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Eugene Onegin

Page 14

by Alexander Pushkin


  Zaretsky, once a brawler and

  The hetman3 of a gaming band,

  Chieftain of rakes, a pub declaimer,

  But now, benign and simple, he

  Maintains a bachelor family;

  A steadfast friend, a squire grown tamer,

  He’s even honest – thus our age

  Improves itself at every stage.4

  5

  Time was, he stood upon a pedestal,

  Society flattered him with praise:

  He was a maestro with a pistol

  Who could at twelve yards hit an ace,

  And once, engaged in actual battle,

  Enraptured, he displayed his mettle

  By falling from his Kalmuck steed

  Into the mud at daring speed;

  Drunk as a swine, this precious hostage

  Surrendered to a Gallic squad,

  A modern Regulus,5 honour’s god,

  Prepared to yield again to bondage,

  To drain on credit two or three

  Carafes each morning chez Véry.6

  6

  To tease was once his recreation,

  He’d dupe a fool or stupefy

  A man of educated station,

  In public gaze or on the sly,

  Although some tricks he perpetrated

  Did not remain uncastigated,

  And sometimes, like a simple chap,

  He’d fall himself into a trap.

  He could dispute and be amusing,

  Respond with answers, smart or dumb,

  At times judiciously keep mum

  Or be judiciously abusing,

  Encourage two young friends to strife

  And set them duelling for their life,

  7

  Alternatively reconcile them,

  Arrange a breakfast for the three,

  And, later, secretly revile them

  With merry jokes and braggartry.

  Sed alia tempora!7Audacity

  (Like lover’s dream, another vanity)

  Departs when lively youth has fled.

  And my Zaretsky, as I said,

  Lives like a sage, discovering solace

  Where bird cherry, acacia climb;8

  Sheltered from storms, he spends his time

  In planting cabbages, like Horace,9

  And breeding ducks and geese, is free

  To teach his kids their ABC.

  8

  He was not stupid; and, despising

  The heart in him, Eugene admired

  The spirit of his judgements, prizing

  The sound opinions he’d acquired.

  Eugene was always pleased to meet him

  And so was not surprised to greet him

  When, in the morning, Eugene saw

  His neighbour standing at the door.

  With salutations done, Zaretsky

  Broke off the chat that they’d begun

  And, eyes a-twinkle with the fun,

  Passed on to him a note from Lensky.

  Onegin to the window went

  And read the note the poet sent.

  9

  It was a gentlemanly letter,

  A challenge or cartel10 he’d penned;

  Polite and cold and to the matter

  He sought a duel with his friend.

  Eugene’s immediate reaction

  To this demand for satisfaction

  Was swift enough. Discussion spared,

  He said he’d ‘always be prepared’.

  Zaretsky rose without explaining,

  Not wishing to prolong his stay,

  For household business claimed the day,

  He left forthwith; Eugene, remaining

  Alone, encountering his soul,

  Was not contented with his role.

  10

  Indeed, a strict examination

  Before a secret, inner court

  Engendered much self-accusation:

  First, that he’d not the right to sport

  Last evening in such casual fashion

  With Lensky’s timid, tender passion;

  Then… why not let a poet play

  The fool at eighteen, while he may.

  Eugene, who loved him as a brother,

  Might well have proved, by seeking peace,

  To be no ball of prejudice

  That’s batted one way or another,

  No fiery boy, no fighting kind,

  But man of honour, with a mind.

  11

  He might have manifested feeling

  Instead of bristling like a beast,

  He should have set about the healing

  Of Lensky’s heart. Such thoughts soon ceased.

  ‘Too late now, everything is settled,

  Now this old duellist has meddled

  In the affair, what’s left to do?

  He’s vicious and a gossip, too.

  The answer to his droll dominion

  Should be contempt, of course, but then

  The whispers, laughs of stupid men…’

  And there it is – public opinion!11

  Our idol, honour’s spring, which, wound,

  Ensures our universe goes round.

  12

  Lensky, at home, with hatred blazing,

  Awaits the answer fretfully;

  His neighbour in the finest phrasing

  Conveys it with solemnity.

  This sets the jealous poet cheering;

  The prankster might – so he’d been fearing –

  Treat the occasion as a jest,

  And by some ruse avert his breast

  And duck the pistol by retreating.

  These doubts resolved, tomorrow they

  Must at the mill ere break of day

  Embark upon their fateful meeting,

  To raise the cock and, taking aim,

  A temple or a thigh to claim.12

  13

  Detesting a coquette so cruel,

  Still seething, Lensky sought to shun

  A rendezvous before the duel,

  He kept consulting watch and sun.

