Some, going further still, asserted
That wedding plans had all been made
And simply had to be delayed
Till modish rings had been located.
And as for Lensky’s wedding, they
Had long ago arranged the day.
7
Tatiana listened with vexation
To gossip of this kind; but she,
With inexplicable elation,
Kept thinking of it secretly;
And in her heart the thought was live;
The time had come, she fell in love.
So will a seed that’s fallen in
The earth be quickened by the spring.
For long had her imagination,
Consumed with pain and lassitude,
Yearned to assay the fatal food;
For long a heartsick enervation
Constrained her youthful breast; her soul
Waited… for somebody to call,
8
And was requited… Eyes asunder,
She said: ‘It’s he! He’s made his call.’
And now, alas, her hot, lone slumber,
And every day and night were full
Of him; by some enchanted force
All objects seemed without a pause
To speak of him; how tedious
The kind entreaties and the fuss,
The watchful looks of worried servants!
Enveloped in despondency,
She paid no heed to company
And cursed their leisurely observance
Of custom and the sudden way
They would arrive and overstay.
9
Now with what eager concentration
She reads delicious novels through,
With what enlivened fascination
She drinks deception’s honeydew.
In fantasy she visualizes
The characters that she most prizes:
The lover of Julie Wolmar,5
Malek Adhel6 and de Linar,7
And Werther,8 martyr to his passion,
And Grandison9 the consummate
Who dulls us like an opiate –
All these in her imagination
Were in a unique shape expressed,
All in Onegin coalesced.
10
The authors that she loves so seize her,
She feels herself their heroine,
She is Julie, Delphine,10 Clarissa;11
Alone, Tatiana roams within
The silent woods, armed with a novel
In which she seeks and finds some marvel:
Her secret glow, her dreamy mood,
Her heart’s abounding plenitude;
She breathes a sigh and, taking over
Another’s grief or ecstasy,
Whispers by heart, unconsciously
A letter for her hero lover…
But he, whatever else he’d done,
Was certainly no Grandison.
11
His manner gravely elevated,
The fervent author in times gone
Showed us a hero dedicated
To perfect aims – a paragon.
To him, forever persecuted
Iniquitously, he committed
A tender soul, intelligence
And an attractive countenance.
Nursing the flame of purest passion,
The hero, always rapturous,
Was ready for self-sacrifice,
And, in the novel’s closing action,
Vice was forever beaten down
And virtue gained a worthy crown.
12
But nowadays all minds are clouded,
A moral brings on somnolence,
Vice in the novel, too, is lauded
And there has gained pre-eminence.
The British Muse’s tales12 intrude on
The slumber of our Russian maiden,
And now she’s ready to adore
Either the pensive vampire13 or
The vagrant Melmoth,14 restless, gloomy,
The Wandering Jew15 or the Corsair16
Or the mysterious Sbogar.17
Lord Byron’s whim most opportunely
Clothed even hopeless egotism
In woebegone romanticism.
13
My friends, this makes no sense, I know it.
Perhaps by heavenly decree
I shall no longer be a poet,
A demon new will enter me;
And having scorned the threats of Phoebus,
I’ll settle to prosaic labours;
A novel of the ancient kind
Will occupy my blithe decline.
There, not the secret pangs of villainy
I shall in grim relief narrate,
But simply, friends, to you relate
The legends of a Russian family,
Love’s charming dreams in former days
And ancient Russia’s rural ways.
14
I shall record the plain orations
When fathers or old uncles met,
The children’s chosen assignations
By ancient limes, by rivulet;
The jealous agonies of lovers,
Partings, and tears as love recovers;
I’ll have them quarrel once again
And lead them to the altar then…
I shall recall the tender feeling,
Love’s aching words upon my tongue,
Impassioned speeches made when young
And courting a fair mistress, kneeling
And uttering an ardent vow
From which I’m disaccustomed now.
15
Tatiana, dear Tatiana, vanquished!
Together with you, now I weep;
Your fate already you’ve relinquished
Into a modish tyrant’s keep.
You’ll perish, dear; but till we lose you
The dazzling light of hope imbues you:
You’ll summon up a sombre bliss,
Discover life’s felicities,
Imbibe the magic bane of yearning,
Daydreams will court your every pace,
And you’ll imagine in each place
A tryst to which you’re always turning;
In front of you and everywhere
You’ll see your fateful tempter there.
