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CHAPTER ONE

To live it hurries and to feel it hastes.

Prince Vyazemski

CHAPTER TWO

O rus!

Horace

O Rus'!

CHAPTER THREE

Elle était fille; elle était amoureuse.

Malfilâtre

I

   “Whither? Ah me, those poets!”    “Good-by, Onegin. Time for me to leave.”    “I do not hold you, but where do   you spend your evenings?” “At the Larins'.”    “Now, that's a fine thing. Mercy, man —    and you don't find it difficult    thus every evening to kill time?”   “Not in the least.” “I cannot understand.    From here I see what it is like:    first — listen, am I right? —    a simple Russian family,  a great solicitude for guests,    jam, never-ending talk    of rain, of flax, of cattle yard.”

II

   “So far I do not see what's bad about it.”    “Ah, but the boredom — that is bad, my friend.”    “Your fashionable world I hate;   dearer to me is the domestic circle    in which I can…” “Again an eclogue!    Ah, that will do, old boy, for goodness' sake.    Well, so you're off; I'm very sorry.   Oh, Lenski, listen — is there any way    for me to see this Phyllis,    subject of thoughts, and pen,    and tears, and rhymes, et cetera?  Present me.” “You are joking.” “No.”    “I'd gladly.” “When?” “Now, if you like.    They will be eager to receive us.”

III

   “Let's go.” And off the two friends drove;    they have arrived; on them are lavished    the sometimes onerous attentions   of hospitable ancientry.    The ritual of the treat is known:    in little dishes jams are brought,    on an oilcloth'd small table there is set   a jug of lingonberry water.    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

IV

   They by the shortest road    fly home at full career.    Now let us eavesdrop furtively   upon our heroes' conversation.    “Well now, Onegin, you are yawning.”    “A habit, Lenski.” “But somehow    you are more bored than ever.” “No, the same.   I say, it's dark already in the field;    faster! come on, come on, Andryushka!    What silly country!    Ah, apropos: Dame Larin  is simple but a very nice old lady;    I fear that lingonberry water    may not unlikely do me harm.

V

   “Tell me, which was Tatiana?”    “Oh, she's the one who, sad    and silent like Svetlana,   came in and sat down by the window.”    “Can it be it's the younger one    that you're in love with?” “Why not?” “I'd have chosen    the other, had I been like you a poet.   In Olga's features there's no life,    just as in a Vandyke Madonna:    she's round and fair of face    as is that silly moon  up in that silly sky.”    Vladimir answered curtly    and thenceforth the whole way was silent.

VI

   Meanwhile Onegin's apparition    at the Larins' produced    on everyone a great impression   and regaled all the neighbors.    Conjecture on conjecture followed.    All started furtively to talk,    to joke, to comment not without some malice,   a suitor for Tatiana to assign.    Some folks asserted even that    the wedding was quite settled,    but had been stayed because  of fashionable rings' not being got.    Concerning Lenski's wedding, long ago    they had it all arranged.

VII

   Tatiana listened with vexation    to gossip of that sort; but secretly    she with ineffable elation   could not help thinking of it;    and the thought sank into her heart;    the time had come — she fell in love.    Thus, dropped into the earth, a seed   is quickened by the fire of spring.    For long had her imagination,    consumed with mollitude and anguish,    craved for the fatal food;  for long had the heart's languishment    constrained her youthful bosom;    her soul waited — for somebody.

VIII

   And not in vain it waited. Her eyes opened;    she said: “'Tis he!”    Alas! now both the days and nights,   and hot, lone sleep,    all's full of him; to the dear girl    unceasingly with magic force    all speaks of him. To her are tedious   alike the sounds of friendly speeches    and the gaze of assiduous servants.    Immersed in gloom,    to visitors she does not listen,  and imprecates their leisures,    their unexpected    arrival and protracted sitting down.

IX

   With what attention does she now    read some delicious novel,    with what vivid enchantment   imbibe the ravishing illusion!    Creations by the happy power    of dreaming animated,    the lover of Julie Wolmar,   Malek-Adhel, and de Linar,    and Werther, restless martyr,    and the inimitable Grandison,    who brings upon us somnolence —  all for the tender, dreamy girl    have been invested with a single image,    have in Onegin merged alone.

