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

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  So meanwhile, friends, enjoy your blessing:

  This fragile life that hurries so!

  Its worthlessness needs no professing,

  And I’m not loathe to let it go;

  I’ve closed my eyes to phantoms gleaming,

  Yet distant hopes within me dreaming

  Still stir my heart at times to flight:

  I’d grieve to quit this world’s dim light

  And leave no trace, however slender.

  I live, I write—not seeking fame;

  And yet, I think, I’d wish to claim

  For my sad lot its share of splendour—

  At least one note to linger long,

  Recalling, like some friend, my song.

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  And it may touch some heart with fire;

  And thus preserved by fate’s decree,

  The stanza fashioned by my lyre

  May yet not drown in Lethe’s sea;

  Perhaps (a flattering hope’s illusion!)

  Some future dunce with warm effusion

  Will point my portrait out and plead:

  ‘This was a poet, yes indeed!’

  Accept my thanks and admiration,

  You lover of the Muse’s art,

  O you whose mind shall know by heart

  The fleeting works of my creation,

  Whose cordial hand shall then be led

  To pat the old man’s laurelled head!

  Chapter 3

  Elle était fille, elle était

  amoureuse.*

  Malfilâtre

  1

  ‘Ah me, these poets … such a hurry!’

  ‘Goodbye, Onegin … time I went.’

  ‘Well, I won’t keep you, have no worry,

  But where are all your evenings spent?’

  ‘The Larin place.’—‘What reckless daring!

  Good God, man, don’t you find it wearing

  Just killing time that way each night?’

  ‘Why not at all.’—‘Well, serves you right;

  I’ve got the scene in mind so clearly:

  For starters (tell me if I’m wrong),

  A simple Russian family throng;

  The guests all treated so sincerely;

  With lots of jam and talk to spare.

  On rain and flax and cattle care….’

  2

  ‘Well, where’s the harm … the evening passes.’

  ‘The boredom, brother, there’s the harm.’

  ‘Well, I despise your upper classes

  And like the family circle’s charm;

  It’s where I find …’—’More pastoral singing!

  Enough, old boy, my ears are ringing!

  And so you’re off… forgive me then.

  But tell me Lensky, how and when

  I’ll see this Phyllis so provoking—

  Who haunts your thoughts and writer’s quill,

  Your tears and rhymes and what-you-will?

  Present me, do.’—’You must be joking!’

  ’I’m not.’—’Well then, why not tonight?

  They’ll welcome us with great delight.’

  3

  ’Let’s go.’

  And so the friends departed—

  And on arrival duly meet

  That sometimes heavy, but good-hearted,

  Old-fashioned Russian welcome treat.

  The social ritual never changes:

  The hostess artfully arranges

  On little dishes her preserves,

  And on her covered table serves

  A drink of lingonberry flavour.

  With folded arms, along the hall,

  The maids have gathered, one and all,

  To glimpse the Larins’ brand new neighbour;

  While in the yard their men reproach

  Onegin’s taste in horse and coach.*

  4

  Now home’s our heroes’ destination,

  As down the shortest road they fly;

  Let’s listen to their conversation

  And use a furtive ear to spy.

  ’Why all these yawns, Onegin? Really!’

  ’Mere habit, Lensky.’—’But you’re clearly

  More bored than usual.’—’No, the same.

  The fields are dark now, what a shame.

  Come on, Andryúshka, faster, matey!

  These stupid woods and fields and streams!

  Oh, by the way, Dame Larin seems

  A simple but a nice old lady;

  I fear that lingonberry brew

  May do me in before it’s through.’

  5

  ’But tell me, which one was Tatyana?’

  ’Why, she who with a wistful air—

  All sad and silent like Svetlana*—

  Came in and took the window chair.’

  ’And really you prefer the other?’

  ’Why not?’—’Were I the poet, brother,

  I’d choose the elder one instead—

  Your Olga’s look is cold and dead,

  As in some dull, Van Dyck madonna;

  So round and fair of face is she,

  She’s like that stupid moon you see,

  Up in that stupid sky you honour.’

  Vladimir gave a curt reply

  And let the conversation die.

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  Meanwhile … Onegin’s presentation

  At Madame Larin’s country seat

  Produced at large a great sensation

  And gave the neighbours quite a treat.

  They all began to gossip slyly,

  To joke and comment (rather wryly);

  And soon the general verdict ran,

  That Tanya’d finally found a man;

  Some even knowingly conceded

  That wedding plans had long been set,

  And then postponed till they could get

  The stylish rings the couple needed.

  As far as Lensky’s wedding stood,

  They knew they’d settled that for good.

