymes,
   I sail upon my lake at times
   And terrify a swarm of ducks,
   Who, heard the music of my lay,
   Take to their wings and fly away.

   XXVIII

   But to Onéguine! A propos!
   Friends, I must your indulgence pray.
   His daily occupations, lo!
   Minutely I will now portray.
   A hermit’s life Onéguine led,
   At seven in summer rose from bed,
   And clad in airy costume took
   His course unto the running brook.
   There, aping Gulnare’s bard, he spanned
   His Hellespont from bank to bank,
   And then a cup of coffee drank,
   Some wretched journal in his hand;
   Then dressed himself...(*)

   [Note: Stanza left unfinished by the author.]

   XXIX

   Sound sleep, books, walking, were his bliss,
   The murmuring brook, the woodland shade,
   The uncontaminated kiss
   Of a young dark-eyed country maid,
   A fiery, yet well-broken horse,
   A dinner, whimsical each course,
   A bottle of a vintage white
   And solitude and calm delight.
   Such was Onéguine’s sainted life,
   And such unconsciously he led,
   Nor marked how summer’s prime had fled
   In aimless ease and far from strife,
   The curse of commonplace delight.
   And town and friends forgotten quite.

   XXX

   This northern summer of our own,
   On winters of the south a skit,
   Glimmers and dies. This is well known,
   Though we will not acknowledge it.
   Already Autumn chilled the sky,
   The tiny sun shone less on high
   And shorter had the days become.
   The forests in mysterious gloom
   Were stripped with melancholy sound,
   Upon the earth a mist did lie
   And many a caravan on high
   Of clamorous geese flew southward bound.
   A weary season was at hand—
   November at the gate did stand.

   XXXI

   The morn arises foggy, cold,
   The silent fields no peasant nears,
   The wolf upon the highways bold
   With his ferocious mate appears.
   Detecting him the passing horse
   Snorts, and his rider bends his course
   And wisely gallops to the hill.
   No more at dawn the shepherd will
   Drive out the cattle from their shed,
   Nor at the hour of noon with sound
   Of horn in circle call them round.
   Singing inside her hut the maid
   Spins, whilst the friend of wintry night,
   The pine-torch, by her crackles bright.

   XXXII

   Already crisp hoar frosts impose
   O’er all a sheet of silvery dust
   (Readers expect the rhyme of rose,
   There! take it quickly, if ye must).
   Behold! than polished floor more nice
   The shining river clothed in ice;
   A joyous troop of little boys
   Engrave the ice with strident noise.
   A heavy goose on scarlet feet,
   Thinking to float upon the stream,
   Descends the bank with care extreme,
   But staggers, slips, and falls. We greet
   The first bright wreathing storm of snow
   Which falls in starry flakes below.

   XXXIII

   How in the country pass this time?
   Walking? The landscape tires the eye
   In winter by its blank and dim
   And naked uniformity.
   On horseback gallop o’er the steppe!
   Your steed, though rough-shod, cannot keep
   His footing on the treacherous rime
   And may fall headlong any time.
   Alone beneath your rooftree stay
   And read De Pradt or Walter Scott!(47)
   Keep your accounts! You’d rather not?
   Then get mad drunk or wroth; the day
   Will pass; the same to-morrow try—
   You’ll spend your winter famously!

   [Note 47: The Abbé de Pradt: b. 1759, d. 1837. A political
   pamphleteer of the French Revolution: was at first an emigre,
   but made his peace with Napoleon and was appointed Archbishop
   of Malines.]

   XXXIV

   A true Childe Harold my Eugene
   To idle musing was a prey;
   At morn an icy bath within
   He sat, and then the livelong day,
   Alone within his habitation
   And buried deep in meditation,
   He round the billiard-table stalked,
   The balls impelled, the blunt cue chalked;
   When evening o’er the landscape looms,
   Billiards abandoned, cue forgot,
   A table to the fire is brought,
   And he waits dinner. Lenski comes,
   Driving abreast three horses gray.
   “Bring dinner now without delay!”

   XXXV

   Upon the table in a trice
   Of widow Clicquot or Moet
   A blessed bottle, placed in ice,
   For the young poet they display.
   Like Hippocrene it scatters light,
   Its ebullition foaming white
   (Like other things I could relate)
   My heart of old would captivate.
   The last poor obol I was worth—
   Was it not so?—for thee I gave,
   And thy inebriating wave
   Full many a foolish prank brought forth;
   And oh! what verses, what delights,
   Delicious visions, jests and fights!

   XXXVI

   Alas! my stomach it betrays
   With its exhilarating flow,
   And I confess that now-a-days
   I prefer sensible Bordeaux.
   To cope with Ay no more I dare,
   For Ay is like a mistress fair,
   Seductive, animated, bright,
   But wilful, frivolous, and light.
   But thou, Bordeaux, art like the friend
   Who in the agony of grief
   Is ever ready with relief,
   Assistance ever will extend,
   Or quietly partake our woe.
   All hail! my good old friend Bordeaux!

   XXXVII

   The fire sinks low. An ashy cloak
   The golden ember now enshrines,
   And barely visible the smoke
   Upward in a thin stream inclines.
   But little warmth the fireplace lends,
   Tobacco smoke the flue ascends,
   The goblet still is bubbling bright—
   Outside descend the mists of night.
   How pleasantly the evening jogs
   When o’er a glass with friends we prate
   Just at the hour we designate
   The time between the wolf and dogs—
   I cannot tell on what pretence—
   But lo! the friends to chat commence.

   XXXVIII

   “How are our neighbours fair, pray tell,
   Tattiana, saucy Olga thine?”—
   “The family are all quite well—
   Give me just half a glass of wine—
   They sent their compliments—but oh!
   How charming Olga’s shoulders grow!
   Her figure perfect grows with time!
   She is an angel! We sometime
   Must visit them. Come! you must own,
   My friend, ’tis but to pay a debt,
   For twice you came to them and yet
   You never since your nose have shown.
   But stay! A dolt am I who speak!
   They have invited you this week.”

   XXXIX

   “Me?”—“Yes! It is Tattiana’s fête
   Next Saturday. The Làrina
   Told me to ask you. Ere that date
   Make up your mind to go there.”—“Ah!
   It will be by a mob beset
   Of every sort and every set!”—
   “Not in the least, assured am I!”—
   “Who will be there?”—“The family.
   Do me a favour and appear.
   Will you?”—“Agreed.”—“I thank you, friend,”
   And saying this Vladimir drained
   His cup unto his maiden dear.
   Then touching Olga they depart
   In fresh discourse. Such, love, thou art!

   XL

   He was most gay. The happy date
   In three weeks would arrive for them;
   The secrets of the marriage state
   And love’s delicious diadem
   With rapturous longing he awaits,
   Nor in his dreams anticipates
   Hymen’s embarrassments, distress,
   And freezing fits of weariness.
   Though we, of Hymen foes, meanwhile,
   In life domestic see a string
   Of pictures painful harrowing,
   A novel in Lafontaine’s style,
   My wretched Lenski’s fate I mourn,
   He seemed for matrimony born.

   XLI

   He was beloved: or say at least,
   He thought so, and existence charmed.
   The credulous indeed are blest,
   And he who, jealousy disarmed,
   In sensual sweets his soul doth steep
   As drunken tramps at nightfall sleep,
   Or, parable more flattering,
   As butterflies to blossoms cling.
   But wretched who anticipates,
   Whose brain no fond illusions daze,
   Who every gesture, every phrase
   In true interpretation hates:
   Whose heart experience icy made
   And yet oblivion forbade.

   End of Canto The Fourth

CANTO THE FIFTH

   The Fête

   ‘Oh, do not dream these fearful dreams,
      O my Svetlana.’—Joukóvski

   Canto The Fifth

   [Note: Mikhailovskoe, 1825-6]

   I

   That year the autumn season late
   Kept lingering on as loath to go,
   All Nature winter seemed to await,
   Till January fell no snow—
   The third at night. Tattiana wakes
   Betimes, and sees, when morning breaks,
   Park, garden, palings, yard below
   And roofs near morn blanched o’er with snow;
   Upon the windows tracery,
   The trees in silvery array,
   Down in the courtyard magpies gay,
   And the far mountains daintily
   O’erspread with Winter’s carpet bright,
   All so distinct, and all so white!

   II

   Winter! The peasant blithely goes
   To labour in his sledge forgot,
   His pony sniffing the fresh snows
   Just manages a feeble trot
   Though deep he sinks into the drift;
   Forth the kibitka gallops swift,(48)
   Its driver seated on the rim
   In scarlet sash and sheepskin trim;
   Yonder the household lad doth run,
   Placed in a sledge his terrier black,
   Himself transformed into a hack;
   To freeze his finger hath begun,
   He laughs, although it aches from cold,
   His mother from the door doth scold.

   [Note 48: The “kibitka,” properly speaking, whether on wheels
   or runners, is a vehicle with a hood not unlike a big cradle.]

   III

   In scenes like these it may be though,
   Ye feel but little interest,
   They are all natural and low,
   Are not with elegance impressed.
   Another bard with art divine
   Hath pictured in his gorgeous line
   The first appearance of the snows
   And all the joys which Winter knows.
   He will delight you, I am sure,
   When he in ardent verse portrays
   Secret excursions made in sleighs;
   But competition I abjure
   Either with him or thee in song,
   Bard of the Finnish maiden young.(49)

   [Note 49: The allusions in the foregoing stanza are in the first
   place to a poem entitled “The First Snow,” by Prince Viazemski
   and secondly to “Eda,” by Baratynski, a poem descriptive of life
   in Finland.]

   IV

   Tattiana, Russian to the core,
   Herself not knowing well the reason,
   The Russian winter did adore
   And the cold beauties of the season:
   On sunny days the glistening rime,
   Sledging, the snows, which at the time
   Of sunset glow with rosy light,
   The misty evenings ere Twelfth Night.
   These evenings as in days of old
   The Làrinas would celebrate,
   The servants used to congregate
   And the young ladies fortunes told,
   And every year distributed
   Journeys and warriors to wed.

   V

   Tattiana in traditions old
   Believed, the people’s wisdom weird,
   In dreams and what the moon foretold
   And what she from the cards inferred.
   Omens inspired her soul with fear,
   Mysteriously all objects near
   A hidden meaning could impart,
   Presentiments oppressed her heart.
   Lo! the prim cat upon the stove
   With one paw strokes her face and purrs,
   Tattiana certainly infers
   That guests approach: and when above
   The new moon’s crescent slim she spied,
   Suddenly to the left hand side,

   VI

   She trembled and grew deadly pale.
   Or a swift meteor, may be,
   Across the gloom of heaven would sail
   And disappear in space; then she
   Would haste in agitation dire
   To mutter her concealed desire
   Ere the bright messenger had set.
   When in her walks abroad she met
   A friar black approaching near,(50)
   Or a swift hare from mead to mead
   Had run across her path at speed,
   Wholly beside herself with fear,
   Anticipating woe she pined,
   Certain misfortune near opined.

   [Note 50: The Russian clergy are divided into two classes:
   the white or secular, which is made up of the mass of parish
   priests, and the black who inhabit the monasteries, furnish
   the high dignitaries of the Church, and constitute that swarm
   of useless drones for whom Peter the Great felt such a deep
   repugnance.]

   VII

   Wherefore? She found a secret joy
   In horror for itself alone,
   Thus Nature doth our souls alloy,
   Thus her perversity hath shown.
   Twelfth Night approaches. Merry eves!(51)
   When thoughtless youth whom nothing grieves,
   Before whose inexperienced sight
   Life lies extended, vast and bright,
   To peer into the future tries.
   Old age through spectacles too peers,
   Although the destined coffin nears,
   Having lost all in life we prize.
   It matters not. Hope e’en to these
   With childlike lisp will lie to please.

   [Note 51: Refers to the “Sviatki” or Holy Nights between Christmas
   Eve and Twelfth Night. Divination, or the telling of fortunes
   by various expedients, is the favourite pastime on these
   occasions.]

   VIII

   Tattiana gazed with curious eye
   On melted wax in water poured;
   The clue unto some mystery
   She deemed its outline might afford.
   Rings from a dish of water full
   In order due the maidens pull;
   But when Tattiana’s hand had ta’en
   A ring she heard the ancient strain:
   The peasants there are rich as kings,
   They shovel silver with a spade,
   He whom we sing to shall be made
   Happy and glorious. But this brings
   With sad refrain misfortune near.
   Girls the kashourka much prefer.(52)

   [Note 52: During the “sviatki” it is a common custom for the girls
   to assemble around a table on which is placed a dish or basin of
   water which contains a ring. Each in her turn extracts the ring
   from the basin whilst the remainder sing in chorus the “podbliudni
   pessni,” or “dish songs” before mentioned. These are popularly
   supposed to indicate the fortunes of the immediate holder of the
   ring. The first-named lines foreshadow death; the latter, the
   “kashourka,” or “kitten song,” indicates approaching marriage. It
   commences thus: “The cat asked the kitten to sleep on the stove.”]

   IX

   Frosty the night; the heavens shone;
   The wondrous host of heavenly spheres
   Sailed silently in unison—
   Tattiana in the yard appears
   In a half-open dressing-gown
   And bends her mirror on the moon,
   But trembling on the mirror dark
   The sad moon only could remark.
   List! the snow crunches—he draws nigh!
   The girl on tiptoe forward bounds
   And her voice sweeter than the sounds
   Of clarinet or flute doth cry:
   “What is your name?” The boor looked dazed,
   And “Agathon” replied, amazed.(53)

   [Note 53: The superstition is that the name of the future husband
   may thus be discovered.]

   X

   Tattiana (nurse the project planned)
   By night prepared for sorcery,
   And in the bathroom did command
   To lay two covers secretly.
   But sudden fear assailed Tattiana,
   And I, remembering Svetlana,(54)
   Become alarmed. So never mind!
   I’m not for witchcraft now inclined.
   So she her silken sash unlaced,
   Undressed herself and went to bed
   And soon Lel hovered o’er her head.(55)
   Beneath her downy pillow placed,
   A little virgin mirror peeps.
   ’Tis silent all. Tattiana sleeps.

   [Note 54: See Note 30.]

   [Note 55: Lel, in Slavonic mythology, corresponds to the Morpheus
   of the Latins. The word is evidently connected with the verb
   “leleyat” to fondle or soothe, likewise with our own word
   “to lull.”]

   XI

   A dreadful sleep Tattiana sleeps.
   She dreamt she journeyed o’er a field
   All covered up with snow in heaps,
   By melancholy fogs concealed.
   Amid the snowdrifts which surround
   A stream, by winter’s ice unbound,
   Impetuously clove its way
   With boiling torrent dark and gray;
   Two poles together glued by ice,
   A fragile bridge and insecure,
   Spanned the unbridled torrent o’er;
   Beside the thundering abyss
   Tattiana in despair unfeigned
   Rooted unto the spot remained.

