CHAPTER TWO

O rus! Horace O Rus'!

I

   The country place where Eugene    moped was a charming nook;    a friend of innocent delights  4 might have blessed heaven there.    The manor house, secluded,    screened from the winds by a hill, stood    above a river; in the distance,  8 before it, freaked and flowered, lay    meadows and golden grainfields;    one could glimpse hamlets here and there;    herds roamed the meadows; 12 and its dense coverts spread    a huge neglected garden, the retreat    of pensive dryads.

II

   The venerable castle    was built as castles should be built:    excellent strong and comfortable  4 in the taste of sensible ancientry.    Tall chambers everywhere,    hangings of damask in the drawing room,    portraits of grandsires on the walls,  8 and stoves with varicolored tiles.    All this today is obsolete,    I really don't know why;    and anyway it was a matter 12 of very little moment to my friend,    since he yawned equally amidst    modish and olden halls.

III

   He settled in that chamber where the rural    old-timer had for forty years or so    squabbled with his housekeeper,  4 looked through the window, and squashed flies.    It all was plain: a floor of oak, two cupboards,    a table, a divan of down,    and not an ink speck anywhere. Onegin  8 opened the cupboards; found in one    a notebook of expenses and in the other    a whole array of fruit liqueurs,    pitchers of eau-de-pomme, 12 and the calendar for eighteen-eight:    having a lot to do, the old man never    looked into any other books.

IV

   Alone midst his possessions,    merely to while away the time,    at first conceived the plan our Eugene  4 of instituting a new system.    In his backwoods a solitary sage,    the ancient corvée's yoke    by the light quitrent he replaced;  8 the muzhik blessed fate,    while in his corner went into a huff,    therein perceiving dreadful harm,    his thrifty neighbor. 12 Another slyly smiled,    and all concluded with one voice that he    was a most dangerous eccentric.

V

   At first they all would call on him,    but since to the back porch    habitually a Don stallion  4 for him was brought    as soon as one made out along the highway    the sound of their domestic runabouts —    outraged by such behavior,  8 they all ceased to be friends with him.    “Our neighbor is a boor; acts like a crackbrain;    he's a Freemason; he    drinks only red wine, by the tumbler; 12 he won't go up to kiss a lady's hand;    'tis all ‘yes,’ ‘no’ — he'll not say ‘yes, sir,’    or ‘no, sir.’ ” This was the general voice.

VI

   At that same time a new landowner    had driven down to his estate    and in the neighborhood was giving cause  4 for just as strict a scrutiny.    By name Vladimir Lenski,    with a soul really Göttingenian,    a handsome chap, in the full bloom of years,  8 Kant's votary, and a poet.    From misty Germany    he'd brought the fruits of learning:    liberty-loving dreams, a spirit 12 impetuous and rather queer,    a speech always enthusiastic,    and shoulder-length black curls.

VII

   From the world's cold depravity    not having yet had time to wither,    his soul was warmed by a friend's greeting,  4 by the caress of maidens.    He was in matters of the heart    a charming dunce. Hope nursed him,    and the globe's new glitter and noise  8 still captivated his young mind.    With a sweet fancy he amused    his heart's incertitudes.    The purpose of our life to him 12 was an enticing riddle;    he racked his brains    over it and suspected marvels.

VIII

   He believed that a kindred soul    to him must be united;    that, cheerlessly pining away,  4 she daily kept awaiting him;    he believed that his friends were ready to accept    chains for his honor    and that their hands would falter not in smashing  8 the vessel of his slanderer;    that there were some chosen by fate    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

IX

   Indignation, compassion,    pure love of Good,    and fame's delicious torment  4 early had stirred his blood.    He wandered with a lyre on earth.    Under the sky of Schiller and of Goethe,    with their poetic fire  8 his soul had kindled;    and the exalted Muses of the art    he, happy one, did not disgrace:    he proudly in his songs retained 12 always exalted sentiments,    the surgings of a virgin fancy, and the charm    of grave simplicity.

X

   To love submissive, love he sang,    and his song was as clear    as a naïve maid's thoughts,  4 as the sleep of an infant, as the moon    in the untroubled deserts of the sky,    goddess of mysteries and tender sighs.    He sang parting and sadness,  8 and a vague something, and the dim    remoteness, and romantic roses.    He sang those distant lands    where long into the bosom of the stillness 12 flowed his live tears.    He sang life's faded bloom    at not quite eighteen years of age.

