But where, time was, I might discover
Such madrigals to me back then:
E sempre bene,36 gentlemen!
36
But even while his eyes were reading,
His thoughts were far away, as old
Desires, dreams, sorrows kept invading
And crowding deep inside his soul.
Between the lines before him, printed,
His inward eye saw others hinted.
On these he concentrated most,
In their decipherment engrossed.
These were the secret legends, fictions
The heart’s dark story had collected,
The dreams with all else unconnected,
The threats, the rumours, the predictions,
Or else some lengthy, crazy tale
Or letters from a fledgling give.
37
And by degrees his thought and feeling
By lethargy are overcome,
Meanwhile, imagination’s dealing
Its motley faro cards to him.
He sees on melted snow, recumbent,
As if asleep at some encampment,
A youth on his nocturnal bed
And hears a voice: ‘Well then, he’s dead!’
He sees past enemies forgotten,
Base cowards and calumniators,
A swarm of youthful, female traitors,
A group of former friends turned rotten,
And then a country house – where she
Sits at the window… constantly.
38
Such musings soon became a habit
And nearly drove him off his head
Or, failing this, made him a poet –
That would have been a boon, indeed!
Truly: by means of magnetism37
He almost grasped the mechanism
Of Russian poetry of the time –
This muddled neophyte of mine.
He looked a poet to the letter:
Ensconced before a blazing hearth,
He sat alone as flames would dart,
Hummed Idol Mio, Benedetta,38
And dropped into the fire, unseen,
A slipper or a magazine.
39
Winter, as warming air blew through it,
Was over now; the days rushed by;
And he did not become a poet,
Nor turn insane, nor did he die.
Enlivened by the spring’s returning,
He leaves upon one cloudless morning
The shuttered rooms, where he had spent
The winter like a marmot pent.
From fireplace and the double windows,
By sleigh, past the Neva he flies.
Upon blue blocks of hewn-out ice39
The sun disports; in dirty cinders
The furrowed snow melts on the street:
Where, then, upon it with such speed
40
Is he proceeding? Oh, already
You’ve guessed, you’re right: my unreformed
Eccentric’s rushing to his lady,
To his Tatiana, unforewarned.
He walks in like a corpse, nobody
Is there to greet him in the lobby.
In the reception room there’s not
A soul. A door he opens… what
What confronts him then, what makes him shudder?
Before him the Princess alone
Sits pale and unadorned, forlorn,
Immersed in what looks like a letter,
A flood of tears she softly sheds
With cheek on hand… Ah, what regrets,
41
What silent sufferings were reflected
In this quick moment of distress!
Who is it could not have detected
Poor Tanya in the new princess!
Eugene, the moment that he saw her,
Fell maddened with remorse before her.
She gave a start, said not a word
And looked at Eugene unperturbed
Without surprise or wrath… His fading
Appearance, his extinguished look,
Imploring aspect, mute rebuke
She takes in all. The simple maiden
Returns again now, reappears
With dreams and heart of former years.
42
She lets Onegin go on kneeling
And, looking at him fixedly,
Does not withdraw her hand unfeeling
That he is kissing avidly…
What is she dreaming of at present?
A long time passes by, quiescent,
At last she softly speaks again:
‘Enough, get up. I must explain
Myself to you. I wonder whether,
Onegin, you recall, do you,
The garden and the avenue,
The hour when fate brought us together
And how you lectured me, so meek.
Today it is my turn to speak.
43
‘I was much younger at that meeting
And better looking, to my mind,
I loved you then, was that upsetting?
And in your heart, what did I find?
What was your answer? Only sternness.
You’d never, would you, take in earnest
A little maiden’s modest love.
My blood runs cold now – God above! –
The very moment I remember
Your chilling glance, that sermon… I’m
Not blaming you: at that dark time
You showed at least a noble temper
And you were right regarding me,
I thank you for your honesty…
44
‘Admit that in our backwoods haven,
From empty rumour far away,
I was not to your liking… Say, then,
Why you’re pursuing me today.
Why have you marked me for attention?
Might it not be because convention
Includes me in the social round,
Because I’m wealthy and renowned,
Because my husband’s wounds in battle
Have gained him royal favour, fame?
Might it not be because my shame
Would feed the flames of tittle-tattle
And win you, in society,
Seductive notoriety?
