nor boston,

12 neither a winsome glance nor an immodest sigh,

nothing touched him;

he noticed nothing.

XXXIX. XL. XLI.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

XLII

Capricious belles of the grand monde!

Before all others you he left;

and it is true that in our years

4 the upper ton is rather tedious.

Although, perhaps, this or that dame

interprets Say and Bentham,

in general their conversation

8 is insupportable, though harmless tosh.

On top of that they are so pure,

so stately, so intelligent,

so full of piety,

12 so circumspect, so scrupulous,

so inaccessible to men,

that the mere sight of them begets the spleen.7

XLIII

And you, young beauties, whom

at a late hour daredevil droshkies

carry away over the pavement

4 of Petersburg,

you also were abandoned by my Eugene.

Apostate from the turbulent delights,

Onegin locked himself indoors;

8 yawning, took up a pen;

wanted to write; but persevering toil

to him was loathsome: nothing

from his pen issued, and he did not get

12 into the cocky guild of people

on whom I pass no judgment — for the reason

that I belong to them.

XLIV

And once again to idleness consigned,

oppressed by emptiness of soul,

he settled down with the laudable aim

4 to make his own another’s mind;

he crammed a shelf with an array of books,

and read, and read — and all for nothing:

here there was dullness; there, deceit and raving;

8 this one lacked conscience; that one, sense;

on all of them were different fetters;

and outworn was the old, and the new raved

about the old.

12 As he’d left women, he left books

and, with its dusty tribe, the shelf

with funerary taffeta he curtained.

XLV

Having cast off the burden of the monde’s conventions,

having, as he, from vain pursuits desisted,

with him I made friends at that time.

4 I liked his traits,

to dreams the involuntary addiction,

nonimitative oddity,

and sharp, chilled mind;

8 I was embittered, he was gloomy;

the play of passions we knew both;

on both, life weighed;

in both, the heart’s glow had gone out;

12 for both, there was in store the rancor

of blind Fortuna and of men

at the very morn of our days.

XLVI

He who has lived and thought

cannot help in his soul despising men;

him who has felt disturbs

4 the ghost of irrecoverable days;

for him there are no more enchantments;

him does the snake of memories,

him does repentance gnaw.

8 All this often imparts

great charm to conversation.

At first, Onegin’s language

would disconcert me; but I grew

12 accustomed to his biting argument

and banter blent halfwise with bile

and virulence of somber epigrams.

XLVII

How oft in summertide, when limpid

and luminous is the nocturnal sky

above the Neva,8 and the gay

4 glass of the waters

does not reflect Diana’s visage —

rememorating intrigues of past years,

rememorating a past love,

8 impressible, carefree again,

the breath of the benignant night

we mutely quaffed!

As to the greenwood from a prison

12 a slumbering clogged convict is transferred,

so we’d be carried off in fancy

to the beginning of young life.

XLVIII

With soul full of regrets,

and leaning on the granite,

Eugene stood pensive — as himself

4 the Poet9 has described.

‘Twas stillness all; only night sentries

to one another called,

and the far clip-clop of some droshky

8 resounded suddenly from Million Street;

only a boat, oars swinging,

swam on the dozing river,

and, in the distance, captivated us

12 a horn and a brave song.

But, ‘mid the night’s diversions, sweeter

is the strain of Torquato’s octaves.

XLIX

Adrian waves,

O Brenta! Nay, I’ll see you

and, filled anew with inspiration,

4 I’ll hear your magic voice!

‘Tis sacred to Apollo’s nephews;

through the proud lyre of Albion

to me ’tis known, to me ’tis kindred.

8 In the voluptuousness of golden

Italy’s nights at liberty I’ll revel,

with a youthful Venetian,

now talkative, now mute,

12 swimming in a mysterious gondola;

with her my lips will find

the tongue of Petrarch and of love.

L

Will the hour of my freedom come?

‘Tis time, ’tis time! To it I call;

I roam above the sea,10 I wait for the right weather,

4 I beckon to the sails of ships.

Under the cope of storms, with waves disputing,

on the free crossway of the sea

when shall I start on my free course?

8 ‘Tis time to leave the dull shore of an element

inimical to me,

and sigh, ‘mid the meridian swell, beneath the

sky of my Africa,11

12 for somber Russia, where

I suffered, where I loved,

where I buried my heart.

LI

Onegin was prepared with me

to see strange lands;

but soon we were to be by fate

4 sundered for a long time.

