Eugene Onegin: A Novel in Verse (Oxford World's Classics)
Page 6
The balmy fragrance of the night!
Like convicts sent in dreaming flight
To forest green and liberation,
So we in fancy then were borne
Back to our springtime’s golden morn.
48
Filled with his heart’s regrets, and leaning
Against the rampart’s granite shelf,
Eugene stood lost in pensive dreaming
(As once some poet drew himself*).
The night grew still… with silence falling;
Only the sound of sentries calling,
Or suddenly from Million Street
Some distant droshky’s rumbling beat;
Or floating on the drowsy river,
A lonely boat would sail along,
While far away some rousing song
Or plaintive horn would make us shiver.
But sweeter still, amid such nights,
Are Tasso’s octaves’ soaring flights.
49
O Adriatic! Grand Creation!
O Brenta!* I shall yet rejoice,
When, filled once more with inspiration,
I hear at last your magic voice!
It’s sacred to Apollo’s choir;
Through Albion’s great and haughty lyre*
It speaks to me in words I know.
On soft Italian nights I’ll go
In search of pleasure’s sweet profusion;
A fair Venetian at my side,
Now chatting, now a silent guide,
I’ll float in gondola’s seclusion;
And she my willing lips will teach
Both love’s and Petrarch’s ardent speech.
50
Will freedom come—and cut my tether?
It’s time, it’s time! I bid her hail;
I roam the shore,* await fair weather,
And beckon to each passing sail.
O when, my soul, with waves contesting,
And caped in storms, shall I go questing
Upon the crossroads of the sea?
It’s time to quit this dreary lee
And land of harsh, forbidding places;
And there, where southern waves break high,
Beneath my Africa’s warm sky,*
To sigh for sombre Russia’s spaces,
Where first I loved, where first I wept,
And where my buried heart is kept.
51
Eugene and I had both decided
To make the foreign tour we’d planned;
But all too soon our paths divided,
For fate took matters into hand.
His father died—quite unexpected,
And round Eugene there soon collected
The greedy horde demanding pay.
Each to his own, or so they say.
Eugene, detesting litigation
And quite contented with his fate,
Released to them the whole estate …
With no great sense of deprivation;
Perhaps he also dimly knew
His aged uncle’s time was due.
52
And sure enough a note came flying;
The bailiff wrote as if on cue:
Onegin’s uncle, sick and dying,
Would like to bid his heir adieu.
He gave the message one quick reading,
And then by post Eugene was speeding,
Already bored, to uncle’s bed,
While thoughts of money filled his head.
He was prepared—like any craven—
To sigh, deceive, and play his part
(With which my novel took its start);
But when he reached his uncle’s haven,
A laid-out corpse was what he found,
Prepared as tribute for the ground.
53
He found the manor fairly bustling
With those who’d known the now deceased;
Both friends and foes had come ahustling,
True lovers of a funeral feast.
They laid to rest the dear departed;
Then, wined and dined and heavy-hearted,
But pleased to have their duty done,
The priests and guests left one by one.
And here’s Onegin—lord and master
Of woods and mills and streams and lands;
A country squire, there he stands,
That former wastrel and disaster;
And rather glad he was, it’s true,
That he’d found something else to do.
54
For two full days he was enchanted
By lonely fields and burbling brook,
By sylvan shade that lay implanted
Within a cool and leafy nook.
But by the third he couldn’t stick it:
The grove, the hill, the field, the thicket-
Quite ceased to tempt him any more
And, presently, induced a snore;
And then he saw that country byways—
With no great palaces, no streets,
No cards, no balls, no poets’ feats—
Were just as dull as city highways;
And spleen, he saw, would dog his life,
Like shadow or a faithful wife.
55
But I was born for peaceful roaming,
For country calm and lack of strife;
My lyre sings! And in the gloaming
My fertile fancies spring to life.
I give myself to harmless pleasures
And far niente rules my leisures:
Each morning early I’m awake
To wander by the lonely lake
Or seek some other sweet employment:
I read a little, often sleep,
For fleeting fame I do not weep.
And was it not in past enjoyment
Of shaded, idle times like this,
I spent my days of deepest bliss?
