Fate’s laws are right.
If I fall by the arrow stricken,
Or if the arrow hurtles past—
All’s well. Our sleep and waking last
As long as our fixed span is reckoned.
Blest are our days, if sore oppressed;
The coming dark is also blest.
22
The morning star will dawn tomorrow,
And bright day will see off the gloom,
While I perchance may then be swallowed
Into the darkness of the tomb.
The languid Lethe will devour
The memory of a young bard’s hour.
I’ll be forgotten by the world,
But you may stand here, lovely girl,
And mourn this urn brought here untimely,
Thinking, “He loved me. I alone
Received his sad life at its dawn
In all its storminess.” Come, find me,
My heart’s desire, come to my tomb.
Friend of my soul, I am your groom.
23
His writing was “obscure” and “flaccid”
(In the Romanticism class,
Though I see little that’s romantic
In such style—but we’ll let that pass).
Thus, when the dawn was just appearing
And Lensky’s head was nodding, weary,
The modish word “ideal” came past
And sent him off to sleep at last.
But hardly had he lost his balance
In sleep’s enchanting welcome, when
Zaretsky broached his silent den
And roused young Lensky with a challenge.
“Time you were up. It’s after six.
Onegin will be waiting. Quick!”
24
But he was not right in this matter.
Yevgeny’s sound asleep. There are
Some signs that night is on the scatter,
And cockcrow greets the morning star.
Onegin, fast asleep, lies leaden
While a young sun climbs up the heaven.
A snowstorm passes overhead
In a bright swirl, but still the bed
Pulls on Yevgeny, unalerted.
Sleep hovered… Suddenly it broke,
And now at long last he awoke,
Reaching to pull aside the curtain.
He looks and sees. Time? Yes, it is.
He should have left long before this.
25
He rings the bell. In runs his valet,
A Frenchman called Monsieur Guillot.
Slippers and dressing gown he carries;
He presents linen comme il faut.
Onegin dresses hell for leather,
Guillot gets all the things together,
Ready to drive, bringing the brace
Of duelling pistols in their case.
The racing sleigh, brought forward, beckons.
He’s in and off… They reach the mill
At speed. He checks his man, who will
Make sure Le Page’s deadly weapons
Come with them. Off the horses go
To find where two young oak trees grow.
26
There at the dam wall lingered Lensky,
Impatient. Things were at a halt.
His man, an expert, diligently
Studied the millstones, finding fault.
Onegin comes, apologetic.
Zaretsky lodges an objection.
“Where is your second?” he insists,
A pedant and traditionalist
Who viewed disaster with revulsion.
He would not have a man laid out
Haphazardly, for this would flout
The strict rules of established culture,
Time-honoured since the ancient days—
For which the man deserves our praise.
27
“You what?” Yevgeny said. “My second?
He’s here—my friend, Monsieur Guillot.
There should be no complaints, I reckon,
If he stands in to help me. No,
He’s not a very well-known person,
But he’s a good chap. Many worse than
He is.” Zaretsky, though, demurred,
Until Onegin gave the word:
“Well, shall we start?” “Why not?” said Lensky.
And so, down past the mill they walked.
Zaretsky and the “good chap” talked
Together at a distance, tensely,
Seeking agreement. Terms were set.
The enemies’ eyes never met.
28
Yes, enemies. Their new displeasure
Was bloodlust, parting them for naught.
Have they not shared long hours of leisure,
Their food, activities and thoughts
As friends? Now they’re exuding
The bitterness of foes long-feuding.
It’s like a nightmare, weird and ill.
As they get ready all is still.
They make cold-blooded plans for murder.
Could they not laugh and make things good
Before their hands are stained with blood,
And part as friends, going no further?
No. Noble foes must not lose face,
Though what they dread is false—disgrace.
29
Out come the pistols (how they dazzle!),
The ramrods plunge, the mallets knock,
The leaden balls roll down the channels,
The triggers click, the guns are cocked.
The greyish powder streams out, steady,
Into the pan, while, waiting ready,
The solid, jagged, screwed-down flint
Stands primed. Guillot can just be glimpsed
Lurking behind a stump, much worried.
The two foes cast their cloaks aside.
Zaretsky walks thirty-two strides
With an exactitude unhurried,
Then leads each friend to his far place.
They draw their pistols from the case.
