Chapter Four
La morale est dans la nature des choses. Necker
(I, II, III, IV, V, VI, 1) VII
With womankind, the less we love them, the easier they become to charm, the tighter we can stretch above them enticing nets to do them harm. There was a period when cold-blooded debauchery was praised, and studied as love's technique, when it would blare its own perfection everywhere, and heartless pleasure was up-graded; yes, these were our forefathers' ways, those monkeys of the good old days: now Lovelace's renown has faded as scarlet heels have lost their name and stately periwigs, their fame. {109}
VIII
How dull are acting and evasion, diversely urging the same plea, earnestly striving for persuasion on points that all long since agree -- and always the self-same objection; how dull to work for the correction of prejudice that's never been harboured by maidens of thirteen! Who's not disgusted by cajoling, threats, vows, and simulated fears, by six-page letters, rings and tears, gossip, and tricks, and the patrolling of aunts and mothers, and the thrall of husband's friendship -- worst of all!
IX
Evgeny thought in just this fashion. From his first youth he'd known the force, the sufferings of tempestuous passion; its winds had blown him far off course. Spoilt by the habit of indulgence, now dazzled by one thing's effulgence, now disenchanted with the next, more and more bored by yearning's text, bored by success' giddy trifle, he heard in stillness and in din a deathless murmur from within, found that in laughter yawns could stifle: he killed eight years in such a style, and wasted life's fine flower meanwhile. {110}
X
Though belles had lost his adoration, he danced attendance with the best; rebuffed, found instant consolation; deceived, was overjoyed to rest. He followed them without illusion, lost them without regret's contusion, scarcely recalled their love, their spite; just like a casual guest who might devote to whist an evening party, who'd sit, and at the end of play would say goodbye and drive away, go off to sleep quite hale and hearty, and in the morning wouldn't know that self-same evening where he'd go.
XI
Yet Tanya's note made its impression on Eugene, he was deeply stirred: that virgin dream and its confession filled him with thoughts that swarmed and whirred; the flower-like pallor of the maiden, her look, so sweetly sorrow-laden, all plunged his soul deep in the stream of a delicious, guiltless dream... and though perhaps old fires were thrusting and held him briefly in their sway, Eugene had no wish to betray a soul so innocent, so trusting. But to the garden, to the scene where Tanya now confronts Eugene. {111}
XII
Moments of silence, quite unbroken; then, stepping nearer, Eugene said: ``You wrote to me, and nothing spoken can disavow that. I have read those words where love, without condition, pours out its guiltless frank admission, and your sincerity of thought is dear to me, for it has brought feeling to what had long been heartless: but I won't praise you -- let me join and pay my debt in the same coin with an avowal just as artless; hear my confession as I stand I leave the verdict in your hand.
XIII
``Could I be happy circumscribing my life in a domestic plot; had fortune blest me by prescribing husband and father as my lot; could I accept for just a minute the homely scene, take pleasure in it -- then I'd have looked for you alone to be the bride I'd call my own. Without romance, or false insistence, I'll say: with past ideals in view I would have chosen none but you as helpmeet in my sad existence, as gage of all things that were good, and been as happy... as I could! {112}
XIV
``But I was simply not intended for happiness -- that alien role. Should your perfections be expended in vain on my unworthy soul? Believe (as conscience is my warrant), wedlock for us would be abhorrent. I'd love you, but inside a day, with custom, love would fade away; your tears would flow -- but your emotion, your grief would fail to touch my heart, they'd just enrage it with their dart. What sort of roses, in your notion, would Hymen bring us -- blooms that might last many a day, and many a night!
