Eugene Onegin

  Listened to Eugene’s homily.

  He gave his arm with some compassion.

  Mechanically (the word in fashion)

  She leaned upon it, silent, sad,

  Bending her languid little head;

  Returning round the kitchen garden,

  Together they arrived, and none

  With disapproval looked thereon:

  The country has its rules regarding

  A person’s liberty and rights

  No less than haughty Muscovites.

  18

  You will agree with me, my reader,

  Our friend respected Tanya’s plight

  And was not tempted to mislead her;

  His soul showed here in noble light

  Not for the first time; though ill-wishers

  Were unreservedly malicious,

  Finding him wholly dissolute:

  His enemies, and friends to boot,

  (Perhaps there’s not so great a difference)

  Upbraided him that way and this.

  I fear those friends who seek to please.

  Oh give me enemies in preference!

  What friends are these, if friends at all,

  Whom for good reason I recall!

  19

  What then? Oh nothing. I’m just laying

  Empty and gloomy dreams to rest;

  It’s only by the by I’m saying

  That once a slander gets expressed

  By some foul liar in a garret

  To whom the monde awards a carrot,

  That there is no absurdity,

  No epigram’s vulgarity,

  That those good folk whom you’ve befriended

  Would not repeat a hundred times,

  With errors and distasteful rhymes,

  And smile with malice unintended;

  Yet they are yours through thick and thin,

  They love you… like your kith and kin.

  20

  Hm! Hm! I ask you, noble reader,

  Are all your kindred healthy, well?

  Allow me: you perhaps may need a

  Lesson from me on how to tell

  Just what is meant by kinsfolk really.

  By kinsfolk, then, is meant ideally:

  The folk whom we do not neglect,

  But love and cosset with respect,

  And, following the rules obtaining,

  At Christmas visit or, if not,

  By post congratulate the lot,

  So that throughout the year remaining

  They will not think of us… and may

  God grant them life for many a day!

  21

  The love you get from tender beauties

  Is surer than from kin or friend:

  However turbulent its duties,

  Your rights are honoured in the end.

  That’s so. But then there’s whirling fashion

  And nature’s wayward disposition,

  And what the monde thinks is enough…

  And our sweet sex is light as fluff.

  And then, it is to be expected

  That virtuous wives will all be true

  To husbandly opinions, too;

  Your faithful mistress has defected

  Before you know it: love’s a joke

  That Satan plays on gentlefolk.

  22

  Whom then to love? Whom to have faith in?

  Who can there be who won’t betray?

  Who’ll judge a deed or disputation

  Obligingly by what we say?

  Who’ll not bestrew our path with slander?

  Who’ll cosset us with care and candour?

  Who’ll look benignly on our vice?

  Who’ll never bore us with his sighs?

  Oh, ineffectual phantom seeker,

  You waste your energy in vain:

  Love your own self, be your own man,

  My worthy, venerable reader!

  A worthwhile object: surely who

  Could be more lovable than you?

  23

  What followed on from the encounter?

  Alas, it is not hard to guess!

  Love’s pangs continued to torment her,

  Continued to inflict distress

  Upon a young soul craving sadness;

  No, in her passion near to madness

  Still more does poor Tatiana burn;

  Sleep shuns her bed, will not return;

  Health, bloom of life that sweetly flowers,

  Smile, virginal repose and peace –

  All, like an empty echo cease.

  On Tanya’s youth a darkness lowers;

  Thus does the shadow of a storm

  Enshroud a day that’s scarcely born.

  24

  Alas, Tatiana’s fading, waning;

  Grows pale, is wasting, does not speak!

  There is no joy for her remaining,

  Nothing to make her soul less bleak.

  Shaking their heads, the neighbours gather,

  Whispering gravely to each other:

  ‘It’s high time that we married her!’

  But that will do. I much prefer

  To cheer up the imagination

  With pictures of a happy love,

  And from this sad one take my leave.

  I cannot help, though, my compassion;

  Forgive: I love Tatiana so,

  It’s hard for me to let her go.

  25

  From hour to hour with still more rapture

  For Olga, young and beautiful,

  Vladimir to delightful capture

  Surrendered now with all his soul.

  He’s constantly beside her, whether

  In darkness in their room together

  Or in the garden, arm in arm,

  Wandering in the morning calm.

  What then? By love intoxicated,

  Bewildered by a tender shame,

  He only dares from time to time,

  By Olga’s smile invigorated,

  To play with an unravelled tress

  Or kiss the border of her dress.

