Canto V

That year the autumn season lateKept lingering on as loath to go,All Nature winter seemed to await,Till January fell no snow—The third at night. Tattiana wakesBetimes, and sees, when morning breaks,Park, garden, palings, yard belowAnd roofs near morn blanched o’er with snow;Upon the windows tracery,The trees in silvery array,Down in the courtyard magpies gay,And the far mountains daintilyO’erspread with Winter’s carpet bright,All so distinct, and all so white!

Winter! The peasant blithely goesTo labour in his sledge forgot,His pony sniffing the fresh snowsJust manages a feeble trotThough deep he sinks into the drift;Forth the kibitka gallops swift,Its driver seated on the rimIn scarlet sash and sheepskin trim;Yonder the household lad doth run,Placed in a sledge his terrier black,Himself transformed into a hack;To freeze his finger hath begun,He laughs, although it aches from cold,His mother from the door doth scold.

In scenes like these it may be though,Ye feel but little interest,They are all natural and low,Are not with elegance impressed.Another bard with art divineHath pictured in his gorgeous lineThe first appearance of the snowsAnd all the joys which Winter knows.He will delight you, I am sure,When he in ardent verse portraysSecret excursions made in sleighs;But competition I abjureEither with him or thee in song,Bard of the Finnish maiden young.

Tattiana, Russian to the core,Herself not knowing well the reason,The Russian winter did adoreAnd the cold beauties of the season:On sunny days the glistening rime,Sledging, the snows, which at the timeOf sunset glow with rosy light,The misty evenings ere Twelfth Night.These evenings as in days of oldThe Làrinas would celebrate,The servants used to congregateAnd the young ladies fortunes told,And every year distributedJourneys and warriors to wed.

Tattiana in traditions oldBelieved, the people’s wisdom weird,In dreams and what the moon foretoldAnd what she from the cards inferred.Omens inspired her soul with fear,Mysteriously all objects nearA hidden meaning could impart,Presentiments oppressed her heart.Lo! the prim cat upon the stoveWith one paw strokes her face and purrs,Tattiana certainly infersThat guests approach: and when aboveThe new moon’s crescent slim she spied,Suddenly to the left hand side,

She trembled and grew deadly pale.Or a swift meteor, may be,Across the gloom of heaven would sailAnd disappear in space; then sheWould haste in agitation direTo mutter her concealed desireEre the bright messenger had set.When in her walks abroad she metA friar black approaching near,Or a swift hare from mead to meadHad run across her path at speed,Wholly beside herself with fear,Anticipating woe she pined,Certain misfortune near opined.

Wherefore? She found a secret joyIn horror for itself alone,Thus Nature doth our souls alloy,Thus her perversity hath shown.Twelfth Night approaches. Merry eves!When thoughtless youth whom nothing grieves,Before whose inexperienced sightLife lies extended, vast and bright,To peer into the future tries.Old age through spectacles too peers,Although the destined coffin nears,Having lost all in life we prize.It matters not. Hope e’en to theseWith childlike lisp will lie to please.

Eve and Twelfth Night. Divination, or the telling of fortunesby various expedients, is the favourite pastime on these

Tattiana gazed with curious eyeOn melted wax in water poured;The clue unto some mysteryShe deemed its outline might afford.Rings from a dish of water fullIn order due the maidens pull;But when Tattiana’s hand had ta’enA ring she heard the ancient strain:The peasants there are rich as kings,They shovel silver with a spade,He whom we sing to shall be madeHappy and glorious. But this bringsWith sad refrain misfortune near.Girls the kashourka much prefer.

Frosty the night; the heavens shone;The wondrous host of heavenly spheresSailed silently in unison—Tattiana in the yard appearsIn a half-open dressing-gownAnd bends her mirror on the moon,But trembling on the mirror darkThe sad moon only could remark.List! the snow crunches—he draws nigh!The girl on tiptoe forward boundsAnd her voice sweeter than the soundsOf clarinet or flute doth cry:“What is your name?” The boor looked dazed,And “Agathon” replied, amazed.

Tattiana (nurse the project planned)By night prepared for sorcery,And in the bathroom did commandTo lay two covers secretly.But sudden fear assailed Tattiana,And I, remembering Svetlana,Become alarmed. So never mind!I’m not for witchcraft now inclined.So she her silken sash unlaced,Undressed herself and went to bedAnd soon Lel hovered o’er her head.Beneath her downy pillow placed,A little virgin mirror peeps.’Tis silent all. Tattiana sleeps.

of the Latins. The word is evidently connected with the verb“leleyat” to fondle or soothe, likewise with our own word

A dreadful sleep Tattiana sleeps.She dreamt she journeyed o’er a fieldAll covered up with snow in heaps,By melancholy fogs concealed.Amid the snowdrifts which surroundA stream, by winter’s ice unbound,Impetuously clove its wayWith boiling torrent dark and gray;Two poles together glued by ice,A fragile bridge and insecure,Spanned the unbridled torrent o’er;Beside the thundering abyssTattiana in despair unfeignedRooted unto the spot remained.

