Eugene Onegin: A Novel in Verse (Oxford World's Classics)
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Had cordial hopes that he’d acquire
The chance to know Onegin well.
And so they met—like wave with mountain,
Like verse with prose, like flame with fountain:
Their natures distant and apart.
At first their differences of heart
Made meetings dull at one another’s;
But then their friendship grew, and soon
They’d meet on horse each afternoon,
And in the end were close as brothers.
Thus people—so it seems to me—
Become good friends from sheer ennui.
14
But even friendships like our heroes’
Exist no more; for we’ve outgrown
All sentiments and deem men zeros—
Except of course ourselves alone.
We all take on Napoleon’s features,
And millions of our fellow creatures
Are nothing more to us than tools …
Since feelings are for freaks and fools.
Eugene, of course, had keen perceptions
And on the whole despised mankind,
Yet wasn’t, like so many, blind;
And since each rule permits exceptions,
He did respect a noble few,
And, cold himself, gave warmth its due.
15
He smiled at Lensky’s conversation.
Indeed the poet’s fervent speech,
His gaze of constant inspiration,
His mind, still vacillant in reach—
All these were new and unexpected,
And so, for once, Eugene elected
To keep his wicked tongue in check,
And thought: What foolishness to wreck
The young man’s blissful, brief infection;
Its time will pass without my knife,
So let him meanwhile live his life
Believing in the world’s perfection;
Let’s grant to fevered youthful days
Their youthful ravings and their blaze.
16
The two found everything a basis
For argument or food for thought:
The covenants of bygone races,
The fruits that learned science brought,
The prejudice that haunts all history,
The grave’s eternal, fateful mystery,
And Good and Evil, Life and Fate—
On each in turn they’d ruminate.
The poet, lost in hot contention,
Would oft recite, his eyes ablaze,
Brief passages from Nordic lays;
Eugene, with friendly condescension,
Would listen with a look intense,
Although he seldom saw their sense.
17
More often, though, my two recluses
Would muse on passions* and their flights.
Eugene, who’d fled their wild abuses,
Regretted still his past delights
And sighed, recalling their interment.
Oh, happy he who’s known the ferment
Of passions and escaped their lot;
More happy he who knew them not,
Who cooled off love with separation
And enmity with harsh contempt;
Who yawned with wife and friends, exempt
From pangs of jealous agitation;
Who never risked his sound estate
Upon a deuce, that cunning bait.
18
When we at last turn into sages
And flock to tranquil wisdom’s crest;
When passion’s flame no longer rages,
And all the yearnings in our breast,
The wayward fits, the final surges,
Have all become mere comic urges,
And pain has made us humble men—
We sometimes like to listen then
As others tell of passions swelling;
They stir our hearts and fan the flame.
Just so a soldier, old and lame,
Forgotten in his wretched dwelling,
Will strain to hear with bated breath
The youngbloods’ yarns of courting death.
19
But flaming youth in all its madness
Keeps nothing of its heart concealed:
Its loves and hates, its joy and sadness,
Are babbled out and soon revealed.
Onegin, who was widely taken
As one whom love had left forsaken,
Would listen gravely to the end
When self-expression gripped his friend;
The poet, feasting on confession,
Naively poured his secrets out;
And so Eugene learned all about
The course of youthful love’s progression-
A story rich in feelings too,
Although to us they’re hardly new.
20
Ah yes, he loved in such a fashion
As men today no longer do;
As only poets, mad with passion,
Still love … because they’re fated to.
He knew one constant source of dreaming,
One constant wish forever gleaming,
One ever-present cause for pain!
And neither distance, nor the chain
Of endless years of separation,
Nor pleasure’s rounds, nor learning’s well,
Nor foreign beauties’ magic spell,
Nor yet the Muse, his true vocation,
Could alter Lensky’s deep desire,
His soul aflame with virgin fire.
21
When scarce a boy and not yet knowing
The torment of a heart in flames,
He’d been entranced by Olga growing
And fondly watched her girlhood games;
Beneath a shady park’s protection
He’d shared her frolics with affection.
Their fathers, who were friends, had plans
To read one day their marriage banns.
