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in the salon new faces meet,
and kisses smack as young girls greet;
there's yap of pugs, and laughs, and bustle;
the threshold's thronged, wet-nurses call,
guests bow, feet scrape, and children squall.
{144}
XXVI
Here with his wife, that bulging charmer,
fat Pústyakov has driven in;
Gvozdín, exemplary farmer,
whose serfs are miserably thin;
and the Skotínins, grizzled sages,
with broods of children of all ages,
from thirty down to two; and stop,
here's Petushkóv, the local fop;
and look, my cousin's come, Buyánov,
in a peaked cap, all dust and fluff, --
you'll recognize him soon enough, --
and counsellor (retired) Flyánov,
that rogue, backbiter, pantaloon,
bribe-taker, glutton and buffoon.
XXVII
Here, in his red peruke and glasses,
late of Tambov, Monsieur Triquet
has come with Kharlikov; he passes
for witty; in his Gallic way
inside a pocket Triquet nurses,
addressed to Tanya, certain verses
set to well-known children's glee:
``réveillez-vous, belle endormie.''
He found them in some old collection,
printed among outmoded airs;
Triquet, ingenious poet, dares
to undertake their resurrection,
and for belle Nina, as it read,
he's put belle Tatiana instead.
{145}
XXVIII
And from the nearby Army station
the Major's here: he's all the rage
with our Mamas, and a sensation
with demoiselles of riper age;
his news has set the party humming!
the regimental band is coming,
sent at the Colonel's own behest.
A ball: the joy of every guest!
Young ladies jump for future blisses...
But dinner's served, so two by two
and arm in arm they all go through;
round Tanya congregate the misses,
the men confront them, face to face:
they sit, they cross themselves for grace.
XXIX
They buzz -- but then all talk's suspended --
jaws masticate as minutes pass:
the crash of plates and knives is blended
with the resounding chime of glass.
And now there's gradually beginning
among the guests a general dinning:
none listens when the others speak,
all shout and argue, laugh and squeak.
Then doors are opened, Lensky enters,
Onegin too. ``Good Lord, at last!''
the hostess cries and, moving fast,
the guests squeeze closer to the centres;
they shove each plate, and every chair,
and shout, and make room for the pair.
{146}
XXX
Just facing Tanya's where they're sitting;
and paler than the moon at dawn,
she lowers darkened eyes, unwitting,
and trembles like a hunted fawn.
From violent passions fast pulsating
she's nearly swooned, she's suffocating;
the friends' salute she never hears
and from her eyes the eager tears
are almost bursting; she's quite ready,
poor girl, to drop into a faint,
but will, and reason's strong constraint,
prevailed, and with composure steady
she sat there; through her teeth a word
came out so soft, it scarce was heard.
XXXI
The nervous-tragical reaction,
girls' tears, their swooning, for Eugene
had long proved tedious to distraction:
he knew too well that sort of scene.
Now, faced with this enormous revel,
he'd got annoyed, the tricky devil.
He saw the sad girl's trembling state,
looked down in an access of hate,
pouted, and swore in furious passion
to wreak, by stirring Lensky's ire,
the best revenge one could desire.
Already, in exultant fashion,
he watched the guests and, as he dined,
caricatured them in his mind.
{147}
XXXII
Tanya's distress had risked detection
not only by Evgeny's eye;
but looks and talk took the direction,
that moment, of a luscious pie
(alas, too salted); now they're bringing
bottles to which some pitch is clinging:
Tsimlyansky wine, between the meat
and the blancmanger, then a fleet
of goblets, tall and slender pretties;
how they remind me of your stem,
Zizi, my crystal and my gem,
you object of my guileless ditties!
with draughts from love's enticing flask,
you made me drunk as one could ask!
XXXIII
Freed from its dripping cork, the bottle
explodes; wine fizzes up... but stay:
solemn, too long compelled to throttle
his itching verse, Monsieur Triquet
is on his feet -- in utter stillness
the party waits. Seized with an illness
of swooning, Tanya nearly dies;
and, scroll in hand, before her eyes
Triquet sings, out of tune. Loud clapping
and cheers salute him. Tanya must
thank him by curtseying to the dust;
great bard despite his modest trapping,
he's first to toast her in the bowl,
then he presents her with the scroll.
{148}
XXXIV
Compliment and congratulation;
Tanya thanks each one with a phrase.
When Eugene's turn for salutation
arrives, the girl's exhausted gaze,
her discomposure, her confusion,
expose his soul to an intrusion
of pity: in his silent bow,
and in his look there shows somehow
a wondrous tenderness. And whether
it was that he'd been truly stirred,
or half-unwittingly preferred
a joking flirt, or both together,
there was a softness in his glance:
it brought back Tanya from her trance.
XXXV
Chairs are pushed outward, loudly rumbling,
and all into the salon squeeze,
as from their luscious hive go tumbling
fieldward, in noisy swarm, the bees.
The banquet's given no cause for sneezing,
neighbours in high content are wheezing;
ladies at the fireside confer,
in corners whispering girls concur;
now, by green tablecloths awaited,
the eager players are enrolled --
Boston and ombre for the old,
and whist, that's now so keenly fêted --
pursuits of a monotonous breed
begot by boredom out of greed.
{149}
XXXVI
By now whist's heroes have completed
eight rubbers; and by now eight times
they've moved around and been reseated;
and tea's brought in. Instead of chimes
I like to tell the time by dinner
and tea and supper; there's an inner
clock in the country rings the hour;
no fuss; our belly has the power
of any Bréguet: and in passing
I'll just remark, my verses talk
as much of banquets and the cork
and eatables beyond all classing
as yours did, Homer, godlike lord,
whom thirty centuries have adored!
< XXXVII7
At feasts, though, full of pert aggression,
I put your genius to the test,
I make magnanimous confession,
in other things you come off best:
your heroes, raging and ferocious,
your battles, lawless and atrocious,
your Zeus, your Cypris, your whole band
have clearly got the upper hand
of Eugene, cold as all creation,
of plains where boredom reigns complete,
or of Istómina, my sweet,
and all our modish education;
but your vile Helen's not my star --
no, Tanya's more endearing far.
{150}
XXXVIII
No one will think that worth gainsaying,
though Menelaus, in Helen's name,
may spend a century in flaying
the hapless Phrygians all the same,
and although Troy's greybeards, collected
around Priam the much-respected,
may chorus, when she comes in sight,
that Menelaus was quite right --
and Paris too. But hear my pleading:
as battles go, I've not begun;
don't judge the race before it's run --
be good enough to go on reading:
there'll be a fight. For that I give
my word; no welshing, as I live. >
XXXIX
Here's tea: the girls have just, as bidden,
taken the saucers in their grip,
when, from behind the doorway, hidden
bassoons and flutes begin to trip.
Elated by the music's blaring,
Petushkóv, local Paris, tearing,
his tea with rum quite left behind,
approaches Olga; Lensky's signed
Tatyana on; Miss Kharlikova,
that nubile maid of riper age,
is seized by Tambov's poet-sage;
Buyánov whirls off Pustyakova;
they all have swarmed into the hall,
and in full brilliance shines the ball.
{151}
XL
Right at the outset of my story
(if you'll turn back to chapter one)
I meant to paint, with Alban's8 glory,
a ball in Petersburg; but fun
and charming reverie's vain deflection
absorbed me in the recollection
of certain ladies' tiny feet.
Enough I've wandered in the suite
of your slim prints! though this be treason
to my young days, it's time I turned
to wiser words and deeds, and learned
to demonstrate some signs of reason:
let no more such digressions lurk
in this fifth chapter of my work.
XLI
And now, monotonously dashing
like mindless youth, the waltz goes by
with spinning noise and senseless flashing
as pair by pair the dancers fly.
Revenge's hour is near, and after
Evgeny, full of inward laughter,
has gone to Olga, swept the girl
past all the assembly in a whirl,
he takes her to a chair, beginning
to talk of this and that, but then
after two minutes, off again,
they're on the dance-floor, waltzing, spinning.
All are dumbfounded. Lensky shies
away from trusting his own eyes.
{152}
XLII
Now the mazurka sounds. Its thunder
used in times past to ring a peal
that huge ballrooms vibrated under,
while floors would split from crash of heel,
and frames would shudder, windows tremble;
now things are changed, now we resemble
ladies who glide on waxed parquet.
Yet the mazurka keeps today
in country towns and suchlike places
its pristine charm: heeltaps, and leaps,
and whiskers -- all of this it keeps
as fresh as ever, for its graces
are here untouched by fashion's reign,
our modern Russia's plague and bane.
XLIII7
... ...
< Petushkóv's nails and spurs are sounding
(that half-pay archivist); and bounding
Buyánov's heels have split the wood
and wrecked the flooring-boards for good;
there's crashing, rumbling, pounding, trotting,
the deeper in the wood, the more
the logs; the wild ones have the floor;
they're plunging, whirling, all but squatting.
Ah, gently, gently, easy goes --
your heels will squash the ladies' toes! >
{153}
XLIV
Buyánov, my vivacious cousin,
leads Olga and Tatyana on
to Eugene; nineteen to the dozen,
Eugene takes Olga, and is gone;
he steers her, nonchalantly gliding,
he stoops and, tenderly confiding,
whispers some ballad of the hour,
squeezes her hand -- and brings to flower
on her smug face a flush of pleasure.
