Quickly he rings — and his French valet,
Guillot, comes running in,
offers him dressing gown and slippers,
4 and hands him linen.
Onegin hastes to dress,
orders his valet to get ready
to drive together with him and to take
8 along with him also the combat case.
The racing sleigh is ready; in he gets;
flies to the mill. Apace they come.
He bids his valet carry after him
12 Lepage's39 fell tubes
and has the horses moved away
into a field toward two oaklings.
XXVI
On the dam leaning, Lenski had been waiting
impatiently for a long time;
meanwhile Zaretski, a rural mechanic,
4 with the millstone was finding fault.
Onegin with apologies came up.
“But where,” quoth with amazement
Zaretski, “where's your second?”
8 In duels classicist and pedant, he
liked method out of feeling and allowed
to stretch one's man not anyhow
but by the strict rules of the art
12 according to all the traditions
of ancientry
(which we must praise in him).
XXVII
“My second?” Eugene said.
“Here's he: my friend, Monsieur Guillot.
I don't foresee
4 objections to my presentation:
although he is an unknown man,
quite surely he's an honest chap.”
Zaretski bit his lip. Onegin
8 asked Lenski: “Well, are we to start?”
“Let's start if you are willing,” said
Vladimir. And they went
behind the mill.
12 While, at a distance, our Zaretski and the “honest chap”
enter into a solemn compact,
the two foes stand with lowered eyes.
XXVIII
Foes! Is it long since bloodthirst
turned them away from one another?
Is it long since they shared their hours of leisure,
4 meals, thoughts, and doings
in friendliness? Now, wickedly,
similar to hereditary foes,
as in a frightful, enigmatic dream,
8 in silence, for each other they
prepare destruction coolly....
Should they not burst out laughing while
their hand is not yet crimsoned?
12 Should they not amiably part?...
But wildly beau-monde enmity
is of false shame afraid.
XXIX
The pistols now have gleamed. The mallet clanks
against the ramrod. The balls go
into the polyhedral barrel,
4 and the cock clicks for the first time.
The powder in a grayish streamlet
now pours into the pan. The jagged,
securely screwed-in flint
8 anew is drawn back. Disconcerted
Guillot behind a near stump takes his stand.
The two foes shed their cloaks.
Zaretski paces off thirty-two steps
12 with excellent accuracy; his friends
apart he places at the farthest mark,
and each takes up his pistol.
XXX
“Now march.” The two foes, coolly,
not aiming yet,
with firm tread, slowly, steadily
4 traversed four paces,
four mortal stairs.
His pistol Eugene then,
not ceasing to advance,
8 gently the first began to raise.
Now they have stepped five paces more,
and Lenski, closing his left eye,
started to level also — but right then
12 Onegin fired.... The clock of fate
has struck: the poet
in silence drops his pistol.
XXXI
Softly he lays his hand upon his breast
and falls. His misty gaze
expresses death, not pain.
4 Thus, slowly, down the slope of hills,
shining with sparkles in the sun,
a lump of snow descends.
Deluged with instant cold,
8 Onegin hastens to the youth,
looks, calls him... vainly:
he is no more. The young bard has
found an untimely end!
12 The storm has blown; the beauteous bloom
has withered at sunrise; the fire
upon the altar has gone out!...