He thought that he should be united With a congenial soul, that she Would pine, whenever he departed, And keep awaiting him each day; He thought that friends would, in like manner, Don fetters to defend his honour, And that their hands would never spare The vessel3 of his slanderer; That there were some whom fate had chosen, Blest comrades of humanity; That their immortal family Would in a future time emblazon Us all with overwhelming rays And grace the world with blissful days.
9.
Compa.s.sion, righteous indignation, Pure love directed to the good, And fame"s sweet pain, inebriation Had stirred from early days his blood.
He with his lyre roamed ever further; Beneath the sky of Schiller, Goethe,4 In sudden flame his soul burst forth, Kindled at their poetic hearth, And, happy one, without degrading The art"s exalted Muses, he Nursed proudly in his poetry Exalted feelings, never fading, Surges of virgin reverie, And charms of grave simplicity.
10.
He sang of love, to love obedient, His song possessed the clarity Of simple maidens" thoughts, of infant Slumber and of the moon, when she Shines in the sky"s untroubled s.p.a.ces, G.o.ddess of sighs and secret places; He sang of parting and despond, Of something and the dim beyond, He sang, too, of romantic roses; He sang of distant lands, those spheres Where he had long shed living tears, Where silently the world reposes; He sang of life"s decaying scene, While he was not yet quite eighteen.
11.
Where only Eugene in their desert Could judge his gifts and quality, He had no appet.i.te to hazard His neighbours" hospitality; He fled their noisy conversations: Their sensible deliberations Regarding haymaking, the wine, The kennels and their kith and kind Were not, of course, lit up with feeling, Poetic fire, perceptive wit, Intelligence, nor with the art That made society appealing; The talk, though, of their spouses dear Was far less meaningful to hear.
12.
Lensky, a wealthy youth and handsome, Was looked upon as marriageable; Such in the country was the custom; All daughters were eligible To court their semi-Russian neighbour; When he arrived, the guests would labour At once, by hinting, to deplore The dull life of a bachelor; The samovar"s inviting Lensky.
And Dunya pours him out a cup, They whisper to her: "Watch, look up!"
They bring in a guitar, too, then she Begins to shrill (good G.o.d!) and call: Oh come into my golden hall...
13.
But Lensky, not, of course, intending To wear the ties of marriage yet, Looked forward warmly to befriending Onegin, whom he"d newly met.
Not ice and flame, not stone and water, Not verse and prose are from each other So different as these men were.
At first, since so dissimilar, They found each other dull, ill-suited; Then got to like each other; then Each day met riding. Soon the men Could simply not be separated.
Thus (I"m the first one to confess) People are friends from idleness.
14.
But friendship even of this order We cannot boast of. Having fought All prejudices, we consider Ourselves the ones, all others nought.
We all aspire to be Napoleons; Two-legged creatures in their millions Are no more than a tool for us, Feelings we find ridiculous.
While fairer in his preconceptions Than many, Eugene was inclined In toto to despise mankind, But (as each rule has its exceptions) Some individuals he spared, And feelings, too, by him unshared.
15.
He heeded Lensky with indulgence.
The poet"s fervent talk and mind, Still hesitant in forming judgements, His look of inspiration blind a All this was novel to Onegin; He tried to stop his lips from making A chilling comment, and he thought: I"d really be a fool to thwart His moment"s bliss with my rejection; His time, without me, will arrive; But for the moment let him thrive, Believing in the world"s perfection; Forgive the fever of the young, Their ardour and their raving tongue.
16.
All things promoted disputations And led them to reflect: they would Discuss the pacts of vanished nations, The fruits of learning, evil, good, And centuries-old prejudices, The secrets of the grave"s abysses, And life and destiny in turn a All these were subjects of concern.
The poet, heatedly contending, Recited in a reverie Fragments of Nordic balladry, And Eugene, gently condescending, While little grasping what he heard, Attended to his every word.
17.
More often, though, it was the pa.s.sions That occupied my anchorites.
Free from their stormy depredations, Onegin sighed with some regrets As he recounted their abatement.
Happy who tasted their excitement And in the end could leave it, but Happier still who knew it not, Who cooled his love with separation, Hostility with calumny, Who yawned with wife and company, Immune to jealousy"s invasion, And who ensured he did not lose His fortune to a crafty deuce.
18.
When to the banner we"ve foregathered Of sensible tranquillity, When pa.s.sion"s flame at last is smothered, And we as an absurdity Consider its caprices, surges, Belated repet.i.tions, urges a Resigned, but not without a tear, We sometimes like to lend an ear To tales of other people"s pa.s.sions, And hearing them stirs up our heart.
Thus an old soldier takes delight In eavesdropping on the confessions Of young, mustachioed blades who strut, While he"s forgotten in his hut.
19.
But flaming youth is quite unable To hide a feeling or a thought And ever is prepared to babble Love, hatred, joy and sorrow out.
Himself by pa.s.sion invalided, With solemn mien Onegin heeded The poet who confessed his heart With love and using all his art; A simple soul, not seeking glory, He laid his trusting conscience bare.
Eugene with ease discovered there The poet"s young, romantic story With its abundant feelings that To us have long since been old hat.
20.
He loved, ah, as we cannot know it, Today such love"s anomalous, Only the mad soul of a poet Is still condemned to loving thus: Always and everywhere one vision, One customary, single mission, One customary, single grief.
Not cooling distance"s relief, Nor lengthy years of separation, Nor hours devoted to the Muse, Nor foreign beauties he could choose, Nor merry noise, nor meditation Had changed in him a soul whose fire Was lit by virginal desire.
21.
Mere boy, by Olga captivated, Not knowing a tormented heart, He witnessed, tenderly elated, Her childish merriments and sport.
In leafy shade, by oaks protected, He shared the games that she selected; Their fathers a friends and neighbours, they a Destined the children"s wedding day.
Beneath a backwoods porch the maiden, In girlish innocence and grace, Blossomed beneath her parents" gaze, A lily of the valley, hidden In densest gra.s.s, unnoticed by The pa.s.sing bee or b.u.t.terfly.