X

   Imagining herself the heroine    of her beloved authors —    Clarissa, Julia, Delphine —   Tatiana in the stillness of the woods    alone roams with a dangerous book;    in it she seeks and finds    her secret ardency, her dreams,   the fruits of the heart's fullness;    she sighs, and having made her own    another's ecstasy, another's woe,    she whispers in a trance, by heart,  a letter to the amiable hero.    But our hero, whoever he might be,    was certainly no Grandison.

XI

   His style to a grave strain having attuned,    time was, a fervid author    used to present to us   his hero as a model of perfection.    He'd furnish the loved object —    always iniquitously persecuted —    with a sensitive soul, intelligence,   and an attractive face.    Nursing the ardor of the purest passion,    the always enthusiastic hero    was ready for self-sacrifice,  and by the end of the last part, vice always    got punished,    and virtue got a worthy crown.

XII

   But nowadays all minds are in a mist,    a moral brings upon us somnolence,    vice is attractive in a novel, too,   and there, at least, it triumphs.    The fables of the British Muse    disturb the young girl's sleep,    and now her idol has become   either the pensive Vampyre,    or Melmoth, gloomy vagabond,    or the Wandering Jew, or the Corsair,    or the mysterious Sbogar.  Lord Byron, by an opportune caprice,    in woebegone romanticism    draped even hopeless egotism.

XIII

   My friends, what sense is there in this?    Perhaps, by heaven's will,    I'll cease to be a poet; a new demon   will enter into me;    and having scorned the threats of Phoebus,    I shall descend to humble prose:    a novel in the ancient strain   will then engage my gay decline.    There, not the secret pangs of crime    shall I grimly depict,    but simply shall detail to you  the legends of a Russian family,    love's captivating dreams,    and manners of our ancientry.

XIV

   I shall detail a father's, an old uncle's,    plain speeches; the assigned    trysts of the children   by the old limes, by the small brook;    the throes of wretched jealousy,    parting, reconciliation's tears;    once more I'll have them quarrel, and at last   conduct them to the altar. I'll recall    the accents of impassioned languish,    the words of aching love,    which in days bygone at the feet  of a fair mistress    came to my tongue;    from which I now have grown disused.

XV

   Tatiana, dear Tatiana!    I now shed tears with you.    Into a fashionable tyrant's hands   your fate already you've relinquished.    Dear, you shall perish; but before,    in dazzling hope,    you summon somber bliss,   you learn the dulcitude of life,    you quaff the magic poison of desires,    daydreams pursue you:    you fancy everywhere  retreats for happy trysts;    everywhere, everywhere before you,    is your fateful enticer.

XVI

   The ache of love chases Tatiana,    and to the garden she repairs to brood,    and all at once her moveless eyes she lowers   and is too indolent farther to step;    her bosom has risen, her cheeks    are covered with an instant flame,    her breath has died upon her lips,   and there's a singing in her ears, a flashing    before her eyes. Night comes; the moon    patrols the distant vault of heaven,    and in the gloam of trees the nightingale  intones sonorous chants.    Tatiana in the darkness does not sleep    and in low tones talks with her nurse.

XVII

   “I can't sleep, nurse: 'tis here so stuffy!    Open the window and sit down by me.”    “Why, Tanya, what's the matter with you?” “I am dull.   Let's talk about old days.”    “Well, what about them, Tanya? Time was, I    stored in my memory no dearth    of ancient haps and never-haps   about dire sprites and about maidens;    but everything to me is dark now, Tanya:    I have forgotten what I knew. Yes, things    have come now to a sorry pass!  I'm all befuddled.” “Nurse,    tell me about your old times. Were you then    in love?”

XVIII

   “Oh, come, come, Tanya! In those years    we never heard of love;    elsewise my late mother-in-law   would have chased me right off the earth.”    “But how, then, were you wedded, nurse?”    “It looks as if God willed it so. My Vanya    was younger than myself, my sweet,   and I was thirteen. For two weeks or so    a woman matchmaker kept visiting    my kinsfolk, and at last    my father blessed me. Bitterly  I cried for fear; and, crying, they unbraided    my tress and, chanting,    they led me to the church.

XIX

   “And so I entered a strange family.    But you're not listening to me.”    “Oh, nurse, nurse, I feel dismal,   I'm sick at heart, my dear,    I'm on the point of crying, sobbing!”    “My child, you are not well;    the Lord have mercy upon us and save us!   What would you like, do ask.    Here, let me sprinkle you with holy water,    you're all a-burning.” “I'm not ill;    I'm... do you know, nurse... I'm in love.”  “My child, the Lord be with you!”    And, uttering a prayer, the nurse    crossed with decrepit hand the girl.

