Chased by the vernal beams,
down the surrounding hills the snows already
have run in turbid streams
4 onto the inundated fields.
With a serene smile, nature
greets through her sleep the morning of the year.
Bluing, the heavens shine.
8 The yet transparent woods
as if with down are greening.
The bee flies from her waxen cell
after the tribute of the field.
12 The dales grow dry and varicolored.
The herds are noisy, and the nightingale
has sung already in the hush of nights.
How sad your apparition is to me,
spring, spring, season of love!
What a dark stir there is
4 in my soul, in my blood!
With what oppressive tenderness
I revel in the whiff
of spring fanning my face
8 in the lap of the rural stillness!
Or is enjoyment strange to me,
and all that gladdens, animates,
all that exults and gleams,
12 casts spleen and languishment
upon a soul long dead
and all looks dark to it?
Or gladdened not by the return
of leaves that perished in the autumn,
a bitter loss we recollect,
4 harking to the new murmur of the woods;
or with reanimated nature we
compare in troubled thought
the withering of our years,
8 for which there is no renovation?
Perhaps there comes into our thoughts,
midst a poetical reverie,
some other ancient spring,
12 which sets our heart aquiver
with the dream of a distant clime,
a marvelous night, a moon....
Now is the time: good lazybones,
epicurean sages; you,
equanimous fortunates;
4 you, fledglings of the Lyóvshin
41 school;
you, country Priams;
and sentimental ladies, you;
spring calls you to the country,
8 season of warmth, of flowers, of labors,
of inspired rambles,
and of seductive nights.
Friends! to the fields, quick, quick;
12 in heavy loaden chariots;
with your own horses or with posters;
out of the towngates start to trek!
And you, indulgent reader,
in your imported calash, leave
the indefatigable city
4 where in the winter you caroused;
let's go with my capricious Muse
to hear the murmur of a park
above a nameless river, in the country place,
8 where my Eugene, an idle and despondent
recluse, but recently
dwelt in the winter, in the neighborhood
of youthful Tanya,
but where he is no longer now...
where a sad trace he left.
'Mid hills disposed in a half circle,
let us go thither where a rill,
winding, by way of a green meadow,
4 runs to the river through a linden bosquet.
The nightingale, spring's lover,
sings there all night; the cinnamon rose
blooms, and the babble of the fount is heard.
8 There a tombstone is seen
in the shade of two ancient pines.
The scripture to the stranger says:
“Here lies Vladimir Lenski,
12 who early died the death of the courageous,
in such a year, at such an age.
Repose, boy poet!”
On the inclined bough of a pine,
time was, the early breeze
above that humble urn
4 swayed a mysterious wreath;
time was, during late leisures,
two girl companions hither used to come;
and, by the moon, upon the grave,
but now... the drear memorial is
forgot. The wonted trail to it,
weed-choked. No wreath is on the bough.
12 Alone, beneath it, gray and feeble,
the herdsman as before keeps singing
and plaiting his poor footgear.
My poor Lenski! Pining away,
she did not weep for long.
Alas! The young fiancée
Another ravished her attention,
another managed with love's flattery
to lull to sleep her suffering:
8 an uhlan knew how to enthrall her,
an uhlan by her soul is loved;
and lo! with him already at the altar
she modestly beneath the bridal crown
12 stands with bent head,
fire in her lowered eyes,
a light smile on her lips.
My poor Lenski! Beyond the grave,
in the confines of deaf eternity,
was the despondent bard perturbed
4 by the fell news of the betrayal?
Or on the Lethe lulled to sleep,
blest with insensibility, the poet
no longer is perturbed by anything,
8 and closed and mute is earth to him?...
'Tis so! Indifferent oblivion
beyond the sepulcher awaits us.
The voice of foes, of friends, of loves abruptly
12 falls silent. Only over the estate
the angry chorus of the heirs
starts an indecent squabble.