   XII

   As if against obstruction sore
   Tattiana o’er the stream complained;
   To help her to the other shore
   No one appeared to lend a hand.
   But suddenly a snowdrift stirs,
   And what from its recess appears?
   A bristly bear of monstrous size!
   He roars, and “Ah!” Tattiana cries.
   He offers her his murderous paw;
   She nerves herself from her alarm
   And leans upon the monster’s arm,
   With footsteps tremulous with awe
   Passes the torrent But alack!
   Bruin is marching at her back!

   XIII

   She, to turn back her eyes afraid,
   Accelerates her hasty pace,
   But cannot anyhow evade
   Her shaggy myrmidon in chase.
   The bear rolls on with many a grunt:
   A forest now she sees in front
   With fir-trees standing motionless
   In melancholy loveliness,
   Their branches by the snow bowed down.
   Through aspens, limes and birches bare,
   The shining orbs of night appear;
   There is no path; the storm hath strewn
   Both bush and brake, ravine and steep,
   And all in snow is buried deep.

   XIV

   The wood she enters—bear behind,—
   In snow she sinks up to the knee;
   Now a long branch itself entwined
   Around her neck, now violently
   Away her golden earrings tore;
   Now the sweet little shoes she wore,
   Grown clammy, stick fast in the snow;
   Her handkerchief she loses now;
   No time to pick it up! afraid,
   She hears the bear behind her press,
   Nor dares the skirting of her dress
   For shame lift up the modest maid.
   She runs, the bear upon her trail,
   Until her powers of running fail.

   XV

   She sank upon the snow. But Bruin
   Adroitly seized and carried her;
   Submissive as if in a swoon,
   She cannot draw a breath or stir.
   He dragged her by a forest road
   Till amid trees a hovel showed,
   By barren snow heaped up and bound,
   A tangled wilderness around.
   Bright blazed the window of the place,
   Within resounded shriek and shout:
   “My chum lives here,” Bruin grunts out.
   “Warm yourself here a little space!”
   Straight for the entrance then he made
   And her upon the threshold laid.

   XVI

   Recovering, Tania gazes round;
   Bear gone—she at the threshold placed;
   Inside clink glasses, cries resound
   As if it were some funeral feast.
   But deeming all this nonsense pure,
   She peeped through a chink of the door.
   What doth she see? Around the board
   Sit many monstrous shapes abhorred.
   A canine face with horns thereon,
   Another with cock’s head appeared,
   Here an old witch with hirsute beard,
   There an imperious skeleton;
   A dwarf adorned with tail, again
   A shape half cat and half a crane.

   XVII

   Yet ghastlier, yet more wonderful,
   A crab upon a spider rides,
   Perched on a goose’s neck a skull
   In scarlet cap revolving glides.
   A windmill too a jig performs
   And wildly waves its arms and storms;
   Barking, songs, whistling, laughter coarse,
   The speech of man and tramp of horse.
   But wide Tattiana oped her eyes
   When in that company she saw
   Him who inspired both love and awe,
   The hero we immortalize.
   Onéguine sat the table by
   And viewed the door with cunning eye.

   XVIII

   All bustle when he makes a sign:
   He drinks, all drink and loudly call;
   He smiles, in laughter all combine;
   He knits his brows—’tis silent all.
   He there is master—that is plain;
   Tattiana courage doth regain
   And grown more curious by far
   Just placed the entrance door ajar.
   The wind rose instantly, blew out
   The fire of the nocturnal lights;
   A trouble fell upon the sprites;
   Onéguine lightning glances shot;
   Furious he from the table rose;
   All arise. To the door he goes.

   XIX

   Terror assails her. Hastily
   Tattiana would attempt to fly,
   She cannot—then impatiently
   She strains her throat to force a cry—
   She cannot—Eugene oped the door
   And the young girl appeared before
   Those hellish phantoms. Peals arise
   Of frantic laughter, and all eyes
   And hoofs and crooked snouts and paws,
   Tails which a bushy tuft adorns,
   Whiskers and bloody tongues and horns,
   Sharp rows of tushes, bony claws,
   Are turned upon her. All combine
   In one great shout: she’s mine! she’s mine!

   XX

   “Mine!” cried Eugene with savage tone.
   The troop of apparitions fled,
   And in the frosty night alone
   Remained with him the youthful maid.
   With tranquil air Onéguine leads
   Tattiana to a corner, bids
   Her on a shaky bench sit down;
   His head sinks slowly, rests upon
   Her shoulder—Olga swiftly came—
   And Lenski followed—a light broke—
   His fist Onéguine fiercely shook
   And gazed around with eyes of flame;
   The unbidden guests he roughly chides—
   Tattiana motionless abides.

   XXI

   The strife grew furious and Eugene
   Grasped a long knife and instantly
   Struck Lenski dead—across the scene
   Dark shadows thicken—a dread cry
   Was uttered, and the cabin shook—
   Tattiana terrified awoke.
   She gazed around her—it was day.
   Lo! through the frozen windows play
   Aurora’s ruddy rays of light—
   The door flew open—Olga came,
   More blooming than the Boreal flame
   And swifter than the swallow’s flight.
   “Come,” she cried, “sister, tell me e’en
   Whom you in slumber may have seen.”

   XXII

   But she, her sister never heeding,
   With book in hand reclined in bed,
   Page after page continued reading,
   But no reply unto her made.
   Although her book did not contain
   The bard’s enthusiastic strain,
   Nor precepts sage nor pictures e’en,
   Yet neither Virgil nor Racine
   Nor Byron, Walter Scott, nor Seneca,
   Nor the Journal des Modes, I vouch,
   Ever absorbed a maid so much:
   Its name, my friends, was Martin Zadeka,
   The chief of the Chaldean wise,
   Who dreams expound and prophecies.

   XXIII

   Brought by a pedlar vagabond
   Unto their solitude one day,
   This monument of thought profound
   Tattiana purchased with a stray
   Tome of “Malvina,” and but three(56)
   And a half rubles down gave she;
   Also, to equalise the scales,
   She got a book of nursery tales,
   A grammar, likewise Petriads two,
   Marmontel also, tome the third;
   Tattiana every day conferred
   With Martin Zadeka. In woe
   She consolation thence obtained—
   Inseparable they remained.

   [Note 56: “Malvina,” a romance by Madame Cottin.]

   XXIV

   The dream left terror in its train.
   Not knowing its interpretation,
   Tania the meaning would obtain
   Of such a dread hallucination.
   Tattiana to the index flies
   And alphabetically tries
   The words bear, bridge, fir, darkness, bog,
   Raven, snowstorm, tempest, fog,
   Et cetera; but nothing showed
   Her Martin Zadeka in aid,
   Though the foul vision promise made
   Of a most mournful episode,
   And many a day thereafter laid
   A load of care upon the maid.

   XXV

   “But lo! forth from the valleys dun
   With purple hand Aurora leads,
   Swift following in her wake, the sun,”(57)
   And a grand festival proceeds.
   The Làrinas were since sunrise
   O’erwhelmed with guests; by families
   The neighbours come, in sledge approach,
   Britzka, kibitka, or in coach.
   Crush and confusion in the hall,
   Latest arrivals’ salutations,
   Barking, young ladies’ osculations,
   Shouts, laughter, jamming ’gainst the wall,
   Bows and the scrape of many feet,
   Nurses who scream and babes who bleat.

   [Note 57: The above three lines are a parody on the turgid
   style of Lomonossoff, a literary man of the second Catherine’s
   era.]

   XXVI

   Bringing his partner corpulent
   Fat Poustiakoff drove to the door;
   Gvozdine, a landlord excellent,
   Oppressor of the wretched poor;
   And the Skatènines, aged pair,
   With all their progeny were there,
   Who from two years to thirty tell;
   Pétòushkoff, the provincial swell;
   Bouyànoff too, my cousin, wore(58)
   His wadded coat and cap with peak
   (Surely you know him as I speak);
   And Fliànoff, pensioned councillor,
   Rogue and extortioner of yore,
   Now buffoon, glutton, and a bore.

   [Note 58: Pushkin calls Bouyànoff his cousin because he is a
   character in the “Dangerous Neighbour,” a poem by Vassili
   Pushkin, the poet’s uncle.]

   XXVII

   The family of Kharlikoff,
   Came with Monsieur Triquet, a prig,
   Who arrived lately from Tamboff,
   In spectacles and chestnut wig.
   Like a true Frenchman, couplets wrought
   In Tania’s praise in pouch he brought,
   Known unto children perfectly:
   Reveillez-vouz, belle endormie.
   Among some ancient ballads thrust,
   He found them in an almanac,
   And the sagacious Triquet back
   To light had brought them from their dust,
   Whilst he “belle Nina” had the face
   By “belle Tattiana” to replace.

   XXVIII

   Lo! from the nearest barrack came,
   Of old maids the divinity,
   And comfort of each country dame,
   The captain of a company.
   He enters. Ah! good news to-day!
   The military band will play.
   The colonel sent it. Oh! delight!
   So there will be a dance to-night.
   Girls in anticipation skip!
   But dinner-time comes. Two and two
   They hand in hand to table go.
   The maids beside Tattiana keep—
   Men opposite. The cross they sign
   And chattering loud sit down to dine.

   XXIX

   Ceased for a space all chattering.
   Jaws are at work. On every side
   Plates, knives and forks are clattering
   And ringing wine-glasses are plied.
   But by degrees the crowd begin
   To raise a clamour and a din:
   They laugh, they argue, and they bawl,
   They shout and no one lists at all.
   The doors swing open: Lenski makes
   His entrance with Onéguine. “Ah!
   At last the author!” cries Mamma.
   The guests make room; aside each takes
   His chair, plate, knife and fork in haste;
   The friends are called and quickly placed.

   XXX

   Right opposite Tattiana placed,
   She, than the morning moon more pale,
   More timid than a doe long chased,
   Lifts not her eyes which swimming fail.
   Anew the flames of passion start
   Within her; she is sick at heart;
   The two friends’ compliments she hears
   Not, and a flood of bitter tears
   With effort she restrains. Well nigh
   The poor girl fell into a faint,
   But strength of mind and self-restraint
   Prevailed at last. She in reply
   Said something in an undertone
   And at the table sat her down.

   XXXI

   To tragedy, the fainting fit,
   And female tears hysterical,
   Onéguine could not now submit,
   For long he had endured them all.
   Our misanthrope was full of ire,
   At a great feast against desire,
   And marking Tania’s agitation,
   Cast down his eyes in trepidation
   And sulked in silent indignation;
   Swearing how Lenski he would rile,
   Avenge himself in proper style.
   Triumphant by anticipation,
   Caricatures he now designed
   Of all the guests within his mind.

   XXXII

   Certainly not Eugene alone
   Tattiana’s trouble might have spied,
   But that the eyes of every one
   By a rich pie were occupied—
   Unhappily too salt by far;
   And that a bottle sealed with tar
   Appeared, Don’s effervescing boast,(59)
   Between the blanc-mange and the roast;
   Behind, of glasses an array,
   Tall, slender, like thy form designed,
   Zizi, thou mirror of my mind,
   Fair object of my guileless lay,
   Seductive cup of love, whose flow
   Made me so tipsy long ago!

   [Note 59: The Donskoe Champanskoe is a species of sparkling wine
   manufactured in the vicinity of the river Don.]

   XXXIII

   From the moist cork the bottle freed
   With loud explosion, the bright wine
   Hissed forth. With serious air indeed,
   Long tortured by his lay divine,
   Triquet arose, and for the bard
   The company deep silence guard.
   Tania well nigh expired when he
   Turned to her and discordantly
   Intoned it, manuscript in hand.
   Voices and hands applaud, and she
   Must bow in common courtesy;
   The poet, modest though so grand,
   Drank to her health in the first place,
   Then handed her the song with grace.

   XXXIV

   Congratulations, toasts resound,
   Tattiana thanks to all returned,
   But, when Onéguine’s turn came round,
   The maiden’s weary eye which yearned,
   Her agitation and distress
   Aroused in him some tenderness.
   He bowed to her nor silence broke,
   But somehow there shone in his look
   The witching light of sympathy;
   I know not if his heart felt pain
   Or if he meant to flirt again,
   From habit or maliciously,
   But kindness from his eye had beamed
   And to revive Tattiana seemed.

   XXXV

   The chairs are thrust back with a roar,
   The crowd unto the drawing-room speeds,
   As bees who leave their dainty store
   And seek in buzzing swarms the meads.
   Contented and with victuals stored,
   Neighbour by neighbour sat and snored,
   Matrons unto the fireplace go,
   Maids in the corner whisper low;
   Behold! green tables are brought forth,
   And testy gamesters do engage
   In boston and the game of age,
   Ombre, and whist all others worth:
   A strong resemblance these possess—
   All sons of mental weariness.

   XXXVI

   Eight rubbers were already played,
   Eight times the heroes of the fight
   Change of position had essayed,
   When tea was brought. ’Tis my delight
   Time to denote by dinner, tea,
   And supper. In the country we
   Can count the time without much fuss—
   The stomach doth admonish us.
   And, by the way, I here assert
   That for that matter in my verse
   As many dinners I rehearse,
   As oft to meat and drink advert,
   As thou, great Homer, didst of yore,
   Whom thirty centuries adore.

   XXXVII

   I will with thy divinity
   Contend with knife and fork and platter,
   But grant with magnanimity
   I’m beaten in another matter;
   Thy heroes, sanguinary wights,
   Also thy rough-and-tumble fights,
   Thy Venus and thy Jupiter,
   More advantageously appear
   Than cold Onéguine’s oddities,
   The aspect of a landscape drear.
   Or e’en Istomina, my dear,
   And fashion’s gay frivolities;
   But my Tattiana, on my soul,
   Is sweeter than thy Helen foul.

   XXXVIII

   No one the contrary will urge,
   Though for his Helen Menelaus
   Again a century should scourge
   Us, and like Trojan warriors slay us;
   Though around honoured Priam’s throne
   Troy’s sages should in concert own
   Once more, when she appeared in sight,
   Paris and Menelaus right.
   But as to fighting—’twill appear!
   For patience, reader, I must plead!
   A little farther please to read
   And be not in advance severe.
   There’ll be a fight. I do not lie.
   My word of honour given have I.