  The wish to meet, though, was compelling,

  Soon Lensky’s at the sisters’ dwelling.

  Olga, he thought, would be upset

  And agitated when they met;

  But not a bit of it: on spying

  The desolate bard, as in the past

  She skipped down from the porch as fast

  As giddy hope, towards him flying,

  Light-hearted, free of care, serene –

  In fact, as she had always been.

  14

  ‘Last night, why did you leave so early?’

  Was what his Olen’ka first said.

  His senses clouded, and he merely,

  Without replying, hung his head.

  Vexation, jealousy were banished,

  Before her shining look they vanished,

  Before her soft simplicity,

  Before her soul’s vivacity!

  He gazes with sweet feeling, heartened

  To see that he’s still loved; and longs

  Already, burdened by his wrongs,

  To ask her whether he’ll be pardoned,

  He trembles, can’t think what to say,

  He’s happy, almost well today…

  [15, 16]13

  17

  Pensive again, again dejected,

  Vladimir, under Olga’s sway,

  Is not sufficiently collected

  To speak to her of yesterday;

  ‘I,’ he reflects, ‘will be her saviour.

  I shall not suffer that depraver

  To tempt a maiden’s innocence

  With fiery sighs and compliments;

  Nor let a worm with venom slither

  A lily’s stalklet to enfold,

  Nor see a flower two days old,

  Half-opened still, condemned to wither.’

  All this, friends, signified: I shall

  Soon fire a bullet at my pal.

  18
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  If he had known what wound was burning

  My dear Tatiana’s heart! If she

  Had been aware, in some way learning,

  If she’d been able to foresee

  That Lensky, Eugene would be vying

  To find a grave for one to lie in;

  Who knows, her love perhaps might then

  Have reconciled the friends again!

  But no one had as yet discovered,

  Even by chance, their angry feud.

  On everything Eugene was mute,

  Tatiana quietly pined and suffered;

  The nurse might just have known of it,

  But she, alas, was slow of wit.

  19

  All evening Lensky was abstracted,

  Now taciturn, now gay. Somehow,

  A person by the Muse protected,

  Is always thus: with knitted brow,

  To the clavier he’d wander, playing

  A string of chords, no more assaying,

  Or whisper, seeing Olga near,

  ‘I’m happy, am I not, my dear?’

  But it was late, his heart was aching,

  He must depart, yet as he bade

  Goodbye to her, his youthful maid,

  His heart was on the point of breaking.

  She looks at him: ‘What is it?’ ‘Oh,

  It’s nothing, Olga, I must go.’

  20

  Arriving home, he first inspected

  His pistols, ready for the fight,

  Put them away, undressed, reflected

  On Schiller’s verse by candlelight.

  But by one thought he’s overtaken,

  His melancholy does not slacken:

  He sees before him Olga full

  Of beauty inexplicable.

  Vladimir closes Schiller’s verses,

  Takes up his pen and writes his own –

  Nonsense to which a lover’s prone;

  It sings and flows. And he rehearses

  His lines aloud, by fervour seized,

  Like drunken Delvig14 at a feast.

  21

  By chance his verse can still be read now,

  I have it, ready for your gaze:15

  ‘Whither, ah whither are you fled now,

  My springtime’s ever-golden days?

  What is the coming day’s decision?

  Alas, it lies beyond my vision,

  Enshrouded in the deepest night.

  No matter, fate’s decree is right.

  Whether I’m pierced by an arrow

  Or whether it should miss – all’s well:

  A predetermined hour will tell

  If we’re to wake or sleep tomorrow:

  Blest are the cares that day contrives,

  Blest is the darkness that arrives!

  22

  ‘When daybreak comes with rays ascending

  And sparkling day dispels the gloom,

  Then I, perhaps – I’ll be descending

  Into the mystery of the tomb,

  Slow Lethe will engulf for ever

  My young poetical endeavour;

  I’ll be forgot, but you’ll return

  To weep on my untimely urn,

  And, maid of beauty, in your sorrow,

  You will reflect: he loved me, sworn

  To me alone in his sad dawn,

  Bereft now of its stormy morrow!…

  Come, heartfelt friend, come, longed-for friend,

  I’ll be your husband to the end.’

  23

  And so he wrote obscurely, limply

  (Romantic16 is the term we’ve coined,

  Though what’s Romantic here I simply

  Have no idea; and what’s the point?),

  And finally, as night was ending,

  His head towards his shoulder bending,

  Vladimir dozed, while lingering still

  Upon the modish word ideal;

  But scarcely lost in sleep’s enchantment,

  He does not hear his neighbour, who

  Enters the silent study to

  Awaken him with a commandment:

  ‘Time to get up, past six, we’re late,

  Onegin will not want to wait.’

