Eugene Onegin

  And, as with all he’d left behind,

  So travel, too fed his dejection.

  He found his way back after all,

  Like Chatsky, leaving boat for ball.16

  14

  But look at how the crowd is clearing,

  How whispers speed around the hall…

  The hostess sees a lady nearing,

  In tow a weighty general.

  She is unhurried, not loquacious,

  Not cold, standoffish, not ungracious,

  She does not stare with insolence,

  And to success makes no pretence;

  Reveals no petty affectation

  Or imitative artifice,

  She shows a quiet, simple grace,

  And seems a faithful illustration

  Of comme il faut (a phrase which I,

  Shishkov17 forgive, can’t Russify).

  15

  The ladies gathered closer to her;

  Old women smiled as she passed by,

  The gentlemen were bowing lower,

  Endeavouring to catch her eye.

  In front of her, the girls stopped chasing

  Across the room, while gravely raising

  Shoulders and nose above them all,

  The general impressed the hall.

  None could have said she was a beauty,

  Nevertheless, from head to foot,

  None could have found in her what would,

  In fashionable London city,

  In that high autocratic court,

  Be known as vulgar (I can not…

  16

  I’ m very fond of this expression,

  But own, I can’t translate it yet,

  It still feels like an innovation

  And hardly suits our etiquette;

  An epigram might serve it better…)

  But let me turn now to our matter.

  With carefree charm, our lady sat,

  Engaged in amicable chat

  With Nina Voronskoy, at table,

  The Cleopatra of Neva,18

  Who, though more beautiful by far,

  With classic features, smooth like marble,

  Could not eclipse her fellow guest,

  For all the dazzle she possessed.

  17

  ‘Can it be possible?’ thinks Eugene

  ‘Can it be she? But no… and yet…

  What! From the steppes, that outback region…?’

  He keeps his resolute lorgnette

  Directed at her every minute

  And dimly sees, reflected in it,

  Looks he’d forgotten long ago.

  ‘Excuse me, Prince, but do you know

  That lady in the crimson beret

  Talking with Spain’s ambassador?’19

  The Prince looks at Onegin: ‘Ah!

  You’ve been away a long time – very,

  Wait, I’ll present you, when they end.’

  ‘But who is she?’ ‘My wife, dear friend.’

  18

  ‘You’re married.’ ‘Oh, you did not know then?’

  ‘How long?’ ‘About two years.’ ‘To whom?’

  ‘To Larina.’ ‘Tatiana!’ ‘Oh then,

  She knows you.’ ‘I live near her home.’

  ‘In that case, come,’the Prince says, taking

  His relative and friend, Onegin,

  To meet his wife. The Princess looks

  At him… and whatsoever shakes

  Her soul, whatever her impression

  Of him or the astonishment

  She feels or the bewilderment,

  Nothing betrays her self-possession.

  Her tone remains as it had been,

  Her bow is equally serene.

  19

  Not only did she not take flight now,

  Or suddenly turn crimson, white…

  She never even moved an eyebrow,

  Nor pursed her lips a bit too tight.

  Although Onegin looked most closely,

  He found no trace in her that loosely

  Recalled the girl that he had met.

  He wanted to address her… yet

  He could not… She then spoke, inquiring

  How long had he been here, and whence,

  And was it from their parts perchance;

  Then to her husband turned, retiring.

  With weary look she glided hence…

  Eugene remained there, motionless.

  20

  Could it be she, the same Tatiana,

  The very maiden he once met

  In that remote and distant corner

  And preached to in a tête-à-tête

  With loftiness and exhortation,

  When we embarked on our narration,

  Was hers the letter he’d preserved,

  In which her heart spoke, unreserved,

  Out in the open, undeflected,

  That little girl… a dream, maybe?

  That little girl… the one whom he

  Had, in her humble lot, neglected,

  Could it be she who, now so bold,

  Had, heedless, left him in the cold?

  21

  He leaves the packed hall hurriedly

  And pensively he drives back home,

  His tardy sleep is worried by

  A dream, now sad, now full of charm,

  He wakes; an invitation’s brought;

  His presence by Prince N is sought

  At a soirée. ‘My God, to her!

  I will, I will, without demur!

  He scrawls a courteous ‘Yes, I’ll be there.’

  What’s happening? In what strange dream

  Is he now? What, deep down in him,

  Has stirred his sluggish soul to fever?

  Pique? Vanity? Or, once again,

  Could it be love, that youthful pain?

  22

  The passing hours Onegin’s counting,

  For day to end he cannot wait.

