Part 7 (1/2)

He thought that he should be united With a congenial soul, that she Would pine, whenever he departed, And keep awaiting him each day; He thought that friends would, in like manner, Don fetters to defend his honour, And that their hands would never spare The vessel3 of his slanderer; That there were some whom fate had chosen, Blest comrades of humanity; That their immortal family Would in a future time emblazon Us all with overwhelming rays And grace the world with blissful days.

9.

Compa.s.sion, righteous indignation, Pure love directed to the good, And fame's sweet pain, inebriation Had stirred from early days his blood.

He with his lyre roamed ever further; Beneath the sky of Schiller, Goethe,4 In sudden flame his soul burst forth, Kindled at their poetic hearth, And, happy one, without degrading The art's exalted Muses, he Nursed proudly in his poetry Exalted feelings, never fading, Surges of virgin reverie, And charms of grave simplicity.

10.

He sang of love, to love obedient, His song possessed the clarity Of simple maidens' thoughts, of infant Slumber and of the moon, when she s.h.i.+nes in the sky's untroubled s.p.a.ces, G.o.ddess of sighs and secret places; He sang of parting and despond, Of something and the dim beyond, He sang, too, of romantic roses; He sang of distant lands, those spheres Where he had long shed living tears, Where silently the world reposes; He sang of life's decaying scene, While he was not yet quite eighteen.

11.

Where only Eugene in their desert Could judge his gifts and quality, He had no appet.i.te to hazard His neighbours' hospitality; He fled their noisy conversations: Their sensible deliberations Regarding haymaking, the wine, The kennels and their kith and kind Were not, of course, lit up with feeling, Poetic fire, perceptive wit, Intelligence, nor with the art That made society appealing; The talk, though, of their spouses dear Was far less meaningful to hear.

12.

Lensky, a wealthy youth and handsome, Was looked upon as marriageable; Such in the country was the custom; All daughters were eligible To court their semi-Russian neighbour; When he arrived, the guests would labour At once, by hinting, to deplore The dull life of a bachelor; The samovar's inviting Lensky.

And Dunya pours him out a cup, They whisper to her: 'Watch, look up!'

They bring in a guitar, too, then she Begins to shrill (good G.o.d!) and call: Oh come into my golden hall...

13.

But Lensky, not, of course, intending To wear the ties of marriage yet, Looked forward warmly to befriending Onegin, whom he'd newly met.

Not ice and flame, not stone and water, Not verse and prose are from each other So different as these men were.

At first, since so dissimilar, They found each other dull, ill-suited; Then got to like each other; then Each day met riding. Soon the men Could simply not be separated.

Thus (I'm the first one to confess) People are friends from idleness.

14.

But friends.h.i.+p even of this order We cannot boast of. Having fought All prejudices, we consider Ourselves the ones, all others nought.

We all aspire to be Napoleons; Two-legged creatures in their millions Are no more than a tool for us, Feelings we find ridiculous.

While fairer in his preconceptions Than many, Eugene was inclined In toto to despise mankind, But (as each rule has its exceptions) Some individuals he spared, And feelings, too, by him unshared.

15.

He heeded Lensky with indulgence.