And soon the ringing voice of Olya
was in the Larin family stilled.
A captive of his lot, the uhlan
4 had to rejoin his regiment with her.
Bitterly shedding floods of tears,
the old dame, as she took leave of her daughter,
seemed scarce alive,
8 but Tanya could not cry;
only a deadly pallor covered
her melancholy face.
When everybody came out on the porch,
12 and one and all, taking leave, bustled
around the chariot of the newly wed,
Tatiana saw them off.
And long did she, as through a mist,
gaze after them...
And now Tatiana is alone, alone!
4 Alas! Companion of so many years,
her youthful doveling,
her own dear bosom friend,
has been by fate borne far away,
8 has been from her forever separated.
She, like a shade, roams aimlessly;
now into the deserted garden looks.
Nowhere, in nothing, are there joys for her,
12 and she finds no relief
for tears suppressed,
and torn asunder is her heart.
And in the cruel solitude
stronger her passion burns,
and louder does her heart of distant
She will not see him;
she must abhor in him
the slayer of her brother;
8 the poet perished... but already none
remembers him, already to another
his promised bride has given herself.
The poet's memory has sped by
12 as smoke across an azure sky;
perhaps there are two hearts that yet
grieve for him.... Wherefore grieve?
'Twas evening. The sky darkened. Waters
streamed quietly. The beetle churred.
The choral throngs already were dispersing.
4 Across the river, smoking, glowed already
the fire of fishermen. In open country
by the moon's silvery light,
sunk in her dreams,
8 long did Tatiana walk alone. She walked,
she walked. And suddenly before her from a hill
she sees a manor house, a village,
a grove below hill, and a garden
12 above a luminous river.
She gazes, and the heart in her
faster and harder has begun to beat.
Doubts trouble her:
“Shall I go on? Shall I go back?... He is not here.
They do not know me.... I shall glance
4 at the house, at that garden.”
And so downhill Tatiana walks,
scarce breathing; casts around
a gaze full of perplexity...
8 and enters a deserted courtyard.
Dogs toward her
dash, barking… At her frightened cry
a household brood of serf boys
12 has noisily converged. Not without fighting
the boys dispersed the hounds,
taking the lady under their protection.
“I wonder, can one see the master house?”
asked Tanya. Speedily
the children to Anisia ran
4 to get the hallway keys from her.
Anisia came forth to her promptly, and the door
before them opened,
and Tanya stepped into the empty house,
8 where recently our hero had been living.
She looked: in the reception room forgotten,
a cue reposed upon the billiard table;
upon a rumpled sofa lay
12 a riding crop. Tanya went on.
The old crone said to her: “And here's the fireplace;
here master used to sit alone.
“Here in the winter the late Lenski,
our neighbor, used to dine with him.
This way, please, follow me.
4 This was the master's study;
he used to sleep here, take his coffee, listen
to the steward's reports,
and in the morning read a book....
8 And the old master lived here too;
on Sundays, at this window here,
time was, donning his spectacles,
he'd deign to play ‘tomfools’ with me.
12 God grant salvation to his soul
and peace to his dear bones
in the grave, in damp mother earth!”
Tatiana looks with melting gaze
at everything around her,
and all to her seems priceless,
4 all quickens her languorous soul
with a half-painful joyance:
the desk with its extinguished lamp,
a pile of books, and at the window
8 a carpet-covered bed, and from the window
the prospect through the lunar gloom,
and this pale half-light, and Lord Byron's portrait,
and a small column
12 with a cast-iron statuette
with clouded brow under a hat,
with arms crosswise compressed.
Tatiana in the modish cell
stands long as one bewitched.
But it is late. A cold wind has arisen.
4 It's dark in the dale. The grove sleeps
above the misted river;
the moon has hid behind the hill,
and it is time, high time,
8 that the young pilgrimess went home;
and Tanya, hiding her excitement,
and not without a sigh,
starts out on her way back;
12 but first she asks permission
to visit the deserted castle
so as to read books there alone.