XV
``What in the world is more distressing than households where the wife must moan the unworthy husband through depressing daytimes and evenings passed alone? and where the husband, recognizing her worth (but anathematising his destiny) without a smile bursts with cold envy and with bile? For such am I. When you were speaking to me so simply, with the fires and force that purity inspires, is this the man that you were seeking? can it be true you must await from cruel fortune such a fate? {113}
XVI
``I've dreams and years past resurrection; a soul that nothing can renew... I feel a brotherly affection, or something tenderer still, for you. Listen to me without resentment: girls often change to their contentment light dreams for new ones... so we see each springtime, on the growing tree, fresh leaves... for such is heaven's mandate. You'll love again, but you must teach your heart some self-restraint; for each and every man won't understand it as I have... learn from my belief that inexperience leads to grief. ''
XVII
So went his sermon. Almost dying, blinded to everything about by mist of tears, without replying Tatyana heard Evgeny out. He gave his arm. In sad abstraction, by what's called machinal reaction, without a word Tatyana leant upon it, and with head down-bent walked homeward round the kitchen garden; together they arrived, and none dreamt of reproving what they'd done: by country freedom, rightful pardon and happy licence are allowed, as much as in Moscow the proud. {114}
XVIII
Agree, the way Eugene proceeded with our poor girl was kind and good; not for the first time he succeeded in manifesting, as he could, a truly noble disposition; yet people's malice and suspicion persisted and made no amends. By enemies, no less by friends (it's all the same -- you well correct us), he found all kinds of brickbat hurled. We each have enemies in this world, but from our friends, good Lord protect us! Those friends, those friends! it is, I fear, with cause that I've recalled them here.
XIX
What of it? Nothing. I'm just sending to sleep some black and empty dreams; but, inside brackets, I'm contending there's no ignoble tale that seems cooked-up where garret-vermin babble, endorsed by fashionable rabble, there's no absurdity as such, no vulgar epigram too much, which smilingly your friend, supported by decent company, has not, without a trace of spite or plot, a hundred times afresh distorted; yet he'd back you through thick and thin: he loves you... like your kith and kin! {115}
XX
Hm, hm. Distinguished reader, tell me how are your kith and kin today? And here my sentiments impel me for your enlightenment to say how I interpret this expression: our kin are folk whom by profession we have to cherish and admire with all our hearts, and who require that in the usual Christmas scrimmage we visit them, or without fail send them good wishes through the mail to ensure that till next time our image won't even cross their minds by stealth... God grant them years and years of health!
XXI
Of course, the love of tender beauties, surer than friendship or than kin, will loyally discharge its duties, in midst of trouble, storm or din. Of course. Yet fashion's wild rotation, yet a capricious inclination, yet floods of talk around the town... the darling sex is light as down. Then verdicts from her husband's quartet are bound, by every virtuous wife, to be respected all through life: and so your faithfullest supporter will disappear as fast as smoke: for Satan, love's a splendid joke. {116}
XXII
Whom then to credit? Whom to treasure? On whom alone can we depend? Who is there who will truly measure his acts and words to suit our end? Who'll sow no calumnies around us? Whose fond attentions will astound us? Who'll never fault our vices, or whom shall we never find a bore? Don't let a ghost be your bear-leader, don't waste your efforts on the air. Just let yourself be your whole care, your loved one, honourable reader! Deserving object: there can be nothing more lovable than he.
XXIII
Then what resulted from the meeting? Alas, it's not so hard to guess! Love's frantic torments went on beating and racking with their strain and stress that youthful soul, which pined for sadness; no, all devoured by passion's madness poor Tanya more intensely burns; sleep runs from her, she turns and turns... and health, life's sweetness and its shimmer, smiles, and a maiden's tranquil poise, have vanished, like an empty noise, while dear Tatyana's youth grows dimmer: so a storm-shadow wraps away in dark attire the new-born day. {117}
XXIV
Poor Tanya's bloom begins to languish, and pale, and fade without a word! there's nothing can employ her anguish, no sound by which her soul is stirred. Neighbours in whispered tones are taking council, and with profound head-shaking conclude that it's high time she wed!... But that's enough. At once, in stead, I'll gladden your imagination, reader, by painting you a scene of happy love. For I have been too long, against my inclination, held in constraint by pity's touch: I love my Tatyana too much!
XXV
From hour to hour a surer capture for Olga's beauty, Lensky gives his soul to a delicious rapture that fills him and in which he lives. He's always with her: either seated in darkness in her room, or treated to garden walks, as arm in arm they while away the morning's calm. What else? Quite drunk with love's illusion, he even dares, once in a while, emboldened by his Olga's smile, and plunged in tender shame's confusion, to play with a dishevelled tress, or kiss the border of her dress. {118}
XXVI
He reads to Olga on occasion, for her improvement, a roman, of moralistical persuasion, more searching than Chateaubriand; but in it there are certain pages (vain twaddle, fables of the ages, talk that might turn a young girl's head) which with a blush he leaves unread. As far removed as they were able from all the world, they sat and pored in deepest thought at the chess-board for hours, with elbows on the table -- then Lensky moved his pawn, and took, deep in distraction, his own rook.