45
‘I weep… if you recall your Tanya,
There’s one thing you should hear from me:
Your sharp reproach, unfriendly manner,
Your cold, unsparing homily,
All this, with which you made me cower,
I’d have preferred, had I the power,
To this offensive passion, to
The letters, tears I’ve had from you.
You showed my childish dreams compassion,
And you at least respected me
And my young age. But now, I see
You at my feet in coward fashion?
How with the heart and mind you have
Can you be paltry feeling’s slave?
46
‘This pomp, Onegin, these excesses,
The trumpery of hateful days,
My high society successes,
My fashionable house, soirées,
What do they mean? Oh, I’d surrender
At once this masquerade, this splendour,
With all its glitter, noise and smoke
For one wild garden and a book,
For our poor home, to me the dearest,
For all those places I recall,
Where I beheld you first of all,
And for the humble churchyard near us,
Where now a cross and branches shade
The grave where my poor nurse is laid…
47
‘And yet that time was so auspicious
And happiness so near… But no,
My fate is settled. Injudicious
I may have been, but it is so.
With tears my moth
er begged, entreated
And I, poor Tanya, listless, ceded,
All lots were equal anyhow…
I married. Pray you, leave me now.
Your heart is honest and I prize it:
And there resides in it true pride
With candid honour, side by side.
I love you (why should I disguise it?),
But I am someone else’s wife,
To him I shall be true for life.
48
She goes. He stands in desolation
As if by thunder struck. In what
A sudden tempest of sensation
His heart’s ungovernably caught!
But then a clink of spurs resounded,
Tatiana’s husband he encountered.
And, reader, now, in this mischance,
In this unhappy circumstance,
We’ll leave my hero to his meeting
For long… for ever… in his track
We’ve roamed around the world and back.
On land again, let’s send our greeting
To each and all. So, now, hurrah!
It’s high time (you’ll agree), by far.
49
Whatever, reader, your opinion,
A friend or foe, I wish to part
With you today like a companion.
Farewell. Whatever you may chart
Among these careless lines, reflections –
Whether tumultuous recollections
Or light relief from labour’s yoke,
The lively image, witty joke
Or the mistakes I’ve made in grammar –
God grant you find here just a grain
To warm the heart, to entertain,
To feed a dream, and cause a clamour
With journals and their clientele,
Upon which, let us part, farewell!
50
Goodbye, strange comrade, now for ever,
And you, my true ideal – now gone,
Goodbye, my lively, long endeavour,
Though slender work. With you I’ve known
The things that every poet covets:
Oblivion, when the tempest buffets,
Sweet talk of friends. So many days
Have passed since in a dreamy haze
I first saw young Tatiana near me,
With her, Onegin – and when I
Looked through the magic crystal’s eye,
I could not yet distinguish clearly
The distant reach of the domain
That my free novel would attain.
51
But of those friends who, meeting, listened
To those first strophes that I wrote…
Some are no more now, some are distant,
As Sadi40 once said in a note.
They’ve missed the fully fledged Onegin,
And she, from whom the model’s taken
For dear Tatiana, she is gone…
Oh, much by fate has been undone!
Blest who betimes has left life’s revel,
Whose wine-filled glass he has not drained,
Who does not read right to the end
Life’s still, as yet, unfinished novel,
But lets it go, as I do my
Onegin, and bid him goodbye.
FRAGMENTS OF ONEGIN’S JOURNEY1
FOREWORD
The omitted stanzas gave rise to frequent reproofs and gibes (no doubt most just and witty). The author candidly confesses that he deleted from his novel an entire chapter describing Onegin’s journey through Russia. It was incumbent on him to indicate this omitted chapter by means of dots or a numeral; but in order to avoid confusion he decided it would be better to mark the last chapter as number eight instead of nine, and to sacrifice one of its closing stanzas:
It’s time: for peace the pen is asking;
Nine cantos done, and ninth the wave
That lifts my boat and sets it basking
Upon the joyous seashore, safe –
Praise be to you, O nine Camenae,2 etc.