Beyond the gate Tatiana parted
with the housekeeper. A day later,
early at morn this time, again she came
4 to the abandoned shelter,
and in the silent study, for a while
to all on earth oblivious, she
remained at last alone,
Then to the books she turned.
At first she was not in a mood for them,
but their choice seemed to her
12 bizarre. Tatiana fell to reading
with avid soul; and there revealed itself
a different world to her.
Although we know that Eugene
had long ceased to like reading,
still, several works
4 he had exempted from disgrace:
the singer of the Giaour and Juan
and, with him, also two or three
novels in which the epoch is reflected
rather correctly represented
with his immoral soul,
selfish and dry,
12 to dreaming measurelessly given,
with his embittered mind
boiling in empty action.
Many pages preserved
the trenchant mark of fingernails;
the eyes of the attentive maiden
4 are fixed on them more eagerly.
Tatiana sees with trepidation
by what thought, observation
Onegin would be struck,
8 what he agreed with tacitly.
The dashes of his pencil she
encounters in their margins.
Unconsciously Onegin's soul
12 has everywhere expressed itself —
now by a succinct word, now by a cross,
now by an interrogatory crotchet.
And my Tatiana by degrees
begins to understand
more clearly now — thank God —
4 him for whom by imperious fate
she is sentenced to sigh.
A sad and dangerous eccentric,
creature of hell or heaven,
8 this angel, this proud fiend, what, then, is he?
Can it be, he's an imitation,
an insignificant phantasm, or else
a Muscovite in Harold's mantle,
12 a glossary of alien vagaries,
a complete lexicon of words in vogue?...
Might he not be, in fact, a parody?
Can she have solved the riddle?
Can “the word” have been found?
The hours run; she has forgotten
4 that she is long due home —
where two neighbors have got together,
and where the talk is about her.
“What should one do? Tatiana is no infant,”
8 quoth the old lady with a groan.
“Why, Olinka is younger.... It is time,
yea, yea, the maiden were established;
but then — what can I do with her?
12 She turns down everybody with the same
curt ‘I'll not marry,’ and keeps brooding,
and wanders in the woods alone.”
“Might she not be in love?” “With whom, then?
Buyánov offered: was rejected.
Same thing with Ivan Petushkóv.
4 There guested with us a hussar, Pïhtín;
oh my, how sweet he was on Tanya,
how he bestirred himself, the coax!
Thought I: perchance, she will accept;
8 far from it! And again the deal was off.”
“Why, my dear lady, what's the hindrance?
To Moscow, to the mart of brides!
One hears, the vacant places there are many.”
12 “Och, my good sir! My income's scanty.”
“Sufficient for a single winter;
if not, just borrow — say, from me.”
Much did the old dame like
the sensible and sound advice;
she checked accounts — and there and then decided
4 in winter to set out for Moscow;
and Tanya hears this news....
Unto the judgment
of the exacting beau monde to present
8 the clear traits of provincial
simplicity, and antiquated finery,
and antiquated turns of speech;
the mocking glances
12 of Moscow fops and Circes to attract....
O terror! No, better and safer,
back in the woods for her to stay.
With the first rays arising
she hastens now into the fields
and, with soft-melting eyes
4 surveying them, she says:
“Farewell, pacific dales,
and you, familiar hilltops,
and you, familiar woods!
8 Farewell, celestial beauty,
farewell, glad nature!
I am exchanging a dear quiet world
for the hum of resplendent vanities!...
12 And you, my freedom, farewell, too!
Whither, wherefore, do I bear onward?
What does my fate hold out for me?”
Her walks last longer.
At present, here a hillock, there a brook,
cannot help stopping
4 Tatiana with their charm.
She, as with ancient friends,
with her groves, meadows,
still hastens to converse.
8 But the fleet summer flies.
The golden autumn has arrived.
