“Whither? Ah me, those poets!”
“Good-by, Onegin. Time for me to leave.”
“I do not hold you, but where do
4 you spend your evenings?” “At the Larins'.”
“Now, that's a fine thing. Mercy, man —
and you don't find it difficult
thus every evening to kill time?”
8 “Not in the least.” “I cannot understand.
From here I see what it is like:
first — listen, am I right? —
a simple Russian family,
12 a great solicitude for guests,
jam, never-ending talk
of rain, of flax, of cattle yard.”
“So far I do not see what's bad about it.”
“Ah, but the boredom — that is bad, my friend.”
“Your fashionable world I hate;
4 dearer to me is the domestic circle
in which I can…” “Again an eclogue!
Ah, that will do, old boy, for goodness' sake.
Well, so you're off; I'm very sorry.
8 Oh, Lenski, listen — is there any way
for me to see this Phyllis,
subject of thoughts, and pen,
and tears, and rhymes, et cetera?
12 Present me.” “You are joking.” “No.”
“I'd gladly.” “When?” “Now, if you like.
They will be eager to receive us.”
“Let's go.” And off the two friends drove;
they have arrived; on them are lavished
the sometimes onerous attentions
4 of hospitable ancientry.
The ritual of the treat is known:
in little dishes jams are brought,
on an oilcloth'd small table there is set
8 a jug of lingonberry water.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
12 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
They by the shortest road
fly home at full career.
17 Now let us eavesdrop furtively
4 upon our heroes' conversation.
“Well now, Onegin, you are yawning.”
“A habit, Lenski.” “But somehow
you are more bored than ever.” “No, the same.
8 I say, it's dark already in the field;
faster! come on, come on, Andryushka!
What silly country!
Ah, apropos: Dame Larin
12 is simple but a very nice old lady;
I fear that lingonberry water
may not unlikely do me harm.
“Tell me, which was Tatiana?”
“Oh, she's the one who, sad
and silent like Svetlana,
4 came in and sat down by the window.”
“Can it be it's the younger one
that you're in love with?” “Why not?” “I'd have chosen
the other, had I been like you a poet.
8 In Olga's features there's no life,
just as in a Vandyke Madonna:
she's round and fair of face
as is that silly moon
12 up in that silly sky.”
Vladimir answered curtly
and thenceforth the whole way was silent.
Meanwhile Onegin's apparition
at the Larins' produced
on everyone a great impression
4 and regaled all the neighbors.
Conjecture on conjecture followed.
All started furtively to talk,
to joke, to comment not without some malice,
8 a suitor for Tatiana to assign.
Some folks asserted even that
the wedding was quite settled,
but had been stayed because
12 of fashionable rings' not being got.
Concerning Lenski's wedding, long ago
they had it all arranged.
Tatiana listened with vexation
to gossip of that sort; but secretly
she with ineffable elation
4 could not help thinking of it;
and the thought sank into her heart;
the time had come — she fell in love.
Thus, dropped into the earth, a seed
8 is quickened by the fire of spring.
For long had her imagination,
consumed with mollitude and anguish,
craved for the fatal food;
12 for long had the heart's languishment
constrained her youthful bosom;
her soul waited — for somebody.
And not in vain it waited. Her eyes opened;
she said: “'Tis he!”
Alas! now both the days and nights,
all's full of him; to the dear girl
unceasingly with magic force
all speaks of him. To her are tedious
8 alike the sounds of friendly speeches
and the gaze of assiduous servants.
Immersed in gloom,
to visitors she does not listen,
12 and imprecates their leisures,
their unexpected
arrival and protracted sitting down.
With what attention does she now
read some delicious novel,
with what vivid enchantment
4 imbibe the ravishing illusion!
Creations by the happy power
of dreaming animated,
the lover of Julie Wolmar,
8 Malek-Adhel, and de Linar,
and Werther, restless martyr,
and the inimitable Grandison,
18 who brings upon us somnolence —
12 all for the tender, dreamy girl
have been invested with a single image,
have in Onegin merged alone.
Imagining herself the heroine
of her beloved authors —
Clarissa, Julia, Delphine —
4 Tatiana in the stillness of the woods
alone roams with a dangerous book;
in it she seeks and finds
her secret ardency, her dreams,
8 the fruits of the heart's fullness;
she sighs, and having made her own
another's ecstasy, another's woe,
she whispers in a trance, by heart,
12 a letter to the amiable hero.