‘Twas then his father died.

Before Onegin there assembled

a greedy host of creditors.

8 Each has a mind and notion of his own.

Eugene, detesting litigations,

contented with his lot,

abandoned the inheritance to them,

12 perceiving no great loss therein,

or precognizing from afar

the demise of his aged uncle.

LII

All of a sudden he indeed

got from the steward

a report that his uncle was nigh death in bed

4 and would be glad to bid farewell to him.

Eugene, the sad epistle having read,

incontinently to the rendezvous

drove headlong, traveling post,

8 and yawned already in anticipation,

preparing, for the sake of money,

for sighs, boredom, and guile

(and ’tis with this that I began my novel);

12 but when he reached apace his uncle’s manor,

he found him laid already on the table

as a prepared tribute to earth.

LIII

He found the grounds full of attendants;

to the dead man from every side

came driving foes and friends,

4 enthusiasts for funerals.

The dead man was interred,

the priests and guests ate, drank,

and solemnly dispersed thereafter,

8 as though they had been sensibly engaged.

Now our Onegin is a rural dweller,

of workshops, waters, forests, lands,

absolute lord (while up to then he’d been

12 an enemy of order and a wastrel),

and very glad to have exchanged

his former course for something.

LIV

For two days new to him

seemed the secluded fields,

the coolness of the somber park,

4 the bubbling of the quiet brook;

by the third day, grove, hill, and field

did not engage him any more;

then somnolence already they induced;

8 then plainly he perceived

that in the country, too, the boredom was the same,

although there were no streets, no palaces,

no cards, no balls, no verses.

12 The hyp was waiting for him on the watch,

and it kept running after him

like a shadow or faithful wife.

LV

I was born for the peaceful life,

for country quiet:

the lyre’s voice in the wild is more resounding,

4 creative dreams are more alive.

To harmless leisures consecrated,

I wander by a wasteful lake

and far niente is my rule.

8 By every morn I am awakened

unto sweet mollitude and freedom;

little I read, a lot I sleep,

volatile fame do not pursue.

12 Was it not thus in former years,

that in inaction, in the [shade],

I spent my happiest days?

LVI

Flowers, love, the country, idleness,

ye fields! my soul is vowed to you.

I’m always glad to mark the difference

4 between Onegin and myself,

lest a sarcastic reader

or else some publisher

of complicated calumny,

8 collating here my traits,

repeat thereafter shamelessly

that I have scrawled my portrait

like Byron, the poet of pride

12 — as if we were no longer able

to write long poems

on any other subject than ourselves!

LVII

In this connection I’ll observe: all poets

are friends of fancifying love.

It used to happen that dear objects

4 I’d dream of, and my soul

preserved their secret image;

the Muse revived them later:

thus I, carefree, would sing

8 a maiden of the mountains, my ideal,

as well as captives of the Salgir’s banks.

From you, my friends, at present

not seldom do I hear the question:

12 “For whom does your lyre sigh?

To whom did you, among the throng

of jealous maidens, dedicate its strain?

LVIII

Whose gaze, while stirring inspiration,

with a dewy caress rewarded

your pensive singing? Whom did your

4 verse idolize?”

Faith, nobody, my friends, I swear!

Love’s mad anxiety

I cheerlessly went through.

8 Happy who blent with it the fever

of rhymes: thereby the sacred frenzy

of poetry he doubled,

striding in Petrarch’s tracks;

12 as to the heart’s pangs, he allayed them

and meanwhile fame he captured too —

but I, when loving, was stupid and mute.

LIX

Love passed, the Muse appeared,

and the dark mind cleared up.

Once free, I seek again the concord

4 of magic sounds, feelings, and thoughts;

I write, and the heart does not pine;

the pen draws not, lost in a trance,

next to unfinished lines,

8 feminine feet or heads;

extinguished ashes will not flare again;

I still feel sad; but there are no more tears,

and soon, soon the storm’s trace

12 will hush completely in my soul:

then I shall start to write a poem

in twenty-five cantos or so.

LX

I’ve thought already of a form of plan

and how my hero I shall call.

Meantime, my novel’s

4 first chapter I have finished;

all this I have looked over closely;

the inconsistencies are very many,

but to correct them I don’t wish.

8 I shall pay censorship its due

and give away my labors’ fruits

to the reviewers for devourment.

Be off, then, to the Neva’s banks,

12 newborn work! And deserve for me

fame’s tribute: false interpretations,

noise, and abuse!

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