Capricious belles of the grand monde!
Before all others you he left;
and it is true that in our years
4 the upper ton is rather tedious.
Although, perhaps, this or that dame
interprets Say and Bentham,
in general their conversation
8 is insupportable, though harmless tosh.
On top of that they are so pure,
so stately, so intelligent,
so full of piety,
12 so circumspect, so scrupulous,
so inaccessible to men,
that the mere sight of them begets the spleen.7
XLIII
And you, young beauties, whom
at a late hour daredevil droshkies
carry away over the pavement
4 of Petersburg,
you also were abandoned by my Eugene.
Apostate from the turbulent delights,
Onegin locked himself indoors;
8 yawning, took up a pen;
wanted to write; but persevering toil
to him was loathsome: nothing
from his pen issued, and he did not get
12 into the cocky guild of people
on whom I pass no judgment — for the reason
that I belong to them.
XLIV
And once again to idleness consigned,
oppressed by emptiness of soul,
he settled down with the laudable aim
4 to make his own another's mind;
he crammed a shelf with an array of books,
and read, and read — and all for nothing:
here there was dullness; there, deceit and raving;
8 this one lacked conscience; that one, sense;
on all of them were different fetters;
and outworn was the old, and the new raved
about the old.
12 As he'd left women, he left books
and, with its dusty tribe, the shelf
with funerary taffeta he curtained.
XLV
Having cast off the burden of the monde's conventions,
having, as he, from vain pursuits desisted,
with him I made friends at that time.
4 I liked his traits,
to dreams the involuntary addiction,
nonimitative oddity,
and sharp, chilled mind;
8 I was embittered, he was gloomy;
the play of passions we knew both;
on both, life weighed;
in both, the heart's glow had gone out;
12 for both, there was in store the rancor
of blind Fortuna and of men
at the very morn of our days.
XLVI
He who has lived and thought
cannot help in his soul despising men;
him who has felt disturbs
4 the ghost of irrecoverable days;
for him there are no more enchantments;
him does the snake of memories,
him does repentance gnaw.
8 All this often imparts
great charm to conversation.
At first, Onegin's language
would disconcert me; but I grew
12 accustomed to his biting argument
and banter blent halfwise with bile
and virulence of somber epigrams.
XLVII
How oft in summertide, when limpid
and luminous is the nocturnal sky
above the Neva,8 and the gay
4 glass of the waters
does not reflect Diana's visage —
rememorating intrigues of past years,
rememorating a past love,
8 impressible, carefree again,
the breath of the benignant night
we mutely quaffed!
As to the greenwood from a prison
12 a slumbering clogged convict is transferred,
so we'd be carried off in fancy
to the beginning of young life.
XLVIII
With soul full of regrets,
and leaning on the granite,
Eugene stood pensive — as himself
4 the Poet9 has described.
'Twas stillness all; only night sentries
to one another called,
and the far clip-clop of some droshky
8 resounded suddenly from Million Street;
only a boat, oars swinging,
swam on the dozing river,
and, in the distance, captivated us
12 a horn and a brave song.
But, 'mid the night's diversions, sweeter
is the strain of Torquato's octaves.