But our hero, whoever he might be,
was certainly no Grandison.
His style to a grave strain having attuned,
time was, a fervid author
used to present to us
4 his hero as a model of perfection.
He'd furnish the loved object —
always iniquitously persecuted —
with a sensitive soul, intelligence,
8 and an attractive face.
Nursing the ardor of the purest passion,
the always enthusiastic hero
was ready for self-sacrifice,
12 and by the end of the last part, vice always
got punished,
and virtue got a worthy crown.
But nowadays all minds are in a mist,
a moral brings upon us somnolence,
vice is attractive in a novel, too,
4 and there, at least, it triumphs.
The fables of the British Muse
disturb the young girl's sleep,
and now her idol has become
8 either the pensive Vampyre,
or Melmoth, gloomy vagabond,
or the Wandering Jew, or the Corsair,
or the mysterious Sbogar.
1912 Lord Byron, by an opportune caprice,
in woebegone romanticism
draped even hopeless egotism.
My friends, what sense is there in this?
Perhaps, by heaven's will,
I'll cease to be a poet; a new demon
and having scorned the threats of Phoebus,
I shall descend to humble prose:
a novel in the ancient strain
8 will then engage my gay decline.
There, not the secret pangs of crime
shall I grimly depict,
but simply shall detail to you
12 the legends of a Russian family,
love's captivating dreams,
and manners of our ancientry.
I shall detail a father's, an old uncle's,
plain speeches; the assigned
trysts of the children
4 by the old limes, by the small brook;
the throes of wretched jealousy,
parting, reconciliation's tears;
once more I'll have them quarrel, and at last
8 conduct them to the altar. I'll recall
the accents of impassioned languish,
the words of aching love,
which in days bygone at the feet
came to my tongue;
from which I now have grown disused.
Tatiana, dear Tatiana!
I now shed tears with you.
Into a fashionable tyrant's hands
4 your fate already you've relinquished.
Dear, you shall perish; but before,
in dazzling hope,
you summon somber bliss,
8 you learn the dulcitude of life,
you quaff the magic poison of desires,
daydreams pursue you:
you fancy everywhere
12 retreats for happy trysts;
everywhere, everywhere before you,
is your fateful enticer.
The ache of love chases Tatiana,
and to the garden she repairs to brood,
and all at once her moveless eyes she lowers
4 and is too indolent farther to step;
her bosom has risen, her cheeks
are covered with an instant flame,
her breath has died upon her lips,
8 and there's a singing in her ears, a flashing
before her eyes. Night comes; the moon
patrols the distant vault of heaven,
and in the gloam of trees the nightingale
12 intones sonorous chants.
Tatiana in the darkness does not sleep
and in low tones talks with her nurse.
“I can't sleep, nurse: 'tis here so stuffy!
Open the window and sit down by me.”
“Why, Tanya, what's the matter with you?” “I am dull.
4 Let's talk about old days.”
“Well, what about them, Tanya? Time was, I
stored in my memory no dearth
of ancient haps and never-haps
8 about dire sprites and about maidens;
but everything to me is dark now, Tanya:
I have forgotten what I knew. Yes, things
have come now to a sorry pass!
12 I'm all befuddled.” “Nurse,
tell me about your old times. Were you then
in love?”
“Oh, come, come, Tanya! In those years
we never heard of love;
elsewise my late mother-in-law
4 would have chased me right off the earth.”
“But how, then, were you wedded, nurse?”
“It looks as if God willed it so. My Vanya
was younger than myself, my sweet,
8 and I was thirteen. For two weeks or so
a woman matchmaker kept visiting
my kinsfolk, and at last
my father blessed me. Bitterly
12 I cried for fear; and, crying, they unbraided
my tress and, chanting,
they led me to the church.
“And so I entered a strange family.
But you're not listening to me.”
“Oh, nurse, nurse, I feel dismal,
4 I'm sick at heart, my dear,
I'm on the point of crying, sobbing!”
“My child, you are not well;
the Lord have mercy upon us and save us!
8 What would you like, do ask.
Here, let me sprinkle you with holy water,
you're all a-burning.” “I'm not ill;
I'm... do you know, nurse... I'm in love.”
