Eugene Onegin: A Novel in Verse (Oxford World's Classics) Read online

  Sweet wilderness in which I spent

  Impassioned days and idle hours,

  And filled my soul with dreams, content.

  And you, my youthful inspiration,

  Come stir the bleak imagination,

  Enrich the slumbering heart’s dull load,

  More often visit my abode;

  Let not the poet’s soul grow bitter

  Or harden and congeal alone,

  To turn at last to lifeless stone

  Amid this world’s deceptive glitter,

  This swirling swamp in which we lie

  And wallow, friends, both you and I!

  Chapter 7

  Moscow! Russia’s favourite daughter!

  Where is your equal to be found!

  Dmitriev

  Can one not love our native Moscow?

  Baratynsky

  ‘Speak ill of Moscow! So this is what it means to see the world! Where is it better, then?’ ‘Where we are not.’

  Griboedov

  1

  Spring rays at last begin to muster

  And chase from nearby hills the snow,

  Whose turbid streams flow down and cluster

  To inundate the fields below.

  And drowsy nature, smiling lightly,

  Now greets the dawning season brightly.

  The heavens sparkle now with blue;

  The still transparent woods renew

  Their downy green and start to thicken.

  The bee flies out from waxen cell

  To claim its meed from field and dell.

  The vales grow dry and colours quicken;

  The cattle low; and by the moon

  The nightingale pours forth its tune.

  2

  How sad I find your apparition,

  O spring! … O time of love’s unrest!

  What sombre echoes of ambition

  Then stir my blood and fill my breast!

  What tender and oppressive yearning

  Possesses me on spring’s returning,

  When in some quiet rural place

  I feel her breath upon my face!

  Or am I now inured to gladness;

  And all that quickens and excites,

  That sparkles, triumphs, and delights

  Casts only spleen and languid sadness

  On one whose heart has long been dead,

  For whom but darkness lies ahead?

  3

  Or saddened by the re-emergence

  Of leaves that perished in the fall,

  We heed the rustling wood’s resurgence,

  As bitter losses we recall;

  Or do we mark with lamentation

  How nature’s lively renovation

  Compares with our own fading youth,

  For which no spring will come, in truth?

  Perhaps in thought we reassemble,

  Within a dream to which we cling,

  Some other and more ancient spring,

  That sets the aching heart atremble

  With visions of some distant place,

  A magic night, the moon’s embrace.…

  4

  Now is the time, you hibernators,

  You epicures and sages, you;

  You fortunate procrastinators,

  You fledglings from our Lyóvshin’s crew,*

  You rustic Priams from the cities,

  And you, my sentimental pretties—

  Spring calls you to your country seat;

  It’s time for flowers, labours, heat,

  Those heady walks for which you’re thirsting,

  And soft seductive nights as well.

  Into the fields, my friends, pell-mell!

  Load up your carriages to bursting,

  Bring out your own or rent a horse,

  And far from town now set your course!

  5

  You too, indulgent reader, hurry

  In your imported coach, I pray,

  To leave the city with its flurry,

  Where you spent wintertime in play;

  And with my wilful Muse let’s hustle

  To where the leafy woodlands rustle—

  A nameless river’s placid scene,

  The country place where my Eugene,

  That idle and reclusive schemer,

  But recently this winter stayed,

  Not far from our unhappy maid,

  Young Tanya, my enchanted dreamer;

  But where he now no longer reigns …

  Where only his sad trace remains.

  6

  Where hills half circle round a valley,

  Let’s trace a winding brooklet’s flow

  Through greening fields, and watch it dally

  Beside a spot where lindens grow.

  And there the nightingale, spring’s lover,

  Sings out till dawn; a crimson cover

  Of briar blooms, and freshets sound.

  There too a tombstone can be found

  Beneath two pine trees, old for ages.

  Its legend lets the stranger know:

  ‘Vladimir Lensky lies below.

  He died too soon … his death courageous,

  At such an age, in such a year.

  Repose in peace, young poet, here!’

  7

  There was a time when breezes playing

  Among the pines would gently turn

  A secret wreath that hung there swaying

  Upon a bough above that urn;

  And sometimes in the evening hours

  Two maidens used to come with flowers,

  And by the moonlit grave they kept

  Their vigil and, embracing, wept.

  But now the monument stands dreary

  And quite forgot. Its pathway now—

  All weeds. No wreath is on the bough;

  Alone the shepherd, grey and weary,

  Beneath it sings as in the past

  and plaits his simple shoes of bast.