   XXXIX

   The tea, as I remarked, appeared,
   But scarce had maids their saucers ta’en
   When in the grand saloon was heard
   Of bassoons and of flutes the strain.
   His soul by crash of music fired,
   His tea with rum no more desired,
   The Paris of those country parts
   To Olga Petoushkova darts:
   To Tania Lenski; Kharlikova,
   A marriageable maid matured,
   The poet from Tamboff secured,
   Bouyànoff whisked off Poustiakova.
   All to the grand saloon are gone—
   The ball in all its splendour shone.

   XL

   I tried when I began this tale,
   (See the first canto if ye will),
   A ball in Peter’s capital,
   To sketch ye in Albano’s style.(60)
   But by fantastic dreams distraught,
   My memory wandered wide and sought
   The feet of my dear lady friends.
   O feet, where’er your path extends
   I long enough deceived have erred.
   The perfidies I recollect
   Should make me much more circumspect,
   Reform me both in deed and word,
   And this fifth canto ought to be
   From such digressions wholly free.

   [Note 60: Francesco Albano, a celebrated painter, styled the “Anacreon
   of Painting,” was born at Bologna 1578, and died in the year 1666.]

   XLI

   The whirlwind of the waltz sweeps by,
   Undeviating and insane
   As giddy youth’s hilarity—
   Pair after pair the race sustain.
   The moment for revenge, meanwhile,
   Espying, Eugene with a smile
   Approaches Olga and the pair
   Amid the company career.
   Soon the maid on a chair he seats,
   Begins to talk of this and that,
   But when two minutes she had sat,
   Again the giddy waltz repeats.
   All are amazed; but Lenski he
   Scarce credits what his eyes can see.

   XLII

   Hark! the mazurka. In times past,
   When the mazurka used to peal,
   All rattled in the ball-room vast,
   The parquet cracked beneath the heel,
   And jolting jarred the window-frames.
   ’Tis not so now. Like gentle dames
   We glide along a floor of wax.
   However, the mazurka lacks
   Nought of its charms original
   In country towns, where still it keeps
   Its stamping, capers and high leaps.
   Fashion is there immutable,
   Who tyrannizes us with ease,
   Of modern Russians the disease.

   XLIII

   Bouyànoff, wrathful cousin mine,
   Unto the hero of this lay
   Olga and Tania led. Malign,
   Onéguine Olga bore away.
   Gliding in negligent career,
   He bending whispered in her ear
   Some madrigal not worth a rush,
   And pressed her hand—the crimson blush
   Upon her cheek by adulation
   Grew brighter still. But Lenski hath
   Seen all, beside himself with wrath,
   And hot with jealous indignation,
   Till the mazurka’s close he stays,
   Her hand for the cotillon prays.

   XLIV

   She fears she cannot.—Cannot? Why?—
   She promised Eugene, or she would
   With great delight.—O God on high!
   Heard he the truth? And thus she could—
   And can it be? But late a child
   And now a fickle flirt and wild,
   Cunning already to display
   And well-instructed to betray!
   Lenski the stroke could not sustain,
   At womankind he growled a curse,
   Departed, ordered out his horse
   And galloped home. But pistols twain,
   A pair of bullets—nought beside—
   His fate shall presently decide.

   END OF CANTO THE FIFTH

CANTO THE SIXTH

   The Duel

   ‘La, sotto giorni nubilosi e brevi,
   Nasce una gente a cui ’l morir non duole.’
                                      Petrarch

   Canto The Sixth

   [Mikhailovskoe, 1826: the two final stanzas were, however,
   written at Moscow.]

   I

   Having remarked Vladimir’s flight,
   Onéguine, bored to death again,
   By Olga stood, dejected quite
   And satisfied with vengeance ta’en.
   Olga began to long likewise
   For Lenski, sought him with her eyes,
   And endless the cotillon seemed
   As if some troubled dream she dreamed.
   ’Tis done. To supper they proceed.
   Bedding is laid out and to all
   Assigned a lodging, from the hall(61)
   Up to the attic, and all need
   Tranquil repose. Eugene alone
   To pass the night at home hath gone.

   [Note 61: Hospitality is a national virtue of the Russians. On
   festal occasions in the country the whole party is usually
   accommodated for the night, or indeed for as many nights
   as desired, within the house of the entertainer. This of
   course is rendered necessary by the great distances which
   separate the residences of the gentry. Still, the alacrity with
   which a Russian hostess will turn her house topsy-turvy for
   the accommodation of forty or fifty guests would somewhat
   astonish the mistress of a modern Belgravian mansion.]

   II

   All slumber. In the drawing-room
   Loud snores the cumbrous Poustiakoff
   With better half as cumbersome;
   Gvozdine, Bouyànoff, Pétòushkoff
   And Fliànoff, somewhat indisposed,
   On chairs in the saloon reposed,
   Whilst on the floor Monsieur Triquet
   In jersey and in nightcap lay.
   In Olga’s and Tattiana’s rooms
   Lay all the girls by sleep embraced,
   Except one by the window placed
   Whom pale Diana’s ray illumes—
   My poor Tattiana cannot sleep
   But stares into the darkness deep.

   III

   His visit she had not awaited,
   His momentary loving glance
   Her inmost soul had penetrated,
   And his strange conduct at the dance
   With Olga; nor of this appeared
   An explanation: she was scared,
   Alarmed by jealous agonies:
   A hand of ice appeared to seize(62)
   Her heart: it seemed a darksome pit
   Beneath her roaring opened wide:
   “I shall expire,” Tattiana cried,
   “But death from him will be delight.
   I murmur not! Why mournfulness?
   He cannot give me happiness.”

   [Note 62: There must be a peculiar appropriateness in this expression
   as descriptive of the sensation of extreme cold. Mr. Wallace
   makes use of an identical phrase in describing an occasion
   when he was frostbitten whilst sledging in Russia. He says
   (vol. i. p. 33): “My fur cloak flew open, the cold seemed to
   grasp me in the region of the heart, and I fell insensible.”]

   IV

   Haste, haste thy lagging pace, my story!
   A new acquaintance we must scan.
   There dwells five versts from Krasnogory,
   Vladimir’s property, a man
   Who thrives this moment as I write,
   A philosophic anchorite:
   Zaretski, once a bully bold,
   A gambling troop when he controlled,
   Chief rascal, pot-house president,
   Now of a family the head,
   Simple and kindly and unwed,
   True friend, landlord benevolent,
   Yea! and a man of honour, lo!
   How perfect doth our epoch grow!

   V

   Time was the flattering voice of fame,
   His ruffian bravery adored,
   And true, his pistol’s faultless aim
   An ace at fifteen paces bored.
   But I must add to what I write
   That, tipsy once in actual fight,
   He from his Kalmuck horse did leap
   In mud and mire to wallow deep,
   Drunk as a fly; and thus the French
   A valuable hostage gained,
   A modern Regulus unchained,
   Who to surrender did not blench
   That every morn at Verrey’s cost
   Three flasks of wine he might exhaust.

   VI

   Time was, his raillery was gay,
   He loved the simpleton to mock,
   To make wise men the idiot play
   Openly or ’neath decent cloak.
   Yet sometimes this or that deceit
   Encountered punishment complete,
   And sometimes into snares as well
   Himself just like a greenhorn fell.
   He could in disputation shine
   With pungent or obtuse retort,
   At times to silence would resort,
   At times talk nonsense with design;
   Quarrels among young friends he bred
   And to the field of honour led;

   VII

   Or reconciled them, it may be,
   And all the three to breakfast went;
   Then he’d malign them secretly
   With jest and gossip gaily blent.
   Sed alia tempora. And bravery
   (Like love, another sort of knavery!)
   Diminishes as years decline.
   But, as I said, Zaretski mine
   Beneath acacias, cherry-trees,
   From storms protection having sought,
   Lived as a really wise man ought,
   Like Horace, planted cabbages,
   Both ducks and geese in plenty bred
   And lessons to his children read.

   VIII

   He was no fool, and Eugene mine,
   To friendship making no pretence,
   Admired his judgment, which was fine,
   Pervaded with much common sense.
   He usually was glad to see
   The man and liked his company,
   So, when he came next day to call,
   Was not surprised thereby at all.
   But, after mutual compliments,
   Zaretski with a knowing grin,
   Ere conversation could begin,
   The epistle from the bard presents.
   Onéguine to the window went
   And scanned in silence its content.

   IX

   It was a cheery, generous
   Cartel, or challenge to a fight,
   Whereto in language courteous
   Lenski his comrade did invite.
   Onéguine, by first impulse moved,
   Turned and replied as it behoved,
   Curtly announcing for the fray
   That he was “ready any day.”
   Zaretski rose, nor would explain,
   He cared no longer there to stay,
   Had much to do at home that day,
   And so departed. But Eugene,
   The matter by his conscience tried,
   Was with himself dissatisfied.

   X

   In fact, the subject analysed,
   Within that secret court discussed,
   In much his conduct stigmatized;
   For, from the outset, ’twas unjust
   To jest as he had done last eve,
   A timid, shrinking love to grieve.
   And ought he not to disregard
   The poet’s madness? for ’tis hard
   At eighteen not to play the fool!
   Sincerely loving him, Eugene
   Assuredly should not have been
   Conventionality’s dull tool—
   Not a mere hot, pugnacious boy,
   But man of sense and probity.

   XI

   He might his motives have narrated,
   Not bristled up like a wild beast,
   He ought to have conciliated
   That youthful heart—“But, now at least,
   The opportunity is flown.
   Besides, a duellist well-known
   Hath mixed himself in the affair,
   Malicious and a slanderer.
   Undoubtedly, disdain alone
   Should recompense his idle jeers,
   But fools—their calumnies and sneers”—
   Behold! the world’s opinion!(63)
   Our idol, Honour’s motive force,
   Round which revolves the universe.

   [Note 63: A line of Griboyédoff’s. (Woe from Wit.)]

   XII

   Impatient, boiling o’er with wrath,
   The bard his answer waits at home,
   But lo! his braggart neighbour hath
   Triumphant with the answer come.
   Now for the jealous youth what joy!
   He feared the criminal might try
   To treat the matter as a jest,
   Use subterfuge, and thus his breast
   From the dread pistol turn away.
   But now all doubt was set aside,
   Unto the windmill he must ride
   To-morrow before break of day,
   To cock the pistol; barrel bend
   On thigh or temple, friend on friend.

   XIII

   Resolved the flirt to cast away,
   The foaming Lenski would refuse,
   To see his Olga ere the fray—
   His watch, the sun in turn he views—
   Finally tost his arms in air
   And lo! he is already there!
   He deemed his coming would inspire
   Olga with trepidation dire.
   He was deceived. Just as before
   The miserable bard to meet,
   As hope uncertain and as sweet,
   Olga ran skipping from the door.
   She was as heedless and as gay—
   Well! just as she was yesterday.

   XIV

   “Why did you leave last night so soon?”
   Was the first question Olga made,
   Lenski, into confusion thrown,
   All silently hung down his head.
   Jealousy and vexation took
   To flight before her radiant look,
   Before such fond simplicity
   And mental elasticity.
   He eyed her with a fond concern,
   Perceived that he was still beloved,
   Already by repentance moved
   To ask forgiveness seemed to yearn;
   But trembles, words he cannot find,
   Delighted, almost sane in mind.

   XV

   But once more pensive and distressed
   Beside his Olga doth he grieve,
   Nor enough strength of mind possessed
   To mention the foregoing eve,
   He mused: “I will her saviour be!
   With ardent sighs and flattery
   The vile seducer shall not dare
   The freshness of her heart impair,
   Nor shall the caterpillar come
   The lily’s stem to eat away,
   Nor shall the bud of yesterday
   Perish when half disclosed its bloom!”—
   All this, my friends, translate aright:
   “I with my friend intend to fight!”

   XVI

   If he had only known the wound
   Which rankled in Tattiana’s breast,
   And if Tattiana mine had found—
   If the poor maiden could have guessed
   That the two friends with morning’s light
   Above the yawning grave would fight,—
   Ah! it may be, affection true
   Had reconciled the pair anew!
   But of this love, e’en casually,
   As yet none had discovered aught;
   Eugene of course related nought,
   Tattiana suffered secretly;
   Her nurse, who could have made a guess,
   Was famous for thick-headedness.

   XVII

   Lenski that eve in thought immersed,
   Now gloomy seemed and cheerful now,
   But he who by the Muse was nursed
   Is ever thus. With frowning brow
   To the pianoforte he moves
   And various chords upon it proves,
   Then, eyeing Olga, whispers low:
   “I’m happy, say, is it not so?”—
   But it grew late; he must not stay;
   Heavy his heart with anguish grew;
   To the young girl he said adieu,
   As it were, tore himself away.
   Gazing into his face, she said:
   “What ails thee?”—“Nothing.”—He is fled.

   XVIII

   At home arriving he addressed
   His care unto his pistols’ plight,
   Replaced them in their box, undressed
   And Schiller read by candlelight.
   But one thought only filled his mind,
   His mournful heart no peace could find,
   Olga he sees before his eyes
   Miraculously fair arise,
   Vladimir closes up his book,
   And grasps a pen: his verse, albeit
   With lovers’ rubbish filled, was neat
   And flowed harmoniously. He took
   And spouted it with lyric fire—
   Like D[elvig] when dinner doth inspire.

   XIX

   Destiny hath preserved his lay.
   I have it. Lo! the very thing!
   “Oh! whither have ye winged your way,
   Ye golden days of my young spring?
   What will the coming dawn reveal?
   In vain my anxious eyes appeal;
   In mist profound all yet is hid.
   So be it! Just the laws which bid
   The fatal bullet penetrate,
   Or innocently past me fly.
   Good governs all! The hour draws nigh
   Of life or death predestinate.
   Blest be the labours of the light,
   And blest the shadows of the night.

   XX

   “To-morrow’s dawn will glimmer gray,
   Bright day will then begin to burn,
   But the dark sepulchre I may
   Have entered never to return.
   The memory of the bard, a dream,
   Will be absorbed by Lethe’s stream;
   Men will forget me, but my urn
   To visit, lovely maid, return,
   O’er my remains to drop a tear,
   And think: here lies who loved me well,
   For consecrate to me he fell
   In the dawn of existence drear.
   Maid whom my heart desires alone,
   Approach, approach; I am thine own.”

   XXI

   Thus in a style obscure and stale,(64)
   He wrote (’tis the romantic style,
   Though of romance therein I fail
   To see aught—never mind meanwhile)
   And about dawn upon his breast
   His weary head declined at rest,
   For o’er a word to fashion known,
   “Ideal,” he had drowsy grown.
   But scarce had sleep’s soft witchery
   Subdued him, when his neighbour stept
   Into the chamber where he slept
   And wakened him with the loud cry:
   “’Tis time to get up! Seven doth strike.
   Onéguine waits on us, ’tis like.”

   [Note 64: The fact of the above words being italicised suggests
   the idea that the poet is here firing a Parthian shot at some
   unfriendly critic.]