As if against obstruction soreTattiana o’er the stream complained;To help her to the other shoreNo one appeared to lend a hand.But suddenly a snowdrift stirs,And what from its recess appears?A bristly bear of monstrous size!He roars, and “Ah!” Tattiana cries.He offers her his murderous paw;She nerves herself from her alarmAnd leans upon the monster’s arm,With footsteps tremulous with awePasses the torrent But alack!Bruin is marching at her back!

She, to turn back her eyes afraid,Accelerates her hasty pace,But cannot anyhow evadeHer shaggy myrmidon in chase.The bear rolls on with many a grunt:A forest now she sees in frontWith fir-trees standing motionlessIn melancholy loveliness,Their branches by the snow bowed down.Through aspens, limes and birches bare,The shining orbs of night appear;There is no path; the storm hath strewnBoth bush and brake, ravine and steep,And all in snow is buried deep.

The wood she enters—bear behind,—In snow she sinks up to the knee;Now a long branch itself entwinedAround her neck, now violentlyAway her golden earrings tore;Now the sweet little shoes she wore,Grown clammy, stick fast in the snow;Her handkerchief she loses now;No time to pick it up! afraid,She hears the bear behind her press,Nor dares the skirting of her dressFor shame lift up the modest maid.She runs, the bear upon her trail,Until her powers of running fail.

She sank upon the snow. But BruinAdroitly seized and carried her;Submissive as if in a swoon,She cannot draw a breath or stir.He dragged her by a forest roadTill amid trees a hovel showed,By barren snow heaped up and bound,A tangled wilderness around.Bright blazed the window of the place,Within resounded shriek and shout:“My chum lives here,” Bruin grunts out.“Warm yourself here a little space!”Straight for the entrance then he madeAnd her upon the threshold laid.

Recovering, Tania gazes round;Bear gone—she at the threshold placed;Inside clink glasses, cries resoundAs if it were some funeral feast.But deeming all this nonsense pure,She peeped through a chink of the door.What doth she see? Around the boardSit many monstrous shapes abhorred.A canine face with horns thereon,Another with cock’s head appeared,Here an old witch with hirsute beard,There an imperious skeleton;A dwarf adorned with tail, againA shape half cat and half a crane.

Yet ghastlier, yet more wonderful,A crab upon a spider rides,Perched on a goose’s neck a skullIn scarlet cap revolving glides.A windmill too a jig performsAnd wildly waves its arms and storms;Barking, songs, whistling, laughter coarse,The speech of man and tramp of horse.But wide Tattiana oped her eyesWhen in that company she sawHim who inspired both love and awe,The hero we immortalize.Onéguine sat the table byAnd viewed the door with cunning eye.

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 regainAnd grown more curious by farJust placed the entrance door ajar.The wind rose instantly, blew outThe fire of the nocturnal lights;A trouble fell upon the sprites;Onéguine lightning glances shot;Furious he from the table rose;All arise. To the door he goes.

Terror assails her. HastilyTattiana would attempt to fly,She cannot—then impatientlyShe strains her throat to force a cry—She cannot—Eugene oped the doorAnd the young girl appeared beforeThose hellish phantoms. Peals ariseOf frantic laughter, and all eyesAnd 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 combineIn one great shout: she’s mine! she’s mine!

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

The strife grew furious and EugeneGrasped a long knife and instantlyStruck Lenski dead—across the sceneDark shadows thicken—a dread cryWas uttered, and the cabin shook—Tattiana terrified awoke.She gazed around her—it was day.Lo! through the frozen windows playAurora’s ruddy rays of light—The door flew open—Olga came,More blooming than the Boreal flameAnd swifter than the swallow’s flight.“Come,” she cried, “sister, tell me e’enWhom you in slumber may have seen.”

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 containThe bard’s enthusiastic strain,Nor precepts sage nor pictures e’en,Yet neither Virgil nor RacineNor 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.

Brought by a pedlar vagabondUnto their solitude one day,This monument of thought profoundTattiana purchased with a strayTome of “Malvina,” and but threeAnd 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 conferredWith Martin Zadeka. In woeShe consolation thence obtained—Inseparable they remained.

The dream left terror in its train.Not knowing its interpretation,Tania the meaning would obtainOf such a dread hallucination.Tattiana to the index fliesAnd alphabetically triesThe words bear, bridge, fir, darkness, bog,Raven, snowstorm, tempest, fog,Et cetera; but nothing showedHer Martin Zadeka in aid,Though the foul vision promise madeOf a most mournful episode,And many a day thereafter laidA load of care upon the maid.