12 “My child, the Lord be with you!”
And, uttering a prayer, the nurse
crossed with decrepit hand the girl.
“I am in love,” anew she murmured
to the old woman mournfully.
“Sweetheart, you are not well.”
4 “Leave me. I am in love.”
And meantime the moon shone
and with dark light irradiated
the pale charms of Tatiana
and drops of tears, and, on a benchlet,
before the youthful heroine,
a kerchief on her hoary head, the little
12 old crone in a long “body warmer”;
and in the stillness everything
dozed by the inspirative moon.
And far away Tatiana's heart was ranging
as she looked at the moon....
All of a sudden in her mind a thought was born....
Give me, nurse, a pen, paper, and move up
the table; I shall soon lie down.
Good night.” Now she's alone,
8 all's still. The moon gives light to her.
Tatiana, leaning on her elbow, writes,
and Eugene's ever present in her mind,
and in an unconsidered letter
12 the love of an innocent maid breathes forth.
The letter now is ready, folded.
Tatiana! Whom, then, is it for?
I've known belles inaccessible,
cold, winter-chaste;
inexorable, incorruptible,
4 unfathomable by the mind;
I marveled at their modish morgue,
at their natural virtue,
and, to be frank, I fled from them,
8 and I, meseems, with terror read
above their eyebrows Hell's inscription:
“Abandon hope for evermore!”
20 To inspire love is bale for them,
12 to frighten folks for them is joyance.
Perhaps, on the banks of the Neva
similar ladies you have seen.
Amidst obedient admirers,
other odd females I have seen,
conceitedly indifferent
4 to sighs impassioned and to praise.
But what, to my amazement, did I find?
While, by austere demeanor,
they frightened timid love,
8 they had the knack of winning it again,
at least by their condolence;
at least the sound of spoken words
sometimes would seem more tender,
12 and with credulous blindness
again the youthful lover
pursued sweet vanity.
Why is Tatiana, then, more guilty?
Is it because in sweet simplicity
deceit she knows not and believes
Is it because she loves without art, being
obedient to the bent of feeling?
Is it because she is so trustful
8 and is endowed by heaven
with a restless imagination,
intelligence, and a live will,
and headstrongness,
12 and a flaming and tender heart?
Are you not going to forgive her
the thoughtlessness of passions?
The coquette reasons coolly;
Tatiana in dead earnest loves
and unconditionally yields
4 to love like a sweet child.
She does not say: Let us defer;
thereby we shall augment love's value,
inveigle into toils more surely;
8 let us first prick vainglory
with hope; then with perplexity
exhaust a heart, and then
revive it with a jealous fire,
12 for otherwise, cloyed with delight,
the cunning captive from his shackles
hourly is ready to escape.
Another problem I foresee:
saving the honor of my native land,
undoubtedly I shall have to translate
knew Russian badly,
did not read our reviews,
and in her native tongue expressed herself
she wrote in French.
What's to be done about it! I repeat again;
as yet a lady's love
12 has not expressed itself in Russian,
as yet our proud tongue has not got accustomed
to postal prose.
I know: some would make ladies
read Russian. Horrible indeed!
Can I image them
4 with
The Well-Meaner21 in their hands?
My poets, I appeal to you!
Is it not true that the sweet objects
for whom, to expiate your sins,
8 in secret you wrote verses,
to whom your hearts you dedicated —
did not they all, wielding the Russian language
poorly, and with difficulty,
and on their lips did not a foreign language
become a native one?
The Lord forbid my meeting at a ball
or at its breakup, on the porch,
a seminarian in a yellow shawl
4 or an Academician in a bonnet!
As vermeil lips without a smile,
without grammatical mistakes
I don't like Russian speech.
8 Perchance (it would be my undoing!)
a generation of new belles,
heeding the magazines' entreating voice,
to Grammar will accustom us;
12 verses will be brought into use.
Yet I... what do I care?
I shall be true to ancientry.
An incorrect and careless patter,
an inexact delivery of words,
as heretofore a flutter of the heart
4 will in my breast produce;
in me there's no force to repent;
to me will Gallicisms remain
as sweet as the sins of past youth,
8 as Bogdanóvich's verse.
But that will do. 'Tis time I busied
myself with my fair damsel's letter;
my word I've given — and what now? Yea, yea!
