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They by the shortest road fly home at full career.17 Now let us eavesdrop furtively 4 upon our heroes' conversation. "Well now, Onegin, you are yawning." "A habit, Lenski." "But somehow you are more bored than ever." "No, the same. 8 I say, it's dark already in the field; faster! come on, come on, Andryushka! What silly country! Ah, apropos: Dame Larin 12 is simple but a very nice old lady; I fear that lingonberry water may not unlikely do me harm.
V
"Tell me, which was Tatiana?" "Oh, she's the one who, sad an*d silent like Svetlana, 4 came in and sat down by the window." "Can it be it's the younger one that you're in love with?" "Why not?" "I'd have the other, had I been like you a poet. [chosen 8 In Olga's features there's no life, just as in a Vandyke Madonna: she's round and fair of face as is that silly moon is up in that silly sky.'' Vladimir answered curtly and thenceforth the whole way was silent.
45
Eugene Onegin
VI
Meanwhile Onegin's apparition at the Larins' produced on everyone a great impression 4 and regaled all the neighbors. Conjecture on conjecture followed. All started furtively to talk, to joke, to comment not without some malice, 8 a suitor for Tatiana to assign. Some folks asserted even that the wedding was quite settled, but had been stayed because 12 of fashionable rings' not being got. Concerning Lenski's wedding, long ago they had it all arranged.
VII
Tatiana listened with vexation to gossip of that sort5 but secretly she with ineffable elation 4 could not help thinking of it; and the thought sank into her heart5 the time had come-she fell in love.
Thus, dropped into the earth, a seed 8 is quickened by the fire of spring. For long had her imagination, consumed with mollitude and anguish, craved for the fatal food; 12 for long had the heart's languishment constrained her youthful bosom; her soul waited-for somebody.
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And not in vain it waited. Her eyes opened$ she said: " Tis he!" Alas! now both the days and nights, 4 and hot, lone sleep, all's full of him; to the dear girl unceasingly with magic force all speaks of him. To her are tedious 8 alike the sounds of friendly speeches and the gaze of assiduous servants. Immersed in gloom, to visitors she does not listen, 12 and imprecates their leisures, their unexpected arrival and protracted sitting down.
IX
With what attention does she now read some delicious novel, with what vivid enchantment 4 imbibe the ravishing illusion! Creations by the happy power of dreaming animated, the lover of Julie Wolmar, 8 Malek-Adhel, and de Linar, and Werther, restless martyr, and the inimitable Grandison,18 who brings upon us somnolence- 12 all for the tender, dreamy girl have been invested with a single image, have in Onegin merged alone.
47
Eugene One gin x Imagining herself the heroine of her beloved authors- Clarissa, Julia, Delphine4 Tatiana in the stillness of the woods alone roams with a dangerous book; in it she seeks and finds her secret ardency, her dreams, 8 the fruits of the heart's fullness; she sighs, and having made her own another's ecstasy, another's woe, she whispers in a trance, by heart, 12 a letter to the amiable hero. But our hero, whoever he might be, was certainly no Grandison.
XI
His style to a grave strain having attuned, time was, a fervid author used to present to us 4 his hero as a model of perfection. He'd furnish the loved objectalways iniquitously persecuted with a sensitive soul, intelligence, 8 and an attractive face. Nursing the ardor of the purest passion, the always enthusiastic hero was ready for self-sacrifice, 12 and by the end of the last part, vice always got punished, and virtue got a worthy crown. i58
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But nowadays all minds are in a mist, a moral brings upon us somnolence, vice is attractive in a novel, too, 4 and there, at least, it triumphs. The fables of the British Muse
?
disturb the young girl's sleep, and now her idol has become 8 either the pensive Vampyre, or Melmoth, gloomy vagabond, or the Wandering Jew, or the Corsair, or the mysterious Sbogar.19 12 Lord Byron, by an opportune caprice, in woebegone romanticism draped even hopeless egotism.
XIII
My friends, what sense is there in this? Perhaps, by heaven's will, I'll cease to be a poet; a new demon 4 will enter into me; and having scorned the threats of Phoebus, I shall descend to humble prose: a novel in the ancient strain 8 will then engage my gay decline. There, not the secret pangs of crime shall I grimly depict, but simply shall detail to you 12 the legends of a Russian family, love's captivating dreams, and manners of our ancientry.
Eugene Onegin
XIV
I shall detail a father's, an old uncle's, plain speeches 5 the assigned trysts of the children 4 by the old limes, by the small brook; the throes of wretched jealousy, parting, reconciliation's tears5 once more I'll have them quarrel, and at last 8 conduct them to the altar. I'll recall the accents of impassioned languish, the words of aching love, which in days bygone at the feet 12 of a fair mistress came to my tongue; from which I now have grown disused.
XV
Tatiana, dear Tatiana! I now shed tears with you. Into a fashionable tyrant's hands 4 your fate already you've relinquished. Dear, you shall perish; but before, in dazzling hope, you summon somber bliss, 8 you learn the dulcitude of life, you quaff the magic poison of desires, daydreams pursue you: you fancy everywhere 12 retreats for happy trysts; everywhere, everywhere before you, is your fateful enticer.
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The ache of love chases Tatiana, and to the garden she repairs to brood, and all at once her moveless eyes she lowers 4 and is too indolent farther to step5 her bosom has risen, her cheeks are covered with an instant flame, her breath has died upon her lips, 8 and there's a singing in her ears, a flashing before her eyes. Night comes; the moon patrols the distant vault of heaven, and in the gloam of trees the nightingale 12 intones sonorous chants. Tatiana in the darkness does not sleep and in low tones talks with her nurse.
XVII
"I can't sleep, nurse: 'tis here so stuffy!
Open the window and sit down by me." "Why, Tanya, what's the matter with you?" "I 4 Let's talk about old days." [am dull. "Well, what about them, Tanya? Time was, I stored in my memory no dearth of ancient haps and never-haps 8 about dire sprites and about maidens 5 but everything to me is dark now, Tanya: I have forgotten what I knew. Yes, things have come now to a sorry pass! 11 I'm all befuddled." "Nurse, tell me about your old times. Were you then in love?"