courtyard.

Dogs toward her

dash, barking… At her frightened cry

a household brood of serf boys

12 has noisily converged. Not without fighting

the boys dispersed the hounds,

taking the lady under their protection.

XVII

“I wonder, can one see the master house?”

asked Tanya. Speedily

the children to Anisia ran

4 to get the hallway keys from her.

Anisia came forth to her promptly, and the door

before them opened,

and Tanya stepped into the empty house,

8 where recently our hero had been living.

She looked: in the reception room forgotten,

a cue reposed upon the billiard table;

upon a rumpled sofa lay

12 a riding crop. Tanya went on.

The old crone said to her: “And here’s the fireplace;

here master used to sit alone.

XVIII

“Here in the winter the late Lenski,

our neighbor, used to dine with him.

This way, please, follow me.

4 This was the master’s study;

he used to sleep here, take his coffee, listen

to the steward’s reports,

and in the morning read a book….

8 And the old master lived here too;

on Sundays, at this window here,

time was, donning his spectacles,

he’d deign to play ‘tomfools’ with me.

12 God grant salvation to his soul

and peace to his dear bones

in the grave, in damp mother earth!”

XIX

Tatiana looks with melting gaze

at everything around her,

and all to her seems priceless,

4 all quickens her languorous soul

with a half-painful joyance:

the desk with its extinguished lamp,

a pile of books, and at the window

8 a carpet-covered bed, and from the window

the prospect through the lunar gloom,

and this pale half-light, and Lord Byron’s portrait,

and a small column

12 with a cast-iron statuette

with clouded brow under a hat,

with arms crosswise compressed.

XX

Tatiana in the modish cell

stands long as one bewitched.

But it is late. A cold wind has arisen.

4 It’s dark in the dale. The grove sleeps

above the misted river;

the moon has hid behind the hill,

and it is time, high time,

8 that the young pilgrimess went home;

and Tanya, hiding her excitement,

and not without a sigh,

starts out on her way back;

12 but first she asks permission

to visit the deserted castle

so as to read books there alone.

XXI

Beyond the gate Tatiana parted

with the housekeeper. A day later,

early at morn this time, again she came

4 to the abandoned shelter,

and in the silent study, for a while

to all on earth oblivious, she

remained at last alone,

8 and long she wept.

Then to the books she turned.

At first she was not in a mood for them,

but their choice seemed to her

12 bizarre. Tatiana fell to reading

with avid soul; and there revealed itself

a different world to her.

XXII

Although we know that Eugene

had long ceased to like reading,

still, several works

4 he had exempted from disgrace:

the singer of the Giaour and Juan

and, with him, also two or three

novels in which the epoch is reflected

8 and modern man

rather correctly represented

with his immoral soul,

selfish and dry,

12 to dreaming measurelessly given,

with his embittered mind

boiling in empty action.

XXIII

Many pages preserved

the trenchant mark of fingernails;

the eyes of the attentive maiden

4 are fixed on them more eagerly.

Tatiana sees with trepidation

by what thought, observation

Onegin would be struck,

8 what he agreed with tacitly.

The dashes of his pencil she

encounters in their margins.

Unconsciously Onegin’s soul

12 has everywhere expressed itself —

now by a succinct word, now by a cross,

now by an interrogatory crotchet.

XXIV

And my Tatiana by degrees

begins to understand

more clearly now — thank God —

4 him for whom by imperious fate

she is sentenced to sigh.

A sad and dangerous eccentric,

creature of hell or heaven,

8 this angel, this proud fiend, what, then, is he?

Can it be, he’s an imitation,

an insignificant phantasm, or else

a Muscovite in Harold’s mantle,

12 a glossary of alien vagaries,

a complete lexicon of words in vogue?…

Might he not be, in fact, a parody?

XXV

Can she have solved the riddle?

Can “the word” have been found?

The hours run; she has forgotten

4 that she is long due home —

where two neighbors have got together,

and where the talk is about her.

“What should one do? Tatiana is no infant,”

8 quoth the old lady with a groan.

“Why, Olinka is younger…. It is time,

yea, yea, the maiden were established;

but then — what can I do with her?

12 She turns down everybody with the same

curt ‘I’ll not marry,’ and keeps brooding,

and wanders in the woods alone.”

XXVI

“Might she not be in love?” “With whom, then?

Buyánov offered: was rejected.

Same thing with Ivan Petushkóv.

4 There guested with us a hussar, Pïhtín;

oh my, how sweet he was on Tanya,

how he bestirred himself, the coax!

Thought I: perchance, she will accept;

8 far from it! And again the deal was off.”

“Why, my dear lady, what’s the hindrance?

To Moscow, to the mart of brides!

One hears, the vacant places there are many.”

12 “Och, my good sir! My income’s scanty.”

“Sufficient for a single winter;

if not, just borrow — say, from me.”

XXVII

Much did the old dame like

the sensible and sound advice;

she checked accounts — and there and then decided

4 in winter to set out for Moscow;

and Tanya hears this news….

Unto the judgment

of the exacting beau monde to present

8 the clear traits of provincial

simplicity, and antiquated finery,

and antiquated turns of speech;

the mocking glances

12 of Moscow fops and Circes to attract….

O terror! No, better and safer,

back in the woods for her to stay.

XXVIII

With the first rays arising

she hastens now into the fields

and, with soft-melting eyes

4 surveying them, she says:

“Farewell, pacific dales,

and you, familiar hilltops,

and you, familiar woods!

8 Farewell, celestial beauty,

farewell, glad nature!

