Days measured out to me by Fate;
They cloy and oversatiate.
My day is done—time gives due warning—
But, yearning to prolong my stay,
I must be certain every morning
That I’ll see you during the day.
I fear this humble supplication
Will strike your dark, discerning eye
As shabby, sly and calculating,
And I can hear your angry cry.
If you but knew my ghastly torment,
My weary heart, my thirst for love,
My hope that reason, one fine moment,
Might cool the boiling of my blood…
I would fall down before you, choking
And sobbing, while I hug your knees,
Outpouring all that could be spoken—
Reproaches, declarations, pleas…
But, no, with simulated froideur
I gird my gaze and speech, and try
To chat and look you in the eye,
Like one who goes from glad to gladder.
That’s it. I cannot fight myself;
I have no stomach for the battle.
The die is cast. Now nothing matters.
My fate’s with you, and no one else. 33
No answer comes. In swift resumption
He sends a second note, a third.
No answer… One day, at some function
He enters… and runs into… her,
Straight opposite. She, strict and sombre,
Ignores him. Not a word comes from her.
Oh dear, she has been crystallized
In January’s coldest ice.
As if to stifle indignation,
She stands with tightness in her lips.
Onegin gawps. His eyes are gripped—
Where is her sympathy, her patience?
Where are the tear stains? Not a trace.
Only annoyance on that face, 34
And possibly a secret worry
That her spouse, or the world, might guess
Her bygone lapse, her youthful folly,
All that Onegin knows… Oh, yes,
His hopes are dashed! He sets off, cursing
The dark, demented disconcertion
Which leaves him now so deeply hurt…
And, once again, he shuns the world.
Back in his silent study, brooding,
He called to mind how things had been
In those days when a kind of spleen
Had stalked the brash world and pursued him,
Collaring him, locking him in hell,
Abandoned in an unlit cell. 35
He now reads anything: not only
The works of Gibbon and Rousseau,
Herder and Chamfort and Manzoni,
Madame de Staël, Bichat, Tissot,
But also, keeping things eclectic,
Of Fontenelle and Bayle, the sceptic,
And Russians, specially perhaps,
Rejecting nothing by our chaps,
As well as almanacs and journals
All sermonizing, smart and slick,
In which today I get some stick
In bits and pieces, fancy-worded,
About me, published now and then.
E sempre bene, gentlemen. 36
So what? His eyes may have been reading,
But he was miles away in thought;
Daydreams, desires and hapless pleadings
Rendered him soul-destroyed, distraught.
He read between the lines as printed;
In spirit, though, his eyes were glimpsing
Some other lines; he was immersed
Deeply in these lines from the first.
These were the stuff of myth and legend
With age-old, well-loved, secret themes,
Of random, unconnected dreams,
And threats, tales, promises and pledges,
Or letters that had been conveyed
To his hands from a sweet young maid. 37
But gradually his thoughts and feelings
Were lulled to sleep, and from afar
Imagination came forth, dealing
Him images like playing cards.
First, melting snow… Then something odder,
A figure like a sleeping lodger,
A rigid youth resting his head.
And then a voice… “Let’s look… He’s dead.”
Now he sees enemies forgotten,
Vile gossips, even viler rats,
A swarm of women, faithless cats,
Companions altogether rotten,
And then the house, the window sill,
And always her… She stands there still. 38
Soon this was so familiar to him
He almost lost his mind. He seemed
Almost inclined to write some poems.
(Oh what a thrill that would have been!)
Yes, moved by forces called “galvanic”,
He’d gone through Russian verse mechanics
And almost mastered form and line—
A student (uninspired) of mine.
He looked a poet to the letter
When he sat in his corner seat
And, by the hearth in all the heat,
Hummed ‘Idol Mio’… ‘Benedetta’…
And in the fire he sometimes dropped
Slipper or journal with a plop. 39
The days raced by, and frozen winter
Found warmer air was to be had.
He wrote no poems for the printer,
He did not die, did not go mad.
Spring energized him. One clear morning
He left his closed rooms without warning,
Abandoning the places where
He’d hibernated like a bear.
Fleeing the hearth and double windows,
He speeds the Neva in a sleigh.
The sunlight aims its dancing rays
At blocks of blue ice, slabs and splinters,
At streets of dirty, churned-up snow.
But racing on, where will he go, 40
Onegin? Your guess, incidentally,
Is right—you see this as it is.
My unreformable eccentric
Rushed to Tatyana’s—she was his.
Once in (looking like a dead body),
He meets with no one in the lobby,
The hall, or further in—there’s not
A soul. On through the next door. What
Now stops him in his tracks? He’s met her—
Here is the princess, much distressed,
Sitting there, pallid and half-dressed,
Engrossed in what looks like a letter.
Tears tumble down her face in streaks,
And one hand underpins her cheek. 41
Who could have failed to see Tatyana
In that quick spell of mute distress,
The former girl in a new drama,
Poor Tanya, in the new princess?
Oozing regret, half-crazed and straining,
Before her feet he fell, Yevgeny.
She shuddered, speechless, but her eyes
Glared at Onegin, unsurprised
And not vindictively, not raging…
His eyes, so lifeless and careworn,
His pleading pose, his silent scorn—
She sees it all. The country maiden
Felt dreams and thoughts of yesteryear
Restored to life again in her. 42
Tatyana leaves Onegin kneeling.
She stares; her focus never slips,
Her hand is cold, devoid of feeling;
She leaves it on his hungry lips…
Where are her dreams? Are they inspiring?…
Time passes in the lonely silence.
And then she speaks in a low hiss.
“Enough. Stand up. Listen to this.
I need to speak to you directly.
Do you recall that garden walk
Destined for us to meet and talk,
Where I endured your moral lecture
Because I was so young and meek?
Well now it’s my turn. I shall speak. 43
Back then, Onegin, I was younger,
And no doubt better-looking too.
I loved you with a young girl’s hunger,
And what did I receive from you?
An answer grim and supercilious.
Isn’t that true? You were familiar