Eugene Onegin. A Romance of Russian Life in Verse

Than cold Oneguine's oddities,

The aspect of a landscape drear.

Or e'en Istomina, my dear,

And fashion's gay frivolities;

But my Tattiana, on my soul,

Is sweeter than thy Helen foul.

XXXVIII

No one the contrary will urge,

Though for his Helen Menelaus

Again a century should scourge

Us, and like Trojan warriors slay us;

Though around honoured Priam's throne

Troy's sages should in concert own

Once more, when she appeared in sight,

Paris and Menelaus right.

But as to fighting—'twill appear!

For patience, reader, I must plead!

A little farther please to read

And be not in advance severe.

There'll be a fight. I do not lie.

My word of honour given have I.

XXXIX

The tea, as I remarked, appeared,

But scarce had maids their saucers ta'en

When in the grand saloon was heard

Of bassoons and of flutes the strain.

His soul by crash of music fired,

His tea with rum no more desired,

The Paris of those country parts

To Olga Petoushkova darts:

To Tania Lenski; Kharlikova,

A marriageable maid matured,

The poet from Tamboff secured,

Bouyanoff whisked off Poustiakova.

All to the grand saloon are gone—

The ball in all its splendour shone.

XL

I tried when I began this tale,

(See the first canto if ye will),

A ball in Peter's capital,

To sketch ye in Albano's style.(60)

But by fantastic dreams distraught,

My memory wandered wide and sought

The feet of my dear lady friends.

O feet, where'er your path extends

I long enough deceived have erred.

The perfidies I recollect

Should make me much more circumspect,

Reform me both in deed and word,

And this fifth canto ought to be

From such digressions wholly free.

[Note 60: Francesco Albano, a celebrated painter, styled the "Anacreon of Painting," was born at Bologna 1578, and died in the year 1666.]

XLI

The whirlwind of the waltz sweeps by,

Undeviating and insane

As giddy youth's hilarity—

Pair after pair the race sustain.

The moment for revenge, meanwhile,

Espying, Eugene with a smile

Approaches Olga and the pair

Amid the company career.

Soon the maid on a chair he seats,

Begins to talk of this and that,

But when two minutes she had sat,

Again the giddy waltz repeats.

All are amazed; but Lenski he

Scarce credits what his eyes can see.

XLII

Hark! the mazurka. In times past,

When the mazurka used to peal,

All rattled in the ball-room vast,

The parquet cracked beneath the heel,

And jolting jarred the window-frames.

'Tis not so now. Like gentle dames

We glide along a floor of wax.

However, the mazurka lacks

Nought of its charms original

In country towns, where still it keeps

Its stamping, capers and high leaps.

Fashion is there immutable,

Who tyrannizes us with ease,

Of modern Russians the disease.

XLIII

Bouyanoff, wrathful cousin mine,

Unto the hero of this lay

Olga and Tania led. Malign,

Oneguine Olga bore away.

Gliding in negligent career,

He bending whispered in her ear

Some madrigal not worth a rush,

And pressed her hand—the crimson blush

Upon her cheek by adulation

Grew brighter still. But Lenski hath

Seen all, beside himself with wrath,

And hot with jealous indignation,

Till the mazurka's close he stays,

Her hand for the cotillon prays.

XLIV

She fears she cannot.—Cannot? Why?—

She promised Eugene, or she would

With great delight.—O God on high!

Heard he the truth? And thus she could—

And can it be? But late a child

And now a fickle flirt and wild,

Cunning already to display

And well-instructed to betray!

Lenski the stroke could not sustain,

At womankind he growled a curse,

Departed, ordered out his horse

And galloped home. But pistols twain,

A pair of bullets—nought beside—

His fate shall presently decide.

END OF CANTO THE FIFTH

CANTO THE SIXTH

The Duel

'La, sotto giorni nubilosi e brevi,

Nasce una gente a cui 'l morir non duole.'

                                   Petrarch

Canto The Sixth

[Mikhailovskoe, 1826: the two final stanzas were, however, written at Moscow.]

I

Having remarked Vladimir's flight,

Oneguine, bored to death again,

By Olga stood, dejected quite

And satisfied with vengeance ta'en.

Olga began to long likewise

For Lenski, sought him with her eyes,

And endless the cotillon seemed

As if some troubled dream she dreamed.

'Tis done. To supper they proceed.

Bedding is laid out and to all

Assigned a lodging, from the hall(61)

Up to the attic, and all need

Tranquil repose. Eugene alone

To pass the night at home hath gone.

[Note 61: Hospitality is a national virtue of the Russians. On festal occasions in the country the whole party is usually accommodated for the night, or indeed for as many nights as desired, within the house of the entertainer. This of course is rendered necessary by the great distances which separate the residences of the gentry. Still, the alacrity with which a Russian hostess will turn her house topsy-turvy for the accommodation of forty or fifty guests would somewhat astonish the mistress of a modern Belgravian mansion.]

II

All slumber. In the drawing-room

Loud snores the cumbrous Poustiakoff

With better half as cumbersome;

Gvozdine, Bouyanoff, Petoushkoff

And Flianoff, somewhat indisposed,

On chairs in the saloon reposed,

Whilst on the floor Monsieur Triquet