   XXII

   He was in error; for Eugene
   Was sleeping then a sleep like death;
   The pall of night was growing thin,
   To Lucifer the cock must breathe
   His song, when still he slumbered deep,
   The sun had mounted high his steep,
   A passing snowstorm wreathed away
   With pallid light, but Eugene lay
   Upon his couch insensibly;
   Slumber still o’er him lingering flies.
   But finally he oped his eyes
   And turned aside the drapery;
   He gazed upon the clock which showed
   He long should have been on the road.

   XXIII

   He rings in haste; in haste arrives
   His Frenchman, good Monsieur Guillot,
   Who dressing-gown and slippers gives
   And linen on him doth bestow.
   Dressing as quickly as he can,
   Eugene directs the trusty man
   To accompany him and to escort
   A box of terrible import.
   Harnessed the rapid sledge arrived:
   He enters: to the mill he drives:
   Descends, the order Guillot gives,
   The fatal tubes Lepage contrived(65)
   To bring behind: the triple steeds
   To two young oaks the coachman leads.

   [Note 65: Lepage—a celebrated gunmaker of former days.]

   XXIV

   Lenski the foeman’s apparition
   Leaning against the dam expects,
   Zaretski, village mechanician,
   In the meantime the mill inspects.
   Onéguine his excuses says;
   “But,” cried Zaretski in amaze,
   “Your second you have left behind!”
   A duellist of classic mind,
   Method was dear unto his heart
   He would not that a man ye slay
   In a lax or informal way,
   But followed the strict rules of art,
   And ancient usages observed
   (For which our praise he hath deserved).

   XXV

   “My second!” cried in turn Eugene,
   “Behold my friend Monsieur Guillot;
   To this arrangement can be seen,
   No obstacle of which I know.
   Although unknown to fame mayhap,
   He’s a straightforward little chap.”
   Zaretski bit his lip in wrath,
   But to Vladimir Eugene saith:
   “Shall we commence?”—“Let it be so,”
   Lenski replied, and soon they be
   Behind the mill. Meantime ye see
   Zaretski and Monsieur Guillot
   In consultation stand aside—
   The foes with downcast eyes abide.

   XXVI

   Foes! Is it long since friendship rent
   Asunder was and hate prepared?
   Since leisure was together spent,
   Meals, secrets, occupations shared?
   Now, like hereditary foes,
   Malignant fury they disclose,
   As in some frenzied dream of fear
   These friends cold-bloodedly draw near
   Mutual destruction to contrive.
   Cannot they amicably smile
   Ere crimson stains their hands defile,
   Depart in peace and friendly live?
   But fashionable hatred’s flame
   Trembles at artificial shame.

   XXVII

   The shining pistols are uncased,
   The mallet loud the ramrod strikes,
   Bullets are down the barrels pressed,
   For the first time the hammer clicks.
   Lo! poured in a thin gray cascade,
   The powder in the pan is laid,
   The sharp flint, screwed securely on,
   Is cocked once more. Uneasy grown,
   Guillot behind a pollard stood;
   Aside the foes their mantles threw,
   Zaretski paces thirty-two
   Measured with great exactitude.
   At each extreme one takes his stand,
   A loaded pistol in his hand.

   XXVIII

   “Advance!”—
             Indifferent and sedate,
   The foes, as yet not taking aim,
   With measured step and even gait
   Athwart the snow four paces came—
   Four deadly paces do they span;
   Onéguine slowly then began
   To raise his pistol to his eye,
   Though he advanced unceasingly.
   And lo! five paces more they pass,
   And Lenski, closing his left eye,
   Took aim—but as immediately
   Onéguine fired—Alas! alas!
   The poet’s hour hath sounded—See!
   He drops his pistol silently.

   XXIX

   He on his bosom gently placed
   His hand, and fell. His clouded eye
   Not agony, but death expressed.
   So from the mountain lazily
   The avalanche of snow first bends,
   Then glittering in the sun descends.
   The cold sweat bursting from his brow,
   To the youth Eugene hurried now—
   Gazed on him, called him. Useless care!
   He was no more! The youthful bard
   For evermore had disappeared.
   The storm was hushed. The blossom fair
   Was withered ere the morning light—
   The altar flame was quenched in night.

   XXX

   Tranquil he lay, and strange to view
   The peace which on his forehead beamed,
   His breast was riddled through and through,
   The blood gushed from the wound and steamed
   Ere this but one brief moment beat
   That heart with inspiration sweet
   And enmity and hope and love—
   The blood boiled and the passions strove.
   Now, as in a deserted house,
   All dark and silent hath become;
   The inmate is for ever dumb,
   The windows whitened, shutters close—
   Whither departed is the host?
   God knows! The very trace is lost.

   XXXI

   ’Tis sweet the foe to aggravate
   With epigrams impertinent,
   Sweet to behold him obstinate,
   His butting horns in anger bent,
   The glass unwittingly inspect
   And blush to own himself reflect.
   Sweeter it is, my friends, if he
   Howl like a dolt: ’tis meant for me!
   But sweeter still it is to arrange
   For him an honourable grave,
   At his pale brow a shot to have,
   Placed at the customary range;
   But home his body to despatch
   Can scarce in sweetness be a match.

   XXXII

   Well, if your pistol ball by chance
   The comrade of your youth should strike,
   Who by a haughty word or glance
   Or any trifle else ye like
   You o’er your wine insulted hath—
   Or even overcome by wrath
   Scornfully challenged you afield—
   Tell me, of sentiments concealed
   Which in your spirit dominates,
   When motionless your gaze beneath
   He lies, upon his forehead death,
   And slowly life coagulates—
   When deaf and silent he doth lie
   Heedless of your despairing cry?

   XXXIII

   Eugene, his pistol yet in hand
   And with remorseful anguish filled,
   Gazing on Lenski’s corse did stand—
   Zaretski shouted: “Why, he’s killed!”—
   Killed! at this dreadful exclamation
   Onéguine went with trepidation
   And the attendants called in haste.
   Most carefully Zaretski placed
   Within his sledge the stiffened corse,
   And hurried home his awful freight.
   Conscious of death approximate,
   Loud paws the earth each panting horse,
   His bit with foam besprinkled o’er,
   And homeward like an arrow tore.

   XXXIV

   My friends, the poet ye regret!
   When hope’s delightful flower but bloomed
   In bud of promise incomplete,
   The manly toga scarce assumed,
   He perished. Where his troubled dreams,
   And where the admirable streams
   Of youthful impulse, reverie,
   Tender and elevated, free?
   And where tempestuous love’s desires,
   The thirst of knowledge and of fame,
   Horror of sinfulness and shame,
   Imagination’s sacred fires,
   Ye shadows of a life more high,
   Ye dreams of heavenly poesy?

   XXXV

   Perchance to benefit mankind,
   Or but for fame he saw the light;
   His lyre, to silence now consigned,
   Resounding through all ages might
   Have echoed to eternity.
   With worldly honours, it may be,
   Fortune the poet had repaid.
   It may be that his martyred shade
   Carried a truth divine away;
   That, for the century designed,
   Had perished a creative mind,
   And past the threshold of decay,
   He ne’er shall hear Time’s eulogy,
   The blessings of humanity.

   XXXVI

   Or, it may be, the bard had passed
   A life in common with the rest;
   Vanished his youthful years at last,
   The fire extinguished in his breast,
   In many things had changed his life—
   The Muse abandoned, ta’en a wife,
   Inhabited the country, clad
   In dressing-gown, a cuckold glad:
   A life of fact, not fiction, led—
   At forty suffered from the gout,
   Eaten, drunk, gossiped and grown stout:
   And finally, upon his bed
   Had finished life amid his sons,
   Doctors and women, sobs and groans.

   XXXVII

   But, howsoe’er his lot were cast,
   Alas! the youthful lover slain,
   Poetical enthusiast,
   A friendly hand thy life hath ta’en!
   There is a spot the village near
   Where dwelt the Muses’ worshipper,
   Two pines have joined their tangled roots,
   A rivulet beneath them shoots
   Its waters to the neighbouring vale.
   There the tired ploughman loves to lie,
   The reaping girls approach and ply
   Within its wave the sounding pail,
   And by that shady rivulet
   A simple tombstone hath been set.

   XXXVIII

   There, when the rains of spring we mark
   Upon the meadows showering,
   The shepherd plaits his shoe of bark,(66)
   Of Volga fishermen doth sing,
   And the young damsel from the town,
   For summer to the country flown,
   Whene’er across the plain at speed
   Alone she gallops on her steed,
   Stops at the tomb in passing by;
   The tightened leathern rein she draws,
   Aside she casts her veil of gauze
   And reads with rapid eager eye
   The simple epitaph—a tear
   Doth in her gentle eye appear.

   [Note 66: In Russia and other northern countries rude shoes are
   made of the inner bark of the lime tree.]

   XXXIX

   And meditative from the spot
   She leisurely away doth ride,
   Spite of herself with Lenski’s lot
   Longtime her mind is occupied.
   She muses: “What was Olga’s fate?
   Longtime was her heart desolate
   Or did her tears soon cease to flow?
   And where may be her sister now?
   Where is the outlaw, banned by men,
   Of fashionable dames the foe,
   The misanthrope of gloomy brow,
   By whom the youthful bard was slain?”—
   In time I’ll give ye without fail
   A true account and in detail.

   XL

   But not at present, though sincerely
   I on my chosen hero dote;
   Though I’ll return to him right early,
   Just at this moment I cannot.
   Years have inclined me to stern prose,
   Years to light rhyme themselves oppose,
   And now, I mournfully confess,
   In rhyming I show laziness.
   As once, to fill the rapid page
   My pen no longer finds delight,
   Other and colder thoughts affright,
   Sterner solicitudes engage,
   In worldly din or solitude
   Upon my visions such intrude.

   XLI

   Fresh aspirations I have known,
   I am acquainted with fresh care,
   Hopeless are all the first, I own,
   Yet still remains the old despair.
   Illusions, dream, where, where your sweetness?
   Where youth (the proper rhyme is fleetness)?
   And is it true her garland bright
   At last is shrunk and withered quite?
   And is it true and not a jest,
   Not even a poetic phrase,
   That vanished are my youthful days
   (This joking I used to protest),
   Never for me to reappear—
   That soon I reach my thirtieth year?

   XLII

   And so my noon hath come! If so,
   I must resign myself, in sooth;
   Yet let us part in friendship, O
   My frivolous and jolly youth.
   I thank thee for thy joyfulness,
   Love’s tender transports and distress,
   For riot, frolics, mighty feeds,
   And all that from thy hand proceeds—
   I thank thee. In thy company,
   With tumult or contentment still
   Of thy delights I drank my fill,
   Enough! with tranquil spirit I
   Commence a new career in life
   And rest from bygone days of strife.

   XLIII

   But pause! Thou calm retreats, farewell,
   Where my days in the wilderness
   Of languor and of love did tell
   And contemplative dreaminess;
   And thou, youth’s early inspiration,
   Invigorate imagination
   And spur my spirit’s torpid mood!
   Fly frequent to my solitude,
   Let not the poet’s spirit freeze,
   Grow harsh and cruel, dead and dry,
   Eventually petrify
   In the world’s mortal revelries,
   Amid the soulless sons of pride
   And glittering simpletons beside;

   XLIV

   Amid sly, pusillanimous
   Spoiled children most degenerate
   And tiresome rogues ridiculous
   And stupid censors passionate;
   Amid coquettes who pray to God
   And abject slaves who kiss the rod;
   In haunts of fashion where each day
   All with urbanity betray,
   Where harsh frivolity proclaims
   Its cold unfeeling sentences;
   Amid the awful emptiness
   Of conversation, thought and aims—
   In that morass where you and I
   Wallow, my friends, in company!

   END OF CANTO THE SIXTH

CANTO THE SEVENTH

   Moscow

   Moscow, Russia’s darling daughter,
   Where thine equal shall we find?
                                Dmitrieff

   Who can help loving mother Moscow?
                      Baratynski (Feasts)

   A journey to Moscow! To see the world!
   Where better?
                 Where man is not.
               Griboyédoff (Woe from Wit)

   Canto The Seventh

   [Written 1827-1828 at Moscow, Mikhailovskoe, St. Petersburg
   and Malinniki.]

   I

   Impelled by Spring’s dissolving beams,
   The snows from off the hills around
   Descended swift in turbid streams
   And flooded all the level ground.
   A smile from slumbering nature clear
   Did seem to greet the youthful year;
   The heavens shone in deeper blue,
   The woods, still naked to the view,
   Seemed in a haze of green embowered.
   The bee forth from his cell of wax
   Flew to collect his rural tax;
   The valleys dried and gaily flowered;
   Herds low, and under night’s dark veil
   Already sings the nightingale.

   II

   Mournful is thine approach to me,
   O Spring, thou chosen time of love!
   What agitation languidly
   My spirit and my blood doth move,
   What sad emotions o’er me steal
   When first upon my cheek I feel
   The breath of Spring again renewed,
   Secure in rural quietude—
   Or, strange to me is happiness?
   Do all things which to mirth incline.
   And make a dark existence shine
   Inflict annoyance and distress
   Upon a soul inert and cloyed?—
   And is all light within destroyed?

   III

   Or, heedless of the leaves’ return
   Which Autumn late to earth consigned,
   Do we alone our losses mourn
   Of which the rustling woods remind?
   Or, when anew all Nature teems,
   Do we foresee in troubled dreams
   The coming of life’s Autumn drear.
   For which no springtime shall appear?
   Or, it may be, we inly seek,
   Wafted upon poetic wing,
   Some other long-departed Spring,
   Whose memories make the heart beat quick
   With thoughts of a far distant land,
   Of a strange night when the moon and—

   IV

   ’Tis now the season! Idlers all,
   Epicurean philosophers,
   Ye men of fashion cynical,
   Of Levshin’s school ye followers,(67)
   Priams of country populations
   And dames of fine organisations,
   Spring summons you to her green bowers,
   ’Tis the warm time of labour, flowers;
   The time for mystic strolls which late
   Into the starry night extend.
   Quick to the country let us wend
   In vehicles surcharged with freight;
   In coach or post-cart duly placed
   Beyond the city-barriers haste.

   [Note 67: Levshin—a contemporary writer on political economy.]

   V

   Thou also, reader generous,
   The chaise long ordered please employ,
   Abandon cities riotous,
   Which in the winter were a joy:
   The Muse capricious let us coax,
   Go hear the rustling of the oaks
   Beside a nameless rivulet,
   Where in the country Eugene yet,
   An idle anchorite and sad,
   A while ago the winter spent,
   Near young Tattiana resident,
   My pretty self-deceiving maid—
   No more the village knows his face,
   For there he left a mournful trace.

