brooded,

12 raised to the moon a dying eye,

dreaming that someday she might make

with him life’s humble journey!

XXIX

All ages are to love submissive;

but to young virgin hearts

its impulses are beneficial

4 as are spring storms to fields.

They freshen in the rain of passions,

and renovate themselves, and ripen,

and vigorous life gives

8 both rich bloom and sweet fruit.

But at a late and barren age,

at the turn of our years,

sad is the trace of a dead passion….

12 Thus storms of the cold autumn

into a marsh transform the meadow

and strip the woods around.

XXX

There is no doubt: alas! Eugene

in love is with Tatiana like a child.

In throes of amorous designs

4 he spends both day and night.

Not harking to the mind’s stern protests,

up to her porch, glass vestibule,

daily he drives.

8 He chases like a shadow after her;

he’s happy if he casts

the fluffy boa on her shoulders,

or touches torridly

12 her hand, or if he parts in front of her

the motley host of liveries, or picks up

her handkerchief.

XXXI

She does not notice him,

no matter how he strives — even to death;

receives him freely at her house; at those

4 of others says two or three words to him;

sometimes welcomes with a mere bow,

sometimes does not take any notice:

there’s not a drop of coquetry in her,

8 the high world does not tolerate it.

Onegin is beginning to grow pale;

she does not see or does not care;

Onegin wastes away:

12 he’s practically phthisical.

All send Onegin to physicians;

in chorus these send him to spas.

XXXII

Yet he’s not going. He beforehand

is ready to his forefathers to write

of an impending meeting; yet Tatiana

4 cares not one bit (such is their sex).

But he is stubborn, won’t desist,

still hopes, bestirs himself;

a sick man bolder than one hale,

8 he with a weak hand to the princess

writes an impassioned missive.

Though generally little sense in letters

he saw, not without reason;

12 but evidently torment of the heart

had now passed his endurance.

Here you have his letter word for word.

Onegin’S Letter To Tatiana

I foresee everything: the explanation

of a sad secret will offend you.

What bitter scorn

4 your proud glance will express!

What do I want? What is my object

in opening my soul to you?

What wicked merriment

8 perhaps I give occasion to!

Chancing to meet you once,

noting in you a spark of tenderness,

I did not venture to believe in it:

12 did not give way to a sweet habit;

my tedious freedom

I did not wish to lose. Another thing

yet separated us:

16 a hapless victim Lenski fell.

From all that to the heart is dear

then did I tear my heart away;

alien to everybody, tied by nothing,

20 I thought: liberty and peace are

a substitute for happiness. Good God!

How wrong I was, how I am punished!

No — every minute to see you; to follow

24 you everywhere;

the smile of your lips, movement of your eyes,

to try to capture with enamored eyes;

to listen long to you, to comprehend

28 all your perfection with one’s soul;

to melt in agonies before you,

grow pale and waste away… that’s rapture!

And I’m deprived of that; for you

32 I drag myself at random everywhere;

to me each day is dear, each hour is dear,

while I in futile dullness squander

the days told off by fate — they are

36 sufficiently oppressive anyway.

I know: my span is well-nigh measured;

but that my life may be prolonged

I must be certain in the morning

40 of seeing you during the day.

I fear: in my meek plea

your severe gaze will see

the schemes of despicable cunning —

44 and I can hear your wrathful censure.

If you hut knew how terrible it is

to languish with the thirst of love,

burn — and by means of reason hourly

48 subdue the tumult in one’s blood;

wish to embrace your knees

and, in a burst of sobbing, at your feet

pour out appeals, avowals, plaints,

52 all, all I could express,

and in the meantime with feigned coldness

arm speech and gaze,

maintain a placid conversation,

56 glance at you with a cheerful glance!…

But let it be: against myself

I’ve not the force to struggle any more;

all is decided: I am in your power,

60 and I surrender to my fate.

XXXIII

There is no answer. He sends a new missive.

To the second, to the third letter —

there is no answer. He drives out to some

4 reception. Hardly has he entered — there she is

coming in his direction. How severe!

He is not seen, to him no word is said.

Ugh! How surrounded she is now

8 with Twelfthtide cold!

How anxious are to hold back indignation

her stubborn lips!

Onegin peers with a keen eye:

12 where, where are discomposure, sympathy,

where the tearstains? None, none!

There’s on that face but the imprint of wrath…

XXXIV

plus, possibly, a secret fear

lest husband or monde guess

the escapade, the casual foible,

4 all my Onegin knows….

There is no hope! He drives away,

curses his folly —

and, deeply plunged in it,

8 the monde he once again renounces

and in his silent study comes to him

the recollection of the time

when cruel chondria

12 pursued him in the noisy monde,

captured him, took him by the collar,

and shut him up in a dark hole.