Lensky has watched: his rage has blazed,
he's lost his self-command, and crazed
with jealousy beyond all measure
insists, when the mazurka ends,
on the cotillion, as amends.
XLV
He asks. She can't accept. Why ever?
No, she's already pledged her word
to Evgeny. Oh, God, she'd never...
How could she? why, he'd never heard...
scarce out of bibs, already fickle,
fresh from the cot, an infant pickle,
already studying to intrigue,
already high in treason's league!
He finds the shock beyond all bearing:
so, cursing women's devious course,
he leaves the house, calls for his horse
and gallops. Pistols made for pairing
and just a double charge of shot
will in a flash decide his lot.
{154}
Notes to Chapter Five
1 ``See First Snow, a poem by Prince Vyazemsky.'' Pushkin's note. For
Prince P. Vyazemsky (1791--1878), poet, critic and close friend of Pushkin,
see also Chapter Seven, XLIX.
2 ``See the descriptions of the Finnish winter in Baratynsky's Eda''.
Pushkin's note.
3 ``"Tomcat calls Kit" -- a song foretelling marriage.'' Pushkin's
note.
4 This Russianized version of the Greek Agatho is ``elephantine and
rustic to the Russian ear''. Nabokov. See note 3 to Chapter Two.
5 Girl in Zhukovsky's poem who practises divination, with frightening
results. See note 2 to Chapter Three.
6 Slavonic god of love.
7 Stanzas XXXVII, XXXVIII and XLIII were discarded by Pushkin.
8 Francesco Albani, Italian painter (1578-1660).
--------
La, sotto giorni nubilosi e brevi.
Nasce una gente a cui 'l morir non dole.
Petrarch
I
Seeing Vladimir had defected,
Eugene, at Olga's side, was racked
by fresh ennui as he reflected
with pleasure on his vengeful act.
Olinka yawned, just like her neighbour,
and looked for Lensky, while the labour
of the cotillion's endless theme
oppressed her like a heavy dream.
It's over. Supper is proceeding.
Beds are made up; the guests are all
packed from the maids' wing to the hall.
Each one by now is badly needing
a place for rest. Eugene alone
has driven off, to find his own.
{155}
II
All sleep: from the saloon a roaring
proclaims where ponderous Pústyakov
beside his heavier half is snoring.
Gvozdín, Buyánov, Petushkóv
and Flyánov, amply lubricated,
on dining-chairs are all prostrated;
the floor serves Triquet for his nap,
in flannel, and an old fur cap.
In the two sisters' rooms extended,
the maidens all are slumbering deep.
Only Tatyana does not sleep,
but at the window, in the splendid
radiance of Dian, sits in pain
and looks out on the darkened plain.
III
His unexpected apparition,
the fleeting tenderness that stole
into his look, the exhibition
with Olga, all have pierced her soul;
she can't make out a single fraction
of his intent; and a reaction
of jealousy has made her start,
as if a cold hand squeezed her heart,
as if beneath her, dark and rumbling,
a gulf has gaped... Says Tanya: ``I
am doomed to perish, yet to die
through him is sweetness' self. In grumbling
I find no sense; the truth is this,
it's not in him to bring me bliss.''
{156}
IV
But onward, onward with my story!
A new acquaintance claims our quill.
Five versts or so from Krasnogórie,
Lensky's estate, there lives and still
thrives to this moment, in a station
of philosophic isolation,
Zarétsky, sometime king of brawls
and hetman of the gambling-halls,
arch-rake, pothouse tribune-persona,
but now grown plain and kind in stead,
paterfamilias (unwed),
unswerving friend, correct landowner,
and even honourable man:
so, if we want to change, we can!
V
The world of fashion, prone to flatter,
praised his fierce courage in its day:
true, with a pistol he could shatter
an ace a dozen yards away;
it's also true, in battle's rapture,
the circumstances of his capture
had made his name, when, bold as bold,
down from his Kalmuck steed he rolled
into the mud, a drunken goner,
and taken by the French -- some prize! --
resigned himself to prison's ties,
like Regulus, that god of honour,
in order daily, chez Véry,1
to drain, on credit, bottles three.
{157}
VI
Time was, he'd been the wittiest ever,
so brilliantly he'd hoax the fools,
so gloriously he'd fool the clever,
using overt or covert rules.
Sometimes his tricks would earn him trouble,
or cause the bursting of his bubble,
sometimes he'd fall into a trap
himself just like a simple chap.
But he could draw a joking moral,
return an answer, blunt or keen,
use cunning silence as a screen,
or cunningly create a quarrel,
get two young friends to pick a fight,
and put them on a paced-out site.
VII
Or he knew how to reconcile them
so that all three went off to lunch,
then later slyly he'd revile them
with lies and jokes that packed a punch:
sed alia tempora! The devil
(like passion's dream, that other revel)
goes out of us when youth is dead.
So my Zaretsky, as I said,
beneath bird-cherries and acacias
has found a port for his old age,
and lives, a veritable sage,
for planting cabbage, like Horatius,
and breeding ducks and geese as well,
and teaching children how to spell.
{158}
VIII
He was no fool; appreciated
by my Eugene, not for his heart,
but for the effect that he created
of sense and judgement. For his part
his converse gave Onegin pleasure;
so it was not in any measure,
the morning after, a surprise
when our Zaretsky met his eyes.
His visitor from the beginning
broke greetings off, and gave Eugene
a note from Lensky; in between
Zaretsky watched, and stood there grinning.
Onegin without more ado
crossed to the window, read it through.
IX
Pleasant, in spite of its compression,
gentlemanly, quite precise,
Vladimir's challenge found expression
that, though polite, was clear as ice.
Eugene's response was automatic;
he informed this envoy diplomatic
in terms where not a word was spared:
at any time he'd be prepared.
Zaretsky rose without discussion;
he saw no point in staying on,
with work at home; but when he'd gone,
Evgeny, whom the repercussion
left quite alone with his own soul,
was far from happy with his role.
{159}
X
With reason, too: for when he'd vetted
in secret judgement what he'd done,
he found too much that he regretted:
last night he'd erred in making fun,
so heartless and so detrimental,
of love so timorous and gentle.
In second place the poet might
have been a fool; yet he'd a right,
at eighteen years, to some compassion.
Evgeny loved him from his heart,
and should have played a different part:
no softball for the winds of fashion,
no boy, to fight or take offence --
the man of honour and of sense.
XI
He could have spoken without harming,
need not have bristled like a beast;
he should have settled for disarming
that youthful heart. ``But now at least
it's late, time's passing... not to mention,
in our affair, the intervention
of that old duellistic fox,
that wicked, loose-tongue chatterbox...
True, scorn should punish and should bridle
his wit, according to the rules
but whispers, the guffaw of fools...''
Public opinion -- here's our idol,
the spring of honour, and the pin
on which the world is doomed to spin.
{160}
XII
Lensky at home awaits the answer,
impatient, hatred flaming high;
but here comes our loud-talking prancer
who swaggers in with the reply.
The jealous poet's gloom is lightened!
knowing the offender, he'd been frightened
lest he should by some clever trick
avert his chest from pistol's click,
smoothe his way out with humour's ointment.
But now Vladimir's doubts are still:
early tomorrow at the mill
before first light they have appointment,
to raise the safety catch and strain
to hit the target: thigh or brain.
XIII
Still blazing with resentment's fuel,
and set on hating the coquette,
Lensky resolved before the duel
not to see Olga; in a fret
watched sun and clock -- then by such labours
defeated, turned up at his neighbour's.
He thought that Olga'd be confused,
struck down as if she'd been accused,
when he arrived; not in the slightest:
just as she'd always been, she tripped
to meet the unhappy poet, skipped
down from the porch, light as the lightest,
the giddiest hope, carefree and gay,
the same as any other day.
{161}
XIV
``Last night, what made you fly so early?''
was the first thing that Olga said.
All Lensky's thoughts went hurly-burly,
and silently he hung his head.
Rage died, and jealousy's obsession,
before such candour of expression,
such frank tendresse; away they stole
before such playfulness of soul!...
he looks, in sweet irresolution,
and then concludes: she loves him yet!
Already borne down by regret,
he almost begs for absolution,
he trembles, knows not what to tell;
he's happy, yes, he's almost well...
(XV, XVI,2) XVII
Now brooding thoughts hold his attention
once more, at that beloved sight,
and so he lacks the strength to mention
the happenings of the previous night;
he murmurs: ``Olga's mine for saving;
I'll stop that tempter from depraving
her youth with all his repertoire
of sighs, and compliments, and fire;
that poisonous worm, despised, degrading,
shall not attack my lily's root;
I'll save this blossom on the shoot,
still hardly opened up, from fading.''
Friends, all this meant was: I've a date
for swapping bullets with my mate.
{162}
XVIII
If only Lensky'd known the burning
wound that had seared my Tanya's heart!
If Tanya'd had the chance of learning
that Lensky and Eugene, apart,
would settle, on the morrow morning,
for which of them the tomb was yawning,
perhaps her love could in the end
have reunited friend to friend!
But, even by accident, her passion
was undiscovered to that day.
