Chapter 8

Impatient, boiling o’er with wrath, The bard his answer waits at home, But lo! his braggart neighbour hath Triumphant with the answer come. Now for the jealous youth what joy! He feared the criminal might try To treat the matter as a jest, Use subterfuge, and thus his breast From the dread pistol turn away. But now all doubt was set aside, Unto the windmill he must ride To-morrow before break of day, To cock the pistol; barrel bend On thigh or temple, friend on friend.

XIII

Resolved the flirt to cast away, The foaming Lenski would refuse, To see his Olga ere the fray— His watch, the sun in turn he views— Finally tost his arms in air And lo! he is already there! He deemed his coming would inspire Olga with trepidation dire. He was deceived. Just as before The miserable bard to meet, As hope uncertain and as sweet, Olga ran skipping from the door. She was as heedless and as gay— Well! just as she was yesterday.

XIV

“Why did you leave last night so soon?” Was the first question Olga made, Lenski, into confusion thrown, All silently hung down his head. Jealousy and vexation took To flight before her radiant look, Before such fond simplicity And mental elasticity. He eyed her with a fond concern, Perceived that he was still beloved, Already by repentance moved To ask forgiveness seemed to yearn; But trembles, words he cannot find, Delighted, almost sane in mind.

XV

But once more pensive and distressed Beside his Olga doth he grieve, Nor enough strength of mind possessed To mention the foregoing eve, He mused: “I will her saviour be! With ardent sighs and flattery The vile seducer shall not dare The freshness of her heart impair, Nor shall the caterpillar come The lily’s stem to eat away, Nor shall the bud of yesterday Perish when half disclosed its bloom!”— All this, my friends, translate aright: “I with my friend intend to fight!”

XVI

If he had only known the wound Which rankled in Tattiana’s breast, And if Tattiana mine had found— If the poor maiden could have guessed That the two friends with morning’s light Above the yawning grave would fight,— Ah! it may be, affection true Had reconciled the pair anew! But of this love, e’en casually, As yet none had discovered aught; Eugene of course related nought, Tattiana suffered secretly; Her nurse, who could have made a guess, Was famous for thick-headedness.

XVII

Lenski that eve in thought immersed, Now gloomy seemed and cheerful now, But he who by the Muse was nursed Is ever thus. With frowning brow To the pianoforte he moves And various chords upon it proves, Then, eyeing Olga, whispers low: “I’m happy, say, is it not so?”— But it grew late; he must not stay; Heavy his heart with anguish grew; To the young girl he said adieu, As it were, tore himself away. Gazing into his face, she said: “What ails thee?”—“Nothing.”—He is fled.

XVIII

At home arriving he addressed His care unto his pistols’ plight, Replaced them in their box, undressed And Schiller read by candlelight. But one thought only filled his mind, His mournful heart no peace could find, Olga he sees before his eyes Miraculously fair arise, Vladimir closes up his book, And grasps a pen: his verse, albeit With lovers’ rubbish filled, was neat And flowed harmoniously. He took And spouted it with lyric fire— Like D[elvig] when dinner doth inspire.

XIX

Destiny hath preserved his lay. I have it. Lo! the very thing! “Oh! whither have ye winged your way, Ye golden days of my young spring? What will the coming dawn reveal? In vain my anxious eyes appeal; In mist profound all yet is hid. So be it! Just the laws which bid The fatal bullet penetrate, Or innocently past me fly. Good governs all! The hour draws nigh Of life or death predestinate. Blest be the labours of the light, And blest the shadows of the night.

XX

“To-morrow’s dawn will glimmer gray, Bright day will then begin to burn, But the dark sepulchre I may Have entered never to return. The memory of the bard, a dream, Will be absorbed by Lethe’s stream; Men will forget me, but my urn To visit, lovely maid, return, O’er my remains to drop a tear, And think: here lies who loved me well, For consecrate to me he fell In the dawn of existence drear. Maid whom my heart desires alone, Approach, approach; I am thine own.”

