Works of Alexander Pushkin (33 page)

XVIII

All bustle when he makes a sign:
He drinks, all drink and loudly call;
He smiles, in laughter all combine;
He knits his brows — ’tis silent all.
He there is master — that is plain;
Tattiana courage doth regain
And grown more curious by far
Just placed the entrance door ajar.
The wind rose instantly, blew out
The fire of the nocturnal lights;
A trouble fell upon the sprites;
Oneguine lightning glances shot;
Furious he from the table rose;
All arise. To the door he goes.

XIX

Terror assails her. Hastily
Tattiana would attempt to fly,
She cannot — then impatiently
She strains her throat to force a cry —
She cannot — Eugene oped the door
And the young girl appeared before
Those hellish phantoms. Peals arise
Of frantic laughter, and all eyes
And hoofs and crooked snouts and paws,
Tails which a bushy tuft adorns,
Whiskers and bloody tongues and horns,
Sharp rows of tushes, bony claws,
Are turned upon her. All combine
In one great shout: she’s mine! she’s mine!

XX

“Mine!” cried Eugene with savage tone.
The troop of apparitions fled,
And in the frosty night alone
Remained with him the youthful maid.
With tranquil air Oneguine leads
Tattiana to a corner, bids
Her on a shaky bench sit down;
His head sinks slowly, rests upon
Her shoulder — Olga swiftly came —
And Lenski followed — a light broke —
His fist Oneguine fiercely shook
And gazed around with eyes of flame;
The unbidden guests he roughly chides —
Tattiana motionless abides.

XXI

The strife grew furious and Eugene
Grasped a long knife and instantly
Struck Lenski dead — across the scene
Dark shadows thicken — a dread cry
Was uttered, and the cabin shook —
Tattiana terrified awoke.
She gazed around her — it was day.
Lo! through the frozen windows play
Aurora’s ruddy rays of light —
The door flew open — Olga came,
More blooming than the Boreal flame
And swifter than the swallow’s flight.
“Come,” she cried, “sister, tell me e’en
Whom you in slumber may have seen.”

XXII

But she, her sister never heeding,
With book in hand reclined in bed,
Page after page continued reading,
But no reply unto her made.
Although her book did not contain
The bard’s enthusiastic strain,
Nor precepts sage nor pictures e’en,
Yet neither Virgil nor Racine
Nor Byron, Walter Scott, nor Seneca,
Nor the
Journal des Modes
, I vouch,
Ever absorbed a maid so much:
Its name, my friends, was Martin Zadeka,
The chief of the Chaldean wise,
Who dreams expound and prophecies.

XXIII

Brought by a pedlar vagabond
Unto their solitude one day,
This monument of thought profound
Tattiana purchased with a stray
Tome of “Malvina,” and but three(56)
And a half rubles down gave she;
Also, to equalise the scales,
She got a book of nursery tales,
A grammar, likewise Petriads two,
Marmontel also, tome the third;
Tattiana every day conferred
With Martin Zadeka. In woe
She consolation thence obtained —
Inseparable they remained.

[Note 56: “Malvina,” a romance by Madame Cottin.]

XXIV

The dream left terror in its train.
Not knowing its interpretation,
Tania the meaning would obtain
Of such a dread hallucination.
Tattiana to the index flies
And alphabetically tries
The words
bear, bridge, fir, darkness, bog,
Raven, snowstorm, tempest, fog,
Et cetera
; but nothing showed
Her Martin Zadeka in aid,
Though the foul vision promise made
Of a most mournful episode,
And many a day thereafter laid
A load of care upon the maid.

XXV

“But lo! forth from the valleys dun
With purple hand Aurora leads,
Swift following in her wake, the sun,”(57)
And a grand festival proceeds.
The Larinas were since sunrise
O’erwhelmed with guests; by families
The neighbours come, in sledge approach,
Britzka, kibitka, or in coach.
Crush and confusion in the hall,
Latest arrivals’ salutations,
Barking, young ladies’ osculations,
Shouts, laughter, jamming ‘gainst the wall,
Bows and the scrape of many feet,
Nurses who scream and babes who bleat.

[Note 57: The above three lines are a parody on the turgid style of Lomonossoff, a literary man of the second Catherine’s era.]

