Urging your droshkies swift as air Along Saint Petersburg's paved streets, From you too Eugene took to flight, Abandoning insane delight, And isolated from all men, Yawning betook him to a pen. He thought to write, but labour long Inspired him with disgust and so Nought from his pen did ever flow, And thus he never fell among That vicious set whom I don't blame— Because a member I became. XXXVIII Once more to idleness consigned, He felt the laudable desire From mere vacuity of mind The wit of others to acquire. A case of books he doth obtain— He reads at random, reads in vain. This nonsense, that dishonest seems, This wicked, that absurd he deems, All are constrained and fetters bear, Antiquity no pleasure gave, The moderns of the ancients rave— Books he abandoned like the fair, His book-shelf instantly doth drape With taffety instead of crape. XXXIX Having abjured the haunts of men, Like him renouncing vanity, His friendship I acquired just then; His character attracted me. An innate love of meditation, Original imagination, And cool sagacious mind he had: I was incensed and he was sad. Both were of passion satiate And both of dull existence tired, Extinct the flame which once had fired; Both were expectant of the hate With which blind Fortune oft betrays The very morning of our days. XL He who hath lived and living, thinks, Must e'en despise his kind at last; He who hath suffered ofttimes shrinks From shades of the relentless past. No fond illusions live to soothe, But memory like a serpent's tooth With late repentance gnaws and stings. All this in many cases brings A charm with it in conversation. Oneguine's speeches I abhorred At first, but soon became inured To the sarcastic observation, To witticisms and taunts half-vicious And gloomy epigrams malicious. XLI How oft, when on a summer night Transparent o'er the Neva beamed The firmament in mellow light, And when the watery mirror gleamed No more with pale Diana's rays,(17) We called to mind our youthful days— The days of love and of romance! Then would we muse as in a trance, Impressionable for an hour, And breathe the balmy breath of night; And like the prisoner's our delight Who for the greenwood quits his tower, As on the rapid wings of thought The early days of life we sought. [Note 17: The midsummer nights in the latitude of St. Petersburg are a prolonged twilight.] XLII Absorbed in melancholy mood And o'er the granite coping bent, Oneguine meditative stood, E'en as the poet says he leant.(18) 'Tis silent all! Alone the cries Of the night sentinels arise And from the Millionaya afar(19) The sudden rattling of a car. Lo! on the sleeping river borne, A boat with splashing oar floats by, And now we hear delightedly A jolly song and distant horn; But sweeter in a midnight dream Torquato Tasso's strains I deem. [Note 18: Refers to Mouravieff's "Goddess of the Neva." At St. Petersburg the banks of the Neva are lined throughout with splendid granite quays.] [Note 19: A street running parallel to the Neva, and leading from the Winter Palace to the Summer Palace and Garden.] XLIII Ye billows of blue Hadria's sea, O Brenta, once more we shall meet And, inspiration firing me, Your magic voices I shall greet, Whose tones Apollo's sons inspire, And after Albion's proud lyre (20) Possess my love and sympathy. The nights of golden Italy I'll pass beneath the firmament, Hid in the gondola's dark shade, Alone with my Venetian maid, Now talkative, now reticent; From her my lips shall learn the tongue Of love which whilom Petrarch sung. [Note 20: The strong influence exercised by Byron's genius on the imagination of Pushkin is well known. Shakespeare and other English dramatists had also their share in influencing his mind, which, at all events in its earlier developments, was of an essentially imitative type. As an example of his Shakespearian tastes, see his poem of "Angelo," founded upon "Measure for Measure."] XLIV When will my hour of freedom come! Time, I invoke thee! favouring gales Awaiting on the shore I roam And beckon to the passing sails. Upon the highway of the sea When shall I wing my passage free On waves by tempests curdled o'er! 