And by degrees into a lethargy
of feelings and of thoughts he falls,
while before him Imagination
4 deals out her motley faro deck.
Now he sees: on the melted snow,
as at a night's encampment sleeping,
stirless, a youth lies; and he hears
8 a voice: “Well, what — he's dead!”
Now he sees foes forgotten,
calumniators, and malicious cowards,
and a swarm of young traitresses,
12 and a circle of despicable comrades;
and now a country house, and by the window
sits she... and ever she!
XXXVIII
He grew so used to lose himself in this
that he almost went off his head
or else became a poet. (Frankly,
4 that would have been a boon, indeed!)
And true: by dint of magnetism,
the mechanism of Russian verses
my addleheaded pupil
8 at that time nearly grasped.
How much a poet he resembled
when in a corner he would sit alone,
and the hearth blazed in front of him,
12 and he hummed “Benedetta”
or “Idol mio,” and into the fire
dropped now a slipper, now his magazine!
XXXIX
Days rushed. In warmth-pervaded air
winter already was resolving;
and he did not become a poet,
4 he did not die, did not go mad.
Spring quickens him: for the first time
his close-shut chambers, where he had
been hibernating like a marmot,
8 his double windows, inglenook —
he leaves on a bright morning,
he fleets in sleigh along the Neva's bank.
Upon blue blocks of hewn-out ice
12 the sun plays. In the streets
the furrowed snow thaws muddily:
whither, upon it, his fast course
XL
directs Onegin? You beforehand
have guessed already. Yes, exactly:
apace to her, to his Tatiana,
4 my unreformed eccentric comes.
He walks in, looking like a corpse.
There's not a soul in the front hall.
He enters the reception room. On! No one.
8 A door he opens.... What is it
that strikes him with such force?
The princess before him, alone,
sits, unadorned, pale, reading
12 some kind of letter,
and softly sheds a flood of tears,
her cheek propped on her hand.
XLI
Ah! Her mute sufferings —
in this swift instant who would not have read!
Who would not have the former Tanya,
4 poor Tanya, recognized now in the princess?
In throes of mad regrets,
Eugene falls at her feet;
she gives a start,
8 and is silent, and looks,
without surprise, without wrath, at Onegin....
His sick, extinguished gaze,
imploring aspect, mute reproof,
12 she takes in everything. The simple maid,
with the dreams, with the heart of former days
again in her has resurrected now.
XLII
She does not bid him rise
and, not taking her eyes off him,
does not withdraw
4 her limp hand from his avid lips....
What is her dreaming now about?
A lengthy silence passes,
and finally she, softly:
8 “Enough; get up. I must
frankly explain myself to you.
Onegin, do you recollect that hour
when in the garden, in the avenue, fate brought us
12 together and so meekly
your lesson I heard out.
Today it is my turn.
XLIII
“Onegin, I was younger then,
I was, I daresay, better-looking,
and I loved you; and what then, what
4 did I find in your heart?
What answer? Mere severity.
There wasn't — was there? — novelty for you
in a meek little maiden's love?
8 Even today — good heavens! — my blood freezes
as soon as I remember
your cold glance and that sermon.... But I do not
accuse you; at that awful hour
12 you acted nobly,
you in regard to me were right,
to you with all my soul I'm grateful....