When wayward fate has made me stray
I've dreamt of Moscow far away!
Ah, Moscow! How that sound is freighted
With meaning for our Russian hearts!
How many echoes it imparts!
37
And here's Petrvsky Castle,* hoary
Amid its park. In sombre dress
It wears with pride its recent glory:
Napoleon, drunk with fresh success,
Awaited here, in vain, surrender
For kneeling Moscow's hand to tender
The ancient Kremlin's hallowed keys.
But Moscow never bent her knees,
Nor bowed her head in subjugation;
No welcome feast did she prepare
The restless hero waiting there
But lit instead a conflagration.
From here he watched, immersed in thought,
The awesome blaze my Moscow wrought.
38
Farewell now, scene of fame unsteady,
Petrvsky Castle. Hey! Be fleet!
There gleam the city gates already!
And now along Tverskya Street
The sleigh glides over ruts and passes
By sentry booths and peasant lasses;
By gardens, mansions, fashion shops;
Past urchins, streetlamps, strolling fops,
Bokhrins, sleighs, apothecaries,
Muzhiks and merchants, Cossack guards;
Past towers, hovels, boulevards,
Great balconies and monasteries;
Past gateway lions' lifted paws,
And crosses dense with flocks of daws.
(39)40
This tiring trek through town extended
For two full hours; then, quite late
Nearby St Chariton's it ended
Before a mansion's double gate.
For now they'll seek accommodation
With Tanya's aunt, a kind relation
Four years consumptive, sad to note.
In glasses and a torn old coat,
A grizzled Kalmuk came to meet them;
With sock in hand he led the way
To where the prostrate princess lay;
She called from parlour couch to greet them.
The two old ladies hugged and cried,
With shouts of joy on either side.
41
'Princesse, mon ange!' 'Pachette!' 'Oh, Laura!'
'Who would have thought?' 'How long it's been!'
'I hope you'll stay?' 'Dear cousin Laura!'
'Sit down.. . . How strange! ... I can't begin . . .
I'd swear it's from some novel's pages!'
'And here's my Tanya.' 'Lord, it's ages!
Oh, Tanya sweet, come over here
I think I must be dreaming, dear. . . .
Oh, cousin, do you still remember
Your Grandison?' 'I never knew . . .
Oh, Grandison! ... of course I do!'
'He lives in Moscow. This December,
On Christmas eve, he paid a call:
He married off his son this fall.
42
'The other. . .. But we'll talk tomorrow;
And straightway too, to all her kin
We'll show your Tanya.
What a sorrow
That paying visits does me in;
I drag about like some poor laggard.
But here, your trip has left you haggard;
Let's all go have a nice long rest. .. .
I've got no strength . . . this weary breast
Finds even joy at times excessive,
Not only woe.. . . It's true, my dear,
I'm good for nothing now, I fear;
And all worn out, she wept a bit,
Then broke into a coughing fit.
43
The sick old lady's kindly smile
Left Tanya moved; but she felt sad
Within this strange new domicile
And missed the room she'd always had.
In bed, beneath her silken curtain,
She lies there sleepless and uncertain;
And early church bellswhen they chime,
Announcing dawn and working time
Rouse Tanya from her bed to listen.
She sits before the windowsill.
The darkness wanes, but Tanya still
Can't see her fields and valleys glisten:
She sees an unknown yard instead:
A stable, fence, and kitchen shed.
44
And now they trundle Tanya daily
To family dinners just to share
With grandams and granduncles gaily
Her languid and abstracted air.
Those kin who've come from distant places
Are always met with warm embraces,
With shouts of joy and welcome cheer.
'How Tanya's grown! It seems, my dear,
So short a time since I baptized you!' '
And since I dried your baby tears!'
'And since I pulled you by the ears!'
'And since my gingerbread surprised you!'
And with one voice the grannies cry:
'Good gracious, how the years do fly!'
45
In them, though, nothing ever alters;
The same old patterns still are met:
Old Aunt Elena never falters
And wears that same tulle bonnet yet;
Still powdered is Lukrya Lvvna;
A liar still, Lyubv Petrvna;
Ivn Petrvich ... no more bright;
Semyn Petrvich . . . just as tight;
And Anna Pvlovna, as ever,
Still has her friend, Monsieur Finemouch,
Her same old spouse, and same old pooch
Her husband, clubman come whatever,
Is just as meek and deaf, it's true,
And still consumes enough for two.
46
Their daughters, after brief embraces,
Look Tanya over good and slow;
In silence Moscow's youthful graces
Examine her from head to toe.
They find her stranger than expected,
A bit provincial and affected,
And somewhat pale, too thin and small,
But on the whole, not bad at all;
Then bowing to innate compassion,
They squeeze her hand and, in the end,
Take Tanya in and call her friend;
They fluff her curls in latest fashion,
And in their singsong tones impart
Their girlish secrets of the heart
47
Both others' and their own successes,
Their hopes, and pranks, and maiden dreams;
All innocence, their talk progresses .
Though now and then some gossip gleams.
And then they ask, in compensation
For their sweet flow of revelation,
For her confessions of romance.