56
The country, love, green fields and flowers,
Sweet idleness! You have my heart.
With what delight I praise those hours
That set Eugene and me apart.
For otherwise some mocking reader
Or, God forbid, some wretched breeder
Of twisted slanders might combine
My hero’s features here with mine
And then maintain the shameless fiction
That, like proud Byron, I have penned
A mere self-portrait in the end;
As if today, through some restriction,
We’re now no longer fit to write
On any theme but our own plight.
57
All poets, I need hardly mention,
Have drawn from love abundant themes;
I too have gazed in rapt attention
When cherished beings filled my dreams.
My soul preserved their secret features;
The Muse then made them living creatures:
Just so in carefree song I paid
My tribute to the mountain maid,
And sang the Salghir captives’ praises.*
And now, my friends, I hear once more
That question you have put before:
‘For whom these sighs your lyre raises?
To whom amid the jealous throng
Do you today devote your song?
58
’Whose gaze, evoking inspiration,
Rewards you with a soft caress?
Whose form, in pensive adoration,
Do you now clothe in sacred dress?’
Why no one, friends, as God’s my witness,
For I have known too well the witless
And maddened pangs of love’s refrain.
Oh, blest is he who joins his pain
To fevered rhyme: for thus he doubles
The sacred ecstasy of art;
Like Petrarch then, he calms the heart,
Subduing passion’s host of troubles,
And captures worldly fame to boot!—
But I, in love, was dense and mute.
59
The Muse appeared as love was ending
And cleared the darkened mind she found.
Once free, I seek again the blending
Of feeling, thought, and magic sound.
I write … and want no more embraces;
My straying pen no longer traces,
Beneath a verse left incomplete,
The shapes of ladies’ heads and feet.
Extinguished ashes won’t rekindle,
And though I grieve, I weep no more;
And soon, quite soon, the tempest’s core
Within my soul will fade and dwindle:
And then I’ll write this world a song
That’s five and twenty cantos long!
60
I’ve drawn a plan and know what’s needed,
The hero’s named, the plotting’s done;
And meantime I’ve just now completed
My present novel’s Chapter One.
I’ve looked it over most severely;
It has its contradictions, clearly,
But I’ve no wish to change a line;
I’ll grant the censor’s right to shine
And send these fruits of inspiration
To feed the critics’ hungry pen.
Fly to the Neva’s water then,
My spirit’s own newborn creation!
And earn me tribute paid to fame:
Distorted readings, noise, and blame!
Chapter 2
O rus!
Horace
O Rus’!*
1
The place Eugene found so confining
Was quite a lovely country nest,
Where one who favoured soft reclining
Would thank his stars to be so blest.
The manor house, in proud seclusion,
Screened by a hill from wind’s intrusion,
Stood by a river. Far away
Green meads and golden cornfields lay,
Lit by the sun as it paraded;
Small hamlets too the eye could see
And cattle wand’ring o’er the lea;
While near at hand, all dense and shaded,
A vast neglected garden made
A nook where pensive dryads played.
2
The ancient manse had been erected
For placid comfort—and to last;
And all its solid form reflected
The sense and taste of ages past.
Throughout the house the ceilings towered,
From walls ancestral portraits glowered;
The drawing room had rich brocades
And stoves of tile in many shades.
All this today seems antiquated—
I don’t know why; but in the end
It hardly mattered to my friend,
For he’d become so fully jaded,
He yawned alike where’er he sat,
In ancient hall or modern flat.
3
He settled where the former squire
For forty years had heaved his sighs,
Had cursed the cook in useless ire,
Stared out the window, and squashed flies.
The furnishings were plain but stable:
A couch, two cupboards, and a table,
No spot of ink on oaken floors.
Onegin opened cupboard doors
And found in one a list of wages,
Some fruit liqueurs and applejack,
And in the next an almanac
From eighteen-eight with tattered pages;
The busy master never took
A glance in any other book.
4
Alone amid his new possessions,
And merely as an idle scheme,
Eugene devised a few concessions
And introduced a new regime.
A backwoods genius, he commuted
The old corvée and substituted
A quitrent at a modest rate;*
His peasants thanked their lucky fate,
But thrifty neighbours waxed indignant
And in their dens bewailed as one
The dreadful harm of what he’d done.
