Евгений Онегин / Eugene Onegin. Александр Пушкин

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      The fatal hour had come at last —

      She oped her eyes and cried: ’tis he!

      Alas! for now before her passed

      The same warm vision constantly;

      Now all things round about repeat

      Ceaselessly to the maiden sweet

      His name: the tenderness of home

      Tiresome unto her hath become

      And the kind-hearted servitors:

      Immersed in melancholy thought,

      She hears of conversation nought

      And hated casual visitors,

      Their coming which no man expects,

      And stay whose length none recollects.

      Now with what eager interest

      She the delicious novel reads,

      With what avidity and zest

      She drinks in those seductive deeds!

      All the creations which below

      From happy inspiration flow,

      The swain of Julia Wolmar,

      Malek Adel and De Linar,[28]

      Werther, rebellious martyr bold,

      And that unrivalled paragon,

      The sleep-compelling Grandison,

      Our tender dreamer had enrolled

      A single being: ’twas in fine

      No other than Onegin mine.

      Dreaming herself the heroine

      Of the romances she preferred,

      Clarissa, Julia, Delphine[29], —

      Tattiana through the forest erred,

      And the bad book accompanies.

      Upon those pages she descries

      Her passion’s faithful counterpart,

      Fruit of the yearnings of the heart.

      She heaves a sigh and deep intent

      On raptures, sorrows not her own,

      She murmurs in an undertone

      A letter for her hero meant:

      That hero, though his merit shone,

      Was certainly no Grandison.

      Alas! my friends, the years flit by

      And after them at headlong pace

      The evanescent fashions fly

      In motley and amusing chase.

      The world is ever altering!

      Farthingales, patches, were the thing,

      And courtier, fop, and usurer

      Would once in powdered wig appear;

      Time was, the poet’s tender quill

      In hopes of everlasting fame

      A finished madrigal would frame

      Or couplets more ingenious still;

      Time was, a valiant general might

      Serve who could neither read nor write.

      Time was, in style magniloquent

      Authors replete with sacred fire

      Their heroes used to represent

      All that perfection could desire;

      Ever by adverse fate oppressed,

      Their idols they were wont to invest

      With intellect, a taste refined,

      And handsome countenance combined,

      A heart wherein pure passion burnt;

      The excited hero in a trice

      Was ready for self-sacrifice,

      And in the final tome we learnt,

      Vice had due punishment awarded,

      Virtue was with a bride rewarded.

      But now our minds are mystified

      And Virtue acts as a narcotic,

      Vice in romance is glorified

      And triumphs in career erotic.

      The monsters of the British Muse

      Deprive our schoolgirls of repose,

      The idols of their adoration

      A Vampire fond of meditation,

      Or Melmoth, gloomy wanderer he,

      The Eternal Jew or the Corsair

      Or the mysterious Sbogar.[30]

      Byron’s capricious phantasy

      Could in romantic mantle drape

      E’en hopeless egoism’s dark shape.

      My friends, what means this odd digression?

      May be that I by heaven’s decrees

      Shall abdicate the bard’s profession,

      And shall adopt some new caprice.

      Thus having braved Apollo’s rage

      With humble prose I’ll fill my page

      And a romance in ancient style

      Shall my declining years beguile;

      Nor shall my pen paint terribly

      The torment born of crime unseen,

      But shall depict the touching scene

      Of Russian domesticity;

      I will descant on love’s sweet dream,

      The olden time shall be my theme.

      Old people’s simple conversations

      My unpretending page shall fill,

      Their offspring’s innocent flirtations

      By the old lime-tree or the rill,

      Their Jealousy and separation

      And tears СКАЧАТЬ