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XVII

   And pensive, spiritless again    before his darling Olga,    Vladimir cannot make himself remind her  4 of yesterday;    “I,” he reflects, “shall be her savior.    I shall not suffer a depraver    with fire of sighs and compliments  8 to tempt a youthful heart,    nor let a despicable, venomous    worm gnaw a lily's little stalk,    nor have a blossom two morns old 12 wither while yet half blown.”    All this, friends, meant:    I have a pistol duel with a pal.

XVIII

   If he had known what a wound burned    the heart of my Tatiana! If Tatiana    had been aware, if she  4 could have known that tomorrow    Lenski and Eugene    were to compete for the tomb's shelter,    ah, then, perhaps, her love  8 might have united the two friends again!    But none, even by chance, had yet discovered    that passion.    Onegin about everything was silent; 12 Tatiana pined away in secret;    alone the nurse    might have known — but she was slow-witted.

XIX

   All evening Lenski was abstracted,    now taciturn, now gay again;    but he who has been fostered by the Muse  4 is always thus; with knitted brow    he'd sit down at the clavichord    and play but chords on it;    or else, his gaze directing toward Olga,  8 he'd whisper, “I am happy, am I not?”    But it is late; time to depart. In him    the heart contracted, full of anguish;    as he took leave of the young maiden, 12 it seemed to break asunder.    She looks him in the face. “What is the matter with you?”    “Nothing.” And he makes for the porch.

XX

   On coming home his pistols he inspected,    then back into their case    he put them, and, undressed,  4 by candle opened Schiller;    but there's one thought infolding him;    the sad heart in him does not slumber:    Olga, in beauty  8 ineffable, he sees before him.    Vladimir shuts the book,    takes up his pen; his verses —    full of love's nonsense — sound 12 and flow. Aloud    he reads them in a lyric fever,    like drunken D[elvig] at a feast.

XXI

   The verses chanced to be preserved;    I have them; here they are:    Whither, ah! whither are ye fled,  4 my springtime's golden days?    “What has the coming day in store for me?    In vain my gaze attempts to grasp it;    in deep gloom it lies hidden.  8 It matters not; fate's law is just.    Whether I fall, pierced by the dart, or whether    it flies by — all is right:    of waking and of sleep 12 comes the determined hour;    blest is the day of cares,    blest, too, is the advent of darkness!

XXII

   “The ray of dawn will gleam tomorrow,    and brilliant day will scintillate;    whilst I, perhaps — I shall descend  4 into the tomb's mysterious shelter,    and the young poet's memory    slow Lethe will engulf;    the world will forget me; but thou,  8 wilt thou come, maid of beauty,    to shed a tear over the early urn    and think: he loved me,    to me alone he consecrated 12 the doleful daybreak of a stormy life!...    Friend of my heart, desired friend, come,    come: I'm thy spouse!”

XXIII

   Thus did he write, “obscurely    and limply” (what we call romanticism —    though no romanticism at all  4 do I see here; but what is that to us?),    and finally, before dawn, letting sink    his weary head,    upon the fashionable word  8 “ideal,” Lenski dozed off gently;    but hardly had he lost himself    in sleep's bewitchment when the neighbor    entered the silent study 12 and wakened Lenski with the call,    “Time to get up: past six already.    Onegin's sure to be awaiting us.”

XXIV

   But he was wrong: at that time Eugene    was sleeping like the dead.    The shadows of the night now wane,  4 and Vesper by the cock is greeted;    Onegin soundly sleeps away.    By now the sun rides high,    and shifting flurries  8 sparkle and spin; but still his bed    Onegin has not left,    still slumber hovers over him.    Now he awakes at last 12 and draws apart the curtain's flaps;    looks — and sees that already    it is long since time to drive off.