Eugene Onegin. A Romance of Russian Life in Verse Read online

  Look then into thine heart and write!

  But a further consideration of this subject would here be out of place. Perhaps I cannot more suitably conclude this sketch than by quoting from his Ode to the Sea the poet's tribute of admiration to the genius of Napoleon and Byron, who of all contemporaries seem the most to have swayed his imagination.

  Farewell, thou pathway of the free,

  For the last time thy waves I view

  Before me roll disdainfully,

  Brilliantly beautiful and blue.

  Why vain regret? Wherever now

  My heedless course I may pursue

  One object on thy desert brow

  I everlastingly shall view—

  A rock, the sepulchre of Fame!

  The poor remains of greatness gone

  A cold remembrance there became,

  There perished great Napoleon.

  In torment dire to sleep he lay;

  Then, as a tempest echoing rolls,

  Another genius whirled away,

  Another sovereign of our souls.

  He perished. Freedom wept her child,

  He left the world his garland bright.

  Wail, Ocean, surge in tumult wild,

  To sing of thee was his delight.

  Impressed upon him was thy mark,

  His genius moulded was by thee;

  Like thee, he was unfathomed, dark

  And untamed in his majesty.

  Note: It may interest some to know that Georges d'Anthes was tried by court-martial for his participation in the duel in which Pushkin fell, found guilty, and reduced to the ranks; but, not being a Russian subject, he was conducted by a gendarme across the frontier and then set at liberty.

  Eugene Oneguine

  Petri de vanite, il avait encore plus de cette espece d'orgueil, qui fait avouer avec la meme indifference les bonnes comme les mauvaises actions, suite d'un sentiment de superiorite, peut-etre imaginaire.— Tire d'une lettre particuliere.

  [Note: Written in 1823 at Kishineff and Odessa.]

  CANTO THE FIRST

  'The Spleen'

  'He rushes at life and exhausts the passions.'

  Prince Viazemski

  Canto the First

  I

  "My uncle's goodness is extreme,

  If seriously he hath disease;

  He hath acquired the world's esteem

  And nothing more important sees;

  A paragon of virtue he!

  But what a nuisance it will be,

  Chained to his bedside night and day

  Without a chance to slip away.

  Ye need dissimulation base

  A dying man with art to soothe,

  Beneath his head the pillow smooth,

  And physic bring with mournful face,

  To sigh and meditate alone:

  When will the devil take his own!"

  II

  Thus mused a madcap young, who drove

  Through clouds of dust at postal pace,

  By the decree of Mighty Jove,

  Inheritor of all his race.

  Friends of Liudmila and Ruslan,(1)

  Let me present ye to the man,

  Who without more prevarication

  The hero is of my narration!

  Oneguine, O my gentle readers,

  Was born beside the Neva, where

  It may be ye were born, or there

  Have shone as one of fashion's leaders.

  I also wandered there of old,

  But cannot stand the northern cold.(2)

  [Note 1: Ruslan and Liudmila, the title of Pushkin's first important work, written 1817-20. It is a tale relating the adventures of the knight-errant Ruslan in search of his fair lady Liudmila, who has been carried off by a kaldoon, or magician.]

  [Note 2: Written in Bessarabia.]

  III

  Having performed his service truly,

  Deep into debt his father ran;

  Three balls a year he gave ye duly,

  At last became a ruined man.

  But Eugene was by fate preserved,

  For first "madame" his wants observed,

  And then "monsieur" supplied her place;(3)

  The boy was wild but full of grace.

  "Monsieur l'Abbe," a starving Gaul,

  Fearing his pupil to annoy,

  Instructed jestingly the boy,

  Morality taught scarce at all;

  Gently for pranks he would reprove

  And in the Summer Garden rove.

  [Note 3: In Russia foreign tutors and governesses are commonly styled "monsieur" or "madame."]

  IV

  When youth's rebellious hour drew near

  And my Eugene the path must trace—

  The path of hope and tender fear—

  Monsieur clean out of doors they chase.