P. A. Katenin (whom a fine poetic talent does not prevent from being also a subtle critic) remarked to us that this deletion, while perhaps advantageous for the reader, spoils the plan of the entire work, since, as a result, the transition from Tatiana the provincial miss to Tatiana the grande dame becomes too unexpected and unexplained – an observation revealing the experienced artist. The author himself felt the justice of this, but decided to leave out the chapter for reasons important to him and not to the public. Some fragments have been published; we give them here with several adjoining stanzas.
E. Onegin leaves Moscow for Nizhny Novgorod:
1
… In front of him,
Makaryev,3 kicking up a shindy,
Seethes with its rich emporium:
Pearls imported by the Indian,
Wines by the European watered,
The breeder from the steppe-land speeds
To sell his herd of cast-off steeds;
The gamester wagers all his cash on
His card decks and obliging dice,
The squire brings daughters ripe in size,
His daughters come with last year’s fashion,
Each bustles, lies enough for two –
A trading spirit rules right through.
2
Ennui!
Onegin travels to Astrakhan, and thence to the Caucasus.
3
He sees the wayward Terek,4 scoring
Its banks in their abrupt descent,
In front of him an eagle soaring,
A standing deer with antlers bent;
A camel lies in rocky shadows.
And a Circassian’s steed through meadows
Races; the sheep of Kalmuks graze
Round nomad tents; Onegin’s gaze
Takes in the far Caucasian masses.
The way is opened: war defied
The country’s natural divide,
The perils of its mountain passes;
Where the Kura, Aragva5 whirled,
There were the Russian tents unfurled.6
4
Now, watchman of the desolation,
Beshtu,7 hemmed in by hills, is seen,
Sharp-peaked, at its eternal station,
And there Mashuk, now turning green,
Pours healing streams from its recesses;
Around its magic brooklets presses
A pallid swarm of invalids,
The victims, some of martial deeds,
Others of piles or Aphrodite;
These sufferers hope to reinforce
Life’s thread at this prodigious source:
Coquettes – to drown the notoriety
Of wicked years, and ancient men –
To bring back briefly youth again.
5
Immersed in bitter meditation,
Amidst this melancholy crew,
Onegin looks with lamentation
Upon the waters’ steamy flow,
And thinks, with sadness overclouded:
Why has no bullet in me landed?
Why is it I’m not old, infirm,
Like him, poor taxman at his term?
Why is it I’m not paralytic
Like him, the clerk of Tula town?
Why don’t I in my shoulder bone
Feel just the slightest bit rheumatic?
I’m young, o Lord, there’s life in me:
What’s there to come? Ennui, ennui!
Onegin then visits Tauris:
6
You, land of the imagination:
Saw Pylades, Orestes8 strive,
And Mithridates9 take his life;
There Mickiewicz sang his passion10
And midst the coastal cliffs afar
Recalled his Lithuania.
7
How beautiful, when day is dawning,
To see you, shores of Tauris, when
My ship reflects the star of morning –
Thus
first you came into my ken;
In bridal brilliance apparent,
The sky behind you, blue, transparent,
The masses of your mountains shone,
Villages, trees and valleys spun
A pattern spreading out before me.
And there, among the Tatar dens…
What ardour roused my sleeping sense!
What magic longing caught me, bore me
What yearning pressed my flaming heart!11
But with the past, Muse, let me part.
8
Whatever feelings then lay hidden
Within me – now they are no more:
They went or changed, no longer bidden…
Peace unto you, alarms of yore!
It seemed it was the wild I needed,
The pearl-edged waves that flowed, receded,
The noise of sea, the rocks’ cascade,
And my ideal of proud, young maid,
And nameless torment, tribulation…
Now other days, now other dreams,
My springtime’s fancies, high-flown themes
You’ve quietened down, with resignation,
And into my poetic glass
Much water have I mixed, alas.
9
I need another kind of image:
A sandy, sloping eminence,
Two rowans and a little cottage,
A wicket gate, a broken fence,
The sky when greyish clouds are passing,
The straw before the thresh-barn massing,
A pond beneath dense willow trees
And ducklings doing as they please;
I’ m fond now of the balalaika
And, at the tavern’s door, the pack
Of drunkards stamping the trepak.12
Now my ideal’s a housewife – like her,
It’s peace alone that I desire,
‘And cabbage soup, while I’m the squire.’13
10
When recently in rainy weather
I dropped into the cattle yard…
But fie on such prosaic blather,
The motley dross of Flemish art!
Eugene Onegin Page 19
