n_9_7>7 Dominique de Pradt (1759-1837), voluminous French political writer. 8 August Lafontaine (1758-1851), German novelist of family life. -------- Chapter Five O, never know these frightful dreams, thou, my Svetlana! Zhukovsky I That year the season was belated and autumn lingered, long and slow; expecting winter, nature waited -- only in January the snow, night of the second, started flaking. Next day Tatyana, early waking, saw through the window, morning-bright, roofs, flowerbeds, fences, all in white, panes patterned by the finest printer, with trees decked in their silvery kit, and jolly magpies on the flit, and hills that delicately winter had with its brilliant mantle crowned -- and glittering whiteness all around. {132} II Winter!... The countryman, enchanted, breaks a new passage with his sleigh; his nag has smelt the snow, and planted a shambling hoof along the way; a saucy kibítka is slicing its furrow through the powdery icing; the driver sits and cuts a dash in sheepskin coat with scarlet sash. Here comes the yard-boy, who has chosen his pup to grace the sledge, while he becomes a horse for all to see; the rogue has got a finger frozen: it hurts, he laughs, and all in vain his mother taps the window-pane. III But you perhaps find no attraction in any picture of this kind: for nature's unadorned reaction has something low and unrefined. Fired by the god of inspiration, another bard1 in exaltation has painted for us the first snow with each nuance of wintry glow: he'll charm you with his fine invention, he'll take you prisoner, you'll admire secret sledge-rides in verse of fire; but I've not got the least intention just now of wrestling with his shade, nor his,2 who sings of Finland's maid. {133} IV Tanya (profoundly Russian being, herself not knowing how or why) in Russian winters thrilled at seeing the cold perfection of the sky, hoar-frost and sun in freezing weather, sledges, and tardy dawns together with the pink glow the snows assume and festal evenings in the gloom. The Larins kept the old tradition: maid-servants from the whole estate would on those evenings guess the fate of the two girls; their premonition pointed each year, for time to come, at soldier-husbands, and the drum. V Tatyana shared with full conviction the simple faith of olden days in dreams and cards and their prediction, and portents of the lunar phase. Omens dismayed her with their presage; each object held a secret message for her instruction, and her breast was by forebodings much oppressed. The tomcat, mannered and affected, that sat above the stove and purred and washed its face, to her brought word that visitors must be expected. If suddenly aloft she spied the new moon, horned, on her left side, {134} VI her face would pale, she'd start to quiver. In the dark sky, a shooting star that fell, and then began to shiver, would fill Tatyana from afar with perturbation and with worry; and while the star still flew, she'd hurry to whisper it her inmost prayer. And if she happened anywhere to meet a black monk, or if crossing her path a hare in headlong flight ran through the fields, sheer panic fright would leave her dithering and tossing. By dire presentiment awestruck, already she'd assume ill-luck. VII Yet -- fear itself she found presented a hidden beauty in the end: our disposition being invented by nature, contradiction's friend. Christmas came on. What joy, what gladness! Yes, youth divines, in giddy madness, youth which has nothing to regret, before which life's horizon yet lies bright, and vast beyond perceiving; spectacled age divines as well, although it's nearly heard the knell, and all is lost beyond retrieving; no matter: hope, in child's disguise, is there to lisp its pack of lies. {135} VIII Tatyana looks with pulses racing at sunken wax inside a bowl: beyond a doubt, its wondrous tracing foretells for her some wondrous role; from dish of water, rings are shifted in due succession; hers is lifted and at the very self-same time the girls sing out the ancient rhyme: ``The peasants there have wealth abounding, they heap up silver with a spade; and those we sing for will be paid in goods and fame!'' But the sad-sounding ditty portends a loss; more dear is ``Kit''3 to every maiden's ear. IX The sky is clear, the earth is