XXI

Thus in a style _obscure_ and _stale_,(64) He wrote (’tis the romantic style, Though of romance therein I fail To see aught—never mind meanwhile) And about dawn upon his breast His weary head declined at rest, For o’er a word to fashion known, “Ideal,” he had drowsy grown. But scarce had sleep’s soft witchery Subdued him, when his neighbour stept Into the chamber where he slept And wakened him with the loud cry: “’Tis time to get up! Seven doth strike. Onéguine waits on us, ’tis like.”

[Note 64: The fact of the above words being italicised suggests the idea that the poet is here firing a Parthian shot at some unfriendly critic.]

XXII

He was in error; for Eugene Was sleeping then a sleep like death; The pall of night was growing thin, To Lucifer the cock must breathe His song, when still he slumbered deep, The sun had mounted high his steep, A passing snowstorm wreathed away With pallid light, but Eugene lay Upon his couch insensibly; Slumber still o’er him lingering flies. But finally he oped his eyes And turned aside the drapery; He gazed upon the clock which showed He long should have been on the road.

XXIII

He rings in haste; in haste arrives His Frenchman, good Monsieur Guillot, Who dressing-gown and slippers gives And linen on him doth bestow. Dressing as quickly as he can, Eugene directs the trusty man To accompany him and to escort A box of terrible import. Harnessed the rapid sledge arrived: He enters: to the mill he drives: Descends, the order Guillot gives, The fatal tubes Lepage contrived(65) To bring behind: the triple steeds To two young oaks the coachman leads.

[Note 65: Lepage—a celebrated gunmaker of former days.]

XXIV

Lenski the foeman’s apparition Leaning against the dam expects, Zaretski, village mechanician, In the meantime the mill inspects. Onéguine his excuses says; “But,” cried Zaretski in amaze, “Your second you have left behind!” A duellist of classic mind, Method was dear unto his heart He would not that a man ye slay In a lax or informal way, But followed the strict rules of art, And ancient usages observed (For which our praise he hath deserved).

XXV

“My second!” cried in turn Eugene, “Behold my friend Monsieur Guillot; To this arrangement can be seen, No obstacle of which I know. Although unknown to fame mayhap, He’s a straightforward little chap.” Zaretski bit his lip in wrath, But to Vladimir Eugene saith: “Shall we commence?”—“Let it be so,” Lenski replied, and soon they be Behind the mill. Meantime ye see Zaretski and Monsieur Guillot In consultation stand aside— The foes with downcast eyes abide.

XXVI

Foes! Is it long since friendship rent Asunder was and hate prepared? Since leisure was together spent, Meals, secrets, occupations shared? Now, like hereditary foes, Malignant fury they disclose, As in some frenzied dream of fear These friends cold-bloodedly draw near Mutual destruction to contrive. Cannot they amicably smile Ere crimson stains their hands defile, Depart in peace and friendly live? But fashionable hatred’s flame Trembles at artificial shame.

XXVII

The shining pistols are uncased, The mallet loud the ramrod strikes, Bullets are down the barrels pressed, For the first time the hammer clicks. Lo! poured in a thin gray cascade, The powder in the pan is laid, The sharp flint, screwed securely on, Is cocked once more. Uneasy grown, Guillot behind a pollard stood; Aside the foes their mantles threw, Zaretski paces thirty-two Measured with great exactitude. At each extreme one takes his stand, A loaded pistol in his hand.

XXVIII

“Advance!”— Indifferent and sedate, The foes, as yet not taking aim, With measured step and even gait Athwart the snow four paces came— Four deadly paces do they span; Onéguine slowly then began To raise his pistol to his eye, Though he advanced unceasingly. And lo! five paces more they pass, And Lenski, closing his left eye, Took aim—but as immediately Onéguine fired—Alas! alas! The poet’s hour hath sounded—See! He drops his pistol silently.

XXIX

He on his bosom gently placed His hand, and fell. His clouded eye Not agony, but death expressed. So from the mountain lazily The avalanche of snow first bends, Then glittering in the sun descends. The cold sweat bursting from his brow, To the youth Eugene hurried now— Gazed on him, called him. Useless care! He was no more! The youthful bard For evermore had disappeared. The storm was hushed. The blossom fair Was withered ere the morning light— The altar flame was quenched in night.