30
“Begin now!” And the two foes coolly
Walked forward, not yet taking aim.
With soft and steady tread they duly
Completed four steps… On they came…
Four lethal strides with calm prevailing
Between the two men… Then Yevgeny,
Advancing still, was the first one
To raise a gently levelled gun.
Then—five more steps along the journey…
Lensky began to do the same,
Squinting his left eye, taking aim…
Onegin fired… The hour determined
Had struck. The poet made no sound.
His pistol tumbled to the ground.
31
One hand across his breastbone resting,
He fell. But this was death, not pain;
His misted eyes gave out the message.
In this way, thick snows, having lain
Solid beneath the sparkling sunshine,
Slide slowly down the hillside sometimes.
Immediately Onegin ran
In a cold sweat to the young man.
He looked, he called him… All for nothing.
He’s gone. The bard, Onegin’s friend,
Has come to an untimely end!
The storm has petered out. The blossom
Has wilted in the morning light,
And, lo, the altar flame has died.
32
He lay quite still, his forehead seeming
Unusual, languidly at rest,
Blood oozing from a wound still steaming,
A bullet hole below the breast.
Just now his heart had been full, racing
With the strong force of inspiration,
With love and hope and enmity,
Beating with life, blood coursing free;
Now he looks like a house deserted,
Where all is quiet, all is dark,
The silence permanent and stark,
The shutters closed, the windows dirtied
With chalk. The mistress of this place
Has gone away and left no trace.
33
It’s fun to deal in witty sallies
And irritate a foolish foe;
It’s fun to see the poor chap rally,
Tilting his horns to have a go.
It’s fun when he sees his reflection
As something shameful for rejecting,
And funnier still, my friends, when he
Is fool enough to roar, “That’s me!”
But the most fun comes from insisting
On plans for a noble death, somehow
Fixating on the man’s pale brow,
And aiming coolly from a distance.
But sending him to kingdom come—
Surely you won’t find that much fun.
34
Imagine this: you with your pistol
Have murdered someone, a young friend,
Because some glare, some silly whisper
Or wrong response chanced to offend
Your feelings while you drank together,
Or maybe in his wild displeasure
He took offence and challenged you—
What is there left for you to do,
And will your soul feel any different
To see him stretched out on the ground
With death depicted on his brow,
And even now his body stiffening,
As he lies deaf and dumb down there,
Scorning your cries of wild despair?
35
Feeling the qualms of guilt intensely,
Gripping his pistol still, with dread,
Yevgeny glances down at Lensky.
“That’s it,” Zaretsky says. “He’s dead.”
“He’s dead?” The ghastly phrase, now uttered,
Shatters Onegin’s calm. He shudders
And walks off, calling to his men.
With utmost care Zaretsky then
Puts the cold body on the sledge back,
A burden of the direst sort.
Scenting a corpse, the horses snort,
Restively stamping as they edge back
And wetting their steel bits with foam.
Then arrow-like they fly off home.
36
My friends, you’re sorry for the poet,
Lost in the bloom of hope and joy,
Without a future, ne’er to know it,
So recently a little boy,
Now gone. Where is his raging ardour,
The noble striving ever harder,
The thoughts and sentiments of youth,
Bold, towering with tender truth?
Where are the longings of this lover,
The urge to learn and toil, the blame
He might have felt for vice and shame,
The yearning dreams of something other,
Those tokens of a life beyond,
Those holy dreams of rhyme and song?
37
Could he have proved a benefactor,
Or maybe he was born for fame?
His silenced lyre might have been active
In thunderous and unbroken strains
For years to come. He could have risen
To occupy a high position
Within society’s pantheon.
His martyred spirit, moving on,
Perhaps took with it something sacred
And secret, something now destroyed,
Creative words lost in the void,
Sent to the grave, and separated
For ever from the hymns of time
And praise from some dynastic line.
[38] 39
Or maybe not. The poet’s story
Might have been commonplace and trite,
His young years lost in a furore
Of early flames not long alight.
He would have greatly changed and hurried
To drop the poems and get married,
Live, cuckolded, far from the town,
Happy in quilted dressing gown.
He’d have known life’s goodness and badness:
At forty gout, then food and drink,
Boredom and fatness, powers ashrink,
Only to die on his own mattress;
Amongst his children he would croak,
Doctors and weeping womenfolk.
