No communality of dealings.
Their sweet wives’ talk was less intense
But even more devoid of sense. 12
Vladimir Lensky, rich, good-looking,
Was deemed by all a splendid catch.
The country folk were set on hooking
Their girls a profitable match,
In this case their “half-Russian” neighbour.
If he dropped in, the talk would favour
All comments, even if oblique,
That painted bachelordom bleak.
It’s teatime now, and Lensky’s coming.
Dunya controls the samovar—
“Go to it, Dunya, there you are!”
Here’s a guitar, and to its strumming
She screeches (what a caterwaul!),
“Come to me in my golden hall.” 13
But Lensky, not exactly raging
To bind himself in wedlock, sought
Acquaintance with this man, Onegin;
It can’t come fast enough, he thought.
The two men met. Liquid and solid,
Poetry–prose, ice-cold and torrid
Are not more polarized than they.
Their differences won the day
At first; they simply bored each other.
Then they drew closer. Far and wide,
They rode out daily side by side,
Each an inseparable brother.
Thus friendships form (something I rue)
From having nothing else to do. 14
But we exclude that kind of closeness.
As our unbiased thinking runs,
People are naughts, while, in our grossness,
We see ourselves as number ones.
We show Napoleon’s worst features.
Millions of bipeds, fellow creatures,
Exist for us to use as tools;
Feelings we leave to beasts and fools.
Yevgeny, though, was not unshakeable.
Although he took, to all men born,
An informed attitude of scorn,
Nevertheless (since rules are breakable)
With some he went against the grain
And let his feelings have free rein. 15
He smiled at Lensky as he chattered.
The poet’s language was ablaze;
His mind, his judgement of what mattered,
The inspiration in his gaze,
Seemed to Onegin unfamiliar.
His inward thoughts grew ever chillier,
Though he fought hard and held them back,
Thinking it stupid to attack
And spoil this brief bliss with correction.
“Time will enlighten him, not me.
So let the man’s illusion be;
Let him accept the world’s perfection.
To youth and fervour let’s succumb,
Young ardour and delirium.” 16
There was a good deal to divide them,
And make them think as thinkers should:
The compacts made by ancient tribesmen,
How science works, evil and good,
The age-old ways of superstition,
The mystery of non-existence,
Life, destiny, rose, as they must,
Before these men to be discussed.
The poet, holding forth with fervour,
Forgot himself and made things worse
By quoting bits of Nordic verse.
Yevgeny was a kind observer;
While understanding not a lot,
He listened hard with all he’d got. 17
But passion was what dominated
The minds of these reclusive chaps.
From its strong force emancipated,
Onegin spoke of this, perhaps
With some regret (and sighs), as follows:
“Blest he who in his passion wallows
And then at last puts it aside.
Twice blest is he who has denied
And cooled both love (with separation)
And enmity (with a sharp word),
Yawning with friends and wife, unstirred
By jealous agonies, too patient
To put dynastic funds to use
By risking all on one sly deuce!” 18
When we have hid beneath the banner
Of sensible tranquillity,
With ardour cooled in such a manner
That we can view indulgently
The lingering echoes of its surges—
Its once unstoppable emergence,
Brought down to earth with much ado,
We sometimes like to listen to
Wild passions as described by others.
They thrill the heart. Thus, drawing near
An old campaigner lends an ear
To tales from young, mustachioed brothers,
He long-neglected in his shack,
They in their wisdom talking back. 19
But youthful ardour in its madness
Hides nothing, leaves no room for doubt;
Love, enmity, delight or sadness—
Nothing will not come pouring out.
For love deemed now beyond the column,
Onegin listened and looked solemn,
Hearing the poet, who confessed
With eager, loving openness.
His simple, unsuspecting conscience
Stood openly revealed because
Yevgeny saw it as it was,
A young man’s tale of loving nonsense,
A touching story, it is true,
Characterized by nothing new. 20
Such love! No one would now bestow it,
Not nowadays. It was unique,
The frenzied spirit of a poet
Condemned to love and languish, weak
At all times, in all places, burning
With dreams and a familiar yearning,
Familiar anguish, as before.
Neither the chill of distance nor
Protracted years of separation,
Nor hours devoted to the arts,
Nor lovely sights in foreign parts,
Nor study, nor wild celebration
Had changed the nature of his soul,
Still virginally warm and whole. 21
While still a lad, entranced by Olga
And free from heartache, Lensky grew
More and more happy to behold her
Frolicking wild, as young girls do,
And with the woodlands for their shelter
He shared her scatty helter-skelter.
Their fathers, neighbours and good pals,
Had them down as connubials.
Her dwelling was a humble chalet.
Her parents saw her charm and were
Delighted to consider her
A hidden lily of the valley
Mid the thick grass, for none to see,
Safe from the moths and bumblebee. 22
She gave the poet his first promptings
Of love’s young dream, delight, desire.
The very thought of her did something
To animate his doleful lyre.
Leaving behind his golden playtime,
He loved the dense woods in the daytime,
The still, sequestered afternoon
And night skies with the stars and moon,
The moon, celestial luminary
Resplendent through the evening gloom,
Who strolls with us, the one to whom
We once pledged joy, and pain, and worry…
Though now it’s just a thing more bright
Than our dim lanterns are at night. 23
Demure, compliant, all elated,
Brimming with early-morning bliss,
Like poets’ lives uncomplicated,
As winsome as a lover’s kiss,
Her sky-blue eyes so Anglo-Saxon,
Her smiling face, her tresses flaxen,
Her walk, her voice, her tiny waist…
But, no… According to your taste,
Take any novel at your leisure,
And there she’ll be. The portrait’s fine;
Though once a favourite of mine,
It bores me now beyond all measure.
Reader, with all respect to you,
I’ll take the elder of the two. 24
Tatyana… It may seem audacious
To introduce a name like hers
Into this novel’s tender pages,
But it is done; we are the first.
So? It’s a good name, nice when spoken,
And yet I know it’s more a token
Of olden times or something fit
For sculleries. We must admit
Our taste is almost non-existent
In choosing a becoming name.
In poetry it’s just the same—
Enlightenment is somewhat distant,
Consistently an open door
To affectation, nothing more. 25
Tatyana, then—a different creature,