Nature, tremulous, pale,
is like a victim richly decked....
12 Now, driving clouds along, the North
has blown, has howled, and now herself
Winter the sorceress comes.
She came, scattered herself; in flocks
hung on the limbs of oaks;
in wavy carpets lay
4 amid the fields, about the hills;
the banks with the immobile river
made level with a puffy pall.
Frost gleamed. And we are gladdened
8 by Mother Winter's pranks.
By them not gladdened is but Tanya's heart:
she does not go to meet the winter,
inhale the frostdust,
12 and with the first snow from the bathhouse roof
wash face, shoulders, and breast.
Tatiana dreads the winter way.
The day of leaving is long overdue;
the last term now goes by. Inspected,
relined, made solid is the sledded coach
4 that to oblivion had been cast.
The usual train of three kibitkas
carries the household chattels:
pans, chairs, trunks, jams in jars,
8 mattresses, feather beds,
cages with roosters, pots,
basins, et cetera —
well, plenty of all kinds of goods.
12 And now, among the servants in the log hut,
a hubbub rises, farewell weeping:
into the courtyard eighteen nags are led.
They to the master coach are harnessed;
men cooks prepare lunch; the kibitkas
are loaded mountain-high;
4 serf women, coachmen brawl.
Upon a lean and shaggy jade a bearded
postilion sits. Retainers at the gate
have gathered, running,
8 to bid their mistresses farewell. And now
they've settled, and the venerable sleigh-coach
beyond the gate creeps, gliding.
“Farewell, pacific sites!
12 Farewell, secluded refuge!
Shall I see you?” And from the eyes
of Tanya flows a stream of tears.
When we the boundaries of beneficial
enlightenment move farther out,
in due time (by the computation
4 of philosophic tabulae,
in some five hundred years) roads, surely,
at home will change immeasurably.
Paved highways at this point and that
8 uniting Russia will traverse her;
cast-iron bridges o'er the waters
in ample arcs will stride;
we shall part mountains; under water
and Christendom will institute
at every stage a tavern.
The roads at home are bad at present;
42 forgotten bridges rot;
at stages the bedbugs and fleas
4 do not give one a minute's sleep.
No taverns. In a cold log hut
there hangs for show a highfalutin
but meager bill of fare, and teases
while the rural Cyclopes
in front of a slow fire
treat with a Russian hammer
12 Europe's light article,
blessing the ruts
and ditches of the fatherland.
Now, on the other hand, driving in winter's
cold season is agreeable and easy.
As in a modish song a verse devoid of thought,
4 smooth is the winter track.
Alert are our Automedons,
our troikas never tire,
and mileposts, humoring the idle gaze,
8 before one's eyes flick like a fence.
43 Unluckily, Dame Larin dragged along,
fearing expensive stages,
with her own horses, not with posters,
viatic tedium in full:
they traveled seven days and nights.
But now 'tis near. Before them
the ancient tops of white-stone Moscow
already glow
4 with golden crosses, ember-bright.
Ah, chums, how pleased I was
when, all at once, the hemicircle
of churches and of belfries,
8 of gardens, domes, opened before me!
How often during woeful separation,
in my wandering fate,
Moscow, I thought of you!
12 Moscow!... How much within that sound
is blended for a Russian heart!
How much is echoed there!
Here is, surrounded by its park,
Petrovskiy Castle. Somberly
it prides itself on recent glory.
4 In vain Napoleon, intoxicated
with his last fortune, waited
for kneeling Moscow with the keys
of the old Kremlin: no,
8 to him my Moscow did not go
with craven brow;
not revelry, not gifts of bienvenue —
a conflagration she prepared
12 for the impatient hero.
From here, in meditation sunk,
he watched the formidable flame.
Good-by, witness of fallen glory,
Petrovskiy Castle. Hup! Don't stop,
get on! The turnpike posts already
4 show white. Along Tverskaya Street
the coach now hies across the dips.
