'I've suffered ballets long enough,
But now Didelot is boring stuff.'
22
While all those cupids, devils, serpents
Upon the stage still romp and roar,
And while the weary band of servants
Still sleeps on furs at carriage door;
And while the people still are tapping,
Still sniffling, coughing, hissing, clapping;
And while the lamps both in and out
Still glitter grandly all about;
And while the horses, bored at tether,
Still fidget, freezing, in the snow,
And coachmen by the fire's glow
Curse masters and beat palms together;
Onegin now has left the scene
And driven home to change and preen.
23
Shall I abandon every scruple
And picture truly with my pen
The room where fashion's model pupil
Is dressed, undressed, and dressed again?
Whatever clever London offers
To those with lavish whims and coffers,
And ships to us by Baltic seas
In trade for tallow and for trees;
Whatever Paris, seeking treasure,
Devises to attract the sight,
Or manufactures for delight,
For luxury, for modish pleasure
All this adorned his dressing room,
Our sage of eighteen summers' bloom.
24
Imported pipes of Turkish amber,
Fine china, bronzesall displayed;
And purely to delight and pamper,
Perfumes in crystal jars arrayed;
Steel files and combs in many guises,
Straight scissors, curved ones, thirty sizes
Of brushes for the modern male
For hair and teeth and fingernail.
Rousseau (permit me this digression)
Could not conceive how solemn Grimm*
Dared clean his nails in front of him,
The brilliant madcap of confession.
In this case, though, one has to say
That Freedom's Champion went astray.
25
For one may be a man of reason
And mind the beauty of his nails.
Why argue vainly with the season?
For custom's rule o'er man prevails.
Now my Eugene, Chadyev's* double,
From jealous critics fearing trouble,
Was quite the pedant in his dress
And what we called a fop, no less.
At least three hours he peruses
His figure in the looking-glass;
Then through his dressing room he'll pass
Like flighty Venus when she chooses
In man's attire to pay a call
At masquerade or midnight ball.
26
Your interest piqued and doubtless growing
In current fashions of toilette,
I might describe in terms more knowing
His clothing for the learned set.
This might well seem an indiscretion,
Description, though, is my profession;
But pantaloons, gilet, and frock
These words are hardly Russian stock;
And I confess (in public sorrow)
That as it is my diction groans
With far too many foreign loans;
But if indeed I overborrow,
I have of old relied upon
Our Academic Lexicon.
27
But let's abandon idle chatter
And hasten rather to forestall
Our hero's headlong, dashing clatter
In hired coach towards the ball.
Before the fronts of darkened houses,
Along a street that gently drowses,
The double carriage lamps in rows
Pour forth their warm and cheerful glows
And on the snow make rainbows glitter.
One splendid house is all alight,
Its countless lampions burning bright;
While past its glassed-in windows flitter
In quick succession silhouettes
Of ladies and their modish pets.
28
But look, Onegin's at the gateway;
He's past the porter, up the stair,
Through marble entry rushes straightway,
Then runs his fingers through his hair,
And steps inside. The crush increases,
The droning music never ceases;
A bold mazurka grips the crowd,
The press intense, the hubbub loud;
The guardsman clinks his spurs and dances,
The charming ladies twirl their feet
Enchanting creatures that entreat
A hot pursuit of flaming glances;
While muffled by the violin
The wives their jealous gossip spin.
29
In days of dreams and dissipations
On balls I madly used to dote:
No surer place for declarations,
Or for the passing of a note.
And so I offer, worthy spouses,
My services to save your houses:
I pray you, heed my sound advice,
A word of warning should suffice.
You too, you mamas, I commend you
To keep your daughters well in sight;
Don't lower your lorgnettes at night!
Or else ... or else . . . may God defend you!
All this I now can let you know,
Since I dropped sinning long ago.
30
So much of life have I neglected
In following where pleasure calls!
Yet were not morals ill affected
I even now would worship balls.
I love youth's wanton, fevered madness,
The crush, the glitter, and the gladness,
The ladies' gowns so well designed;
I love their feetalthough you'll find
That all of Russia scarcely numbers
Three pairs of shapely feet. .. And yet,
How long it took me to forget
Two special feet. And in my slumbers
They still assail a soul grown cold
And on my heart retain their hold.
31
In what grim desert, madman, banished,
Will you at last cut memory's thread?
Ah, dearest feet, where have you vanished?
What vernal flowers do you tread?
Brought up in Oriental splendour,
You left no prints, no pressings tender,
Upon our mournful northern snow.
You loved instead to come and go
On yielding rugs in rich profusion;
While Iso long ago it seems!
For your sake smothered all my dreams
Of glory, country, proud seclusion.
All gone are youth's bright years of grace,
As from the meadow your light trace.
32
Diana's breast is charming, brothers,
And Flora's cheek, I quite agree;
But I prefer above these others
The foot of sweet Terpsichore.