Onegin had no word to say;
Tatyana pined in secret fashion:
of the whole world, her nurse alone,
if not slow-witted, might have known.
XIX
Lensky all evening, in distraction,
would talk, keep silent, laugh, then frown --
the quintessential reaction
of Muses' offspring; sitting down
before the clavichord with knitted
forehead, he strummed, his vision flitted
to Olga's face, he whispered low
``I think I'm happy.'' Time to go,
the hour was late. And now from aching
the heart inside him seemed to shrink;
parting with Olga made him think
it was quite torn in half and breaking.
She faced him, questioning: ``But you?...''
``It's nothing.'' And away he flew.
{163}
XX
Once home, he brought out and inspected
his pistols, laid them in their case,
undressed, by candlelight selected
and opened Schiller... but the embrace
of one sole thought holds him in keeping
and stops his doleful heart from sleeping:
Olga is there, he sees her stand
in untold beauty close at hand.
Vladimir shuts the book, for writing
prepares himself; and then his verse,
compact of amorous trash, and worse,
flows and reverberates. Reciting,
he sounds, in lyric frenzy sunk,
like Delvig3 when he's dining drunk.
XXI
By chance those verses haven't vanished;
I keep them, and will quote them here:
``Whither, oh whither are ye banished,
my golden days when spring was dear?
What fate is my tomorrow brewing?
the answer's past all human viewing,
it's hidden deep in gloom and dust.
No matter; fate's decree is just.
Whether the arrow has my number,
whether it goes careering past,
all's well; the destined hour at last
comes for awakening, comes for slumber;
blessed are daytime's care and cark,
blest is the advent of the dark!
{164}
XXII
``The morning star will soon be shining,
and soon will day's bright tune be played;
but I perhaps will be declining
into the tomb's mysterious shade;
the trail the youthful poet followed
by sluggish Lethe may be swallowed,
and I be by the world forgot;
but, lovely maiden, wilt thou not
on my untimely urn be weeping,
thinking: he loved me, and in strife
the sad beginnings of his life
he consecrated to my keeping?...
Friend of my heart, be at my side,
beloved friend, thou art my bride!''
XXIII
So Lensky wrote, obscurely, limply
(in the romantic style, we say,
though what's romantic here I simply
fail to perceive -- that's by the way).
At last, with dawn upon him, stooping
his weary head, and softly drooping
over the modish word ideal,
he dozed away; but when the real
magic of sleep had started claiming
its due oblivion, in the hush
his neighbour entered at a rush
and wakened Lensky by exclaiming:
``Get up: it's gone six! I'll be bound,
Onegin's waiting on the ground.''
{165}
XXIV
But he's mistaken: Eugene's lying
and sleeping sounder than a rock.
By now the shades of night are flying,
Vesper is met by crow of cock --
Onegin still is slumbering deeply.
By now the sun is climbing steeply,
and little dancing whirls of snow
glitter and tumble as they go,
but Eugene hasn't moved; for certain
slumber still floats above his head.
At last he wakes, and stirs in bed,
and parts the fringes of his curtain;
he looks, and sees the hour of day --
high time he should be on his way.
XXV
He rings at once, and what a scurry!
his French valet, Guillot, is there
with gown and slippers; tearing hurry,
as linen's brought for him to wear.
And while with all despatch he's dressing
he warns his man for duty, stressing
that with him to the trysting-place
he has to bring the battle-case.
By now the sledge is at the portal --
he's racing millward like a bird.
Arrived apace, he gives the word
to bring across Lepage's4 mortal
barrels, and then to drive aside
by two small oaktrees in a ride.
{166}
XXVI
While Lensky'd long been meditating
impatiently on the mill-dam,
Zaretsky, engineer-in-waiting,
condemned the millstones as a sham.
Onegin comes, and makes excuses;
but in Zaretsky he induces
amazement: ``Where's your second gone?''
In duels a pedantic don,
methodical by disposition,
a classicist, he'll not allow
that one be shot just anyhow --
only by rule, and strict tradition
inherited from earlier days
(for which he must receive due praise).
XXVII
Evgeny echoed him: ``My second?
He's here -- Monsieur Guillot, my friend.
I had most surely never reckoned
his choice could shock or might offend;
though he's unknown, there's no suggestion
that he's not honest past all question.''
Zaretsky bit his lip. Eugene
asked Lensky: ``Should we start, I mean?''
Vladimir to this casual mention
replies: ``We might as well.'' They walk
behind the mill. In solemn talk,
Zaretsky draws up a convention
with Guillot; while pourparlers last
the two foes stand with eyes downcast.
{167}
XXVIII
Foes! Is it long since from each other
the lust for blood drew them apart?
long since, like brother linked to brother,
they shared their days in deed and heart,
their table, and their hours of leisure?
But now, in this vindictive pleasure
hereditary foes they seem,
and as in some appalling dream
each coldly plans the other's slaughter...
could they not laugh out loud, before
their hands are dipped in scarlet gore,
could they not give each other quarter
and part in kindness? Just the same,
all modish foes dread worldly shame.
XXIX
Pistols are out, they gleam, the hammer
thumps as the balls are pressed inside
faceted muzzles by the rammer;
with a first click, the catch is tried.
Now powder's greyish stream is slipping
into the pan. Securely gripping,
the jagged flint's pulled back anew.
Guillot, behind a stump in view,
stands in dismay and indecision.
And now the two opponents doff
their cloaks; Zaretsky's measured off
thirty-two steps with great precision,
and on their marks has made them stand;
each grips his pistol in his hand.
{168}
XXX
``Now march.'' And calmly, not yet seeking
to aim, at steady, even pace
the foes, cold-blooded and unspeaking,
each took four steps across the space,
four fateful stairs. Then, without slowing
the level tenor of his going,
Evgeny quietly began
to lift his pistol up. A span
of five more steps they went, slow-gaited,
and Lensky, left eye closing, aimed --
but just then Eugene's pistol flamed...
The clock of doom had struck as fated;
and the poet, without a sound,
let fall his pistol on the ground.
XXXI
Vladimir drops, hand softly sliding
to heart. And in his misted gaze
is death, not pain. So gently gliding
down slopes of mountains, when a blaze
of sunlight makes it flash and crumble,
a block of snow will slip and tumble.
Onegin, drenched with sudden chill,
darts to the boy, and looks, and still
calls out his name... All unavailing:
the youthful votary of rhyme
has found an end before his time.
The storm is over,5 dawn is paling,
the bloom has withered on the bough;
the altar flame's extinguished now.
{169}
XXXII
He lay quite still, and strange as dreaming
was that calm brow of one who swooned.
Shot through below the chest -- and streaming
the blood came smoking from the wound.
A moment earlier, inspiration
had filled this heart, and detestation
and hope and passion; life had glowed
and blood had bubbled as it flowed;
but now the mansion is forsaken;
shutters are up, and all is pale
and still within, behind the veil
of chalk the window-panes have taken.
The lady of the house has fled.
Where to, God knows. The trail is dead.
XXXIII
With a sharp epigram it's pleasant
to infuriate a clumsy foe;
and, as observer, to be present
and watch him stubbornly bring low
his thrusting horns, and as he passes
blush to descry in looking-glasses
his foolish face; more pleasant yet
to hear him howl: ``that's me!'' You'll get
more joy still when with mute insistence
you help him to an honoured fate
by calmly aiming at his pate
from any gentlemanly distance;
but when you've managed his despatch
you won't find that quite so much catch...
{170}
XXXIV
What if your pistol-shot has smitten
a friend of yours in his first youth
because some glance of his has bitten
your pride, some answer, or in truth
some nonsense thrown up while carousing,
or if himself, with rage arousing,
he's called you out -- say, in your soul
what feelings would assume control
if, motionless, no life appearing,
death on his brow, your friend should lie,
stiffening as the hours go by,
before you on the ground, unhearing,
unspeaking, too, but stretched out there
deaf to the voice of your despair?
XXXV
Giving his pistol-butt a squeezing,
Evgeny looks at Lensky, chilled
at heart by grim remorse's freezing.
``Well, what?'' the neighbour says, ``he's killed.''
Killed!... At this frightful word a-quiver,
Onegin turns, and with a shiver
summons his people. On the sleigh
with care Zaretsky stows away
the frozen corpse, drives off, and homing
vanishes with his load of dread.
The horses, as they sense the dead,
have snorted, reared, and whitely foaming
have drenched the steel bit as they go
and flown like arrows from a bow.
{171}
XXXVI
My friends, the bard stirs your compassion:
right in the flower of joyous hope,
hope that he's had no time to fashion
for men to see, still in the scope
of swaddling clothes -- already blighted!
Where is the fire that once ignited,
where's the high aim, the ardent sense
of youth, so tender, so intense?
and where is love's tempestuous yearning,
where are the reveries this time,
the horror of disgrace and crime,
the thirst for work, the lust for learning,
and life celestial's phantom gleams,
stuff of the poet's hallowed dreams!
XXXVII
Perhaps to improve the world's condition,
perhaps for fame, he was endowed;
his lyre, now stilled, in its high mission
might have resounded long and loud
for aeons. Maybe it was fated
that on the world's staircase there waited
for him a lofty stair. His shade,
after the martyr's price it paid,
maybe bore off with it for ever
a secret truth, and at our cost
a life-creating voice was lost;
to it the people's blessing never
will reach, and past the tomb's compound
hymns of the ages never sound.
