Alas, it isn’t hard to guess!
Love’s frenzied torments still confound her,
Still harassing with storm and stress
Her youthful soul that longs for bleakness.
Her passion worsens, and her weakness
Leaves Tanya with a burning head;
Sleep will not settle on her bed.
Her health, her life’s bloom, sweet and sparkling,
Her smile, her maid’s tranquillity,
Have, like an echo, ceased to be,
And gentle Tanya’s youth is darkling.
Shadow-clad storms can thus array
The birth of an emerging day.
24
Tanya, alas, is fading, sinking,
Withering, wasting, pale and dumb.
Nothing impinges on her thinking,
And her unstirring soul is numb.
Shaking their heads in knowing whispers,
The neighbours say to any listeners,
“By now she should be married off!…”
But I must speed on. That’s enough:
Imagination must be brightened
By love shown in a happy sense.
I cannot help it if, my friends,
Within my heart compassion tightens.
I’m sorry if my thoughts are such:
I love dear Tanya, oh, so much.
25
Lensky was caught, and hourly keener
On his young Olga and her charms,
But sweet enthralment pleased Vladimir,
Who welcomed it with open arms.
He’s always there. Birds of a feather,
They sit in her dark room together.
At morningtide they join up and
Stroll through the garden hand in hand.
And then? Besotted by his Olga,
Squirming with sweet embarrassment,
He makes occasional attempts
(Fed by her smile and growing bolder)
To toy with a loose curl, and then
To kiss her dress along the hem.
26
He’ll read to her, sooner or later,
An educational romance,
In which the author’s grasp of nature
Is greater than Chateaubriand’s,
Though, should he light on some few pages
Of raving nonsense, too outrageous,
Too risqué for young girls’ hearts—hush!—
He will omit them with a blush.
In some sequestered, far location
Over a chessboard, watching it,
Elbows on table, there they sit
Together in deep concentration…
And Lensky, with a distant look
Moving his pawn, takes his own rook.
27
When he goes home, he still engages
Obsessively with Olga. Hence,
He paints her album’s fleeting pages
With doodled, detailed ornaments,
With rustic pictures, for example,
A tombstone or a Cypris temple,
A dove upon a lyre, a still
And slender bird of paint and quill,
Or else on pages for remembrance
Below where other folk have signed
He leaves a gentle verse behind,
Dream’s voiceless monument, a semblance
Of rapid thought with lasting trace,
Unchanged years later, still in place.
28
You’ve done it. You have been absorbed in
The album of some country miss,
In which friends have been busy daubing
The end, the start, and all that is.
Here, with the rules of spelling thwarted,
Run old lines metrically distorted,
Lines of true friendship badly done,
Which undershoot or overrun.
On page one you will see this jotting:
Qu’écrirez-vous sur ces tablettes?
Followed by toute à vous, Annette,
And on the last page, at the bottom,
Let him whose love is more than mine
Write for you underneath this line.
29
Undoubtedly you will pluck from it
Two hearts, a torch and blooms amid
Assertions of true love, a promise:
My love until the coffin lid.
Some army rhymester will have thought he
Might slip in something rather naughty.
My friends, in albums such as these
I also write, and feel well pleased,
In spirit being all too certain
That my keen rubbish will entrance
The passing favourable glance,
And with a bilious smile no person
Will solemnly attempt to spot
Whether my trash has wit or not.
30
But you odd volumes once engendered
For devils’ libraries, and you
Young ladies’ albums bound in splendour,
The bane of modern rhymesters too,
You tomes adroitly decorated
With Tolstoy’s art and magic painted,
Or Baratýnsky’s quill. I call
On God’s hot bolts to singe you all!
When a fine lady host approaches,
Handing her quarto book to me,
I tremble in my enmity
And a sharp epigram encroaches
Upon my soul, yet all along
Duty demands a pretty song!
31
But Lensky pens no pretty ditties
In his young Olga’s book. Behold,
His quill suspires with love, and wit is
Precluded as too bright and cold.
He writes exclusively of Olga
As a close listener and beholder;
His living truth is then bestowed
On elegies in a fast flow.
Inspired thus, Nikoláy Yazýkov,
Your heart feels mighty surges too,
As you hymn someone (God knows who),
And your rich verse will one day speak of
Your past in elegies, and state
The history that was your fate.