  7

  Tatyana listened with vexation

  To all this gossip; but it’s true

  That with a secret exultation,

  Despite herself she wondered too;

  And in her heart the thought was planted…

  Until at last her fate was granted:

  She fell in love. For thus indeed

  Does spring awake the buried seed.

  Long since her keen imagination,

  With tenderness and pain imbued,

  Had hungered for the fatal food;

  Long since her heart’s sweet agitation

  Had choked her maiden breast too much:

  Her soul awaited … someone’s touch.

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  And now at last the wait has ended;

  Her eyes have opened … seen his face!

  And now, alas! … she lives attended—

  All day, all night, in sleep’s embrace—

  By dreams of him; each passing hour

  The world itself with magic power

  But speaks of him. She cannot bear

  The way the watchful servants stare,

  Or stand the sound of friendly chatter.

  Immersed in gloom beyond recall,

  She pays no heed to guests at all,

  And damns their idle ways and patter,

  Their tendency to just drop in—

  And talk all day once they begin.

  9

  And now with what great concentration

  To tender novels she retreats,

  With what a vivid fascination

  Takes in their ravishing deceits!

  Those figures fancy has created

  Her happy dreams have animated:

  The lover of Julie Wolmár,*

  Malék-Adhél* and de Linár,*

  And Werther, that rebellious martyr,

  And Grandison, the noble lord

  (With whom today we’re rather bored)—

  All these our dreamy maiden’
s ardour

  Has pictured with a single grace,

  And seen in all … Onegin’s face.

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  And then her warm imagination

  Perceives herself as heroïne—

  Some favourite author’s fond creation:

  Clarissa,* Julia,* or Delphine.*

  She wanders with her borrowed lovers

  Through silent woods and so discovers

  Within a book her heart’s extremes,

  Her secret passions, and her dreams.

  She sighs … and in her soul possessing

  Another’s joy, another’s pain,

  She whispers in a soft refrain

  The letter she would send caressing

  Her hero … who was none the less

  No Grandison in Russian dress.

  11

  Time was, with grave and measured diction,

  A fervent author used to show

  The hero in his work of fiction

  Endowed with bright perfection’s glow.

  He’d furnish his beloved child—

  Forever hounded and reviled—

  With tender soul and manly grace,

  Intelligence and handsome face.

  And nursing noble passion’s rages,

  The ever dauntless hero stood

  Prepared to die for love of good;

  And in the novel’s final pages,

  Deceitful vice was made to pay

  And honest virtue won the day.

  12

  But now our minds have grown inactive,

  We’re put to sleep by talk of ‘sin’;

  Our novels too make vice attractive,

  And even there it seems to win.

  It’s now the British Muse’s fables

  That lie on maidens’ bedside tables

  And haunt their dreams. They worship now

  The Vampire with his pensive brow,

  Or gloomy Melmoth, lost and pleading,

  The Corsair, or the Wandering Jew,

  And enigmatic Sbogar* too.

  Lord Byron, his caprice succeeding,

  Cloaked even hopeless egotism

  In saturnine romanticism.

  13

  But what’s the point? I’d like to know it.

  Perhaps, my friends, by fate’s decree,

  I’ll cease one day to be a poet—

  When some new demon seizes me;

  And scorning then Apollo’s ire

  To humble prose I’ll bend my lyre:

  A novel in the older vein

  Will claim what happy days remain.

  No secret crimes or passions gory

  Shall I in grim detail portray,

  But simply tell as best I may

  A Russian family’s age-old story,

  A tale of lovers and their lot,

  Of ancient customs unforgot.

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  I’ll give a father’s simple greetings,

  An aged uncle’s—in my book;

  I’ll show the children’s secret meetings

  By ancient lindens near the brook,

  Their jealous torments, separation,

  Their tears of reconciliation;

  I’ll make them quarrel yet again,

  But lead them to the altar then.

  I’ll think up speeches tenderhearted,

  Recall the words of passion’s heat,

  Those words with which—before the feet

  Of some fair mistress long departed—

  My heart and tongue once used to soar,

  But which today I use no more.

  15

  Tatyana, O my dear Tatyana!

  I shed with you sweet tears too late;

  Relying on a tyrant’s honour,

  You’ve now resigned to him your fate.

  My dear one, you are doomed to perish;

  But first in dazzling hope you nourish

  And summon forth a sombre bliss,

  You learn life’s sweetness … feel its kiss,

  And drink the draught of love’s temptations,

  As phantom daydreams haunt your mind:

  On every side you seem to find

  Retreats for happy assignations;

  While everywhere before your eyes

  Your fateful tempter’s figure lies.

