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A.S.Pushkin. - Eugene Onegin (tr.Ch.Johnston) - Chapter Five

Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven

O, never know these frightful dreams,
thou, my Svetlana!
Zhukovsky

That year the season was belated
and autumn lingered, long and slow;
expecting winter, nature waited --
only in January the snow,
night of the second, started flaking.
Next day Tatyana, early waking,
saw through the window, morning-bright,
roofs, flowerbeds, fences, all in white,
panes patterned by the finest printer,
with trees decked in their silvery kit,
and jolly magpies on the flit,
and hills that delicately winter
had with its brilliant mantle crowned --
and glittering whiteness all around.
{132}

Winter!... The countryman, enchanted,
breaks a new passage with his sleigh;
his nag has smelt the snow, and planted
a shambling hoof along the way;
a saucy kibítka is slicing
its furrow through the powdery icing;
the driver sits and cuts a dash
in sheepskin coat with scarlet sash.
Here comes the yard-boy, who has chosen
his pup to grace the sledge, while he
becomes a horse for all to see;
the rogue has got a finger frozen:
it hurts, he laughs, and all in vain
his mother taps the window-pane.

III

But you perhaps find no attraction
in any picture of this kind:
for nature's unadorned reaction
has something low and unrefined.
Fired by the god of inspiration,
another bard1 in exaltation
has painted for us the first snow
with each nuance of wintry glow:
he'll charm you with his fine invention,
he'll take you prisoner, you'll admire
secret sledge-rides in verse of fire;
but I've not got the least intention
just now of wrestling with his shade,
nor his,2 who sings of Finland's maid.
{133}

Tanya (profoundly Russian being,
herself not knowing how or why)
in Russian winters thrilled at seeing
the cold perfection of the sky,
hoar-frost and sun in freezing weather,
sledges, and tardy dawns together
with the pink glow the snows assume
and festal evenings in the gloom.
The Larins kept the old tradition:
maid-servants from the whole estate
would on those evenings guess the fate
of the two girls; their premonition
pointed each year, for time to come,
at soldier-husbands, and the drum.

Tatyana shared with full conviction
the simple faith of olden days
in dreams and cards and their prediction,
and portents of the lunar phase.
Omens dismayed her with their presage;
each object held a secret message
for her instruction, and her breast
was by forebodings much oppressed.
The tomcat, mannered and affected,
that sat above the stove and purred
and washed its face, to her brought word
that visitors must be expected.
If suddenly aloft she spied
the new moon, horned, on her left side,
{134}

her face would pale, she'd start to quiver.
In the dark sky, a shooting star
that fell, and then began to shiver,
would fill Tatyana from afar
with perturbation and with worry;
and while the star still flew, she'd hurry
to whisper it her inmost prayer.
And if she happened anywhere
to meet a black monk, or if crossing
her path a hare in headlong flight
ran through the fields, sheer panic fright
would leave her dithering and tossing.
By dire presentiment awestruck,
already she'd assume ill-luck.

VII

Yet -- fear itself she found presented
a hidden beauty in the end:
our disposition being invented
by nature, contradiction's friend.
Christmas came on. What joy, what gladness!
Yes, youth divines, in giddy madness,
youth which has nothing to regret,
before which life's horizon yet
lies bright, and vast beyond perceiving;
spectacled age divines as well,
although it's nearly heard the knell,
and all is lost beyond retrieving;
no matter: hope, in child's disguise,
is there to lisp its pack of lies.
{135}

VIII

Tatyana looks with pulses racing
at sunken wax inside a bowl:
beyond a doubt, its wondrous tracing
foretells for her some wondrous role;
from dish of water, rings are shifted
in due succession; hers is lifted
and at the very self-same time
the girls sing out the ancient rhyme:
``The peasants there have wealth abounding,
they heap up silver with a spade;
and those we sing for will be paid
in goods and fame!'' But the sad-sounding
ditty portends a loss; more dear
is ``Kit''3 to every maiden's ear.