XXXV

Again, without discrimination,

he started reading. He read Gibbon,

Rousseau, Manzoni, Herder,

4 Chamfort, Mme de Staël, Bichat, Tissot.

He read the skeptic Bayle,

he read the works of Fontenelle,

he read some [authors] of our own,

8 without rejecting anything —

the “almanacs” and the reviews

where sermons into us are drummed,

where I’m today abused so much

12 but where such madrigals addressed tome

I used to meet with now and then:

e sempre bene, gentlemen.

XXXVI

And lo — his eyes were reading, but his thoughts

were far away;

chimeras, desires, sorrows

4 kept crowding deep into his soul.

Between the printed lines

he with spiritual eyes

read other lines. It was in them

8 that he was utterly absorbed.

These were the secret legends of the heart’s

dark ancientry;

dreams unconnected

12 with anything; threats, rumors, presages;

or the live tosh of a long tale,

or a young maiden’s letters.

XXXVII

And by degrees into a lethargy

of feelings and of thoughts he falls,

while before him Imagination

4 deals out her motley faro deck.

Now he sees: on the melted snow,

as at a night’s encampment sleeping,

stirless, a youth lies; and he hears

8 a voice: “Well, what — he’s dead!”

Now he sees foes forgotten,

calumniators, and malicious cowards,

and a swarm of young traitresses,

12 and a circle of despicable comrades;

and now a country house, and by the window

sits she… and ever she!

XXXVIII

He grew so used to lose himself in this

that he almost went off his head

or else became a poet. (Frankly,

4 that would have been a boon, indeed!)

And true: by dint of magnetism,

the mechanism of Russian verses

my addleheaded pupil

8 at that time nearly grasped.

How much a poet he resembled

when in a corner he would sit alone,

and the hearth blazed in front of him,

12 and he hummed “Benedetta”

or “Idol mio,” and into the fire

dropped now a slipper, now his magazine!

XXXIX

Days rushed. In warmth-pervaded air

winter already was resolving;

and he did not become a poet,

4 he did not die, did not go mad.

Spring quickens him: for the first time

his close-shut chambers, where he had

been hibernating like a marmot,

8 his double windows, inglenook —

he leaves on a bright morning,

he fleets in sleigh along the Neva’s bank.

Upon blue blocks of hewn-out ice

12 the sun plays. In the streets

the furrowed snow thaws muddily:

whither, upon it, his fast course

XL

directs Onegin? You beforehand

have guessed already. Yes, exactly:

apace to her, to his Tatiana,

4 my unreformed eccentric comes.

He walks in, looking like a corpse.

There’s not a soul in the front hall.

He enters the reception room. On! No one.

8 A door he opens…. What is it

that strikes him with such force?

The princess before him, alone,

sits, unadorned, pale, reading

12 some kind of letter,

and softly sheds a flood of tears,

her cheek propped on her hand.

XLI

Ah! Her mute sufferings —

in this swift instant who would not have read!

Who would not have the former Tanya,

4 poor Tanya, recognized now in the princess?

In throes of mad regrets,

Eugene falls at her feet;

she gives a start,

8 and is silent, and looks,

without surprise, without wrath, at Onegin….

His sick, extinguished gaze,

imploring aspect, mute reproof,

12 she takes in everything. The simple maid,

with the dreams, with the heart of former days

again in her has resurrected now.

XLII

She does not bid him rise

and, not taking her eyes off him,

does not withdraw

4 her limp hand from his avid lips….

What is her dreaming now about?

A lengthy silence passes,

and finally she, softly:

8 “Enough; get up. I must

frankly explain myself to you.

Onegin, do you recollect that hour

when in the garden, in the avenue, fate brought us

12 together and so meekly

your lesson I heard out.

Today it is my turn.

XLIII

“Onegin, I was younger then,

I was, I daresay, better-looking,

and I loved you; and what then, what

4 did I find in your heart?

What answer? Mere severity.

There wasn’t — was there? — novelty for you

in a meek little maiden’s love?

8 Even today — good heavens! — my blood freezes

as soon as I remember

your cold glance and that sermon…. But I do not

accuse you; at that awful hour

12 you acted nobly,

you in regard to me were right,

to you with all my soul I’m grateful….

XLIV

“Then — is it not so? — in the wilderness,

far from vain Hearsay,

I was not to your liking…. Why, then, now

4 do you pursue me?

Why have you marked me out?

Might it not be because I must

now move in the grand monde;

8 because I have both wealth and rank;

because my husband has been maimed in battles;

because for that the Court is kind to us?

Might it not be because my disrepute

12 would be remarked by everybody now

and in society might bring you

scandalous honor?

XLV

“I’m crying…. If your Tanya

you’ve not forgotten yet,

then know: the sharpness of your blame,

4 cold, stern discourse,

if it were only in my power

I’d have preferred to an offensive passion,

and to these letters and tears.

8 For my infantine dreams

you had at least some pity then,

at least consideration for my age.

But now!… What to my feet

12 has brought you? What a trifle!

How, with your heart and mind,

be the slave of a trivial feeling?

XLVI

“But as to me, Onegin, this magnificence,

a wearisome life’s tinsel, my successes

in the world’s vortex,

4