15
paints himself. Silence was everywhere enthralling; just sentries to each other calling, and then a drozhky's clopping sound from Million Street
16
came floating round; and then a boat, with oars a-swinging, swam on the river's dreaming face, and then, with an enchanting grace, came distant horns, and gallant singing. Yet sweeter far, at such a time, the strain of Tasso's octave-rhyme! XLIX O Adrian waves, my invocation; O Brenta, I'll see you in dream; hear, once more filled with inspiration, the magic voices of your stream, sacred to children of Apollo! Proud Albion's lyre is what I follow, through it they're known to me, and kin. Italian nights, when I'll drink in your molten gold, your charmed infusion; with a Venetian maiden who can chatter, and be silent too, I'll float in gondola's seclusion; from her my lips will learn and mark the tongue of love and of Petrarch. {56} L When comes my moment to untether? ``it's time!'' and freedom hears my hail. I walk the shore,
17
I watch the weather, I signal to each passing sail. Beneath storm's vestment, on the seaway, battling along that watery freeway, when shall I start on my escape? It's time to drop astern the shape of the dull shores of my disfavour, and there, beneath your noonday sky, my Africa,
18
where waves break high, to mourn for Russia's gloomy savour, land where I learned to love and weep, land where my heart is buried deep. LI Eugene would willingly have started with me to see an alien strand; but soon the ways we trod were parted for quite a while by fortune's hand. His father died; and (as expected) before Onegin there collected the usurers' voracious tribe. To private tastes we each subscribe: Evgeny, hating litigation, and satisfied with what he'd got, made over to them his whole lot, finding in that no deprivation -- or else, from far off, he could see old Uncle's end was soon to be. {57} LII In fact one day a note came flying from the agent, with this tale to telclass="underline" Uncle, in bed, and near to dying, wished him to come and say farewell. Evgeny read the sad epistle and set off prompter than a whistle as fast as post-horses could go, already yawned before the show, exercised, under lucre's banner, in sighs and boredom and deceits (my tale's beginning here repeats); but, when he'd rushed to Uncle's manor, a corpse on boards was all he found, an offering ready for the ground. LIII The yard was bursting with dependants; there gathered at the coffin-side friends, foes, priests, guests, inured attendants of every funeral far and wide; they buried Uncle, congregated to eat and drink, then separated with grave goodbyes to the bereaved, as if some goal had been achieved. Eugene turned countryman. He tasted the total ownership of woods, mills, lands and waters -- he whose goods till then had been dispersed and wasted -- and glad he was he'd thus arranged for his old courses to be changed. {58} LIV It all seemed new -- for two days only -- the coolness of the sombre glade, the expanse of fields, so wide, so lonely, the murmur where the streamlet played... the third day, wood and hill and grazing gripped him no more; soon they were raising an urge to sleep; soon, clear as clear, he saw that, as in cities, here boredom has just as sure an entry, although there are no streets, no cards, no mansions, no ballrooms, no bards. Yes, spleen was waiting like a sentry, and dutifully shared his life just like a shadow, or a wife. LV No,
I
was born for peace abounding and country stillness: there the lyre has voices that are more resounding, poetic dreams, a brighter fire. To harmless idleness devoted, on waves of
far niente
floated, I roam by the secluded lake. And every morning I awake to freedom, softness and enjoyment: sleep much, read little, and put down the thought of volatile renown. Was it not in such sweet employment such shadowy and leisured ways, that once I spent my happiest days? {59} LVI O flowers, and love, and rustic leisure, o fields -- to you I'm vowed at heart. I regularly take much pleasure in showing how to tell apart myself and Eugene, lest a reader of mocking turn, or else a breeder of calculated slander should, spying my features, as he could, put back the libel on the table that, like proud Byron, I can draw self-portraits only -- furthermore the charge that poets are unable to sing of others must imply the poet's only theme is ``I.'' LVII Poets, I'll say in this connection, adore the love that comes in dream. In time past, objects of affection peopled my sleep, and to their theme my soul in secret gave survival; then from the Muse there came revivaclass="underline" my carefree song would thus reveal the mountain maiden,
19
my ideal, and captive girls, by Salgir
20
lying. And now, my friends, I hear from you a frequent question: ``tell me who inspires your lute to sounds of sighing? To whom do you, from all the train of jealous girls, devote its strain? {60} LVIII ``Whose glance, provoking inspiration, rewards the music of your mind with fond caress? whose adoration is in your poetry enshrined?'' No one's, I swear by God! in sadness I suffered once from all the madness of love's anxiety. Blessed is he who can combine it with the free fever of rhyme: thereby he's doubled poetry's sacred frenzy, made a stride on Petrarch's path, allayed the pangs with which his heart was troubled, and, with it, forced renown to come -- but I, in love, was dull and dumb. LIX Love passed, the Muse appeared, the weather of mind got clarity new-found; now free, I once more weave together emotion, thought, and magic sound; I write, my heart has ceased its pining, my thoughtless pen has stopped designing, beside unfinished lines, a suite of ladies' heads, and ladies' feet; dead ash sets no more sparks a-flying; I'm grieving still, but no more tears, and soon, oh soon the storm's arrears will in my soul be hushed and dying.
That's
when I'll sit down to compose an ode in twenty-five cantos. {61} LX I've drawn a plan and a projection, the hero's name's decided too. Meanwhile my novel's opening section is finished, and I've looked it through meticulously; in my fiction there's far too much of contradiction, but I refuse to chop or change. The censor's tribute, I'll arrange: I'll feed the journalists for dinner fruits of my labour and my ink... So now be off to Neva's brink, you newborn work, and like a winner earn for me the rewards of fame -- misunderstanding, noise, and blame! {62}