16
Tatiana seeks the garden bowers
To grieve in, chased by aching love,
But soon her lifeless eyes she lowers
And loses the desire to rove.
Her bosom lifts, her features redden,
A sudden flame consumes the maiden,
Upon her lips her breath has died,
Her ears with sound, her eyes with light
Are filled… Night comes, the moon’s patrolling
The distant space of heaven’s dome,
The nightingale sings in the gloam
Of trees, its sonorous accents calling.
Tatiana does not go to bed
But quietly talks to nurse instead:
17
‘I can’t sleep here, nurse, it’s so airless!
Open the window, sit by me.’
‘Why, Tanya, what is it?’ ‘I’m cheerless,
Let’s talk of how things used to be.’
‘Tanya, what things? Once I was able
To keep a store of every fable,
Old tales that, true or false, I’d tell
Of maidens and of spirits fell;
But now my mind’s grown dark and woolly:
I can’t recall a thing. Alas,
It’s all come to a sorry pass!
I am confused’… ‘Nurse, tell me truly
About those years, can you recall
Whether you were in love at all?’
18
‘Tanya, my dear! We never even
Knew what love was in my young day;
Else mother-in-law would have driven
Me out in
no uncertain way.’
‘How did you marry, then?’ ‘Oh, Tanya,
It seemed to be God’s will. My Vanya
Was even younger then than me,
And I was just thirteen, you see.
Two weeks a matchmaker kept coming
To all my kinsfolk, finally
My father blessed me. Bitterly
I wept for fear of what was looming;
While they untwined my braid they wept,
And chanted while to church I crept.
19
‘Into an unknown family taken…
But you’re not listening now, I fear.’
‘Oh nurse, nurse, I’m unhappy, aching,
I’ m sad and sick at heart, my dear.
I’m on the verge of crying, sobbing!’
‘You are not well.’ ‘My heart is throbbing.’
‘Save us, O Lord, have mercy, pray!
What would you like, you’ve but to say…
Let’s sprinkle you with holy water,
You’re all aflame’… ‘I’m not unwell:
I am… in love, nurse… can’t you tell?’
‘May the good Lord protect his daughter!’
Her ancient hand raised in the air,
She crossed the girl and said a prayer.
20
‘I am in love,’ again she whispered
To the old woman mournfully.
‘You are unwell,’ her nurse persisted.
‘I am in love, go, let me be.’
Meanwhile, the moon was radiating
A languid light, illuminating
Tatiana’s graces, pale with care,
Her loosened and unruly hair,
Her tears and, there before her sitting,
Upon a bench, the ancient dame
With kerchiefed head, her feeble frame
Into a bodywarmer fitting;
And all beneath the tranquil night
Dozed in the moon’s inspiring light.
21
And now Tatiana’s heart was soaring
As she looked out and watched the moon…
A sudden thought came, overpowering…
‘Nurse, leave, I want to be alone.
Just let me have a pen, some paper.
The table, too. I’ll lie down later.
Goodbye.’ And she’s alone at last.
All’s quiet. For her the moon has cast
Its light. Upon her elbow leaning,
She writes, with Eugene on her mind,
And in a letter undesigned
There breathes a guileless maiden’s yearning.
The letter’s ready, folded, who…
Tatiana! Is it written to?
22
I’ve known fair beauties unapproachable,
The chaste, the cold, the wintry kind,
Implacable and irreproachable,
Unfathomable to the mind;
I’ve marvelled at their modish manner,
Their inborn virtue, sense of honour,
And, to be frank, from them I fled,
And, terror-stricken, thought I read
Above their brows hell’s admonition:
Abandon hope for evermore.
The joys of loving they forswore,
To frighten people was their mission.
Perhaps you’ve seen by the Neva
Fair ladies who are similar.
23
Amidst admirers acquiescent
I’ve seen like women in my days,
Conceited, haughty and indifferent
To sighs of passion or to praise.
But what did I, amazed, discover?
That they, despite their stern behaviour,
Frightening to a timid swain,
Could make his love return again,
At least by showing some compassion,
At least, by a more tender word
That they permitted to be heard,
And, blinded in his naive fashion,
The lover with new energy
Once more pursued sweet vanity.
