Eugene Onegin Page 6

  I was embittered, he depressed;

  With passion's game we both were sated;

  The fire in both our hearts was pale;

  Our lives were weary, flat, and stale;

  And for us both, ahead there waited

  While life was still but in its morn

  Blind fortune's malice and men's scorn.

  46

  He who has lived as thinking being

  Within his soul must hold men small;

  He who can feel is always fleeing

  The ghost of days beyond recall;

  For him enchantment's deep infection

  Is gone; the snake of recollection

  And grim repentance gnaws his heart.

  All this, of course, can help impart

  Great charm to private conversation;

  And though the language of my friend

  At first disturbed me, in the end

  I liked his caustic disputation

  His blend of banter and of bile,

  His sombre wit and biting style.

  47

  How often in the summer quarter,

  When midnight sky is limpid-light

  Above the Neva's placid water

  The river gay and sparkling bright,

  Yet in its mirror not reflecting

  Diana's visagerecollecting

  The loves and intrigues of the past,

  Alive once more and free at last,

  We drank in silent contemplation

  The balmy fragrance of the night!

  Like convicts sent in dreaming flight

  To forest green and liberation,

  So we in fancy then were borne

  Back to our springtime's golden morn.

  48

  Filled with his heart's regrets, and leaning

  Against the rampart's granite shelf,

  Eugene stood lost in pensive dreaming

  (As once some poet drew himselP).

  The night grew still. . . with silence falling;

  Only the sound of sentries calling,

  Or suddenly from Million Street

  Some distant droshky's rumbling beat;

  Or floating on the drowsy river,

  A lonely boat would sail along,

  While far away some rousing song

  Or plaintive horn would make us shiver.

  But sweeter still, amid such nights,

  Are Tasso's octaves' soaring flights.

  49

  #62038; Adriatic! Grand Creation!

  O Brenta!* I shall yet rejoice,

  When, filled once more with inspiration,

  I hear at last your magic voice!

  It's sacred to Apollo's choir;

  Through Albion's great and haughty lyre*

  It speaks to me in words I know.

  On soft Italian nights I'll go

  In search of pleasure's sweet profusion;

  A fair Venetian at my side,

  Now chatting, now a silent guide,

  I'll float in gondola's seclusion;

  And she my willing lips will teach

  Both love's and Petrarch's ardent speech.

  50

  Will freedom comeand cut my tether?

  It's time, it's time! I bid her hail;

  I roam the shore,* await fair weather,

  And beckon to each passing sail.

  #62038; when, my soul, with waves contesting,

  And caped in storms, shall I go questing

  Upon the crossroads of the sea?

  It's time to quit this dreary lee

  And land of harsh, forbidding places;

  And there, where southern waves break high,

  Beneath my Africa's warm sky,*

  To sigh for sombre Russia's spaces,

  Where first I loved, where first I wept,

  And where my buried heart is kept.

  51

  Eugene and I had both decided

  To make the foreign tour we'd planned;

  But all too soon our paths divided,

  For fate took matters into hand.

  His father diedquite unexpected,

  And round Eugene there soon collected

  The greedy horde demanding pay.

  Each to his own, or so they say.

  Eugene, detesting litigation

  And quite contented with his fate,

  Released to them the whole estate . . .

  With no great sense of deprivation;

  Perhaps he also dimly knew

  His aged uncle's time was due.

  52

  And sure enough a note came flying;

  The bailiff wrote as if on cue:

  Onegin's uncle, sick and dying,

  Would like to bid his heir adieu.

  He gave the message one quick reading,

  And then by post Eugene was speeding,

  Already bored, to uncle's bed,

  While thoughts of money filled his head.

  He was preparedlike any craven

  To sigh, deceive, and play his part

  (With which my novel took its start);

  But when he reached his uncle's haven,

  A laid-out corpse was what he found,

  Prepared as tribute for the ground.

  53

  He found the manor fairly bustling

  With those who'd known the now deceased;

  Both friends and foes had come ahustling,

  True lovers of a funeral feast.

  They laid to rest the dear departed;

  Then, wined and dined and heavy-hearted,

  But pleased to have their duty done,

  The priests and guests left one by one.

  And here's Oneginlord and master

  Of woods and mills and streams and lands;

  A country squire, there he stands,

  That former wastrel and disaster;

  And rather glad he was, it's true,

  That he'd found something else to do.

  54

  For two full days he was enchanted

  By lonely fields and burbling brook,

  By sylvan shade that lay implanted

  Within a cool and leafy nook.

  But by the third he couldn't stick it:

  The grove, the hill, the field, the thicket

  Quite ceased to tempt him any more

  And, presently, induced a snore;

  And then he saw that country byways

  With no great palaces, no streets,

  No cards, no balls, no poets' feats

  Were just as dull as city highways;

  And spleen, he saw, would dog his life,

  Like shadow or a faithful wife.

  55

  But I was born for peaceful roaming,

  For country calm and lack of strife;

  My lyre sings! And in the gloaming

  My fertile fancies spring to life.

  I give myself to harmless pleasures

  And far niente rules my leisures:

  Each morning early I'm awake

  To wander by the lonely lake

  Or seek some other sweet employment:

  I read a little, often sleep,

  For fleeting fame I do not weep.