{172}
(XXXVIII,2) XXXIX
Perhaps however, to be truthful,
he would have found a normal fate.
The years would pass; no longer youthful,
he'd see his soul cool in its grate;
his nature would be changed and steadied,
he'd sack the Muses and get wedded;
and in the country, blissful, horned,
in quilted dressing-gown adorned,
life's real meaning would have found him;
at forty he'd have got the gout,
drunk, eaten, yawned, grown weak and stout,
at length, midst children swarming round him,
midst crones with endless tears to shed,
and doctors, he'd have died in bed.
XL
Reader, whatever fate's direction,
we weep for the young lover's end,
the man of reverie and reflection,
the poet struck down by his friend!
Left-handed from the habitation
where dwelt this child of inspiration,
two pines have tangled at the root;
beneath, a brook rolls its tribute
toward the neighbouring valley's river.
The ploughman there delights to doze,
girl reapers as the streamlet flows
dip in their jugs; where shadows quiver
darkly above the water's lilt,
a simple monument is built.
{173}
XLI
Below it, when sprang rains are swishing,
when, on the plain, green herbs are massed,
the shepherd sings of Volga's fishing
and plaits a piebald shoe of bast;
and the young city-bred newcomer,
who in the country spends her summer,
when galloping at headlong pace
alone across the fields of space,
will halt her horse and, gripping tightly
the leather rein, to learn the tale,
lift up the gauzes of her veil,
with a quick look perusing lightly
the simple legend -- then a haze
of tears will cloud her tender gaze.
XLII
Walking her horse in introspection
across the plain's enormous room,
what holds her in profound reflection,
despite herself, is Lensky's doom;
``Olga,'' she thinks, ``what fate befell her?
her heartache, did it long compel her,
or did her grief soon find repair?
and where's her sister now? and where,
flown from society as we know it,
of modish belles the modish foe,
where did that glum eccentric go,
the one who killed the youthful poet?''
All in good time, on each point I
will give you a complete reply.
{174}
XLIII
But not today. Although I dearly
value the hero of my tale,
though I'll come back to him, yet clearly
to face him now I feel too frail...
The years incline to gloom and prosing,
they kill the zest of rhymed composing,
and with a sigh I now admit
I have to drag my feet to it.
My pen, as once, no longer hurries
to spoil loose paper by the ream;
another, a more chilling dream,
and other, more exacting worries,
in fashion's din, at still of night,
come to disturb me and affright.
XLIV
I've learnt the voice of new ambition,
I've learnt new sadness; but in this
the first will never find fruition,
the earlier griefs are what I miss.
O dreams, o dreams, where is your sweetness?
where (standard rhyme) are youth and fleetness?
can it be true, their crown at last
has felt time's desiccating blast?
can it be true, and firmly stated
without an elegiac frill,
that spring with me has had its fill
(as I've so oft in jest related)?
Can it be true, it won't come twice --
and I'll be thirty in a trice?
{175}
XLV
Well, I must make a frank confession,
my noon is here, and that's the truth.
So let me with a kind expression
take leave of my lightheaded youth!
Thank you for all the gifts I treasure,
thank you for sorrow and for pleasure,
thank you for suffering and its joys,
for tempests and for feasts and noise;
thank you indeed. Alike in sorrow
and in flat calm I've found the stuff
of perfect bliss in you. Enough!
My soul's like crystal, and tomorrow
I shall set out on brand-new ways
and rest myself from earlier days.
XLVI
Let me look back. Farewell, umbrageous
forests where my young age was passed
in indolence and in rampageous
passion and dreams of pensive cast.
But come, thou youthful inspiration,
come, trouble my imagination,
liven the drowsing of my heart,
fly to my corner like a dart,
let not the poet's soul of passion
grow cold, and hard, and stiff as stock,
and finally be turned to rock
amid the deadening joys of fashion,
< amongst the soulless men of pride,
the fools who sparkle far and wide,6
{176}
XLVII
amongst the crafty and small-minded,
the children spoilt, the mad, the rogues
both dull and ludicrous, the bunded
critics and their capricious vogues,
amongst devout coquettes, appalling
lickspittles who adore their crawling,
and daily scenes of modish life
where civil treacheries are rife,
urbane betrayals, and the chilling
verdicts of vanity the bleak,
men's thoughts, their plots, the words they speak,
all of an emptiness so killing -- >
that's the morass, I beg you note,
in which, dear friends, we're all afloat!
{177}
Notes to Chapter Six
1 Café-restaurant in Paris.
2 Stanzas XV, XVI and XXXVIII were discarded by Pushkin.
3 Anton Delvig, poet and close friend of Pushkin.
4 Jean Lepage, Parisian gunsmith.
5 ``A deliberate accumulation of conventional poetical formulae by
means of which Pushkin mimics poor Lensky's own style... but the rich and
original metaphor of the deserted house, closed inner shutters, whitened
window-panes, departed female owner (the soul being feminine in Russian),
with which XXXII ends, is Pushkin's own contribution, a sample as it were of
what he can do.'' Nabokov.
6 These lines and the first twelve lines of stanza XLVII were discarded
by Pushkin.
--------
Moscow, loved daughter of Russia,
where can we find your equal?
Dmitriev
``How can one not love mother Moscow?''
Baratynsky
``You criticize Moscow? why make such a fuss
of seeing the world? what on earth could be better?''
``A place where you'll find none of us.''
Griboedov
I
By now the rays of spring are chasing
the snow from all surrounding hills;
it melts, away it rushes, racing
down to the plain in turbid rills.
Smiling through sleep, nature is meeting
the infant year with cheerful greeting:
the sky is brilliant in its blue
and, still transparent to the view,
the downy woods are greener-tinted;
from waxen cell the bees again
levy their tribute on the plain;
the vales dry out, grow brightly printed;
cows low, in the still nights of spring
the nightingale's begun to sing.
{178}
II
O spring! o time for love! how sadly
your advent swamps me in its flood!
and in my soul, o spring, how madly
your presence aches, and in my blood!
How heavy, and how near to sobbing,
the bliss that fills me when your throbbing,
caressing breath has fanned my face
in rural calm's most secret place!
Or from all notion of enjoyment
am I estranged, does all that cheers,
that lives, and glitters, and endears,
now crush with sorrow's dull deployment
a soul that perished long ago,
and finds the world a darkling show?
III
Or, unconsoled by the returning
of leaves that autumn killed for good,
are we recalled to grief still burning
by the new whisper in the wood?
or else does nature, fresh and staring,
set off our troubled mind comparing
its newness with our faded days,
with years no more to meet our gaze?
Perhaps, when thoughts are all a-quiver
in midst of a poetic dream,
some other, older spring will gleam,
and put our heart into a shiver
with visions of enchanted night,
of distant countries, of moonlight...
{179}
IV
It's time: kind-hearted, idle creatures,
dons of Epicurean rule,
calm men with beatific features,
graduates of the Levshin1 school,
Priam-like agricultural sages,
sensitive ladies of all ages --
the spring invites you to the land
now warmth and blossom are on hand,
field-work, and walks with inspiration,
and magic nights. In headlong course
come to the fields, my friends! To horse!
With mounts from home, or postal station,
in loaded carriages, migrate,
leave far behind that city-gate.
V
Forsake, indulgent reader -- driven
in your calèche of foreign cast --
the untiring city, where you've given
to feasts and fun this winter past;
and though my muse may be capricious,
we'll go with her to that delicious
and nameless rivulet, that scene
of whispering woods where my Eugene,
an idle monk in glum seclusion,
has lately wintered, just a space
from young Tatyana's dwelling-place,
dear Tanya, lover of illusion;
though there he's no more to be found,
he's left sad footprints on the ground.
{180}
VI
Amidst the hills, down in that valley,
let's go where, winding all the time
across green meadows, dilly-dally,
a brook flows through a grove of lime.
There sings the nightingale, spring's lover,
the wild rose blooms, and in the covert
the source's chattering voice is heard;
and there a tombstone says its word
where two old pinetrees stand united:
``This is Vladimir Lensky's grave
who early died as die the brave'' --
the headpiece-text is thus indited --
the year, his age, then: ``may your rest,
young poet, be for ever blest!''
VII
There was a pine-branch downward straying
towards the simple urn beneath;
time was when morning's breeze was swaying
over it a mysterious wreath:
time was, in evening hours of leisure,
by moonlight two young girls took pleasure,
closely embraced, in wending here,
to see the grave, and shed a tear.
Today... the sad memorial's lonely,
forgot. Its trodden path is now
choked up. There's no wreath on the bough;
grey-haired and weak, beneath it only
the shepherd, as he used to do,
sings as he plaits a humble shoe.
{181}
(VIII,2 IX,) X
Poor Lensky! Set aside for weeping,
or pining, Olga's hours were brief.
Alas for him! there was no keeping
his sweetheart faithful to her grief.
Another had the skill to ravish
her thoughts away, knew how to lavish
sweet words by which her pain was banned --
a Lancer wooed and won her hand,
a Lancer -- how she deified him!
and at the altar, with a crown,
her head in modesty cast down,
already there she stands beside him;
her eyes are lowered, but ablaze,
and on her lips a light smile plays.
and kisses smack as young girls greet;
there's yap of pugs, and laughs, and bustle;
the threshold's thronged, wet-nurses call,
guests bow, feet scrape, and children squall.