  Lo! my Oneguine free as air,

  Cropped in the latest style his hair,

  Dressed like a London dandy he

  The giddy world at last shall see.

  He wrote and spoke, so all allowed,

  In the French language perfectly,

  Danced the mazurka gracefully,

  Without the least constraint he bowed.

  What more's required? The world replies,

  He is a charming youth and wise.

  V

  We all of us of education

  A something somehow have obtained,

  Thus, praised be God! a reputation

  With us is easily attained.

  Oneguine was—so many deemed

  [Unerring critics self-esteemed],

  Pedantic although scholar like,

  In truth he had the happy trick

  Without constraint in conversation

  Of touching lightly every theme.

  Silent, oracular ye'd see him

  Amid a serious disputation,

  Then suddenly discharge a joke

  The ladies' laughter to provoke.

  VI

  Latin is just now not in vogue,

  But if the truth I must relate,

  Oneguine knew enough, the rogue

  A mild quotation to translate,

  A little Juvenal to spout,

  With "vale" finish off a note;

  Two verses he could recollect

  Of the Aeneid, but incorrect.

  In history he took no pleasure,

  The dusty chronicles of earth

  For him were but of little worth,

  Yet still of anecdotes a treasure

  Within his memory there lay,

  From Romulus unto our day.

  VII

  For empty sound the rascal swore he

  Existence would not make a curse,

  Knew not an iamb from a choree,

  Although we read him heaps of verse.

  Homer, Theocritus, he jeered,

  But Adam Smith to read appeared,

  And at economy was great;

  That is, he could elucidate

  How empires store of wealth unfold,

  How flourish, why and wherefore less

  If the raw product they possess

  The medium is required of gold.

  The father scarcely understands

  His son and mortgages his lands.

  VIII

  But upon all that Eugene knew

  I have no leisure here to dwell,

  But say he was a genius who

  In one thing really did excel.

  It occupied him from a boy,

  A labour, torment, yet a joy,

  It whiled his idle hours away

  And wholly occupied his day—

  The amatory science warm,

  Which Ovid once immortalized,

  For which the poet agonized

  Laid down his life of sun and storm

  On the steppes of Moldavia lone,

  Far from his Italy—his own.(4)

  [Note 4: Referring to Tomi, the reputed place of exile of Ovid.

  Pushkin, then r
esiding in Bessarabia, was in the same predicament

  as his predecessor in song, though he certainly did not plead

  guilty to the fact, since he remarks in his ode to Ovid:

  To exile self-consigned,

  With self, society, existence, discontent,

  I visit in these days, with melancholy mind,

  The country whereunto a mournful age thee sent.

  Ovid thus enumerates the causes which brought about his banishment:

  "Perdiderint quum me duo crimina, carmen et error,

  Alterius facti culpa silenda mihi est."

  Ovidii Nasonis Tristium, lib. ii. 207.]

  IX

  How soon he learnt deception's art,

  Hope to conceal and jealousy,

  False confidence or doubt to impart,

  Sombre or glad in turn to be,

  Haughty appear, subservient,

  Obsequious or indifferent!

  What languor would his silence show,

  How full of fire his speech would glow!

  How artless was the note which spoke

  Of love again, and yet again;

  How deftly could he transport feign!

  How bright and tender was his look,

  Modest yet daring! And a tear

  Would at the proper time appear.

  X

  How well he played the greenhorn's part

  To cheat the inexperienced fair,

  Sometimes by pleasing flattery's art,

  Sometimes by ready-made despair;

  The feeble moment would espy

  Of tender years the modesty

  Conquer by passion and address,

  Await the long-delayed caress.

  Avowal then 'twas time to pray,

  Attentive to the heart's first beating,

  Follow up love—a secret meeting

  Arrange without the least delay—

  Then, then—well, in some solitude

  Lessons to give he understood!