  26

  He sometimes takes and reads out for her

  An edifying novel on

  The state of nature, which the author

  Knows better than Chateaubriand,2

  Meanwhile omitting certain sections

  (Inanities or pure confections

  Too dangerous for Olga’s age),

  And blushes as he turns the page.

  Sometimes, all company forsaking,

  They settle to a game of chess

  And, leaning on a table, guess

  What move the other may be making,

  And Lensky with a dreamy look

  Allows his pawn to take his rook.

  27

  At home or homewards, at all stages

  He’s with his Olga occupied,

  Upon an album’s fleeting pages

  He sketches pictures for his bride –

  Of rural prospects, small and simple,

  A gravestone, Aphrodite’s temple,

  Or draws a dove atop a lyre

  With pen and wash she might admire;

  On pages meant for recollections,

  Beneath the names already signed,

  He leaves a tender verse behind,

  Mute monument of his reflections,

  Of sudden thought the drawn-out trace,

  Still, after many years, in place.

  28

  Of course, you’ve more than once encountered

  The album of a country miss,

  Where all her girlfriends will have entered

  Their messages in every space.

  With orthographic imprecision,

  Unmetered verses, by tradition,

  In shortened or in lengthened line

  Betoken friendship’s loyal sign.

  Upon the first leaf you’ll be meeting

  Qu’écrirez-vous sur ces tablettes?

  And signed with toute à vous, Annette;3


  And on the last you will be reading:

  Whoever loves you more than I,

  Let them append here how and why.

  29

  You’ll find here, doubtless, on some pages

  Two hearts, a torch and tiny flowers;

  You’re bound to read here all the pledges

  Of love until the final hours;

  Some army poet here has scribbled

  A verselet, villainously ribald.

  In such an album, I confess,

  I, too, am glad to pen a verse,

  Secure in my presupposition

  That any zealous rot of mine

  Will merit a regard benign,

  And not the solemn inquisition

  Of those, who, with their wicked smile,

  Appraise my nonsense by its style.

  30

  But you, O miscellaneous volumes

  From every devil’s library,

  Magnificent, resplendent albums,

  A voguish rhymester’s calvary,

  In which Tolstoy4 with nimble touches

  Has plied his wonder-working brushes

  Or Baratynsky lent his lyre,

  May God consume you with his fire!

  Whenever, holding her in-quarto,

  Some brilliant lady comes to me,

  I shake with animosity,

  An epigram I’d fain resort to,

  Already stirring in my soul,

  But all they want’s a madrigal!5

  31

  It is not madrigals that Lensky

  In Olga’s album writes to please,

  His pen breathes love, his tender entry

  Refrains from frosty pleasantries;

  Olga alone holds his attention,

  All that concerns her, every mention:

  And, river-like, his elegies

  Flow forth aglow with verities.6

  Just so indeed, with like elation,

  Your heart, Yazykov,7 finds the room

  To sing of someone, God knows whom,

  And when the precious compilation

  Of all your elegies appears,

  They’ll show how fate has shaped your years.

  32

  But hush! I hear an awesome critic8

  Cry: ‘Drop your wreath of elegies,

  So miserable and pathetic,’

  And to us rhymesters bellow: ‘Cease

  Your whimpering and endless croaking

  About those times you keep invoking,

  Regretting what is past, what’s gone:

  Enough! Sing us another song!’

  ‘You’re right and you will surely steer us

  To trumpet, dagger and the mask,

  And with each one set us the task

  Of resurrecting dead ideas.

  Is that not so, friend?’ ‘Not a bit!

  No, gentlemen, write odes, that’s it,

  33

  Like those that praised our mighty nation,

  Like those established long ago…’

  ‘You mean an ode for each occasion?

  Oh come, friend, does it matter so?

  Remember in The Other Version9

  The satirist’s animadversion.

  Or has that versifier’s guile

  Replaced our rhymesters’ gloomy style?’

  ‘But elegies don’t have a moral,

  They’re aimless – that’s what makes one weep –

  Whereas an ode’s majestic sweep

  Is noble and…’ ‘Here’s cause to quarrel,

  But I’ll restrain myself before

  I make two ages go to war.’

  34

  To fame and freedom dedicated,

  Vladimir, when his spirits flowed,

  Could turn out something elevated,

  But Olga would not read an ode.

  When tearful poets have been suffered

  To read their work to a beloved

  And gaze into her eyes – they say

  There is no greater prize today.

  But blest is he with modest passion,

  Who reads to her for whom he longs,

  The object of his love and songs –

  A pleasant, languid belle in fashion!

