The Queen of Spades and Selected Works (Pushkin Collection)

by Alexander Pushkin

  Anew the flames of passion start

  Within her; she is sick at heart;

  The two friends’ compliments she hears

  Not, and a flood of bitter tears

  With effort she restrains. Well nigh

  The poor girl fell into a faint,

  But strength of mind and self-restraint

  Prevailed at last. She in reply

  Said something in an undertone

  And at the table sat her down.

  XXXI

  To tragedy, the fainting fit,

  And female tears hysterical,

  Oneguine could not now submit,

  For long he had endured them all.

  Our misanthrope was full of ire,

  At a great feast against desire,

  And marking Tania’s agitation,

  Cast down his eyes in trepidation

  And sulked in silent indignation;

  Swearing how Lenski he would rile,

  Avenge himself in proper style.

  Triumphant by anticipation,

  Caricatures he now designed

  Of all the guests within his mind.

  XXXII

  Certainly not Eugene alone

  Tattiana’s trouble might have spied,

  But that the eyes of every one

  By a rich pie were occupied —

  Unhappily too salt by far;

  And that a bottle sealed with tar

  Appeared, Don’s effervescing boast,(59)

  Between the blanc-mange and the roast;

  Behind, of glasses an array,

  Tall, slender, like thy form designed,

  Zizi, thou mirror of my mind,

  Fair object of my guileless lay,

  Seductive cup of love, whose flow

  Made me so tipsy long ago!

  [Note 59: The Donskoe Champanskoe is a species of sparkling wine manufactured in the vicinity of the river Don.]

  XXXIII

  From the moist cork the bottle freed

  With loud explosion, the bright wine

  Hissed forth. With serious air indeed,

  Long tortured by his lay divine,

  Triquet arose, and for the bard

  The company deep silence guard.

  Tania well nigh expired when he

  Turned to her and discordantly

  Intoned it, manuscript in hand.

  Voices and hands applaud, and she

  Must bow in common courtesy;

  The poet, modest though so grand,

  Drank to her health in the first place,

  Then handed her the song with grace.

  XXXIV

  Congratulations, toasts resound,

  Tattiana thanks to all returned,

  But, when Oneguine’s turn came round,

  The maiden’s weary eye which yearned,

  Her agitation and distress

  Aroused in him some tenderness.

  He bowed to her nor silence broke,

  But somehow there shone in his look

  The witching light of sympathy;

  I know not if his heart felt pain

  Or if he meant to flirt again,

  From habit or maliciously,

  But kindness from his eye had beamed

  And to revive Tattiana seemed.

  XXXV

  The chairs are thrust back with a roar,

  The crowd unto the drawing-room speeds,

  As bees who leave their dainty store

  And seek in buzzing swarms the meads.

  Contented and with victuals stored,

  Neighbour by neighbour sat and snored,

  Matrons unto the fireplace go,

  Maids in the corner whisper low;

  Behold! green tables are brought forth,

  And testy gamesters do engage

  In boston and the game of age,

  Ombre, and whist all others worth:

  A strong resemblance these possess —

  All sons of mental weariness.

  XXXVI

  Eight rubbers were already played,

  Eight times the heroes of the fight

  Change of position had essayed,

  When tea was brought. ‘Tis my delight

  Time to denote by dinner, tea,

  And supper. In the country we

  Can count the time without much fuss —

  The stomach doth admonish us.

  And, by the way, I here assert

  That for that matter in my verse

  As many dinners I rehearse,

  As oft to meat and drink advert,

  As thou, great Homer, didst of yore,

  Whom thirty centuries adore.

  XXXVII

  I will with thy divinity

  Contend with knife and fork and platter,

  But grant with magnanimity

  I’m beaten in another matter;

  Thy heroes, sanguinary wights,

  Also thy rough-and-tumble fights,

  Thy Venus and thy Jupiter,

  More advantageously appear

  Than cold Oneguine’s oddities,

  The aspect of a landscape drear.

  Or e’en Istomina, my dear,

  And fashion’s gay frivolities;

  But my Tattiana, on my soul,

  Is sweeter than thy Helen foul.

  XXXVIII

  No one the contrary will urge,

  Though for his Helen Menelaus

  Again a century should scourge

  Us, and like Trojan warriors slay us;

  Though around honoured Priam’s throne

  Troy’s sages should in concert own

  Once more, when she appeared in sight,

  Paris and Menelaus right.

  But as to fighting — ’twill appear!

  For patience, reader, I must plead!

  A little farther please to read

  And be not in advance severe.

  There’ll be a fight. I do not lie.

  My word of honour given have I.

  XXXIX

  The tea, as I remarked, appeared,

  But scarce had maids their saucers ta’en

  When in the grand saloon was heard

  Of bassoons and of flutes the strain.

  His soul by crash of music fired,

  His tea with rum no more desired,

  The Paris of those country parts

  To Olga Petoushkova darts:

  To Tania Lenski; Kharlikova,

  A marriageable maid matured,

  The poet from Tamboff secured,

  Bouyanoff whisked off Poustiakova.

