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

  The balmy fragrance of the night!

  Like convicts sent in dreaming flight

  To forest green and liberation,

  So we in fancy then were borne

  Back to our springtime’s golden morn.

  48

  Filled with his heart’s regrets, and leaning

  Against the rampart’s granite shelf,

  Eugene stood lost in pensive dreaming

  (As once some poet drew himself*).

  The night grew still… with silence falling;

  Only the sound of sentries calling,

  Or suddenly from Million Street

  Some distant droshky’s rumbling beat;

  Or floating on the drowsy river,

  A lonely boat would sail along,

  While far away some rousing song

  Or plaintive horn would make us shiver.

  But sweeter still, amid such nights,

  Are Tasso’s octaves’ soaring flights.

  49

  O Adriatic! Grand Creation!

  O Brenta!* I shall yet rejoice,

  When, filled once more with inspiration,

  I hear at last your magic voice!

  It’s sacred to Apollo’s choir;

  Through Albion’s great and haughty lyre*

  It speaks to me in words I know.

  On soft Italian nights I’ll go

  In search of pleasure’s sweet profusion;

  A fair Venetian at my side,

  Now chatting, now a silent guide,

  I’ll float in gondola’s seclusion;

  And she my willing lips will teach

  Both love’s and Petrarch’s ardent speech.

  50

  Will freedom come—and cut my tether?

  It’s time, it’s time! I bid her hail;

  I roam the shore,* await fair weather,

  And beckon to each passing sail.

  O when, my soul, with waves contesting,

  And caped in storms, shall I go questing

  Upon the crossroads of the sea?

  It’s time to quit this dreary lee

  And land of harsh, forbidding places;

  And there, where southern waves break high,

  Beneath my Africa’s warm sky,*

  To sigh for sombre Russia’s spaces,

  Where first I loved, where first I wept,

  And where my buried heart is kept.

  51

  Eugene and I had both decided

  To make the foreign tour we’d planned;

  But all too soon our paths divided,

  For fate took matters into hand.

  His father died—quite unexpected,

  And round Eugene there soon collected

  The greedy horde demanding pay.

  Each to his own, or so they say.

  Eugene, detesting litigation

  And quite contented with his fate,

  Released to them the whole estate …

  With no great sense of deprivation;

  Perhaps he also dimly knew

  His aged uncle’s time was due.

  52

  And sure enough a note came flying;

  The bailiff wrote as if on cue:

  Onegin’s uncle, sick and dying,

  Would like to bid his heir adieu.

  He gave the message one quick reading,

  And then by post Eugene was speeding,

  Already bored, to uncle’s bed,

  While thoughts of money filled his head.

  He was prepared—like any craven—

  To sigh, deceive, and play his part

  (With which my novel took its start);

  But when he reached his uncle’s haven,

  A laid-out corpse was what he found,

  Prepared as tribute for the ground.

  53

  He found the manor fairly bustling

  With those who’d known the now deceased;

  Both friends and foes had come ahustling,

  True lovers of a funeral feast.

  They laid to rest the dear departed;

  Then, wined and dined and heavy-hearted,

  But pleased to have their duty done,

  The priests and guests left one by one.

  And here’s Onegin—lord and master

  Of woods and mills and streams and lands;

  A country squire, there he stands,

  That former wastrel and disaster;

  And rather glad he was, it’s true,

  That he’d found something else to do.

  54

  For two full days he was enchanted

  By lonely fields and burbling brook,

  By sylvan shade that lay implanted

  Within a cool and leafy nook.

  But by the third he couldn’t stick it:

  The grove, the hill, the field, the thicket-

  Quite ceased to tempt him any more

  And, presently, induced a snore;

  And then he saw that country byways—

  With no great palaces, no streets,

  No cards, no balls, no poets’ feats—

  Were just as dull as city highways;

  And spleen, he saw, would dog his life,

  Like shadow or a faithful wife.

  55

  But I was born for peaceful roaming,

  For country calm and lack of strife;

  My lyre sings! And in the gloaming

  My fertile fancies spring to life.

  I give myself to harmless pleasures

  And far niente rules my leisures:

  Each morning early I’m awake

  To wander by the lonely lake

  Or seek some other sweet employment:

  I read a little, often sleep,

  For fleeting fame I do not weep.

  And was it not in past enjoyment

  Of shaded, idle times like this,

  I spent my days of deepest bliss?

  56

  The country, love, green fields and flowers,

  Sweet idleness! You have my heart.

