Aleksandr Pushkin - Eugene Oneguine [Onegin]. A Romance of Russian Life in Verse

Wherefore? She found a secret joy
In horror for itself alone,
Thus Nature doth our souls alloy,
Thus her perversity hath shown.

Twelfth Night approaches. Merry eves! [54] Refers to the "Sviatki" or Holy Nights between Christmas Eve and Twelfth Night. Divination, or the telling of fortunes by various expedients, is the favourite pastime on these occasions.
When thoughtless youth whom nothing grieves,
Before whose inexperienced sight
Life lies extended, vast and bright,
To peer into the future tries.
Old age through spectacles too peers,
Although the destined coffin nears,
Having lost all in life we prize.

It matters not. Hope e'en to these
With childlike lisp will lie to please.

Tattiana gazed with curious eye
On melted wax in water poured;
The clue unto some mystery
She deemed its outline might afford.

Rings from a dish of water full
In order due the maidens pull;
But when Tattiana's hand had ta'en
A ring she heard the ancient strain:

The peasants there are rich as kings,
They shovel silver with a spade,
He whom we sing to shall be made
Happy and glorious . But this brings
With sad refrain misfortune near.
Girls the kashourka much prefer. [55] During the "sviatki" it is a common custom for the girls to assemble around a table on which is placed a dish or basin of water which contains a ring. Each in her turn extracts the ring from the basin whilst the remainder sing in chorus the "podbliudni pessni," or "dish songs" before mentioned. These are popularly supposed to indicate the fortunes of the immediate holder of the ring. The first-named lines foreshadow death; the latter, the "kashourka," or "kitten song," indicates approaching marriage. It commences thus: "The cat asked the kitten to sleep on the stove."

Frosty the night; the heavens shone;
The wondrous host of heavenly spheres
Sailed silently in unison—
Tattiana in the yard appears
In a half-open dressing-gown
And bends her mirror on the moon,
But trembling on the mirror dark
The sad moon only could remark.

List! the snow crunches—he draws nigh!
The girl on tiptoe forward bounds
And her voice sweeter than the sounds
Of clarinet or flute doth cry:
"What is your name?" The boor looked dazed,
And "Agathon" replied, amazed. [56] The superstition is that the name of the future husband may thus be discovered.

Tattiana (nurse the project planned)
By night prepared for sorcery,
And in the bathroom did command
To lay two covers secretly.

But sudden fear assailed Tattiana,
And I, remembering Svetlana, [57] See Note 30.
Become alarmed. So never mind!
I'm not for witchcraft now inclined.

So she her silken sash unlaced,
Undressed herself and went to bed
And soon Lel hovered o'er her head. [58] Lel, in Slavonic mythology, corresponds to the Morpheus of the Latins. The word is evidently connected with the verb "leleyat" to fondle or soothe, likewise with our own word "to lull."
Beneath her downy pillow placed,
A little virgin mirror peeps.
'Tis silent all. Tattiana sleeps.

A dreadful sleep Tattiana sleeps.
She dreamt she journeyed o'er a field
All covered up with snow in heaps,
By melancholy fogs concealed.

Amid the snowdrifts which surround
A stream, by winter's ice unbound,
Impetuously clove its way
With boiling torrent dark and gray;

Two poles together glued by ice,
A fragile bridge and insecure,
Spanned the unbridled torrent o'er;
Beside the thundering abyss
Tattiana in despair unfeigned
Rooted unto the spot remained.

As if against obstruction sore
Tattiana o'er the stream complained;
To help her to the other shore
No one appeared to lend a hand.

But suddenly a snowdrift stirs,
And what from its recess appears?
A bristly bear of monstrous size!
He roars, and "Ah!" Tattiana cries.

He offers her his murderous paw;
She nerves herself from her alarm
And leans upon the monster's arm,
With footsteps tremulous with awe

Passes the torrent But alack!
Bruin is marching at her back!

She, to turn back her eyes afraid,
Accelerates her hasty pace,
But cannot anyhow evade
Her shaggy myrmidon in chase.

The bear rolls on with many a grunt:
A forest now she sees in front
With fir-trees standing motionless
In melancholy loveliness,
Their branches by the snow bowed down.
Through aspens, limes and birches bare,
The shining orbs of night appear;
There is no path; the storm hath strewn
Both bush and brake, ravine and steep,
And all in snow is buried deep.

The wood she enters—bear behind,—
In snow she sinks up to the knee;
Now a long branch itself entwined
Around her neck, now violently
Away her golden earrings tore;
Now the sweet little shoes she wore,
Grown clammy, stick fast in the snow;
Her handkerchief she loses now;
No time to pick it up! afraid,
She hears the bear behind her press,
Nor dares the skirting of her dress
For shame lift up the modest maid.

She runs, the bear upon her trail,
Until her powers of running fail.

She sank upon the snow. But Bruin
Adroitly seized and carried her;
Submissive as if in a swoon,
She cannot draw a breath or stir.

He dragged her by a forest road
Till amid trees a hovel showed,
By barren snow heaped up and bound,
A tangled wilderness around.

Bright blazed the window of the place,
Within resounded shriek and shout:
"My chum lives here," Bruin grunts out.
"Warm yourself here a little space!"

Straight for the entrance then he made
And her upon the threshold laid.

Recovering, Tania gazes round;
Bear gone—she at the threshold placed;
Inside clink glasses, cries resound
As if it were some funeral feast.

But deeming all this nonsense pure,
She peeped through a chink of the door.
What doth she see? Around the board
Sit many monstrous shapes abhorred.

A canine face with horns thereon,
Another with cock's head appeared,
Here an old witch with hirsute beard,
There an imperious skeleton;

A dwarf adorned with tail, again
A shape half cat and half a crane.

Yet ghastlier, yet more wonderful,
A crab upon a spider rides,
Perched on a goose's neck a skull
In scarlet cap revolving glides.