  But ten strikes,20 he’s already mounting

  His carriage, soon he’s at the gate.

  He enters in a nervous manner,

  There, on her own, he finds Tatiana,

  Some minutes they together sit.

  Once more Onegin cannot fit

  A word in place. Embarrassed, sullen,

  He scarcely can reply to her.

  But all the time his mind’s a-whirr.

  A fixed idea he keeps on mulling.

  And fixedly he looks, while she

  Sits calmly and at liberty.

  23

  Her husband enters, interrupting

  This most unpleasant tête-à-tête,

  And joins Onegin in recapturing

  Pranks, jokes enjoyed, when first they met.

  They laugh together. Guests now enter

  And with the large-grained salt of banter

  The grand monde’s conversation sparks;

  Around the hostess, light remarks

  Are flashing without affectation.

  While, interrupting them, good sense

  Eschews banality, pretence,

  Eternal truths, pontification,

  And, in its free vivacity,

  Shocks nobody’s propriety.

  24

  Yet here was found the city’s flower:

  Nobles and fashion’s exemplars,

  Faces one meets with every hour,

  And fools – a necessary class;

  Here were, in mobcaps and in roses,

  Elderly dames who looked ferocious;

  Here there were several spinsters, who

  Would never think to smile at you;

  Here an ambassador was speaking

  About some government affair;

  Here was, with scented, greying hair,

  An old man in the old way joking:

  With first-rate wit and subtle play,

  That seem somewhat absurd today.

  25

  Here was, to epigrams addicted,

  An irritable gentleman,

&nbsp
; Cross with the tea – too sweet a liquid –

  With trivial ladies, vulgar men,

  The foggy novel being debated,

  The badge of which two sisters prated,21

  The lies the journals told, the war,22

  The snow, and wife he found a bore23

  …………………………………………

  …………………………………………

  …………………………………………

  …………………………………………

  …………………………………………

  …………………………………………

  26

  Here was Prolasov24 whose distinction

  Lay in his soul’s depravity,

  In every album you can mention

  He wore your pencils down, Saint-Priest;25

  There at the door a ball dictator,

  Fit for a fashion illustrator,

  Pink as a Palm Week cherub,26 shone,

  Tight-buttoned, mute and still as stone;

  A jackanapes, a bird of passage,

  With neck-cloth overstarched,27 produced

  A smile among the guests, seduced

  By his fastidious poise and carriage,

  But silent glances in the end

  Confirmed he was by all condemned.

  27

  Throughout the evening my Onegin

  Thought only of Tatiana, not

  The shy young girl that he’d forsaken,

  Simple and poor, by love distraught,

  But the princess, so very different,

  Now the goddess, so very distant,

  Ruling the opulent Neva.

  O humans! You’re so similar

  To Eve, our ancestress: what’s granted

  Does not appeal to you at all,

  You hear the serpent’s endless call

  To where a secret tree is planted;

  Forbidden fruit provides more spice,

  Without it there’s no paradise.

  28

  How changed Tatiana is, adapting

  So resolutely to her role,

  With what alacrity accepting

  The codes of rank that cramp the soul!

  Who’d dare to seek the tender creature

  In this majestic legislator

  Of every salon, one whose heart

  Had once by him been torn apart?

  Time was, when virginally grieving

  For Eugene in the dark of night,

  While Morpheus28 was still in flight,

  She raised her tired eyes moonward, dreaming

  Of how together they might wend

  Their humble journey to the end.

  29

  Love is for every age auspicious,

  But for the virginal and young

  Its impulses are more propitious

  Like vernal storms on meadows sprung:

  They freshen in the rain of passion,

  Ripening in their renovation –

  And life, empowered, sends up shoots

  Of richest blooms and sweetest fruits.

  But at a late age, dry and fruitless,

  The final stage to which we’re led,

  Sad is the trace of passions dead:

  Thus storms in autumn, cold and ruthless,

  Transform the field into a slough,

  And strip the trees from root to bough.

  30

  There is no doubt, alas, that Eugene’s

  In love with Tanya like a child,

  And every day and night imagines,

  In throes of love, some fancy wild,

  Not harking to his mind’s stern censures,

  Each day up to her porch he ventures,

  Into her entrance hall of glass;

  He shadows her in every place;

  He’s happy if upon her shoulders

  He casts a fluffy boa, if he

  Touches her hand hot-bloodedly

  Or motley liveries, like soldiers,

  He separates before her or

  Her handkerchief picks from the floor.