And deep within her rustic bower,
Beneath her parents’ loving gaze,
She blossomed in a maiden’s ways—
A valley-lily come to flower
Off where the grass grows dense and high,
Unseen by bee or butterfly.
22
She gave the poet intimations
Of youthful ecstasies unknown,
And, filling all his meditations,
Drew forth his flute’s first ardent moan.
Farewell, O golden games’ illusion!
He fell in love with dark seclusion,
With stillness, stars, the lonely night,
And with the moon’s celestial light—
That lamp to which we’ve consecrated
A thousand walks in evening’s calm
And countless tears—the gentle balm
Of secret torments unabated ….
Today, though, all we see in her
Is just another lantern’s blur.
23
Forever modest, meek in bearing,
As gay as morning’s rosy dress,
Like any poet—open, caring,
As sweet as love’s own soft caress;
Her sky-blue eyes, devoid of guile,
Her flaxen curls, her lovely smile,
Her voice, her form, her graceful stance,
Oh, Olga’s every trait…. But glance
In any novel—you’ll discover
Her portrait there; it’s charming, true;
I liked it once no less than you,
But round it boredom seems to hover;
And so, dear reader, grant me pause
To plead her elder sister’s cause.
24
Her sister bore the name Tatyana.
And we now press our wilful claim
To be the first who thus shall honour
A tender novel with that name.*
Why not? I like its intonation;
It has, I know, association
/> With olden days beyond recall,
With humble roots and servants’ hall;
But we must grant, though it offend us:
Our taste in names is less than weak
(Of verses I won’t even speak);
Enlightenment has failed to mend us,
And all we’ve learned from its great store
Is affectation—nothing more.
25
So she was called Tatyana, reader.
She lacked that fresh and rosy tone
That made her sister’s beauty sweeter
And drew all eyes to her alone.
A wild creature, sad and pensive,
Shy as a doe and apprehensive,
Tatyana seemed among her kin
A stranger who had wandered in.
She never learned to show affection,
To hug her parents—either one;
A child herself, for children’s fun
She lacked the slightest predilection,
And oftentimes she’d sit all day
In silence at the window bay.
26
But pensiveness, her friend and treasure
Through all her years since cradle days,
Adorned the course of rural leisure
By bringing dreams before her gaze.
She never touched a fragile finger
To thread a needle, wouldn’t linger
Above a tambour to enrich
A linen cloth with silken stitch.
Mark how the world compels submission:
The little girl with docile doll
Prepares in play for protocol,
For every social admonition;
And to her doll, without demur,
Repeats what mama taught to her.
27
But dolls were never Tanya’s passion,
When she was small she didn’t choose
To talk to them of clothes or fashion
Or tell them all the city news.
And she was not the sort who glories
In girlish pranks; but grisly stories
Quite charmed her heart when they were told
On winter nights all dark and cold.
Whenever nanny brought together
Young Olga’s friends to spend the day,
Tatyana never joined their play
Or games of tag upon the heather;
For she was bored by all their noise,
Their laughing shouts and giddy joys.
28
Upon her balcony appearing,
She loved to greet Aurora’s show,
When dancing stars are disappearing
Against the heavens’ pallid glow,
When earth’s horizon softly blushes,
And wind, the morning’s herald, rushes,
And slowly day begins its flight.
In winter, when the shade of night
Still longer half the globe encumbers,
And ’neath the misty moon on high
An idle stillness rules the sky,
And late the lazy East still slumbers—
Awakened early none the less,
By candlelight she’d rise and dress.
29
From early youth she read romances,
And novels set her heart aglow;
She loved the fictions and the fancies
Of Richardson and of Rousseau.
Her father was a kindly fellow—
Lost in a past he found more mellow;
But still, in books he saw no harm,
And, though immune to reading’s charm,
Deemed it a minor peccadillo;
Nor did he care what secret tome
His daughter read or kept at home
Asleep till morn beneath her pillow;
His wife herself, we ought to add,
For Richardson was simply mad.
30
It wasn’t that she’d read him, really,
Nor was it that she much preferred
To Lovelace Grandison, but merely
That long ago she’d often heard
Her Moscow cousin, Princess Laura,
Go on about their special aura.
