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

My goddesses, where are your shades?
Do ye not hear my mournful sighs?
Are ye replaced by other maids
Who cannot conjure former joys?

Shall I your chorus hear anew,
Russia's Terpsichore review
Again in her ethereal dance?
Or will my melancholy glance
On the dull stage find all things changed,
The disenchanted glass direct
Where I can no more recollect?—
A careless looker-on estranged
In silence shall I sit and yawn
And dream of life's delightful dawn?

The house is crammed. A thousand lamps
On pit, stalls, boxes, brightly blaze,
Impatiently the gallery stamps,
The curtain now they slowly raise.

Obedient to the magic strings,
Brilliant, ethereal, there springs
Forth from the crowd of nymphs surrounding
Istomina [11] Istomina—A celebrated Circassian dancer of the day, with whom the poet in his extreme youth imagined himself in love. the nimbly-bounding;

With one foot resting on its tip
Slow circling round its fellow swings
And now she skips and now she springs
Like down from Aeolus's lip,
Now her lithe form she arches o'er
And beats with rapid foot the floor.

Shouts of applause! Oneguine passes
Between the stalls, along the toes;
Seated, a curious look with glasses
On unknown female forms he throws.

Free scope he yields unto his glance,
Reviews both dress and countenance,
With all dissatisfaction shows.

To male acquaintances he bows,
And finally he deigns let fall
Upon the stage his weary glance.
He yawns, averts his countenance,
Exclaiming, "We must change 'em all!
I long by ballets have been bored,
Now Didelot scarce can be endured!"

Snakes, satyrs, loves with many a shout
Across the stage still madly sweep,
Whilst the tired serving-men without
Wrapped in their sheepskins soundly sleep.

Still the loud stamping doth not cease,
Still they blow noses, cough, and sneeze,
Still everywhere, without, within,
The lamps illuminating shine;

The steed benumbed still pawing stands
And of the irksome harness tires,
And still the coachmen round the fires [12] In Russia large fires are lighted in winter time in front of the theatres for the benefit of the menials, who, considering the state of the thermometer, cannot be said to have a jovial time of it. But in this, as in other cases, "habit" alleviates their lot, and they bear the cold with a wonderful equanimity.
Abuse their masters, rub their hands:
But Eugene long hath left the press
To array himself in evening dress.

Faithfully shall I now depict,
Portray the solitary den
Wherein the child of fashion strict
Dressed him, undressed, and dressed again?

All that industrial London brings
For tallow, wood and other things
Across the Baltic's salt sea waves,
All which caprice and affluence craves,
All which in Paris eager taste,
Choosing a profitable trade,
For our amusement ever made
And ease and fashionable waste,—
Adorned the apartment of Eugene,
Philosopher just turned eighteen.

China and bronze the tables weight,
Amber on pipes from Stamboul glows,
And, joy of souls effeminate,
Phials of crystal scents enclose.

Combs of all sizes, files of steel,
Scissors both straight and curved as well,
Of thirty different sorts, lo! brushes
Both for the nails and for the tushes.

Rousseau, I would remark in passing, [13] "Tout le monde sut qu'il (Grimm) mettait du blanc; et moi, qui n'en croyait rien, je commencai de le croire, non seulement par l'embellissement de son teint, et pour avoir trouve des tasses de blanc sur la toilette, mais sur ce qu'entrant un matin dans sa chambre, je le trouvais brossant ses ongles avec une petite vergette faite expres, ouvrage qu'il continua fierement devant moi. Je jugeai qu'un homme qui passe deux heures tous les matins a brosser ses ongles peut bien passer quelques instants a remplir de blanc les creux de sa peau." Confessions de J. J. Rousseau
Could not conceive how serious Grimm
Dared calmly cleanse his nails 'fore him,
Eloquent raver all-surpassing,—
The friend of liberty and laws
In this case quite mistaken was.

The most industrious man alive
May yet be studious of his nails;
What boots it with the age to strive?
Custom the despot soon prevails.

A new Kaverine Eugene mine,
Dreading the world's remarks malign,
Was that which we are wont to call
A fop, in dress pedantical.

Three mortal hours per diem he
Would loiter by the looking-glass,
And from his dressing-room would pass
Like Venus when, capriciously,
The goddess would a masquerade
Attend in male attire arrayed.

On this artistical retreat
Having once fixed your interest,
I might to connoisseurs repeat
The style in which my hero dressed;

Though I confess I hardly dare
Describe in detail the affair,
Since words like pantaloons, vest, coat,
To Russ indigenous are not;

And also that my feeble verse—
Pardon I ask for such a sin—
With words of foreign origin
Too much I'm given to intersperse,
Though to the Academy I come
And oft its Dictionary thumb. [14] Refers to Dictionary of the Academy, compiled during the reign of Catherine II under the supervision of Lomonossoff.

But such is not my project now,
So let us to the ball-room haste,
Whither at headlong speed doth go
Eugene in hackney carriage placed.

Past darkened windows and long streets
Of slumbering citizens he fleets,
Till carriage lamps, a double row,
Cast a gay lustre on the snow,
Which shines with iridescent hues.
He nears a spacious mansion's gate,
By many a lamp illuminate,
And through the lofty windows views
Profiles of lovely dames he knows
And also fashionable beaux.

Our hero stops and doth alight,
Flies past the porter to the stair,
But, ere he mounts the marble flight,
With hurried hand smooths down his hair.

He enters: in the hall a crowd,
No more the music thunders loud,
Some a mazurka occupies,
Crushing and a confusing noise;

Spurs of the Cavalier Guard clash,
The feet of graceful ladies fly,
And following them ye might espy
Full many a glance like lightning flash,
And by the fiddle's rushing sound
The voice of jealousy is drowned.

In my young days of wild delight
On balls I madly used to dote,
Fond declarations they invite
Or the delivery of a note.