XI

   In the wilderness where Eugene alone    was able to appreciate his gifts,    he cared not for the banquets of the masters  4 of neighboring manors;    he fled their noisy concourse.    Their reasonable talk    of haymaking, of liquor,  8 of kennel, of their kin,    no doubt did not sparkle with feeling,    or with poetic fire,    or sharp wit, or intelligence, 12 or with the art of sociability;    but the talk of their sweet wives was    much less intelligent.

XII

   Wealthy, good-looking, Lenski everywhere    was as a marriageable man received:    such is the country custom;  4 all for their daughters planned a match    with the half-Russian neighbor.    Whenever he drops in, at once the conversation    broaches a word, obliquely,  8 about the tedium of bachelor life;    the neighbor is invited to the samovar,    and Dunya pours the tea;    they whisper to her: “Dunya, mark!” 12 Then the guitar (that, too) is brought,    and she will start to shrill (good God!):    “Come to me in my golden castle!..”12

XIII

   But Lenski, having no desire, of course,    to bear the bonds of marriage,    wished cordially to strike up with Onegin  4 a close acquaintanceship.    They got together; wave and stone,    verse and prose, ice and flame,    were not so different from one another.  8 At first, because of mutual    disparity, they found each other dull;    then liked each other; then    met riding every day on horseback, 12 and soon became inseparable.    Thus people — I'm the first to own it —    out of do-nothingness are friends.

XIV

   But among us there's even no such friendship:    having destroyed all prejudices, we    deem all men naughts  4 and ourselves units.    We all aspire to be Napoleons;    for us the millions    of two-legged creatures are but tools;  8 feeling to us is weird and ludicrous.    More tolerant than many was Eugene,    though he, of course, knew men    and on the whole despised them; 12 but no rules are without exceptions:    some people he distinguished greatly    and, though estranged from it, respected feeling.

XV

   He listened with a smile to Lenski:    the poet's fervid conversation,    and mind still vacillant in judgments,  4 and gaze eternally inspired —    all this was novel to Onegin;    the chilling word    on his lips he tried to restrain,  8 and thought: foolish of me    to interfere with his brief rapture;    without me just as well that time will come;    meanwhile let him live and believe 12 in the perfection of the world;    let us forgive the fever of young years    both its young ardor and young ravings.

XVI

   Between them everything engendered    discussions and led to reflection:    the pacts of bygone races,  4 the fruits of learning, Good and Evil,    and centuried prejudices,    and the grave's fateful mysteries,    destiny and life in their turn —  8 all was subjected to their judgment.    The poet in the heat of his contentions    recited, in a trance, meantime,    fragments of Nordic poems, 12 and lenient Eugene,    although he did not understand them much,    would dutifully listen to the youth.

XVII

   But passions occupied more often    the minds of my two anchorets.    Having escaped from their tumultuous power,  4 Onegin spoke of them    with an involuntary sigh of regret.    Happy who knew their agitations    and finally detached himself from them;  8 still happier who did not know them, who    cooled love with separation, enmity    with obloquy; sometimes    with friends and wife yawned, undisturbed 12 by jealous torment,    and the safe capital of forefathers    did not entrust to a perfidious deuce!

XVIII

   When we have flocked under the banner    of sage tranquillity,    when the flame of the passions has gone out  4 and laughable become to us    their waywardness    or surgings and belated echoes;    reduced to sense not without trouble,  8 sometimes we like to listen    to the tumultuous language of the passions    of others, and it stirs our heart;    exactly thus an old disabled soldier 12 does willingly bend an assiduous ear    to the yarns of young mustached braves,    [while he remains] forgotten in his shack.

XIX

   Now flaming youthhood, on the other hand,    cannot hide anything:    enmity, love, sadness, and joy  4 'tis ready to blab out.    Deemed invalided as to love,    with a grave air Onegin listened    as, loving the confession of the heart,  8 the poet his whole self expressed.    His trustful conscience    naïvely he laid bare.    Eugene learned without trouble 12 the youthful story of his love —    a tale abounding in emotions    long since not new to us.

XX

   Ah, he loved as one loves    no longer in our years; as only    the mad soul of a poet  4 is still condemned to love:    always, and everywhere, one reverie,    one customary wish,    one customary woe!  8 Neither the cooling distance,    nor the long years of separation,    nor hours given to the Muses,    nor foreign beauties, 12 nor noise of merriments, nor studies,    had changed in him a soul    warmed by a virgin fire.