There flicker by: watch boxes, peasant women,
urchins, shops, street lamps,
8 palaces, gardens, monasteries,
Bokharans, sledges, kitchen gardens,
merchants, small shacks, muzhiks,
boulevards, towers, Cossacks,
12 pharmacies, fashion shops,
balconies, lions on the gates,
and flocks of jackdaws on the crosses.
In this exhausting promenade
an hour elapses, then another,
and in a lane hard by St. Chariton's
4 the sleigh-coach at a gate before a house
now stops. To an old aunt,
for the fourth year ill with consumption,
at present they have come.
8 The door is opened wide for them
by a bespectacled gray Kalmuk,
in torn caftan, a stocking in his hand.
There meets them in the drawing room
12 the cry of the princess
on a divan prostrated. The old ladies,
weeping, embrace, and exclamations pour:
“Princess, mon ange!” “Pachette!” “Aline!”
“Who would have thought?” “How long it's been!”
“For how much time?” “Dear! Cousin!”
4 “Sit down — how queer it is!
I'd swear the scene is from a novel!”
“And this is my daughter Tatiana.”
“Ah, Tanya! Come up here to me —
8 I seem to be delirious in my sleep.
Coz, you remember Grandison?”
“What, Grandison? Oh, Grandison!
Why, yes, I do, I do. Well, where is he?”
12 “In Moscow — dwelling by St. Simeon's;
on Christmas Eve he called on me:
got a son married recently.
“As to the other... But we'll tell it all
later, won't we? To all her kin
straightway tomorrow we'll show Tanya.
4 Pity that paying visits is for me
too much — can hardly drag my feet.
But you are worn out from the journey;
let's go and have a rest together...
8 Oh, I've no strength... my chest is tired...
now even joy, not only woe,
oppressive is to me. My dear,
I am already good for nothing...
12 When one starts getting old, life is so horrid.”
And here, exhausted utterly,
in tears, she broke into a coughing fit.
The invalid's kindness and gladness touch
Tatiana; but in her
new domicile she's ill at ease,
4 used as she is to her own chamber.
Beneath a silken curtain,
in a new bed sleep does not come to her,
and the early peal of church bells,
8 forerunner of the morning tasks,
arouses her from bed.
Tanya sits down beside the window.
The darkness thins; but she
12 does not discern her fields:
there is before her a strange yard,
a stable, kitchen house, and fence.
And now, on rounds of family dinners
Tanya they trundle daily to present
to grandsires and to grandams
4 her abstract indolence.
For kin come from afar
there's everywhere a kind reception,
and exclamations, and good cheer.
8 “How Tanya's grown! Such a short while
it seems since I godmothered you!”
“And since I bore you in my arms!”
“And since I pulled you by the ears!”
12 “And since I fed you gingerbread!”
And the grandmothers keep repeating
in chorus: “How our years do fly!”
But one can see no change in them;
in them all follows the old pattern:
the spinster princess, Aunt Eléna,
4 has got the very same tulle mob;
still cerused is Lukéria Lvóvna;
the same lies tells Lyubóv Petróvna;
Iván Petróvich is as stupid;
8 Semyón Petróvich as tightfisted;
and Palagéya Nikolávna
has the same friend, Monsieur Finemouche,
and the same spitz, and the same husband —
12 while
he is still the sedulous clubman,
is just as meek, is just as deaf,
still eats and drinks enough for two.
Their daughters embrace Tanya.
Moscow's young graces
at first in silence
4 from head to foot survey Tatiana;
find her somewhat bizarre,
provincial, and affected,
and somewhat pale and thin,
8 but on the whole not bad at all;
then, to nature submitting, they
befriend her, lead her to their rooms,
kiss her, squeeze tenderly her hands,
12 fluff up her curls after the fashion,
and in their singsong tones impart
the secrets of the heart, secrets of maidens,
conquests of others and their own,
hopes, pranks, daydreams.