Her husband at the time was still
Her fiancé—against her will!
For she, in spite of family feeling,
Had someone else for whom she pined—
A man whose heart and soul and mind
She found a great deal more appealing;
This Grandison was fashion’s pet,
A gambler and a guards cadet.
31
About her clothes one couldn’t fault her;
Like him, she dressed as taste decreed.
But then they led her to the altar
And never asked if she agreed.
The clever husband chose correctly
To take his grieving bride directly
To his estate, where first she cried
(With God knows whom on every side),
Then tossed about and seemed demented;
And almost even left her spouse;
But then she took to keeping house
And settled down and grew contented.
Thus heaven’s gift to us is this:
That habit takes the place of bliss.
32
’Twas only habit then that taught her
The way to master rampant grief;
And soon a great discovery brought her
A final and complete relief.
Betwixt her chores and idle hours
She learned to use her woman’s powers
To rule the house as autocrat,
And life went smoothly after that.
She’d drive around to check the workers,
She pickled mushrooms for the fall,
She made her weekly bathhouse call,
She kept the books, she shaved the shirkers,*
She beat the maids when she was cross—
And left her husband at a loss.
33
She used to write, with blood, quotations
In maidens’ albums, thought it keen
To speak in singsong intonations,
Would call Praskóvya ‘chère Pauline’.
She laced her corset very tightly,
Pronounced a Russian n as slightly
As n in French … and through the nose;
But soon she dropped her city pose:
The corset, albums, chic relations,
The sentimental verses too,
Were quite forgot; she bid adieu
To all her foreign affectations,
And took at last to coming down
In just her cap and quilted gown.
34
And yet her husband loved her dearly;
In all her schemes he’d never probe;
He trusted all she did sincerely
And ate and drank in just his robe.
His life flowed on—quite calm and pleasant—
With kindly neighbours sometimes present
For hearty talk at evenfall,
Just casual friends who’d often call
To shake their heads, to prate and prattle,
To laugh a bit at something new;
And time would pass, till Olga’d brew
Some tea to whet their tittle-tattle;
Then supper came, then time for bed,
And off the guests would drive, well fed.
35
Amid this peaceful life they cherished,
They held all ancient customs dear;
At Shrovetide feasts their table flourished
With Russian pancakes, Russian cheer;
Twice yearly too they did their fasting;
Were fond of songs for fortune-casting,
Of choral dances, garden swings.
At Trinity, when service brings
The people, yawning, in for prayer,
They’d shed a tender tear or two
Upon their buttercups of rue.
They needed kvas no less than air,
And at their table guests were served
By rank in turn as each deserved.*
36
And thus they aged, as do all mortals.
Until at last the husband found
That death had opened wide its portals,
Through which he entered, newly crowned.
He died at midday’s break from labour,
Lamented much by friend and neighbour,
By children and by faithful wife—
Far more than some who part this life.
He was a kind and simple barin,
And there where now his ashes lie
A tombstone tells the passer-by:
The humble sinner Dmitry Larin
A slave of God and Brigadier
Beneath this stone now resteth here.
37
Restored to home and its safekeeping,
Young Lensky came to cast an eye
Upon his neighbour’s place of sleeping,
And mourned his ashes with a sigh.
And long he stood in sorrow aching;
‘Poor Yorick!’ then he murmured, shaking,
‘How oft within his arms I lay,
How oft in childhood days I’d play
With his Ochákov decoration!*
He destined Olga for my wife
And used to say: “Oh grant me, life,
To see the day!”’ … In lamentation,
Right then and there Vladimir penned
A funeral verse for his old friend.
38
And then with verse of quickened sadness
He honoured too, in tears and pain,
His parents’ dust… their memory’s gladness …
Alas! Upon life’s furrowed plain—
A harvest brief, each generation,
By fate’s mysterious dispensation,
Arises, ripens, and must fall;
Then others too must heed the call.
For thus our giddy race gains power:
It waxes, stirs, turns seething wave,
Then crowds its forebears toward the grave.
And we as well shall face that hour
When one fine day our grandsons true
Straight out of life will crowd us too!