  With what delight I praise those hours

  That set Eugene and me apart.

  For otherwise some mocking reader

  Or, God forbid, some wretched breeder

  Of twisted slanders might combine

  My hero’s features here with mine

  And then maintain the shameless fiction

  That, like proud Byron, I have penned

  A mere self-portrait in the end;

  As if today, through some restriction,

  We’re now no longer fit to write

  On any theme but our own plight.

  57

  All poets, I need hardly mention,

  Have drawn from love abundant themes;

  I too have gazed in rapt attention

  When cherished beings filled my dreams.

  My soul preserved their secret features;

  The Muse then made them living creatures:

  Just so in carefree song I paid

  My tribute to the mountain maid,

  And sang the Salghir captives’ praises.*

  And now, my friends, I hear once more

  That question you have put before:

  ‘For whom these sighs your lyre raises?

  To whom amid the jealous throng

  Do you today devote your song?

  58

  ’Whose gaze, evoking inspiration,

  Rewards you with a soft caress?

  Whose form, in pensive adoration,

  Do you now clothe in sacred dress?’

  Why no one, friends, as God’s my witness,

  For I have known too well the witless

  And maddened pangs of love’s refrain.

  Oh, blest is he who joins his pain

  To fevered rhyme: for thus he doubles

  The sacred ecstasy of art;

  Like Petrarch then, he calms the heart,

  Subduing passion’s host of troubles,

  And captures worldly fame to boot!— />
  But I, in love, was dense and mute.

  59

  The Muse appeared as love was ending

  And cleared the darkened mind she found.

  Once free, I seek again the blending

  Of feeling, thought, and magic sound.

  I write … and want no more embraces;

  My straying pen no longer traces,

  Beneath a verse left incomplete,

  The shapes of ladies’ heads and feet.

  Extinguished ashes won’t rekindle,

  And though I grieve, I weep no more;

  And soon, quite soon, the tempest’s core

  Within my soul will fade and dwindle:

  And then I’ll write this world a song

  That’s five and twenty cantos long!

  60

  I’ve drawn a plan and know what’s needed,

  The hero’s named, the plotting’s done;

  And meantime I’ve just now completed

  My present novel’s Chapter One.

  I’ve looked it over most severely;

  It has its contradictions, clearly,

  But I’ve no wish to change a line;

  I’ll grant the censor’s right to shine

  And send these fruits of inspiration

  To feed the critics’ hungry pen.

  Fly to the Neva’s water then,

  My spirit’s own newborn creation!

  And earn me tribute paid to fame:

  Distorted readings, noise, and blame!

  Chapter 2

  O rus!

  Horace

  O Rus’!*

  1

  The place Eugene found so confining

  Was quite a lovely country nest,

  Where one who favoured soft reclining

  Would thank his stars to be so blest.

  The manor house, in proud seclusion,

  Screened by a hill from wind’s intrusion,

  Stood by a river. Far away

  Green meads and golden cornfields lay,

  Lit by the sun as it paraded;

  Small hamlets too the eye could see

  And cattle wand’ring o’er the lea;

  While near at hand, all dense and shaded,

  A vast neglected garden made

  A nook where pensive dryads played.

  2

  The ancient manse had been erected

  For placid comfort—and to last;

  And all its solid form reflected

  The sense and taste of ages past.

  Throughout the house the ceilings towered,

  From walls ancestral portraits glowered;

  The drawing room had rich brocades

  And stoves of tile in many shades.

  All this today seems antiquated—

  I don’t know why; but in the end

  It hardly mattered to my friend,

  For he’d become so fully jaded,

  He yawned alike where’er he sat,

  In ancient hall or modern flat.

  3

  He settled where the former squire

  For forty years had heaved his sighs,

  Had cursed the cook in useless ire,

  Stared out the window, and squashed flies.

  The furnishings were plain but stable:

  A couch, two cupboards, and a table,

  No spot of ink on oaken floors.

  Onegin opened cupboard doors

  And found in one a list of wages,

  Some fruit liqueurs and applejack,

  And in the next an almanac

  From eighteen-eight with tattered pages;

  The busy master never took

  A glance in any other book.

  4

  Alone amid his new possessions,

  And merely as an idle scheme,

  Eugene devised a few concessions

  And introduced a new regime.

  A backwoods genius, he commuted

  The old corvée and substituted

  A quitrent at a modest rate;*

  His peasants thanked their lucky fate,

  But thrifty neighbours waxed indignant

  And in their dens bewailed as one

  The dreadful harm of what he’d done.