XXX

Tranquil he lay, and strange to view The peace which on his forehead beamed, His breast was riddled through and through, The blood gushed from the wound and steamed Ere this but one brief moment beat That heart with inspiration sweet And enmity and hope and love— The blood boiled and the passions strove. Now, as in a deserted house, All dark and silent hath become; The inmate is for ever dumb, The windows whitened, shutters close— Whither departed is the host? God knows! The very trace is lost.

XXXI

’Tis sweet the foe to aggravate With epigrams impertinent, Sweet to behold him obstinate, His butting horns in anger bent, The glass unwittingly inspect And blush to own himself reflect. Sweeter it is, my friends, if he Howl like a dolt: ’tis meant for me! But sweeter still it is to arrange For him an honourable grave, At his pale brow a shot to have, Placed at the customary range; But home his body to despatch Can scarce in sweetness be a match.

XXXII

Well, if your pistol ball by chance The comrade of your youth should strike, Who by a haughty word or glance Or any trifle else ye like You o’er your wine insulted hath— Or even overcome by wrath Scornfully challenged you afield— Tell me, of sentiments concealed Which in your spirit dominates, When motionless your gaze beneath He lies, upon his forehead death, And slowly life coagulates— When deaf and silent he doth lie Heedless of your despairing cry?

XXXIII

Eugene, his pistol yet in hand And with remorseful anguish filled, Gazing on Lenski’s corse did stand— Zaretski shouted: “Why, he’s killed!”— Killed! at this dreadful exclamation Onéguine went with trepidation And the attendants called in haste. Most carefully Zaretski placed Within his sledge the stiffened corse, And hurried home his awful freight. Conscious of death approximate, Loud paws the earth each panting horse, His bit with foam besprinkled o’er, And homeward like an arrow tore.

XXXIV

My friends, the poet ye regret! When hope’s delightful flower but bloomed In bud of promise incomplete, The manly toga scarce assumed, He perished. Where his troubled dreams, And where the admirable streams Of youthful impulse, reverie, Tender and elevated, free? And where tempestuous love’s desires, The thirst of knowledge and of fame, Horror of sinfulness and shame, Imagination’s sacred fires, Ye shadows of a life more high, Ye dreams of heavenly poesy?

XXXV

Perchance to benefit mankind, Or but for fame he saw the light; His lyre, to silence now consigned, Resounding through all ages might Have echoed to eternity. With worldly honours, it may be, Fortune the poet had repaid. It may be that his martyred shade Carried a truth divine away; That, for the century designed, Had perished a creative mind, And past the threshold of decay, He ne’er shall hear Time’s eulogy, The blessings of humanity.

XXXVI

Or, it may be, the bard had passed A life in common with the rest; Vanished his youthful years at last, The fire extinguished in his breast, In many things had changed his life— The Muse abandoned, ta’en a wife, Inhabited the country, clad In dressing-gown, a cuckold glad: A life of fact, not fiction, led— At forty suffered from the gout, Eaten, drunk, gossiped and grown stout: And finally, upon his bed Had finished life amid his sons, Doctors and women, sobs and groans.

XXXVII

But, howsoe’er his lot were cast, Alas! the youthful lover slain, Poetical enthusiast, A friendly hand thy life hath ta’en! There is a spot the village near Where dwelt the Muses’ worshipper, Two pines have joined their tangled roots, A rivulet beneath them shoots Its waters to the neighbouring vale. There the tired ploughman loves to lie, The reaping girls approach and ply Within its wave the sounding pail, And by that shady rivulet A simple tombstone hath been set.

XXXVIII

There, when the rains of spring we mark Upon the meadows showering, The shepherd plaits his shoe of bark,(66) Of Volga fishermen doth sing, And the young damsel from the town, For summer to the country flown, Whene’er across the plain at speed Alone she gallops on her steed, Stops at the tomb in passing by; The tightened leathern rein she draws, Aside she casts her veil of gauze And reads with rapid eager eye The simple epitaph—a tear Doth in her gentle eye appear.

