Yes, spring is spring,
When the soul stirs and the blood surges!
But, oh, what anguished pains you bring!
Ah, how my heavy spirit lurches
When springtime breathes on me and burgeons,
Wafting its charms into my face
In some secluded country place,
When happiness can seem discordant
And all things joyous, all things quick
Turn out to be a shabby trick
Leading to disaffected boredom,
Taxing a spirit long extinct
That sees all things as black as ink.
3
We cannot welcome the renewal
Of autumn’s dead leaves. It’s no good:
The loss of them is no less cruel
Despite new whispers from the woods.
Perhaps we watch the rise of nature
With blurred ideas, and link it later
With the slow fading of our youth,
Not destined to return, in sooth.
Or it may be our minds remember
In a poetic, sleepy haze
Another spring in bygone days
Which stirs the heart, and with the tremor
Come dreams of places far from this…
The moonlight… and a night of bliss.
4
It’s springtime. Come, you gentle idlers,
Epicureans, sages all,
You apathetic, smug insiders,
You armchair farmers, heed the call,
You Priams of the Russian country
You caring ladies, all and sundry,
The rural spring is calling you—
Warm weather, flowers, work to do,
With country rambles, oh, so bracing
Followed by long seductive nights…
Come to the fields, friends, now! Take flight
In laden carriages outpacing
Slow-trundling wagons and old crates.
Stream forth from every city gate.
5
Come, readers (loyally indulgent),
In coaches of the gaudy kind,
Come from your cities busy, bulging,
Leave all that winter fun behind.
Come with my wayward muse. Let’s listen
Together as the oak trees whisper
Above a nameless little brook
Where my Yevgeny found a nook,
Living in idle, sad seclusion,
And saw the recent winter through,
Near to the place where she lived too—
Tanya, my meditative maiden.
He lives no longer in this place,
Where he has left so sad a trace.
6
You see those hills set in a crescent?
Let’s go there, where a brooklet winds
Down to the river through those pleasant
Green meadows and that copse of limes.
Spring’s friend, the nightingale, sings for us,
And all night long we hear his chorus;
Wild roses bloom, the brook purls by
Near where a tombstone meets the eye
Beneath two shady pines, now ageing,
Its epitaph open to view:
HERE LIES VLADIMIR LENSKY, WHO
WENT YOUNG FROM THIS LIFE, AND COURAGEOUS.
(Age, years and details such as these)
YOUNG POET, MAY YOU REST IN PEACE.
7
On a low-hanging pine-tree twiglet,
Rocked gently by the morning breeze
O’er this mean funerary tribute,
There used to be an unsigned wreath.
Late in the evening, at their leisure,
Two girls would come out here together
By moonlight where the grave was dug
To shed warm tears and share a hug,
But now… the monument looks dismal,
Forgotten, and the path forlorn,
All overgrown. The wreath has gone.
Nearby, alone, withered and grizzled,
A shepherd warbles while he plaits
His wretched shoes, as in the past.
[8, 9] 10
Poor Lensky! Olga did not languish
Or weep for very long. Alas,
This marriageable maiden’s anguish
Was something that was soon to pass.
Another fellow won her favour,
Another came along to save her
And soothe her sorrow, someone who
Knew all the tricks of how to woo.
A lancer won her heart… The altar
Awaited them. Soon, looking down,
She blushed beneath her bridal crown,
Steadying as she shyly faltered.
Her downcast eyes were blazing, while
Her lips played with the faintest smile.
11
Poor Lensky! Could he somehow know it?
Facing the eternal void, could he
Have felt this hurt, the tragic poet,
This fateful form of treachery?
Or is he on the Lethe, stealing
Away now, blissfully unfeeling,
Untouched by us till kingdom come,
Our world closed off from him, and dumb?…
That’s it—the cold void in attendance
Beyond the grave. We have no choice.
Foes, friends and lovers—every voice
Is stilled. Malevolent descendants,
A chorus of our angry heirs,
Will squabble over what is theirs.
12
And Olga’s bright voice at the Larins’
Did not last long. Her time was spent.
Her lancer (whose fate was the army’s)
Took her to join his regiment.
The mother, seeing off her daughter,
Her eyes an ocean of salt water,
Seemed to be less than half-alive.