  And was it not in past enjoyment

  Of shaded, idle times like this,

  I spent my days of deepest bliss?

  56

  The country, love, green fields and flowers,

  Sweet idleness! You have my heart.

  With what delight I praise those hours

  That set Eugene and me apart.

  For otherwise some mocking reader

  Or, God forbid, some wretched breeder

  Of twisted slanders might combine

  My hero's features here with mine

  And then maintain the shameless fiction

  That, like proud Byron, I have penned

  A mere self-portrait in the end;

  As if today, through some restriction,

  We're now no longer fit to write

 
; On any theme but our own plight.

  57

  All poets, I need hardly mention,

  Have drawn from love abundant themes;

  I too have gazed in rapt attention

  When cherished beings filled my dreams.

  My soul preserved their secret features;

  The Muse then made them living creatures:

  Just so in carefree song I paid

  My tribute to the mountain maid,

  And sang the Salghir captives' praises.*

  And now, my friends, I hear once more

  That question you have put before:

  'For whom these sighs your lyre raises?

  To whom amid the jealous throng

  Do you today devote your song?

  58

  'Whose gaze, evoking inspiration,

  Rewards you with a soft caress?

  Whose form, in pensive adoration,

  Do you now clothe in sacred dress?'

  Why no one, friends, as God's my witness,

  For I have known too well the witless

  And maddened pangs of love's refrain.

  Oh, blest is he who joins his pain

  To fevered rhyme: for thus he doubles

  The sacred ecstasy of art;

  Like Petrarch then, he calms the heart,

  Subduing passion's host of troubles,

  And captures worldly fame to boot!

  But I, in love, was dense and mute.

  59

  The Muse appeared as love was ending

  And cleared the darkened mind she found.

  Once free, I seek again the blending

  Of feeling, thought, and magic sound.

  I write .. . and want no more embraces;

  My straying pen no longer traces,

  Beneath a verse left incomplete,

  The shapes of ladies' heads and feet.

  Extinguished ashes won't rekindle,

  And though I grieve, I weep no more;

  And soon, quite soon, the tempest's core

  Within my soul will fade and dwindle:

  And then I'll write this world a song

  That's five and twenty cantos long!

  60

  I've drawn a plan and know what's needed,

  The hero's named, the plotting's done;

  And meantime I've just now completed

  My present novel's Chapter One.

  I've looked it over most severely;

  It has its contradictions, clearly,

  But I've no wish to change a line;

  I'll grant the censor's right to shine

  And send these fruits of inspiration

  To feed the critics' hungry pen.

  Fly to the Neva's water then,

  My spirit's own newborn creation!

  And earn me tribute paid to fame:

  Distorted readings, noise, and blame!

  Chapter 2

  #62038; rus!

  Horace

  #62038; Rus'!*

  1

  The place Eugene found so confining

  Was quite a lovely country nest,

  Where one who favoured soft reclining

  Would thank his stars to be so blest.

  The manor house, in proud seclusion,

  Screened by a hill from wind's intrusion,

  Stood by a river. Far away

  Green meads and golden cornfields lay,

  Lit by the sun as it paraded;

  Small hamlets too the eye could see

  And cattle wand'ring o'er the lea;

  While near at hand, all dense and shaded,

  A vast neglected garden made

  A nook where pensive dryads played.

  2

  The ancient manse had been erected

  For placid comfortand to last;

  And all its solid form reflected

  The sense and taste of ages past.

  Throughout the house the ceilings towered,

  From walls ancestral portraits glowered;

  The drawing room had rich brocades

  And stoves of tile in many shades.

  All this today seems antiquated

  I don't know why; but in the end

  It hardly mattered to my friend,

  For he'd become so fully jaded,

  He yawned alike where'er he sat,

  In ancient hall or modern flat.

  3

  He settled where the former squire

  For forty years had heaved his sighs,

  Had cursed the cook in useless ire,

  Stared out the window, and squashed flies.

  The furnishings were plain but stable:

  A couch, two cupboards, and a table,

  No spot of ink on oaken floors. O

  negin opened cupboard doors

  And found in one a list of wages,

  Some fruit liqueurs and applejack,

  And in the next an almanac

  From eighteen-eight with tattered pages;

  The busy master never took

  A glance in any other book.

  4

  Alone amid his new possessions,

  And merely as an idle scheme,

  Eugene devised a few concessions

  And introduced a new regime.

  A backwoods genius, he commuted

  The old corve and substituted

  A quittent at a modest rate;

  * His peasants thanked their lucky fate,

  But thrifty neighbours waxed indignant

  And in their dens bewailed as one

  The dreadful harm of what he'd done.

  Still others sneered or turned malignant,

  And everyone who chose to speak

  Called him a menace and a freak.

  5

  At first the neighbours' calls were steady;

  But when they learned that in the rear

  Onegin kept his stallion ready

  So he could quickly disappear

  The moment one of them was sighted

  Or heard approaching uninvited,

  They took offence and, one and all,

  They dropped him cold and ceased to call.

  'The man's a boor, he's off his rocker.'

  'Must be a Mason;* drinks, they say . . .

  Red wine, by tumbler, night and day!' '

  Won't kiss a lady's hand, the mocker.'

  'Won't call me "sir" the way he should.

  ' The general verdict wasn't good.