neighbor is brought.

Now, what a boon ’tis for the jealous one!

He had kept fearing that the scamp

might joke his way out somehow,

8 a trick devising and his breast

averting from the pistol.

The doubts are now resolved:

tomorrow to the mill they must

12 drive before daybreak,

at one another raise the cock,

and at the thigh or at the temple aim.

XIII

Having decided to detest

the coquette, boiling Lenski did not wish

to see before the duel Olga.

4 The sun, his watch he kept consulting;

at last he gave it up —

and found himself at the fair neighbors’.

He thought he would embarrass Ólinka,

8 confound her by his coming;

but nothing of the sort: just as before

to welcome the poor songster

Olinka skipped down from the porch,

12 akin to giddy hope,

spry, carefree, gay — in fact, exactly

the same as she had been.

XIV

“Why did you vanish yesternight so early?”

was Olinka’s first question.

In Lenski all the senses clouded,

4 and silently he hung his head.

Jealousy and vexation disappeared

before this clarity of glance,

before this soft simplicity,

8 before this sprightly soul!…

He gazes with sweet tenderness;

he sees: he is still loved!

Already, by remorse beset,

12 he is prepared to beg her pardon,

he quivers, can’t find words:

he’s happy, he is almost well….

XVII

And pensive, spiritless again

before his darling Olga,

Vladimir cannot make himself remind her

4 of yesterday;

“I,” he reflects, “shall be her savior.

I shall not suffer a depraver

with fire of sighs and compliments

8 to tempt a youthful heart,

nor let a despicable, venomous

worm gnaw a lily’s little stalk,

nor have a blossom two morns old

12 wither while yet half blown.”

All this, friends, meant:

I have a pistol duel with a pal.

XVIII

If he had known what a wound burned

the heart of my Tatiana! If Tatiana

had been aware, if she

4 could have known that tomorrow

Lenski and Eugene

were to compete for the tomb’s shelter,

ah, then, perhaps, her love

8 might have united the two friends again!

But none, even by chance, had yet discovered

that passion.

Onegin about everything was silent;

12 Tatiana pined away in secret;

alone the nurse

might have known — but she was slow-witted.

XIX

All evening Lenski was abstracted,

now taciturn, now gay again;

but he who has been fostered by the Muse

4 is always thus; with knitted brow

he’d sit down at the clavichord

and play but chords on it;

or else, his gaze directing toward Olga,

8 he’d whisper, “I am happy, am I not?”

But it is late; time to depart. In him

the heart contracted, full of anguish;

as he took leave of the young maiden,

12 it seemed to break asunder.

She looks him in the face. “What is the matter with you?”

“Nothing.” And he makes for the porch.

XX

On coming home his pistols he inspected,

then back into their case

he put them, and, undressed,

4 by candle opened Schiller;

but there’s one thought infolding him;

the sad heart in him does not slumber:

Olga, in beauty

8 ineffable, he sees before him.

Vladimir shuts the book,

takes up his pen; his verses —

full of love’s nonsense — sound

12 and flow. Aloud

he reads them in a lyric fever,

like drunken D[elvig] at a feast.

XXI

The verses chanced to be preserved;

I have them; here they are:

Whither, ah! whither are ye fled,

4 my springtime’s golden days?

“What has the coming day in store for me?

In vain my gaze attempts to grasp it;

in deep gloom it lies hidden.

8 It matters not; fate’s law is just.

Whether I fall, pierced by the dart, or whether

it flies by — all is right:

of waking and of sleep

12 comes the determined hour;

blest is the day of cares,

blest, too, is the advent of darkness!

XXII

“The ray of dawn will gleam tomorrow,

and brilliant day will scintillate;

whilst I, perhaps — I shall descend

4 into the tomb’s mysterious shelter,

and the young poet’s memory

slow Lethe will engulf;

the world will forget me; but thou,

8 wilt thou come, maid of beauty,

to shed a tear over the early urn

and think: he loved me,

to me alone he consecrated

12 the doleful daybreak of a stormy life!…

Friend of my heart, desired friend, come,

come: I’m thy spouse!”

XXIII

Thus did he write, “obscurely

and limply” (what we call romanticism —

though no romanticism at all

4 do I see here; but what is that to us?),

and finally, before dawn, letting sink

his weary head,

upon the fashionable word

8 “ideal,” Lenski dozed off gently;

but hardly had he lost himself

in sleep’s bewitchment when the neighbor

entered the silent study

12 and wakened Lenski with the call,

“Time to get up: past six already.

Onegin’s sure to be awaiting us.”

XXIV

But he was wrong: at that time Eugene

was sleeping like the dead.

The shadows of the night now wane,

4 and Vesper by the cock is greeted;

Onegin soundly sleeps away.

By now the sun rides high,

and shifting flurries

8 sparkle and spin; but still his bed

Onegin has not left,

still slumber hovers over him.

Now he awakes at last

12 and draws apart the curtain’s flaps;

looks — and sees that already

it is long since time to drive off.

XXV

Quickly he rings — and his French valet,

Guillot, comes running in,

offers him dressing gown and slippers,

4 and hands him linen.

Onegin hastes to dress,

orders his valet to get ready

to drive together with him and to take

8 along with him also the combat case.

The racing sleigh is ready; in he gets;

flies to the mill. Apace they come.

He bids his valet carry after him

12 Lepage’s39 fell tubes

and has the horses moved away

into a field toward two oaklings.