But Tanya did not, could not cry.
Her saddened face was an array of
Pale shadows that resembled death,
Though when they walked out on the steps
To say goodbye, in all the chaos
Around their carriage, sure enough,
Tanya was there to see them off.
13
She stood and watched the misty drama
Of their departure. In the end
She stood there, lonely. Poor Tatyana—
Alas, her lifetime’s bosom friend,
Her turtledove, her pal to hang on,
Her confidante and old companion,
Was seized by fate and whisked away,
Gone off for ever and a day.
Now she goes wandering like a shadow,
Inspecting their deserted plot.
Is there relief ? No, there is not,
Nor consolation. She grows sadder,
In tears that she could scarce suppress.
Her heart is sundered in her breast.
14
Her passion burns with more insistence
Now she’s alone, feeling apart.
Onegin, who is now so distant,
Speaks louder to her troubled heart.
They would now never see each other,
And he—the killer of her “brother”—
Was someone whom she ought to loathe.
But Lensky’s storybook is closed.
He’s not remembered. His fiancée
Has gone away with someone else,
And now the poet’s memory melts
Like smoke in a blue sky. Just fancy:
Perhaps the odd heart feels (or not?)
Some grief for him… But grief means… what?
15
Evening. A darkling sky. The waters
Go bubbling by, and beetles buzz.
Their dancing done, the peasants scatter.
Across the river, through the dusk,
Fires of the fishermen burn, plume-like,
While, lonesome in the silvery moonlight,
Tatyana strolls the fields and seems
Preoccupied, dreaming her dreams.
She wanders on. Then, with a shiver,
She spots a house down in a dell,
A village, copses down the hill,
And parkland by the gleaming river.
And one glance is enough to start
A faster frenzy in her heart.
16
She feels misgivings, sensing danger.
Go on? Go back? The choice is stark.
“He’s not here, and I am a stranger…
Just one glance at the house and park.”
And from the hilltop she walks down there,
Holding her breath. She looks around her,
Lost, apprehensive, on her guard,
And enters the deserted yard.
Some dogs rushed out to meet her, woofing.
She yelled in panic; as she did,
Some youngsters came out, servants’ kids,
And ran to her. After a scuffle,
They chased the mastiffs from the grounds,
Keeping the lady safe and sound.
17
“Could one ask where the big house keys are?”
Tatyana asked, and like a shot
The children rushed to find Anisya,
From whom the big keys could be got.
Anisya sped round in short order
To open up the big door for her,
And Tanya walked into the home
Where our hero had lived alone.
She looked around. A cue, unheeded,
Lay on the billiard-table top,
And she could see a riding crop
On a rough couch. Tanya, proceeding,
Was taken to the inglenook,
Where he’d sat on his own. “There, look.
18
And this is where our neighbour, Lensky,
Would come to dine last winter. See,
That’s the big study through the entry.
If you would kindly follow me…
Here he took naps and drank his coffee,
Heard statements from the steward’s office,
Or, in the mornings, read a tome.
This used to be the old squire’s home.
On Sundays I would sometimes visit,
And by that window—him in specs—
We’d play tomfool with that there deck.
The Lord have mercy on his spirit,
And rest his bones. I knew his worth,
And now he’s with damp Mother Earth.”
19
Tanya looked round with heartfelt pleasure,
Casting her eyes on every side.
It all seemed infinitely precious
And her sad spirits were revived.
Half-agonized and half-excited,
She scanned the desk, its lamp not lighted,
Book-piles, the window and the bed
With a rug cover for a spread,
The view outside, dark, moonlit, solemn,
The half-light cast upon it all,
Lord Byron’s portrait on the wall,
The cast-iron figure on his column,
His crowning hat, his scowling brow,
His arms crossed tightly—you know how.
20
Bewitched, she lingered in this prison,
This latter-day recluse’s room.
But it is late. Cold winds have risen.
The woods sleep in their darkened coomb.
Across the steaming, misty river,
The moon goes down the hillside thither.
Far has the young girl-pilgrim roamed,
And it is time she went back home.
She stifles her disturbed condition,
Though she can’t suppress a sigh,
And leaves for home now, not too shy
To ask permission to revisit
The lonely castle on her own
And read the books there all alone.