  Still others sneered or turned malignant,

  And everyone who chose to speak

  Called him a menace and a freak.

  5

  At first the neighbours’ calls were steady;

  But when they learned that in the rear

  Onegin kept his stallion ready

  So he could quickly disappear

  The moment one of them was sighted

  Or heard approaching uninvited,

  They took offence and, one and all,

  They dropped him cold and ceased to call.

  ’The man’s a boor, he‘s off his rocker.’

  ‘Must be a Mason;* drinks, they say …

  Red wine, by tumbler, night and day!’

  ‘Won’t kiss a lady’s hand, the mocker.’

  ‘Won’t call me “sir” the way he should.’

  The general verdict wasn’t good.

  6

  Another squire chose this season

  To reappear at his estate

  And gave the neighbours equal reason

  For scrutiny no less irate.

  Vladimir Lénsky, just returning

  From Göttingen with soulful yearning,

  Was in his prime—a handsome youth

  And poet filled with Kantian truth.

  From misty Germany our squire

  Had carried back the fruits of art:

  A freedom-loving, noble heart,

  A spirit strange but full of fire,

  An always bold, impassioned speech,

  And raven locks of shoulder reach.

  7

  As yet unmarked by disillusion

  Or chill corruption’s deadly grasp,

  His soul still knew the warm effusion

  Of maiden’s touch and friendship’s clasp.

  A charming fool at love’s vocation,

  He fed on hope’s eternal ration;

  The world’s fresh glitter and its call

  Still held his youthful mind in thrall;

  He entertained with fond illusions

  The doubts that plagued his heart and will;

  The goal of life, he found, was still

  A tempting riddle of confusions;

  He racked his brains and rather thought

  That miracles could still be wrought.

  8

  He knew a kindred soul was fated

  To join her life to his career,

  That even now she pined and waited,

  Expecting he would soon appear.

  And he believed that men would tender

  Their freedom for his honour’s splendour;

  That friendly hands would surely rise

  To shatter slander’s cup of lies;

  That there exists a holy cluster

  Of chosen ones whom men should heed,

  A happy and immortal breed,

  Whose potent light in all its lustre

  Would one day shine upon our race

  And grant the world redeeming grace.*

  9

  Compassion, noble indignation,

  A perfect love of righteous ways,

  And fame’s delicious agitation

  Had stirred his soul since early days.

  He roamed the world with singing lyre

  And found the source of lyric fire

  Beneath the skies of distant lands,

  From Goethe’s and from Schiller’s hands.

  He never shamed, the happy creature,

  The lofty Muses of his art;

  He proudly sang with open heart

  Sublime emotion’s every feature,

  The charm of gravely simple things,

  And youthful hopes on youthful wings.

  10

  He sang of love, by love commanded,

  A simple and
affecting tune,

  As clear as maiden thoughts, as candid

  As infant slumber, as the moon

  In heaven’s peaceful desert flying,

  That queen of secrets and of sighing.

  He sang of parting and of pain,

  Of something vague, of mists and rain;

  He sang the rose, romantic flower,

  And distant lands where once he’d shed

  His living tears upon the bed

  Of silence at a lonely hour;

  He sang life’s bloom gone pale and sere—

  He’d almost reached his eighteenth year.

  11

  Throughout that barren, dim dominion

  Eugene alone could see his worth;

  And Lensky formed a low opinion

  Of neighbours’ feasts and rounds of mirth;

  He fled their noisy congregations

  And found their solemn conversations—

  Of liquor, and of hay brought in,

  Of kennels, and of distant kin,

  Devoid of any spark of feeling

  Or hint of inner lyric grace;

  Both wit and brains were out of place,

  As were the arts of social dealing;

  But then their charming wives he found

  At talk were even less profound.

  12

  Well-off… and handsome in addition,

  Young Lensky seemed the perfect catch;

  And so, by countryside tradition,

  They asked him round and sought to match

  Their daughters with this semi-Russian.

  He’d call—and right away discussion

  Would touch obliquely on the point

  That bachelors’ lives were out of joint;

  And then the guest would be invited

  To take some tea while Dunya poured;

  They whisper: ‘Dunya, don’t look bored!’—

  Then bring in her guitar, excited …

  And then, good God, she starts to bawl:

  ‘Come to my golden chamberhall!’

  13

  But Lensky, having no desire

  For marriage bonds or wedding bell,