frozen; the heavenly lights in glorious quire tread the calm, settled path they've chosen... Tatyana in low-cut attire goes out into the courtyard spaces and trains a mirror till it faces the moon; but in the darkened glass the only face to shake and pass is sad old moon's... Hark! snow is creaking... a passer-by; and on tiptoe she flies as fast as she can go; and ``what's your name?'' she asks him, speaking in a melodious, flute-like tone. He looks, and answers: ``Agafon.''4 {136} X Prepared for prophecy and fable, she did what nurse advised she do and in the bath-house had a table that night, in secret, set for two; then sudden fear attacked Tatyana... I too -- when I recall Svetlana5 I'm terrified -- so let it be... Tatyana's rites are not for me. She's dropped her sash's silken billow; Tanya's undressed, and lies in bed. Lel6 floats about above her head; and underneath her downy pillow a young girl's looking-glass is kept. Now all was still. Tatyana slept. XI She dreamt of portents. In her dreaming she walked across a snowy plain through gloom and mist; and there came streaming a furious, boiling, heaving main across the drift-encumbered acres, a raging torrent, capped with breakers, a flood on which no frosty band had been imposed by winter's hand; two poles that ice had glued like plaster were placed across the gulf to make a flimsy bridge whose every quake spelt hazard, ruin and disaster; she stopped at the loud torrent's bound, perplexed... and rooted to the ground. {137} XII As if before some mournful parting Tatyana groaned above the tide; she saw no friendly figure starting to help her from the other side; but suddenly a snowdrift rumbled, and what came out? a hairy, tumbled, enormous bear; Tatyana yelled, the bear let out a roar, and held a sharp-nailed paw towards her; bracing her nerves, she leant on it her weight, and with a halting, trembling gait above the water started tracing her way; she passed, then as she walked the bear -- what next? -- behind her stalked. XIII A backward look is fraught with danger; she speeds her footsteps to a race, but from her shaggy-liveried ranger she can't escape at any pace -- the odious bear still grunts and lumbers. Ahead of them a pinewood slumbers in the full beauty of its frown; the branches all are weighted down with tufts of snow; and through the lifted summits of aspen, birch and lime, the nightly luminaries climb. No path to see: the snow has drifted across each bush, across each steep, and all the world is buried deep. {138} XIV She's in the wood, the bear still trails her. There's powdery snow up to her knees; now a protruding branch assails her and clasps her neck; and now she sees her golden earrings off and whipping; and now the crunchy snow is stripping her darling foot of its wet shoe, her handkerchief has fallen too; no time to pick it up -- she's dying with fright, she hears the approaching bear; her fingers shake, she doesn't dare to lift her skirt up; still she's flying, and he pursuing, till at length she flies no more, she's lost her strength. XV She's fallen in the snow -- alertly the bear has raised her in his paws; and she, submissively, inertly -- no move she makes, no breath she draws; he whirls her through the wood... a hovel shows up through trees, all of a grovel in darkest forest depths and drowned by dreary snowdrifts piled around; there's a small window shining in it, and from within come noise and cheer; the bear explains: ``my cousin's here -- come in and warm yourself a minute!'' he carries her inside the door and sets her gently on the floor. {139} XVI Tatyana looks, her faintness passes: bear's gone; a hallway, no mistake; behind the door the clash of glasses and shouts suggest a crowded wake; so, seeing there no rhyme or reason, no meaning in or out of season, she peers discreetly through a chink and sees... whatever do you think? a group of monsters round a table, a dog with horns, a goatee'd witch, a rooster head, and on the twitch a skeleton jerked by a cable, a dwarf with tail, and a half-strain, a hybrid cross of cat and crane. XVII But ever stranger and more fearful: a crayfish rides on spider-back; on goose's neck, a skull looks cheerful and swaggers in a red calpack; with bended knees a windmill dances, its sails go flap-flap