Eugene Onegin

by Alexander Pushkin

They say you like to be alone And find the country unappealing; We lack, I know, a worldly tone, But still, we welcome you with feeling.

You cannot know: I’m so alone, There’s no one here to whom I’ve spoken, My mind and will are almost broken, And I must die without a moan. I wait for you … and your decision: Revive my hopes with but a sign, Or halt this heavy dream of mine—

Just so a casual guest at night Drops in for whist and joins routinely; And then upon the end of play, Just takes his leave and drives away To fall asleep at home serenely; And in the morning he won’t know What evening holds or where he’ll go.

’For dreams and youth there’s no returning; I cannot resurrect my soul.

From dream to dream a passage brief;

And who’ll be kind enough to measure Our words and deeds as we intend?

Her health, her calm, the smile she wore— Like empty sounds exist no more,

He draws sweet views of rustic scenery, A Venus temple, graves and greenery; He pens a lyre … and then a dove, Adds colour lightly and with love; And on the leaves of recollection, Beneath the lines from other hands, He plants a tender verse that stands— Mute monument to fond reflection: A moment’s thought whose trace shall last Unchanged when even years have passed.

I’ll corner him and catch his coat And stuff him with the play I wrote; Or else (and here I’m far from jesting), When off beside my lake I climb— Beset with yearning and with rhyme— I scare a flock of ducks from resting; And hearing my sweet stanzas soar, They flap their wings and fly from shore. 36* And as I watch them disappearing, A hunter hidden in the brush Damns poetry for interfering And, whistling, fires with a rush. Each has his own preoccupation, His favourite sport or avocation: One aims a gun at ducks on high; One is entranced by rhyme as I; One swats at flies in mindless folly; One dreams of ruling multitudes; One craves the scent that war exudes; One likes to bask in melancholy; One occupies himself with wine: And good and bad all intertwine.

Our northern summers, though, are versions Of southern winters,

Take walks? The views give little reason, When only bareness greets the eye.

entre chien et loup*

The fall that year was in no hurry, And nature seemed to wait and wait For winter. Then, in January, The second night, the snow fell late. Next day as dawn was just advancing, Tatyana woke and, idly glancing, Beheld outdoors a wondrous sight: The roofs, the yard, the fence—all white; Each pane a fragile pattern showing; The trees in winter silver dyed, Gay magpies on the lawn outside, And all the hilltops soft and glowing With winter’s brilliant rug of snow— The world all fresh and white below.

Yet even in these same afflictions She found a secret charm in part: For nature—fond of contradictions— Has so designed the human heart. The holy days are here. What gladness! … Bright youth divines, not knowing sadness, With nothing that it must regret, With all of life before it yet— A distance luminous and boundless…. Old age divines with glasses on And sees the grave before it yawn, All thoughts of time returning—groundless; No matter: childish hope appears To murmur lies in aged ears.

All sons of boredom’s endless greed.

Now tea is brought. I like to tell The time of day by teas and dinners, By supper’s call. We country sinners Can tell the time without great fuss: The stomach serves as clock for us;

And jealous anguish pierced her breast— As if a chilling hand had pressed Her heart; as if in awful fashion A rumbling, black abyss did yawn…. ‘I’ll die,’ she whispers to the dawn, ‘But death from him is sweet compassion. Why murmur vainly? He can’t give The happiness for which I live.’

Should they not laugh while yet there’s time, Before their hands are stained with crime?

Cut down by fate at break of dawn! The storm has blown; the lovely flower Has withered with the rising sun; The altar fire is out and done! …

I’ve learned the voice of new desires And come to know a new regret;

Or do we mark with lamentation How nature’s lively renovation Compares with our own fading youth, For which no spring will come, in truth?

Some pages still preserved the traces Where fingernails had sharply pressed; The girl’s attentive eye embraces These lines more quickly than the rest. And Tanya sees with trepidation The kind of thought or observation To which Eugene paid special heed, Or where he’d tacitly agreed. And in the margins she inspected His pencil marks with special care; And on those pages everywhere She found Onegin’s soul reflected— In crosses or a jotted note, Or in the question mark he wrote.

In silence Moscow’s youthful graces Examine her from head to toe.

Without response and takes no part; And all the while she guards her heart With silence and in meditation: Her cherished trove of tears and bliss She’ll share with none, aloud like this.

