“I am in love,” anew she murmured
to the old woman mournfully.
“Sweetheart, you are not well.”
4 “Leave me. I am in love.”
And meantime the moon shone
and with dark light irradiated
the pale charms of Tatiana
8 and her loose hair,
and drops of tears, and, on a benchlet,
before the youthful heroine,
a kerchief on her hoary head, the little
12 old crone in a long “body warmer”;
and in the stillness everything
dozed by the inspirative moon.
XXI
And far away Tatiana's heart was ranging
as she looked at the moon....
All of a sudden in her mind a thought was born....
4 “Go, let me be alone.
Give me, nurse, a pen, paper, and move up
the table; I shall soon lie down.
Good night.” Now she's alone,
8 all's still. The moon gives light to her.
Tatiana, leaning on her elbow, writes,
and Eugene's ever present in her mind,
and in an unconsidered letter
12 the love of an innocent maid breathes forth.
The letter now is ready, folded.
Tatiana! Whom, then, is it for?
XXII
I've known belles inaccessible,
cold, winter-chaste;
inexorable, incorruptible,
4 unfathomable by the mind;
I marveled at their modish morgue,
at their natural virtue,
and, to be frank, I fled from them,
8 and I, meseems, with terror read
above their eyebrows Hell's inscription:
“Abandon hope for evermore!”20 To inspire love is bale for them,
12 to frighten folks for them is joyance.
Perhaps, on the banks of the Neva
similar ladies you have seen.
XXIII
Amidst obedient admirers,
other odd females I have seen,
conceitedly indifferent
4 to sighs impassioned and to praise.
But what, to my amazement, did I find?
While, by austere demeanor,
they frightened timid love,
8 they had the knack of winning it again,
at least by their condolence;
at least the sound of spoken words
sometimes would seem more tender,
12 and with credulous blindness
again the youthful lover
pursued sweet vanity.
XXIV
Why is Tatiana, then, more guilty?
Is it because in sweet simplicity
deceit she knows not and believes
4 in her elected dream?
Is it because she loves without art, being
obedient to the bent of feeling?
Is it because she is so trustful
8 and is endowed by heaven
with a restless imagination,
intelligence, and a live will,
and headstrongness,
12 and a flaming and tender heart?
Are you not going to forgive her
the thoughtlessness of passions?
XXV
The coquette reasons coolly;
Tatiana in dead earnest loves
and unconditionally yields
4 to love like a sweet child.
She does not say: Let us defer;
thereby we shall augment love's value,
inveigle into toils more surely;
8 let us first prick vainglory
with hope; then with perplexity
exhaust a heart, and then
revive it with a jealous fire,
12 for otherwise, cloyed with delight,
the cunning captive from his shackles
hourly is ready to escape.
XXVI
Another problem I foresee:
saving the honor of my native land,
undoubtedly I shall have to translate
4 Tatiana's letter. She
knew Russian badly,
did not read our reviews,
and in her native tongue expressed herself
8 with difficulty. So,
she wrote in French.
What's to be done about it! I repeat again;
as yet a lady's love
12 has not expressed itself in Russian,
as yet our proud tongue has not got accustomed
to postal prose.