The sky is clear, the earth is frozen;
the heavenly lights in glorious quire
tread the calm, settled path they've chosen...
Tatyana in low-cut attire
goes out into the courtyard spaces
and trains a mirror till it faces
the moon; but in the darkened glass
the only face to shake and pass
is sad old moon's... Hark! snow is creaking...
a passer-by; and on tiptoe
she flies as fast as she can go;
and ``what's your name?'' she asks him, speaking
in a melodious, flute-like tone.
He looks, and answers: ``Agafon.''4
{136}

Prepared for prophecy and fable,
she did what nurse advised she do
and in the bath-house had a table
that night, in secret, set for two;
then sudden fear attacked Tatyana...
I too -- when I recall Svetlana5
I'm terrified -- so let it be...
Tatyana's rites are not for me.
She's dropped her sash's silken billow;
Tanya's undressed, and lies in bed.
Lel6 floats about above her head;
and underneath her downy pillow
a young girl's looking-glass is kept.
Now all was still. Tatyana slept.

She dreamt of portents. In her dreaming
she walked across a snowy plain
through gloom and mist; and there came streaming
a furious, boiling, heaving main
across the drift-encumbered acres,
a raging torrent, capped with breakers,
a flood on which no frosty band
had been imposed by winter's hand;
two poles that ice had glued like plaster
were placed across the gulf to make
a flimsy bridge whose every quake
spelt hazard, ruin and disaster;
she stopped at the loud torrent's bound,
perplexed... and rooted to the ground.
{137}

XII

As if before some mournful parting
Tatyana groaned above the tide;
she saw no friendly figure starting
to help her from the other side;
but suddenly a snowdrift rumbled,
and what came out? a hairy, tumbled,
enormous bear; Tatyana yelled,
the bear let out a roar, and held
a sharp-nailed paw towards her; bracing
her nerves, she leant on it her weight,
and with a halting, trembling gait
above the water started tracing
her way; she passed, then as she walked
the bear -- what next? -- behind her stalked.

XIII

A backward look is fraught with danger;
she speeds her footsteps to a race,
but from her shaggy-liveried ranger
she can't escape at any pace --
the odious bear still grunts and lumbers.
Ahead of them a pinewood slumbers
in the full beauty of its frown;
the branches all are weighted down
with tufts of snow; and through the lifted
summits of aspen, birch and lime,
the nightly luminaries climb.
No path to see: the snow has drifted
across each bush, across each steep,
and all the world is buried deep.
{138}

XIV

She's in the wood, the bear still trails her.
There's powdery snow up to her knees;
now a protruding branch assails her
and clasps her neck; and now she sees
her golden earrings off and whipping;
and now the crunchy snow is stripping
her darling foot of its wet shoe,
her handkerchief has fallen too;
no time to pick it up -- she's dying
with fright, she hears the approaching bear;
her fingers shake, she doesn't dare
to lift her skirt up; still she's flying,
and he pursuing, till at length
she flies no more, she's lost her strength.

She's fallen in the snow -- alertly
the bear has raised her in his paws;
and she, submissively, inertly --
no move she makes, no breath she draws;
he whirls her through the wood... a hovel
shows up through trees, all of a grovel
in darkest forest depths and drowned
by dreary snowdrifts piled around;
there's a small window shining in it,
and from within come noise and cheer;
the bear explains: ``my cousin's here --
come in and warm yourself a minute!''
he carries her inside the door
and sets her gently on the floor.
{139}

XVI

Tatyana looks, her faintness passes:
bear's gone; a hallway, no mistake;
behind the door the clash of glasses
and shouts suggest a crowded wake;
so, seeing there no rhyme or reason,
no meaning in or out of season,
she peers discreetly through a chink
and sees... whatever do you think?
a group of monsters round a table,
a dog with horns, a goatee'd witch,
a rooster head, and on the twitch
a skeleton jerked by a cable,
a dwarf with tail, and a half-strain,
a hybrid cross of cat and crane.