XX

   “I am in love,” anew she murmured    to the old woman mournfully.    “Sweetheart, you are not well.”   “Leave me. I am in love.”    And meantime the moon shone    and with dark light irradiated    the pale charms of Tatiana   and her loose hair,    and drops of tears, and, on a benchlet,    before the youthful heroine,    a kerchief on her hoary head, the little  old crone in a long “body warmer”;    and in the stillness everything    dozed by the inspirative moon.

XXI

   And far away Tatiana's heart was ranging    as she looked at the moon....    All of a sudden in her mind a thought was born....   “Go, let me be alone.    Give me, nurse, a pen, paper, and move up    the table; I shall soon lie down.    Good night.” Now she's alone,   all's still. The moon gives light to her.    Tatiana, leaning on her elbow, writes,    and Eugene's ever present in her mind,    and in an unconsidered letter  the love of an innocent maid breathes forth.    The letter now is ready, folded.    Tatiana! Whom, then, is it for?

XXII

   I've known belles inaccessible,    cold, winter-chaste;    inexorable, incorruptible,   unfathomable by the mind;    I marveled at their modish morgue,    at their natural virtue,    and, to be frank, I fled from them,   and I, meseems, with terror read    above their eyebrows Hell's inscription:    “Abandon hope for evermore!”    To inspire love is bale for them,  to frighten folks for them is joyance.    Perhaps, on the banks of the Neva    similar ladies you have seen.

XXIII

   Amidst obedient admirers,    other odd females I have seen,    conceitedly indifferent   to sighs impassioned and to praise.    But what, to my amazement, did I find?    While, by austere demeanor,    they frightened timid love,   they had the knack of winning it again,    at least by their condolence;    at least the sound of spoken words    sometimes would seem more tender,  and with credulous blindness    again the youthful lover    pursued sweet vanity.

XXIV

   Why is Tatiana, then, more guilty?    Is it because in sweet simplicity    deceit she knows not and believes   in her elected dream?    Is it because she loves without art, being    obedient to the bent of feeling?    Is it because she is so trustful   and is endowed by heaven    with a restless imagination,    intelligence, and a live will,    and headstrongness,  and a flaming and tender heart?    Are you not going to forgive her    the thoughtlessness of passions?

XXV

   The coquette reasons coolly;    Tatiana in dead earnest loves    and unconditionally yields   to love like a sweet child.    She does not say: Let us defer;    thereby we shall augment love's value,    inveigle into toils more surely;   let us first prick vainglory    with hope; then with perplexity    exhaust a heart, and then    revive it with a jealous fire,  for otherwise, cloyed with delight,    the cunning captive from his shackles    hourly is ready to escape.

XXVI

   Another problem I foresee:    saving the honor of my native land,    undoubtedly I shall have to translate   Tatiana's letter. She    knew Russian badly,    did not read our reviews,    and in her native tongue expressed herself   with difficulty. So,    she wrote in French.    What's to be done about it! I repeat again;    as yet a lady's love  has not expressed itself in Russian,    as yet our proud tongue has not got accustomed    to postal prose.

XXVII

   I know: some would make ladies    read Russian. Horrible indeed!    Can I image them   with The Well-Meaner in their hands?    My poets, I appeal to you!    Is it not true that the sweet objects    for whom, to expiate your sins,   in secret you wrote verses,    to whom your hearts you dedicated —    did not they all, wielding the Russian language    poorly, and with difficulty,  so sweetly garble it,    and on their lips did not a foreign language    become a native one?

XXVIII

   The Lord forbid my meeting at a ball    or at its breakup, on the porch,    a seminarian in a yellow shawl   or an Academician in a bonnet!    As vermeil lips without a smile,    without grammatical mistakes    I don't like Russian speech.   Perchance (it would be my undoing!)    a generation of new belles,    heeding the magazines' entreating voice,    to Grammar will accustom us;  verses will be brought into use.    Yet I... what do I care?    I shall be true to ancientry.