32
But soft! We hear the critic’s stricture:
Throw all those elegies away—
Their garlands make a sorry picture.
Our brother rhymesters must obey
His call: “I tell you not to snivel,
And not to croak the same old drivel;
Past times… The old days rued so soon…
Old hat! Sing us another tune!”
“All right, but then you will escort us
Back to the trumpet, mask and knife,
And old ideas devoid of life
You’ll bid us quicken in all quarters.
Is this not so?” “No! Stay your pen:
Write odes from now on, gentlemen,
33
Like those penned in an age of glory,
And long-established in our land.”
“So—solemn odes—is this our story?
Oh, come, my friend. This can go hang.
Think what was said in words satirical:
Can Other Views, though shrewd and lyrical,
Seem more acceptable to you
Than our repining rhymesters do?”
“The elegy amounts to nothing;
Its aims are pitifully low,
While solemn odes have aims that grow
To noble heights.” We shan’t be stopping
To quibble here. My lips are tight.
Two ages won’t be called to fight.
34
Vladimir, soul of fame and freedom,
Fraught with wild thoughts that ebbed and flowed,
Knew well that Olga didn’t read ’em
Or else he might have penned an ode.
Shall bards wax tearfully poetic
And read to others sympathetic
Their written wor
ks? They say that bliss
Holds no reward greater than this.
And blest indeed the modest lover
Who in his daydreams can immerse
The object of his love and verse,
A languid beauty like no other,
Well blest… And yet—it’s hard to say—
Her thoughts could well be miles away.
35
What of the products of my fancies,
My shots at harmony? In truth,
I read them to the one who chances
To be my nurse, a friend from youth,
And after dinner—tiresome labour!—
When called on by a passing neighbour,
I corner him, grabbing his coat,
And ram my sad lines down his throat,
Or else—I swear I am not jesting—
Worn down with yearning in my rhymes,
I tread my lakeside path betimes
And scare the flock of wild ducks resting.
They hear the sweet lines that I sing,
Then they are up and on the wing.
[36] 37
Onegin though… By the way, brothers,
I’m asking your indulgence here…
The daily round with which he bothers
I’ll now describe, correct and clear.
He lived a hermit-like existence,
Got up at six and strolled some distance,
In summer lightly clad, until
He reached the stream beneath the hill,
Feeling like Gulnare’s bard in choosing
This Hellespont to swim across.
He drank his coffee while perusing
A magazine or some such dross,
And then got dressed…
[38] 39
Walking trips, sound sleep, bouts of reading,
The sylvan shade, the brooks that purl,
A cool, fresh kiss, their young lips meeting,
With a white-skinned but dark-eyed girl,
A stallion, bridle-true yet restive,
A dinner fancifully festive,
A wine flask brightening the mood,
Sequestered ways and quietude—
To this angelic life Onegin
Yielded himself unfeelingly;
Carefree, oblivious was he
To summer days fair and engaging.
Town life and old friends he forgot;
Festivities, he knew them not.
40
Our summer is a twisted version
Of winter in the south. Hello,
It’s here and gone! And every person
Knows this, but won’t accept it though.
Now o’er the sky comes autumn, soughing,
The thin sun shining much less often,
And we have come to shorter days
When in the woods a hidden haze
Has shown itself with a sad murmur,
And mists are on the fields released.
A honking caravan of geese
Heads south, and they leave ever firmer
The prospect of dull days… You wait…
November tarries at the gate.
41
Through the cold murk the dawn comes searching,
The noisy field work has tailed off,
The wolf is on the road, emerging
With his half-starving lady wolf.
A passing horse scents him and bridles,
Snorting, at which the wary rider
Gallops away uphill flat-out.
At dawn no herdsmen are about,
Bringing to pasture hungry cattle,
At noon no horn is heard to sing
And bring the cows into a ring.
And girls stay home to sing and rattle
Their spinning wheels. Friendly and bright,
The pine logs sting the winter night.
42
Now crackling frost descends and shows us
A silver canopy outdoors…
(You readers want a rhyme like “roses”;
You’re welcome to it; it is yours.)
Smoother than parquet stands the river,
Ice-covered, shiny and ashiver.
A tribe of gay young skaters slice
Their crunchy runs across the ice.