XVII

But ever stranger and more fearful:
a crayfish rides on spider-back;
on goose's neck, a skull looks cheerful
and swaggers in a red calpack;
with bended knees a windmill dances,
its sails go flap-flap as it prances;
song, laughter, whistle, bark and champ,
and human words, and horse's stamp!
But how she jumped, when in this hovel
among the guests she recognized
the man she feared and idolized --
who else? -- the hero of our novel!
Onegin sits at table too,
he eyes the door, looks slyly through.
{140}

XVIII

He nods -- they start to fuss and truckle;
he drinks -- all shout and take a swill;
he laughs -- they all begin to chuckle;
he scowls -- and the whole gang are still;
he's host, that's obvious. Thus enlightened
Tanya's no longer quite so frightened
and, curious now about the lot,
opens the door a tiny slot...
but then a sudden breeze surprises,
puts out the lamps; the whole brigade
of house-familiars stands dismayed...
with eyes aflame Onegin rises
from table, clattering on the floor;
all stand. He walks towards the door.

XIX

Now she's alarmed; in desperate worry
Tatyana struggles to run out --
she can't; and in her panic hurry
she flails around, she tries to shout --
she can't; Evgeny's pushed the portal,
and to the vision of those mortal
monsters the maiden stood revealed.
Wildly the fearful laughter pealed;
the eyes of all, the hooves, the snozzles,
the bleeding tongues, the tufted tails,
the tusks, the corpse's finger-nails,
the horns, and the moustachio'd nozzles --
all point at her, and all combine
to bellow out: ``she's mine, she's mine.''
{141}

``She's mine!'' Evgeny's voice of thunder
clears in a flash the freezing room;
the whole thieves' kitchen flies asunder,
the girl remains there in the gloom
alone with him; Onegin takes her
into a corner, gently makes her
sit on a flimsy bench, and lays
his head upon her shoulder... blaze
of sudden brightness... it's too curious...
Olga's appeared upon the scene,
and Lensky follows her... Eugene,
eyes rolling, arms uplifted, furious,
damns the intruders; Tanya lies
and almost swoons, and almost dies.

XXI

Louder and louder sounds the wrangle:
Eugene has caught up, quick as quick,
a carving-knife -- and in the tangle
Lensky's thrown down. The murk is thick
and growing thicker; then, heart-shaking,
a scream rings out... the cabin's quaking...
Tanya comes to in utter fright...
she looks, the room is getting light --
outside, the scarlet rays of dawning
play on the window's frosted lace;
in through the door, at swallow's pace,
pinker than glow of Northern morning,
flits Olga: ``now, tell me straight out,
who was it that you dreamt about?''
{142}

XXII

Deaf to her sister's intervention,
Tatyana simply lay in bed,
devoured a book with rapt attention,
and kept quite silent while she read.
The book displayed, not so you'd know it,
no magic fancies of the poet,
no brilliant truth, no vivid scene;
and yet by Vergil or Racine
by Scott, by Seneca, or Byron,
even by Ladies' Fashion Post,
no one was ever so engrossed:
Martin Zadéka was the siren,
dean of Chaldea's learned team,
arch-commentator of the dream.

XXIII

This work of the profoundest learning
was brought there by a huckster who
one day came down that lonely turning,
and to Tanya, when he was through,
swapped it for odd tomes of Malvina,
but just to make the bargain keener,
he charged three roubles and a half,
and took two Petriads in calf,
a grammar, a digest of fable,
and volume three of Marmontel.
Since then Martin Zadéka's spell
bewitches Tanya... he is able
to comfort her in all her woes,
and every night shares her repose.
{143}

XXIV

Tatyana's haunted by her vision,
plagued by her ghastly dream, and tries
to puzzle out with some precision
just what the nightmare signifies.
Searching the table exegetic
she finds, in order alphabetic:
bear, blackness, blizzard, bridge and crow,
fir, forest, hedgehog, raven, snow
etcetera. But her trepidation
Martin Zadéka fails to mend;
the horrid nightmare must portend
a hideous deal of tribulation.
For several days she peaked and pined
in deep anxiety of mind.