{144}
XXVI
Here with his wife, that bulging charmer,
fat Pústyakov has driven in;
Gvozdín, exemplary farmer,
whose serfs are miserably thin;
and the Skotínins, grizzled sages,
with broods of children of all ages,
from thirty down to two; and stop,
here's Petushkóv, the local fop;
and look, my cousin's come, Buyánov,
in a peaked cap, all dust and fluff, --
you'll recognize him soon enough, --
and counsellor (retired) Flyánov,
that rogue, backbiter, pantaloon,
bribe-taker, glutton and buffoon.
XXVII
Here, in his red peruke and glasses,
late of Tambov, Monsieur Triquet
has come with Kharlikov; he passes
for witty; in his Gallic way
inside a pocket Triquet nurses,
addressed to Tanya, certain verses
set to well-known children's glee:
``réveillez-vous, belle endormie.''
He found them in some old collection,
printed among outmoded airs;
Triquet, ingenious poet, dares
to undertake their resurrection,
and for belle Nina, as it read,
he's put belle Tatiana instead.
{145}
XXVIII
And from the nearby Army station
the Major's here: he's all the rage
with our Mamas, and a sensation
with demoiselles of riper age;
his news has set the party humming!
the regimental band is coming,
sent at the Colonel's own behest.
A ball: the joy of every guest!
Young ladies jump for future blisses...
But dinner's served, so two by two
and arm in arm they all go through;
round Tanya congregate the misses,
the men confront them, face to face:
they sit, they cross themselves for grace.
XXIX
They buzz -- but then all talk's suspended --
jaws masticate as minutes pass:
the crash of plates and knives is blended
with the resounding chime of glass.
And now there's gradually beginning
among the guests a general dinning:
none listens when the others speak,
all shout and argue, laugh and squeak.
Then doors are opened, Lensky enters,
Onegin too. ``Good Lord, at last!''
the hostess cries and, moving fast,
the guests squeeze closer to the centres;
they shove each plate, and every chair,
and shout, and make room for the pair.
{146}
XXX
Just facing Tanya's where they're sitting;
and paler than the moon at dawn,
she lowers darkened eyes, unwitting,
and trembles like a hunted fawn.
From violent passions fast pulsating
she's nearly swooned, she's suffocating;
the friends' salute she never hears
and from her eyes the eager tears
are almost bursting; she's quite ready,
poor girl, to drop into a faint,
but will, and reason's strong constraint,
prevailed, and with composure steady
she sat there; through her teeth a word
came out so soft, it scarce was heard.
XXXI
The nervous-tragical reaction,
girls' tears, their swooning, for Eugene
had long proved tedious to distraction:
he knew too well that sort of scene.
Now, faced with this enormous revel,
he'd got annoyed, the tricky devil.
He saw the sad girl's trembling state,
looked down in an access of hate,
pouted, and swore in furious passion
to wreak, by stirring Lensky's ire,
the best revenge one could desire.
Already, in exultant fashion,
he watched the guests and, as he dined,
caricatured them in his mind.
{147}
XXXII
Tanya's distress had risked detection
not only by Evgeny's eye;
but looks and talk took the direction,
that moment, of a luscious pie
(alas, too salted); now they're bringing
bottles to which some pitch is clinging:
Tsimlyansky wine, between the meat
and the blancmanger, then a fleet
of goblets, tall and slender pretties;
how they remind me of your stem,
Zizi, my crystal and my gem,
you object of my guileless ditties!
with draughts from love's enticing flask,
you made me drunk as one could ask!
XXXIII
Freed from its dripping cork, the bottle
explodes; wine fizzes up... but stay:
solemn, too long compelled to throttle
his itching verse, Monsieur Triquet
is on his feet -- in utter stillness
the party waits. Seized with an illness
of swooning, Tanya nearly dies;
and, scroll in hand, before her eyes
Triquet sings, out of tune. Loud clapping
and cheers salute him. Tanya must
thank him by curtseying to the dust;
great bard despite his modest trapping,
he's first to toast her in the bowl,
then he presents her with the scroll.
{148}
XXXIV
Compliment and congratulation;
Tanya thanks each one with a phrase.
When Eugene's turn for salutation
arrives, the girl's exhausted gaze,
her discomposure, her confusion,
expose his soul to an intrusion
of pity: in his silent bow,
and in his look there shows somehow
a wondrous tenderness. And whether
it was that he'd been truly stirred,
or half-unwittingly preferred
a joking flirt, or both together,
there was a softness in his glance:
it brought back Tanya from her trance.
XXXV
Chairs are pushed outward, loudly rumbling,
and all into the salon squeeze,
as from their luscious hive go tumbling
fieldward, in noisy swarm, the bees.
The banquet's given no cause for sneezing,
neighbours in high content are wheezing;
ladies at the fireside confer,
in corners whispering girls concur;
now, by green tablecloths awaited,
the eager players are enrolled --
Boston and ombre for the old,
and whist, that's now so keenly fêted --
pursuits of a monotonous breed
begot by boredom out of greed.
{149}
XXXVI
By now whist's heroes have completed
eight rubbers; and by now eight times
they've moved around and been reseated;
and tea's brought in. Instead of chimes
I like to tell the time by dinner
and tea and supper; there's an inner
clock in the country rings the hour;
no fuss; our belly has the power
of any Bréguet: and in passing
I'll just remark, my verses talk
as much of banquets and the cork
and eatables beyond all classing
as yours did, Homer, godlike lord,
whom thirty centuries have adored!
< XXXVII7
At feasts, though, full of pert aggression,
I put your genius to the test,
I make magnanimous confession,
in other things you come off best:
your heroes, raging and ferocious,
your battles, lawless and atrocious,
your Zeus, your Cypris, your whole band
have clearly got the upper hand
of Eugene, cold as all creation,
of plains where boredom reigns complete,
or of Istómina, my sweet,
and all our modish education;
but your vile Helen's not my star --
no, Tanya's more endearing far.
{150}
XXXVIII
No one will think that worth gainsaying,
though Menelaus, in Helen's name,
may spend a century in flaying
the hapless Phrygians all the same,
and although Troy's greybeards, collected
around Priam the much-respected,
may chorus, when she comes in sight,
that Menelaus was quite right --
and Paris too. But hear my pleading:
as battles go, I've not begun;
don't judge the race before it's run --
be good enough to go on reading:
there'll be a fight. For that I give
my word; no welshing, as I live. >
XXXIX
Here's tea: the girls have just, as bidden,
taken the saucers in their grip,
when, from behind the doorway, hidden
bassoons and flutes begin to trip.
Elated by the music's blaring,
Petushkóv, local Paris, tearing,
his tea with rum quite left behind,
approaches Olga; Lensky's signed
Tatyana on; Miss Kharlikova,
that nubile maid of riper age,
is seized by Tambov's poet-sage;
Buyánov whirls off Pustyakova;
they all have swarmed into the hall,
and in full brilliance shines the ball.
{151}
XL
Right at the outset of my story
(if you'll turn back to chapter one)
I meant to paint, with Alban's8 glory,
a ball in Petersburg; but fun
and charming reverie's vain deflection
absorbed me in the recollection
of certain ladies' tiny feet.
Enough I've wandered in the suite
of your slim prints! though this be treason
to my young days, it's time I turned
to wiser words and deeds, and learned
to demonstrate some signs of reason:
let no more such digressions lurk
in this fifth chapter of my work.
XLI
And now, monotonously dashing
like mindless youth, the waltz goes by
with spinning noise and senseless flashing
as pair by pair the dancers fly.
Revenge's hour is near, and after
Evgeny, full of inward laughter,
has gone to Olga, swept the girl
past all the assembly in a whirl,
he takes her to a chair, beginning
to talk of this and that, but then
after two minutes, off again,
they're on the dance-floor, waltzing, spinning.
All are dumbfounded. Lensky shies
away from trusting his own eyes.
{152}
XLII
Now the mazurka sounds. Its thunder
used in times past to ring a peal
that huge ballrooms vibrated under,
while floors would split from crash of heel,
and frames would shudder, windows tremble;
now things are changed, now we resemble
ladies who glide on waxed parquet.
Yet the mazurka keeps today
in country towns and suchlike places
its pristine charm: heeltaps, and leaps,
and whiskers -- all of this it keeps
as fresh as ever, for its graces
are here untouched by fashion's reign,
our modern Russia's plague and bane.
XLIII7
... ...
< Petushkóv's nails and spurs are sounding
(that half-pay archivist); and bounding
Buyánov's heels have split the wood
and wrecked the flooring-boards for good;
there's crashing, rumbling, pounding, trotting,
the deeper in the wood, the more
the logs; the wild ones have the floor;
they're plunging, whirling, all but squatting.
Ah, gently, gently, easy goes --
your heels will squash the ladies' toes! >
{153}
XLIV
Buyánov, my vivacious cousin,
leads Olga and Tatyana on
to Eugene; nineteen to the dozen,
Eugene takes Olga, and is gone;
he steers her, nonchalantly gliding,
he stoops and, tenderly confiding,
whispers some ballad of the hour,
squeezes her hand -- and brings to flower
on her smug face a flush of pleasure.
