A restlessness took hold of him,
the inclination to a change of places
(a most excruciating property,
4 a cross that few deliberately bear).
He left his countryseat,
the solitude of woods and fields,
where an ensanguined shade
8 daily appeared to him,
and started upon travels without aim,
accessible to one sensation;
and to him journeys,
12 like everything on earth,
grew boring. He returned and found himself,
like Chatski, come from boat to ball.
XIV
But lo! the throng has undulated,
a murmur through the hall has run....
Toward the hostess there advanced a lady,
4 followed by an imposing general.
She was unhurried,
not cold, not talkative,
without a flouting gaze for everyone,
8 without pretensions to success,
without those little mannerisms,
without mimetic artifices....
All about her was quiet, simple.
12 She seemed a faithful reproduction
du comme il faut.... ([Shishkov,] forgive me:
I do not know how to translate.)
XV
Closer to her the ladies moved;
old women smiled to her;
the men bowed lower, sought
4 to catch her gaze;
maidens before her passed more quietly
across the room; and higher
than anyone lifted his nose and shoulders
8 the general who had come in with her.
None could have called her
a beauty; but from head to foot
none could have found in her
12 what is by autocratic fashion
in the high London circle
called “vulgar.” (I'm unable —
XVI
— of that word I am very fond,
but am unable to translate it; in our midst
for the time being it is new
4 and hardly bound to be in favor;
it might do nicely in an epigram....
But to our lady let me turn.)
Winsome with carefree charm,
8 she at a table sat
with brilliant Nina Voronskóy,
that Cleopatra of the Neva;
and, surely, you would have agreed
12 that Nina with her marble beauty
could not — though dazzling —
eclipse her neighbor.
XVII
“Can it be possible?” thinks Eugene.
“Can it be she?... But really... No...
What! From outback steppe villages...”
4 and a tenacious quizzing glass
he keeps directing every minute
at her whose aspect vaguely has
recalled to him forgotten features.
8 “Tell me, Prince, you don't know
who is it there in the framboise beret
talking with the Spanish ambassador?”
The prince looks at Onegin:
12 “Aha! Indeed, long have you not been in the monde. Wait, I'll present you.”
“But who is she?” “My wife.”
XVIII
“So you are married! Didn't know before.
How long?” “About two years.”
“To whom?” “The Larin girl.” “Tatiana!”
4 “She knows you?” “I'm their neighbor.”
“Oh, then, come on.” The prince goes up
to his wife and leads up to her
his kin and friend.
8 The princess looks at him... and whatsoever
troubled her soul,
however greatly
she was surprised, astounded,
12 nothing betrayed her,
her ton remained the same,
her bow was just as quiet.
XIX
Forsooth! It was not merely that she didn't
flinch, or blanch suddenly, or flush —
she simply never moved an eyebrow,
4 did not even compress her lips.
Though he looked with the utmost care,
not even traces of the old Tatiana could
Onegin find.
8 With her he wished to start a conversation —
and... and could not. She asked: How long
had he been there? And whence came he —
from their own parts, maybe?
12 Then on her spouse she turned a look
of lassitude; glided away....
And moveless he remained.