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

Had cordial hopes that he’d acquire

  The chance to know Onegin well.

  And so they met—like wave with mountain,

  Like verse with prose, like flame with fountain:

  Their natures distant and apart.

  At first their differences of heart

  Made meetings dull at one another’s;

  But then their friendship grew, and soon

  They’d meet on horse each afternoon,

  And in the end were close as brothers.

  Thus people—so it seems to me—

  Become good friends from sheer ennui.

  14

  But even friendships like our heroes’

  Exist no more; for we’ve outgrown

  All sentiments and deem men zeros—

  Except of course ourselves alone.

  We all take on Napoleon’s features,

  And millions of our fellow creatures

  Are nothing more to us than tools …

  Since feelings are for freaks and fools.

  Eugene, of course, had keen perceptions

  And on the whole despised mankind,

  Yet wasn’t, like so many, blind;

  And since each rule permits exceptions,

  He did respect a noble few,

  And, cold himself, gave warmth its due.

  15

  He smiled at Lensky’s conversation.

  Indeed the poet’s fervent speech,

  His gaze of constant inspiration,

  His mind, still vacillant in reach—

  All these were new and unexpected,

  And so, for once, Eugene elected

  To keep his wicked tongue in check,

  And thought: What foolishness to wreck

  The young man’s blissful, brief infection;

  Its time will pass without my knife,

  So let him meanwhile live his life

  Believing in the world’s perfection;

  Let’s grant to fevered youthful days

  Their youthful ravings and their blaze.

  16

  The two found everything a basis

  For argument or food for thought:

  The covenants of bygone races,

  The fruits that learned science brought,

  The prejudice that haunts all history,

  The grave’s eternal, fateful mystery,

  And Good and Evil, Life and Fate—

  On each in turn they’d ruminate.

  The poet, lost in hot contention,

  Would oft recite, his eyes ablaze,

  Brief passages from Nordic lays;

  Eugene, with friendly condescension,

  Would listen with a look intense,

  Although he seldom saw their sense.

  17

  More often, though, my two recluses

  Would muse on passions* and their flights.

  Eugene, who’d fled their wild abuses,

  Regretted still his past delights

  And sighed, recalling their interment.

  Oh, happy he who’s known the ferment

  Of passions and escaped their lot;

  More happy he who knew them not,

  Who cooled off love with separation

  And enmity with harsh contempt;

  Who yawned with wife and friends, exempt

  From pangs of jealous agitation;

  Who never risked his sound estate

  Upon a deuce, that cunning bait.

  18

  When we at last turn into sages

  And flock to tranquil wisdom’s crest;

  When passion’s flame no longer rages,

  And all the yearnings in our breast,

  The wayward fits, the final surges,

  Have all become mere comic urges,

  And pain has made us humble men—

  We sometimes like to listen then

  As others tell of passions swelling;

  They stir our hearts and fan the flame.

  Just so a soldier, old and lame,

  Forgotten in his wretched dwelling,

  Will strain to hear with bated breath

  The youngbloods’ yarns of courting death.

  19

  But flaming youth in all its madness

  Keeps nothing of its heart concealed:

  Its loves and hates, its joy and sadness,

  Are babbled out and soon revealed.

  Onegin, who was widely taken

  As one whom love had left forsaken,

  Would listen gravely to the end

  When self-expression gripped his friend;

  The poet, feasting on confession,

  Naively poured his secrets out;

  And so Eugene learned all about

  The course of youthful love’s progression-

  A story rich in feelings too,

  Although to us they’re hardly new.

  20

  Ah yes, he loved in such a fashion

  As men today no longer do;

  As only poets, mad with passion,

  Still love … because they’re fated to.

  He knew one constant source of dreaming,

  One constant wish forever gleaming,

  One ever-present cause for pain!

  And neither distance, nor the chain

  Of endless years of separation,

  Nor pleasure’s rounds, nor learning’s well,

  Nor foreign beauties’ magic spell,

  Nor yet the Muse, his true vocation,

  Could alter Lensky’s deep desire,

  His soul aflame with virgin fire.

  21

  When scarce a boy and not yet knowing

  The torment of a heart in flames,

  He’d been entranced by Olga growing

  And fondly watched her girlhood games;

  Beneath a shady park’s protection

  He’d shared her frolics with affection.

  Their fathers, who were friends, had plans

  To read one day their marriage banns.