XXV

But now Aurora's crimson fingers
from daybreak valleys lift the sun;
the morning light no longer lingers,
the festal name day has begun.
Since dawn, whole families have been driving
towards the Larins' and arriving
in sledded coaches and coupés,
in britzkas, kibítkas and sleighs.
The hall is full of noise and hustle,
in the salon new faces meet,
and kisses smack as young girls greet;
there's yap of pugs, and laughs, and bustle;
the threshold's thronged, wet-nurses call,
guests bow, feet scrape, and children squall.
{144}

XXVI

Here with his wife, that bulging charmer,
fat Pústyakov has driven in;
Gvozdín, exemplary farmer,
whose serfs are miserably thin;
and the Skotínins, grizzled sages,
with broods of children of all ages,
from thirty down to two; and stop,
here's Petushkóv, the local fop;
and look, my cousin's come, Buyánov,
in a peaked cap, all dust and fluff, --
you'll recognize him soon enough, --
and counsellor (retired) Flyánov,
that rogue, backbiter, pantaloon,
bribe-taker, glutton and buffoon.

XXVII

Here, in his red peruke and glasses,
late of Tambov, Monsieur Triquet
has come with Kharlikov; he passes
for witty; in his Gallic way
inside a pocket Triquet nurses,
addressed to Tanya, certain verses
set to well-known children's glee:
``réveillez-vous, belle endormie.''
He found them in some old collection,
printed among outmoded airs;
Triquet, ingenious poet, dares
to undertake their resurrection,
and for belle Nina, as it read,
he's put belle Tatiana instead.
{145}

XXVIII

And from the nearby Army station
the Major's here: he's all the rage
with our Mamas, and a sensation
with demoiselles of riper age;
his news has set the party humming!
the regimental band is coming,
sent at the Colonel's own behest.
A ball: the joy of every guest!
Young ladies jump for future blisses...
But dinner's served, so two by two
and arm in arm they all go through;
round Tanya congregate the misses,
the men confront them, face to face:
they sit, they cross themselves for grace.

XXIX

They buzz -- but then all talk's suspended --
jaws masticate as minutes pass:
the crash of plates and knives is blended
with the resounding chime of glass.
And now there's gradually beginning
among the guests a general dinning:
none listens when the others speak,
all shout and argue, laugh and squeak.
Then doors are opened, Lensky enters,
Onegin too. ``Good Lord, at last!''
the hostess cries and, moving fast,
the guests squeeze closer to the centres;
they shove each plate, and every chair,
and shout, and make room for the pair.
{146}

XXX

Just facing Tanya's where they're sitting;
and paler than the moon at dawn,
she lowers darkened eyes, unwitting,
and trembles like a hunted fawn.
From violent passions fast pulsating
she's nearly swooned, she's suffocating;
the friends' salute she never hears
and from her eyes the eager tears
are almost bursting; she's quite ready,
poor girl, to drop into a faint,
but will, and reason's strong constraint,
prevailed, and with composure steady
she sat there; through her teeth a word
came out so soft, it scarce was heard.

XXXI

The nervous-tragical reaction,
girls' tears, their swooning, for Eugene
had long proved tedious to distraction:
he knew too well that sort of scene.
Now, faced with this enormous revel,
he'd got annoyed, the tricky devil.
He saw the sad girl's trembling state,
looked down in an access of hate,
pouted, and swore in furious passion
to wreak, by stirring Lensky's ire,
the best revenge one could desire.
Already, in exultant fashion,
he watched the guests and, as he dined,
caricatured them in his mind.
{147}

XXXII

Tanya's distress had risked detection
not only by Evgeny's eye;
but looks and talk took the direction,
that moment, of a luscious pie
(alas, too salted); now they're bringing
bottles to which some pitch is clinging:
Tsimlyansky wine, between the meat
and the blancmanger, then a fleet
of goblets, tall and slender pretties;
how they remind me of your stem,
Zizi, my crystal and my gem,
you object of my guileless ditties!
with draughts from love's enticing flask,
you made me drunk as one could ask!