XXVI

On the dam leaning, Lenski had been waiting

impatiently for a long time;

meanwhile Zaretski, a rural mechanic,

4 with the millstone was finding fault.

Onegin with apologies came up.

“But where,” quoth with amazement

Zaretski, “where’s your second?”

8 In duels classicist and pedant, he

liked method out of feeling and allowed

to stretch one’s man not anyhow

but by the strict rules of the art

12 according to all the traditions

of ancientry

(which we must praise in him).

XXVII

“My second?” Eugene said.

“Here’s he: my friend, Monsieur Guillot.

I don’t foresee

4 objections to my presentation:

although he is an unknown man,

quite surely he’s an honest chap.”

Zaretski bit his lip. Onegin

8 asked Lenski: “Well, are we to start?”

“Let’s start if you are willing,” said

Vladimir. And they went

behind the mill.

12 While, at a distance, our Zaretski and the “honest chap”

enter into a solemn compact,

the two foes stand with lowered eyes.

XXVIII

Foes! Is it long since bloodthirst

turned them away from one another?

Is it long since they shared their hours of leisure,

4 meals, thoughts, and doings

in friendliness? Now, wickedly,

similar to hereditary foes,

as in a frightful, enigmatic dream,

8 in silence, for each other they

prepare destruction coolly….

Should they not burst out laughing while

their hand is not yet crimsoned?

12 Should they not amiably part?…

But wildly beau-monde enmity

is of false shame afraid.

XXIX

The pistols now have gleamed. The mallet clanks

against the ramrod. The balls go

into the polyhedral barrel,

4 and the cock clicks for the first time.

The powder in a grayish streamlet

now pours into the pan. The jagged,

securely screwed-in flint

8 anew is drawn back. Disconcerted

Guillot behind a near stump takes his stand.

The two foes shed their cloaks.

Zaretski paces off thirty-two steps

12 with excellent accuracy; his friends

apart he places at the farthest mark,

and each takes up his pistol.

XXX

“Now march.” The two foes, coolly,

not aiming yet,

with firm tread, slowly, steadily

4 traversed four paces,

four mortal stairs.

His pistol Eugene then,

not ceasing to advance,

8 gently the first began to raise.

Now they have stepped five paces more,

and Lenski, closing his left eye,

started to level also — but right then

12 Onegin fired…. The clock of fate

has struck: the poet

in silence drops his pistol.

XXXI

Softly he lays his hand upon his breast

and falls. His misty gaze

expresses death, not pain.

4 Thus, slowly, down the slope of hills,

shining with sparkles in the sun,

a lump of snow descends.

Deluged with instant cold,

8 Onegin hastens to the youth,

looks, calls him… vainly:

he is no more. The young bard has

found an untimely end!

12 The storm has blown; the beauteous bloom

has withered at sunrise; the fire

upon the altar has gone out!…

XXXII

Stirless he lay, and strange

was his brow’s languid peace.

Under the breast he had been shot clean through;

4 steaming, the blood flowed from the wound.

One moment earlier

in this heart inspiration,

enmity, hope, and love had throbbed,

8 life effervesced, blood burned;

now, as in a deserted house,

all in it is both still and dark,

it has become forever silent.

12 The window boards are shut. The panes with chalk

are whitened over. The chatelaine is gone.

But where, God wot. All trace is lost.

XXXIII

With an insolent epigram

’tis pleasant to enrage a bungling foe;

pleasant to see how, bending stubbornly

4 his buttsome horns, he in the mirror

looks at himself involuntarily

and is ashamed to recognize himself;

more pleasant, friends, if, as the fool he is,

8 he howls out: It is I!

Still pleasanter — in silence to prepare

an honorable grave for him

and quietly at his pale forehead

12 aim, at a gentlemanly distance;

but to dispatch him to his fathers

will hardly pleasant be for you.

XXXIV

What, then, if by your pistol

be smitten a young pal

who with a saucy glance or repartee

4 or any other bagatelle

insulted you over the bottle,

or even himself, in fiery vexation,

to combat proudly challenged you?

8 Say: what sensation

would take possession of your soul

when, motionless upon the ground,

in front of you, with death upon his brow,

12 he by degrees would stiffen,

when he’d be deaf

and silent to your desperate appeal?

XXXV

In anguish of the heart’s remorse,

his hand squeezing the pistol,

at Lenski Eugene looks.

4 “Well, what — he’s dead,” pronounced the neighbor.

Dead!… With this dreadful interjection

smitten, Onegin with a shudder

walks hence and calls his men.

8 Zaretski carefully lays on the sleigh

the frozen corpse;

home he is driving the dread lading.

Sensing the corpse,

12 the horses snort and jib,

with white foam wetting the steel bit,

and like an arrow off they fly.

XXXVI

My friends, you’re sorry for the poet:

in the bloom of glad hopes,

not having yet fulfilled them for the world,

4 scarce out of infant clothes,

withered! Where is the ardent stir,

the noble aspiration

of young emotions and young thoughts,

8 exalted, tender, bold?

Where are love’s turbulent desires,

the thirst for knowledges and work,

the dread of vice and shame,

12 and you, fond musings,

you, [token] of unearthly life,

you, dreams of sacred poetry!

XXXVII

Perhaps, for the world’s good

or, at the least, for glory he was born;

his silenced lyre might have aroused

4 a resonant, uninterrupted