XXI

   When scarce a boy, by Olga captivated,    not having known yet torments of the heart,    he'd been a tender witness  4 of her infantine frolics.    He, in the shade of a protective park,    had shared her frolics,    and for these children wedding crowns  8 their fathers, who were friends and neighbors, destined.    In the backwoods, beneath a humble roof,    full of innocent charm,    she under the eyes of her parents 12 bloomed like a hidden lily of the valley    which is unknown in the dense grass    to butterflies or to the bee.

XXII

   She gave the poet the first dream    of youthful transports,    and the thought of her animated  4 his pipe's first moan.    Farewell, golden games! He    began to like thick groves,    seclusion, stillness, and the night,  8 and the stars, and the moon —    the moon, celestial lamp,    to which we dedicated    walks midst the evening darkness, 12 and tears, of secret pangs the solace...    But now we only see in her    a substitute for bleary lanterns.

XXIII

   Always modest, always obedient,    always as merry as the morn,    as naïve as a poet's life,  4 as winsome as love's kiss;    her eyes, as azure as the sky,    smile, flaxen locks,    movements, voice, light waist — everything  8 in Olga... but take any novel,    and you will surely find    her portrait; it is very sweet;    I liked it once myself, 12 but it has come to bore me beyond measure.    Let me, my reader,    take up the elder sister.

XXIV

   Her sister    was called Tatiana.13    For the first time a novel's tender pages  4 with such a name we willfully shall grace.    What of it? It is pleasing, sonorous,    but from it, I know, is inseparable    the memory of ancientry  8 or housemaids' quarters. We must all    admit that we have very little    taste even in our names    (to say nothing of verses); 12 enlightenment does not suit us,    and what we have derived from it    is affectation — nothing more.

XXV

   So she was called    Tatiana. Neither with her sister's beauty    nor with her [sister's] rosy freshness  4 would she attract one's eyes.    Sauvage, sad, silent,    as timid as the sylvan doe,    in her own family  8 she seemed a strangeling.    She knew not how to snuggle up    to her father or mother;    a child herself, among a crowd of children, 12 she never wished to play and skip,    and often all day long, alone,    she sat in silence by the window.

XXVI

   Pensiveness, her companion,    even from cradle days,    adorned for her with dreams  4 the course of rural leisure.    Her delicate fingers    knew needles not; over the tambour bendin    with a silk pattern she  8 did not enliven linen.    Sign of the urge to domineer:    the child with her obedient doll    prepares in play 12 for etiquette, law of the monde,    and gravely to her doll repeats the lessons    of her mamma;

XXVII

   but even in those years Tatiana    did not take in her hands a doll;    about town news, about the fashions,  4 did not converse with it;    and childish pranks    to her were foreign; grisly tales    in winter, in the dark of nights,  8 charmed more her heart.    Whenever nurse assembled    for Olga, on the spacious lawn,    all her small girl companions, 12 she did not play at barleybreaks,    dull were to her both ringing laughter    and noise of their giddy diversions.

XXVIII

   She on the balcony    liked to prevene Aurora's rise,    when, in the pale sky, disappears  4 the choral dance of stars,    and earth's rim softly lightens,    and, morning's herald, the wind whiffs,    and rises by degrees the day.  8 In winter, when night's shade    possesses longer half the world,    and longer in the idle stillness,    by the bemisted moon, 12 the lazy orient sleeps,    awakened at her customary hour    she would get up by candles.

XXIX

   She early had been fond of novels;    for her they replaced all;    she grew enamored with the fictions  4 of Richardson and of Rousseau.    Her father was a kindly fellow    who lagged in the precedent age    but saw no harm in books;  8 he, never reading,    deemed them an empty toy,    nor did he care    what secret tome his daughter had 12 dozing till morn under her pillow.    As to his wife, she was herself    mad upon Richardson.

XXX

   The reason she loved Richardson    was not that she had read him,    and not that Grandison  4 to Lovelace she preferred;14    but anciently, Princess Alina,    her Moscow maiden cousin,    would often talk to her about them.  8 Her husband at that time still was    her fiancé, but against her will.    She sighed after another    whose heart and mind 12 were much more to her liking;    that Grandison was a great dandy,    a gamester, and an Ensign in the Guards.