Lensky has watched: his rage has blazed,
he's lost his self-command, and crazed
with jealousy beyond all measure
insists, when the mazurka ends,
on the cotillion, as amends.
XLV
He asks. She can't accept. Why ever?
No, she's already pledged her word
to Evgeny. Oh, God, she'd never...
How could she? why, he'd never heard...
scarce out of bibs, already fickle,
fresh from the cot, an infant pickle,
already studying to intrigue,
already high in treason's league!
He finds the shock beyond all bearing:
so, cursing women's devious course,
he leaves the house, calls for his horse
and gallops. Pistols made for pairing
and just a double charge of shot
will in a flash decide his lot.
{154}
Notes to Chapter Five
1 ``See First Snow, a poem by Prince Vyazemsky.'' Pushkin's note. For
Prince P. Vyazemsky (1791--1878), poet, critic and close friend of Pushkin,
see also Chapter Seven, XLIX.
2 ``See the descriptions of the Finnish winter in Baratynsky's Eda''.
Pushkin's note.
3 ``"Tomcat calls Kit" -- a song foretelling marriage.'' Pushkin's
note.
4 This Russianized version of the Greek Agatho is ``elephantine and
rustic to the Russian ear''. Nabokov. See note 3 to Chapter Two.
5 Girl in Zhukovsky's poem who practises divination, with frightening
results. See note 2 to Chapter Three.
6 Slavonic god of love.
7 Stanzas XXXVII, XXXVIII and XLIII were discarded by Pushkin.
8 Francesco Albani, Italian painter (1578-1660).
--------
La, sotto giorni nubilosi e brevi.
Nasce una gente a cui 'l morir non dole.
Petrarch
I
Seeing Vladimir had defected,
Eugene, at Olga's side, was racked
by fresh ennui as he reflected
with pleasure on his vengeful act.
Olinka yawned, just like her neighbour,
and looked for Lensky, while the labour
of the cotillion's endless theme
oppressed her like a heavy dream.
It's over. Supper is proceeding.
Beds are made up; the guests are all
packed from the maids' wing to the hall.
Each one by now is badly needing
a place for rest. Eugene alone
has driven off, to find his own.
{155}
II
All sleep: from the saloon a roaring
proclaims where ponderous Pústyakov
beside his heavier half is snoring.
Gvozdín, Buyánov, Petushkóv
and Flyánov, amply lubricated,
on dining-chairs are all prostrated;
the floor serves Triquet for his nap,
in flannel, and an old fur cap.
In the two sisters' rooms extended,
the maidens all are slumbering deep.
Only Tatyana does not sleep,
but at the window, in the splendid
radiance of Dian, sits in pain
and looks out on the darkened plain.
III
His unexpected apparition,
the fleeting tenderness that stole
into his look, the exhibition
with Olga, all have pierced her soul;
she can't make out a single fraction
of his intent; and a reaction
of jealousy has made her start,
as if a cold hand squeezed her heart,
as if beneath her, dark and rumbling,
a gulf has gaped... Says Tanya: ``I
am doomed to perish, yet to die
through him is sweetness' self. In grumbling
I find no sense; the truth is this,
it's not in him to bring me bliss.''
{156}
IV
But onward, onward with my story!
A new acquaintance claims our quill.
Five versts or so from Krasnogórie,
Lensky's estate, there lives and still
thrives to this moment, in a station
of philosophic isolation,
Zarétsky, sometime king of brawls
and hetman of the gambling-halls,
arch-rake, pothouse tribune-persona,
but now grown plain and kind in stead,
paterfamilias (unwed),
unswerving friend, correct landowner,
and even honourable man:
so, if we want to change, we can!
V
The world of fashion, prone to flatter,
praised his fierce courage in its day:
true, with a pistol he could shatter
an ace a dozen yards away;
it's also true, in battle's rapture,
the circumstances of his capture
had made his name, when, bold as bold,
down from his Kalmuck steed he rolled
into the mud, a drunken goner,
and taken by the French -- some prize! --
resigned himself to prison's ties,
like Regulus, that god of honour,
in order daily, chez Véry,1
to drain, on credit, bottles three.
{157}
VI
Time was, he'd been the wittiest ever,
so brilliantly he'd hoax the fools,
so gloriously he'd fool the clever,
using overt or covert rules.
Sometimes his tricks would earn him trouble,
or cause the bursting of his bubble,
sometimes he'd fall into a trap
himself just like a simple chap.
But he could draw a joking moral,
return an answer, blunt or keen,
use cunning silence as a screen,
or cunningly create a quarrel,
get two young friends to pick a fight,
and put them on a paced-out site.
VII
Or he knew how to reconcile them
so that all three went off to lunch,
then later slyly he'd revile them
with lies and jokes that packed a punch:
sed alia tempora! The devil
(like passion's dream, that other revel)
goes out of us when youth is dead.
So my Zaretsky, as I said,
beneath bird-cherries and acacias
has found a port for his old age,
and lives, a veritable sage,
for planting cabbage, like Horatius,
and breeding ducks and geese as well,
and teaching children how to spell.
{158}
VIII
He was no fool; appreciated
by my Eugene, not for his heart,
but for the effect that he created
of sense and judgement. For his part
his converse gave Onegin pleasure;
so it was not in any measure,
the morning after, a surprise
when our Zaretsky met his eyes.
His visitor from the beginning
broke greetings off, and gave Eugene
a note from Lensky; in between
Zaretsky watched, and stood there grinning.
Onegin without more ado
crossed to the window, read it through.
IX
Pleasant, in spite of its compression,
gentlemanly, quite precise,
Vladimir's challenge found expression
that, though polite, was clear as ice.
Eugene's response was automatic;
he informed this envoy diplomatic
in terms where not a word was spared:
at any time he'd be prepared.
Zaretsky rose without discussion;
he saw no point in staying on,
with work at home; but when he'd gone,
Evgeny, whom the repercussion
left quite alone with his own soul,
was far from happy with his role.
{159}
X
With reason, too: for when he'd vetted
in secret judgement what he'd done,
he found too much that he regretted:
last night he'd erred in making fun,
so heartless and so detrimental,
of love so timorous and gentle.
In second place the poet might
have been a fool; yet he'd a right,
at eighteen years, to some compassion.
Evgeny loved him from his heart,
and should have played a different part:
no softball for the winds of fashion,
no boy, to fight or take offence --
the man of honour and of sense.
XI
He could have spoken without harming,
need not have bristled like a beast;
he should have settled for disarming
that youthful heart. ``But now at least
it's late, time's passing... not to mention,
in our affair, the intervention
of that old duellistic fox,
that wicked, loose-tongue chatterbox...
True, scorn should punish and should bridle
his wit, according to the rules
but whispers, the guffaw of fools...''
Public opinion -- here's our idol,
the spring of honour, and the pin
on which the world is doomed to spin.
{160}
XII
Lensky at home awaits the answer,
impatient, hatred flaming high;
but here comes our loud-talking prancer
who swaggers in with the reply.
The jealous poet's gloom is lightened!
knowing the offender, he'd been frightened
lest he should by some clever trick
avert his chest from pistol's click,
smoothe his way out with humour's ointment.
But now Vladimir's doubts are still:
early tomorrow at the mill
before first light they have appointment,
to raise the safety catch and strain
to hit the target: thigh or brain.
XIII
Still blazing with resentment's fuel,
and set on hating the coquette,
Lensky resolved before the duel
not to see Olga; in a fret
watched sun and clock -- then by such labours
defeated, turned up at his neighbour's.
He thought that Olga'd be confused,
struck down as if she'd been accused,
when he arrived; not in the slightest:
just as she'd always been, she tripped
to meet the unhappy poet, skipped
down from the porch, light as the lightest,
the giddiest hope, carefree and gay,
the same as any other day.
{161}
XIV
``Last night, what made you fly so early?''
was the first thing that Olga said.
All Lensky's thoughts went hurly-burly,
and silently he hung his head.
Rage died, and jealousy's obsession,
before such candour of expression,
such frank tendresse; away they stole
before such playfulness of soul!...
he looks, in sweet irresolution,
and then concludes: she loves him yet!
Already borne down by regret,
he almost begs for absolution,
he trembles, knows not what to tell;
he's happy, yes, he's almost well...
(XV, XVI,2) XVII
Now brooding thoughts hold his attention
once more, at that beloved sight,
and so he lacks the strength to mention
the happenings of the previous night;
he murmurs: ``Olga's mine for saving;
I'll stop that tempter from depraving
her youth with all his repertoire
of sighs, and compliments, and fire;
that poisonous worm, despised, degrading,
shall not attack my lily's root;
I'll save this blossom on the shoot,
still hardly opened up, from fading.''
Friends, all this meant was: I've a date
for swapping bullets with my mate.
{162}
XVIII
If only Lensky'd known the burning
wound that had seared my Tanya's heart!
If Tanya'd had the chance of learning
that Lensky and Eugene, apart,
would settle, on the morrow morning,
for which of them the tomb was yawning,
perhaps her love could in the end
have reunited friend to friend!
But, even by accident, her passion
was undiscovered to that day.
Onegin had no word to say;
Tatyana pined in secret fashion:
of the whole world, her nurse alone,
if not slow-witted, might have known.
XIX
Lensky all evening, in distraction,
would talk, keep silent, laugh, then frown --
the quintessential reaction
of Muses' offspring; sitting down
before the clavichord with knitted
forehead, he strummed, his vision flitted
to Olga's face, he whispered low
``I think I'm happy.'' Time to go,
the hour was late. And now from aching
the heart inside him seemed to shrink;
parting with Olga made him think
it was quite torn in half and breaking.
She faced him, questioning: ``But you?...''
``It's nothing.'' And away he flew.
{163}
XX
Once home, he brought out and inspected
his pistols, laid them in their case,
undressed, by candlelight selected
and opened Schiller... but the embrace
of one sole thought holds him in keeping
and stops his doleful heart from sleeping:
Olga is there, he sees her stand
in untold beauty close at hand.
Vladimir shuts the book, for writing
prepares himself; and then his verse,
compact of amorous trash, and worse,
flows and reverberates. Reciting,
he sounds, in lyric frenzy sunk,
like Delvig3 when he's dining drunk.
XXI
By chance those verses haven't vanished;
I keep them, and will quote them here:
``Whither, oh whither are ye banished,
my golden days when spring was dear?
What fate is my tomorrow brewing?
the answer's past all human viewing,
it's hidden deep in gloom and dust.
No matter; fate's decree is just.
Whether the arrow has my number,
whether it goes careering past,
all's well; the destined hour at last
comes for awakening, comes for slumber;
blessed are daytime's care and cark,
blest is the advent of the dark!
{164}
XXII
``The morning star will soon be shining,
and soon will day's bright tune be played;
but I perhaps will be declining
into the tomb's mysterious shade;
the trail the youthful poet followed
by sluggish Lethe may be swallowed,
and I be by the world forgot;
but, lovely maiden, wilt thou not
on my untimely urn be weeping,
thinking: he loved me, and in strife
the sad beginnings of his life
he consecrated to my keeping?...
Friend of my heart, be at my side,
beloved friend, thou art my bride!''
XXIII
So Lensky wrote, obscurely, limply
(in the romantic style, we say,
though what's romantic here I simply
fail to perceive -- that's by the way).
At last, with dawn upon him, stooping
his weary head, and softly drooping
over the modish word ideal,
he dozed away; but when the real
magic of sleep had started claiming
its due oblivion, in the hush
his neighbour entered at a rush
and wakened Lensky by exclaiming:
``Get up: it's gone six! I'll be bound,
Onegin's waiting on the ground.''
{165}
XXIV
But he's mistaken: Eugene's lying
and sleeping sounder than a rock.
By now the shades of night are flying,
Vesper is met by crow of cock --
Onegin still is slumbering deeply.
By now the sun is climbing steeply,
and little dancing whirls of snow
glitter and tumble as they go,
but Eugene hasn't moved; for certain
slumber still floats above his head.
At last he wakes, and stirs in bed,
and parts the fringes of his curtain;
he looks, and sees the hour of day --
high time he should be on his way.
XXV
He rings at once, and what a scurry!
his French valet, Guillot, is there
with gown and slippers; tearing hurry,
as linen's brought for him to wear.
And while with all despatch he's dressing
he warns his man for duty, stressing
that with him to the trysting-place
he has to bring the battle-case.
By now the sledge is at the portal --
he's racing millward like a bird.
Arrived apace, he gives the word
to bring across Lepage's4 mortal
barrels, and then to drive aside
by two small oaktrees in a ride.
{166}
XXVI
While Lensky'd long been meditating
impatiently on the mill-dam,
Zaretsky, engineer-in-waiting,
condemned the millstones as a sham.
Onegin comes, and makes excuses;
but in Zaretsky he induces
amazement: ``Where's your second gone?''
In duels a pedantic don,
methodical by disposition,
a classicist, he'll not allow
that one be shot just anyhow --
only by rule, and strict tradition
inherited from earlier days
(for which he must receive due praise).
XXVII
Evgeny echoed him: ``My second?
He's here -- Monsieur Guillot, my friend.
I had most surely never reckoned
his choice could shock or might offend;
though he's unknown, there's no suggestion
that he's not honest past all question.''
Zaretsky bit his lip. Eugene
asked Lensky: ``Should we start, I mean?''
Vladimir to this casual mention
replies: ``We might as well.'' They walk
behind the mill. In solemn talk,
Zaretsky draws up a convention
with Guillot; while pourparlers last
the two foes stand with eyes downcast.
{167}
XXVIII
Foes! Is it long since from each other
the lust for blood drew them apart?
long since, like brother linked to brother,
they shared their days in deed and heart,
their table, and their hours of leisure?
But now, in this vindictive pleasure
hereditary foes they seem,
and as in some appalling dream
each coldly plans the other's slaughter...
could they not laugh out loud, before
their hands are dipped in scarlet gore,
could they not give each other quarter
and part in kindness? Just the same,
all modish foes dread worldly shame.
XXIX
Pistols are out, they gleam, the hammer
thumps as the balls are pressed inside
faceted muzzles by the rammer;
with a first click, the catch is tried.
Now powder's greyish stream is slipping
into the pan. Securely gripping,
the jagged flint's pulled back anew.
Guillot, behind a stump in view,
stands in dismay and indecision.
And now the two opponents doff
their cloaks; Zaretsky's measured off
thirty-two steps with great precision,
and on their marks has made them stand;
each grips his pistol in his hand.
{168}
XXX
``Now march.'' And calmly, not yet seeking
to aim, at steady, even pace
the foes, cold-blooded and unspeaking,
each took four steps across the space,
four fateful stairs. Then, without slowing
the level tenor of his going,
Evgeny quietly began
to lift his pistol up. A span
of five more steps they went, slow-gaited,
and Lensky, left eye closing, aimed --
but just then Eugene's pistol flamed...
The clock of doom had struck as fated;
and the poet, without a sound,
let fall his pistol on the ground.
XXXI
Vladimir drops, hand softly sliding
to heart. And in his misted gaze
is death, not pain. So gently gliding
down slopes of mountains, when a blaze
of sunlight makes it flash and crumble,
a block of snow will slip and tumble.
Onegin, drenched with sudden chill,
darts to the boy, and looks, and still
calls out his name... All unavailing:
the youthful votary of rhyme
has found an end before his time.
The storm is over,5 dawn is paling,
the bloom has withered on the bough;
the altar flame's extinguished now.
{169}
XXXII
He lay quite still, and strange as dreaming
was that calm brow of one who swooned.
Shot through below the chest -- and streaming
the blood came smoking from the wound.
A moment earlier, inspiration
had filled this heart, and detestation
and hope and passion; life had glowed
and blood had bubbled as it flowed;
but now the mansion is forsaken;
shutters are up, and all is pale
and still within, behind the veil
of chalk the window-panes have taken.
The lady of the house has fled.
Where to, God knows. The trail is dead.
XXXIII
With a sharp epigram it's pleasant
to infuriate a clumsy foe;
and, as observer, to be present
and watch him stubbornly bring low
his thrusting horns, and as he passes
blush to descry in looking-glasses
his foolish face; more pleasant yet
to hear him howl: ``that's me!'' You'll get
more joy still when with mute insistence
you help him to an honoured fate
by calmly aiming at his pate
from any gentlemanly distance;
but when you've managed his despatch
you won't find that quite so much catch...
{170}
XXXIV
What if your pistol-shot has smitten
a friend of yours in his first youth
because some glance of his has bitten
your pride, some answer, or in truth
some nonsense thrown up while carousing,
or if himself, with rage arousing,
he's called you out -- say, in your soul
what feelings would assume control
if, motionless, no life appearing,
death on his brow, your friend should lie,
stiffening as the hours go by,
before you on the ground, unhearing,
unspeaking, too, but stretched out there
deaf to the voice of your despair?
XXXV
Giving his pistol-butt a squeezing,
Evgeny looks at Lensky, chilled
at heart by grim remorse's freezing.
``Well, what?'' the neighbour says, ``he's killed.''
Killed!... At this frightful word a-quiver,
Onegin turns, and with a shiver
summons his people. On the sleigh
with care Zaretsky stows away
the frozen corpse, drives off, and homing
vanishes with his load of dread.
The horses, as they sense the dead,
have snorted, reared, and whitely foaming
have drenched the steel bit as they go
and flown like arrows from a bow.
{171}
XXXVI
My friends, the bard stirs your compassion:
right in the flower of joyous hope,
hope that he's had no time to fashion
for men to see, still in the scope
of swaddling clothes -- already blighted!
Where is the fire that once ignited,
where's the high aim, the ardent sense
of youth, so tender, so intense?
and where is love's tempestuous yearning,
where are the reveries this time,
the horror of disgrace and crime,
the thirst for work, the lust for learning,
and life celestial's phantom gleams,
stuff of the poet's hallowed dreams!
XXXVII
Perhaps to improve the world's condition,
perhaps for fame, he was endowed;
his lyre, now stilled, in its high mission
might have resounded long and loud
for aeons. Maybe it was fated
that on the world's staircase there waited
for him a lofty stair. His shade,
after the martyr's price it paid,
maybe bore off with it for ever
a secret truth, and at our cost
a life-creating voice was lost;
to it the people's blessing never
will reach, and past the tomb's compound
hymns of the ages never sound.
{172}
(XXXVIII,2) XXXIX
Perhaps however, to be truthful,
he would have found a normal fate.
The years would pass; no longer youthful,
he'd see his soul cool in its grate;
his nature would be changed and steadied,
he'd sack the Muses and get wedded;
and in the country, blissful, horned,
in quilted dressing-gown adorned,
life's real meaning would have found him;
at forty he'd have got the gout,
drunk, eaten, yawned, grown weak and stout,
at length, midst children swarming round him,
midst crones with endless tears to shed,
and doctors, he'd have died in bed.
XL
Reader, whatever fate's direction,
we weep for the young lover's end,
the man of reverie and reflection,
the poet struck down by his friend!
Left-handed from the habitation
where dwelt this child of inspiration,
two pines have tangled at the root;
beneath, a brook rolls its tribute
toward the neighbouring valley's river.
The ploughman there delights to doze,
girl reapers as the streamlet flows
dip in their jugs; where shadows quiver
darkly above the water's lilt,
a simple monument is built.
{173}
XLI
Below it, when sprang rains are swishing,
when, on the plain, green herbs are massed,
the shepherd sings of Volga's fishing
and plaits a piebald shoe of bast;
and the young city-bred newcomer,
who in the country spends her summer,
when galloping at headlong pace
alone across the fields of space,
will halt her horse and, gripping tightly
the leather rein, to learn the tale,
lift up the gauzes of her veil,
with a quick look perusing lightly
the simple legend -- then a haze
of tears will cloud her tender gaze.
XLII
Walking her horse in introspection
across the plain's enormous room,
what holds her in profound reflection,
despite herself, is Lensky's doom;
``Olga,'' she thinks, ``what fate befell her?
her heartache, did it long compel her,
or did her grief soon find repair?
and where's her sister now? and where,
flown from society as we know it,
of modish belles the modish foe,
where did that glum eccentric go,
the one who killed the youthful poet?''
All in good time, on each point I
will give you a complete reply.
{174}
XLIII
But not today. Although I dearly
value the hero of my tale,
though I'll come back to him, yet clearly
to face him now I feel too frail...
The years incline to gloom and prosing,
they kill the zest of rhymed composing,
and with a sigh I now admit
I have to drag my feet to it.
My pen, as once, no longer hurries
to spoil loose paper by the ream;
another, a more chilling dream,
and other, more exacting worries,
in fashion's din, at still of night,
come to disturb me and affright.
XLIV
I've learnt the voice of new ambition,
I've learnt new sadness; but in this
the first will never find fruition,
the earlier griefs are what I miss.
O dreams, o dreams, where is your sweetness?
where (standard rhyme) are youth and fleetness?
can it be true, their crown at last
has felt time's desiccating blast?
can it be true, and firmly stated
without an elegiac frill,
that spring with me has had its fill
(as I've so oft in jest related)?
Can it be true, it won't come twice --
and I'll be thirty in a trice?
{175}
XLV
Well, I must make a frank confession,
my noon is here, and that's the truth.
So let me with a kind expression
take leave of my lightheaded youth!
Thank you for all the gifts I treasure,
thank you for sorrow and for pleasure,
thank you for suffering and its joys,
for tempests and for feasts and noise;
thank you indeed. Alike in sorrow
and in flat calm I've found the stuff
of perfect bliss in you. Enough!
My soul's like crystal, and tomorrow
I shall set out on brand-new ways
and rest myself from earlier days.
XLVI
Let me look back. Farewell, umbrageous
forests where my young age was passed
in indolence and in rampageous
passion and dreams of pensive cast.
But come, thou youthful inspiration,
come, trouble my imagination,
liven the drowsing of my heart,
fly to my corner like a dart,
let not the poet's soul of passion
grow cold, and hard, and stiff as stock,
and finally be turned to rock
amid the deadening joys of fashion,
< amongst the soulless men of pride,
the fools who sparkle far and wide,6
{176}
XLVII
amongst the crafty and small-minded,
the children spoilt, the mad, the rogues
both dull and ludicrous, the bunded
critics and their capricious vogues,
amongst devout coquettes, appalling
lickspittles who adore their crawling,
and daily scenes of modish life
where civil treacheries are rife,
urbane betrayals, and the chilling
verdicts of vanity the bleak,
men's thoughts, their plots, the words they speak,
all of an emptiness so killing -- >
that's the morass, I beg you note,
in which, dear friends, we're all afloat!
{177}
Notes to Chapter Six
1 Café-restaurant in Paris.
2 Stanzas XV, XVI and XXXVIII were discarded by Pushkin.
3 Anton Delvig, poet and close friend of Pushkin.
4 Jean Lepage, Parisian gunsmith.
5 ``A deliberate accumulation of conventional poetical formulae by
means of which Pushkin mimics poor Lensky's own style... but the rich and
original metaphor of the deserted house, closed inner shutters, whitened
window-panes, departed female owner (the soul being feminine in Russian),
with which XXXII ends, is Pushkin's own contribution, a sample as it were of
what he can do.'' Nabokov.
6 These lines and the first twelve lines of stanza XLVII were discarded
by Pushkin.
--------
Moscow, loved daughter of Russia,
where can we find your equal?
Dmitriev
``How can one not love mother Moscow?''
Baratynsky
``You criticize Moscow? why make such a fuss
of seeing the world? what on earth could be better?''
``A place where you'll find none of us.''
Griboedov
I
By now the rays of spring are chasing
the snow from all surrounding hills;
it melts, away it rushes, racing
down to the plain in turbid rills.
Smiling through sleep, nature is meeting
the infant year with cheerful greeting:
the sky is brilliant in its blue
and, still transparent to the view,
the downy woods are greener-tinted;
from waxen cell the bees again
levy their tribute on the plain;
the vales dry out, grow brightly printed;
cows low, in the still nights of spring
the nightingale's begun to sing.
{178}
II
O spring! o time for love! how sadly
your advent swamps me in its flood!
and in my soul, o spring, how madly
your presence aches, and in my blood!
How heavy, and how near to sobbing,
the bliss that fills me when your throbbing,
caressing breath has fanned my face
in rural calm's most secret place!
Or from all notion of enjoyment
am I estranged, does all that cheers,
that lives, and glitters, and endears,
now crush with sorrow's dull deployment
a soul that perished long ago,
and finds the world a darkling show?
III
Or, unconsoled by the returning
of leaves that autumn killed for good,
are we recalled to grief still burning
by the new whisper in the wood?
or else does nature, fresh and staring,
set off our troubled mind comparing
its newness with our faded days,
with years no more to meet our gaze?
Perhaps, when thoughts are all a-quiver
in midst of a poetic dream,
some other, older spring will gleam,
and put our heart into a shiver
with visions of enchanted night,
of distant countries, of moonlight...
{179}
IV
It's time: kind-hearted, idle creatures,
dons of Epicurean rule,
calm men with beatific features,
graduates of the Levshin1 school,
Priam-like agricultural sages,
sensitive ladies of all ages --
the spring invites you to the land
now warmth and blossom are on hand,
field-work, and walks with inspiration,
and magic nights. In headlong course
come to the fields, my friends! To horse!
With mounts from home, or postal station,
in loaded carriages, migrate,
leave far behind that city-gate.
V
Forsake, indulgent reader -- driven
in your calèche of foreign cast --
the untiring city, where you've given
to feasts and fun this winter past;
and though my muse may be capricious,
we'll go with her to that delicious
and nameless rivulet, that scene
of whispering woods where my Eugene,
an idle monk in glum seclusion,
has lately wintered, just a space
from young Tatyana's dwelling-place,
dear Tanya, lover of illusion;
though there he's no more to be found,
he's left sad footprints on the ground.
{180}
VI
Amidst the hills, down in that valley,
let's go where, winding all the time
across green meadows, dilly-dally,
a brook flows through a grove of lime.
There sings the nightingale, spring's lover,
the wild rose blooms, and in the covert
the source's chattering voice is heard;
and there a tombstone says its word
where two old pinetrees stand united:
``This is Vladimir Lensky's grave
who early died as die the brave'' --
the headpiece-text is thus indited --
the year, his age, then: ``may your rest,
young poet, be for ever blest!''
VII
There was a pine-branch downward straying
towards the simple urn beneath;
time was when morning's breeze was swaying
over it a mysterious wreath:
time was, in evening hours of leisure,
by moonlight two young girls took pleasure,
closely embraced, in wending here,
to see the grave, and shed a tear.
Today... the sad memorial's lonely,
forgot. Its trodden path is now
choked up. There's no wreath on the bough;
grey-haired and weak, beneath it only
the shepherd, as he used to do,
sings as he plaits a humble shoe.
{181}
(VIII,2 IX,) X
Poor Lensky! Set aside for weeping,
or pining, Olga's hours were brief.
Alas for him! there was no keeping
his sweetheart faithful to her grief.
Another had the skill to ravish
her thoughts away, knew how to lavish
sweet words by which her pain was banned --
a Lancer wooed and won her hand,
a Lancer -- how she deified him!
and at the altar, with a crown,
her head in modesty cast down,
already there she stands beside him;
her eyes are lowered, but ablaze,
and on her lips a light smile plays.