   VI

   Let us proceed unto a rill,
   Which in a hilly neighbourhood
   Seeks, winding amid meadows still,
   The river through the linden wood.
   The nightingale there all night long,
   Spring’s paramour, pours forth her song
   The fountain brawls, sweetbriers bloom,
   And lo! where lies a marble tomb
   And two old pines their branches spread—
   “Vladimir Lenski lies beneath,
   Who early died a gallant death,”
   Thereon the passing traveller read:
   “The date, his fleeting years how long—
   Repose in peace, thou child of song.”

   VII

   Time was, the breath of early dawn
   Would agitate a mystic wreath
   Hung on a pine branch earthward drawn
   Above the humble urn of death.
   Time was, two maidens from their home
   At eventide would hither come,
   And, by the light the moonbeams gave,
   Lament, embrace upon that grave.
   But now—none heeds the monument
   Of woe: effaced the pathway now:
   There is no wreath upon the bough:
   Alone beside it, gray and bent,
   As formerly the shepherd sits
   And his poor basten sandal knits.

   VIII

   My poor Vladimir, bitter tears
   Thee but a little space bewept,
   Faithless, alas! thy maid appears,
   Nor true unto her sorrow kept.
   Another could her heart engage,
   Another could her woe assuage
   By flattery and lover’s art—
   A lancer captivates her heart!
   A lancer her soul dotes upon:
   Before the altar, lo! the pair,
   Mark ye with what a modest air
   She bows her head beneath the crown;(68)
   Behold her downcast eyes which glow,
   Her lips where light smiles come and go!

   [Note 68: The crown used in celebrating marriages in Russia
   according to the forms of the Eastern Church. See Note 28.]

   IX

   My poor Vladimir! In the tomb,
   Passed into dull eternity,
   Was the sad poet filled with gloom,
   Hearing the fatal perfidy?
   Or, beyond Lethe lulled to rest,
   Hath the bard, by indifference blest,
   Callous to all on earth become—
   Is the world to him sealed and dumb?
   The same unmoved oblivion
   On us beyond the grave attends,
   The voice of lovers, foes and friends,
   Dies suddenly: of heirs alone
   Remains on earth the unseemly rage,
   Whilst struggling for the heritage.

   X

   Soon Olga’s accents shrill resound
   No longer through her former home;
   The lancer, to his calling bound,
   Back to his regiment must roam.
   The aged mother, bathed in tears,
   Distracted by her grief appears
   When the hour came to bid good-bye—
   But my Tattiana’s eyes were dry.
   Only her countenance assumed
   A deadly pallor, air distressed;
   When all around the entrance pressed,
   To say farewell, and fussed and fumed
   Around the carriage of the pair—
   Tattiana gently led them there.

   XI

   And long her eyes as through a haze
   After the wedded couple strain;
   Alas! the friend of childish days
   Away, Tattiana, hath been ta’en.
   Thy dove, thy darling little pet
   On whom a sister’s heart was set
   Afar is borne by cruel fate,
   For evermore is separate.
   She wanders aimless as a sprite,
   Into the tangled garden goes
   But nowhere can she find repose,
   Nor even tears afford respite,
   Of consolation all bereft—
   Well nigh her heart in twain was cleft.

   XII

   In cruel solitude each day
   With flame more ardent passion burns,
   And to Onéguine far away
   Her heart importunately turns.
   She never more his face may view,
   For was it not her duty to
   Detest him for a brother slain?
   The poet fell; already men
   No more remembered him; unto
   Another his betrothed was given;
   The memory of the bard was driven
   Like smoke athwart the heaven blue;
   Two hearts perchance were desolate
   And mourned him still. Why mourn his fate?

   XIII

   ’Twas eve. ’Twas dusk. The river speeds
   In tranquil flow. The beetle hums.
   Already dance to song proceeds;
   The fisher’s fire afar illumes
   The river’s bank. Tattiana lone
   Beneath the silver of the moon
   Long time in meditation deep
   Her path across the plain doth keep—
   Proceeds, until she from a hill
   Sees where a noble mansion stood,
   A village and beneath, a wood,
   A garden by a shining rill.
   She gazed thereon, and instant beat
   Her heart more loudly and more fleet.

   XIV

   She hesitates, in doubt is thrown—
   “Shall I proceed, or homeward flee?
   He is not there: I am not known:
   The house and garden I would see.”
   Tattiana from the hill descends
   With bated breath, around she bends
   A countenance perplexed and scared.
   She enters a deserted yard—
   Yelping, a pack of dogs rush out,
   But at her shriek ran forth with noise
   The household troop of little boys,
   Who with a scuffle and a shout
   The curs away to kennel chase,
   The damsel under escort place.

   XV

   “Can I inspect the mansion, please?”
   Tattiana asks, and hurriedly
   Unto Anicia for the keys
   The family of children hie.
   Anicia soon appears, the door
   Opens unto her visitor.
   Into the lonely house she went,
   Wherein a space Onéguine spent.
   She gazed—a cue, forgotten long,
   Doth on the billiard table rest,
   Upon the tumbled sofa placed,
   A riding whip. She strolls along.
   The beldam saith: “The hearth, by it
   The master always used to sit.

   XVI

   “Departed Lenski here to dine
   In winter time would often come.
   Please follow this way, lady mine,
   This is my master’s sitting-room.
   ’Tis here he slept, his coffee took,
   Into accounts would sometimes look,
   A book at early morn perused.
   The room my former master used.
   On Sundays by yon window he,
   Spectacles upon nose, all day
   Was wont with me at cards to play.
   God save his soul eternally
   And grant his weary bones their rest
   Deep in our mother Earth’s chill breast!”

   XVII

   Tattiana’s eyes with tender gleam
   On everything around her gaze,
   Of priceless value all things seem
   And in her languid bosom raise
   A pleasure though with sorrow knit:
   The table with its lamp unlit,
   The pile of books, with carpet spread
   Beneath the window-sill his bed,
   The landscape which the moonbeams fret,
   The twilight pale which softens all,
   Lord Byron’s portrait on the wall
   And the cast-iron statuette
   With folded arms and eyes bent low,
   Cocked hat and melancholy brow.(69)

   [Note 69: The Russians not unfrequently adorn their apartments
   with effigies of the great Napoleon.]

   XVIII

   Long in this fashionable cell
   Tattiana as enchanted stood;
   But it grew late; cold blew the gale;
   Dark was the valley and the wood
   Slept o’er the river misty grown.
   Behind the mountain sank the moon.
   Long, long the hour had past when home
   Our youthful wanderer should roam.
   She hid the trouble of her breast,
   Heaved an involuntary sigh
   And turned to leave immediately,
   But first permission did request
   Thither in future to proceed
   That certain volumes she might read.

   XIX

   Adieu she to the matron said
   At the front gates, but in brief space
   At early morn returns the maid
   To the abandoned dwelling-place.
   When in the study’s calm retreat,
   Wrapt in oblivion complete,
   She found herself alone at last,
   Longtime her tears flowed thick and fast;
   But presently she tried to read;
   At first for books was disinclined,
   But soon their choice seemed to her mind
   Remarkable. She then indeed
   Devoured them with an eager zest.
   A new world was made manifest!

   XX

   Although we know that Eugene had
   Long ceased to be a reading man,
   Still certain authors, I may add,
   He had excepted from the ban:
   The bard of Juan and the Giaour,
   With it may be a couple more;
   Romances three, in which ye scan
   Portrayed contemporary man
   As the reflection of his age,
   His immorality of mind
   To arid selfishness resigned,
   A visionary personage
   With his exasperated sense,
   His energy and impotence.

   XXI

   And numerous pages had preserved
   The sharp incisions of his nail,
   And these the attentive maid observed
   With eye precise and without fail.
   Tattiana saw with trepidation
   By what idea or observation
   Onéguine was the most impressed,
   In what he merely acquiesced.
   Upon those margins she perceived
   Onéguine’s pencillings. His mind
   Made revelations undesigned,
   Of what he thought and what believed,
   A dagger, asterisk, or note
   Interrogation to denote.

   XXII

   And my Tattiana now began
   To understand by slow degrees
   More clearly, God be praised, the man,
   Whom autocratic fate’s decrees
   Had bid her sigh for without hope—
   A dangerous, gloomy misanthrope,
   Being from hell or heaven sent,
   Angel or fiend malevolent.
   Which is he? or an imitation,
   A bogy conjured up in joke,
   A Russian in Childe Harold’s cloak,
   Of foreign whims the impersonation—
   Handbook of fashionable phrase
   Or parody of modern ways?

   XXIII

   Hath she found out the riddle yet?
   Hath she a fitting phrase selected?
   But time flies and she doth forget
   They long at home have her expected—
   Whither two neighbouring dames have walked
   And a long time about her talked.
   “What can be done? She is no child!”
   Cried the old dame with anguish filled:
   “Olinka is her junior, see.
   ’Tis time to marry her, ’tis true,
   But tell me what am I to do?
   To all she answers cruelly—
   I will not wed, and ever weeps
   And lonely through the forest creeps.”

   XXIV

   “Is she in love?” quoth one. “With whom?
   Bouyànoff courted. She refused.
   Pétòushkoff met the selfsame doom.
   The hussar Pykhtin was accused.
   How the young imp on Tania doted!
   To captivate her how devoted!
   I mused: perhaps the matter’s squared—
   O yes! my hopes soon disappeared.”
   “But, mátushka, to Moscow you(70)
   Should go, the market for a maid,
   With many a vacancy, ’tis said.”—
   “Alas! my friend, no revenue!”
   “Enough to see one winter’s end;
   If not, the money I will lend.”

   [Note 70: “Mátushka,” or “little mother,” a term of endearment
   in constant use amongst Russian females.]

   XXV

   The venerable dame opined
   The counsel good and full of reason,
   Her money counted, and designed
   To visit Moscow in the season.
   Tattiana learns the intelligence—
   Of her provincial innocence
   The unaffected traits she now
   Unto a carping world must show—
   Her toilette’s antiquated style,
   Her antiquated mode of speech,
   For Moscow fops and Circes each
   To mark with a contemptuous smile.
   Horror! had she not better stay
   Deep in the greenwood far away?

   XXVI

   Arising with the morning’s light,
   Unto the fields she makes her way,
   And with emotional delight
   Surveying them, she thus doth say:
   “Ye peaceful valleys all, good-bye!
   Ye well-known mountain summits high,
   Ye groves whose depths I know so well,
   Thou beauteous sky above, farewell!
   Delicious nature, thee I fly,
   The calm existence which I prize
   I yield for splendid vanities,
   Thou too farewell, my liberty!
   Whither and wherefore do I speed
   And what will Destiny concede?”

   XXVII

   Farther Tattiana’s walks extend—
   ’Tis now the hillock now the rill
   Their natural attractions lend
   To stay the maid against her will.
   She the acquaintances she loves,
   Her spacious fields and shady groves,
   Another visit hastes to pay.
   But Summer swiftly fades away
   And golden Autumn draweth nigh,
   And pallid nature trembling grieves,
   A victim decked with golden leaves;
   Dark clouds before the north wind fly;
   It blew: it howled: till winter e’en
   Came forth in all her magic sheen.

   XXVIII

   The snow descends and buries all,
   Hangs heavy on the oaken boughs,
   A white and undulating pall
   O’er hillock and o’er meadow throws.
   The channel of the river stilled
   As if with eider-down is filled.
   The hoar-frost glitters: all rejoice
   In mother Winter’s strange caprice.
   But Tania’s heart is not at ease,
   Winter’s approach she doth not hail
   Nor the frost particles inhale
   Nor the first snow of winter seize
   Her shoulders, breast and face to lave—
   Alarm the winter journey gave.

   XXIX

   The date was fixed though oft postponed,
   But ultimately doth approach.
   Examined, mended, newly found
   Was the old and forgotten coach;
   Kibitkas three, the accustomed train,(71)
   The household property contain:
   Saucepans and mattresses and chairs,
   Portmanteaus and preserves in jars,
   Feather-beds, also poultry-coops,
   Basins and jugs—well! everything
   To happiness contributing.
   Behold! beside their dwelling groups
   Of serfs the farewell wail have given.
   Nags eighteen to the door are driven.

   [Note 71: In former times, and to some extent the practice still
   continues to the present day, Russian families were wont to
   travel with every necessary of life, and, in the case of the
   wealthy, all its luxuries following in their train. As the
   poet complains in a subsequent stanza there were no inns;
   and if the simple Làrinas required such ample store of creature
   comforts the impediments accompanying a great noble on his
   journeys may be easily conceived.]

   XXX

   These to the coach of state are bound,
   Breakfast the busy cooks prepare,
   Baggage is heaped up in a mound,
   Old women at the coachmen swear.
   A bearded postillion astride
   A lean and shaggy nag doth ride,
   Unto the gates the servants fly
   To bid the gentlefolk good-bye.
   These take their seats; the coach of state
   Leisurely through the gateway glides.
   “Adieu! thou home where peace abides,
   Where turmoil cannot penetrate,
   Shall I behold thee once again?”—
   Tattiana tears cannot restrain.

   XXXI

   The limits of enlightenment
   When to enlarge we shall succeed,
   In course of time (the whole extent
   Will not five centuries exceed
   By computation) it is like
   Our roads transformed the eye will strike;
   Highways all Russia will unite
   And form a network left and right;
   On iron bridges we shall gaze
   Which o’er the waters boldly leap,
   Mountains we’ll level and through deep
   Streams excavate subaqueous ways,
   And Christian folk will, I expect,
   An inn at every stage erect.

   XXXII

   But now, what wretched roads one sees,
   Our bridges long neglected rot,
   And at the stages bugs and fleas
   One moment’s slumber suffer not.
   Inns there are none. Pretentious but
   Meagre, within a draughty hut,
   A bill of fare hangs full in sight
   And irritates the appetite.
   Meantime a Cyclops of those parts
   Before a fire which feebly glows
   Mends with the Russian hammer’s blows
   The flimsy wares of Western marts,
   With blessings on the ditches and
   The ruts of his own fatherland.

   XXXIII

   Yet on a frosty winter day
   The journey in a sledge doth please,
   No senseless fashionable lay
   Glides with a more luxurious ease;
   For our Automedons are fire
   And our swift troikas never tire;
   The verst posts catch the vacant eye
   And like a palisade flit by.(72)
   The Làrinas unwisely went,
   From apprehension of the cost,
   By their own horses, not the post—
   So Tania to her heart’s content
   Could taste the pleasures of the road.
   Seven days and nights the travellers plod.