A tubby goose, red-footed, fearful,
Hoping to breast the waters, crawls
Gingerly out, but skids and falls
Upon the ice. Here comes the cheerful
First fall of whirling, gleaming snow,
Star-scattered on the banks below.
43
Out in the wilds what’s on this season?
Walking? The countryside, I’ve found,
Wearies the eyes for one good reason—
Unbroken nakedness all round.
Riding the prairie wild, of course, is
Perilous for your blunt-shod horses,
Who stumble on the treacherous ice
And down they clatter in a trice.
Stay in your bleak homestead. Try reading—
Here is your Pradt, here’s Walter Scott—
Or go through your accounts, if not,
Or fume, or drink. The endless evening
Will somehow pass, tomorrow too.
Great stuff! You’ll see the winter through.
44
Onegin, languid like Chile Harold,
Gets up to ponder and relax,
Sits in an ice bath unapparelled,
And then all day, not overtaxed,
Lonesome, engaged in calculation,
Takes a blunt cue, anticipating
A morning spent within four walls,
Chasing a pair of billiard balls.
The country evening draws on gently;
Gone are the table and the cue.
The table has been set for two
Beside the fireplace. Here comes Lensky,
Driving a three-roan troika. Fine,
Let’s serve the dinner. Waste no time!
45
Now Veuve Clicquot—or is it Moët?
A wine that’s blest to the last drop
Is served up chilled before the poet
And placed upon the tabletop.
It sparkles like the Muses’ fountain.
Spirited, full of fizz and flouncing
(Reminding us of that and this),
It dazzled me once; for its bliss
I would have spent my last poor lepton,
As you’ll recall, my friends. You know
The silly pranks its magic flow
Has brought about, while it has kept on
Producing jokes, verses in streams,
Wild arguments and merry dreams.
46
And yet, with its unsettling fizziness
It plays my stomach false, so now
Sedate Bordeaux is more my business.
I much prefer it, anyhow.
No more Aÿ. It leaves me listless.
Aÿ is like a lovely mistress,
Vivacious, brilliant, volatile,
Quirky and frivolous. Meanwhile,
Bordeaux, you are a good friend, present
In times of sorrow and despair,
A comrade always, everywhere,
Ministering with something pleasant
Or sharing our sweet leisure. So,
Let’s drink to our good friend, Bordeaux!
47
The fire’s gone out. A golden ember
Is dusted over with fine ash,
The curling vapour stream is slender,
And from the hearth comes just a dash
Of warmth. The pipe smoke seems to vanish
Straight up the flue. A fizzing chalice
Still shines mid-table. Now the home
Yields to encroaching evening gloam.
(I love the friendly idle chatter
And the odd friendly glass of wine
Enjoyed at what they call “the time
’Twixt wolf and dog”. Ignore the latter—
/>
I cannot fathom things like that.)
Meanwhile the two companions chat:
48
“The ladies! How’s Tatyana faring?
Is Olga still as sharp, old man?”
“A half-glass. Be a little sparing…
That’s it, my friend… Yes, all the clan
Is fit and well. They send their greetings.
My dear chap, she is such a sweet thing—
Those lovely shoulders, and that bust!
That spirit too! We really must
Call on them soon. They’ll be delighted.
But think… It isn’t very nice—
You’ve wandered in to see then twice,
And after that you’ve not been sighted.
But listen. Who am I to speak?
You are invited there next week.”
49
“I am?” “Yes, you. It’s Tanya’s name day—
Saturday. Olga and her mum
Want you to be there. It’s their brainwave
To have you over. Why not come?”
“But people will be there in legions,
And all the riff-raff of the region…”
“No, no one will be there. Trust me.”
“Who’s coming? Only family.
Let’s go. Do them a little favour.
Yes?” “All right.” “There’s a chap.” He drank,
And thought of someone as he sank
His wine—toasting his lady neighbour—
Then he went back to talking of
His darling Olga. Such is love!
50
His mood was merry. Two weeks later
Bliss beckoned—they had fixed the date.
The secret marriage bed… No sweeter
Love garland could one contemplate,
With his anticipation climbing.
Meanwhile the cares and woes of Hymen,
The long-extended trail of yawns,
Upon his thinking never dawned.
We hymen-haters can discover
In domesticity a rut
Of tedious scenes and nothing but—
As in a La Fontaine-style novel.
Poor Lensky, though his heart was bliss,
Was born to live a life like this.