Part 22 (2/2)

By chance his verse can still be read now, I have it, ready for your gaze:15 'Whither, ah whither are you fled now, My springtime's ever-golden days?

What is the coming day's decision?

Alas, it lies beyond my vision, Enshrouded in the deepest night.

No matter, fate's decree is right.

Whether I'm pierced by an arrow Or whether it should miss a all's well: A predetermined hour will tell If we're to wake or sleep tomorrow: Blest are the cares that day contrives, Blest is the darkness that arrives!

22.

'When daybreak comes with rays ascending And sparkling day dispels the gloom, Then I, perhaps a I'll be descending Into the mystery of the tomb, Slow Lethe will engulf for ever My young poetical endeavour; I'll be forgot, but you'll return To weep on my untimely urn, And, maid of beauty, in your sorrow, You will reflect: he loved me, sworn To me alone in his sad dawn, Bereft now of its stormy morrow!...

Come, heartfelt friend, come, longed-for friend, I'll be your husband to the end.'

23.

And so he wrote obscurely, limply (Romantic16 is the term we've coined, Though what's Romantic here I simply Have no idea; and what's the point?), And finally, as night was ending, His head towards his shoulder bending, Vladimir dozed, while lingering still Upon the modish word ideal; But scarcely lost in sleep's enchantment, He does not hear his neighbour, who Enters the silent study to Awaken him with a commandment: 'Time to get up, past six, we're late, Onegin will not want to wait.'

24.

But he was wrong: Eugene unheeding Still sleeps a sleep that nought can mar.

Night's shades already are receding, The c.o.c.k salutes the morning star, Onegin sleeps on at his leisure, The sun climbs high into the azure, A pa.s.sing snowstorm overhead Glitters and whirls. But from his bed Our dormant hero has not started, Sleep hovers still before his eyes.

At last he wakes, prepares to rise, The curtains of his bed he's parted; He looks outside a and sees, alack, He should have started some time back.

25.

He rings: his valet, French and chipper, Reaches his chamber in a flash, Guillot brings dressing-gown and slipper, And hands him linen with panache.

Onegin hurries with his dressing, Informs his man that time is pressing, That he must take the duelling-case, That they must leave, that they must race.

The sleigh is ready; Eugene, seated, Flies to the mill, the horses strain.

He tells his valet to retain Lepage's fatal tubes17 till needed, And have the horses moved to where Two oaklings stand, and leave them there.

26.

Leaning upon the dam stood Lensky Who'd waited there impatiently, While rural engineer Zaretsky Surveyed the millstone critically.

Eugene arrives and makes excuses.

'That's very well, but where the deuce is Your second, then?' Zaretsky cried.

In duels he took a pedant's pride, Methodical by intuition: To stretch out someone on the ground Any old how was quite unsound, One must obey a strict tradition And follow rules of ancient days (For which we should accord him praise).

27.

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