as it prances; song, laughter, whistle, bark and champ, and human words, and horse's stamp! But how she jumped, when in this hovel among the guests she recognized the man she feared and idolized -- who else? -- the hero of our novel! Onegin sits at table too, he eyes the door, looks slyly through. {140} XVIII He nods -- they start to fuss and truckle; he drinks -- all shout and take a swill; he laughs -- they all begin to chuckle; he scowls -- and the whole gang are still; he's host, that's obvious. Thus enlightened Tanya's no longer quite so frightened and, curious now about the lot, opens the door a tiny slot... but then a sudden breeze surprises, puts out the lamps; the whole brigade of house-familiars stands dismayed... with eyes aflame Onegin rises from table, clattering on the floor; all stand. He walks towards the door. XIX Now she's alarmed; in desperate worry Tatyana struggles to run out -- she can't; and in her panic hurry she flails around, she tries to shout -- she can't; Evgeny's pushed the portal, and to the vision of those mortal monsters the maiden stood revealed. Wildly the fearful laughter pealed; the eyes of all, the hooves, the snozzles, the bleeding tongues, the tufted tails, the tusks, the corpse's finger-nails, the horns, and the moustachio'd nozzles -- all point at her, and all combine to bellow out: ``she's mine, she's mine.'' {141} XX ``She's mine!'' Evgeny's voice of thunder clears in a flash the freezing room; the whole thieves' kitchen flies asunder, the girl remains there in the gloom alone with him; Onegin takes her into a corner, gently makes her sit on a flimsy bench, and lays his head upon her shoulder... blaze of sudden brightness... it's too curious... Olga's appeared upon the scene, and Lensky follows her... Eugene, eyes rolling, arms uplifted, furious, damns the intruders; Tanya lies and almost swoons, and almost dies. XXI Louder and louder sounds the wrangle: Eugene has caught up, quick as quick, a carving-knife -- and in the tangle Lensky's thrown down. The murk is thick and growing thicker; then, heart-shaking, a scream rings out... the cabin's quaking... Tanya comes to in utter fright... she looks, the room is getting light -- outside, the scarlet rays of dawning play on the window's frosted lace; in through the door, at swallow's pace, pinker than glow of Northern morning, flits Olga: ``now, tell me straight out, who was it that you dreamt about?'' {142} XXII Deaf to her sister's intervention, Tatyana simply lay in bed, devoured a book with rapt attention, and kept quite silent while she read. The book displayed, not so you'd know it, no magic fancies of the poet, no brilliant truth, no vivid scene; and yet by Vergil or Racine by Scott, by Seneca, or Byron, even by Ladies' Fashion Post, no one was ever so engrossed: Martin Zadéka was the siren, dean of Chaldea's learned team, arch-commentator of the dream. XXIII This work of the profoundest learning was brought there by a huckster who one day came down that lonely turning, and to Tanya, when he was through, swapped it for odd tomes of Malvina, but just to make the bargain keener, he charged three roubles and a half, and took two Petriads in calf, a grammar, a digest of fable, and volume three of Marmontel. Since then Martin Zadéka's spell bewitches Tanya... he is able to comfort her in all her woes, and every night shares her repose. {143} XXIV Tatyana's haunted by her vision, plagued by her ghastly dream, and tries to puzzle out with some precision just what the nightmare signifies. Searching the table exegetic she finds, in order alphabetic: bear, blackness, blizzard, bridge and crow, fir, forest, hedgehog, raven, snow etcetera. But her trepidation Martin Zadéka fails to mend; the horrid nightmare must portend a hideous deal of tribulation. For several days she peaked and pined in deep anxiety of mind. XXV But now Aurora's crimson fingers from daybreak valleys lift the sun; the morning light no longer lingers, the festal name day has begun. Since dawn, whole families have been driving towards the Larins' and arriving in sledded coaches and coupés, in britzkas, kibítkas and sleighs. The hall is full of noise and hustle, in the salon new faces meet, and kisses smack as young girls greet; there's yap of pugs, and laughs, and