24
Why blame Tatiana, then? For having
Not known in her simplicity
Deceit or falsehood and for craving
Her chosen dream so fervently?
For loving without double-dealing,
Obedient to the bent of feeling?
For being predisposed to trust,
For being by the heavens blest
With turbulent imagination,
Intelligence, a lively will,
A wayward spirit, never still
And with a tender heart’s vibration?
Will you then not forgive her, when
She follows passion’s weathervane?
25
Coquettes are cool in their decisions.
Tatiana loves in earnest, she
Gives up herself without conditions
Like a small child, defencelessly.
Of love she says not: let’s postpone it
To raise its value when we own it,
To trap it more assuredly;18
First let us puncture vanity
With hope, then introduce confusion
To rack the heart, and when we tire,
Revive it with a jealous fire;
Or else, fatigued by joy’s profusion,
The cunning captive day or night
May from his prison-house take flight.
26
I can foresee another matter:
Saving the honour of my land,
I must translate Tatiana’s letter,
Without a doubt you’ll understand.
Russian she knew, but very badly,
She did not read our journals, sadly;
And in her native tongue she could
With difficulty write a word.
And so in French she penned this version…
What’s to be done? Once more I say
A lady’s love up to this day
Has not expressed itself in Russian,
Up to this day our proud tongue shows
It’s still not used to postal prose.
27
Some would have women reading Russian,
A frightful prospect, if applied;
Imagine females in discussion
With The Well-Meaner19 at their side!
I turn to you, my poets, teach us;
Is it not true: those charming creatures
For whom, to expiate your wrongs,
You wrote, in secret, verse and songs,
To whom you pledged your heart’s affection,
Did they not try, with much travail,
Our Russian speech, to no avail,
Yet using such a sweet inflection
That on their lips a foreign tongue
Became their native one ere long?
28
The Lord forbid my ever meeting
A bonneted scholar at a ball
Or seminarist with a greeting
As she departs in yellow shawl.20
Like rosy lips unused to smiling,
Russian, I find, is unbeguiling
Without grammatical mistakes.
Perhaps (my head already aches)
A crop of exquisite new creatures
Will heed the journals, set up school
And make us bow to grammar’s rule:
Verse will acquire more useful features;
But I… what matters this to me,
I shall respect antiquity.
29
An incorrect and careless patter,
An inexact delivery
Will generate a heartfelt flutter
Within my breast as formerly.
I’ve not the strength to be repenting,
Since Gallicisms are as tempting
As bygone sins of youth, no worse
Than Bogdanovich’s21 in verse.
But stop. It’s time now I translated
The letter of my maiden dear,
I gave my
word, and what? I fear
My wish to do so has abated.
I know that tender Parny’s22 ways
Are out of fashion nowadays.
30
Bard of The Feasts23 and languid sorrow,
If you had still remained with me,
I would have troubled you, dear fellow,
With a request, immodestly:
That you transpose the foreign diction
Of an impassioned maid’s affliction
Into enchanting melodies.
Where are you? Come: my rights I raze
And, with a bow, place in your keeping…
But in a land of mournful stone,
His heart forgetting praise, alone,
Beneath the Finnish sky escaping,
He wanders, and his soul hears not
My grief for his unhappy lot.
31
Before me is Tatiana’s letter;
Religiously, I treasure it,
I read it with a secret shudder
And cannot get my fill of it.
Who could have taught such tender writing,
Such words so carelessly delighting,
Who taught her that affecting rot,
Mad conversation of the heart,
A captivating, harmful mixture?
I cannot tell. But now you’ll meet
My version, feeble, incomplete,
Pale copy of a vivid picture,
Or as Der Freischütz24 might be played
By girlish pupils, still afraid.
Tatiana’s Letter to Onegin
I write to you – what more is needed?
What else is there that I could say?
It’s in your power, I concede it,
To punish my naiveté.
But if you’ve even slightly pitied
The dismal lot that I endure,
You won’t abandon me, I’m sure.
At first, I did not want to vex you.
Believe me: you’d have never known
The shame I’ve suffered all alone,
Had I been hopeful to expect you
Here in our home, where we could speak,
If only seldom, once a week,
Enough to listen to your greeting