'Tis time to quit this weary shore So uncongenial to my mind, To dream upon the sunny strand Of Africa, ancestral land,(21) Of dreary Russia left behind, Wherein I felt love's fatal dart, Wherein I buried left my heart. [Note 21: The poet was, on his mother's side, of African extraction, a circumstance which perhaps accounts for the southern fervour of his imagination. His great-grandfather, Abraham Petrovitch Hannibal, was seized on the coast of Africa when eight years of age by a corsair, and carried a slave to Constantinople. The Russian Ambassador bought and presented him to Peter the Great who caused him to be baptized at Vilnius. Subsequently one of Hannibal's brothers made his way to Constantinople and thence to St. Petersburg for the purpose of ransoming him; but Peter would not surrender his godson who died at the age of ninety-two, having attained the rank of general in the Russian service.] XLV Eugene designed with me to start And visit many a foreign clime, But Fortune cast our lots apart For a protracted space of time. Just at that time his father died, And soon Oneguine's door beside Of creditors a hungry rout Their claims and explanations shout. But Eugene, hating litigation And with his lot in life content, To a surrender gave consent, Seeing in this no deprivation, Or counting on his uncle's death And what the old man might bequeath. XLVI And in reality one day The steward sent a note to tell How sick to death his uncle lay And wished to say to him farewell. Having this mournful document Perused, Eugene in postchaise went And hastened to his uncle's side, But in his heart dissatisfied, Having for money's sake alone Sorrow to counterfeit and wail— Thus we began our little tale— But, to his uncle's mansion flown, He found him on the table laid, A due which must to earth be paid. XLVII The courtyard full of serfs he sees, And from the country all around Had come both friends and enemies— Funeral amateurs abound! The body they consigned to rest, And then made merry pope and guest, With serious air then went away As men who much had done that day. Lo! my Oneguine rural lord! Of mines and meadows, woods and lakes, He now a full possession takes, He who economy abhorred, Delighted much his former ways To vary for a few brief days. XLVIII For two whole days it seemed a change To wander through the meadows still, The cool dark oaken grove to range, To listen to the rippling rill. But on the third of grove and mead He took no more the slightest heed; They made him feel inclined to doze; And the conviction soon arose, Ennui can in the country dwell Though without palaces and streets, Cards, balls, routs, poetry or fetes; On him spleen mounted sentinel And like his shadow dogged his life, Or better—like a faithful wife. XLIX I was for calm existence made, For rural solitude and dreams, My lyre sings sweeter in the shade And more imagination teems. On innocent delights I dote, Upon my lake I love to float, For law I far niente take And every morning I awake The child of sloth and liberty. I slumber much, a little read, Of fleeting glory take no heed. In former years thus did not I In idleness and tranquil joy The happiest days of life employ? L Love, flowers, the country, idleness And fields my joys have ever been; I like the difference to express Between myself and my Eugene, Lest the malicious reader or Some one or other editor Of keen sarcastic intellect Herein my portrait should detect, And impiously should declare, To sketch myself that I have tried Like Byron, bard of scorn and pride, As if impossible it were To write of any other elf Than one's own fascinating self. LI Here I remark all poets are Love to idealize inclined; I have dreamed many a vision fair And the recesses of my mind Retained the image, though short-lived, Which afterwards the muse revived. Thus carelessly I once portrayed Mine own ideal, the mountain maid, The captives of the Salguir's shore.(22) But now a question in this wise Oft upon friendly lips doth rise: Whom doth thy plaintive Muse adore? To whom amongst the jealous throng Of maids dost thou inscribe thy song? [Note 22: Refers to two of the most interesting productions of the poet. The former line indicates the Prisoner of the Caucasus, the latter, The Fountain of Baktchiserai. The Salguir is a river of the Crimea.] LII Whose glance reflecting inspiration With tenderness hath recognized Thy meditative incantation— Whom hath thy strain immortalized? None, be my witness Heaven above! The malady of hopeless love I have endured without respite. Happy who thereto can unite Poetic transport. They impart A double force unto their song Who following Petrarch move along And ease the tortures of the heart— Perchance they laurels also cull— But I, in love, was mute and dull. LIII The Muse appeared, when love passed by And my dark soul to light was brought; Free, I renewed the idolatry Of harmony enshrining thought. I write, and anguish flies away, Nor doth my absent pen portray Around my stanzas incomplete Young ladies' faces and their feet. Extinguished ashes do not blaze— I mourn, but tears I cannot shed— Soon, of the tempest which hath fled Time will the ravages efface— When that time comes, a poem I'll strive To write in cantos twenty-five. LIV I've thought well o'er the general plan, The hero's name too in advance, Meantime I'll finish whilst I can Canto the First of this romance. I've scanned it with
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