Eugene Onegin
Page 16
Or chanced upon the sad affair.
Eugene had kept his silent air;
Tatyana pined in isolation;
And only nanny might have guessed,
But her old wits were slow at best.
19
All evening Lensky was abstracted,
Remote one moment, gay the next;
But those on whom the Muse has acted
Are ever thus; with brow perplexed,
He'd sit at clavichord intently
And play but chords; or turning gently
To Olga, he would whisper low:
'I'm happy, love . . . it's true, you know.'
But now it's late and time for leaving.
His heart, so full of pain, drew tight;
And as he bid the girl goodnight,
He felt it break with desperate grieving.
'What's wrong?' She peered at him, intent.
'It's nothing.' And away he went.
20
On coming home, the youth inspected
His pistols; then he put them back.
Undressed, by candle he selected
A book of Schiller's from the rack;
But only one bright image holds him,
One thought within his heart enfolds him:
He sees before him, wondrous fair,
His incandescent Olga there.
He shuts the book and, with decision,
Takes up his pen. . . . His verses ring
With all the nonsense lovers sing;
And feverish with lyric vision,
He reads them out like one possessed,
Like drunken Delvig* at a fest!
21
By chance those verses haven't vanished;
I have them, and I quote them here:
'Ah, whither, whither are ye banished,
My springtime's golden days so dear?
What fate will morning bring my lyre?
In vain my searching eyes enquire,
For all lies veiled in misty dust.
No matter; fate's decree is just;
And whether, pierced,
I fall anointed,
Or arrow passes byall's right:
The hours of waking and of night
Come each in turn as they're appointed;
And blest with all its cares the day,
And blest the dark that comes to stay!
22
'The morning star will gleam tomorrow,
And brilliant day begin to bloom;
While I, perhaps, descend in sorrow
The secret refuge of the tomb. . . .
Slow Lethe, then, with grim insistence,
Will drown my memory's brief existence;
Of me the world shall soon grow dumb;
But thou, fair maiden, wilt thou come!
To shed a tear in desolation
And think at my untimely grave:
He loved me and for me he gave
His mournful life in consecration! . . .
Beloved friend, sweet friend, I wait,
Oh, come, Oh, come, I am thy mate!'
23
He wrote thuslimply and obscurely.
(We say 'romantically'although,
That's not romanticism, surely;
And if it is, who wants to know?)
But then at last, as it was dawning,
With drooping head and frequent yawning,
Upon the modish word 'ideal'
Vladimir gently dozed for real;
But sleep had hardly come to take him
Off to be charmed by dreams and cheered,
When in that silent room appeared
His neighbour, calling out to wake him:
'It's time to rise! Past six . . . come on!
I'll bet Onegin woke at dawn.'
24
But he was wrong; that idle sinner
Was sleeping soundly even then.
But now the shades of night grow thinner,
The cock hails Vesper once again;
Yet still Onegin slumbers deeply.
But now the sun climbs heaven steeply,
And gusting snowflakes flash and spin,
But still Onegin lies within
And hasn't stirred; still slumber hovers
Above his bed and holds him fast.
But now he slowly wakes at last,
Draws back the curtains and his covers,
Looks outand sees with some dismay,
He'd better leave without delay.
25
He rings in haste and, with a racket,
His French valet, Guillot, runs in
With slippers and a dressing jacket,
And fresh new linen from the bin.
Onegin, dressing in a flurry,
Instructs his man as well to hurry:
They're leaving for the duelling place,
Guillot's to fetch the pistol case.
The sleigh's prepared; his pacing ceases;
He climbs aboard and off they go.
They reach the mill. He bids Guillot
To bring Lepage's deadly pieces;*
Then has the horses, on command,
Removed to where two oaklings stand.
26
Impatient, but in no great panic,
Vladimir waited near the dam;
Meanwhile Zaretsky, born mechanic,
Was carping at the millstone's cam.
Onegin, late, made explanation.
Zaretsky frowned in consternation:
'Good God, man, where's your second? Where?'
In duels a purist doctrinaire,
Zaretsky favoured stout reliance
On proper form; he'd not allow
Dispatching chaps just anyhow,
But called for strict and full compliance
With rules, traditions, ancient ways
(Which we, of course, in him should praise).
27
'My second?' said Eugene directly.
'Why here he is: Monsieur Guillot,
A friend of mine, whom you. . . correctly!
Will be quite pleased to greet, I know;
Though he's unknown and lives obscurely,
He's still an honest chap, most surely.
' Zaretsky bit his lip, well vexed.
Onegin turned to Lensky next: 'Shall we begin?'
'At my insistence.' Behind the mill, without a word.
And while the 'honest chap' conferred
With our Zaretsky at a distance
And sealed the solemn compact fast,
The foes stood by with eyes downcast.
28
The foes! How long has bloodlust parted
And so estranged these former friends?
How long ago did they, warmhearted,
Share meals and pastimes, thoughts and ends?
And now, malignant in intention,
Like ancient foes in mad dissension,
As in a dreadful senseless dream,
They glower coldly as they scheme
In silence to destroy each other. . . .
Should they not laugh while yet there's time,
Before their hands are stained with crime?