bustle; the threshold's thronged, wet-nurses call, guests bow, feet scrape, and children squall. {144} XXVI Here with his wife, that bulging charmer, fat Pústyakov has driven in; Gvozdín, exemplary farmer, whose serfs are miserably thin; and the Skotínins, grizzled sages, with broods of children of all ages, from thirty down to two; and stop, here's Petushkóv, the local fop; and look, my cousin's come, Buyánov, in a peaked cap, all dust and fluff, -- you'll recognize him soon enough, -- and counsellor (retired) Flyánov, that rogue, backbiter, pantaloon, bribe-taker, glutton and buffoon. XXVII Here, in his red peruke and glasses, late of Tambov, Monsieur Triquet has come with Kharlikov; he passes for witty; in his Gallic way inside a pocket Triquet nurses, addressed to Tanya, certain verses set to well-known children's glee: ``réveillez-vous, belle endormie.'' He found them in some old collection, printed among outmoded airs; Triquet, ingenious poet, dares to undertake their resurrection, and for belle Nina, as it read, he's put belle Tatiana instead. {145} XXVIII And from the nearby Army station the Major's here: he's all the rage with our Mamas, and a sensation with demoiselles of riper age; his news has set the party humming! the regimental band is coming, sent at the Colonel's own behest. A ball: the joy of every guest! Young ladies jump for future blisses... But dinner's served, so two by two and arm in arm they all go through; round Tanya congregate the misses, the men confront them, face to face: they sit, they cross themselves for grace. XXIX They buzz -- but then all talk's suspended -- jaws masticate as minutes pass: the crash of plates and knives is blended with the resounding chime of glass. And now there's gradually beginning among the guests a general dinning: none listens when the others speak, all shout and argue, laugh and squeak. Then doors are opened, Lensky enters, Onegin too. ``Good Lord, at last!'' the hostess cries and, moving fast, the guests squeeze closer to the centres; they shove each plate, and every chair, and shout, and make room for the pair. {146} XXX Just facing Tanya's where they're sitting; and paler than the moon at dawn, she lowers darkened eyes, unwitting, and trembles like a hunted fawn. From violent passions fast pulsating she's nearly swooned, she's suffocating; the friends' salute she never hears and from her eyes the eager tears are almost bursting; she's quite ready, poor girl, to drop into a faint, but will, and reason's strong constraint, prevailed, and with composure steady she sat there; through her teeth a word came out so soft, it scarce was heard. XXXI The nervous-tragical reaction, girls' tears, their swooning, for Eugene had long proved tedious to distraction: he knew too well that sort of scene. Now, faced with this enormous revel, he'd got annoyed, the tricky devil. He saw the sad girl's trembling state, looked down in an access of hate, pouted, and swore in furious passion to wreak, by stirring Lensky's ire, the best revenge one could desire. Already, in exultant fashion, he watched the guests and, as he dined, caricatured them in his mind. {147} XXXII Tanya's distress had risked detection not only by Evgeny's eye; but looks and talk took the direction, that moment, of a luscious pie (alas, too salted); now they're bringing bottles to which some pitch is clinging: Tsimlyansky wine, between the meat and the blancmanger, then a fleet of goblets, tall and slender pretties; how they remind me of your stem, Zizi, my crystal and my gem, you object of my guileless ditties! with draughts from love's enticing flask, you made me drunk as one could ask! XXXIII Freed from its dripping cork, the bottle explodes; wine fizzes up... but stay: solemn, too long compelled to throttle his itching verse, Monsieur Triquet is on his feet -- in utter stillness the party waits. Seized with an illness of swooning, Tanya nearly dies; and, scroll in hand, before her eyes Triquet sings, out of tune. Loud clapping and cheers salute him. Tanya must thank him by curtseying to the dust; great bard despite his modest trapping, he's first to toast her in the bowl, then he presents her with the scroll. {148} XXXIV Compliment and congratulation; Tanya thanks each one with a phrase. When Eugene's