Eugene Onegin. A Romance of Russian Life in Verse

He whom we sing to shall be made

Happy and glorious. But this brings

With sad refrain misfortune near.

Girls the kashourka much prefer.(52)

[Note 52: During the "sviatki" it is a common custom for the girls to assemble around a table on which is placed a dish or basin of water which contains a ring. Each in her turn extracts the ring from the basin whilst the remainder sing in chorus the "podbliudni pessni," or "dish songs" before mentioned. These are popularly supposed to indicate the fortunes of the immediate holder of the ring. The first-named lines foreshadow death; the latter, the "kashourka," or "kitten song," indicates approaching marriage. It commences thus: "The cat asked the kitten to sleep on the stove."]

IX

Frosty the night; the heavens shone;

The wondrous host of heavenly spheres

Sailed silently in unison—

Tattiana in the yard appears

In a half-open dressing-gown

And bends her mirror on the moon,

But trembling on the mirror dark

The sad moon only could remark.

List! the snow crunches—he draws nigh!

The girl on tiptoe forward bounds

And her voice sweeter than the sounds

Of clarinet or flute doth cry:

"What is your name?" The boor looked dazed,

And "Agathon" replied, amazed.(53)

[Note 53: The superstition is that the name of the future husband may thus be discovered.]

X

Tattiana (nurse the project planned)

By night prepared for sorcery,

And in the bathroom did command

To lay two covers secretly.

But sudden fear assailed Tattiana,

And I, remembering Svetlana,(54)

Become alarmed. So never mind!

I'm not for witchcraft now inclined.

So she her silken sash unlaced,

Undressed herself and went to bed

And soon Lel hovered o'er her head.(55)

Beneath her downy pillow placed,

A little virgin mirror peeps.

'Tis silent all. Tattiana sleeps.

[Note 54: See Note 30.]

[Note 55: Lel, in Slavonic mythology, corresponds to the Morpheus of the Latins. The word is evidently connected with the verb "leleyat" to fondle or soothe, likewise with our own word "to lull."]

XI

A dreadful sleep Tattiana sleeps.

She dreamt she journeyed o'er a field

All covered up with snow in heaps,

By melancholy fogs concealed.

Amid the snowdrifts which surround

A stream, by winter's ice unbound,

Impetuously clove its way

With boiling torrent dark and gray;

Two poles together glued by ice,

A fragile bridge and insecure,

Spanned the unbridled torrent o'er;

Beside the thundering abyss

Tattiana in despair unfeigned

Rooted unto the spot remained.

XII

As if against obstruction sore

Tattiana o'er the stream complained;

To help her to the other shore

No one appeared to lend a hand.

But suddenly a snowdrift stirs,

And what from its recess appears?

A bristly bear of monstrous size!

He roars, and "Ah!" Tattiana cries.

He offers her his murderous paw;

She nerves herself from her alarm

And leans upon the monster's arm,

With footsteps tremulous with awe

Passes the torrent But alack!

Bruin is marching at her back!

XIII

She, to turn back her eyes afraid,

Accelerates her hasty pace,

But cannot anyhow evade

Her shaggy myrmidon in chase.

The bear rolls on with many a grunt:

A forest now she sees in front

With fir-trees standing motionless

In melancholy loveliness,

Their branches by the snow bowed down.

Through aspens, limes and birches bare,

The shining orbs of night appear;

There is no path; the storm hath strewn

Both bush and brake, ravine and steep,

And all in snow is buried deep.

XIV

The wood she enters—bear behind,—

In snow she sinks up to the knee;

Now a long branch itself entwined

Around her neck, now violently

Away her golden earrings tore;

Now the sweet little shoes she wore,

Grown clammy, stick fast in the snow;

Her handkerchief she loses now;

No time to pick it up! afraid,

She hears the bear behind her press,

Nor dares the skirting of her dress

For shame lift up the modest maid.

She runs, the bear upon her trail,

Until her powers of running fail.

XV

She sank upon the snow. But Bruin

Adroitly seized and carried her;

Submissive as if in a swoon,

She cannot draw a breath or stir.

He dragged her by a forest road

Till amid trees a hovel showed,

By barren snow heaped up and bound,

A tangled wilderness around.

Bright blazed the window of the place,

Within resounded shriek and shout:

"My chum lives here," Bruin grunts out.

"Warm yourself here a little space!"

Straight for the entrance then he made

And her upon the threshold laid.

XVI

Recovering, Tania gazes round;

Bear gone—she at the threshold placed;

Inside clink glasses, cries resound

As if it were some funeral feast.

But deeming all this nonsense pure,

She peeped through a chink of the door.

What doth she see? Around the board

Sit many monstrous shapes abhorred.

A canine face with horns thereon,

Another with cock's head appeared,

Here an old witch with hirsute beard,

There an imperious skeleton;

A dwarf adorned with tail, again

A shape half cat and half a crane.

XVII

Yet ghastlier, yet more wonderful,

A crab upon a spider rides,

Perched on a goose's neck a skull

In scarlet cap revolving glides.

A windmill too a jig performs