Diana's bosom, Flora's cheeks, are charming,
dear friends! Nevertheless, for me
something about it makes more charming
4 the small foot of Terpsichore.
By prophesying to the gaze
an unpriced recompense,
with token beauty it attracts the willful
8 swarm of desires.
I like it, dear Elvina,
beneath the long napery of tables,
in springtime on the turf of meads,
12 in winter on the hearth's cast iron,
on mirrory parquet of halls,
by the sea on granite of rocks.
XXXIII
I recollect the sea before a tempest:
how I envied the waves
running in turbulent succession
4 with love to lie down at her feet!
How much I wished then with the waves
to touch the dear feet with my lips!
No, never midst the fiery days
8 of my ebullient youth
did I long with such anguish
to kiss the lips of young Armidas,
or the roses of flaming cheeks,
12 or bosoms full of languor —
no, never did the surge of passions
thus rive my soul!
XXXIV
I have remembrance of another time:
in chary fancies now and then
I hold the happy stirrup
4 and feel a small foot in my hand.
Again imagination seethes,
again that touch has kindled
the blood within my withered heart,
8 again the ache, again the love!
But 'tis enough extolling haughty ones
with my loquacious lyre:
they are not worth either the passions
12 or songs by them inspired;
the words and gaze of the said charmers
are as deceptive as their little feet.
XXXV
And my Onegin? Half asleep,
he drives from ball to bed,
while indefatigable Petersburg
4 is roused already by the drum.
The merchant's up, the hawker's out,
the cabby to the hack stand drags,
the Okhta girl hastes with her jug,
8 the morning snow creaks under her.
Morn's pleasant hubbub has awoken,
unclosed are shutters, chimney smoke
ascends in a blue column, and the baker,
12 a punctual German in a cotton cap,
has more than once already
opened his vasisdas.
XXXVI
But by the tumult of the ball fatigued,
and turning morning into midnight,
sleeps peacefully in blissful shade
4 the child of pastimes and of luxury.
He will awake past midday, and again
till morn his life will be prepared,
monotonous and motley, and tomorrow
8 'twill be the same as yesterday.
But was my Eugene happy —
free, in the bloom of the best years,
amidst resplendent conquests,
12 amidst delights of every day?
Was it to him of no avail
midst banquets to be rash and hale?
XXXVII
No, feelings early cooled in him.
Tedious to him became the social hum.
The fairs remained not long
4 the object of his customary thoughts.
Betrayals had time to fatigue him. Friends
and friendship palled,
since plainly not always could he
8 beefsteaks and Strasbourg pie
sluice with a champagne bottle
and scatter piquant sayings when
he had the headache;
12 and though he was a fiery scapegrace,
he lost at last his liking
for strife, saber and lead.
XXXVIII
A malady, the cause of which
'tis high time were discovered,
similar to the English “spleen” —
4 in short, the Russian “chondria” —
possessed him by degrees.
To shoot himself, thank God,
he did not care to try,
8 but toward life became quite cold.
He like Childe Harold, gloomy, languid,
appeared in drawing rooms;
neither the gossip of the monde nor boston,
12 neither a winsome glance nor an immodest sigh,
nothing touched him;
he noticed nothing.