Eugene Onegin

by Александр Пушкин

  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.

  8

  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 Wolmr,*

  Malk-Adhl* and de Linr,*

  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 heroine

  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.

  14

  I'll give a father's simple greetings,

  An aged uncle'sin 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 whichbefore 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.

  17

  'I couldn't sleep ... #62038; 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.

  21

  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 readyall 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.

  24

  So why is Tanya, then, more tainted?

  Is it because her simple heart

  Believes the chosen dream she's painted

  And in deceit will take no part?

  Because she heeds the call of passion

  In such an honest, artless fashion?

  Because she's trusting more than proud,

  And by the Heavens was endowed

  With such a rashness in surrender,

  With such a lively mind and will,

  And with a spirit never still,

  And with a heart that's warm and tender?

  But can't you, friends, forgive her, pray,

  The giddiness of passion's sway?

  25

  The flirt will always reason coldly;

  Tatyana's love is deep and true:

  She yields without conditions, boldly

  As sweet and trusting children do.

  She does not say: 'Let's wait till later

  To make love's value all the greater

  And bind him tighter with our rope;

  Let's prick vainglory first with hope,

  And then with doubt in fullest measure

  We'll whip his heart, and when it's tame . . .

  Revive it with a jealous flame;

  For otherwise, grown bored with pleasure,

  The cunning captive any day

  Might break his chains and slip away.'

  26

  I face another complication:

  My country's honour will demand

  Without a doubt a full translation

  Of Tanya's letter from my hand.

  She knew the Russian language badly,

  Ignored our journals all too gladly,

  And in her native tongue, I fear,

  Could barely make her meaning clear;

  And so she turned for love's discussion

  To French. . . . There's nothing I can do!

  A lady's love, I say to you,

  Has never been expressed in Russian;

  Our mighty tongue, God only knows,

  Has still not mastered postal prose.

  27

  Some would that ladies be required

  To read in Russian. Dread command!

  Why, I can picture theminspired,

  T

  he Good Samaritan* in hand!

  I ask you now to tell me truly,

  You poets who have sinned unduly:

  Have not those creatures you adore,

  Those objects of your verse . . . and more,

  Been weak at Russian conversation?