  And deep within her rustic bower,

  Beneath her parents’ loving gaze,

  She blossomed in a maiden’s ways—

  A valley-lily come to flower

  Off where the grass grows dense and high,

  Unseen by bee or butterfly.

  22

  She gave the poet intimations

  Of youthful ecstasies unknown,

  And, filling all his meditations,

  Drew forth his flute’s first ardent moan.

  Farewell, O golden games’ illusion!

  He fell in love with dark seclusion,

  With stillness, stars, the lonely night,

  And with the moon’s celestial light—

  That lamp to which we’ve consecrated

  A thousand walks in evening’s calm

  And countless tears—the gentle balm

  Of secret torments unabated ….

  Today, though, all we see in her

  Is just another lantern’s blur.

  23

  Forever modest, meek in bearing,

  As gay as morning’s rosy dress,

  Like any poet—open, caring,

  As sweet as love’s own soft caress;

  Her sky-blue eyes, devoid of guile,

  Her flaxen curls, her lovely smile,

  Her voice, her form, her graceful stance,

  Oh, Olga’s every trait…. But glance

  In any novel—you’ll discover

  Her portrait there; it’s charming, true;

  I liked it once no less than you,

  But round it boredom seems to hover;

  And so, dear reader, grant me pause

  To plead her elder sister’s cause.

  24

  Her sister bore the name Tatyana.

  And we now press our wilful claim

  To be the first who thus shall honour

  A tender novel with that name.*

  Why not? I like its intonation;

  It has, I know, association

/>   With olden days beyond recall,

  With humble roots and servants’ hall;

  But we must grant, though it offend us:

  Our taste in names is less than weak

  (Of verses I won’t even speak);

  Enlightenment has failed to mend us,

  And all we’ve learned from its great store

  Is affectation—nothing more.

  25

  So she was called Tatyana, reader.

  She lacked that fresh and rosy tone

  That made her sister’s beauty sweeter

  And drew all eyes to her alone.

  A wild creature, sad and pensive,

  Shy as a doe and apprehensive,

  Tatyana seemed among her kin

  A stranger who had wandered in.

  She never learned to show affection,

  To hug her parents—either one;

  A child herself, for children’s fun

  She lacked the slightest predilection,

  And oftentimes she’d sit all day

  In silence at the window bay.

  26

  But pensiveness, her friend and treasure

  Through all her years since cradle days,

  Adorned the course of rural leisure

  By bringing dreams before her gaze.

  She never touched a fragile finger

  To thread a needle, wouldn’t linger

  Above a tambour to enrich

  A linen cloth with silken stitch.

  Mark how the world compels submission:

  The little girl with docile doll

  Prepares in play for protocol,

  For every social admonition;

  And to her doll, without demur,

  Repeats what mama taught to her.

  27

  But dolls were never Tanya’s passion,

  When she was small she didn’t choose

  To talk to them of clothes or fashion

  Or tell them all the city news.

  And she was not the sort who glories

  In girlish pranks; but grisly stories

  Quite charmed her heart when they were told

  On winter nights all dark and cold.

  Whenever nanny brought together

  Young Olga’s friends to spend the day,

  Tatyana never joined their play

  Or games of tag upon the heather;

  For she was bored by all their noise,

  Their laughing shouts and giddy joys.

  28

  Upon her balcony appearing,

  She loved to greet Aurora’s show,

  When dancing stars are disappearing

  Against the heavens’ pallid glow,

  When earth’s horizon softly blushes,

  And wind, the morning’s herald, rushes,

  And slowly day begins its flight.

  In winter, when the shade of night

  Still longer half the globe encumbers,

  And ’neath the misty moon on high

  An idle stillness rules the sky,

  And late the lazy East still slumbers—

  Awakened early none the less,

  By candlelight she’d rise and dress.

  29

  From early youth she read romances,

  And novels set her heart aglow;

  She loved the fictions and the fancies

  Of Richardson and of Rousseau.

  Her father was a kindly fellow—

  Lost in a past he found more mellow;

  But still, in books he saw no harm,

  And, though immune to reading’s charm,

  Deemed it a minor peccadillo;

  Nor did he care what secret tome

  His daughter read or kept at home

  Asleep till morn beneath her pillow;

  His wife herself, we ought to add,

  For Richardson was simply mad.

  30

  It wasn’t that she’d read him, really,

  Nor was it that she much preferred

  To Lovelace Grandison, but merely

  That long ago she’d often heard

  Her Moscow cousin, Princess Laura,

  Go on about their special aura.