  24

  But he was wrong: Eugene unheeding

  Still sleeps a sleep that nought can mar.

  Night’s shades already are receding,

  The cock salutes the morning star,

  Onegin sleeps on at his leisure,

  The sun climbs high into the azure,

  A passing snowstorm overhead

  Glitters and whirls. But from his bed

  Our dormant hero has not started,

  Sleep hovers still before his eyes.

  At last he wakes, prepares to rise,

  The curtains of his bed he’s parted;

  He looks outside – and sees, alack,

  He should have started some time back.

  25

  He rings: his valet, French and chipper,

  Reaches his chamber in a flash,

  Guillot brings dressing-gown and slipper,

  And hands him linen with panache.

  Onegin hurries with his dressing,

  Informs his man that time is pressing,

  That he must take the duelling-case,

  That they must leave, that they must race.

  The sleigh is ready; Eugene, seated,

  Flies to the mill, the horses strain.

  He tells his valet to retain

  Lepage’s fatal tubes17 till needed,

  And have the horses moved to where

  Two oaklings stand, and leave them there.

  26

  Leaning upon the dam stood Lensky

  Who’d waited there impatiently,

  While rural engineer Zaretsky

  Surveyed the millstone critically.

  Eugene arrives and makes excuses.

  ‘That’s very well, but where the deuce is

  Your second, then?’ Zaretsky cried.

  In duels he took a pedant’s pride,

  Methodical by intuition:

  To stretch out someone on the ground

  Any old how was quite unsound,

  One must obey a strict tradition

  And follow rules of ancient days

  (For which we should accord him praise).

  27

  ‘My second? Yes, let me present him,

  He’s here: Monsieur Guillot, my friend,

  I do not see what should prevent him,

  He’s someone I can recommend.

  Although he’s not a well-known figure,

  He is an honest guy and eager.’

  Zaretsky bit his lip, appalled.

  Onegin then to Lensky called:

  ‘Shall we not start now?’ ‘If you’re willing,’

  Vladimir said. Behind the mill

  They went. At some remove, meanwhile,

  Zaretsky solemnly is sealing

  A contract with the ‘honest guy’.

  The two foes stand with lowered eye.

  28

  How long since they from one another

  Were parted by a thirst to kill?

  How long since, each to each a brother,

  They’d shared their leisure time, a meal

  And thoughts? But now with grim impatience,

  As in a feud of generations

  Or frightful dream that makes no sense

  Each, cool and silent, must commence

  To wreak the other one’s destruction…

  Should they not stop and laugh instead

  Before their hands have turned blood red,

  Should they not spurn the duel’s seduction?…

  But what the world cannot abide

  Are bogus shame and lack of pride.

  29

  The pistols glistened; soon the mallets

  Resoundingly on ramrods flicked,

  Through cut-steel barrels went the bullets,

  The cock has for the first time clicked.

 
A greyish powder was decanted

  Into the pan, and the indented,

  Securely screwed-in flint raised high

  Once more. Behind a stump nearby

  Guillot was standing, disconcerted.

  The foes cast off their cloaks, meanwhile

  Zaretsky measured off in style

  Thirty-two steps and then diverted

  His friends towards the farthest pace,

  Each took his pistol to the place.18

  30

  ‘Now march,’ came the command. And readily,

  As if the two had never met,

  The erstwhile comrades slowly, steadily

  Advanced four steps, not aiming yet,

  Four fatal steps the two had taken.

  And then, advancing still, Onegin

  Raised by degrees his pistol first.

  Five further paces they traversed.

  And likewise Lensky calculated,

  Closed his left eye, as he took aim –

  But, with a sudden burst of flame,

  Onegin fired… the moment fated

  Had struck: the poet, with no sound,

  Let drop his pistol to the ground.

  31

  His hand upon his breast he presses

  Softly, and falls, as, misty-eyed,

  His gaze not pain, but death expresses.

  Thus, slowly, on a mountain-side

  A mound of snow, already teetering,

  Descends with sunny sparkles glittering.

  Onegin, shuddering, swiftly flies

  To where the young Vladimir lies,

  He looks and calls… but there’s no power

  Can bring him back. The youthful bard

  Has met an end untimely. Hard

  The storm has blown, the finest flower

  Has withered at the morning’s dawn,

  The fire upon the altar’s gone.

  32

  He lay inert; uncanny-seeming,

  A languid peace showed on his brow.

  Beneath his breast the blood flowed, steaming,

  The shot had gone right through him. How

  One moment earlier inspiration

  And love and hate, and aspiration

  Had in this heart vibrated, churned,

 

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