Still others sneered or turned malignant,
And everyone who chose to speak
Called him a menace and a freak.
5
At first the neighbours’ calls were steady;
But when they learned that in the rear
Onegin kept his stallion ready
So he could quickly disappear
The moment one of them was sighted
Or heard approaching uninvited,
They took offence and, one and all,
They dropped him cold and ceased to call.
’The man’s a boor, he‘s off his rocker.’
‘Must be a Mason;* drinks, they say …
Red wine, by tumbler, night and day!’
‘Won’t kiss a lady’s hand, the mocker.’
‘Won’t call me “sir” the way he should.’
The general verdict wasn’t good.
6
Another squire chose this season
To reappear at his estate
And gave the neighbours equal reason
For scrutiny no less irate.
Vladimir Lénsky, just returning
From Göttingen with soulful yearning,
Was in his prime—a handsome youth
And poet filled with Kantian truth.
From misty Germany our squire
Had carried back the fruits of art:
A freedom-loving, noble heart,
A spirit strange but full of fire,
An always bold, impassioned speech,
And raven locks of shoulder reach.
7
As yet unmarked by disillusion
Or chill corruption’s deadly grasp,
His soul still knew the warm effusion
Of maiden’s touch and friendship’s clasp.
A charming fool at love’s vocation,
He fed on hope’s eternal ration;
The world’s fresh glitter and its call
Still held his youthful mind in thrall;
He entertained with fond illusions
The doubts that plagued his heart and will;
The goal of life, he found, was still
A tempting riddle of confusions;
He racked his brains and rather thought
That miracles could still be wrought.
8
He knew a kindred soul was fated
To join her life to his career,
That even now she pined and waited,
Expecting he would soon appear.
And he believed that men would tender
Their freedom for his honour’s splendour;
That friendly hands would surely rise
To shatter slander’s cup of lies;
That there exists a holy cluster
Of chosen ones whom men should heed,
A happy and immortal breed,
Whose potent light in all its lustre
Would one day shine upon our race
And grant the world redeeming grace.*
9
Compassion, noble indignation,
A perfect love of righteous ways,
And fame’s delicious agitation
Had stirred his soul since early days.
He roamed the world with singing lyre
And found the source of lyric fire
Beneath the skies of distant lands,
From Goethe’s and from Schiller’s hands.
He never shamed, the happy creature,
The lofty Muses of his art;
He proudly sang with open heart
Sublime emotion’s every feature,
The charm of gravely simple things,
And youthful hopes on youthful wings.
10
He sang of love, by love commanded,
A simple and
affecting tune,
As clear as maiden thoughts, as candid
As infant slumber, as the moon
In heaven’s peaceful desert flying,
That queen of secrets and of sighing.
He sang of parting and of pain,
Of something vague, of mists and rain;
He sang the rose, romantic flower,
And distant lands where once he’d shed
His living tears upon the bed
Of silence at a lonely hour;
He sang life’s bloom gone pale and sere—
He’d almost reached his eighteenth year.
11
Throughout that barren, dim dominion
Eugene alone could see his worth;
And Lensky formed a low opinion
Of neighbours’ feasts and rounds of mirth;
He fled their noisy congregations
And found their solemn conversations—
Of liquor, and of hay brought in,
Of kennels, and of distant kin,
Devoid of any spark of feeling
Or hint of inner lyric grace;
Both wit and brains were out of place,
As were the arts of social dealing;
But then their charming wives he found
At talk were even less profound.
12
Well-off… and handsome in addition,
Young Lensky seemed the perfect catch;
And so, by countryside tradition,
They asked him round and sought to match
Their daughters with this semi-Russian.
He’d call—and right away discussion
Would touch obliquely on the point
That bachelors’ lives were out of joint;
And then the guest would be invited
To take some tea while Dunya poured;
They whisper: ‘Dunya, don’t look bored!’—
Then bring in her guitar, excited …
And then, good God, she starts to bawl:
‘Come to my golden chamberhall!’
13
But Lensky, having no desire
For marriage bonds or wedding bell,