turn for salutation arrives, the girl's exhausted gaze, her discomposure, her confusion, expose his soul to an intrusion of pity: in his silent bow, and in his look there shows somehow a wondrous tenderness. And whether it was that he'd been truly stirred, or half-unwittingly preferred a joking flirt, or both together, there was a softness in his glance: it brought back Tanya from her trance. XXXV Chairs are pushed outward, loudly rumbling, and all into the salon squeeze, as from their luscious hive go tumbling fieldward, in noisy swarm, the bees. The banquet's given no cause for sneezing, neighbours in high content are wheezing; ladies at the fireside confer, in corners whispering girls concur; now, by green tablecloths awaited, the eager players are enrolled -- Boston and ombre for the old, and whist, that's now so keenly fêted -- pursuits of a monotonous breed begot by boredom out of greed. {149} XXXVI By now whist's heroes have completed eight rubbers; and by now eight times they've moved around and been reseated; and tea's brought in. Instead of chimes I like to tell the time by dinner and tea and supper; there's an inner clock in the country rings the hour; no fuss; our belly has the power of any Bréguet: and in passing I'll just remark, my verses talk as much of banquets and the cork and eatables beyond all classing as yours did, Homer, godlike lord, whom thirty centuries have adored! < XXXVII7 At feasts, though, full of pert aggression, I put your genius to the test, I make magnanimous confession, in other things you come off best: your heroes, raging and ferocious, your battles, lawless and atrocious, your Zeus, your Cypris, your whole band have clearly got the upper hand of Eugene, cold as all creation, of plains where boredom reigns complete, or of Istómina, my sweet, and all our modish education; but your vile Helen's not my star -- no, Tanya's more endearing far. {150} XXXVIII No one will think that worth gainsaying, though Menelaus, in Helen's name, may spend a century in flaying the hapless Phrygians all the same, and although Troy's greybeards, collected around Priam the much-respected, may chorus, when she comes in sight, that Menelaus was quite right -- and Paris too. But hear my pleading: as battles go, I've not begun; don't judge the race before it's run -- be good enough to go on reading: there'll be a fight. For that I give my word; no welshing, as I live. > XXXIX Here's tea: the girls have just, as bidden, taken the saucers in their grip, when, from behind the doorway, hidden bassoons and flutes begin to trip. Elated by the music's blaring, Petushkóv, local Paris, tearing, his tea with rum quite left behind, approaches Olga; Lensky's signed Tatyana on; Miss Kharlikova, that nubile maid of riper age, is seized by Tambov's poet-sage; Buyánov whirls off Pustyakova; they all have swarmed into the hall, and in full brilliance shines the ball. {151} XL Right at the outset of my story (if you'll turn back to chapter one) I meant to paint, with Alban's8 glory, a ball in Petersburg; but fun and charming reverie's vain deflection absorbed me in the recollection of certain ladies' tiny feet. Enough I've wandered in the suite of your slim prints! though this be treason to my young days, it's time I turned to wiser words and deeds, and learned to demonstrate some signs of reason: let no more such digressions lurk in this fifth chapter of my work. XLI And now, monotonously dashing like mindless youth, the waltz goes by with spinning noise and senseless flashing as pair by pair the dancers fly. Revenge's hour is near, and after Evgeny, full of inward laughter, has gone to Olga, swept the girl past all the assembly in a whirl, he takes her to a chair, beginning to talk of this and that, but then after two minutes, off again, they're on the dance-floor, waltzing, spinning. All are dumbfounded. Lensky shies away from trusting his own eyes. {152} XLII Now the mazurka sounds. Its thunder used in times past to ring a peal that huge ballrooms vibrated under, while floors would split from crash of heel, and frames would shudder, windows tremble; now things are changed, now we resemble ladies who glide on waxed parquet. Yet the mazurka keeps today in country towns and suchlike places its pristine charm: heeltaps, and