Lacking her sister’s radiance,
Her rosiness, freshness of feature—
Seemed hardly worth a second glance.
Silent and gloomy, she would go like
A shy thing from the wild woods, doe-like,
And in the home she seemed to be
A changeling in their family.
Her parents, she could never thrill them
With girlish cuddles. She, a child,
Was temperamentally too mild
To hop and skip with other children.
And at the window she would spend,
Silently staring, days on end. 26
She stayed the same right from the cradle,
A friend of pensiveness, it seems.
Dull country leisure she was able
To ornament with her own dreams.
She was too delicately fingered
For needlework, and never lingered
O’er canvas workframes of the ilk
That called for fair designs in silk.
Signs of tyrannical intention:
A girl with her compliant doll
Anticipates what must befall
(Decorum, etiquette, convention),
Rehearsing with her poppet—ah!—
The strictures learnt from her mamma. 27
Tatyana gave no dolls a cuddle.
She did not, even at that age,
Discuss with dolly in a huddle
The town, and what was “all the rage”.
Frolicking girls tended to bore her.
What she preferred were tales of horror,
Dark deeds upon a winter’s night;
These stories were her heart’s delight.
Sometime her nurse enjoyed dispatching
Her playmates down the open lawn,
But Tanya would remain withdrawn
And would not go chasing and catching.
She found their raucous laughter dull,
Their games a silly spectacle. 28
She loved to stand outside, her eyes on
The east, the coming dawn of day,
The pallor of the far horizon,
Stars circling till they fade away.
The earth’s dark margin softly eases,
Morning is heralded in breezes,
And daytime slowly gathers light.
In winter, when the shades of night
Darkened the half-world of the valley,
A vale of lazy peace, unkissed
By moonlight in the murky mist,
The slothful east was slow to rally,
She would arise from her night’s rest,
Lighting the candles as she dressed. 29
She spent her youth in reading sessions;
Novels were all she wished to know.
She loved to take in false impressions
From Richardson and from Rousseau.
Her father was a good chap, decent,
Outdated, knowing nothing recent.
In novels he could see no harm.
He read none, he felt no alarm.
Book-reading was, in his opinion,
An empty toy. Why should he care
What secret volume she had there,
Dozing the night beneath her pillow?
His wife was smitten like their child
With Richardson. He drove her wild. 30
Though Richardson was her true favourite,
Not from the reading she had done,
And not that Lovelace seemed unsavoury
Compared to Mr Grandison.
No. Her cousine, Princess Alina,
In Moscow, where she’d often seen her,
Had told her all about these men…
Her spouse was her fiancé then,
Though this ran counter to her feelings.
Another man, for whom she pined,
And who had seized her heart and mind,
Was altogether more appealing—
A Grandison who played the cards,
A dashing captain of the Guards. 31
She was, like him, a stylish dresser
Following fashion and good taste…
But she was not consulted. Better
To get her wed now. They made haste.
Then straight away, to stop her grieving,
Her husband acted wisely, leaving
For their new country home, where soon,
Hemmed in all round by God knows whom,
At first she wept a lot and bridled,
Close to divorce. But soon she’d been
Domesticated by routine,
And she contentedly subsided.
Routine is heaven-sent, oh, yes,
A substitute for happiness. 32
Routine calmed the despairing daughter,
Whose grief was unassuageable.
A big discovery then brought her
Relief that comforted in full.
Midst work and pleasure she discovered
How her new husband could be governed
And mastered with an iron rod—
So that things happened on the nod.
She toured the workings, field and factory,
She pickled mushrooms, laid them down,
She shaved serfs’ heads. She kept accounts.
She saw the bathhouse every Saturday.
She whacked the maids. Her every whim
Went though without a word to him. 33
She took to using blood when scrawling
In sweet girls’ albums. How bizarre:
Praskovya’s name was changed to Pauline
And normal speech went la-di-da.
She wore a very narrow corset.
She took the Russian “n” and forced it
Into a Frenchman’s nasal sound…
But soon all this turned upside down.
Album and stays, Princess Alina,
The book of tender poems, the lot—
Even the false names—she forgot,
Saying Akulka, not Selina,
And she restored without mishap
The padded robe and floppy cap. 34
Her husband loved her with deep feeling.
Her whims and fancies left him blank.
So, blithely trusting all her dealings,
He lounged about and ate and drank.
His life has struck an even tenor,
Not least as evening drew on when a
Group of their neighbours, good and true,
Arrived, down-to-earth people who,
After the usual friendly greetings,
Would gossip, moan and raise a smile…
The time would steal away; meanwhile
Olga was sent to get the tea-things…
The friends in due time, having fed,
Were driven off back home to bed. 35
Their peaceful lives passed in the old style
With good traditions still held dear,
Thus Russian pancakes came at Shrovetide
Floating on butter; twice a year
They fasted; they were happy playing
On little roundabouts, soothsaying
In songs; they loved a choral dance,
And on Trinity Day perchance,
When folk were yawning through Thanksgiving,
They’d splash a couple of teardrops
Upon a bunch of buttercups,
And rye beer made their lives worth living,
And guests at table ate and drank,
Served in accordance with their rank. 36
Behold the pair—now ageing mortals.
And for the husband his cold tomb
At last has opened wide its portals;
He has a new crown to assume.
He died with lunch nigh on the table,
And those who mourned him were his neighbour,
His children and his wife so true,
A forthright woman through and through.
He’d been a bluff and kindly barin,
And at the site of his remains
A monument in stone proclaims:
A humble sinner, Dmítry Lárin,
Here rests in peace beneath this sod,
A brigadier and slave of God. 37
Back on home soil, Vladimir Lensky
Came to this graveyard by and by,
Looked at the modest tomb intently
And blessed the relics with a sigh,
Which left him feeling melancholic.
“Oh dear,” he gloomed. “Alas, poor Yorick!
For he hath borne me in his arms…
How oft in childhood in my palms
I joshed his medal, that ‘Ochákov’.
He put dear Olga in my way,
And wondered if he’d see the day…”
Vladimir, with a sincere mark of
Sadness upon him, daubed his draft,
A fancy tribute epitaphed. 38
He paid another tribute, weeping,
To mark his parents and their past