XXIX

   An incorrect and careless patter,    an inexact delivery of words,    as heretofore a flutter of the heart   will in my breast produce;    in me there's no force to repent;    to me will Gallicisms remain    as sweet as the sins of past youth,   as Bogdanóvich's verse.    But that will do. 'Tis time I busied    myself with my fair damsel's letter;    my word I've given — and what now? Yea, yea!  I'm ready to back out of it.    I know: tender Parny's    pen in our days is out of fashion.

XXX

   Bard of The Feasts and languorous sadness,    if you were still with me,    I would have troubled you,   dear fellow, with an indiscreet request:    that into magic melodies    you would transpose    a passionate maiden's foreign words.   Where are you? Come! My rights    I with a bow transfer to you....    But in the midst of melancholy rocks,    his heart disused from praises,  alone, under the Finnish sky    he wanders, and his soul    hears not my worry.

XXXI

   Tatiana's letter is before me;    religiously I keep it;    I read it with a secret heartache   and cannot get my fill of reading it.    Who taught her both this tenderness    and amiable carelessness of words?    Who taught her all that touching tosh,   mad conversation of the heart    both fascinating and injurious?    I cannot understand. But here's    an incomplete, feeble translation,  the pallid copy of a vivid picture,    or Freischütz executed by the fingers    of timid female learners.

Tatiana's Letter To Onegin

   I write to you — what would one more?    What else is there that I could say?    'Tis now, I know, within your will   to punish me with scorn.    But you, preserving for my hapless lot    at least one drop of pity,    you'll not abandon me.   At first, I wanted to be silent;    believe me: of my shame    you never would have known    if I had had the hope but seldom,  but once a week,    to see you at our country place,    only to hear you speak,    to say a word to you, and then  to think and think about one thing,    both day and night, till a new meeting.    But, they say, you're unsociable;    in backwoods, in the country, all bores you,  while we... in no way do we shine,    though simpleheartedly we welcome you.    Why did you visit us?    In the backwoods of a forgotten village,  I would have never known you    nor have known this bitter torment.    The turmoil of an inexperienced soul    having subdued with time (who knows?),  I would have found a friend after my heart,    have been a faithful wife    and a virtuous mother.    Another!... No, to nobody on earth  would I have given my heart away!    That has been destined in a higher council,    that is the will of heaven: I am thine;    my entire life has been the gage  of a sure tryst with you;    I know that you are sent to me by God,    you are my guardian to the tomb....    You had appeared to me in dreams,  unseen, you were already dear to me,    your wondrous glance would trouble me,    your voice resounded in my soul    long since.... No, it was not a dream!  Scarce had you entered, instantly I knew you,    I felt all faint, I felt aflame,    and in my thoughts I uttered: It is he!    Is it not true that it was you I heard:  you in the stillness spoke to me    when I would help the poor    or assuage with a prayer    the anguish of my agitated soul?  And even at this very moment    was it not you, dear vision,    that slipped through the transparent darkness    and gently bent close to my bed head?  Was it not you that with delight and love    did whisper words of hope to me?    Who are you? My guardian angel    or a perfidious tempter?  Resolve my doubts.    Perhaps, 'tis nonsense all,    an inexperienced soul's delusion, and there's destined    something quite different....  But so be it! My fate    henceforth I place into your hands,    before you I shed tears,    for your defense I plead.  Imagine: I am here alone,    none understands me,    my reason sinks,    and, silent, I must perish.  I wait for you: revive    my heart's hopes with a single look    or interrupt the heavy dream    with a rebuke — alas, deserved!  I close. I dread to read this over.    I'm faint with shame and fear... But to me    your honor is a pledge,    and boldly I entrust myself to it.

XXXII

   By turns Tatiana sighs and ohs.    The letter trembles in her hand;    the rosy wafer dries   upon her fevered tongue.    Her poor head shoulderward has sunk;    her light chemise    has slid down from her charming shoulder.   But now the moonbeam's radiance    already fades. Anon the valley    grows through the vapor clear. Anon the stream    starts silvering. Anon the herdsman's horn  wakes up the villager.    Here's morning; all have risen long ago:    to my Tatiana it is all the same.

XXXIII

   She takes no notice of the sunrise;    she sits with lowered head    and on the letter does not   impress her graven seal.    But, softly opening the door,    now gray Filatievna brings her    tea on a tray.   “'Tis time, my child, get up;    why, pretty one,    you're ready! Oh, my early birdie!    I was so anxious yesternight —  but glory be to God, you're well!    No trace at all of the night's fret!    Your face is like a poppy flower.”

