conquests of others and their own,
hopes, pranks, daydreams.
The innocent talks flow,
4 embellished with slight calumny.
Then, in requital for their patter,
her heart's confession they
sweetly request.
8 But Tanya in a kind of daze
their speeches hears without response,
understands nothing,
and her heart's secret,
12 fond treasure of both tears and bliss,
she mutely guards meantime
and shares with none.
XLVIII
Tatiana wishes to make out
the talks, the general conversation;
but there engages everybody in the drawing room
4 such incoherent, common rot;
all about them is so pale, neutral;
they even slander dully.
In this sterile aridity of speeches,
8 interrogations, talebearing, and news,
not once in four-and-twenty hours does thought
flash forth, even by chance, even at random;
the languid mind won't smile,
12 the heart even in jest won't quiver;
and even some droll foolishness in you
one will not meet with, hollow monde!
XLIX
The “archival youths” in a crowd
look priggishly at Tanya
and about her among themselves
4 unfavorably speak.
One melancholy coxcomb finds
she is “ideal”
and, leaning 'gainst a doorpost,
8 prepares an elegy for her.
At a dull aunt's having met Tanya,
once V[yazemski] sat down beside her
and managed to engage her soul;
12 and, near him having noticed her,
an old man, straightening his wig,
inquires about her.
L
But where stormy Melpomene's
protracted wail resounds,
where she her spangled mantle waves
4 before the frigid crowd;
where dozes quietly Thalia
and hearkens not to friendly plaudits;
where at Terpsichore alone
8 the young spectator marvels
(as it was, too, in former years,
in your time and in mine),
toward her did not turn
12 either jealous lorgnettes of ladies
or spyglasses of modish connoisseurs
from boxes or the rows of stalls.
LI
To the Sobránie, too, they bring her:
the crush there, the excitement, heat,
the music's crash, the tapers' glare,
4 the flicker, whirl of rapid pairs,
the light attires of belles,
the galleries freaked with people,
of marriageable girls the ample hemicycle,
8 at once strike all the senses.
Here finished fops display
their impudence, their waistcoats,
and negligent lorgnettes.
12 Hither hussars on leave
haste to arrive, to thunder by,
flash, captivate, and wing away.
LII
The night has many charming stars,
in Moscow there are many belles;
but brighter in the airy blue
4 than all her skymates is the moon;
but she, whom with my lyre
disturb I dare not,
like the majestic moon,
8 'mid dames and maidens shines alone.
With what celestial pride
the earth she touches!
With what voluptuousness her breast is filled!
12 How languorous her wondrous gaze!...
But 'tis enough, enough; do cease:
to folly you have paid your due.
LIII
Noise, laughter, scampering, bows,
galope, mazurka, waltz... Meantime,
between two aunts, beside a column,
4 noted by none,
Tatiana looks and does not see,
detests the agitation of the monde;
she stifles here... she strains in fancy
8 toward campestral life,
the country, the poor villagers,
to that secluded nook
where flows a limpid brooklet,
12 toward her flowers, toward her novels,
and to the gloom of linden avenues,
thither where he used to appear to her