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

The whirlwind of the waltz sweeps by,
Undeviating and insane
As giddy youth's hilarity—
Pair after pair the race sustain.

The moment for revenge, meanwhile,
Espying, Eugene with a smile
Approaches Olga and the pair
Amid the company career.

Soon the maid on a chair he seats,
Begins to talk of this and that,
But when two minutes she had sat,
Again the giddy waltz repeats.

All are amazed; but Lenski he
Scarce credits what his eyes can see.

Hark! the mazurka. In times past,
When the mazurka used to peal,
All rattled in the ball-room vast,
The parquet cracked beneath the heel,
And jolting jarred the window-frames.
'Tis not so now. Like gentle dames
We glide along a floor of wax.
However, the mazurka lacks
Nought of its charms original
In country towns, where still it keeps
Its stamping, capers and high leaps.
Fashion is there immutable,
Who tyrannizes us with ease,
Of modern Russians the disease.

Bouyanoff, wrathful cousin mine,
Unto the hero of this lay
Olga and Tania led. Malign,
Oneguine Olga bore away.

Gliding in negligent career,
He bending whispered in her ear
Some madrigal not worth a rush,
And pressed her hand—the crimson blush
Upon her cheek by adulation
Grew brighter still. But Lenski hath
Seen all, beside himself with wrath,
And hot with jealous indignation,
Till the mazurka's close he stays,
Her hand for the cotillon prays.

She fears she cannot.—Cannot? Why?—
She promised Eugene, or she would
With great delight.—O God on high!
Heard he the truth? And thus she could—

And can it be? But late a child
And now a fickle flirt and wild,
Cunning already to display
And well-instructed to betray!

Lenski the stroke could not sustain,
At womankind he growled a curse,
Departed, ordered out his horse
And galloped home. But pistols twain,
A pair of bullets—nought beside—
His fate shall presently decide.

Having remarked Vladimir's flight,
Oneguine, bored to death again,
By Olga stood, dejected quite
And satisfied with vengeance ta'en.

Olga began to long likewise
For Lenski, sought him with her eyes,
And endless the cotillon seemed
As if some troubled dream she dreamed.

'Tis done. To supper they proceed.
Bedding is laid out and to all
Assigned a lodging, from the hall [64] Hospitality is a national virtue of the Russians. On festal occasions in the country the whole party is usually accommodated for the night, or indeed for as many nights as desired, within the house of the entertainer. This of course is rendered necessary by the great distances which separate the residences of the gentry. Still, the alacrity with which a Russian hostess will turn her house topsy-turvy for the accommodation of forty or fifty guests would somewhat astonish the mistress of a modern Belgravian mansion.
Up to the attic, and all need
Tranquil repose. Eugene alone
To pass the night at home hath gone.

All slumber. In the drawing-room
Loud snores the cumbrous Poustiakoff
With better half as cumbersome;
Gvozdine, Bouyanoff, Petoushkoff
And Flianoff, somewhat indisposed,
On chairs in the saloon reposed,
Whilst on the floor Monsieur Triquet
In jersey and in nightcap lay.

In Olga's and Tattiana's rooms
Lay all the girls by sleep embraced,
Except one by the window placed
Whom pale Diana's ray illumes—
My poor Tattiana cannot sleep
But stares into the darkness deep.

His visit she had not awaited,
His momentary loving glance
Her inmost soul had penetrated,
And his strange conduct at the dance
With Olga; nor of this appeared
An explanation: she was scared,
Alarmed by jealous agonies:
A hand of ice appeared to seize [65] There must be a peculiar appropriateness in this expression as descriptive of the sensation of extreme cold. Mr. Wallace makes use of an identical phrase in describing an occasion when he was frostbitten whilst sledging in Russia. He says (vol. i. p. 33): "My fur cloak flew open, the cold seemed to grasp me in the region of the heart , and I fell insensible."
Her heart: it seemed a darksome pit
Beneath her roaring opened wide:

"I shall expire," Tattiana cried,
"But death from him will be delight.
I murmur not! Why mournfulness?
He cannot give me happiness."

Haste, haste thy lagging pace, my story!
A new acquaintance we must scan.
There dwells five versts from Krasnogory,
Vladimir's property, a man
Who thrives this moment as I write,
A philosophic anchorite:
Zaretski, once a bully bold,
A gambling troop when he controlled,
Chief rascal, pot-house president,
Now of a family the head,
Simple and kindly and unwed,
True friend, landlord benevolent,
Yea! and a man of honour, lo!
How perfect doth our epoch grow!

Time was the flattering voice of fame,
His ruffian bravery adored,
And true, his pistol's faultless aim
An ace at fifteen paces bored.

But I must add to what I write
That, tipsy once in actual fight,
He from his Kalmuck horse did leap
In mud and mire to wallow deep,
Drunk as a fly; and thus the French
A valuable hostage gained,
A modern Regulus unchained,
Who to surrender did not blench
That every morn at Verrey's cost
Three flasks of wine he might exhaust.

Time was, his raillery was gay,
He loved the simpleton to mock,
To make wise men the idiot play
Openly or 'neath decent cloak.

Yet sometimes this or that deceit
Encountered punishment complete,
And sometimes into snares as well
Himself just like a greenhorn fell.

He could in disputation shine
With pungent or obtuse retort,
At times to silence would resort,
At times talk nonsense with design;

Quarrels among young friends he bred
And to the field of honour led;

Or reconciled them, it may be,
And all the three to breakfast went;
Then he'd malign them secretly
With jest and gossip gaily blent.

Sed alia tempora . And bravery
(Like love, another sort of knavery!)
Diminishes as years decline.
But, as I said, Zaretski mine
Beneath acacias, cherry-trees,
From storms protection having sought,
Lived as a really wise man ought,
Like Horace, planted cabbages,
Both ducks and geese in plenty bred
And lessons to his children read.