12 I'm ready to back out of it.
I know: tender Parny's
pen in our days is out of fashion.
Bard of
The Feasts and languorous sadness,
22 if you were still with me,
I would have troubled you,
4 dear fellow, with an indiscreet request:
that into magic melodies
you would transpose
a passionate maiden's foreign words.
8 Where are you? Come! My rights
I with a bow transfer to you....
But in the midst of melancholy rocks,
his heart disused from praises,
12 alone, under the Finnish sky
he wanders, and his soul
hears not my worry.
Tatiana's letter is before me;
religiously I keep it;
I read it with a secret heartache
4 and cannot get my fill of reading it.
Who taught her both this tenderness
and amiable carelessness of words?
Who taught her all that touching tosh,
8 mad conversation of the heart
both fascinating and injurious?
I cannot understand. But here's
an incomplete, feeble translation,
12 the pallid copy of a vivid picture,
or Freischütz executed by the fingers
of timid female learners.
Tatiana's Letter To Onegin
I write to you — what would one more?
What else is there that I could say?
'Tis now, I know, within your will
4 to punish me with scorn.
But you, preserving for my hapless lot
at least one drop of pity,
you'll not abandon me.
8 At first, I wanted to be silent;
believe me: of my shame
you never would have known
if I had had the hope but seldom,
to see you at our country place,
only to hear you speak,
to say a word to you, and then
16 to think and think about one thing,
both day and night, till a new meeting.
But, they say, you're unsociable;
in backwoods, in the country, all bores you,
20 while we... in no way do we shine,
though simpleheartedly we welcome you.
Why did you visit us?
In the backwoods of a forgotten village,
24 I would have never known you
nor have known this bitter torment.
The turmoil of an inexperienced soul
having subdued with time (who knows?),
28 I would have found a friend after my heart,
have been a faithful wife
and a virtuous mother.
Another!... No, to nobody on earth
32 would I have given my heart away!
That has been destined in a higher council,
that is the will of heaven: I am thine;
my entire life has been the gage
36 of a sure tryst with you;
I know that you are sent to me by God,
you are my guardian to the tomb....
You had appeared to me in dreams,
40 unseen, you were already dear to me,
your wondrous glance would trouble me,
your voice resounded in my soul
long since.... No, it was not a dream!
44 Scarce had you entered, instantly I knew you,
I felt all faint, I felt aflame,
and in my thoughts I uttered: It is he!
Is it not true that it was you I heard:
48 you in the stillness spoke to me
when I would help the poor
or assuage with a prayer
the anguish of my agitated soul?
52 And even at this very moment
was it not you, dear vision,
that slipped through the transparent darkness
and gently bent close to my bed head?
56 Was it not you that with delight and love
did whisper words of hope to me?
Who are you? My guardian angel
or a perfidious tempter?
Perhaps, 'tis nonsense all,
an inexperienced soul's delusion, and there's destined
something quite different....
henceforth I place into your hands,
before you I shed tears,
for your defense I plead.
68 Imagine: I am here alone,
none understands me,
my reason sinks,
and, silent, I must perish.
72 I wait for you: revive
my heart's hopes with a single look
or interrupt the heavy dream
with a rebuke — alas, deserved!
76 I close. I dread to read this over.
I'm faint with shame and fear... But to me
your honor is a pledge,
and boldly I entrust myself to it.
By turns Tatiana sighs and ohs.
The letter trembles in her hand;
the rosy wafer dries
4 upon her fevered tongue.
Her poor head shoulderward has sunk;
her light chemise
has slid down from her charming shoulder.
8 But now the moonbeam's radiance
already fades. Anon the valley
grows through the vapor clear. Anon the stream
starts silvering. Anon the herdsman's horn
12 wakes up the villager.
Here's morning; all have risen long ago:
to my Tatiana it is all the same.
She takes no notice of the sunrise;
she sits with lowered head
and on the letter does not
4 impress her graven seal.
But, softly opening the door,
now gray Filatievna brings her
tea on a tray.
8 “'Tis time, my child, get up;
why, pretty one,
you're ready! Oh, my early birdie!
I was so anxious yesternight —
12 but glory be to God, you're well!
No trace at all of the night's fret!
Your face is like a poppy flower.”
“Oh, nurse, do me a favor.”
“Willingly, darling, order me.”
“Now do not think... Really... Suspicion...
4 But you see... Oh, do not refuse!”
“My dear, to you God is my pledge.”
“Well, send your grandson quietly
with this note to O… to that… to
8 the neighbor. And let him be told
that he ought not to say a word,
that he ought not to name me.”
“To whom, my precious?
12 I'm getting muddled nowadays.
Neighbors around are many; it's beyond me
even to count them over.”
“Oh, nurse, how slow-witted you are!”
“Sweetheart, I am already old,
I'm old; the mind gets blunted, Tanya;
4 but time was, I used to be sharp:
time was, one word of master's wish.”
“Oh, nurse, nurse, is this relevant?
What matters your intelligence to me?
8 You see, it is about a letter, to
Onegin.” “Well, this now makes sense.
Do not be cross with me, my soul;
I am, you know, not comprehensible.
12 But why have you turned pale again?”
“Never mind, nurse, 'tis really nothing.
Send, then, your grandson.”
But the day lapsed, and there's no answer.
Another came up; nothing yet.
Pale as a shade, since morning dressed,
4 Tatiana waits: when will the answer come?
Olga's adorer drove up. “Tell me,
where's your companion?” was to him
the question of the lady of the house;
8 “He seems to have forgotten us entirely.”
Tatiana, flushing, quivered.
“He promised he would be today,”
Lenski replied to the old dame,
12 “but evidently the mail has detained him.”
Tatiana dropped her eyes
as if she'd heard a harsh rebuke.
'Twas darkling; on the table, shining,
the evening samovar
hissed as it warmed the Chinese teapot;
4 light vapor undulated under it.
Poured out by Olga's hand,
into the cups, in a dark stream,
the fragrant tea already
8 ran, and a footboy served the cream;
Tatiana stood before the window;
breathing on the cold panes,
lost in thought, the dear soul
12 wrote with her charming finger
on the bemisted glass
the cherished monogram: an O and E.
And meantime her soul ached,
and full of tears was her languorous gaze.
Suddenly, hoof thuds! Her blood froze.
4 Now nearer! Coming fast... and in the yard
is Eugene! “Ach!” — and lighter than a shade
Tatiana skips into another hallway,
from porch outdoors, and straight into the garden;
8 she flies, flies — dares not
glance backward; in a moment has traversed
the platbands, little bridges, lawn,
the avenue to the lake, the bosquet;
12 she breaks the lilac bushes as she flies
across the flower plots to the brook,
and, panting, on a bench
she drops. “He's here! Eugene is here!
Good God, what did he think!”
Her heart, full of torments, retains
4 an obscure dream of hope;
she trembles, and she hotly glows, and waits:
does he not come? But hears not. In the orchard
girl servants, on the beds,
8 were picking berries in the bushes
and singing by decree in chorus
(a decree based on that
sly mouths would not in secret
12 eat the seignioral berry
and would be occupied by singing; a device
of rural wit!):
Maidens, pretty maidens,
darling girl companions,
romp unhindered, maidens,
4 have your fling, my dears!
Start to sing a ditty,
sing our private ditty,
and allure a fellow
When we lure a fellow,
when afar we see him,
let us scatter, dearies,
12 pelting him with cherries,
cherries and raspberries,
and red currants too.
“Do not come eavesdropping
16 on our private ditties,
do not come a-spying
on our girlish games!”
They sing; and carelessly
attending to their ringing voice,
Tatiana with impatience waits
4 for the heart's tremor to subside in her,
for her cheeks to cease flaming;
but in her breasts there's the same trepidation,
nor ceases the glow of her cheeks:
8 yet brighter, brighter do they burn.
Thus a poor butterfly both flashes
and beats an iridescent wing,
captured by a school prankster; thus
12 a small hare trembles in the winter corn
upon suddenly seeing from afar
the shotman in the bushes crouch.
But finally she sighed
and from her bench arose;
started to go; but hardly had she turned
4 into the avenue when straight before her,
eyes blazing, Eugene
stood, similar to some grim shade,
and as one seared by fire
But to detail the consequences
of this unlooked-for meeting I, dear friends,
have not the strength today;
12 after this long discourse I need
a little jaunt, a little rest;
some other time I'll tell the rest.