  31

  She does not mark, she does not heed him,

  Though he might struggle, short of death,

  To visit her she grants him freedom,

  Elsewhere she scarcely wastes her breath;

  Sometimes she’ll bow out of politeness,

  Sometimes she simply takes no notice.

  There is no coquetry in her –

  It is not brooked in her milieu.

  Onegin pales, can hardly function.

  She does not care or does not see.

  Onegin pines away, is he

  Already suffering from consumption?

  All send him to the doctors, they

  Prescribe a spa without delay.

  32

  He stays: beforehand he’d been ready

  To warn his forebears to expect

  That soon he’d be among them, yet she

  Cares not a bit (such is their sex).

  But he is stubborn, won’t surrender,

  Still hopes and keeps to his agenda.

  Far bolder than a healthy man,

  Unwell, he writes with feeble hand

  The Princess an impassioned letter,

  Although (in this I share his views)

  He saw in letters little use;

  But with his heart held in a fetter,

  A missive could not be deferred.

  Here is his letter, word for word.

  Onegin’s Letter to Tatiana

  I can predict: I shall offend

  You29 with my secret, sad confession,

  And I foresee your proud expression

  Of bitter scorn for what I send.

  What do I want? To what end, after

  I’ve opened up my soul to you?

  What wicked merriment, what laughter

  I’ll give, perhaps, occasion to!

  When first I met you, I detected

  A tender spark, I was affected,

  But to the challenge dared not rise,

  I’d curbed myself of that sweet habit,

  And I had no desire to forfeit

  The hateful freedom I so prize.

  Yet one more thing drove us asunder…

  Lensky, a hapless victim, fell…

  And then, from all a heart finds tender

  I tore my own; an alien soul,

  Without allegiances, I vanished,

  Thinking that liberty and peace

  Could take the place of happiness.

  My God, how wrong, how I’ve been punished!

  To see you as each minute flies,

  To follow you in all directions,

  To capture with enamoured eyes

  Your smiling lips, your eyes’ reflections,

  To listen and to understand

  With all my soul your perfect nature,

  To melt in torments at your hand,

  Grow pale and waste away – that’s rapture!

  And I’m deprived of that: for you

  I drag myself at random, wander,

  Each day is dear, each hour too:

  Yet I in futile dullness squander

  The days my fate has counted off.

  And they are burdensome enough.

  I know: my end may well be dawning,

  But so as to prolong my stay,

  I must be certain every morning

  That I shall see you that same day…

  I fear that my meek supplication

  Will be by your relentless gaze

  Seen as a shameful machination –

  I hear your furious dispraise.

  If you but knew the frightful torment

  To languish after your beloved,

  To burn – while reason every moment

  Tells you to quell your raging blood,

  To wish to hold your knees, and, pouring

  My tears out at your feet, to press,

  Entreat, confess, reproach
, imploring

  All, all I’ve wanted to express,

  To do so, feigning reservation,

  To arm each glance and every phrase,

  To look at you with cheerful gaze

  And hold a placid conversation…

  But let that be: I’m in no state

  To struggle further with my passion;

  My life depends on your decision

  And I surrender to my fate.

  33

  He gets no answer to this letter,

  A second and a third he sends,

  But neither one fares any better.

  At a reception he attends,

  He’s hardly entered than towards him

  Tatiana comes, and she ignores him,

  Says nothing, does not see him there.

  What frost surrounds her, how severe!

  How, holding back her indignation,

  Her stubborn lips remain in place!

  Onegin peers with searching gaze:

  Where, where’s the pity, perturbation?

  The tear stains, where? No trace, no trace,

  Anger alone has marked this face…

  34

  And, possibly the apprehension

  That monde or husband might suppose

  Some waywardness, some casual penchant…

  And everything Onegin knows…

  No hope! He drives from the reception,

  Cursing his crazy self-deception;

  Though part of it, he did not rue

  Bidding the monde again adieu;

  The silence of his study brought him

  Remembrance of another time,

  When in the loud monde’s pantomime,

  Khandra had cruelly chased and caught him,

  And seized him by the collar, then

  Enclosed him in his gloomy den.

  35

  He read again, but all at random:

  Manzoni, Gibbon30 and Rousseau,

  Madame de Staël, Chamfort31 in tandem,

  Bichat and Herder and Tissot.32

  He read the sceptic Bayle,33who led him

  To Fontenelle,34 and when he’d read him,

  He tried some authors of our own

  Without rejecting anyone –

  The almanachs, reviews that ever

  Are drumming sermons into us,

  And treating me with animus,35