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!

CHAPTER THREE

Elle était fille; elle était amoureuse.

Malfilâtre

I

“Whither? Ah me, those poets!”

“Good-by, Onegin. Time for me to leave.”

“I do not hold you, but where do

4 you spend your evenings?” “At the Larins’.”

“Now, that’s a fine thing. Mercy, man —

and you don’t find it difficult

thus every evening to kill time?”

8 “Not in the least.” “I cannot understand.

From here I see what it is like:

first — listen, am I right? —

a simple Russian family,

12 a great solicitude for guests,

jam, never-ending talk

of rain, of flax, of cattle yard.”

II

“So far I do not see what’s bad about it.”

“Ah, but the boredom — that is bad, my friend.”

“Your fashionable world I hate;

4 dearer to me is the domestic circle

in which I can…” “Again an eclogue!

Ah, that will do, old boy, for goodness’ sake.

Well, so you’re off; I’m very sorry.

8 Oh, Lenski, listen — is there any way

for me to see this Phyllis,

subject of thoughts, and pen,

and tears, and rhymes, et cetera?

12 Present me.” “You are joking.” “No.”

“I’d gladly.” “When?” “Now, if you like.

They will be eager to receive us.”

III

“Let’s go.” And off the two friends drove;

they have arrived; on them are lavished

the sometimes onerous attentions

4 of hospitable ancientry.

The ritual of the treat is known:

in little dishes jams are brought,

on an oilcloth’d small table there is set

8 a jug of lingonberry water.

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

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

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

12 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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

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

IV

They by the shortest road

fly home at full career.17

Now let us eavesdrop furtively

4 upon our heroes’ conversation.

“Well now, Onegin, you are yawning.”

“A habit, Lenski.” “But somehow

you are more bored than ever.” “No, the same.

8 I say, it’s dark already in the field;

faster! come on, come on, Andryushka!

What silly country!

Ah, apropos: Dame Larin

12 is simple but a very nice old lady;

I fear that lingonberry water

may not unlikely do me harm.

V

“Tell me, which was Tatiana?”

“Oh, she’s the one who, sad

and silent like Svetlana,

4 came in and sat down by the window.”

“Can it be it’s the younger one

that you’re in love with?” “Why not?” “I’d have chosen

the other, had I been like you a poet.

8 In Olga’s features there’s no life,

just as in a Vandyke Madonna:

she’s round and fair of face

as is that silly moon

12 up in that silly sky.”

Vladimir answered curtly

and thenceforth the whole way was silent.

VI

Meanwhile Onegin’s apparition

at the Larins’ produced

on everyone a great impression

4 and regaled all the neighbors.

Conjecture on conjecture followed.

All started furtively to talk,

to joke, to comment not without some malice,

8 a suitor for Tatiana to assign.

Some folks asserted even that

the wedding was quite settled,

but had been stayed because

12 of fashionable rings’ not being got.

Concerning Lenski’s wedding, long ago

they had it all arranged.

VII

Tatiana listened with vexation

to gossip