Of rich rewards and peerless trances;
Its token beauty stokes the fires,
The wilful swarm of hot desires.
My dear Elvina, I adore it
Beneath the table barely seen,
In springtime on the meadow's green,
In winter with the hearth before it,
Upon the ballroom's mirrored floor,
Or perched on granite by the shore.
33
I recollect the ocean rumbling:
O how I envied then the waves
Those rushing tides in tumult tumbling
To fall about her feet like slaves!
I longed to join the wave
s in pressing
Upon those feet these lips . . . caressing.
No, never midst the fiercest blaze
Of wildest youth's most fervent days
Was I so racked with yearning's anguish:
No maiden's lips were equal bliss,
No rosy cheek that I might kiss,
Or sultry breast on which to languish.
No, never once did passion's flood
So rend my soul, so flame my blood.
34
Another memory finds me ready:
In cherished dreams I sometimes stand
And hold the lucky stirrup steady,
Then feel her foot within my hand!
Once more imagination surges,
Once more that touch ignites and urges
The blood within this withered heart:
Once more the love . . . once more the dart!
But stop .. . Enough! My babbling lyre
Has overpraised these haughty things:
They're hardly worth the songs one sings
Or all the passions they inspire;
Their charming words and glances sweet
Are quite as faithless as their feet.
35
But what of my Eugene?
Half drowsing,
He drives to bed from last night's ball,
While Petersburg, already rousing,
Answers the drumbeat's duty call.
The merchant's up, the pedlar scurries,
With jug in hand the milkmaid hurries,
Crackling the freshly fallen snow;
The cabby plods to hackney row.
In pleasant hubbub morn's awaking!
The shutters open, smoke ascends
In pale blue shafts from chimney ends.
The German baker's up and baking,
And more than once, in cotton cap,
Has opened up his window-trap.
36
But wearied by the ballroom's clamour,
He sleeps in blissful, sheer delight
This child of comfort and of glamour,
Who turns each morning into night.
By afternoon he'll finally waken,
The day ahead all planned and taken:
The endless round, the varied game;
Tomorrow too will be the same.
But was he happy in the flower
The very springtime of his days,
Amid his pleasures and their blaze,
Amid his conquests of the hour?
Or was he profligate and hale
Amid his feasts to no avail?
37
Yes, soon he lost all warmth of feeling:
The social buzz became a bore,
And all those beauties, once appealing,
Were objects of his thought no more.
Inconstancy grew too fatiguing;
And friends and friendship less intriguing;
An endless bottle of champagne
To help those pies and beefsteaks settle,
Or go on dropping words of wit
With throbbing head about to split:
And so, for all his fiery mettle,
He did at last give up his love
Of pistol, sword, and ready glove.
38
We still, alas, cannot forestall it
This dreadful ailment's heavy toll;
The spleen is what the English call it,
We call it simply Russian soul.
'Twas this our hero had contracted;
And though, thank God, he never acted
To put a bullet through his head,
His former love of life was dead.
Like Byron's Harold, lost in trances,
Through drawing rooms he'd pass and stare;
But neither whist, nor gossip there,
Nor wanton sighs, nor tender glances
No, nothing touched his sombre heart,
He noticed nothing, took no part.
(39-41) 42
Capricious belles of lofty station!
You were the first that he forswore;
For nowadays in our great nation,
The manner grand can only bore.
I wouldn't say that ladies never
Discuss a Say or Bentham*ever;
But generally, you'll have to grant,
Their talk's absurd, if harmless, cant.
On top of which, they're so unerring,
So dignified, so awfully smart,
So pious and so chaste of heart,
So circumspect, so strict in bearing,
So inaccessibly serene,
Mere sight of them brings on the spleen.*
43
You too, young mistresses of leisure,
Who late at night are whisked away
In racing droshkies bound for pleasure
Along the Petersburg chausse
He dropped you too in sudden fashion.
Apostate from the storms of passion,
He locked himself within his den
And, with a yawn, took up his pen
And tried to write. But art's exaction
Of steady labour made him ill,
And nothing issued from his quill;
So thus he failed to join the faction
Of writerswhom I won't condemn
Since, after all, I'm one of them.
44
Once more an idler, now he smothers
The emptiness that plagues his soul
By making his the thoughts of others
A laudable and worthy goal.
He crammed his bookshelf overflowing,
Then read and readfrustration growing:
Some raved or lied, and some were dense;
Some lacked all conscience; some, all sense;
Each with a different dogma girded;
The old was dated through and through,
While nothing new was in the new;
So books, like women, he deserted,
And over all that dusty crowd
He draped a linen mourning shroud.
45
I too had parted with convention,
With vain pursuit of worldly ends;
And when Eugene drew my attention,
I liked his ways and we made friends.
I liked his natural bent for dreaming,
His strangeness that was more than seeming,
The cold sharp mind that he possessed;