leaps, and whiskers -- all of this it keeps as fresh as ever, for its graces are here untouched by fashion's reign, our modern Russia's plague and bane. XLIII7 ... ... < Petushkóv's nails and spurs are sounding (that half-pay archivist); and bounding Buyánov's heels have split the wood and wrecked the flooring-boards for good; there's crashing, rumbling, pounding, trotting, the deeper in the wood, the more the logs; the wild ones have the floor; they're plunging, whirling, all but squatting. Ah, gently, gently, easy goes -- your heels will squash the ladies' toes! > {153} XLIV Buyánov, my vivacious cousin, leads Olga and Tatyana on to Eugene; nineteen to the dozen, Eugene takes Olga, and is gone; he steers her, nonchalantly gliding, he stoops and, tenderly confiding, whispers some ballad of the hour, squeezes her hand -- and brings to flower on her smug face a flush of pleasure. Lensky has watched: his rage has blazed, he's lost his self-command, and crazed with jealousy beyond all measure insists, when the mazurka ends, on the cotillion, as amends. XLV He asks. She can't accept. Why ever? No, she's already pledged her word to Evgeny. Oh, God, she'd never... How could she? why, he'd never heard... scarce out of bibs, already fickle, fresh from the cot, an infant pickle, already studying to intrigue, already high in treason's league! He finds the shock beyond all bearing: so, cursing women's devious course, he leaves the house, calls for his horse and gallops. Pistols made for pairing and just a double charge of shot will in a flash decide his lot. {154} Notes to Chapter Five 1 ``See First Snow, a poem by Prince Vyazemsky.'' Pushkin's note. For Prince P. Vyazemsky (1791--1878), poet, critic and close friend of Pushkin, see also Chapter Seven, XLIX. 2 ``See the descriptions of the Finnish winter in Baratynsky's Eda''. Pushkin's note. 3 ``"Tomcat calls Kit" -- a song foretelling marriage.'' Pushkin's note. 4 This Russianized version of the Greek Agatho is ``elephantine and rustic to the Russian ear''. Nabokov. See note 3 to Chapter Two. 5 Girl in Zhukovsky's poem who practises divination, with frightening results. See note 2 to Chapter Three. 6 Slavonic god of love. 7 Stanzas XXXVII, XXXVIII and XLIII were discarded by Pushkin. 8 Francesco Albani, Italian painter (1578-1660). -------- Chapter Six La, sotto giorni nubilosi e brevi. Nasce una gente a cui 'l morir non dole. Petrarch I Seeing Vladimir had defected, Eugene, at Olga's side, was racked by fresh ennui as he reflected with pleasure on his vengeful act. Olinka yawned, just like her neighbour, and looked for Lensky, while the labour of the cotillion's endless theme oppressed her like a heavy dream. It's over. Supper is proceeding. Beds are made up; the guests are all packed from the maids' wing to the hall. Each one by now is badly needing a place for rest. Eugene alone has driven off, to find his own. {155} II All sleep: from the saloon a roaring proclaims where ponderous Pústyakov beside his heavier half is snoring. Gvozdín, Buyánov, Petushkóv and Flyánov, amply lubricated, on dining-chairs are all prostrated; the floor serves Triquet for his nap, in flannel, and an old fur cap. In the two sisters' rooms extended, the maidens all are slumbering deep. Only Tatyana does not sleep, but at the window, in the splendid radiance of Dian, sits in pain and looks out on the darkened plain. III His unexpected apparition, the fleeting tenderness that stole into his look, the exhibition with Olga, all have pierced her soul; she can't make out a single fraction of his intent; and a reaction of jealousy has made her start, as if a cold hand squeezed her heart, as if beneath her, dark and rumbling, a gulf has gaped... Says Tanya: ``I am doomed to perish, yet to die through him is sweetness' self. In grumbling I find no sense; the truth is this, it's not in him to bring me bliss.'' {156} IV But onward, onward with my story! A new acquaintance claims our quill. Five versts or so from Krasnogórie, Lensky's estate, there lives and still thrives to this moment, in a station of philosophic isolation, Zarétsky, sometime king of brawls and hetman of the gambling-halls, arch-rake, pothouse tribune-persona, but now grown plain and kind in stead, paterfamilias (unwed), unswerving friend, correct