[Note 66: In Russia and other northern countries rude shoes are made of the inner bark of the lime tree.]

XXXIX

And meditative from the spot She leisurely away doth ride, Spite of herself with Lenski’s lot Longtime her mind is occupied. She muses: “What was Olga’s fate? Longtime was her heart desolate Or did her tears soon cease to flow? And where may be her sister now? Where is the outlaw, banned by men, Of fashionable dames the foe, The misanthrope of gloomy brow, By whom the youthful bard was slain?”— In time I’ll give ye without fail A true account and in detail.

XL

But not at present, though sincerely I on my chosen hero dote; Though I’ll return to him right early, Just at this moment I cannot. Years have inclined me to stern prose, Years to light rhyme themselves oppose, And now, I mournfully confess, In rhyming I show laziness. As once, to fill the rapid page My pen no longer finds delight, Other and colder thoughts affright, Sterner solicitudes engage, In worldly din or solitude Upon my visions such intrude.

XLI

Fresh aspirations I have known, I am acquainted with fresh care, Hopeless are all the first, I own, Yet still remains the old despair. Illusions, dream, where, where your sweetness? Where youth (the proper rhyme is fleetness)? And is it true her garland bright At last is shrunk and withered quite? And is it true and not a jest, Not even a poetic phrase, That vanished are my youthful days (This joking I used to protest), Never for me to reappear— That soon I reach my thirtieth year?

XLII

And so my noon hath come! If so, I must resign myself, in sooth; Yet let us part in friendship, O My frivolous and jolly youth. I thank thee for thy joyfulness, Love’s tender transports and distress, For riot, frolics, mighty feeds, And all that from thy hand proceeds— I thank thee. In thy company, With tumult or contentment still Of thy delights I drank my fill, Enough! with tranquil spirit I Commence a new career in life And rest from bygone days of strife.

XLIII

But pause! Thou calm retreats, farewell, Where my days in the wilderness Of languor and of love did tell And contemplative dreaminess; And thou, youth’s early inspiration, Invigorate imagination And spur my spirit’s torpid mood! Fly frequent to my solitude, Let not the poet’s spirit freeze, Grow harsh and cruel, dead and dry, Eventually petrify In the world’s mortal revelries, Amid the soulless sons of pride And glittering simpletons beside;

XLIV

Amid sly, pusillanimous Spoiled children most degenerate And tiresome rogues ridiculous And stupid censors passionate; Amid coquettes who pray to God And abject slaves who kiss the rod; In haunts of fashion where each day All with urbanity betray, Where harsh frivolity proclaims Its cold unfeeling sentences; Amid the awful emptiness Of conversation, thought and aims— In that morass where you and I Wallow, my friends, in company!

END OF CANTO THE SIXTH

CANTO THE SEVENTH

Moscow

Moscow, Russia’s darling daughter, Where thine equal shall we find? Dmitrieff

Who can help loving mother Moscow? Baratynski (_Feasts_)

A journey to Moscow! To see the world! Where better? Where man is not. Griboyédoff (_Woe from Wit_)

Canto The Seventh

[Written 1827-1828 at Moscow, Mikhailovskoe, St. Petersburg and Malinniki.]

I

Impelled by Spring’s dissolving beams, The snows from off the hills around Descended swift in turbid streams And flooded all the level ground. A smile from slumbering nature clear Did seem to greet the youthful year; The heavens shone in deeper blue, The woods, still naked to the view, Seemed in a haze of green embowered. The bee forth from his cell of wax Flew to collect his rural tax; The valleys dried and gaily flowered; Herds low, and under night’s dark veil Already sings the nightingale.

II

Mournful is thine approach to me, O Spring, thou chosen time of love! What agitation languidly My spirit and my blood doth move, What sad emotions o’er me steal When first upon my cheek I feel The breath of Spring again renewed, Secure in rural quietude— Or, strange to me is happiness? Do all things which to mirth incline. And make a dark existence shine Inflict annoyance and distress Upon a soul inert and cloyed?— And is all light within destroyed?

