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[XV] land sacred unto the imagination: there with Orestes argued Pylades; there Mithridates stabbed himself;¹² there sang inspired Mickiéwicz and in the midst of coastal cliffs recalled his Lithuania.[XVI] Beauteous are you, shores of the Tauris, when from the ship one sees you by the light of morning Cypris, as I saw you ⁴ for the first time. You showed yourselves to me in nuptial splendor. Against a blue and limpid sky shone the amassments of your mountains. ⁸ The pattern of valleys, trees, villages was spread before me. And there, among the small huts of the Tatars... What ardency awoke in me!¹² With what magical yearnfulness my flaming bosom was compressed! But, Muse, forget the past![XVII] Whatever feelings then lay hidden within me — now they are no more: they went or changed.... ⁴ Peace unto you, turmoils of former years! To me seemed needful at the time deserts, the pearly rims of waves, and the sea's rote, and piles of rocks, ⁸ and the ideal of “proud maid,” and nameless pangs. Other days, other dreams; you have become subdued,¹² my springtime's high-flung fancies, and unto my poetic goblet I have admixed a lot of water.[XVIII] Needful to me are other pictures: I like a sandy hillside slope, before a small isba two rowans, ⁴ a wicket gate, a broken fence, up in the sky gray clouds, before the thrash barn heaps of straw, and in the shelter of dense willows ⁸ a pond — the franchise of young ducks. I'm fond now of the balalaika and of the trepak's drunken stomping before the threshold of the tavern;¹² now my ideal is a housewife, my wishes, peace and “pot of shchi but big myself.”[XIX] The other day, during a rainy spell, as I had dropped into the cattle yard — Fie! Prosy divagations, ⁴ the Flemish School's variegated dross! Was I like that when I was blooming? Say, Fountain of Bahchisaray! Were such the thoughts that to my mind ⁸ your endless purl suggested when silently in front of you Zaréma I imagined?... Midst the sumptuous deserted halls¹² after the lapse of three years, in my tracks in the same region wandering, Onegin remembered me.[XX] I lived then in dusty Odessa.... There for a long time skies are clear. There, stirring, an abundant trade ⁴ sets up its sails. There all exhales, diffuses Europe, all glitters with the South, and brindles with live variety. ⁸ The tongue of golden Italy resounds along the gay street where walks the proud Slav, Frenchman, Spaniard, Armenian,¹² and Greek, and the heavy Moldavian, and the son of Egyptian soil, the retired Corsair, Moralí.[XXI] Odessa in sonorous verses our friend Tumanski has described, but at the time with partial eyes ⁴ he gazed at it. Upon arriving, he, like a true poet, went off to roam with his lorgnette alone above the sea; and then ⁸ with an enchanting pen he glorified the gardens of Odessa. All right — but there, in point of fact, is a bare steppe around;¹² in a few places recent labor has forced young boughs on sultry days to give compulsory shade.[XXII] But where, pray, was my rambling tale? “In dusty Odessa,” I had said. I might have said “in muddy ⁴ Odessa” — and indeed would not have lied there either. For five-six weeks a year Odessa, by the will of stormy Zeus, is flooded, is stopped up, ⁸ is in thick mud immersed. Some two feet deep all houses are embedded. Only on stilts does a pedestrian dare ford the street. Chariots and people¹² sink in, get stuck; and hitched to droshkies the ox, horns bent, replaces the debile steed.[XXIII] But the sledge-hammer breaks up stones already, and with a ringing pavement soon the salvaged city will be covered ⁴ as with an armor of forged steel. However, in this moist Odessa there is another grave deficiency, of — what would you think? Water. ⁸ Grievous exertions are required.... So what? This is not a great sorrow! Particularly since wine is imported free of duty.¹² But then the Southern sun, but then the sea... What more, friends, could you want? Blest climes![XXIV] Time was, no sooner did the sunrise gun roar from the ship than, down the steep shore running, ⁴ I would be on my way toward the sea. Then, sitting with a glowing pipe, enlivened by the briny wave, like in his paradise a Moslem, coffee ⁸ with Oriental grounds I quaff. I go out for a stroll. Already the benevolent Casino's open: the clatter of cups resounds there; on the balcony¹² the marker, half asleep, emerges with a broom in his hands, and at the porch two merchants have converged already.[XXV] Anon the square grows freaked [with people]. All is alive now; here and there they run, on business or not busy; ⁴ however, more on businesses. The child of Calculation and of Venture, the merchant goes to glance at ensigns, to find out — are the skies ⁸ sending to him known sails? What new wares have entered today in quarantine? Have the casks of expected wines arrived?^12> And how's the plague, and where the conflagrations, and is not there some famine, war, or novelty of a like kind?[XXVI] But we, fellows without a sorrow, among the careful merchants, expected only oysters ⁴ from Tsargrad's shores. What news of oysters? They have come. O glee! Off flies gluttonous juventy to swallow from their sea shells ⁸ the plump, live cloisterers, slightly asperged with lemon. Noise, arguments; light wine onto the table from the cellars¹² by complaisant Automne[2] is brought. The hours fly by, and the grim bill meantime invisibly augments.[XXVII] But the blue evening grows already darker. Time to the opera we sped: there 'tis the ravishing Rossini, ⁴ darling of Europe, Orpheus. To severe criticism not harking, he is ever selfsame, ever new; he pours out melodies, they effervesce, ⁸ they flow, they burn like youthful kisses, all in mollitude, in flames of love, like the stream and the golden spurtles of Ay¹² starting to fizz; but, gentlemen, is it permitted to compare do-re-mi-sol to wine?[XXVIII] And does that sum up the enchantments there? And what about the explorative lorgnette? And the assignments in the wings? ⁴ The prima donna? The ballet? And the loge where, in beauty shining, a trader's young wife, vain and languorous, ⁸ is by a crowd of thralls surrounded? She lists and does not list the cavatina, the entreaties, the banter blent halfwise with flattery,¹² while in a corner naps behind her her husband; wakes up to cry “Fuora!”; yawns, and snores again.[XXIX] There thunders the finale. The house empties; with noise the outfall hastes; the crowd onto the square ⁴ runs by the gleam of lamps and stars. The sons of fortunate Ausonia hum a playful tune involuntarily retained — ⁸ while we roar the recitative. But it is late. Sleeps quietly Odessa; and breathless and warm is the mute night. The moon has risen,¹² a veil, diaphanously light, enfolds the sky. All's silent; only the Black Sea sounds.[XXX] And so I lived then in Odessa.

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