  Blest, too… though, maybe, while he reads,

  She’s occupied with other needs.

  35

  When I want somebody to read to,

  To match a dream with tuneful phrase,

  It is my nurse that I pay heed to,

  Companion of my youthful days,

  Or, following a boring dinner,

  A neighbour comes in, whom I corner,

  Catch at his coat tails suddenly

  And choke him with a tragedy,

  Or (here I am no longer jesting),

  Haunted by rhymes and yearning’s ache,

  I roam beside my country lake

  And scare a flock of wild ducks resting:

  Hearing my strophes’ sweet-toned chants,

  They fly off from the banks at once.

  [36]10

  37

  But where’s Onegin? By the way,

  Brothers! I must entreat your patience:

  I shall describe without delay

  His daily life and occupations.

  A hermit underneath God’s heaven

  In summer he was up by seven

  And, lightly clad, would set off till

  He reached the river by the hill;

  The singer of Gulnare11 repeating,

  Across this Hellespont he swam,

  Then drank his coffee, while through some

  Disreputable journal flitting,

  And dressed…12

  [38]

  39

  A book, sound sleep, a fine excursion,

  The purl of streams, the woodland shade,

  A fresh, young kiss for his diversion

  From dark-eyed, fair-complexioned maid,

  A fiery steed with trusty bridle,

  A fancy meal at which to idle,

  A bottle of resplendent wine,

  Seclusion, quiet – thus, in fine,

  The life Onegin lived was sainted;

  And to it he by slow degrees

  Surrendered, the fair summer days

  Never, in carefree languor, counted,

  Forgetting both the town and friends,

  The boring feasts and latest trends.

  40

  But summer in our North is merely

  A Southern winter’s counterfeit,

  It’s glimpsed and gone: we know this, clearly,

  Although we won’t acknowledge it.

  The sky already breathed with autumn,

  The sun already shone more seldom.

  The day was getting shorter now,

  And with a melancholy sough

  The forest lost its secret awning,

  Mist settled on the fields, the peace

  Was broken by the screech of geese

  Migrating south: already dawning,

  A dullish season lay in wait;

  November stood outside the gate.

  41

  A chill, dark dawn presages winter;

  No labour’s heard upon the fields;

  A wolf and hungry she-wolf enter

  The road to find out what it yields;

  Sensing the pair, a road horse, nearing,

  Snorts – and the traveller goes tearing

  Uphill, relieved to be alive;

  No longer does the herdsman drive

  His cows abroad while night is clinging,

  No more at noontime does he sound

  His horn to gather them around;

  A maiden in her small hut, singing,

  Spins by the crackling splintwood light,

  A friend to every winter’s night.

  42

  And crackling frost settles already

  And silvers midst the fields and leas,

  (You’ve guessed the rhyme to come is ‘petals’,13

  So take it, reader, quic
kly, please!).

  The ice-clad river sheds a lustre

  That fashion’s parquet cannot muster.

  The merry sound of boys on skates,

  Cutting the ice, reverberates;

  A heavy goose steps out with caution,

  Plants its red feet upon the ice,

  And plans to swim, but in a trice,

  Slips and falls over in mid-motion;

  The first snow flickers gaily round,

  Falling in stars upon the ground.

  43

  What pastime can you find that’s pleasing

  Out in the backwoods? Walking? Try.

  For all the countryside is freezing,

  The naked flatness tires the eye.

  A gallop in the bitter prairie?

  The very mount you ride is wary

  In case its blunted shoe should catch

  Against a sudden icy patch.

  Under your lonely roof take cover,

  Let Pradt and Scott14 divert your mind

  Or check expenses, if inclined,

  Grumble or drink, somehow or other

  Evening will pass, the morrow too:

  With ease you’ll see the winter through.

  44

  Childe Harold to a T, Onegin

  Lapsed into pensive indolence:

  Enjoyed a bath with ice on waking,

  And then, alone in residence,

  Absorbed in household calculations,

  Armed with a blunted cue, he stations

  Himself at billiards, starts to play

  With just two balls till close of day.

  The evening comes, the game is ended,

  The cue’s forgotten in the shade,

  Before the fire a table’s laid,

  Onegin waits: here’s Lensky, splendid!

  A troika of roan horses wheel

  Into the yard – quick, start the meal!

  45

  At once, a Veuve Cliquot or Moët,

  That most revered and blessed wine,

  Is brought to table for the poet,

  In a chilled bottle, as they dine.

  Like Hippocrene it sparkles, flashes

  And pours in playful, frothy splashes

  (A simile for – please invent).