  (8–9) 10

  My poor, poor Lensky! Yes, she mourned him;

  Although her tears were all too brief!

  Alas! His fiancée has scorned him

  And proved unfaithful to her grief.

  Another captured her affection,

  Another with his love’s perfection

  Has lulled her wretchedness to sleep:

  A lancer has enthralled her deep,

  A lancer whom she loves with passion;

  And at the altar by his side,

  She stands beneath the crown a bride,

  Her head bent down in modest fashion,

  Her lowered eyes aflame the while,

  And on her lips a slender smile.

  11

  Poor Lensky! In his place of resting,

  In deaf eternity’s grim shade,

  Did he, sad bard, awake protesting

  The fateful news, he’d been betrayed?

  Or lulled by Lethe, has he slumbered,

  His blissful spirit unencumbered

  By feelings and perturbed no more,

  His world a closed and silent door?

  Just so! The tomb that lies before us

  Holds but oblivion in the end.

  The voice of lover, foe, and friend

  Falls silent fast. Alone the chorus

  Of angry heirs in hot debate

  Contests obscenely our estate.

  12

  Soon Olga’s happy voice and beauty

  No longer cheered the family group.

  A captive of his lot and duty,

  Her lancer had to join his troop.

  Dame Larin’s eyes began to water

  As she embraced her younger daughter

  And, scarce alive, cried out goodbye.

  But Tanya found she couldn’t cry;

  A deathly pallor merely covered

  Her stricken face. When all came out

  Onto the porch and fussed about

  While taking leave, Tatyana hovered

  Beside the couple’s coach below,


  Then sadly saw the lovers go.

  13

  And long she watched the road they’d taken,

  As through a mist of stifled tears….

  Now Tanya is alone, forsaken!

  Companion of so many years,

  The darling sister whom she’d nourished,

  The bosom friend she’d always cherished—

  Now carried off by fate, a bride,

  Forever parted from her side.

  She roams in aimless desolation,

  Now gazes at the vacant park….

  But all seems joyless, bleak and dark;

  There’s nothing offers consolation

  Or brings her smothered tears relief;

  Her heart is rent in two by grief.

  14

  And in the solitude her passion

  Burns even stronger than before,

  Her heart speaks out in urgent fashion

  Of faraway Eugene the more.

  She’ll never see him … and be grateful,

  She finds a brother’s slayer hateful

  And loathes the awful thing he’s done.

  The poet’s gone … and hardly one

  Remembers him; his bride’s devotion

  Has flown to someone else instead;

  His very memory now has fled

  Like smoke across an azure ocean.

  Two hearts, perhaps, remain forlorn

  And mourn him yet…. But wherefore mourn?

  15

  ‘Twas evening and the heavens darkled.

  A beetle hummed. The peasant choirs

  Were bound for home. Still waters sparkled.

  Across the river, smoky fires

  Of fishermen were dimly gleaming.

  Tatyana walked, alone and dreaming,

  Beneath the moonbeams’ silver light

  And climbed a gentle hill by night.

  She walked and walked … till with a shiver

  She spied a distant hamlet’s glow,

  A manor house and grove below,

  A garden by the glinting river.

  And as she gazed upon that place

  Her pounding heart began to race.

  16

  Assailed by doubts, she grew dejected:

  ‘Should I go on, turn back, or what?

  He isn’t here, I’m not expected….

  I’ll glance at house and garden plot.’

  And so, scarce breathing, down she hastened

  And looked about, perplexed and chastened

  To find herself at his estate….

  She entered the deserted gate.

  A pack of barking dogs chased round her;

  And at her frightened cry a troop

  Of household urchins with a whoop

  Came rushing quickly to surround her.

  They made the barking hounds obey,

  Then led the lady, safe, away.

  17

  ‘May I just see the house, I wonder?’

  Asked Tanya … and the children leapt

  To find Anísya and to plunder

  The household keys she always kept.

  Anísya came in just a second,

  And soon the open doorway beckoned.

  She stepped inside the empty shell

  Where once our hero used to dwell.

  She found a cue left unattended

  Upon the table after play,

  And on a rumpled sofa lay

  His riding crop. And on she wended.

  ‘And here’s the hearth,’ spoke up the crone,

  ‘Where master used to sit alone.

  18

  ‘Our neighbour Lensky, lately buried,

  Would dine with him in winter here.

  Come this way, please … but don’t feel hurried.

  And here’s the master’s study, dear;

  He slept, took coffee in these quarters,

  Would hear the bailiff, give his orders,

  And mornings read some book right through….

