No — every minute to see you; to follow
24 you everywhere;
the smile of your lips, movement of your eyes,
to try to capture with enamored eyes;
to listen long to you, to comprehend
28 all your perfection with one's soul;
to melt in agonies before you,
grow pale and waste away... that's rapture!
And I'm deprived of that; for you
32 I drag myself at random everywhere;
to me each day is dear, each hour is dear,
while I in futile dullness squander
the days told off by fate — they are
36 sufficiently oppressive anyway.
I know: my span is well-nigh measured;
but that my life may be prolonged
I must be certain in the morning
40 of seeing you during the day.
I fear: in my meek plea
your severe gaze will see
the schemes of despicable cunning —
44 and I can hear your wrathful censure.
If you hut knew how terrible it is
to languish with the thirst of love,
burn — and by means of reason hourly
48 subdue the tumult in one's blood;
wish to embrace your knees
and, in a burst of sobbing, at your feet
pour out appeals, avowals, plaints,
52 all, all I could express,
and in the meantime with feigned coldness
arm speech and gaze,
maintain a placid conversation,
56 glance at you with a cheerful glance!...
But let it be: against myself
I've not the force to struggle any more;
all is decided: I am in your power,
60 and I surrender to my fate.
XXXIII
There is no answer. He sends a new missive.
To the second, to the third letter —
there is no answer. He drives out to some
4 reception. Hardly has he entered — there she is
coming in his direction. How severe!
He is not seen, to him no word is said.
Ugh! How surrounded she is now
8 with Twelfthtide cold!
How anxious are to hold back indignation
her stubborn lips!
Onegin peers with a keen eye:
12 where, where are discomposure, sympathy,
where the tearstains? None, none!
There's on that face but the imprint of wrath...
XXXIV
plus, possibly, a secret fear
lest husband or monde guess
the escapade, the casual foible,
4 all my Onegin knows....
There is no hope! He drives away,
curses his folly —
and, deeply plunged in it,
8 the monde he once again renounces
and in his silent study comes to him
the recollection of the time
when cruel chondria
12 pursued him in the noisy monde, captured him, took him by the collar,
and shut him up in a dark hole.
XXXV
Again, without discrimination,
he started reading. He read Gibbon,
Rousseau, Manzoni, Herder,
4 Chamfort, Mme de Staël, Bichat, Tissot.
He read the skeptic Bayle,
he read the works of Fontenelle,
he read some [authors] of our own,
8 without rejecting anything —
the “almanacs” and the reviews
where sermons into us are drummed,
where I'm today abused so much
12 but where such madrigals addressed tome
I used to meet with now and then:
e sempre bene, gentlemen.
XXXVI
And lo — his eyes were reading, but his thoughts
were far away;
chimeras, desires, sorrows
4 kept crowding deep into his soul.
Between the printed lines
he with spiritual eyes
read other lines. It was in them8 that he was utterly absorbed.
These were the secret legends of the heart's
dark ancientry;
dreams unconnected
12 with anything; threats, rumors, presages;
or the live tosh of a long tale,
or a young maiden's letters.