III

Or, heedless of the leaves’ return Which Autumn late to earth consigned, Do we alone our losses mourn Of which the rustling woods remind? Or, when anew all Nature teems, Do we foresee in troubled dreams The coming of life’s Autumn drear. For which no springtime shall appear? Or, it may be, we inly seek, Wafted upon poetic wing, Some other long-departed Spring, Whose memories make the heart beat quick With thoughts of a far distant land, Of a strange night when the moon and—

IV

’Tis now the season! Idlers all, Epicurean philosophers, Ye men of fashion cynical, Of Levshin’s school ye followers,(67) Priams of country populations And dames of fine organisations, Spring summons you to her green bowers, ’Tis the warm time of labour, flowers; The time for mystic strolls which late Into the starry night extend. Quick to the country let us wend In vehicles surcharged with freight; In coach or post-cart duly placed Beyond the city-barriers haste.

[Note 67: Levshin—a contemporary writer on political economy.]

V

Thou also, reader generous, The chaise long ordered please employ, Abandon cities riotous, Which in the winter were a joy: The Muse capricious let us coax, Go hear the rustling of the oaks Beside a nameless rivulet, Where in the country Eugene yet, An idle anchorite and sad, A while ago the winter spent, Near young Tattiana resident, My pretty self-deceiving maid— No more the village knows his face, For there he left a mournful trace.

VI

Let us proceed unto a rill, Which in a hilly neighbourhood Seeks, winding amid meadows still, The river through the linden wood. The nightingale there all night long, Spring’s paramour, pours forth her song The fountain brawls, sweetbriers bloom, And lo! where lies a marble tomb And two old pines their branches spread— “_Vladimir Lenski lies beneath, Who early died a gallant death_,” Thereon the passing traveller read: “_The date, his fleeting years how long— Repose in peace, thou child of song_.”

VII

Time was, the breath of early dawn Would agitate a mystic wreath Hung on a pine branch earthward drawn Above the humble urn of death. Time was, two maidens from their home At eventide would hither come, And, by the light the moonbeams gave, Lament, embrace upon that grave. But now—none heeds the monument Of woe: effaced the pathway now: There is no wreath upon the bough: Alone beside it, gray and bent, As formerly the shepherd sits And his poor basten sandal knits.

VIII

My poor Vladimir, bitter tears Thee but a little space bewept, Faithless, alas! thy maid appears, Nor true unto her sorrow kept. Another could her heart engage, Another could her woe assuage By flattery and lover’s art— A lancer captivates her heart! A lancer her soul dotes upon: Before the altar, lo! the pair, Mark ye with what a modest air She bows her head beneath the crown;(68) Behold her downcast eyes which glow, Her lips where light smiles come and go!

[Note 68: The crown used in celebrating marriages in Russia according to the forms of the Eastern Church. See Note 28.]

IX

My poor Vladimir! In the tomb, Passed into dull eternity, Was the sad poet filled with gloom, Hearing the fatal perfidy? Or, beyond Lethe lulled to rest, Hath the bard, by indifference blest, Callous to all on earth become— Is the world to him sealed and dumb? The same unmoved oblivion On us beyond the grave attends, The voice of lovers, foes and friends, Dies suddenly: of heirs alone Remains on earth the unseemly rage, Whilst struggling for the heritage.

X

Soon Olga’s accents shrill resound No longer through her former home; The lancer, to his calling bound, Back to his regiment must roam. The aged mother, bathed in tears, Distracted by her grief appears When the hour came to bid good-bye— But my Tattiana’s eyes were dry. Only her countenance assumed A deadly pallor, air distressed; When all around the entrance pressed, To say farewell, and fussed and fumed Around the carriage of the pair— Tattiana gently led them there.

XI

And long her eyes as through a haze After the wedded couple strain; Alas! the friend of childish days Away, Tattiana, hath been ta’en. Thy dove, thy darling little pet On whom a sister’s heart was set Afar is borne by cruel fate, For evermore is separate. She wanders aimless as a sprite, Into the tangled garden goes But nowhere can she find repose, Nor even tears afford respite, Of consolation all bereft— Well nigh her heart in twain was cleft.

XII