With movements now called “automatic”,
She leant on him—nothing was said—
And languidly inclined her head.
They came back round the kitchen garden,
Strolling together. No one would
Have thought this anything but good,
For rural laxity can pardon
Most things, within its happy laws,
As condescending Moscow does. 18
Reader, you must be in agreement:
Poor Tanya was gently let down.
Nothing but good was all that he meant.
Yevgeny once again has shown
That his pure soul could not be deeper,
And yet the ill will of bad people
Has spared him nothing, though his foes
Along with so-called friends, yes those
(Friends, foes—the difference may be worthless),
Pay him some desultory respect.
Foes flourish, but, to be correct,
From friends, not foes, may God preserve us.
Friends, friends of mine—they give me pause.
I recollect them with good cause. 19
Why so? Well, it is my intention
To put some blank, black dreams to sleep,
And in parenthesis to mention
That there’s no jibe too low or cheap
Spawned by a gabbler in a garret
For high-born scum to hear and parrot,
No phrase too gross for any man,
No vulgar gutter epigram
That won’t be smilingly repeated
In front of nice folk by your friend
In error, for no wicked end,
Though endlessly acclaimed and greeted.
And he’s still friends through thick or thin
Because he loves you—you’re akin. 20
Ho-hum. I ask you, noble reader,
How are your people? Are they well?
Permit me to insist you need a
Pointer from me so you can tell
What is implied by family members.
Families have their own agendas;
We must indulge them, show them love,
Woo them in spirit like a dove,
And, following the common custom,
See them at Christmas and, at most,
Send them a greeting through the post,
And then we can relax and trust ’em
To disregard us through the year…
God grant them long life and good cheer. 21
But still, the love of gorgeous ladies
Outweighs the claims of friends and kin;
With this, through all the storms from Hades,
You’re in control, reigning things in.
That’s it. But still there’s whirling fashion,
And nature with her wayward passion,
And world opinion… All that stuff…
While the sweet sex is light as fluff.
Besides, a husband’s known opinions
Must be observed throughout her life
By any truly virtuous wife.
Thus one of your female companions
Can suddenly be swept away.
Satan loves love. Watch him at play. 22
Who shall be loved? Who can be trusted?
With whom do we risk no betrayal?
Who weighs our words and deeds, adjusted
Obligingly to our own scale?
Who never blackens us with slander?
Who’s there to coddle us and pander?
Who sees our sins as “not too bad”?
Who will not bore us, drive us mad?
Stop your vain search for lost illusions:
You’re wasting all your strength and health.
The one to love is you yourself.
You are, good reader, in conclusion,
A worthy subject, we insist,
For no one kindlier exists. 23
But what has followed the encounter?
Alas, it isn’t hard to guess!
Love’s frenzied torments still confound her,
Still harassing with storm and stress
Her youthful soul that longs for bleakness.
Her passion worsens, and her weakness
Leaves Tanya with a burning head;
Sleep will not settle on her bed.
Her health, her life’s bloom, sweet and sparkling,
Her smile, her maid’s tranquillity,
Have, like an echo, ceased to be,
And gentle Tanya’s youth is darkling.
Shadow-clad storms can thus array
The birth of an emerging day. 24
Tanya, alas, is fading, sinking,
Withering, wasting, pale and dumb.
Nothing impinges on her thinking,
And her unstirring soul is numb.
Shaking their heads in knowing whispers,
The neighbours say to any listeners,
“By now she should be married off!…”
But I must speed on. That’s enough:
Imagination must be brightened
By love shown in a happy sense.
I cannot help it if, my friends,
Within my heart compassion tightens.
I’m sorry if my thoughts are such:
I love dear Tanya, oh, so much. 25
Lensky was caught, and hourly keener
On his young Olga and her charms,
But sweet enthralment pleased Vladimir,
Who welcomed it with open arms.
He’s always there. Birds of a feather,
They sit in her dark room together.
At morningtide they join up and
Stroll through the garden hand in hand.
And then? Besotted by his Olga,
Squirming with sweet embarrassment,
He makes occasional attempts
(Fed by her smile and growing bolder)
To toy with a loose curl, and then
To kiss her dress along the hem. 26
He’ll read to her, sooner or later,
An educational romance,
In which the author’s grasp of nature
Is greater than Chateaubriand’s,
Though, should he light on some few pages
Of raving nonsense, too outrageous,
Too risqué for young girls’ hearts—hush!—
He will omit them with a blush.
In some sequestered, far location
Over a chessboard, watching it,
Elbows on table, there they sit
Together in deep concentration…
And Lensky, with a distant look
Moving his pawn, takes his own rook. 27
When he goes home, he still engages
Obsessively with Olga. Hence,
He paints her album’s fleeting pages
With doodled, detailed ornaments,
With rustic pictures, for example,
A tombstone or a Cypris temple,
A dove upon a lyre, a still
And slender bird of paint and quill,
Or else on pages for remembrance
Below where other folk have signed
He leaves a gentle verse behind,
Dream’s voiceless monument, a semblance
Of rapid thought with lasting trace,
Unchanged years later, still in place. 28
You’ve done it. You have been absorbed in
The album of some country miss,
In which friends have been busy daubing
The end, the start, and all that is.
Here, with the rules of spelling thwarted,
Run old lines metrically distorted,
Lines of true friendship badly done,
Which undershoot or overrun.
On page one you will see this jotting:
Qu’écrirez-vous sur ces tablettes?
Followed by toute à vous, Annette,
And on the last page, at the bottom,
Let him whose love is more than mine
Write for you underneath this line. 29
Undoubtedly you will pluck from it
Two hearts, a torch and blooms amid
Assertions of true love, a promise:
My love until the coffin lid.
Some army rhymester will have thought he
Might slip in something rather naughty.
My friends, in albums such as these
I also write, and feel well pleased,
In spirit being all too certain
That my keen rubbish will entrance
The passing favourable glance,
And with a bilious smile no person
Will solemnly attempt to spot
Whether my trash has wit or not. 30
But you odd volumes once engendered