landowner, and even honourable man: so, if we want to change, we can! V The world of fashion, prone to flatter, praised his fierce courage in its day: true, with a pistol he could shatter an ace a dozen yards away; it's also true, in battle's rapture, the circumstances of his capture had made his name, when, bold as bold, down from his Kalmuck steed he rolled into the mud, a drunken goner, and taken by the French -- some prize! -- resigned himself to prison's ties, like Regulus, that god of honour, in order daily, chez Véry,1 to drain, on credit, bottles three. {157} VI Time was, he'd been the wittiest ever, so brilliantly he'd hoax the fools, so gloriously he'd fool the clever, using overt or covert rules. Sometimes his tricks would earn him trouble, or cause the bursting of his bubble, sometimes he'd fall into a trap himself just like a simple chap. But he could draw a joking moral, return an answer, blunt or keen, use cunning silence as a screen, or cunningly create a quarrel, get two young friends to pick a fight, and put them on a paced-out site. VII Or he knew how to reconcile them so that all three went off to lunch, then later slyly he'd revile them with lies and jokes that packed a punch: sed alia tempora! The devil (like passion's dream, that other revel) goes out of us when youth is dead. So my Zaretsky, as I said, beneath bird-cherries and acacias has found a port for his old age, and lives, a veritable sage, for planting cabbage, like Horatius, and breeding ducks and geese as well, and teaching children how to spell. {158} VIII He was no fool; appreciated by my Eugene, not for his heart, but for the effect that he created of sense and judgement. For his part his converse gave Onegin pleasure; so it was not in any measure, the morning after, a surprise when our Zaretsky met his eyes. His visitor from the beginning broke greetings off, and gave Eugene a note from Lensky; in between Zaretsky watched, and stood there grinning. Onegin without more ado crossed to the window, read it through. IX Pleasant, in spite of its compression, gentlemanly, quite precise, Vladimir's challenge found expression that, though polite, was clear as ice. Eugene's response was automatic; he informed this envoy diplomatic in terms where not a word was spared: at any time he'd be prepared. Zaretsky rose without discussion; he saw no point in staying on, with work at home; but when he'd gone, Evgeny, whom the repercussion left quite alone with his own soul, was far from happy with his role. {159} X With reason, too: for when he'd vetted in secret judgement what he'd done, he found too much that he regretted: last night he'd erred in making fun, so heartless and so detrimental, of love so timorous and gentle. In second place the poet might have been a fool; yet he'd a right, at eighteen years, to some compassion. Evgeny loved him from his heart, and should have played a different part: no softball for the winds of fashion, no boy, to fight or take offence -- the man of honour and of sense. XI He could have spoken without harming, need not have bristled like a beast; he should have settled for disarming that youthful heart. ``But now at least it's late, time's passing... not to mention, in our affair, the intervention of that old duellistic fox, that wicked, loose-tongue chatterbox... True, scorn should punish and should bridle his wit, according to the rules but whispers, the guffaw of fools...'' Public opinion -- here's our idol, the spring of honour, and the pin on which the world is doomed to spin. {160} XII Lensky at home awaits the answer, impatient, hatred flaming high; but here comes our loud-talking prancer who swaggers in with the reply. The jealous poet's gloom is lightened! knowing the offender, he'd been frightened lest he should by some clever trick avert his chest from pistol's click, smoothe his way out with humour's ointment. But now Vladimir's doubts are still: early tomorrow at the mill before first light they have appointment, to raise the safety catch and strain to hit the target: thigh or brain. XIII Still blazing with resentment's fuel, and set on hating the coquette, Lensky resolved before the duel not to see Olga; in a fret watched sun and clock -- then by such labours defeated, turned up at his neighbour's. He