   [Note 72: This somewhat musty joke has appeared in more than one
   national costume. Most Englishmen, if we were to replace
   verst-posts with milestones and substitute a graveyard for
   a palisade, would instantly recognize its Yankee extraction.
   In Russia however its origin is as ancient at least as the
   reign of Catherine the Second. The witticism ran thus: A
   courier sent by Prince Potemkin to the Empress drove so
   fast that his sword, projecting from the vehicle, rattled
   against the verst-posts as if against a palisade!]

   XXXIV

   But they draw near. Before them, lo!
   White Moscow raises her old spires,
   Whose countless golden crosses glow
   As with innumerable fires.(73)
   Ah! brethren, what was my delight
   When I yon semicircle bright
   Of churches, gardens, belfries high
   Descried before me suddenly!
   Moscow, how oft in evil days,
   Condemned to exile dire by fate,
   On thee I used to meditate!
   Moscow! How much is in the phrase
   For every loyal Russian breast!
   How much is in that word expressed!

   [Note 73: The aspect of Moscow, especially as seen from the Sparrow
   Hills, a low range bordering the river Moskva at a short distance
   from the city, is unique and splendid. It possesses several domes
   completely plated with gold and some twelve hundred spires most of
   which are surmounted by a golden cross. At the time of sunset they
   seem literally tipped with flame. It was from this memorable spot
   that Napoleon and the Grand Army first obtained a glimpse at the
   city of the Tsars. There are three hundred and seventy churches in
   Moscow. The Kremlin itself is however by far the most interesting
   object to the stranger.]

   XXXV

   Lo! compassed by his grove of oaks,
   Petrovski Palace! Gloomily
   His recent glory he invokes.
   Here, drunk with his late victory,
   Napoleon tarried till it please
   Moscow approach on bended knees,
   Time-honoured Kremlin’s keys present.
   Not so! My Moscow never went
   To seek him out with bended head.
   No gift she bears, no feast proclaims,
   But lights incendiary flames
   For the impatient chief instead.
   From hence engrossed in thought profound
   He on the conflagration frowned.(74)

   [Note 74: Napoleon on his arrival in Moscow on the 14th September
   took up his quarters in the Kremlin, but on the 16th had to
   remove to the Petrovski Palace or Castle on account of the
   conflagration which broke out in all quarters of the city. He
   however returned to the Kremlin on the 19th September. The Palace
   itself is placed in the midst of extensive grounds just outside
   the city, on the road to Tver, i.e. to the northwest. It is
   perhaps worthy of remark, as one amongst numerous circumstances
   proving how extensively the poet interwove his own life-experiences
   with the plot of this poem, that it was by this road that he
   himself must have been in the habit of approaching Moscow from his
   favourite country residence of Mikhailovskoe, in the province of
   Pskoff.]

   XXXVI

   Adieu, thou witness of our glory,
   Petrovski Palace; come, astir!
   Drive on! the city barriers hoary
   Appear; along the road of Tver
   The coach is borne o’er ruts and holes,
   Past women, sentry-boxes, rolls,
   Past palaces and nunneries,
   Lamp-posts, shops, sledges, families,
   Bokharians, peasants, beds of greens,
   Boulevards, belfries, milliners,
   Huts, chemists, Cossacks, shopkeepers
   And fashionable magazines,
   Balconies, lion’s heads on doors,
   Jackdaws on every spire—in scores.(75)

   [Note 75: The first line refers to the prevailing shape of the
   cast-iron handles which adorn the porte cochères. The
   Russians are fond of tame birds—jackdaws, pigeons, starlings,
   etc., abound in Moscow and elsewhere.]

   XXXVII

   The weary way still incomplete,
   An hour passed by—another—till,
   Near Khariton’s in a side street
   The coach before a house stood still.
   At an old aunt’s they had arrived
   Who had for four long years survived
   An invalid from lung complaint.
   A Kalmuck gray, in caftan rent
   And spectacles, his knitting staid
   And the saloon threw open wide;
   The princess from the sofa cried
   And the newcomers welcome bade.
   The two old ladies then embraced
   And exclamations interlaced.

   XXXVIII

   “Princesse, mon ange!”—“Pachette!”—
   “Aline!”
   “Who would have thought it? As of yore!
   Is it for long?”—“Ma chère cousine!”
   “Sit down. How funny, to be sure!
   ’Tis a scene of romance, I vow!”
   “Tania, my eldest child, you know”—
   “Ah! come, Tattiana, come to me!
   Is it a dream, and can it be?
   Cousin, rememb’rest Grandison?”
   “What! Grandison?”—“Yes, certainly!”
   “Oh! I remember, where is he?”—
   “Here, he resides with Simeon.
   He called upon me Christmas Eve—
   His son is married, just conceive!”

   XXXIX

   “And he—but of him presently—
   To-morrow Tania we will show,
   What say you? to the family—
   Alas! abroad I cannot go.
   See, I can hardly crawl about—
   But you must both be quite tired out!
   Let us go seek a little rest—
   Ah! I’m so weak—my throbbing breast!
   Oppressive now is happiness,
   Not only sorrow—Ah! my dear,
   Now I am fit for nothing here.
   In old age life is weariness!”
   Then weeping she sank back distressed
   And fits of coughing racked her chest.

   XL

   By the sick lady’s gaiety
   And kindness Tania was impressed,
   But, her own room in memory,
   The strange apartment her oppressed:
   Repose her silken curtains fled,
   She could not sleep in her new bed.
   The early tinkling of the bells
   Which of approaching labour tells
   Aroused Tattiana from her bed.
   The maiden at her casement sits
   As daylight glimmers, darkness flits,
   But ah! discerns nor wood nor mead—
   Beneath her lay a strange courtyard,
   A stable, kitchen, fence appeared.

   XLI

   To consanguineous dinners they
   Conduct Tattiana constantly,
   That grandmothers and grandsires may
   Contemplate her sad reverie.
   We Russians, friends from distant parts
   Ever receive with kindly hearts
   And exclamations and good cheer.
   “How Tania grows! Doth it appear
   Long since I held thee at the font—
   Since in these arms I thee did bear—
   And since I pulled thee by the ear—
   And I to give thee cakes was wont?”—
   Then the old dames in chorus sing,
   “Oh! how our years are vanishing!”

   XLII

   But nothing changed in them is seen,
   All in the good old style appears,
   Our dear old aunt, Princess Helène,
   Her cap of tulle still ever wears:
   Luceria Lvovna paint applies,
   Amy Petrovna  utters lies,
   Ivan Petròvitch still a gaby,
   Simeon Petròvitch just as shabby;
   Pélagie Nikolavna has
   Her friend Monsieur Finemouche the same,
   Her wolf-dog and her husband tame;
   Still of his club he member was—
   As deaf and silly doth remain,
   Still eats and drinks enough for twain.

   XLIII

   Their daughters kiss Tattiana fair.
   In the beginning, cold and mute,
   Moscow’s young Graces at her stare,
   Examine her from head to foot.
   They deem her somewhat finical,
   Outlandish and provincial,
   A trifle pale, a trifle lean,
   But plainer girls they oft had seen.
   Obedient then to Nature’s law,
   With her they did associate,
   Squeeze tiny hands and osculate;
   Her tresses curled in fashion saw,
   And oft in whispers would impart
   A maiden’s secrets—of the heart.

   XLIV

   Triumphs—their own or those of friends—
   Hopes, frolics, dreams and sentiment
   Their harmless conversation blends
   With scandal’s trivial ornament.
   Then to reward such confidence
   Her amorous experience
   With mute appeal to ask they seem—
   But Tania just as in a dream
   Without participation hears,
   Their voices nought to her impart
   And the lone secret of her heart,
   Her sacred hoard of joy and tears,
   She buries deep within her breast
   Nor aught confides unto the rest.

   XLV

   Tattiana would have gladly heard
   The converse of the world polite,
   But in the drawing-room all appeared
   To find in gossip such delight,
   Speech was so tame and colourless
   Their slander e’en was weariness;
   In their sterility of prattle,
   Questions and news and tittle-tattle,
   No sense was ever manifest
   Though by an error and unsought—
   The languid mind could smile at nought,
   Heart would not throb albeit in jest—
   Even amusing fools we miss
   In thee, thou world of empty bliss.

   XLVI

   In groups, official striplings glance
   Conceitedly on Tania fair,
   And views amongst themselves advance
   Unfavourable unto her.
   But one buffoon unhappy deemed
   Her the ideal which he dreamed,
   And leaning ’gainst the portal closed
   To her an elegy composed.
   Also one Viázemski, remarking
   Tattiana by a poor aunt’s side,
   Successfully to please her tried,
   And an old gent the poet marking
   By Tania, smoothing his peruke,
   To ask her name the trouble took.(76)

   [Note 76: One of the obscure satirical allusions contained in this
   poem. Doubtless the joke was perfectly intelligible to the
   habitués of contemporary St. Petersburg society. Viazemski of
   course is the poet and prince, Pushkin’s friend.]

   XLVII

   But where Melpomene doth rave
   With lengthened howl and accent loud,
   And her bespangled robe doth wave
   Before a cold indifferent crowd,
   And where Thalia softly dreams
   And heedless of approval seems,
   Terpsichore alone among
   Her sisterhood delights the young
   (So ’twas with us in former years,
   In your young days and also mine),
   Never upon my heroine
   The jealous dame her lorgnette veers,
   The connoisseur his glances throws
   From boxes or from stalls in rows.

   XLVIII

   To the assembly her they bear.
   There the confusion, pressure, heat,
   The crash of music, candles’ glare
   And rapid whirl of many feet,
   The ladies’ dresses airy, light,
   The motley moving mass and bright,
   Young ladies in a vasty curve,
   To strike imagination serve.
   ’Tis there that arrant fops display
   Their insolence and waistcoats white
   And glasses unemployed all night;
   Thither hussars on leave will stray
   To clank the spur, delight the fair—
   And vanish like a bird in air.

   XLIX

   Full many a lovely star hath night
   And Moscow many a beauty fair:
   Yet clearer shines than every light
   The moon in the blue atmosphere.
   And she to whom my lyre would fain,
   Yet dares not, dedicate its strain,
   Shines in the female firmament
   Like a full moon magnificent.
   Lo! with what pride celestial
   Her feet the earth beneath her press!
   Her heart how full of gentleness,
   Her glance how wild yet genial!
   Enough, enough, conclude thy lay—
   For folly’s dues thou hadst to pay.

   L

   Noise, laughter, bowing, hurrying mixt,
   Gallop, mazurka, waltzing—see!
   A pillar by, two aunts betwixt,
   Tania, observed by nobody,
   Looks upon all with absent gaze
   And hates the world’s discordant ways.
   ’Tis noisome to her there: in thought
   Again her rural life she sought,
   The hamlet, the poor villagers,
   The little solitary nook
   Where shining runs the tiny brook,
   Her garden, and those books of hers,
   And the lime alley’s twilight dim
   Where the first time she met with him.

   LI

   Thus widely meditation erred,
   Forgot the world, the noisy ball,
   Whilst from her countenance ne’er stirred
   The eyes of a grave general.
   Both aunts looked knowing as a judge,
   Each gave Tattiana’s arm a nudge
   And in a whisper did repeat:
   “Look quickly to your left, my sweet!”
   “The left? Why, what on earth is there?”—
   “No matter, look immediately.
   There, in that knot of company,
   Two dressed in uniform appear—
   Ah! he has gone the other way”—
   “Who? Is it that stout general, pray?”—

   LII

   Let us congratulations pay
   To our Tattiana conquering,
   And for a time our course delay,
   That I forget not whom I sing.
   Let me explain that in my song
   “I celebrate a comrade young
   And the extent of his caprice;
   O epic Muse, my powers increase
   And grant success to labour long;
   Having a trusty staff bestowed,
   Grant that I err not on the road.”
   Enough! my pack is now unslung—
   To classicism I’ve homage paid,
   Though late, have a beginning made.(77)

   [Note 77: Many will consider this mode of bringing the canto
   to a conclusion of more than doubtful taste. The poet evidently
   aims a stroke at the pedantic and narrow-minded criticism to
   which original genius, emancipated from the strait-waistcoat of
   conventionality, is not unfrequently subjected.]

   End of Canto The Seventh

CANTO THE EIGHTH

   The Great World

   ‘Fare thee well, and if for ever,
   Still for ever fare thee well.’—Byron

   Canto the Eighth

   [St. Petersburg, Boldino, Tsarskoe Selo, 1880-1881]

   I

   In the Lyceum’s noiseless shade
   As in a garden when I grew,
   I Apuleius gladly read
   But would not look at Cicero.
   ’Twas then in valleys lone, remote,
   In spring-time, heard the cygnet’s note
   By waters shining tranquilly,
   That first the Muse appeared to me.
   Into the study of the boy
   There came a sudden flash of light,
   The Muse revealed her first delight,
   Sang childhood’s pastimes and its joy,
   Glory with which our history teems
   And the heart’s agitated dreams.

   II

   And the world met her smilingly,
   A first success light pinions gave,
   The old Derjavine noticed me,
   And blest me, sinking to the grave.(78)
   Then my companions young with pleasure
   In the unfettered hours of leisure
   Her utterances ever heard,
   And by a partial temper stirred
   And boiling o’er with friendly heat,
   They first of all my brow did wreathe
   And an encouragement did breathe
   That my coy Muse might sing more sweet.
   O triumphs of my guileless days,
   How sweet a dream your memories raise!

   [Note 78: This touching scene produced a lasting impression on
   Pushkin’s mind. It took place at a public examination at
   the Lyceum, on which occasion the boy poet produced a poem. The
   incident recalls the “Mon cher Tibulle” of Voltaire and the
   youthful Parny (see Note 42). Derjavine flourished during the
   reigns of Catherine the Second and Alexander the First. His
   poems are stiff and formal in style and are not much thought of
   by contemporary Russians. But a century back a very infinitesimal
   endowment of literary ability was sufficient to secure imperial
   reward and protection, owing to the backward state of the empire.
   Stanza II properly concludes with this line, the remainder having
   been expunged either by the author himself or the censors. I have
   filled up the void with lines from a fragment left by the author
   having reference to this canto.]

   III

   Passion’s wild sway I then allowed,
   Her promptings unto law did make,
   Pursuits I followed of the crowd,
   My sportive Muse I used to take
   To many a noisy feast and fight,
   Terror of guardians of the night;
   And wild festivities among
   She brought with her the gift of song.
   Like a Bacchante in her sport
   Beside the cup she sang her rhymes
   And the young revellers of past times
   Vociferously paid her court,
   And I, amid the friendly crowd,
   Of my light paramour was proud.