XXXIV

   “Oh, nurse, do me a favor.”    “Willingly, darling, order me.”    “Now do not think... Really... Suspicion...   But you see... Oh, do not refuse!”    “My dear, to you God is my pledge.”    “Well, send your grandson quietly    with this note to O… to that… to   the neighbor. And let him be told    that he ought not to say a word,    that he ought not to name me.”    “To whom, my precious?  I'm getting muddled nowadays.    Neighbors around are many; it's beyond me    even to count them over.”

XXXV

   “Oh, nurse, how slow-witted you are!”    “Sweetheart, I am already old,    I'm old; the mind gets blunted, Tanya;   but time was, I used to be sharp:    time was, one word of master's wish.”    “Oh, nurse, nurse, is this relevant?    What matters your intelligence to me?   You see, it is about a letter, to    Onegin.” “Well, this now makes sense.    Do not be cross with me, my soul;    I am, you know, not comprehensible.  But why have you turned pale again?”    “Never mind, nurse, 'tis really nothing.    Send, then, your grandson.”

XXXVI

   But the day lapsed, and there's no answer.    Another came up; nothing yet.    Pale as a shade, since morning dressed,   Tatiana waits: when will the answer come?    Olga's adorer drove up. “Tell me,    where's your companion?” was to him    the question of the lady of the house;   “He seems to have forgotten us entirely.”    Tatiana, flushing, quivered.    “He promised he would be today,”    Lenski replied to the old dame,  “but evidently the mail has detained him.”    Tatiana dropped her eyes    as if she'd heard a harsh rebuke.

XXXVII

   'Twas darkling; on the table, shining,    the evening samovar    hissed as it warmed the Chinese teapot;   light vapor undulated under it.    Poured out by Olga's hand,    into the cups, in a dark stream,    the fragrant tea already   ran, and a footboy served the cream;    Tatiana stood before the window;    breathing on the cold panes,    lost in thought, the dear soul  wrote with her charming finger    on the bemisted glass    the cherished monogram: an O and E.

XXXVIII

   And meantime her soul ached,    and full of tears was her languorous gaze.    Suddenly, hoof thuds! Her blood froze.   Now nearer! Coming fast... and in the yard    is Eugene! “Ach!” — and lighter than a shade    Tatiana skips into another hallway,    from porch outdoors, and straight into the garden;   she flies, flies — dares not    glance backward; in a moment has traversed    the platbands, little bridges, lawn,    the avenue to the lake, the bosquet;  she breaks the lilac bushes as she flies    across the flower plots to the brook,    and, panting, on a bench

XXXIX

   she drops. “He's here! Eugene is here!    Good God, what did he think!”    Her heart, full of torments, retains   an obscure dream of hope;    she trembles, and she hotly glows, and waits:    does he not come? But hears not. In the orchard    girl servants, on the beds,   were picking berries in the bushes    and singing by decree in chorus    (a decree based on that    sly mouths would not in secret  eat the seignioral berry    and would be occupied by singing; a device    of rural wit!):

The Song Of The Girls

   Maidens, pretty maidens,    darling girl companions,    romp unhindered, maidens,   have your fling, my dears!    Start to sing a ditty,    sing our private ditty,    and allure a fellow   to our choral dance.    When we lure a fellow,    when afar we see him,    let us scatter, dearies,  pelting him with cherries,    cherries and raspberries,    and red currants too.    “Do not come eavesdropping  on our private ditties,    do not come a-spying    on our girlish games!”

XL

   They sing; and carelessly    attending to their ringing voice,    Tatiana with impatience waits   for the heart's tremor to subside in her,    for her cheeks to cease flaming;    but in her breasts there's the same trepidation,    nor ceases the glow of her cheeks:   yet brighter, brighter do they burn.    Thus a poor butterfly both flashes    and beats an iridescent wing,    captured by a school prankster; thus  a small hare trembles in the winter corn    upon suddenly seeing from afar    the shotman in the bushes crouch.

XLI

   But finally she sighed    and from her bench arose;    started to go; but hardly had she turned   into the avenue when straight before her,    eyes blazing, Eugene    stood, similar to some grim shade,    and as one seared by fire   she stopped.    But to detail the consequences    of this unlooked-for meeting I, dear friends,    have not the strength today;  after this long discourse I need    a little jaunt, a little rest;    some other time I'll tell the rest.