“But lo! forth from the valleys dunWith purple hand Aurora leads,Swift following in her wake, the sun,”And a grand festival proceeds.The Làrinas were since sunriseO’erwhelmed with guests; by familiesThe 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.

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

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 wroughtIn 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 backTo light had brought them from their dust,Whilst he “belle Nina” had the faceBy “belle Tattiana” to replace.

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 twoThey hand in hand to table go.The maids beside Tattiana keep—Men opposite. The cross they signAnd chattering loud sit down to dine.

Ceased for a space all chattering.Jaws are at work. On every sidePlates, knives and forks are clatteringAnd ringing wine-glasses are plied.But by degrees the crowd beginTo 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 makesHis entrance with Onéguine. “Ah!At last the author!” cries Mamma.The guests make room; aside each takesHis chair, plate, knife and fork in haste;The friends are called and quickly placed.

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 startWithin her; she is sick at heart;The two friends’ compliments she hearsNot, and a flood of bitter tearsWith effort she restrains. Well nighThe poor girl fell into a faint,But strength of mind and self-restraintPrevailed at last. She in replySaid something in an undertoneAnd at the table sat her down.

To tragedy, the fainting fit,And female tears hysterical,Onéguine 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 trepidationAnd sulked in silent indignation;Swearing how Lenski he would rile,Avenge himself in proper style.Triumphant by anticipation,Caricatures he now designedOf all the guests within his mind.

Certainly not Eugene aloneTattiana’s trouble might have spied,But that the eyes of every oneBy a rich pie were occupied—Unhappily too salt by far;And that a bottle sealed with tarAppeared, Don’s effervescing boast,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 flowMade me so tipsy long ago!

From the moist cork the bottle freedWith loud explosion, the bright wineHissed forth. With serious air indeed,Long tortured by his lay divine,Triquet arose, and for the bardThe company deep silence guard.Tania well nigh expired when heTurned to her and discordantlyIntoned it, manuscript in hand.Voices and hands applaud, and sheMust 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.

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

The chairs are thrust back with a roar,The crowd unto the drawing-room speeds,As bees who leave their dainty storeAnd 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 engageIn boston and the game of age,Ombre, and whist all others worth:A strong resemblance these possess—All sons of mental weariness.

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

I will with thy divinityContend with knife and fork and platter,But grant with magnanimityI’m beaten in another matter;Thy heroes, sanguinary wights,Also thy rough-and-tumble fights,Thy Venus and thy Jupiter,More advantageously appearThan cold Onéguine’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.

No one the contrary will urge,Though for his Helen MenelausAgain a century should scourgeUs, and like Trojan warriors slay us;Though around honoured Priam’s throneTroy’s sages should in concert ownOnce 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 readAnd be not in advance severe.There’ll be a fight. I do not lie.My word of honour given have I.

The tea, as I remarked, appeared,But scarce had maids their saucers ta’enWhen in the grand saloon was heardOf 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 partsTo Olga Petoushkova darts:To Tania Lenski; Kharlikova,A marriageable maid matured,The poet from Tamboff secured,Bouyànoff whisked off Poustiakova.All to the grand saloon are gone—The ball in all its splendour shone.

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.But by fantastic dreams distraught,My memory wandered wide and soughtThe feet of my dear lady friends.O feet, where’er your path extendsI long enough deceived have erred.The perfidies I recollectShould make me much more circumspect,Reform me both in deed and word,And this fifth canto ought to beFrom such digressions wholly free.

The whirlwind of the waltz sweeps by,Undeviating and insaneAs giddy youth’s hilarity—Pair after pair the race sustain.The moment for revenge, meanwhile,Espying, Eugene with a smileApproaches Olga and the pairAmid 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 heScarce credits what his eyes can see.

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 damesWe glide along a floor of wax.However, the mazurka lacksNought of its charms originalIn country towns, where still it keepsIts stamping, capers and high leaps.Fashion is there immutable,Who tyrannizes us with ease,Of modern Russians the disease.

Bouyànoff, wrathful cousin mine,Unto the hero of this layOlga and Tania led. Malign,Onéguine Olga bore away.Gliding in negligent career,He bending whispered in her earSome madrigal not worth a rush,And pressed her hand—the crimson blushUpon her cheek by adulationGrew brighter still. But Lenski hathSeen all, beside himself with wrath,And hot with jealous indignation,Till the mazurka’s close he stays,Her hand for the cotillon prays.

She fears she cannot.—Cannot? Why?—She promised Eugene, or she wouldWith great delight.—O God on high!Heard he the truth? And thus she could—And can it be? But late a childAnd now a fickle flirt and wild,Cunning already to displayAnd well-instructed to betray!Lenski the stroke could not sustain,At womankind he growled a curse,Departed, ordered out his horseAnd galloped home. But pistols twain,A pair of bullets—nought beside—His fate shall presently decide.