I am exchanging a dear quiet world

for the hum of resplendent vanities!…

12 And you, my freedom, farewell, too!

Whither, wherefore, do I bear onward?

What does my fate hold out for me?”

XXIX

Her walks last longer.

At present, here a hillock, there a brook,

cannot help stopping

4 Tatiana with their charm.

She, as with ancient friends,

with her groves, meadows,

still hastens to converse.

8 But the fleet summer flies.

The golden autumn has arrived.

Nature, tremulous, pale,

is like a victim richly decked….

12 Now, driving clouds along, the North

has blown, has howled, and now herself

Winter the sorceress comes.

XXX

She came, scattered herself; in flocks

hung on the limbs of oaks;

in wavy carpets lay

4 amid the fields, about the hills;

the banks with the immobile river

made level with a puffy pall.

Frost gleamed. And we are gladdened

8 by Mother Winter’s pranks.

By them not gladdened is but Tanya’s heart:

she does not go to meet the winter,

inhale the frostdust,

12 and with the first snow from the bathhouse roof

wash face, shoulders, and breast.

Tatiana dreads the winter way.

XXXI

The day of leaving is long overdue;

the last term now goes by. Inspected,

relined, made solid is the sledded coach

4 that to oblivion had been cast.

The usual train of three kibitkas

carries the household chattels:

pans, chairs, trunks, jams in jars,

8 mattresses, feather beds,

cages with roosters, pots,

basins, et cetera —

well, plenty of all kinds of goods.

12 And now, among the servants in the log hut,

a hubbub rises, farewell weeping:

into the courtyard eighteen nags are led.

XXXII

They to the master coach are harnessed;

men cooks prepare lunch; the kibitkas

are loaded mountain-high;

4 serf women, coachmen brawl.

Upon a lean and shaggy jade a bearded

postilion sits. Retainers at the gate

have gathered, running,

8 to bid their mistresses farewell. And now

they’ve settled, and the venerable sleigh-coach

beyond the gate creeps, gliding.

“Farewell, pacific sites!

12 Farewell, secluded refuge!

Shall I see you?” And from the eyes

of Tanya flows a stream of tears.

XXXIII

When we the boundaries of beneficial

enlightenment move farther out,

in due time (by the computation

4 of philosophic tabulae,

in some five hundred years) roads, surely,

at home will change immeasurably.

Paved highways at this point and that

8 uniting Russia will traverse her;

cast-iron bridges o’er the waters

in ample arcs will stride;

we shall part mountains; under water

12 dig daring tunnels;

and Christendom will institute

at every stage a tavern.

XXXIV

The roads at home are bad at present;42

forgotten bridges rot;

at stages the bedbugs and fleas

4 do not give one a minute’s sleep.

No taverns. In a cold log hut

there hangs for show a highfalutin

but meager bill of fare, and teases

8 one’s futile appetite,

while the rural Cyclopes

in front of a slow fire

treat with a Russian hammer

12 Europe’s light article,

blessing the ruts

and ditches of the fatherland.

XXXV

Now, on the other hand, driving in winter’s

cold season is agreeable and easy.

As in a modish song a verse devoid of thought,

4 smooth is the winter track.

Alert are our Automedons,

our troikas never tire,

and mileposts, humoring the idle gaze,

8 before one’s eyes flick like a fence.43

Unluckily, Dame Larin dragged along,

fearing expensive stages,

with her own horses, not with posters,

12 and our maid tasted

viatic tedium in full:

they traveled seven days and nights.

XXXVI

But now ’tis near. Before them

the ancient tops of white-stone Moscow

already glow

4 with golden crosses, ember-bright.

Ah, chums, how pleased I was

when, all at once, the hemicircle

of churches and of belfries,

8 of gardens, domes, opened before me!

How often during woeful separation,

in my wandering fate,

Moscow, I thought of you!

12 Moscow!… How much within that sound

is blended for a Russian heart!

How much is echoed there!

XXXVII

Here is, surrounded by its park,

Petrovskiy Castle. Somberly

it prides itself on recent glory.

4 In vain Napoleon, intoxicated

with his last fortune, waited

for kneeling Moscow with the keys

of the old Kremlin: no,

8 to him my Moscow did not go

with craven brow;

not revelry, not gifts of bienvenue —

a conflagration she prepared

12 for the impatient hero.

From here, in meditation sunk,

he watched the formidable flame.

XXXVIII

Good-by, witness of fallen glory,

Petrovskiy Castle. Hup! Don’t stop,

get on! The turnpike posts already

4 show white. Along Tverskaya Street

the coach now hies across the dips.

There flicker by: watch boxes, peasant women,

urchins, shops, street lamps,

8 palaces, gardens, monasteries,

Bokharans, sledges, kitchen gardens,

merchants, small shacks, muzhiks,

boulevards, towers, Cossacks,

12 pharmacies, fashion shops,

balconies, lions on the gates,

and flocks of jackdaws on the crosses.

XL

In this exhausting promenade

an hour elapses, then another,

and in a lane hard by St. Chariton’s

4 the sleigh-coach at a gate before a house

now stops. To an old aunt,

for the fourth year ill with consumption,

at present they have come.

8 The door is opened wide for them

by a bespectacled gray Kalmuk,

in torn caftan, a stocking in his hand.

There meets them in the drawing room

12 the cry of the princess

on a divan prostrated. The old ladies,

weeping, embrace, and exclamations pour:

XLI

“Princess, mon ange!” “Pachette!” “Aline!”

“Who would have thought?” “How long it’s been!”

“For how much time?” “Dear! Cousin!”

4 “Sit down — how