The innocent talks flow,
4 embellished with slight calumny.
Then, in requital for their patter,
her heart's confession they
sweetly request.
8 But Tanya in a kind of daze
their speeches hears without response,
understands nothing,
and her heart's secret,
12 fond treasure of both tears and bliss,
she mutely guards meantime
and shares with none.
Tatiana wishes to make out
the talks, the general conversation;
but there engages everybody in the drawing room
4 such incoherent, common rot;
all about them is so pale, neutral;
they even slander dully.
In this sterile aridity of speeches,
8 interrogations, talebearing, and news,
not once in four-and-twenty hours does thought
flash forth, even by chance, even at random;
the languid mind won't smile,
12 the heart even in jest won't quiver;
and even some droll foolishness in you
one will not meet with, hollow monde!
The “archival youths” in a crowd
look priggishly at Tanya
and about her among themselves
One melancholy coxcomb finds
she is “ideal”
and, leaning 'gainst a doorpost,
8 prepares an elegy for her.
At a dull aunt's having met Tanya,
once V[yazemski] sat down beside her
and managed to engage her soul;
12 and, near him having noticed her,
an old man, straightening his wig,
inquires about her.
But where stormy Melpomene's
protracted wail resounds,
where she her spangled mantle waves
4 before the frigid crowd;
where dozes quietly Thalia
and hearkens not to friendly plaudits;
where at Terpsichore alone
8 the young spectator marvels
(as it was, too, in former years,
in your time and in mine),
toward her did not turn
12 either jealous lorgnettes of ladies
or spyglasses of modish connoisseurs
from boxes or the rows of stalls.
To the Sobránie, too, they bring her:
the crush there, the excitement, heat,
the music's crash, the tapers' glare,
4 the flicker, whirl of rapid pairs,
the light attires of belles,
the galleries freaked with people,
of marriageable girls the ample hemicycle,
8 at once strike all the senses.
Here finished fops display
their impudence, their waistcoats,
and negligent lorgnettes.
12 Hither hussars on leave
haste to arrive, to thunder by,
flash, captivate, and wing away.
The night has many charming stars,
in Moscow there are many belles;
but brighter in the airy blue
4 than all her skymates is the moon;
but she, whom with my lyre
disturb I dare not,
like the majestic moon,
8 'mid dames and maidens shines alone.
With what celestial pride
the earth she touches!
With what voluptuousness her breast is filled!
12 How languorous her wondrous gaze!...
But 'tis enough, enough; do cease:
to folly you have paid your due.
Noise, laughter, scampering, bows,
galope, mazurka, waltz... Meantime,
between two aunts, beside a column,
Tatiana looks and does not see,
detests the agitation of the monde;
she stifles here... she strains in fancy
8 toward campestral life,
the country, the poor villagers,
to that secluded nook
where flows a limpid brooklet,
12 toward her flowers, toward her novels,
and to the gloom of linden avenues,
thither where he used to appear to her
Thus does her thought roam far away:
high life and noisy ball are both forgotten,
but meantime does not take his eyes off her
4 a certain imposing general.
The aunts exchanged a wink and both
as one nudged Tanya with their elbows,
and each whispered to her:
8 “Look quickly to your left.”
“My left? Where? What is there?”
“Well, whatsoever there be, look....
In that group, see? In front....
12 There where you see those two in uniform....
Now he has moved off... now he stands in profile.”
“Who? That fat general?”
But here we shall congratulate
my dear Tatiana on a conquest
and turn our course aside,
4 lest I forget of whom I sing....
And by the way, here are two words about it:
“I sing a youthful pal
and many eccentricities of his.
O you, Muse of the Epic!
And having handed me a trusty staff,
let me not wander aslant and askew.”
12 Enough! The load come off my shoulders!
To classicism I have paid my respects:
though late, but there's an introduction.