  All to the grand saloon are gone —

  The ball in all its splendour shone.

  XL

  I tried when I began this tale,

  (See the first canto if ye will),

  A ball in Peter’s capital,

  To sketch ye in Albano’s style.(60)

  But by fantastic dreams distraught,

  My memory wandered wide and sought

  The feet of my dear lady friends.

  O feet, where’er your path extends

  I long enough deceived have erred.

  The perfidies I recollect

  Should make me much more circumspect,

  Reform me both in deed and word,

  And this fifth canto ought to be

  From such digressions wholly free.

  [Note 60: Francesco Albano, a celebrated painter, styled the “Anacreon of Painting,” was born at Bologna 1578, and died in the year 1666.]

  XLI

  The whirlwind of the waltz sweeps by,

  Undeviating and insane

  As giddy youth’s hilarity —

  Pair after pair the race sustain.

  The moment for revenge, meanwhile,

  Espying, Eugene with a smile

  Approaches Olga and the pair

  Amid the company career.

  Soon the maid on a chair he seats,

  Begins to talk of this and that,

  But when two minutes she had
sat,

  Again the giddy waltz repeats.

  All are amazed; but Lenski he

  Scarce credits what his eyes can see.

  XLII

  Hark! the mazurka. In times past,

  When the mazurka used to peal,

  All rattled in the ball-room vast,

  The parquet cracked beneath the heel,

  And jolting jarred the window-frames.

  ‘Tis not so now. Like gentle dames

  We glide along a floor of wax.

  However, the mazurka lacks

  Nought of its charms original

  In country towns, where still it keeps

  Its stamping, capers and high leaps.

  Fashion is there immutable,

  Who tyrannizes us with ease,

  Of modern Russians the disease.

  XLIII

  Bouyanoff, wrathful cousin mine,

  Unto the hero of this lay

  Olga and Tania led. Malign,

  Oneguine Olga bore away.

  Gliding in negligent career,

  He bending whispered in her ear

  Some madrigal not worth a rush,

  And pressed her hand — the crimson blush

  Upon her cheek by adulation

  Grew brighter still. But Lenski hath

  Seen all, beside himself with wrath,

  And hot with jealous indignation,

  Till the mazurka’s close he stays,

  Her hand for the cotillon prays.

  XLIV

  She fears she cannot. — Cannot? Why? —

  She promised Eugene, or she would

  With great delight. — O God on high!

  Heard he the truth? And thus she could —

  And can it be? But late a child

  And now a fickle flirt and wild,

  Cunning already to display

  And well-instructed to betray!

  Lenski the stroke could not sustain,

  At womankind he growled a curse,

  Departed, ordered out his horse

  And galloped home. But pistols twain,

  A pair of bullets — nought beside —

  His fate shall presently decide.

  CANTO THE SIXTH

  The Duel

  ‘La, sotto giorni nubilosi e brevi,

  Nasce una gente a cui ‘l morir non duole.’

  Petrarch

  Canto The Sixth

  [Mikhailovskoe, 1826: the two final stanzas were, however, written at Moscow.]

  I

  Having remarked Vladimir’s flight,

  Oneguine, bored to death again,

  By Olga stood, dejected quite

  And satisfied with vengeance ta’en.

  Olga began to long likewise

  For Lenski, sought him with her eyes,

  And endless the cotillon seemed

  As if some troubled dream she dreamed.

  ‘Tis done. To supper they proceed.

  Bedding is laid out and to all

  Assigned a lodging, from the hall(61)

  Up to the attic, and all need

  Tranquil repose. Eugene alone

  To pass the night at home hath gone.

  [Note 61: Hospitality is a national virtue of the Russians. On festal occasions in the country the whole party is usually accommodated for the night, or indeed for as many nights as desired, within the house of the entertainer. This of course is rendered necessary by the great distances which separate the residences of the gentry. Still, the alacrity with which a Russian hostess will turn her house topsy-turvy for the accommodation of forty or fifty guests would somewhat astonish the mistress of a modern Belgravian mansion.]

  II

  All slumber. In the drawing-room

  Loud snores the cumbrous Poustiakoff

  With better half as cumbersome;

  Gvozdine, Bouyanoff, Petoushkoff

  And Flianoff, somewhat indisposed,

  On chairs in the saloon reposed,

  Whilst on the floor Monsieur Triquet

  In jersey and in nightcap lay.

  In Olga’s and Tattiana’s rooms

  Lay all the girls by sleep embraced,

  Except one by the window placed

  Whom pale Diana’s ray illumes —

  My poor Tattiana cannot sleep

  But stares into the darkness deep.

  III

  His visit she had not awaited,

  His momentary loving glance

  Her inmost soul had penetrated,

  And his strange conduct at the dance

  With Olga; nor of this appeared

  An explanation: she was scared,

  Alarmed by jealous agonies:

  A hand of ice appeared to seize(62)

  Her heart: it seemed a darksome pit

  Beneath her roaring opened wide:

  “I shall expire,” Tattiana cried,

  “But death from him will be delight.