thought that Olga'd be confused, struck down as if she'd been accused, when he arrived; not in the slightest: just as she'd always been, she tripped to meet the unhappy poet, skipped down from the porch, light as the lightest, the giddiest hope, carefree and gay, the same as any other day. {161} XIV ``Last night, what made you fly so early?'' was the first thing that Olga said. All Lensky's thoughts went hurly-burly, and silently he hung his head. Rage died, and jealousy's obsession, before such candour of expression, such frank tendresse; away they stole before such playfulness of soul!... he looks, in sweet irresolution, and then concludes: she loves him yet! Already borne down by regret, he almost begs for absolution, he trembles, knows not what to tell; he's happy, yes, he's almost well... (XV, XVI,2) XVII Now brooding thoughts hold his attention once more, at that beloved sight, and so he lacks the strength to mention the happenings of the previous night; he murmurs: ``Olga's mine for saving; I'll stop that tempter from depraving her youth with all his repertoire of sighs, and compliments, and fire; that poisonous worm, despised, degrading, shall not attack my lily's root; I'll save this blossom on the shoot, still hardly opened up, from fading.'' Friends, all this meant was: I've a date for swapping bullets with my mate. {162} XVIII If only Lensky'd known the burning wound that had seared my Tanya's heart! If Tanya'd had the chance of learning that Lensky and Eugene, apart, would settle, on the morrow morning, for which of them the tomb was yawning, perhaps her love could in the end have reunited friend to friend! But, even by accident, her passion was undiscovered to that day. Onegin had no word to say; Tatyana pined in secret fashion: of the whole world, her nurse alone, if not slow-witted, might have known. XIX Lensky all evening, in distraction, would talk, keep silent, laugh, then frown -- the quintessential reaction of Muses' offspring; sitting down before the clavichord with knitted forehead, he strummed, his vision flitted to Olga's face, he whispered low ``I think I'm happy.'' Time to go, the hour was late. And now from aching the heart inside him seemed to shrink; parting with Olga made him think it was quite torn in half and breaking. She faced him, questioning: ``But you?...'' ``It's nothing.'' And away he flew. {163} XX Once home, he brought out and inspected his pistols, laid them in their case, undressed, by candlelight selected and opened Schiller... but the embrace of one sole thought holds him in keeping and stops his doleful heart from sleeping: Olga is there, he sees her stand in untold beauty close at hand. Vladimir shuts the book, for writing prepares himself; and then his verse, compact of amorous trash, and worse, flows and reverberates. Reciting, he sounds, in lyric frenzy sunk, like Delvig3 when he's dining drunk. XXI By chance those verses haven't vanished; I keep them, and will quote them here: ``Whither, oh whither are ye banished, my golden days when spring was dear? What fate is my tomorrow brewing? the answer's past all human viewing, it's hidden deep in gloom and dust. No matter; fate's decree is just. Whether the arrow has my number, whether it goes careering past, all's well; the destined hour at last comes for awakening, comes for slumber; blessed are daytime's care and cark, blest is the advent of the dark! {164} XXII ``The morning star will soon be shining, and soon will day's bright tune be played; but I perhaps will be declining into the tomb's mysterious shade; the trail the youthful poet followed by sluggish Lethe may be swallowed, and I be by the world forgot; but, lovely maiden, wilt thou not on my untimely urn be weeping, thinking: he loved me, and in strife the sad beginnings of his life he consecrated to my keeping?... Friend of my heart, be at my side, beloved friend, thou art my bride!'' XXIII So Lensky wrote, obscurely, limply (in the romantic style, we say, though what's romantic here I simply fail to perceive -- that's by the way). At last, with dawn upon him, stooping his weary head, and softly drooping over the modish word ideal, he dozed away; but when the real magic of sleep had started claiming its due oblivion, in the hush his neighbour entered at a rus