40
But this is make-believe, dear reader.
Alas, poor Lensky, in the end,
Once poet, thinker and daydreamer,
Has been shot dead by his good friend.
There on the left, outside the village,
Where once he lived, where life was thrilling,
Two pines have intertwined their roots
Above meandering little brooks
That feed the stream down in the valley
Where shepherds love to halt and kip
And women reapers come to dip
The echoing pitchers that they carry,
There by the stream in deepest shade
A simple headstone has been laid.
41
Nearby, as April showers bespangle
The green fields, leaving them to soak,
A shepherd plaits his lime-bark sandals,
Singing of Volga fisherfolk.
And if a young girl, a newcomer
Down from the city for the summer
Gallops out as and when she feels,
Riding alone across the fields,
She may well halt her horse there, side on
Reining him in, and after that,
Raising a light veil from her hat,
She’ll set her soft, swift-moving eyes on
Lensky’s plain text, and they will brim
With tender, moving tears for him.
42
She’ll amble on through open pasture
With many ideas to contemplate,
Crestfallen, sick at heart, long after
Because of Lensky and his fate.
“So, what did Olga do?” she wonders.
“How long did her poor heart stay sundered?
Or did her tears abate somehow?
And where is Olga’s sister now?
And he, who left the world behind him
(Of stylish belles the stylish foe),
Where did that gloomy oddball go?
The man who killed, where shall we find him?”
These details I shall soon rehearse
For you, my friends, chapter and verse.
43
But not now. Though I am sincerely
Fond of my hero, and although
I shall return to him soon, really
I’m in no mood for him just now.
The years pass, and harsh prose is beckoning,
With giddy rhymes no longer reckoning,
And I (says he with a deep sigh)
Shall not pursue them—no, not I.
My quill has lost its old-time yearning
To spatter fleeting sheets with ink.
I now have colder thoughts to think
And concepts new, more brightly burning,
Which blight (in company or alone)
The gentle slumber of my soul.
44
I know new voices and new yearnings,
And sorrows new I also know,
But these desires are hopeless journeys,
And sorrows old—I miss them so.
O dreams, my dreams! Where is your sweetness?
Whence comes your (hackneyed rhyme!) your fleetness?
Must I at last confront the truth—
The faded garland of my youth?
Can it be true that in reality,
As fancy elegies might say,
My springtime days have flown away,
As I once said with jocularity?
Can those days never be resumed,
And am I to turn thirty soon?
45
And so my life has reached its zenith—
Something I cannot now deny.
Still, let us part as friends, not enemies,
My free-and-easy youth and I!
Thanks for the pleasures and enjoyment,
The disappointments and sweet torments.
For all the clamour, banquets, storms,
For all your gifts in each new form
I really must express my gratitude.
In all things, bringing storm or lull,
I have enjoyed you to the full.
Enough! With clear mind and new attitude
From my old life I take a rest
And set forth on another quest.
46
My favourite haunts I now look back on,
Where I spent long, sequestered days,
Days filled with idleness and passion,
My spirit in a wistful haze.
Young inspiration, do not soften,
Trouble my enterprise more often,
Fly to me when I sit apart
And agitate my sleeping heart,
Let not my poet’s soul be captured
To end up atrophied and tough,
Steadily petrified, made rough
By the smart world and all its rapture,
In this sad slough wherein we lie
Wallowing, my friends, you and I.
* Where skies are overcast and days are short / Is born a race that feels no pain in death. (Italian.)
Moscow, Russia’s favourite daughter,
Where is your equal to be found?
DMÍTRIYEV
How not to love our native Moscow?
BARATÝNSKY
Defaming Moscow? Worthless to see the world.
Where’s better?
Where we’re not.
GRIBOYÉDOV
1
Forced down by spring suns from the summits
Of nearby hills, the winter snows
Descend in turbid streams to plummet
Onto the flooded fields below.
With her bright smile, though still half-yawning,
Nature salutes the year’s new morning,
The heavens radiate dark blue,
The limpid woodlands are shot through
With verdure, and their fluff grows fuller,
Bees wander from their cells of wax
To fly the fields and take their tax,
The drying flatlands gleam with colour,
Cows moo, and nightingales delight
In singing through the silent night.
2
What sadness comes with your emergence,
O time of love.
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