Should each not part once more as brother? . . .
But enmity among their class
Holds shame in savage dread, alas.
29
The gleaming pistols wake from drowsing.
Against the ramrods mallets pound.
The balls go in each bevelled housing.
The first sharp hammer clicks resound.
Now streams of greyish powder settle
Inside the pans. Screwed fast to metal,
The jagged flints are set to go.
Behind a nearby stump Guillot
Takes up his stand in indecision.
The duellists shed their cloaks and wait.
Zaretsky paces off their fate
At thirty steps with fine precision,
Then leads each man to where he'll stand,
And each takes pistol into hand.
30
'Approach at will!' Advancing coldly,
With quiet, firm, and measured tread,
Not aiming yet, the foes took boldly
The first four steps that lay ahead
Four fateful steps. The space decreasing,
Onegin then, while still not ceasing
His slow advance, was first to raise
His pistol with a level gaze.
Five paces more, while Lensky waited
To close one eye and, only then,
To take his aim. . . . And that was when
Onegin fired! The hour fated
Has struck at last: the poet stops
And silently his pistol drops.
31
He lays a hand, as in confusion,
On breast and falls. His misted eyes
Express not pain, but death's intrusion.
Thus, slowly, down a sloping rise,
And sparkling in the sunlight's shimmer,
A clump of snow will fall and glimmer.
Eugene, in sudden chill, despairs,
Runs to the stricken youth . . . and stares!
Calls out his name!No earthly power
Can bring him back: the singer's gone,
Cut down by fate at break of dawn!
The storm has blown; the lovely flower
Has withered with the rising sun;
The altar fire is out and done! . . .
32
He lay quite still and past all feeling;
His languid brow looked strange at rest.
The steaming blood poured forth, revealing
The gaping wound beneath his breast.
One moment backa breath's duration
This heart still throbbed with inspiration;
Its hatreds, hopes, and loves still beat,
Its blood ran hot with life's own heat.
But now, as in a house deserted,
Inside itall is hushed and stark,
Gone silent and forever dark.
The window boards have been inserted,
The panes chalked white. The owner's fled;
But where, God knows. All trace is dead.
33
With epigrams of spite and daring
It's pleasant to provoke a foe;
It's pleasant when you see him staring
His stubborn, thrusting horns held low
Unwillingly within the mirror,
Ashamed to see himself the clearer;
More pleasant yet, my friends, if he
Shrieks out in stupid shock: that's me!
Still pleasanter is mute insistence
On granting him his resting place
By shooting at his pallid face
From some quite gentlemanly distance.
But once you've had your fatal fun,
You won't be pleased to see it done.
34
And what would be your own reaction
If with your pistol you'd struck down
A youthful friend for some infraction:
A bold reply, too blunt a frown,
Some bagatelle when you'd been drinking;
Or what if he himself, not thinking,
Had called you out in fiery pride?
Well, tell me: what would you . . . inside
Be thinking of... or merely feeling,
Were your good friend before you now,
Stretched out with death upon his brow,
His blood by slow degrees congealing,
Too deaf and still to make reply
To your repeated, desperate cry?
35
In anguish, with his heart forsaken,
The pistol in his hand like lead,
Eugene stared down at Lensky, shaken.
His neighbour spoke: 'Well then, he's dead.'
The awful word, so lightly uttered,
Was like a blow. Onegin shuddered,
Then called his men and walked away.
Zaretsky, carefully, then lay
The frozen corpse on sleigh, preparing
To drive the body home once more.
Sensing the dreadful load they bore,
The horses neighed, their nostrils flaring,
And wet the metal bit with foam,
Then swift as arrows raced for home.
36
You mourn the poet, friends . . . and rightly:
Scarce out of infant clothes and killed!
Those joyous hopes that bloomed so brightly
Now doomed to wither unfulfilled!
Where now the ardent agitation,
The fine and noble aspiration
Of youthful feeling, youthful thought,
Exalted, tender, boldly wrought?
And where are stormy love's desires,
The thirst for knowledge, work, and fame,
The dread of vice, the fear of shame?
And where are you, poetic fires,
You cherished dreams of sacred worth
And pledge of life beyond this earth!
37
It may be he was born to fire
The world with good, or earn at least
A gloried name; his silenced lyre
Might well have raised, before it ceased,
A call to ring throughout the ages.
Perhaps, upon the world's great stages,
He might have scaled a lofty height.
His martyred shade, condemned to night,
Perhaps has carried off forever
Some sacred truth, a living word,
Now doomed by death to pass unheard;
And in the tomb his shade shall never
Receive our race's hymns of praise,
Nor hear the ages bless his days.
(38) 39
Or maybe he was merely fated
To live amid the common tide;
And as his years of youth abated,
The flame within him would have died.
In time he might have changed profoundly,
Have quit the Muses, married soundly;
And in the country he'd have worn
A quilted gown and cuckold's horn,
And happy, he'd have learned life truly;
At forty he'd have had the gout,
Have eaten, drunk, grown bored and stout,
And so decayed, until he duly
Passed on in bed ... his children round,
While women wept and doctors frowned.
40