   IV

   But I abandoned their array,
   And fled afar—she followed me.
   How oft the kindly Muse away
   Hath whiled the road’s monotony,
   Entranced me by some mystic tale.
   How oft beneath the moonbeams pale
   Like Leonora did she ride(79)
   With me Caucasian rocks beside!
   How oft to the Crimean shore
   She led me through nocturnal mist
   Unto the sounding sea to list,
   Where Nereids murmur evermore,
   And where the billows hoarsely raise
   To God eternal hymns of praise.

   [Note 79: See Note 30, “Leonora,” a poem by Gottfried Augustus
   Burger, b. 1748, d. 1794.]

   V

   Then, the far capital forgot,
   Its splendour and its blandishments,
   In poor Moldavia cast her lot,
   She visited the humble tents
   Of migratory gipsy hordes—
   And wild among them grew her words—
   Our godlike tongue she could exchange
   For savage speech, uncouth and strange,
   And ditties of the steppe she loved.
   But suddenly all changed around!
   Lo! in my garden was she found
   And as a country damsel roved,
   A pensive sorrow in her glance
   And in her hand a French romance.

   VI

   Now for the first time I my Muse
   Lead into good society,
   Her steppe-like beauties I peruse
   With jealous fear, anxiety.
   Through dense aristocratic rows
   Of diplomats and warlike beaux
   And supercilious dames she glides,
   Sits down and gazes on all sides—
   Amazed at the confusing crowd,
   Variety of speech and vests,
   Deliberate approach of guests
   Who to the youthful hostess bowed,
   And the dark fringe of men, like frames
   Enclosing pictures of fair dames.

   VII

   Assemblies oligarchical
   Please her by their decorum fixed,
   The rigour of cold pride and all
   Titles and ages intermixed.
   But who in that choice company
   With clouded brow stands silently?
   Unknown to all he doth appear,
   A vision desolate and drear
   Doth seem to him the festal scene.
   Doth his brow wretchedness declare
   Or suffering pride? Why is he there?
   Who may he be? Is it Eugene?
   Pray is it he? It is the same.
   “And is it long since back he came?

   VIII

   “Is he the same or grown more wise?
   Still doth the misanthrope appear?
   He has returned, say in what guise?
   What is his latest character?
   What doth he act? Is it Melmoth,(80)
   Philanthropist or patriot,
   Childe Harold, quaker, devotee,
   Or other mask donned playfully?
   Or a good fellow for the nonce,
   Like you and me and all the rest?—
   But this is my advice, ’twere best
   Not to behave as he did once—
   Society he duped enow.”
   “Is he known to you?”—“Yes and No.”

   [Note 80: A romance by Maturin.]

   IX

   Wherefore regarding him express
   Perverse, unfavourable views?
   Is it that human restlessness
   For ever carps, condemns, pursues?
   Is it that ardent souls of flame
   By recklessness amuse or shame
   Selfish nonentities around?
   That mind which yearns for space is bound?
   And that too often we receive
   Professions eagerly for deeds,
   That crass stupidity misleads,
   That we by cant ourselves deceive,
   That mediocrity alone
   Without disgust we look upon?

   X

   Happy he who in youth was young,
   Happy who timely grew mature,
   He who life’s frosts which early wrung
   Hath gradually learnt to endure;
   By visions who was ne’er deranged
   Nor from the mob polite estranged,
   At twenty who was prig or swell,
   At thirty who was married well,
   At fifty who relief obtained
   From public and from private ties,
   Who glory, wealth and dignities
   Hath tranquilly in turn attained,
   And unto whom we all allude
   As to a worthy man and good!

   XI

   But sad is the reflection made,
   In vain was youth by us received,
   That we her constantly betrayed
   And she at last hath us deceived;
   That our desires which noblest seemed,
   The purest of the dreams we dreamed,
   Have one by one all withered grown
   Like rotten leaves by Autumn strown—
   ’Tis fearful to anticipate
   Nought but of dinners a long row,
   To look on life as on a show,
   Eternally to imitate
   The seemly crowd, partaking nought
   Its passions and its modes of thought.

   XII

   The butt of scandal having been,
   ’Tis dreadful—ye agree, I hope—
   To pass with reasonable men
   For a fictitious misanthrope,
   A visionary mortified,
   Or monster of Satanic pride,
   Or e’en the “Demon” of my strain.(81)
   Onéguine—take him up again—
   In duel having killed his friend
   And reached, with nought his mind to engage,
   The twenty-sixth year of his age,
   Wearied of leisure in the end,
   Without profession, business, wife,
   He knew not how to spend his life.

   [Note 81: The “Demon,” a short poem by Pushkin which at its first
   appearance created some excitement in Russian society. A more
   appropriate, or at any rate explanatory title, would have been
   the Tempter. It is descriptive of the first manifestation of
   doubt and cynicism in his youthful mind, allegorically as the
   visits of a “demon.” Russian society was moved to embody this
   imaginary demon in the person of a certain friend of Pushkin’s.
   This must not be confounded with Lermontoff’s poem bearing the
   same title upon which Rubinstein’s new opera, “Il Demonio,” is
   founded.]

   XIII

   Him a disquietude did seize,
   A wish from place to place to roam,
   A very troublesome disease,
   In some a willing martyrdom.
   Abandoned he his country seat,
   Of woods and fields the calm retreat,
   Where every day before his eyes
   A blood-bespattered shade would rise,
   And aimless journeys did commence—
   But still remembrance to him clings,
   His travels like all other things
   Inspired but weariness intense;
   Returning, from his ship amid
   A ball he fell as Tchatzki did.(82)

   [Note 82: Tchatzki, one of the principal characters in Griboyédoff’s
   celebrated comedy “Woe from Wit” (Gore ot Ouma).]

   XIV

   Behold, the crowd begins to stir,
   A whisper runs along the hall,
   A lady draws the hostess near,
   Behind her a grave general.
   Her manners were deliberate,
   Reserved, but not inanimate,
   Her eyes no saucy glance address,
   There was no angling for success.
   Her features no grimaces bleared;
   Of affectation innocent,
   Calm and without embarrassment,
   A faithful model she appeared
   Of “comme il faut.” Shishkòff, forgive!
   I can’t translate the adjective.(83)

   [Note 83: Shishkòff was a member of the literary school which
   cultivated the vernacular as opposed to the Arzamass or
   Gallic school, to which the poet himself and his uncle Vassili
   Pushkin belonged. He was admiral, author, and minister of
   education.]

   XV

   Ladies in crowds around her close,
   Her with a smile old women greet,
   The men salute with lower bows
   And watch her eye’s full glance to meet.
   Maidens before her meekly move
   Along the hall, and high above
   The crowd doth head and shoulders rise
   The general who accompanies.
   None could her beautiful declare,
   Yet viewing her from head to foot,
   None could a trace of that impute,
   Which in the elevated sphere
   Of London life is “vulgar” called
   And ruthless fashion hath blackballed.

   XVI

   I like this word exceedingly
   Although it will not bear translation,
   With us ’tis quite a novelty
   Not high in general estimation;
   ’Twould serve ye in an epigram—
   But turn we once more to our dame.
   Enchanting, but unwittingly,
   At table she was sitting by
   The brilliant Nina Voronskoi,
   The Neva’s Cleopatra, and
   None the conviction could withstand
   That Nina’s marble symmetry,
   Though dazzling its effulgence white,
   Could not eclipse her neighbour’s light.

   XVII

   “And is it,” meditates Eugene.
   “And is it she? It must be—no—
   How! from the waste of steppes unseen,”—
   And the eternal lorgnette through
   Frequent and rapid doth his glance
   Seek the forgotten countenance
   Familiar to him long ago.
   “Inform me, prince, pray dost thou know
   The lady in the crimson cap
   Who with the Spanish envoy speaks?”—
   The prince’s eye Onéguine seeks:
   “Ah! long the world hath missed thy shape!
   But stop! I will present thee, if
   You choose.”—“But who is she?”—“My wife.”

   XVIII

   “So thou art wed! I did not know.
   Long ago?”—“’Tis the second year.”
   “To—?”—“Làrina.”—“Tattiana?”—“So.
   And dost thou know her?”—“We live near.”
   “Then come with me.” The prince proceeds,
   His wife approaches, with him leads
   His relative and friend as well.
   The lady’s glance upon him fell—
   And though her soul might be confused,
   And vehemently though amazed
   She on the apparition gazed,
   No signs of trouble her accused,
   A mien unaltered she preserved,
   Her bow was easy, unreserved.

   XIX

   Ah no! no faintness her attacked
   Nor sudden turned she red or white,
   Her brow she did not e’en contract
   Nor yet her lip compressed did bite.
   Though he surveyed her at his ease,
   Not the least trace Onéguine sees
   Of the Tattiana of times fled.
   He conversation would have led—
   But could not. Then she questioned him:—
   “Had he been long here, and where from?
   Straight from their province had he come?”—
   Cast upwards then her eyeballs dim
   Unto her husband, went away—
   Transfixed Onéguine mine doth stay.

   XX

   Is this the same Tattiana, say,
   Before whom once in solitude,
   In the beginning of this lay,
   Deep in the distant province rude,
   Impelled by zeal for moral worth,
   He salutary rules poured forth?
   The maid whose note he still possessed
   Wherein the heart its vows expressed,
   Where all upon the surface lies,—
   That girl—but he must dreaming be—
   That girl whom once on a time he
   Could in a humble sphere despise,
   Can she have been a moment gone
   Thus haughty, careless in her tone?

   XXI

   He quits the fashionable throng
   And meditative homeward goes,
   Visions, now sad, now grateful, long
   Do agitate his late repose.
   He wakes—they with a letter come—
   The Princess N. will be at home
   On such a day. O Heavens, ’tis she!
   Oh! I accept. And instantly
   He a polite reply doth scrawl.
   What hath he dreamed? What hath occurred?
   In the recesses what hath stirred
   Of a heart cold and cynical?
   Vexation? Vanity? or strove
   Again the plague of boyhood—love?

   XXII

   The hours once more Onéguine counts,
   Impatient waits the close of day,
   But ten strikes and his sledge he mounts
   And gallops to her house away.
   Trembling he seeks the young princess—
   Tattiana finds in loneliness.
   Together moments one or two
   They sat, but conversation’s flow
   Deserted Eugene. He, distraught,
   Sits by her gloomily, desponds,
   Scarce to her questions he responds,
   Full of exasperating thought.
   He fixedly upon her stares—
   She calm and unconcerned appears.

   XXIII

   The husband comes and interferes
   With this unpleasant tête-à-tête,
   With Eugene pranks of former years
   And jests doth recapitulate.
   They talked and laughed. The guests arrived.
   The conversation was revived
   By the coarse wit of worldly hate;
   But round the hostess scintillate
   Light sallies without coxcombry,
   Awhile sound conversation seems
   To banish far unworthy themes
   And platitudes and pedantry,
   And never was the ear affright
   By liberties or loose or light.

   XXIV

   And yet the city’s flower was there,
   Noblesse and models of the mode,
   Faces which we meet everywhere
   And necessary fools allowed.
   Behold the dames who once were fine
   With roses, caps and looks malign;
   Some marriageable maids behold,
   Blank, unapproachable and cold.
   Lo, the ambassador who speaks
   Economy political,
   And with gray hair ambrosial
   The old man who has had his freaks,
   Renowned for his acumen, wit,
   But now ridiculous a bit.

   XXV

   Behold Sabouroff, whom the age
   For baseness of the spirit scorns,
   Saint Priest, who every album’s page
   With blunted pencil-point adorns.
   Another tribune of the ball
   Hung like a print against the wall,
   Pink as Palm Sunday cherubim,(84)
   Motionless, mute, tight-laced and trim.
   The traveller, bird of passage he,
   Stiff, overstarched and insolent,
   Awakens secret merriment
   By his embarrassed dignity—
   Mute glances interchanged aside
   Meet punishment for him provide.

   [Note 84: On Palm Sunday the Russians carry branches, or used to
   do so. These branches were adorned with little painted pictures
   of cherubs with the ruddy complexions of tradition. Hence the
   comparison.]

   XXVI

   But my Onéguine the whole eve
   Within his mind Tattiana bore,
   Not the young timid maid, believe,
   Enamoured, simple-minded, poor,
   But the indifferent princess,
   Divinity without access
   Of the imperial Neva’s shore.
   O Men, how very like ye are
   To Eve the universal mother,
   Possession hath no power to please,
   The serpent to unlawful trees
   Aye bids ye in some way or other—
   Unless forbidden fruit we eat,
   Our paradise is no more sweet.

   XXVII

   Ah! how Tattiana was transformed,
   How thoroughly her part she took!
   How soon to habits she conformed
   Which crushing dignity must brook!
   Who would the maiden innocent
   In the unmoved, magnificent
   Autocrat of the drawing-room seek?
   And he had made her heart beat quick!
   ’Twas he whom, amid nightly shades,
   Whilst Morpheus his approach delays,
   She mourned and to the moon would raise
   The languid eye of love-sick maids,
   Dreaming perchance in weal or woe
   To end with him her path below.

   XXVIII

   To Love all ages lowly bend,
   But the young unpolluted heart
   His gusts should fertilize, amend,
   As vernal storms the fields athwart.
   Youth freshens beneath Passion’s showers,
   Develops and matures its powers,
   And thus in season the rich field
   Gay flowers and luscious fruit doth yield.
   But at a later, sterile age,
   The solstice of our earthly years,
   Mournful Love’s deadly trace appears
   As storms which in chill autumn rage
   And leave a marsh the fertile ground
   And devastate the woods around.

   XXIX

   There was no doubt! Eugene, alas!
   Tattiana loved as when a lad,
   Both day and night he now must pass
   In love-lorn meditation sad.
   Careless of every social rule,
   The crystals of her vestibule
   He daily in his drives drew near
   And like a shadow haunted her.
   Enraptured was he if allowed
   To swathe her shoulders in the furs,
   If his hot hand encountered hers,
   Or he dispersed the motley crowd
   Of lackeys in her pathway grouped,
   Or to pick up her kerchief stooped.

   XXX

   She seemed of him oblivious,
   Despite the anguish of his breast,
   Received him freely at her house,
   At times three words to him addressed
   In company, or simply bowed,
   Or recognized not in the crowd.
   No coquetry was there, I vouch—
   Society endures not such!
   Onéguine’s cheek grew ashy pale,
   Either she saw not or ignored;
   Onéguine wasted; on my word,
   Already he grew phthisical.
   All to the doctors Eugene send,
   And they the waters recommend.

   XXXI

   He went not—sooner was prepared
   To write his forefathers to warn
   Of his approach; but nothing cared
   Tattiana—thus the sex is born.—
   He obstinately will remain,
   Still hopes, endeavours, though in vain.
   Sickness more courage doth command
   Than health, so with a trembling hand
   A love epistle he doth scrawl.
   Though correspondence as a rule
   He used to hate—and was no fool—
   Yet suffering emotional
   Had rendered him an invalid;
   But word for word his letter read.