21
She took her leave of the housekeeper
Outside the gate, but came again,
First thing next day to go down deeper
Into his long-abandoned den,
And once inside his silent study,
Dead to all things and everybody,
She loitered there alone, inside,
And as time passed she cried and cried.
And as his books slipped through her fingers,
Quite unappealingly at first,
The choice of them seemed so perverse
And weird. But when she looked and lingered
Her eager spirit soon unfurled
An altogether different world.
22
We know Yevgeny had rejected
The reading business; all the same,
He did make one or two exceptions,
Exemptions from his hall of shame,
Such as the author of Don Juan,
And novels, even the odd new one
From our contemporary span
That represents the “modern man”,
Who is depicted most precisely
With his amoral attitude,
His arid soul, his selfish views,
His boundless taste for fantasizing,
His uselessly embittered mind
And actions of the futile kind.
23
And decorating many pages
Are thumbnail imprints deeply etched.
The girl’s sharp focus now engages
With these, her concentration stretched.
Her hands shake when she sees a passage
Containing some idea or message
That must have left Onegin moved
Or where he tacitly approved.
On many a page she found appended
Onegin’s marginalia.
At every corner there they are,
Hints of his spirit (unintended),
A short phrase here, a small cross there,
A query hanging in the air.
24
And my Tatyana comes by stages
To understand the very man
(Depicted clearly as outrageous?)
Destined for her by some weird plan,
Sent to unsettle and derange her,
A maverick oddball bringing danger,
A child of heaven, of hell perchance,
Devil and god of arrogance.
What is he? A copy of mischances,
A ghost of nothingness, a joke,
A Russian in Childe Harold’s cloak,
A ragbag of imported fancies,
A catchphrase-monger and a sham.
Is he more parody than man?
25
A parody? Does this expression
Give us the riddle’s final clue?
The hours fly by. She’s been forgetting
Her home, where she’s long overdue.
Two visitors are there, two locals,
And Tanya is their present focus.
“Tanya’s no child. This is no joke.
What can one do?” her mother croaks.
“Our Olga was the younger sister;
Now Tanya’s turn is overdue.
She must wed, but what can I do?
We speak, but she is so insistent:
Not marriage! Then she’ll mope and moan,
And go out in the woods alone.”
26
“She’s not in love, then?” “Who’d she fancy?
Buyánov made an offer—no!
Then Petushkóv, Iván—same answer.
Pykhtín the lancer stayed here—oh,
He fell for Tanya altogether,
All over her he was, young devil…
It looked good and I thought perhaps…
But, no. Again it all collapsed.”
“My dear friend, you should wait no longer.
Get you to Moscow—the brides’ fair—
Plenty of vacancies up there.”
“Pity my income isn’t stronger…”
“You could just see one winter through.
And I could lend you something too.”
27
Old Madame Larina, delighted
By such a wise and friendly tip,
Added things up and soon decided:
Come winter, they would make the trip.
Tatyana sees all this as tricky,
Moving to people who are picky—
Their modes and manners still alive
With primitive provincial life:
Their dull, unfashionable clothing,
Their dull, unfashionable speech,
The Moscow toffs and beauties, each
Observing them with fun and loathing!
God save her! Better if she could
Just stay there wandering in the woods.
28
Up with the early sun, Tatyana
Would fly down to the fields and stay
To scan the beauteous panorama
With melting eyes, as if to say,
“Farewell, you valleys all sequestered,
You hilltops where my eyes have rested,
You woodlands that I know and prize,
Farewell, you gorgeous heavenly skies,
Farewell to you, this happy Eden.
I trade my lovely, quiet world
For a noisy, glittering, empty swirl.
And I bid you farewell, my freedom!
Where am I going, and what for?
What does my future hold in store?”
29
The walks she takes are lasting longer;
Those hills and streams take her aback,
Working their wondrous charms upon her,
Stopping Tatyana in her tracks.
Treating them like long-lost companions,
Down to the woods and fields she scrambles
To greet them, chattering on and on…
But soon short summer’s day is gone,
And onward steals the golden autumn
To shiver the pale countryside,
Arraying it for sacrifice.
A north wind drives the storm clouds, awesome
In gusts and howls.
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