XXXIII

Freed from its dripping cork, the bottle
explodes; wine fizzes up... but stay:
solemn, too long compelled to throttle
his itching verse, Monsieur Triquet
is on his feet -- in utter stillness
the party waits. Seized with an illness
of swooning, Tanya nearly dies;
and, scroll in hand, before her eyes
Triquet sings, out of tune. Loud clapping
and cheers salute him. Tanya must
thank him by curtseying to the dust;
great bard despite his modest trapping,
he's first to toast her in the bowl,
then he presents her with the scroll.
{148}

XXXIV

Compliment and congratulation;
Tanya thanks each one with a phrase.
When Eugene's turn for salutation
arrives, the girl's exhausted gaze,
her discomposure, her confusion,
expose his soul to an intrusion
of pity: in his silent bow,
and in his look there shows somehow
a wondrous tenderness. And whether
it was that he'd been truly stirred,
or half-unwittingly preferred
a joking flirt, or both together,
there was a softness in his glance:
it brought back Tanya from her trance.

XXXV

Chairs are pushed outward, loudly rumbling,
and all into the salon squeeze,
as from their luscious hive go tumbling
fieldward, in noisy swarm, the bees.
The banquet's given no cause for sneezing,
neighbours in high content are wheezing;
ladies at the fireside confer,
in corners whispering girls concur;
now, by green tablecloths awaited,
the eager players are enrolled --
Boston and ombre for the old,
and whist, that's now so keenly fêted --
pursuits of a monotonous breed
begot by boredom out of greed.
{149}

XXXVI

By now whist's heroes have completed
eight rubbers; and by now eight times
they've moved around and been reseated;
and tea's brought in. Instead of chimes
I like to tell the time by dinner
and tea and supper; there's an inner
clock in the country rings the hour;
no fuss; our belly has the power
of any Bréguet: and in passing
I'll just remark, my verses talk
as much of banquets and the cork
and eatables beyond all classing
as yours did, Homer, godlike lord,
whom thirty centuries have adored!

< XXXVII7

At feasts, though, full of pert aggression,
I put your genius to the test,
I make magnanimous confession,
in other things you come off best:
your heroes, raging and ferocious,
your battles, lawless and atrocious,
your Zeus, your Cypris, your whole band
have clearly got the upper hand
of Eugene, cold as all creation,
of plains where boredom reigns complete,
or of Istómina, my sweet,
and all our modish education;
but your vile Helen's not my star --
no, Tanya's more endearing far.
{150}

XXXVIII

No one will think that worth gainsaying,
though Menelaus, in Helen's name,
may spend a century in flaying
the hapless Phrygians all the same,
and although Troy's greybeards, collected
around Priam the much-respected,
may chorus, when she comes in sight,
that Menelaus was quite right --
and Paris too. But hear my pleading:
as battles go, I've not begun;
don't judge the race before it's run --
be good enough to go on reading:
there'll be a fight. For that I give
my word; no welshing, as I live. >

XXXIX

Here's tea: the girls have just, as bidden,
taken the saucers in their grip,
when, from behind the doorway, hidden
bassoons and flutes begin to trip.
Elated by the music's blaring,
Petushkóv, local Paris, tearing,
his tea with rum quite left behind,
approaches Olga; Lensky's signed
Tatyana on; Miss Kharlikova,
that nubile maid of riper age,
is seized by Tambov's poet-sage;
Buyánov whirls off Pustyakova;
they all have swarmed into the hall,
and in full brilliance shines the ball.
{151}

Right at the outset of my story
(if you'll turn back to chapter one)
I meant to paint, with Alban's8 glory,
a ball in Petersburg; but fun
and charming reverie's vain deflection
absorbed me in the recollection
of certain ladies' tiny feet.
Enough I've wandered in the suite
of your slim prints! though this be treason
to my young days, it's time I turned
to wiser words and deeds, and learned
to demonstrate some signs of reason:
let no more such digressions lurk
in this fifth chapter of my work.

XLI

And now, monotonously dashing
like mindless youth, the waltz goes by
with spinning noise and senseless flashing
as pair by pair the dancers fly.
Revenge's hour is near, and after
Evgeny, full of inward laughter,
has gone to Olga, swept the girl
past all the assembly in a whirl,
he takes her to a chair, beginning
to talk of this and that, but then
after two minutes, off again,
they're on the dance-floor, waltzing, spinning.
All are dumbfounded. Lensky shies
away from trusting his own eyes.
{152}

XLII

Now the mazurka sounds. Its thunder
used in times past to ring a peal
that huge ballrooms vibrated under,
while floors would split from crash of heel,
and frames would shudder, windows tremble;
now things are changed, now we resemble
ladies who glide on waxed parquet.
Yet the mazurka keeps today
in country towns and suchlike places
its pristine charm: heeltaps, and leaps,
and whiskers -- all of this it keeps
as fresh as ever, for its graces
are here untouched by fashion's reign,
our modern Russia's plague and bane.

XLIII7

... ...

< Petushkóv's nails and spurs are sounding
(that half-pay archivist); and bounding
Buyánov's heels have split the wood
and wrecked the flooring-boards for good;
there's crashing, rumbling, pounding, trotting,
the deeper in the wood, the more
the logs; the wild ones have the floor;
they're plunging, whirling, all but squatting.
Ah, gently, gently, easy goes --
your heels will squash the ladies' toes! >
{153}

XLIV

Buyánov, my vivacious cousin,
leads Olga and Tatyana on
to Eugene; nineteen to the dozen,
Eugene takes Olga, and is gone;
he steers her, nonchalantly gliding,
he stoops and, tenderly confiding,
whispers some ballad of the hour,
squeezes her hand -- and brings to flower
on her smug face a flush of pleasure.
Lensky has watched: his rage has blazed,
he's lost his self-command, and crazed
with jealousy beyond all measure
insists, when the mazurka ends,
on the cotillion, as amends.

XLV

He asks. She can't accept. Why ever?
No, she's already pledged her word
to Evgeny. Oh, God, she'd never...
How could she? why, he'd never heard...
scarce out of bibs, already fickle,
fresh from the cot, an infant pickle,
already studying to intrigue,
already high in treason's league!
He finds the shock beyond all bearing:
so, cursing women's devious course,
he leaves the house, calls for his horse
and gallops. Pistols made for pairing
and just a double charge of shot
will in a flash decide his lot.
{154}

Notes to Chapter Five

1 ``See First Snow, a poem by Prince Vyazemsky.'' Pushkin's note. For
Prince P. Vyazemsky (1791--1878), poet, critic and close friend of Pushkin,
see also Chapter Seven, XLIX.
2 ``See the descriptions of the Finnish winter in Baratynsky's Eda''.
Pushkin's note.
3 ``"Tomcat calls Kit" -- a song foretelling marriage.'' Pushkin's
note.
4 This Russianized version of the Greek Agatho is ``elephantine and
rustic to the Russian ear''. Nabokov. See note 3 to Chapter Two.
5 Girl in Zhukovsky's poem who practises divination, with frightening
results. See note 2 to Chapter Three.
6 Slavonic god of love.
7 Stanzas XXXVII, XXXVIII and XLIII were discarded by Pushkin.
8 Francesco Albani, Italian painter (1578-1660).

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