  XI

  How soon he learnt to titillate

  The heart of the inveterate flirt!

  Desirous to annihilate

  His own antagonists expert,

  How bitterly he would malign,

  With many a snare their pathway line!

  But ye, O happy husbands, ye

  With him were friends eternally:

  The crafty spouse caressed him, who

  By Faublas in his youth was schooled,(5)

  And the suspicious veteran old,

  The pompous, swaggering cuckold too,

  Who floats contentedly through life,

  Proud of his dinners and his wife!

  [Note 5: Les Aventures du Chevalier de Faublas, a romance of a loose character by Jean Baptiste Louvet de Couvray, b. 1760, d. 1797, famous for his bold oration denouncing Robespierre, Marat and Danton.]

  XII

  One morn whilst yet in bed he lay,

  His valet brings him letters three.

  What, invitations? The same day

  As many entertainments be!

  A ball here, there a children's treat,

  Whither shall my rapscallion flit?

  Whither shall he go first? He'll see,

  Perchance he will to all the three.

  Meantime in matutinal dress

  And hat surnamed a "Bolivar"(6)

  He hies unto the "Boulevard,"

  To loiter there in idleness

  Until the sleepless Breguet chime(7)

  Announcing to him dinner-time.

  [Note 6: A la "Bolivar," from the founder of Bolivian independence.]

  [Note 7: M. Breguet, a celebrated Parisian watchmaker—hence a slang term for a watch.]

  XIII

  'Tis dark. He seats him in a sleigh,

  "Drive on!" the cheerful cry goes forth,

  His furs are powdered on the way

  By the fine silver of the north.

  He bends his course to Talon's, where(8)

  He knows Kaverine will repair.(9)

  He enters. High the cork arose

  And Comet champagne foaming flows.

  Before him red roast beef is seen

  And truffles, dear to youthful eyes,

  Flanked by immortal Strasbourg pies,

  The choicest flowers of French cuisine,

  And Limburg cheese alive and old

  Is seen next pine-apples of gold.

  [Note 8: Talon, a famous St. Petersburg restaurateur.]

  [Note 9: Paul Petrovitch Kaverine, a friend for whom Pushkin in his youth appears to have entertained great respect and admiration. He was an officer in the Hussars of the Guard, and a noted "dandy" and man about town. The poet on one occasion addressed the following impromptu to his friend's portrait:

  "Within him daily see the the fires of punch and war,

  Upon the fields of Mars a gallant warrior,

  A faithful friend to friends, of ladies torturer,

  But ever the Hussar."]

  XIV

  Still thirst fresh draughts of wine compels

  To cool the cutlets' seething grease,

  When the sonorous Breguet tells

  Of the commencement of the piece.

  A critic of the stage malicious,

  A slave of actresses capricious,

  Oneguine was a citizen

  Of the domains of the side-scene.

  To the theatre he repairs

  Where each young critic ready stands,

  Capers applauds with clap of hands,

  With hisses Cleopatra scares,

  Moina recalls for this alone

  That all may hear his voice's tone.

  XV

  Thou fairy-land! Where formerly

  Shone pungent Satire's dauntless king,

  Von Wisine, friend of liberty,

  And Kniajnine, apt at copying.

  The young Simeonova too there

  With Ozeroff was wont to share

  Applause, the people's donative.

  There our Katenine did revive

  Corneille's majestic genius,

  Sarcastic Shakhovskoi brought out

  His comedies, a noisy rout,

  There Didelot became glorious,

  There, there, beneath the side-scene's shade

  The drama of my youth was played.(10)

  [Note 10: Denis Von Wisine (1741-92), a favourite Russian dramatist. His first comedy "The Brigadier," procured him the favour of the second Catherine. His best, however, is the "Minor" (Niedorosl). Prince Potemkin, after witnessing it, summoned the author, and greeted him with the exclamation, "Die now, Denis!" In fact, his subsequent performances were not of equal merit.