Fare thee well, and if for ever, Still for ever, fare thee well. Byron

’Is he the same, or is he learning? Or does he play the outcast still? In what new guise is he returning? What role does he intend to fill? Childe Harold? Melmoth for a while? Cosmopolite? A Slavophile? A Quaker? Bigot?—might one ask? Or will he sport some other mask? Or maybe he’s just dedicated, Like you and me, to being nice? In any case, here’s my advice: Give up a role when it’s outdated. He’s gulled the world … now let it go.’ ’You know him then?’ ‘Well, yes and no.’ 9

But why on earth does he inspire So harsh and negative a view? Is it because we never tire Of censuring what others do? Because an ardent spirit’s daring Appears absurd or overbearing From where the smug and worthless sit? Because the dull are cramped by wit? Because we take mere talk for action, And malice rules a petty mind? Because in tripe the solemn find A cause for solemn satisfaction, And mediocrity alone Is what we like and call our own?

Oh, blest who in his youth was tender; And blest who ripened in his prime; Who learned to bear, without surrender, The chill of life with passing time; Who never knew exotic visions, Nor scorned the social mob’s decisions; Who was at twenty fop or swell, And then at thirty, married well, At fifty shed all obligation For private and for other debts; Who gained in turn, without regrets, Great wealth and rank and reputation; Of whom lifelong the verdict ran: ’Old X is quite a splendid man.’

How sad that youth, with all its power, Was given us in vain, to burn; That we betrayed it every hour, And were deceived by it in turn; That all our finest aspirations, Our brightest dreams and inspirations, Have withered with each passing day Like leaves dank autumn rots away.

It’s hard to face a long succession Of dinners stretching out of sight, To look at life as at a rite, And trail the seemly crowd’s procession— Indifferent to the views they hold, And to their passions ever cold.

Eugene (to speak of him again), Who’d killed his friend for satisfaction, Who in an aimless, idle fix Had reached the age of twenty-six, Annoyed with leisure and inaction, Without position, work, or wife— Could find no purpose for his life.

But when the years have made us older, And barren age has shown its face, How sad is faded passion’s trace! …

Thus storms in autumn, blowing colder, Turn meadows into marshy ground And strip the forest bare all round.

From all that I had ever cherished I tore away my grieving heart; Estranged from men and discontented, I thought: in freedom, peace of mind, A substitute for joy I’d find. How wrong I’ve been! And how tormented!

I fear that in this meek petition Your solemn gaze may only spy The cunning of a base ambition—

But let it be: it’s now too late For me to struggle at this hour; The die is cast: I’m in your power, And I surrender to my fate.

Those journals where each modern Moses Instructs us in a moral way

And yet—although his eyes were reading, His thoughts had wandered far apart; Desires, dreams, and sorrows pleading— Had crowded deep within his heart.

Between the printed lines lay hidden Quite other lines that rose unbidden

Before his gaze. And these alone Absorbed his soul … as he was shown: The heart’s dark secrets and traditions, The mysteries of its ancient past; Disjointed dreams—obscure and vast; Vague threats and rumours, premonitions; A dra...

He got so lost in his depression, He just about went mad, I fear, Or else turned poet (an obsession That I’d have been the first to cheer!) It’s true: by self-hypnotic action, My muddled pupil, in distraction, Came close to grasping at that time The principles of Russian rhyme. He looked the poet so completely

In that brief instant then, who couldn’t Have read her tortured heart at last! And in the princess then, who wouldn’t Have known poor Tanya from the past! Mad with regret and anguished feeling, Eugene fell down before her, kneeling; She shuddered, but she didn’t speak, Just looked at him—her visage bleak— Without surprise or indignation. His stricken, sick, extinguished eyes, Imploring aspect, mute replies— She saw it all. In desolation, The simple girl he’d known before, Who’d dreamt and loved, was born once more.

‘Enough; get up. To you I owe A word of candid explanation. Onegin, do you still retain Some memory of that park and lane, Where fate once willed our confrontation, And I so meekly heard you preach? It’s my turn now to make a speech.

‘Some are no more, and distant… others.’

But blest is he who rightly gauges The time to quit the feast and fly, Who never drained life’s chalice dry, Nor read its novel’s final pages; But all at once for good withdrew— As I from my Onegin do.