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

'Twas eve. 'Twas dusk. The river speeds
In tranquil flow. The beetle hums.
Already dance to song proceeds;
The fisher's fire afar illumes
The river's bank. Tattiana lone
Beneath the silver of the moon
Long time in meditation deep
Her path across the plain doth keep—

Proceeds, until she from a hill
Sees where a noble mansion stood,
A village and beneath, a wood,
A garden by a shining rill.

She gazed thereon, and instant beat
Her heart more loudly and more fleet.

She hesitates, in doubt is thrown—
"Shall I proceed, or homeward flee?
He is not there: I am not known:
The house and garden I would see."

Tattiana from the hill descends
With bated breath, around she bends
A countenance perplexed and scared.
She enters a deserted yard—
Yelping, a pack of dogs rush out,
But at her shriek ran forth with noise
The household troop of little boys,
Who with a scuffle and a shout
The curs away to kennel chase,
The damsel under escort place.

"Can I inspect the mansion, please?"
Tattiana asks, and hurriedly
Unto Anicia for the keys
The family of children hie.

Anicia soon appears, the door
Opens unto her visitor.
Into the lonely house she went,
Wherein a space Oneguine spent.

She gazed—a cue, forgotten long,
Doth on the billiard table rest,
Upon the tumbled sofa placed,
A riding whip. She strolls along.

The beldam saith: "The hearth, by it
The master always used to sit.

"Departed Lenski here to dine
In winter time would often come.
Please follow this way, lady mine,
This is my master's sitting-room.

'Tis here he slept, his coffee took,
Into accounts would sometimes look,
A book at early morn perused.
The room my former master used.

On Sundays by yon window he,
Spectacles upon nose, all day
Was wont with me at cards to play.
God save his soul eternally
And grant his weary bones their rest
Deep in our mother Earth's chill breast!"

Tattiana's eyes with tender gleam
On everything around her gaze,
Of priceless value all things seem
And in her languid bosom raise
A pleasure though with sorrow knit:
The table with its lamp unlit,
The pile of books, with carpet spread
Beneath the window-sill his bed,
The landscape which the moonbeams fret,
The twilight pale which softens all,
Lord Byron's portrait on the wall
And the cast-iron statuette
With folded arms and eyes bent low,
Cocked hat and melancholy brow. [72] The Russians not unfrequently adorn their apartments with effigies of the great Napoleon.

Long in this fashionable cell
Tattiana as enchanted stood;
But it grew late; cold blew the gale;
Dark was the valley and the wood
slept o'er the river misty grown.
Behind the mountain sank the moon.

Long, long the hour had past when home
Our youthful wanderer should roam.
She hid the trouble of her breast,
Heaved an involuntary sigh
And turned to leave immediately,
But first permission did request
Thither in future to proceed
That certain volumes she might read.

Adieu she to the matron said
At the front gates, but in brief space
At early morn returns the maid
To the abandoned dwelling-place.

When in the study's calm retreat,
Wrapt in oblivion complete,
She found herself alone at last,
Longtime her tears flowed thick and fast;

But presently she tried to read;
At first for books was disinclined,
But soon their choice seemed to her mind
Remarkable. She then indeed
Devoured them with an eager zest.
A new world was made manifest!

Although we know that Eugene had
Long ceased to be a reading man,
Still certain authors, I may add,
He had excepted from the ban:

The bard of Juan and the Giaour,
With it may be a couple more;
Romances three, in which ye scan
Portrayed contemporary man
As the reflection of his age,
His immorality of mind
To arid selfishness resigned,
A visionary personage
With his exasperated sense,
His energy and impotence.

And numerous pages had preserved
The sharp incisions of his nail,
And these the attentive maid observed
With eye precise and without fail.

Tattiana saw with trepidation
By what idea or observation
Oneguine was the most impressed,
In what he merely acquiesced.

Upon those margins she perceived
Oneguine's pencillings. His mind
Made revelations undesigned,
Of what he thought and what believed,
A dagger, asterisk, or note
Interrogation to denote.

And my Tattiana now began
To understand by slow degrees
More clearly, God be praised, the man,
Whom autocratic fate's decrees
Had bid her sigh for without hope—
A dangerous, gloomy misanthrope,
Being from hell or heaven sent,
Angel or fiend malevolent.

Which is he? or an imitation,
A bogy conjured up in joke,
A Russian in Childe Harold's cloak,
Of foreign whims the impersonation—
Handbook of fashionable phrase
Or parody of modern ways?

Hath she found out the riddle yet?
Hath she a fitting phrase selected?
But time flies and she doth forget
They long at home have her expected—
Whither two neighbouring dames have walked
And a long time about her talked.

"What can be done? She is no child!"
Cried the old dame with anguish filled:
"Olinka is her junior, see.
'Tis time to many her, 'tis true,
But tell me what am I to do?
To all she answers cruelly—
I will not wed, and ever weeps
And lonely through the forest creeps."

"Is she in love?" quoth one. "With whom?
Bouyanoff courted. She refused.
Petoushkoff met the selfsame doom.
The hussar Pikhtin was accused.

How the young imp on Tania doted!
To captivate her how devoted!
I mused: perhaps the matter's squared—
O yes! my hopes soon disappeared."

"But, matushka , to Moscow you [73] "Matushka," or "little mother," a term of endearment in constant use amongst Russian females.
Should go, the market for a maid,
With many a vacancy, 'tis said."—
"Alas! my friend, no revenue!"

"Enough to see one winter's end;
If not, the money I will lend."

The venerable dame opined
The counsel good and full of reason,
Her money counted, and designed
To visit Moscow in the season.