Eugene Onegin

  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