  16

  The ache of love pursues Tatyana;

  She takes a garden path and sighs,

  A sudden faintness comes upon her,

  She can’t go on, she shuts her eyes;

  Her bosom heaves, her cheeks are burning,

  Scarce-breathing lips grow still with yearning,

  Her ears resound with ringing cries,

  And sparkles dance before her eyes.

  Night falls; the moon begins parading

  The distant vault of heaven’s hood;

  The nightingale in darkest wood

  Breaks out in mournful serenading.

  Tatyana tosses through the night

  And wakes her nurse to share her plight.

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  ’I couldn’t sleep … O nurse, it’s stifling!

  Put up the window … sit by me.’

  ’What ails you, Tanya?’—’Life’s so trifling,

  Come tell me how it used to be.’

  ’Well, what about it? Lord, it’s ages …

  I must have known a thousand pages

  Of ancient facts and fables too

  ’Bout evil ghosts and girls like you;

  But nowadays I’m not so canny,

  I can’t remember much of late.

  Oh, Tanya, it’s a sorry state;

  I get confused …’—‘But tell me, nanny,

  About the olden days … you know,

  Were you in love then, long ago?’

  18

  ’Oh, come! Our world was quite another!

  We’d never heard of love, you see.

  Why, my good husband’s sainted mother

  Would just have been the death of me!’

  ’Then how’d you come to marry, nanny?’

  ’The will of God, I guess …. My Danny

  Was younger still than me, my dear,

  And I was just thirteen that year.

  The marriage maker kept on calling

  For two whole weeks to see my kin,

  Till father blessed me and gave in.

  I got so scared … my tears kept falling;

  And weeping, they undid my plait,

  Then sang me to the churchyard gate.

  19

  ’And so they took me off to strangers …

  But you’re not even listening, pet.’

  ’Oh, nanny, life’s so full of dangers,

  I’m sick at heart and all upset,

  I’m on the verge of tears and wailing!’

  ’My goodness, girl, you must be ailing;

  Dear Lord have mercy. God, I plead!

  Just tell me, dearest, what you need.

  I’ll sprinkle you with holy water,

  You’re burning up!’—’Oh, do be still,

  I’m … you know, nurse … in love, not ill.’

  ’The Lord be with you now, my daughter!’

  And with her wrinkled hand the nurse

  Then crossed the girl and mumbled verse.

  20

  ’Oh, I’m in love,’ again she pleaded

  With her old friend. ‘My little dove,

  You’re just not well, you’re overheated.’

  ’Oh, let me be now … I’m in love.’

  And all the while the moon was shining

  And with its murky light defining

  Tatyana’s charms and pallid air,

  Her long, unloosened braids of hair,

  And drops of tears … while on a hassock,

  Beside the tender maiden’s bed,

  A kerchief on her grizzled head,

  Sat nanny in her quilted cassock;

  And all the world in silence lay

  Beneath the moon’s seductive ray.
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  Far off Tatyana ranged in dreaming,

  Bewitched by moonlight’s magic curse…

  And then a sudden thought came gleaming:

  ’I’d be alone now … leave me, nurse.

  But give me first a pen and paper;

  I won’t be long … just leave the taper.

  Good night.’ She’s now alone. All’s still.

  The moonlight shines upon her sill.

  And propped upon an elbow, writing,

  Tatyana pictures her Eugene,

  And in a letter, rash and green,

  Pours forth a maiden’s blameless plighting.

  The letter’s ready—all but sent…

  For whom, Tatyana, is it meant?

  22

  I’ve known great beauties proudly distant,

  As cold and chaste as winter snow;

  Implacable, to all resistant,

  Impossible for mind to know;

  I’ve marvelled at their haughty manner,

  Their natural virtue’s flaunted banner;

  And I confess, from them I fled,

  As if in terror I had read

  Above their brows the sign of Hades:

  Abandon Hope, Who Enter Here!

  Their joy is striking men with fear,

  For love offends these charming ladies.

  Perhaps along the Neva’s shore

  You too have known such belles before.

  23

  Why I’ve seen ladies so complacent

  Before their loyal subjects’ gaze,

  That they would even grow impatient

  With sighs of passion and with praise.

  But what did I, amazed, discover?

  On scaring off some timid lover

  With stern behaviour’s grim attack,

  These creatures then would lure him back!-

  By joining him at least in grieving,

  By seeming in their words at least

  More tender to the wounded beast;

  And blind as ever, still believing,

  The youthful lover with his yen

  Would chase sweet vanity again.

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