Eugene Onegin. A Romance of Russian Life in Verse

And had with waddling in the end

Her caps and night-dresses to mend.

XXXIV

As for her spouse he loved her dearly,

In her affairs ne'er interfered,

Entrusted all to her sincerely,

In dressing-gown at meals appeared.

Existence calmly sped along,

And oft at eventide a throng

Of friends unceremonious would

Assemble from the neighbourhood:

They growl a bit—they scandalise—

They crack a feeble joke and smile—

Thus the time passes and meanwhile

Olga the tea must supervise—

'Tis time for supper, now for bed,

And soon the friendly troop hath fled.

XXXV

They in a peaceful life preserved

Customs by ages sanctified,

Strictly the Carnival observed,

Ate Russian pancakes at Shrovetide,

Twice in the year to fast were bound,

Of whirligigs were very fond,

Of Christmas carols, song and dance;

When people with long countenance

On Trinity Sunday yawned at prayer,

Three tears they dropt with humble mein

Upon a bunch of lovage green;

Kvass needful was to them as air;

On guests their servants used to wait

By rank as settled by the State.(27)

[Note 27: The foregoing stanza requires explanation. Russian pancakes or "blinni" are consumed vigorously by the lower orders during the Carnival. At other times it is difficult to procure them, at any rate in the large towns.

The Russian peasants are childishly fond of whirligigs, which are also much in vogue during the Carnival.

"Christmas Carols" is not an exact equivalent for the Russian phrase. "Podbliudni pessni," are literally "dish songs," or songs used with dishes (of water) during the "sviatki" or Holy Nights, which extend from Christmas to Twelfth Night, for purposes of divination. Reference will again be made to this superstitious practice, which is not confined to Russia. See Note 52.

"Song and dance," the well-known "khorovod," in which the dance proceeds to vocal music.

"Lovage," the Levisticum officinalis, is a hardy plant growing very far north, though an inhabitant of our own kitchen gardens. The passage containing the reference to the three tears and Trinity Sunday was at first deemed irreligious by the Russian censors, and consequently expunged.

Kvass is of various sorts: there is the common kvass of fermented rye used by the peasantry, and the more expensive kvass of the restaurants, iced and flavoured with various fruits.

The final two lines refer to the "Tchin," or Russian social hierarchy. There are fourteen grades in the Tchin assigning relative rank and precedence to the members of the various departments of the State, civil, military, naval, court, scientific and educational. The military and naval grades from the 14th up to the 7th confer personal nobility only, whilst above the 7th hereditary rank is acquired. In the remaining departments, civil or otherwise, personal nobility is only attained with the 9th grade, hereditary with the 4th.]

XXXVI

Thus age approached, the common doom,

And death before the husband wide

Opened the portals of the tomb

And a new diadem supplied.(28)

Just before dinner-time he slept,

By neighbouring families bewept,

By children and by faithful wife

With deeper woe than others' grief.

He was an honest gentleman,

And where at last his bones repose

The epitaph on marble shows:

Demetrius Larine, sinful man,

Servant of God and brigadier,

Enjoyeth peaceful slumber here.

[Note 28: A play upon the word "venetz," crown, which also signifies a nimbus or glory, and is the symbol of marriage from the fact of two gilt crowns being held over the heads of the bride and bridegroom during the ceremony. The literal meaning of the passage is therefore: his earthly marriage was dissolved and a heavenly one was contracted.]

XXXVII

To his Penates now returned,

Vladimir Lenski visited

His neighbour's lowly tomb and mourned

Above the ashes of the dead.

There long time sad at heart he stayed:

"Poor Yorick," mournfully he said,

"How often in thine arms I lay;

How with thy medal I would play,

The Medal Otchakoff conferred!(29)

To me he would his Olga give,

Would whisper: shall I so long live?"—

And by a genuine sorrow stirred,

Lenski his pencil-case took out

And an elegiac poem wrote.

[Note 29: The fortress of Otchakoff was taken by storm on the 18th December 1788 by a Russian army under Prince Potemkin. Thirty thousand Turks are said to have perished during the assault and ensuing massacre.]

XXXVIII

Likewise an epitaph with tears

He writes upon his parents' tomb,

And thus ancestral dust reveres.

Oh! on the fields of life how bloom

Harvests of souls unceasingly

By Providence's dark decree!

They blossom, ripen and they fall

And others rise ephemeral!

Thus our light race grows up and lives,

A moment effervescing stirs,

Then seeks ancestral sepulchres,

The appointed hour arrives, arrives!

And our successors soon shall drive

Us from the world wherein we live.

XXXIX

Meantime, drink deeply of the flow

Of frivolous existence, friends;

Its insignificance I know

And care but little for its ends.