simple product
supplements it. His father failed to understand and took a mortgage on his land. {38} VIII Evgeny's total store of knowledge I have no leisure to recall; where he was master of his college, the art he'd studied best of all, his young heyday's supreme employment, its work, its torture, its enjoyment, what occupied his chafing powers throughout the boredom of the hours -- this was the science of that passion which Ovid sang, for which the bard, condemned to a lifetime of hard, ended his wild career of fashion deep in Moldavia the abhorred, far, far from Italy, his adored. (IX,
2
) X How early he'd learnt to dissemble, to hide a hope, to make a show of jealousy, to seem to tremble or pine, persuade of yes or no, and act the humble or imperious, the indifferent, or the deadly serious! In languid silence, or the flame of eloquence, and just the same in casual letters of confession -- one thing inspired his breath, his heart, and self-oblivion was his art! How soft his glance, or at discretion how bold or bashful there, and here how brilliant with its instant tear! {39} XI How well he donned new shapes and sizes -- startling the ingenuous with a jest, frightening with all despair's disguises, amusing, flattering with the best, stalking the momentary weakness, with passion and with shrewd obliqueness swaying the artless, waiting on for unmeant kindness -- how he shone! then he'd implore a declaration, and listen for the heart's first sound, pursue his love -- and at one bound secure a secret assignation, then afterwards, alone, at ease, impart such lessons as you please! XII How early on he learnt to trouble the heart of the professional flirt! When out to burst a rival's bubble, how well he knew the way to hurt -- what traps he'd set him, with what malice he'd pop the poison in his chalice! But you, blest husbands, to the end you kept your friendship with our friend: the subtle spouse was just as loyal -- Faublas'
3
disciple for an age -- as was the old suspicious sage, and the majestic, antlered royal, always contented with his life, and with his dinner, and his wife. {40} (XIII, XIV,) XV Some days he's still in bed, and drowses, when little notes come on a tray. What? Invitations? Yes, three houses have each asked him to a soirée: a ball here, there a children's party; where shall he go, my rogue, my hearty? Which one comes first? It's just the same to do them all is easy game. Meanwhile, attired for morning strolling complete with broad-brimmed bolivar, Eugene attends the boulevard, and there at large he goes patrolling until Bréguet's unsleeping chime advises him of dinner-time. XVI He mounts the sledge, with daylight fading: ``Make way, make way,'' goes up the shout; his collar in its beaver braiding glitters with hoar-frost all about. He's flown to Talon's,
4
calculating that there his friend Kavérin's
5
waiting; he arrives -- the cork goes flying up, wine of the Comet
6
fills the cup; before him roast beef, red and gory, and truffles, which have ever been youth's choice, the flower of French cuisine: and pâté, Strasbourg's deathless glory, sits with Limburg's vivacious cheese and
ananas,
the gold of trees. {41} XVII More wine, he calls, to drench the flaming fire of the cutlets' scalding fat, when Bréguet's chime is heard proclaiming the new ballet he should be at. He's off -- this ruthless legislator for the footlights, this fickle traitor to all the most adored
actrices,
this denizen of the
coulisses
that world where every man's a critic who'll clap an
entrechat,
or scoff at Cleopatra, hiss her off, boo Phaedra out as paralytic, encore Moëna,
7
-- and rejoice to know the audience hears his voice. XVIII Enchanted land! There like a lampion that king of the satiric scene, Fonvizin
8
sparkled, freedom's champion, and the derivative Knyazhnín:
8
there Ózerov
8
shared the unwilling tribute of tears, applause's shrilling, with young Semyónova,
9
and there our friend Katénin
8
brought to bear once more Corneille's majestic story; there caustic Shakhovskóy
8
came in with comedies of swarm and din; there Didelot
10
crowned himself with glory: there, where the
coulisse
entrance went, that's where my years of youth were spent. {42} XIX My goddesses! Where are you banished? lend ears to my lugubrious tone: have other maidens, since you vanished, taken your place, though not your throne? your chorus, is it dead for ever? Russia's Terpsichore, shall never again I see your soulful flight? shall my sad gaze no more alight on features known, but to that dreary, that alien scene must I now turn my disillusioned glass, and yearn, bored with hilarity, and weary, and yawn in silence at the stage as I recall a bygone age? XX The house is packed out; scintillating, the boxes; boiling, pit and stalls; the gallery claps -- it's bored with waiting -- and up the rustling curtain crawls. Then with a half-ethereal splendour, bound where the magic bow will send her, Istómina,
11
thronged all around by Naiads, one foot on the ground, twirls the other slowly as she pleases, then suddenly she's off, and there she's up and flying through the air like fluff before Aeolian breezes; she'll spin this way and that, and beat against each other swift, small feet. {43} XXI Applause. Onegin enters -- passes across the public's toes; he steers straight to his stall, then turns his glasses on unknown ladies in the tiers; he's viewed the boxes without passion, he's seen it all; with looks and fashion he's dreadfully dissatisfied; to gentlemen on every side he's bowed politely; his attention wanders in a distracted way across the stage; he yawns: ``Ballet -- they all have richly earned a pension;'' he turns away: ``I've had enough -- now even Didelot's tedious stuff.'' XXII Still tumbling, devil, snake and Cupid on stage are thumping without cease; Still in the porch, exhausted-stupid, the footmen sleep on the
pelisses;
the audience still is busy stamping, still coughing, hissing, clapping, champing; still everywhere the lamps are bright; outside and in they star the night; still shivering in the bitter weather the horses fidget worse and worse; the coachmen ring the fire, and curse their lords, and thwack their palms together; but Eugene's out from din and press: by now he's driving home to dress. {44} XXIII Shall I depict with expert knowledge the cabinet behind the door where the prize-boy of fashion's college is dressed, undressed, and dressed once more? Whatever for caprice of spending ingenious London has been sending across the Baltic in exchange for wood and tallow; all the range of useful objects that the curious Parisian taste invents for one -- for friends of languor, or of fun, or for the modishly luxurious -- all this, at eighteen years of age, adorned the sanctum of our sage. XXIV Porcelain and bronzes on the table, with amber pipes from Tsaregrad;
12
such crystalled scents as best are able to drive the swooning senses mad; with combs, and steel utensils serving as files, and scissors straight and curving, brushes on thirty different scales; brushes for teeth, brushes for nails. Rousseau (forgive a short distraction) could not conceive how solemn Grimm
13
dared clean his nails in front of
him,
the brilliant crackpot: this reaction shows freedom's advocate, that strong champion of rights, as in the wrong. {45} XXV A man who's active and incisive can yet keep nail-care much in mind: why fight what's known to be decisive? custom is despot of mankind. Dressed like -- --,
14