But Tanya, in a kind of trance,
Attends their giddy conversation
Without response and takes no part;
And all the while she guards her heart
With silence and in meditation:
Her cherished trove of tears and bliss
She'll share with none, aloud like this.
Tatyana tries to pay attention
When in the parlour guests converse;
But all they ever seem to mention
Is incoherent rot, or worse;
They seem so pallid and so weary,
And even in their slander dreary.
In all the sterile words they use
In arid gossip, questions, news
Not once all day does thought but flicker,
Not even in some chance remark;
The languid mind will find no spark,
The heart no cause to beat the quicker;
And even simple-minded fun
This hollow world has learned to shun!
49
'Archival dandies'* in a cluster
Eye Tanya with a priggish frown,
And with their usual sort of bluster,
Among themselves they put her down.
One melancholy joker found her
His 'true ideal' and hovered round her
Then, leaning by the door, prepared
An elegy, to show he cared.
Once Vyzemsky* sat down beside her
(On meeting her at some dull aunt's)
And managed to dispel her trance;
And some old manwhen he espied her
Put straight his wig and asked around
About this unknown belle he'd found.
50
But where Melpomene still stages
Her stormy scenes and wails aloud
And in her gaudy mantle rages
Before the dull and frigid crowd;
Where sweet Thalia calmly dozes,
Indifferent to admirers' roses;
Where just Terpsichore enchants
The youthful lover of the dance
(As was the casefor nothing passes
In our day too, let's not forget),
No jealous lady trained lorgnette,
No modish connoisseur his glasses,
To spy on Tanya down below
From boxes rising row on row.
51
They take her to the Grand Assembly:*
And there the crush, the glare, the heat,
The music's roar, the ballroom trembling,
The whirling flash of pairs of feet,
The beauties in their filmy dresses,
The swarming gallery throng that presses,
The host of girls on marriage hunts
Assault the senses all at once.
Here practised dandies bow and slither
To show their gall. . . and waistcoats too,
With negligent lorgnettes in view.
Hussars on leave come racing hither
To strut their stuff and thunder by,
To dazzle, conquer . . . and to fly.
52
The night has countless stars to light her,
And Moscow countless beauties too;
And yet the regal moon shines brighter
Than all her friends in heaven's blue;
And she, whose beauty I admire
But dare not bother with my lyre
Just like the moon upon her throne,
Mid wives and maidens shines alone.
With what celestial pride she grazes
The earth she walks, in splendour dressed!
What languor fills her lovely breast!
How sensuous her wondrous gazes! . . .
But there, enough; have done at last:
You've paid your due to follies past.
53
Commotion, bows . . . the glad, the solemn . . .
Galop, mazurka, waltz. . . . And there,
Between two aunts, beside a column,
Observed by none, and near despair,
Tatyana looks with eyes unseeing
And loathes this world with all her being;
She's stifled here . . . and in her mind
Calls up the life she left behind
The countryside, poor village neighbours,
A distant and secluded nook
Beside a limpid flowing brook,
Her flowers, novels, daily labours ...
That dusky, linden-shaded walk
Where he and she once had their talk.
54
And so, far off in thought she wandered:
The monde, the noisy ball forgot;
But all the while, as Tanya pondered,
Some general stared her way a lot.
The aunts exchanged a wink and nodded,
And with an elbow each one prodded
Tatyana, whisp'ring in her ear:
'Look quickly to your left, my dear.'
'My left? But why? It seems like gawking.'
'Just never mind . . . now look up there . . .
That group in front; you see that pair . . .
In uniform? The one not talking . ..
He just moved off. . . . He's turning round.'
'That heavy general?' Tanya frowned.
55
But here let's honour with affection
My Tanya's conquest taking wing,
And steer for now a new direction,
Lest I forget of whom I sing
On which, herewith, these observations:
I sing strange whims and aberrations,
I sing a youthful friend of mine.
#62038; Muse of Epics, may you shine
On my long work as I grow older!
And armed with your good staff,
I pray, May I not roam too far astray.
Enough! The burden's off my shoulder!
To classicism I've been true:
The foreword's here, if overdue.
Chapter 8
Fare thee well, and if for ever, Still for ever, fare thee well.
Byron
1
In days when I still bloomed serenely
Inside our Lyce* garden wall
And read my Apuleius keenly,
But read no Cicero at all
Those springtime days in secret valleys,
Where swans call out and beauty dallies,
Near waters sparkling in the still,
The Muse first came to make me thrill.
My student cell turned incandescent;
And there the Muse spread out for me
A feast of youthful fancies free,
And sang of childhood effervescent,
The glory of our days of old,
The trembling dreams the heart can hold.
2
And with a smile the world caressed us;
What wings our first successes gave!
The old Derzhvin* sawand blessed us,
As he descended to the grave.
3
And I, who saw my single duty
As heeding passion's siren song
To share with all the world her beauty,
Would take my merry Muse along
To rowdy feasts and altercations
The bane of midnight sentry stations;
And to each mad and fevered rout
She brought her gifts . . . and danced about,
Bacchante-like, at all our revels,