XXXI

   Like him, she always    dressed in the fashion and becomingly;    but without asking her advice  4 they took the maiden to the altar;    and to dispel her grief    the sensible husband repaired    soon to his countryseat, where she,  8 God knows by whom surrounded, tossed    and wept at first,    almost divorced her husband, then    got occupied with household matters, grew 12 habituated, and became content.    Habit to us is given from above:    it is a substitute for happiness.15

XXXII

   Habit allayed the grief    that nothing else could ward;    a big discovery soon came  4 to comfort her completely.    Between the dally and the do    a secret she discovered: how to govern    her husband monocratically,  8 and forthwith everything went right.    She would drive out to supervise the farming,    she pickled mushrooms for the winter,    she kept the books, “shaved foreheads,” 12 to the bathhouse would go on Saturdays,    walloped her maids when cross —    all this without asking her husband's leave.

XXXIII

   Time was, she wrote in blood    in tender maidens' albums,    would call Praskóvia “Polína,”  4 and speak in singsong tones;    very tight stays she wore,    and knew how to pronounce a Russian n    as if it were a French one, through the nose;  8 but soon all this ceased to exist; stays, album,    Princess [Alina],    cahier of sentimental verselets, she    forgot, began to call 12 “Akúl'ka” the one-time “Selína,”    and finally inaugurated    the quilted chamber robe and mobcap.

XXXIV

   But dearly did her husband love her,    he did not enter in her schemes,    on every score lightheartedly believed her  4 whilst in his dressing gown he ate and drank    His life rolled comfortably on;    at evenfall sometimes assembled    a kindly group of neighbors,  8 unceremonious friends,    to rue, to tattle,    to chuckle over this or that.    Time passed; meanwhile 12 Olga was told to prepare tea;    then supper came, and then 'twas bedtime,    and off the guests would drive.

XXXV

   They in their peaceful life preserved    the customs of dear ancientry:    with them, during fat Butterweek  4 Russian pancakes were wont to be.    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 kvas was as requisite to them as air,    and at their table dishes were presented    to guests in order of their rank.

XXXVI

   And thus they both grew old,    and the grave's portals    opened at last before the husband,  4 and a new crown upon him was bestowed.    He died at the hour before the midday meal,    bewailed by neighbor,    children, and faithful wife,  8 more candidly than some.    He was a simple and kind squire,    and there where lies his dust    the monument above the grave proclaims: 12 “The humble sinner Dmitri Larin,    slave of our Lord, and Brigadier,    enjoyeth peace beneath this stone.”

XXXVII

   Restored to his penates,    Vladimir Lenski visited    his neighbor's humble monument,  4 and to the ashes consecrated    a sigh, and long his heart was melancholy.    “Poor Yorick!”16 mournfully he uttered, “he    hath borne me in his arms.  8 How oft I played in childhood    with his Ochákov medal!    He destined Olga to wed me;    he used to say: ‘Shall I be there 12 to see the day?’ ” and full of sincere sadness,    Vladimir there and then set down for him    a gravestone madrigal.

XXXVIII

   And with a sad inscription,    in tears, he also honored there his father's    and mother's patriarchal dust.  4 Alas! Upon life's furrows,    in a brief harvest, generations    by Providence's secret will    rise, ripen, and must fall;  8 others in their tracks follow.... Thus    our giddy race    waxes, stirs, seethes,    and tombward crowds its ancestors. 12 Our time likewise will come, will come,    and one fine day our grandsons    out of the world will crowd us too.

XXXIX

   Meanwhile enjoy your fill of it    —  of this lightsome life, friends!    Its insignificance I realize  4 and little am attached to it;    to phantoms I have closed my eyelids;    but distant hopes    sometimes disturb my heart:  8 without an imperceptible trace, I'd be sorry    to leave the world.    I live, I write not for the sake of praise;    but my sad lot, meseems, 12 I would desire to glorify,    so that a single sound at least    might, like a faithful friend, remind one about me.

XL

   And it will touch    the heart of someone; and preserved by fate,    perhaps in Lethe will not drown  4 the strophe made by me;    perhaps — flattering hope! —    a future dunce will point    at my famed portrait  8 and utter: “That now was a poet!”    So do accept my thanks, admirer    of the peaceful Aonian maids,    0 you whose memory will preserve 12 my volatile creations,    you whose benevolent hand will pat    the old man's laurels! вернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернутьсявернуться