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

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

La, sotto giorni nubilosi e brevi.
Nasce una gente a cui 'l morir non dole.
Petrarch

Seeing Vladimir had defected,
Eugene, at Olga's side, was racked
by fresh ennui as he reflected
with pleasure on his vengeful act.
Olinka yawned, just like her neighbour,
and looked for Lensky, while the labour
of the cotillion's endless theme
oppressed her like a heavy dream.
It's over. Supper is proceeding.
Beds are made up; the guests are all
packed from the maids' wing to the hall.
Each one by now is badly needing
a place for rest. Eugene alone
has driven off, to find his own.
{155}

All sleep: from the saloon a roaring
proclaims where ponderous Pústyakov
beside his heavier half is snoring.
Gvozdín, Buyánov, Petushkóv
and Flyánov, amply lubricated,
on dining-chairs are all prostrated;
the floor serves Triquet for his nap,
in flannel, and an old fur cap.
In the two sisters' rooms extended,
the maidens all are slumbering deep.
Only Tatyana does not sleep,
but at the window, in the splendid
radiance of Dian, sits in pain
and looks out on the darkened plain.

III

His unexpected apparition,
the fleeting tenderness that stole
into his look, the exhibition
with Olga, all have pierced her soul;
she can't make out a single fraction
of his intent; and a reaction
of jealousy has made her start,
as if a cold hand squeezed her heart,
as if beneath her, dark and rumbling,
a gulf has gaped... Says Tanya: ``I
am doomed to perish, yet to die
through him is sweetness' self. In grumbling
I find no sense; the truth is this,
it's not in him to bring me bliss.''
{156}

But onward, onward with my story!
A new acquaintance claims our quill.
Five versts or so from Krasnogórie,
Lensky's estate, there lives and still
thrives to this moment, in a station
of philosophic isolation,
Zarétsky, sometime king of brawls
and hetman of the gambling-halls,
arch-rake, pothouse tribune-persona,
but now grown plain and kind in stead,
paterfamilias (unwed),
unswerving friend, correct landowner,
and even honourable man:
so, if we want to change, we can!

The world of fashion, prone to flatter,
praised his fierce courage in its day:
true, with a pistol he could shatter
an ace a dozen yards away;
it's also true, in battle's rapture,
the circumstances of his capture
had made his name, when, bold as bold,
down from his Kalmuck steed he rolled
into the mud, a drunken goner,
and taken by the French -- some prize! --
resigned himself to prison's ties,
like Regulus, that god of honour,
in order daily, chez Véry,1
to drain, on credit, bottles three.
{157}

Time was, he'd been the wittiest ever,
so brilliantly he'd hoax the fools,
so gloriously he'd fool the clever,
using overt or covert rules.
Sometimes his tricks would earn him trouble,
or cause the bursting of his bubble,
sometimes he'd fall into a trap
himself just like a simple chap.
But he could draw a joking moral,
return an answer, blunt or keen,
use cunning silence as a screen,
or cunningly create a quarrel,
get two young friends to pick a fight,
and put them on a paced-out site.

VII

Or he knew how to reconcile them
so that all three went off to lunch,
then later slyly he'd revile them
with lies and jokes that packed a punch:
sed alia tempora! The devil
(like passion's dream, that other revel)
goes out of us when youth is dead.
So my Zaretsky, as I said,
beneath bird-cherries and acacias
has found a port for his old age,
and lives, a veritable sage,
for planting cabbage, like Horatius,
and breeding ducks and geese as well,
and teaching children how to spell.
{158}

VIII

He was no fool; appreciated
by my Eugene, not for his heart,
but for the effect that he created
of sense and judgement. For his part
his converse gave Onegin pleasure;
so it was not in any measure,
the morning after, a surprise
when our Zaretsky met his eyes.
His visitor from the beginning
broke greetings off, and gave Eugene
a note from Lensky; in between
Zaretsky watched, and stood there grinning.
Onegin without more ado
crossed to the window, read it through.

Pleasant, in spite of its compression,
gentlemanly, quite precise,
Vladimir's challenge found expression
that, though polite, was clear as ice.
Eugene's response was automatic;
he informed this envoy diplomatic
in terms where not a word was spared:
at any time he'd be prepared.
Zaretsky rose without discussion;
he saw no point in staying on,
with work at home; but when he'd gone,
Evgeny, whom the repercussion
left quite alone with his own soul,
was far from happy with his role.
{159}

With reason, too: for when he'd vetted
in secret judgement what he'd done,
he found too much that he regretted:
last night he'd erred in making fun,
so heartless and so detrimental,
of love so timorous and gentle.
In second place the poet might
have been a fool; yet he'd a right,
at eighteen years, to some compassion.
Evgeny loved him from his heart,
and should have played a different part:
no softball for the winds of fashion,
no boy, to fight or take offence --
the man of honour and of sense.

He could have spoken without harming,
need not have bristled like a beast;
he should have settled for disarming
that youthful heart. ``But now at least
it's late, time's passing... not to mention,
in our affair, the intervention
of that old duellistic fox,
that wicked, loose-tongue chatterbox...
True, scorn should punish and should bridle
his wit, according to the rules
but whispers, the guffaw of fools...''
Public opinion -- here's our idol,
the spring of honour, and the pin
on which the world is doomed to spin.
{160}

XII

Lensky at home awaits the answer,
impatient, hatred flaming high;
but here comes our loud-talking prancer
who swaggers in with the reply.
The jealous poet's gloom is lightened!
knowing the offender, he'd been frightened
lest he should by some clever trick
avert his chest from pistol's click,
smoothe his way out with humour's ointment.
But now Vladimir's doubts are still:
early tomorrow at the mill
before first light they have appointment,
to raise the safety catch and strain
to hit the target: thigh or brain.

XIII

Still blazing with resentment's fuel,
and set on hating the coquette,
Lensky resolved before the duel
not to see Olga; in a fret
watched sun and clock -- then by such labours
defeated, turned up at his neighbour's.
He thought that Olga'd be confused,
struck down as if she'd been accused,
when he arrived; not in the slightest:
just as she'd always been, she tripped
to meet the unhappy poet, skipped
down from the porch, light as the lightest,
the giddiest hope, carefree and gay,
the same as any other day.
{161}

XIV

``Last night, what made you fly so early?''
was the first thing that Olga said.
All Lensky's thoughts went hurly-burly,
and silently he hung his head.
Rage died, and jealousy's obsession,
before such candour of expression,
such frank tendresse; away they stole
before such playfulness of soul!...
he looks, in sweet irresolution,
and then concludes: she loves him yet!
Already borne down by regret,
he almost begs for absolution,
he trembles, knows not what to tell;
he's happy, yes, he's almost well...

(XV, XVI,2) XVII

Now brooding thoughts hold his attention
once more, at that beloved sight,
and so he lacks the strength to mention
the happenings of the previous night;
he murmurs: ``Olga's mine for saving;
I'll stop that tempter from depraving
her youth with all his repertoire
of sighs, and compliments, and fire;
that poisonous worm, despised, degrading,
shall not attack my lily's root;
I'll save this blossom on the shoot,
still hardly opened up, from fading.''
Friends, all this meant was: I've a date
for swapping bullets with my mate.
{162}

XVIII

If only Lensky'd known the burning
wound that had seared my Tanya's heart!
If Tanya'd had the chance of learning
that Lensky and Eugene, apart,
would settle, on the morrow morning,
for which of them the tomb was yawning,
perhaps her love could in the end
have reunited friend to friend!
But, even by accident, her passion
was undiscovered to that day.
Onegin had no word to say;
Tatyana pined in secret fashion:
of the whole world, her nurse alone,
if not slow-witted, might have known.

XIX

Lensky all evening, in distraction,
would talk, keep silent, laugh, then frown --
the quintessential reaction
of Muses' offspring; sitting down
before the clavichord with knitted
forehead, he strummed, his vision flitted
to Olga's face, he whispered low
``I think I'm happy.'' Time to go,
the hour was late. And now from aching
the heart inside him seemed to shrink;
parting with Olga made him think
it was quite torn in half and breaking.
She faced him, questioning: ``But you?...''
``It's nothing.'' And away he flew.
{163}

Once home, he brought out and inspected
his pistols, laid them in their case,
undressed, by candlelight selected
and opened Schiller... but the embrace
of one sole thought holds him in keeping
and stops his doleful heart from sleeping:
Olga is there, he sees her stand
in untold beauty close at hand.
Vladimir shuts the book, for writing
prepares himself; and then his verse,
compact of amorous trash, and worse,
flows and reverberates. Reciting,
he sounds, in lyric frenzy sunk,
like Delvig3 when he's dining drunk.

XXI

By chance those verses haven't vanished;
I keep them, and will quote them here:
``Whither, oh whither are ye banished,
my golden days when spring was dear?
What fate is my tomorrow brewing?
the answer's past all human viewing,
it's hidden deep in gloom and dust.
No matter; fate's decree is just.
Whether the arrow has my number,
whether it goes careering past,
all's well; the destined hour at last
comes for awakening, comes for slumber;
blessed are daytime's care and cark,
blest is the advent of the dark!
{164}

XXII

``The morning star will soon be shining,
and soon will day's bright tune be played;
but I perhaps will be declining
into the tomb's mysterious shade;
the trail the youthful poet followed
by sluggish Lethe may be swallowed,
and I be by the world forgot;
but, lovely maiden, wilt thou not
on my untimely urn be weeping,
thinking: he loved me, and in strife
the sad beginnings of his life
he consecrated to my keeping?...
Friend of my heart, be at my side,
beloved friend, thou art my bride!''

XXIII

So Lensky wrote, obscurely, limply
(in the romantic style, we say,
though what's romantic here I simply
fail to perceive -- that's by the way).
At last, with dawn upon him, stooping
his weary head, and softly drooping
over the modish word ideal,
he dozed away; but when the real
magic of sleep had started claiming
its due oblivion, in the hush
his neighbour entered at a rush
and wakened Lensky by exclaiming:
``Get up: it's gone six! I'll be bound,
Onegin's waiting on the ground.''
{165}

XXIV

But he's mistaken: Eugene's lying
and sleeping sounder than a rock.
By now the shades of night are flying,
Vesper is met by crow of cock --
Onegin still is slumbering deeply.
By now the sun is climbing steeply,
and little dancing whirls of snow
glitter and tumble as they go,
but Eugene hasn't moved; for certain
slumber still floats above his head.
At last he wakes, and stirs in bed,
and parts the fringes of his curtain;
he looks, and sees the hour of day --
high time he should be on his way.

XXV

He rings at once, and what a scurry!
his French valet, Guillot, is there
with gown and slippers; tearing hurry,
as linen's brought for him to wear.
And while with all despatch he's dressing
he warns his man for duty, stressing
that with him to the trysting-place
he has to bring the battle-case.
By now the sledge is at the portal --
he's racing millward like a bird.
Arrived apace, he gives the word
to bring across Lepage's4 mortal
barrels, and then to drive aside
by two small oaktrees in a ride.
{166}

XXVI

While Lensky'd long been meditating
impatiently on the mill-dam,
Zaretsky, engineer-in-waiting,
condemned the millstones as a sham.
Onegin comes, and makes excuses;
but in Zaretsky he induces
amazement: ``Where's your second gone?''
In duels a pedantic don,
methodical by disposition,
a classicist, he'll not allow
that one be shot just anyhow --
only by rule, and strict tradition
inherited from earlier days
(for which he must receive due praise).

XXVII

Evgeny echoed him: ``My second?
He's here -- Monsieur Guillot, my friend.
I had most surely never reckoned
his choice could shock or might offend;
though he's unknown, there's no suggestion
that he's not honest past all question.''
Zaretsky bit his lip. Eugene
asked Lensky: ``Should we start, I mean?''
Vladimir to this casual mention
replies: ``We might as well.'' They walk
behind the mill. In solemn talk,
Zaretsky draws up a convention
with Guillot; while pourparlers last
the two foes stand with eyes downcast.
{167}

XXVIII

Foes! Is it long since from each other
the lust for blood drew them apart?
long since, like brother linked to brother,
they shared their days in deed and heart,
their table, and their hours of leisure?
But now, in this vindictive pleasure
hereditary foes they seem,
and as in some appalling dream
each coldly plans the other's slaughter...
could they not laugh out loud, before
their hands are dipped in scarlet gore,
could they not give each other quarter
and part in kindness? Just the same,
all modish foes dread worldly shame.

XXIX

Pistols are out, they gleam, the hammer
thumps as the balls are pressed inside
faceted muzzles by the rammer;
with a first click, the catch is tried.
Now powder's greyish stream is slipping
into the pan. Securely gripping,
the jagged flint's pulled back anew.
Guillot, behind a stump in view,
stands in dismay and indecision.
And now the two opponents doff
their cloaks; Zaretsky's measured off
thirty-two steps with great precision,
and on their marks has made them stand;
each grips his pistol in his hand.
{168}

XXX

``Now march.'' And calmly, not yet seeking
to aim, at steady, even pace
the foes, cold-blooded and unspeaking,
each took four steps across the space,
four fateful stairs. Then, without slowing
the level tenor of his going,
Evgeny quietly began
to lift his pistol up. A span
of five more steps they went, slow-gaited,
and Lensky, left eye closing, aimed --
but just then Eugene's pistol flamed...
The clock of doom had struck as fated;
and the poet, without a sound,
let fall his pistol on the ground.

XXXI

Vladimir drops, hand softly sliding
to heart. And in his misted gaze
is death, not pain. So gently gliding
down slopes of mountains, when a blaze
of sunlight makes it flash and crumble,
a block of snow will slip and tumble.
Onegin, drenched with sudden chill,
darts to the boy, and looks, and still
calls out his name... All unavailing:
the youthful votary of rhyme
has found an end before his time.
The storm is over,5 dawn is paling,
the bloom has withered on the bough;
the altar flame's extinguished now.
{169}

XXXII

He lay quite still, and strange as dreaming
was that calm brow of one who swooned.
Shot through below the chest -- and streaming
the blood came smoking from the wound.
A moment earlier, inspiration
had filled this heart, and detestation
and hope and passion; life had glowed
and blood had bubbled as it flowed;
but now the mansion is forsaken;
shutters are up, and all is pale
and still within, behind the veil
of chalk the window-panes have taken.
The lady of the house has fled.
Where to, God knows. The trail is dead.

XXXIII

With a sharp epigram it's pleasant
to infuriate a clumsy foe;
and, as observer, to be present
and watch him stubbornly bring low
his thrusting horns, and as he passes
blush to descry in looking-glasses
his foolish face; more pleasant yet
to hear him howl: ``that's me!'' You'll get
more joy still when with mute insistence
you help him to an honoured fate
by calmly aiming at his pate
from any gentlemanly distance;
but when you've managed his despatch
you won't find that quite so much catch...
{170}

XXXIV

What if your pistol-shot has smitten
a friend of yours in his first youth
because some glance of his has bitten
your pride, some answer, or in truth
some nonsense thrown up while carousing,
or if himself, with rage arousing,
he's called you out -- say, in your soul
what feelings would assume control
if, motionless, no life appearing,
death on his brow, your friend should lie,
stiffening as the hours go by,
before you on the ground, unhearing,
unspeaking, too, but stretched out there
deaf to the voice of your despair?

XXXV

Giving his pistol-butt a squeezing,
Evgeny looks at Lensky, chilled
at heart by grim remorse's freezing.
``Well, what?'' the neighbour says, ``he's killed.''
Killed!... At this frightful word a-quiver,
Onegin turns, and with a shiver
summons his people. On the sleigh
with care Zaretsky stows away
the frozen corpse, drives off, and homing
vanishes with his load of dread.
The horses, as they sense the dead,
have snorted, reared, and whitely foaming
have drenched the steel bit as they go
and flown like arrows from a bow.
{171}

XXXVI

My friends, the bard stirs your compassion:
right in the flower of joyous hope,
hope that he's had no time to fashion
for men to see, still in the scope
of swaddling clothes -- already blighted!
Where is the fire that once ignited,
where's the high aim, the ardent sense
of youth, so tender, so intense?
and where is love's tempestuous yearning,
where are the reveries this time,
the horror of disgrace and crime,
the thirst for work, the lust for learning,
and life celestial's phantom gleams,
stuff of the poet's hallowed dreams!

XXXVII

Perhaps to improve the world's condition,
perhaps for fame, he was endowed;
his lyre, now stilled, in its high mission
might have resounded long and loud
for aeons. Maybe it was fated
that on the world's staircase there waited
for him a lofty stair. His shade,
after the martyr's price it paid,
maybe bore off with it for ever
a secret truth, and at our cost
a life-creating voice was lost;
to it the people's blessing never
will reach, and past the tomb's compound
hymns of the ages never sound.
{172}

(XXXVIII,2) XXXIX

Perhaps however, to be truthful,
he would have found a normal fate.
The years would pass; no longer youthful,
he'd see his soul cool in its grate;
his nature would be changed and steadied,
he'd sack the Muses and get wedded;
and in the country, blissful, horned,
in quilted dressing-gown adorned,
life's real meaning would have found him;
at forty he'd have got the gout,
drunk, eaten, yawned, grown weak and stout,
at length, midst children swarming round him,
midst crones with endless tears to shed,
and doctors, he'd have died in bed.

Reader, whatever fate's direction,
we weep for the young lover's end,
the man of reverie and reflection,
the poet struck down by his friend!
Left-handed from the habitation
where dwelt this child of inspiration,
two pines have tangled at the root;
beneath, a brook rolls its tribute
toward the neighbouring valley's river.
The ploughman there delights to doze,
girl reapers as the streamlet flows
dip in their jugs; where shadows quiver
darkly above the water's lilt,
a simple monument is built.
{173}

XLI

Below it, when sprang rains are swishing,
when, on the plain, green herbs are massed,
the shepherd sings of Volga's fishing
and plaits a piebald shoe of bast;
and the young city-bred newcomer,
who in the country spends her summer,
when galloping at headlong pace
alone across the fields of space,
will halt her horse and, gripping tightly
the leather rein, to learn the tale,
lift up the gauzes of her veil,
with a quick look perusing lightly
the simple legend -- then a haze
of tears will cloud her tender gaze.

XLII

Walking her horse in introspection
across the plain's enormous room,
what holds her in profound reflection,
despite herself, is Lensky's doom;
``Olga,'' she thinks, ``what fate befell her?
her heartache, did it long compel her,
or did her grief soon find repair?
and where's her sister now? and where,
flown from society as we know it,
of modish belles the modish foe,
where did that glum eccentric go,
the one who killed the youthful poet?''
All in good time, on each point I
will give you a complete reply.
{174}

XLIII

But not today. Although I dearly
value the hero of my tale,
though I'll come back to him, yet clearly
to face him now I feel too frail...
The years incline to gloom and prosing,
they kill the zest of rhymed composing,
and with a sigh I now admit
I have to drag my feet to it.
My pen, as once, no longer hurries
to spoil loose paper by the ream;
another, a more chilling dream,
and other, more exacting worries,
in fashion's din, at still of night,
come to disturb me and affright.

XLIV

I've learnt the voice of new ambition,
I've learnt new sadness; but in this
the first will never find fruition,
the earlier griefs are what I miss.
O dreams, o dreams, where is your sweetness?
where (standard rhyme) are youth and fleetness?
can it be true, their crown at last
has felt time's desiccating blast?
can it be true, and firmly stated
without an elegiac frill,
that spring with me has had its fill
(as I've so oft in jest related)?
Can it be true, it won't come twice --
and I'll be thirty in a trice?
{175}

XLV

Well, I must make a frank confession,
my noon is here, and that's the truth.
So let me with a kind expression
take leave of my lightheaded youth!
Thank you for all the gifts I treasure,
thank you for sorrow and for pleasure,
thank you for suffering and its joys,
for tempests and for feasts and noise;
thank you indeed. Alike in sorrow
and in flat calm I've found the stuff
of perfect bliss in you. Enough!
My soul's like crystal, and tomorrow
I shall set out on brand-new ways
and rest myself from earlier days.

XLVI

Let me look back. Farewell, umbrageous
forests where my young age was passed
in indolence and in rampageous
passion and dreams of pensive cast.
But come, thou youthful inspiration,
come, trouble my imagination,
liven the drowsing of my heart,
fly to my corner like a dart,
let not the poet's soul of passion
grow cold, and hard, and stiff as stock,
and finally be turned to rock
amid the deadening joys of fashion,
< amongst the soulless men of pride,
the fools who sparkle far and wide,6
{176}

XLVII

amongst the crafty and small-minded,
the children spoilt, the mad, the rogues
both dull and ludicrous, the bunded
critics and their capricious vogues,
amongst devout coquettes, appalling
lickspittles who adore their crawling,
and daily scenes of modish life
where civil treacheries are rife,
urbane betrayals, and the chilling
verdicts of vanity the bleak,
men's thoughts, their plots, the words they speak,
all of an emptiness so killing -- >
that's the morass, I beg you note,
in which, dear friends, we're all afloat!
{177}

Notes to Chapter Six

1 Café-restaurant in Paris.
2 Stanzas XV, XVI and XXXVIII were discarded by Pushkin.
3 Anton Delvig, poet and close friend of Pushkin.
4 Jean Lepage, Parisian gunsmith.
5 ``A deliberate accumulation of conventional poetical formulae by
means of which Pushkin mimics poor Lensky's own style... but the rich and
original metaphor of the deserted house, closed inner shutters, whitened
window-panes, departed female owner (the soul being feminine in Russian),
with which XXXII ends, is Pushkin's own contribution, a sample as it were of
what he can do.'' Nabokov.
6 These lines and the first twelve lines of stanza XLVII were discarded
by Pushkin.

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