XXVI

Bringing his partner corpulent
Fat Poustiakoff drove to the door;
Gvozdine, a landlord excellent,
Oppressor of the wretched poor;
And the Skatenines, aged pair,
With all their progeny were there,
Who from two years to thirty tell;
Petoushkoff, the provincial swell;
Bouyanoff too, my cousin, wore(58)
His wadded coat and cap with peak
(Surely you know him as I speak);
And Flianoff, pensioned councillor,
Rogue and extortioner of yore,
Now buffoon, glutton, and a bore.

[Note 58: Pushkin calls Bouyanoff his cousin because he is a character in the “Dangerous Neighbour,” a poem by Vassili Pushkin, the poet’s uncle.]

XXVII

The family of Kharlikoff,
Came with Monsieur Triquet, a prig,
Who arrived lately from Tamboff,
In spectacles and chestnut wig.
Like a true Frenchman, couplets wrought
In Tania’s praise in pouch he brought,
Known unto children perfectly:
Reveillez-vouz, belle endormie
.
Among some ancient ballads thrust,
He found them in an almanac,
And the sagacious Triquet back
To light had brought them from their dust,
Whilst he “belle Nina” had the face
By “belle Tattiana” to replace.

XXVIII

Lo! from the nearest barrack came,
Of old maids the divinity,
And comfort of each country dame,
The captain of a company.
He enters. Ah! good news to-day!
The military band will play.
The colonel sent it. Oh! delight!
So there will be a dance to-night.
Girls in anticipation skip!
But dinner-time comes. Two and two
They hand in hand to table go.
The maids beside Tattiana keep —
Men opposite. The cross they sign
And chattering loud sit down to dine.

XXIX

Ceased for a space all chattering.
Jaws are at work. On every side
Plates, knives and forks are clattering
And ringing wine-glasses are plied.
But by degrees the crowd begin
To raise a clamour and a din:
They laugh, they argue, and they bawl,
They shout and no one lists at all.
The doors swing open: Lenski makes
His entrance with Oneguine. “Ah!
At last the author!” cries Mamma.
The guests make room; aside each takes
His chair, plate, knife and fork in haste;
The friends are called and quickly placed.

XXX

Right opposite Tattiana placed,
She, than the morning moon more pale,
More timid than a doe long chased,
Lifts not her eyes which swimming fail.
Anew the flames of passion start
Within her; she is sick at heart;
The two friends’ compliments she hears
Not, and a flood of bitter tears
With effort she restrains. Well nigh
The poor girl fell into a faint,
But strength of mind and self-restraint
Prevailed at last. She in reply
Said something in an undertone
And at the table sat her down.

XXXI

To tragedy, the fainting fit,
And female tears hysterical,
Oneguine could not now submit,
For long he had endured them all.
Our misanthrope was full of ire,
At a great feast against desire,
And marking Tania’s agitation,
Cast down his eyes in trepidation
And sulked in silent indignation;
Swearing how Lenski he would rile,
Avenge himself in proper style.
Triumphant by anticipation,
Caricatures he now designed
Of all the guests within his mind.

XXXII

Certainly not Eugene alone
Tattiana’s trouble might have spied,
But that the eyes of every one
By a rich pie were occupied —
Unhappily too salt by far;
And that a bottle sealed with tar
Appeared, Don’s effervescing boast,(59)
Between the blanc-mange and the roast;
Behind, of glasses an array,
Tall, slender, like thy form designed,
Zizi, thou mirror of my mind,
Fair object of my guileless lay,
Seductive cup of love, whose flow
Made me so tipsy long ago!

[Note 59: The Donskoe Champanskoe is a species of sparkling wine manufactured in the vicinity of the river Don.]

XXXIII

From the moist cork the bottle freed
With loud explosion, the bright wine
Hissed forth. With serious air indeed,
Long tortured by his lay divine,
Triquet arose, and for the bard
The company deep silence guard.
Tania well nigh expired when he
Turned to her and discordantly
Intoned it, manuscript in hand.
Voices and hands applaud, and she
Must bow in common courtesy;
The poet, modest though so grand,
Drank to her health in the first place,
Then handed her the song with grace.

XXXIV

Congratulations, toasts resound,
Tattiana thanks to all returned,
But, when Oneguine’s turn came round,
The maiden’s weary eye which yearned,
Her agitation and distress
Aroused in him some tenderness.
He bowed to her nor silence broke,
But somehow there shone in his look
The witching light of sympathy;
I know not if his heart felt pain
Or if he meant to flirt again,
From habit or maliciously,
But kindness from his eye had beamed
And to revive Tattiana seemed.