   Onéguine’s Letter to Tattiana

   All is foreseen. My secret drear
   Will sound an insult in your ear.
   What acrimonious scorn I trace
   Depicted on your haughty face!
   What do I ask? What cause assigned
   That I to you reveal my mind?
   To what malicious merriment,
   It may be, I yield nutriment!

   Meeting you in times past by chance,
   Warmth I imagined in your glance,
   But, knowing not the actual truth,
   Restrained the impulses of youth;
   Also my wretched liberty
   I would not part with finally;
   This separated us as well—
   Lenski, unhappy victim, fell,
   From everything the heart held dear
   I then resolved my heart to tear;
   Unknown to all, without a tie,
   I thought—retirement, liberty,
   Will happiness replace. My God!
   How I have erred and felt the rod!

   No, ever to behold your face,
   To follow you in every place,
   Your smiling lips, your beaming eyes,
   To watch with lovers’ ecstasies,
   Long listen, comprehend the whole
   Of your perfections in my soul,
   Before you agonized to die—
   This, this were true felicity!

   But such is not for me. I brood
   Daily of love in solitude.
   My days of life approach their end,
   Yet I in idleness expend
   The remnant destiny concedes,
   And thus each stubbornly proceeds.
   I feel, allotted is my span;
   But, that life longer may remain,
   At morn I must assuredly
   Know that thy face that day I see.

   I tremble lest my humble prayer
   You with stern countenance declare
   The artifice of villany—
   I hear your harsh, reproachful cry.
   If ye but knew how dreadful ’tis
   To bear love’s parching agonies—
   To burn, yet reason keep awake
   The fever of the blood to slake—
   A passionate desire to bend
   And, sobbing at your feet, to blend
   Entreaties, woes and prayers, confess
   All that the heart would fain express—
   Yet with a feigned frigidity
   To arm the tongue and e’en the eye,
   To be in conversation clear
   And happy unto you appear.

   So be it! But internal strife
   I cannot longer wage concealed.
   The die is cast! Thine is my life!
   Into thy hands my fate I yield!

   XXXII

   No answer! He another sent.
   Epistle second, note the third,
   Remained unnoticed. Once he went
   To an assembly—she appeared
   Just as he entered. How severe!
   She will not see, she will not hear.
   Alas! she is as hard, behold,
   And frosty as a Twelfth Night cold.
   Oh, how her lips compressed restrain
   The indignation of her heart!
   A sidelong look doth Eugene dart:
   Where, where, remorse, compassion, pain?
   Where, where, the trace of tears? None, none!
   Upon her brow sits wrath alone—

   XXXIII

   And it may be a secret dread
   Lest the world or her lord divine
   A certain little escapade
   Well known unto Onéguine mine.
   ’Tis hopeless! Homeward doth he flee
   Cursing his own stupidity,
   And brooding o’er the ills he bore,
   Society renounced once more.
   Then in the silent cabinet
   He in imagination saw
   The time when Melancholy’s claw
   ’Mid worldly pleasures chased him yet,
   Caught him and by the collar took
   And shut him in a lonely nook.

   XXXIV

   He read as vainly as before,
   Perusing Gibbon and Rousseau,
   Manzoni, Herder and Chamfort,(85)
   Madame de Stael, Bichat, Tissot:
   He read the unbelieving Bayle,
   Also the works of Fontenelle,
   Some Russian authors he perused—
   Nought in the universe refused:
   Nor almanacs nor newspapers,
   Which lessons unto us repeat,
   Wherein I castigation get;
   And where a madrigal occurs
   Writ in my honour now and then—
   E sempre bene, gentlemen!

   [Note 85: Owing to the unstable nature of fame the names of some
   of the above literary worthies necessitate reference at this
   period in the nineteenth century.

   Johann Gottfried von Herder, b. 1744, d. 1803, a German
   philosopher, philanthropist and author, was the personal friend
   of Goethe and held the poet of court chaplain at Weimar. His chief
   work is entitled, “Ideas for a Philosophy of the History of
   Mankind,” in 4 vols.

   Sebastien Roch Nicholas Chamfort, b. 1741, d. 1794, was a French
   novelist and dramatist of the Revolution, who contrary to his
   real wishes became entangled in its meshes. He exercised a
   considerable influence over certain of its leaders, notably
   Mirabeau and Sieyès. He is said to have originated the title of
   the celebrated tract from the pen of the latter. “What is the
   Tiers Etat? Nothing. What ought it to be? Everything.” He
   ultimately experienced the common destiny in those days, was thrown
   into prison and though shortly afterwards released, his
   incarceration had such an effect upon his mind that he committed
   suicide.

   Marie Francois Xavier Bichat, b. 1771, d. 1802, a French anatomist
   and physiologist of eminence. His principal works are a “Traité
   des Membranes,” “Anatomie générale appliquée à la Physiologie et à
   la Médecine,” and “Recherches Physiologiques sur la Vie et la
   Mort.” He died at an early age from constant exposure to noxious
   exhalations during his researches.

   Pierre Francois Tissot, b. 1768, d. 1864, a French writer of the
   Revolution and Empire. In 1812 he was appointed by Napoleon editor
   of the Gazette de France. He wrote histories of the Revolution,
   of Napoleon and of France. He was likewise a poet and author of a
   work entitled “Les trois Irlandais Conjurés, ou l’ombre d’Emmet,”
   and is believed to have edited Foy’s “History of the Peninsular
   War.”

   The above catalogue by its heterogeneous composition gives a fair
   idea of the intellectual movement in Russia from the Empress
   Catherine the Second downwards. It is characterized by a feverish
   thirst for encyclopaedic knowledge without a corresponding power
   of assimilation.]

   XXXV

   But what results? His eyes peruse
   But thoughts meander far away—
   Ideas, desires and woes confuse
   His intellect in close array.
   His eyes, the printed lines betwixt,
   On lines invisible are fixt;
   ’Twas these he read and these alone
   His spirit was intent upon.
   They were the wonderful traditions
   Of kindly, dim antiquity,
   Dreams with no continuity,
   Prophecies, threats and apparitions,
   The lively trash of stories long
   Or letters of a maiden young.

   XXXVI

   And by degrees upon him grew
   A lethargy of sense, a trance,
   And soon imagination threw
   Before him her wild game of chance.
   And now upon the snow in thaw
   A young man motionless he saw,
   As one who bivouacs afield,
   And heard a voice cry—Why! He’s killed!—
   And now he views forgotten foes,
   Poltroons and men of slanderous tongue,
   Bevies of treacherous maidens young;
   Of thankless friends the circle rose,
   A mansion—by the window, see!
   She sits alone—’tis ever she!

   XXXVII

   So frequently his mind would stray
   He well-nigh lost the use of sense,
   Almost became a poet say—
   Oh! what had been his eminence!
   Indeed, by force of magnetism
   A Russian poem’s mechanism
   My scholar without aptitude
   At this time almost understood.
   How like a poet was my chum
   When, sitting by his fire alone
   Whilst cheerily the embers shone,
   He “Benedetta” used to hum,
   Or “Idol mio,” and in the grate
   Would lose his slippers or gazette.

   XXXVIII

   Time flies! a genial air abroad,
   Winter resigned her empire white,
   Onéguine ne’er as poet showed
   Nor died nor lost his senses quite.
   Spring cheered him up, and he resigned
   His chambers close wherein confined
   He marmot-like did hibernate,
   His double sashes and his grate,
   And sallied forth one brilliant morn—
   Along the Neva’s bank he sleighs,
   On the blue blocks of ice the rays
   Of the sun glisten; muddy, worn,
   The snow upon the streets doth melt—
   Whither along them doth he pelt?

   XXXIX

   Onéguine whither gallops? Ye
   Have guessed already. Yes, quite so!
   Unto his own Tattiana he,
   Incorrigible rogue, doth go.
   Her house he enters, ghastly white,
   The vestibule finds empty quite—
   He enters the saloon. ’Tis blank!
   A door he opens. But why shrank
   He back as from a sudden blow?—
   Alone the princess sitteth there,
   Pallid and with dishevelled hair,
   Gazing upon a note below.
   Her tears flow plentifully and
   Her cheek reclines upon her hand.

   XL

   Oh! who her speechless agonies
   Could not in that brief moment guess!
   Who now could fail to recognize
   Tattiana in the young princess!
   Tortured by pangs of wild regret,
   Eugene fell prostrate at her feet—
   She starts, nor doth a word express,
   But gazes on Onéguine’s face
   Without amaze or wrath displayed:
   His sunken eye and aspect faint,
   Imploring looks and mute complaint
   She comprehends. The simple maid
   By fond illusions once possest
   Is once again made manifest.

   XLI

   His kneeling posture he retains—
   Calmly her eyes encounter his—
   Insensible her hand remains
   Beneath his lips’ devouring kiss.
   What visions then her fancy thronged—
   A breathless silence then, prolonged—
   But finally she softly said:
   “Enough, arise! for much we need
   Without disguise ourselves explain.
   Onéguine, hast forgotten yet
   The hour when—Fate so willed—we met
   In the lone garden and the lane?
   How meekly then I heard you preach—
   To-day it is my turn to teach.

   XLII

   “Onéguine, I was younger then,
   And better, if I judge aright;
   I loved you—what did I obtain?
   Affection how did you requite?
   But with austerity!—for you
   No novelty—is it not true?—
   Was the meek love a maiden feels.
   But now—my very blood congeals,
   Calling to mind your icy look
   And sermon—but in that dread hour
   I blame not your behaviour—
   An honourable course ye took,
   Displayed a noble rectitude—
   My soul is filled with gratitude!

   XLIII

   “Then, in the country, is’t not true?
   And far removed from rumour vain;
   I did not please you. Why pursue
   Me now, inflict upon me pain?—
   Wherefore am I your quarry held?—
   Is it that I am now compelled
   To move in fashionable life,
   That I am rich, a prince’s wife?—
   Because my lord, in battles maimed,
   Is petted by the Emperor?—
   That my dishonour would ensure
   A notoriety proclaimed,
   And in society might shed
   A bastard fame prohibited?

   XLIV

   “I weep. And if within your breast
   My image hath not disappeared,
   Know that your sarcasm ill-suppressed,
   Your conversation cold and hard,
   If the choice in my power were,
   To lawless love I should prefer—
   And to these letters and these tears.
   For visions of my childish years
   Then ye were barely generous,
   Age immature averse to cheat—
   But now—what brings you to my feet?—
   How mean, how pusillanimous!
   A prudent man like you and brave
   To shallow sentiment a slave!

   XLV

   “Onéguine, all this sumptuousness,
   The gilding of life’s vanities,
   In the world’s vortex my success,
   My splendid house and gaieties—
   What are they? Gladly would I yield
   This life in masquerade concealed,
   This glitter, riot, emptiness,
   For my wild garden and bookcase,—
   Yes! for our unpretending home,
   Onéguine—the beloved place
   Where the first time I saw your face,—
   Or for the solitary tomb
   Wherein my poor old nurse doth lie
   Beneath a cross and shrubbery.

   XLVI

   “’Twas possible then, happiness—
   Nay, near—but destiny decreed—
   My lot is fixed—with thoughtlessness
   It may be that I did proceed—
   With bitter tears my mother prayed,
   And for Tattiana, mournful maid,
   Indifferent was her future fate.
   I married—now, I supplicate—
   For ever your Tattiana leave.
   Your heart possesses, I know well,
   Honour and pride inflexible.
   I love you—to what end deceive?—
   But I am now another’s bride—
   For ever faithful will abide.”

   XLVII

   She rose—departed. But Eugene
   Stood as if struck by lightning fire.
   What a storm of emotions keen
   Raged round him and of balked desire!
   And hark! the clank of spurs is heard
   And Tania’s husband soon appeared.—
   But now our hero we must leave
   Just at a moment which I grieve
   Must be pronounced unfortunate—
   For long—for ever. To be sure
   Together we have wandered o’er
   The world enough. Congratulate
   Each other as the shore we climb!
   Hurrah! it long ago was time!

   XLVIII

   Reader, whoever thou mayst be,
   Foeman or friend, I do aspire
   To part in amity with thee!
   Adieu! whate’er thou didst desire
   From careless stanzas such as these,
   Of passion reminiscences,
   Pictures of the amusing scene,
   Repose from labour, satire keen,
   Or faults of grammar on its page—
   God grant that all who herein glance,
   In serious mood or dalliance
   Or in a squabble to engage,
   May find a crumb to satisfy.
   Now we must separate. Good-bye!

   XLIX

   And farewell thou, my gloomy friend,
   Thou also, my ideal true,
   And thou, persistent to the end,
   My little book. With thee I knew
   All that a poet could desire,
   Oblivion of life’s tempest dire,
   Of friends the grateful intercourse—
   Oh, many a year hath run its course
   Since I beheld Eugene and young
   Tattiana in a misty dream,
   And my romance’s open theme
   Glittered in a perspective long,
   And I discerned through Fancy’s prism
   Distinctly not its mechanism.

   L

   But ye to whom, when friendship heard,
   The first-fruits of my tale I read,
   As Saadi anciently averred—(86)
   Some are afar and some are dead.
   Without them Eugene is complete;
   And thou, from whom Tattiana sweet;
   Was drawn, ideal of my lay—
   Ah! what hath fate not torn away!
   Happy who quit life’s banquet seat
   Before the dregs they shall divine
   Of the cup brimming o’er with wine—
   Who the romance do not complete,
   But who abandon it—as I
   Have my Onéguine—suddenly.

   [Note 86: The celebrated Persian poet. Pushkin uses the passage
   referred to as an epigraph to the “Fountain of Baktchiserai.” It
   runs thus: “Many, even as I, visited that fountain, but some of
   these are dead and some have journeyed afar.” Saadi was born in
   1189 at Shiraz and was a reputed descendant from Ali, Mahomet’s
   son-in-law. In his youth he was a soldier, was taken prisoner by
   the Crusaders and forced to work in the ditches of Tripoli,
   whence he was ransomed by a merchant whose daughter he subsequently
   married. He did not commence writing till an advanced age. His
   principal work is the “Gulistan,” or “Rose Garden,” a work which
   has been translated into almost every European tongue.]

   End of Canto The Eighth

The End

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Eugene Oneguine [Onegin]

EUGENE ONÉGUINE [Onegin]:

A Romance of Russian Life in Verse

By Alexander Pushkin

Translated from the Russian by Lieut.-Col. [Henry] Spalding

London: Macmillan and Co.

1881

PREFACE

MON PORTRAIT

Written by the poet at the age of 15.