  My former master lived here too;

  On Sundays at his window station,

  His glasses on, he’d deign to play

  Some cards with me to pass the day.

  God grant his mortal soul salvation,

  And may his dear old bones be blest

  In Mother Earth where he’s at rest.’

  19

  Tatyana looks in melting pleasure

  At everything around the room;

  She finds it all a priceless treasure,

  A painful joy that lifts her gloom

  And leaves her languid soul ignited:

  The desk, the lamp that stands unlighted,

  The heap of books, the carpet spread

  Before the window on the bed,

  That semi-light, so pale and solemn,

  The view outdoors—the lunar pall,

  Lord Byron’s portrait on the wall,

  The iron bust* upon its column—

  With clouded brow beneath a hat,

  The arms compressed and folded flat.

  20

  And long she stood, bewitched and glowing,

  Inside that modish bachelor cell.

  But now it’s late. The winds are blowing,

  It’s cold and dark within the dell.

  The grove’s asleep above the river,

  Behind the hill the moon’s a sliver;

  And now it’s time, indeed long past,

  That our young pilgrim leave at last.

  Concealing her wrought-up condition,

  Though not without a heartfelt sigh,

  Tatyana turns to say goodbye,

  But, taking leave, requests permission

  To see the vacant house alone

  And read the books he’d called his own.

  21

  Outside the gate Tatyana parted

  From old Anísya. Next day then,

  She rose at dawn and off she started

  To see the empty house again;

  And once inside that silent study,

  Sealed off at last from everybody,

  The world for just a time forgot,

  Tatyana wept and mourned her lot…

  Then turned to see the books he’d favoured.

  At first she didn’t wish to read,

  The choice of books seemed strange indeed;

  But soon her thirsting spirit savoured

  The mystery that those pages told—

  And watched a different world unfold.

  22

  Although Onegin’s inclination

  For books had vanished, as we know,

  He did exempt from condemnation

  Some works and authors even so:

  The bard of Juan and the Giaour,*

  And some few novels done with power,

  In which our age is well displayed

  And modern man himself portrayed

  With something of his true complexion—

  With his immoral soul disclosed,

  His arid vanity exposed,

  His endless bent for deep reflection,

  His cold, embittered mind that seems

  To waste itself in empty schemes.

  23

  Some pages still preserved the traces

  Where fingernails had sharply pressed;

  The girl’s attentive eye embraces

  These lines more quickly than the rest.

  And Tanya sees with trepidation

  The kind of thought or observation

  To which Eugene paid special heed,

  Or where he’d tacitly agreed.

  And in the margins she inspected

  His pencil marks with special care;

  And on those pages everywhere

  She found Onegin’s soul reflected—

  In crosses or a jotted note,

  Or in the question mark he wrote.

  24

  And so, in slow but growing fashion

  My Tanya starts to understand

  More clearly now—thank God—her passion

/>   And him for whom, by fate’s command,

  She’d been condemned to feel desire:

  That dangerous and sad pariah,

  That work of heaven or of hell,

  That angel… and proud fiend as well.

  What was he then? An imitation?

  An empty phantom or a joke,

  A Muscovite in Harold’s cloak,

  Compendium of affectation,

  A lexicon of words in vogue …

  Mere parody and just a rogue?

  25

  Can she have solved the riddle’s power?

  Can she have found the final clue?

  She hardly notes how late the hour,

  And back at home she’s overdue—

  Where two old friends in conversation

  Speak out on Tanya’s situation:

  ‘What can I do? Tatyana’s grown,’

  Dame Larin muttered with a moan.

  ‘Her younger sister married neatly;

  It’s time that she were settled too,

  I swear I don’t know what to do;

  She turns all offers down completely,

  Just says: “I can’t”, then broods away,

  And wanders through those woods all day.’

  26

  ‘Is she in love?’—‘With whom, I wonder?

  Buyánov tried: she turned him down.

  And Petushkóv as well went under.

  Pykhtín the lancer came from town

  To stay with us and seemed transported;

  My word, that little devil courted!

  I thought she might accept him then;

  But no! the deal fell through again.’

  ‘Why, my dear lady, what’s the bother?

  To Moscow and the marriage mart!

  They’ve vacancies galore … take heart!’

  ‘But I’ve so little income, father.’

  ‘Sufficient for one winter’s stay;

  Or borrow then—from me, let’s say.’

  27

  The good old lady was delighted

  To hear such sensible advice;

  She checked her funds and then decided,

  A Moscow winter would be nice.