  I murmur not! Why mournfulness?

  He cannot give me happiness.”

  [Note 62: There must be a peculiar appropriateness in this expression as descriptive of the sensation of extreme cold. Mr. Wallace makes use of an identical phrase in describing an occasion when he was frostbitten whilst sledging in Russia. He says (vol. i. p. 33): “My fur cloak flew open, the cold seemed to grasp me in the region of the heart, and I fell insensible.”]

  IV

  Haste, haste thy lagging pace, my story!

  A new acquaintance we must scan.

  There dwells five versts from Krasnogory,

  Vladimir’s property, a man

  Who thrives this moment as I write,

  A philosophic anchorite:

  Zaretski, once a bully bold,

  A gambling troop when he controlled,

  Chief rascal, pot-house president,

  Now of a family the head,

  Simple and kindly and unwed,

  True friend, landlord benevolent,

  Yea! and a man of honour, lo!

  How perfect doth our epoch grow!

  V

  Time was the flattering voice of fame,

  His ruffian bravery adored,

  And true, his pistol’s faultless aim

  An ace at fifteen paces bored.

  But I must add to what I write

  That, tipsy once in actual fight,

  He from his Kalmuck horse did leap

  In mud and mire to wallow deep,

  Drunk as a fly; and thus the French

  A valuable hostage gained,

  A modern Regulus unchained,

  Who to surrender did not blench

  That every morn at Verrey’s cost

  Three flasks of wine he might exhaust.

  VI

  Time was, his raillery was gay,

  He loved the simpleton to mock,

  To make wise men the idiot play

  Openly or ‘neath decent cloak.

  Yet sometimes this or that deceit

  Encountered punishment complete,

  And sometimes into snares as well

  Himself just like a greenhorn fell.

  He could in disputation shine

  With pungent or obtuse retort,

  At times to silence would resort,

  At times talk nonsense with design;

  Quarrels among young friends he bred

  And to the field of honour led;

  VII

  Or reconciled them, it may be,

  And all the three to breakfast went;

  Then he’d malign them secretly

  With jest and gossip gaily blent.

  Sed alia tempora. And bravery

  (Like love, another sort of knavery!)

  Diminishes as years decline.

  But, as I said, Zaretski mine

  Beneath acacias, cherry-trees,

  From storms protection having sought,

  Lived as a really wise man ought,

  Like Horace, planted cabbages,

  Both ducks and geese in plenty bred

  And
lessons to his children read.

  VIII

  He was no fool, and Eugene mine,

  To friendship making no pretence,

  Admired his judgment, which was fine,

  Pervaded with much common sense.

  He usually was glad to see

  The man and liked his company,

  So, when he came next day to call,

  Was not surprised thereby at all.

  But, after mutual compliments,

  Zaretski with a knowing grin,

  Ere conversation could begin,

  The epistle from the bard presents.

  Oneguine to the window went

  And scanned in silence its content.

  IX

  It was a cheery, generous

  Cartel, or challenge to a fight,

  Whereto in language courteous

  Lenski his comrade did invite.

  Oneguine, by first impulse moved,

  Turned and replied as it behoved,

  Curtly announcing for the fray

  That he was “ready any day.”

  Zaretski rose, nor would explain,

  He cared no longer there to stay,

  Had much to do at home that day,

  And so departed. But Eugene,

  The matter by his conscience tried,

  Was with himself dissatisfied.

  X

  In fact, the subject analysed,

  Within that secret court discussed,

  In much his conduct stigmatized;

  For, from the outset, ‘twas unjust

  To jest as he had done last eve,

  A timid, shrinking love to grieve.

  And ought he not to disregard

  The poet’s madness? for ‘tis hard

  At eighteen not to play the fool!

  Sincerely loving him, Eugene

  Assuredly should not have been

  Conventionality’s dull tool —

  Not a mere hot, pugnacious boy,

  But man of sense and probity.

  XI

  He might his motives have narrated,

  Not bristled up like a wild beast,

  He ought to have conciliated

  That youthful heart — ”But, now at least,

  The opportunity is flown.

  Besides, a duellist well-known

  Hath mixed himself in the affair,

  Malicious and a slanderer.

  Undoubtedly, disdain alone

  Should recompense his idle jeers,

  But fools — their calumnies and sneers” —

  Behold! the world’s opinion!(63)

  Our idol, Honour’s motive force,

  Round which revolves the universe.

  [Note 63: A line of Griboyedoff’s. (Woe from Wit.)]

  XII

  Impatient, boiling o’er with wrath,

  The bard his answer waits at home,

  But lo! his braggart neighbour hath

  Triumphant with the answer come.

  Now for the jealous youth what joy!

  He feared the criminal might try

  To treat the matter as a jest,

  Use subterfuge, and thus his breast