  Her husband at the time was still

  Her fiancé—against her will!

  For she, in spite of family feeling,

  Had someone else for whom she pined—

  A man whose heart and soul and mind

  She found a great deal more appealing;

  This Grandison was fashion’s pet,

  A gambler and a guards cadet.

  31

  About her clothes one couldn’t fault her;

  Like him, she dressed as taste decreed.

  But then they led her to the altar

  And never asked if she agreed.

  The clever husband chose correctly

  To take his grieving bride directly

  To his estate, where first she cried

  (With God knows whom on every side),

  Then tossed about and seemed demented;

  And almost even left her spouse;

  But then she took to keeping house

  And settled down and grew contented.

  Thus heaven’s gift to us is this:

  That habit takes the place of bliss.

  32

  ’Twas only habit then that taught her

  The way to master rampant grief;

  And soon a great discovery brought her

  A final and complete relief.

  Betwixt her chores and idle hours

  She learned to use her woman’s powers

  To rule the house as autocrat,

  And life went smoothly after that.

  She’d drive around to check the workers,

  She pickled mushrooms for the fall,

  She made her weekly bathhouse call,

  She kept the books, she shaved the shirkers,*

  She beat the maids when she was cross—

  And left her husband at a loss.

  33

  She used to write, with blood, quotations

  In maidens’ albums, thought it keen

  To speak in singsong intonations,

  Would call Praskóvya ‘chère Pauline’.

  She laced her corset very tightly,

  Pronounced a Russian n as slightly

  As n in French … and through the nose;

  But soon she dropped her city pose:

  The corset, albums, chic relations,

  The sentimental verses too,

  Were quite forgot; she bid adieu

  To all her foreign affectations,

  And took at last to coming down

  In just her cap and quilted gown.

  34

  And yet her husband loved her dearly;

  In all her schemes he’d never probe;

  He trusted all she did sincerely

  And ate and drank in just his robe.

  His life flowed on—quite calm and pleasant—

  With kindly neighbours sometimes present

  For hearty talk at evenfall,

  Just casual friends who’d often call

  To shake their heads, to prate and prattle,

  To laugh a bit at something new;

  And time would pass, till Olga’d brew

  Some tea to whet their tittle-tattle;

  Then supper came, then time for bed,

  And off the guests would drive, well fed.

  35

  Amid this peaceful life they cherished,

  They held all ancient customs dear;

  At Shrovetide feasts their table flourished

  With Russian pancakes, Russian cheer;

  Twice yearly too they did their fasting;

  Were fond of songs for fortune-casting,

  Of choral dances, garden swings.

  At Trinity, when service brings

  The people, yawning, in for prayer,

  They’d shed a tender tear or two

  Upon their buttercups of rue.


  They needed kvas no less than air,

  And at their table guests were served

  By rank in turn as each deserved.*

  36

  And thus they aged, as do all mortals.

  Until at last the husband found

  That death had opened wide its portals,

  Through which he entered, newly crowned.

  He died at midday’s break from labour,

  Lamented much by friend and neighbour,

  By children and by faithful wife—

  Far more than some who part this life.

  He was a kind and simple barin,

  And there where now his ashes lie

  A tombstone tells the passer-by:

  The humble sinner Dmitry Larin

  A slave of God and Brigadier

  Beneath this stone now resteth here.

  37

  Restored to home and its safekeeping,

  Young Lensky came to cast an eye

  Upon his neighbour’s place of sleeping,

  And mourned his ashes with a sigh.

  And long he stood in sorrow aching;

  ‘Poor Yorick!’ then he murmured, shaking,

  ‘How oft within his arms I lay,

  How oft in childhood days I’d play

  With his Ochákov decoration!*

  He destined Olga for my wife

  And used to say: “Oh grant me, life,

  To see the day!”’ … In lamentation,

  Right then and there Vladimir penned

  A funeral verse for his old friend.

  38

  And then with verse of quickened sadness

  He honoured too, in tears and pain,

  His parents’ dust… their memory’s gladness …

  Alas! Upon life’s furrowed plain—

  A harvest brief, each generation,

  By fate’s mysterious dispensation,

  Arises, ripens, and must fall;

  Then others too must heed the call.

  For thus our giddy race gains power:

  It waxes, stirs, turns seething wave,

  Then crowds its forebears toward the grave.

  And we as well shall face that hour

  When one fine day our grandsons true

  Straight out of life will crowd us too!