XXXV

The chairs are thrust back with a roar,
The crowd unto the drawing-room speeds,
As bees who leave their dainty store
And seek in buzzing swarms the meads.
Contented and with victuals stored,
Neighbour by neighbour sat and snored,
Matrons unto the fireplace go,
Maids in the corner whisper low;
Behold! green tables are brought forth,
And testy gamesters do engage
In boston and the game of age,
Ombre, and whist all others worth:
A strong resemblance these possess —
All sons of mental weariness.

XXXVI

Eight rubbers were already played,
Eight times the heroes of the fight
Change of position had essayed,
When tea was brought. ‘Tis my delight
Time to denote by dinner, tea,
And supper. In the country we
Can count the time without much fuss —
The stomach doth admonish us.
And, by the way, I here assert
That for that matter in my verse
As many dinners I rehearse,
As oft to meat and drink advert,
As thou, great Homer, didst of yore,
Whom thirty centuries adore.

XXXVII

I will with thy divinity
Contend with knife and fork and platter,
But grant with magnanimity
I’m beaten in another matter;
Thy heroes, sanguinary wights,
Also thy rough-and-tumble fights,
Thy Venus and thy Jupiter,
More advantageously appear
Than cold Oneguine’s oddities,
The aspect of a landscape drear.
Or e’en Istomina, my dear,
And fashion’s gay frivolities;
But my Tattiana, on my soul,
Is sweeter than thy Helen foul.

XXXVIII

No one the contrary will urge,
Though for his Helen Menelaus
Again a century should scourge
Us, and like Trojan warriors slay us;
Though around honoured Priam’s throne
Troy’s sages should in concert own
Once more, when she appeared in sight,
Paris and Menelaus right.
But as to fighting — ’twill appear!
For patience, reader, I must plead!
A little farther please to read
And be not in advance severe.
There’ll be a fight. I do not lie.
My word of honour given have I.

XXXIX

The tea, as I remarked, appeared,
But scarce had maids their saucers ta’en
When in the grand saloon was heard
Of bassoons and of flutes the strain.
His soul by crash of music fired,
His tea with rum no more desired,
The Paris of those country parts
To Olga Petoushkova darts:
To Tania Lenski; Kharlikova,
A marriageable maid matured,
The poet from Tamboff secured,
Bouyanoff whisked off Poustiakova.
All to the grand saloon are gone —
The ball in all its splendour shone.

XL

I tried when I began this tale,
(See the first canto if ye will),
A ball in Peter’s capital,
To sketch ye in Albano’s style.(60)
But by fantastic dreams distraught,
My memory wandered wide and sought
The feet of my dear lady friends.
O feet, where’er your path extends
I long enough deceived have erred.
The perfidies I recollect
Should make me much more circumspect,
Reform me both in deed and word,
And this fifth canto ought to be
From such digressions wholly free.

[Note 60: Francesco Albano, a celebrated painter, styled the “Anacreon of Painting,” was born at Bologna 1578, and died in the year 1666.]

XLI

The whirlwind of the waltz sweeps by,
Undeviating and insane
As giddy youth’s hilarity —
Pair after pair the race sustain.
The moment for revenge, meanwhile,
Espying, Eugene with a smile
Approaches Olga and the pair
Amid the company career.
Soon the maid on a chair he seats,
Begins to talk of this and that,
But when two minutes she had sat,
Again the giddy waltz repeats.
All are amazed; but Lenski he
Scarce credits what his eyes can see.

XLII

Hark! the mazurka. In times past,
When the mazurka used to peal,
All rattled in the ball-room vast,
The parquet cracked beneath the heel,
And jolting jarred the window-frames.
‘Tis not so now. Like gentle dames
We glide along a floor of wax.
However, the mazurka lacks
Nought of its charms original
In country towns, where still it keeps
Its stamping, capers and high leaps.
Fashion is there immutable,
Who tyrannizes us with ease,
Of modern Russians the disease.

XLIII

Bouyanoff, wrathful cousin mine,
Unto the hero of this lay
Olga and Tania led. Malign,
Oneguine Olga bore away.
Gliding in negligent career,
He bending whispered in her ear
Some madrigal not worth a rush,
And pressed her hand — the crimson blush
Upon her cheek by adulation
Grew brighter still. But Lenski hath
Seen all, beside himself with wrath,
And hot with jealous indignation,
Till the mazurka’s close he stays,
Her hand for the cotillon prays.