XXVII
Even at home his occupation is only Olga: he relieves with careful schemes of decoration an album's loose and floating sheaves. Sometimes a landscape's represented, a tomb, a Cyprian shrine's invented, a lyre, and on it perched, a dove -- in ink with colour-wash above; then on the leaves of recollection, below the others who have signed he leaves a tender verse behind, a dream's mute monument, reflection of instant thoughts, a fleeting trace still after many years in place. {119}
XXVIII
Often of course you'll have inspected the album of a country miss where scribbling friends have interjected frontwise and back, that way and this. With spelling scrambled to perdition, the unmetric verses of tradition are entered here, in friendship's gage, shortened, or lengthened off the page. On the first sheet you'll find a question: ``Qu'é crirez-vous sur ces tablettes? '' and, under, ``toute à vous Annette''; then, on the last page, the suggestion: ``who loves you more than I, let's see him prove it, writing after me. ''
XXIX
There you're entirely sure of finding two hearts, a torch, and a nosegay; and there, love's protestations, binding until the tombstone; there one day some regimental bard has added a stanza villainously padded. In such an album, friends, I too am always glad to write, it's true, convinced at heart that my most zealous nonsense will earn indulgent looks, nor will my scribbling in such books attract the sneering of the jealous, or make men seriously discuss if I show wit in jesting thus. {120}
XXX
But you, grand tomes I loathe with passion, odd volumes from the devil's shelf, in which the rhymester-man-of-fashion is forced to crucify himself, portfolios nobly illustrated with Tolstoy's2 brush, or decorated by Baratynsky's3 wondrous pen, God's thunder burn you up! And when some splendid lady is referring to me her best in-quarto tome, the fear and rage with which I foam! Deep down, an epigram is stirring that I'm just longing to indite -- but madrigals I've got to write!
XXXI
No madrigals were for inscribing by Lensky in his Olga's book; his style breathed love, and not the gibing coldness of wit; each note he took, each news of her he'd been imbibing -- all was material for transcribing: with lively and pellucid look, his elegies flow like a brook. So you, inspired Yazý kov, 4 sobbing with bursts of passion from the heart, sing God knows whom, compose with art a suite of elegies that, throbbing, sooner or later will relate the entire story of your fate. {121}
XXXII
But soft! You hear? A scowling critic, bidding us to reject for good the elegy, grown paralytic, commands our rhymester-brotherhood: ``oh, quit your stale, your tedious quacking, and your alas-ing and alack-ing about what's buried in the past: sing about something else at last! '' All right, you want the resurrection of trumpet, dagger, mask and sword, and dead ideas from that old hoard, all brought to life at your direction. Not so? ``No, sirs, the ode's the thing, that's the refrain that you should sing,
XXXIII
``as sung of old, in years of glory, as instituted long ago. '' Only the ode, that solemn story! Enough, my friends; it's all so-so. Remember the retort satiric! Is Others' View, 5 that clever lyric, really more bearable to you than what our sorrowing rhymesters do? ``The elegy's just vain protesting, empty the purpose it proclaims, while odes have high and noble aims... '' That point I wouldn't mind contesting, but hold my tongue, lest it appears I'll set two ages by the ears. {122}
XXXIV
In love with fame, by freedom smitten, with storm and tumult in his head, what odes Vladimir might have written -- but Olga would have never read! Bards of our tearful generation, have you read lines of your creation to your loved ones? They do maintain that this of all things for a swain is the supreme reward. Precisely, blest the poor lover who reads out his dreams, while she whom they're about, that languid beauty, listens nicely -- blest... though perhaps her fancy's caught in fact by some quite different thought.
XXXV
But I myself read my bedizened fancies, my rhythmic search for truth, to nobody except a wizened nanny, companion of my youth; or, after some dull dinner's labour, I buttonhole a wandering neighbour and in a corner make him choke on tragedy; but it's no joke, when, utterly worn out by rhyming, exhausted and done up, I take a rambling walk beside my lake, and duck get up; with instant timing, alarmed by my melodious lay, they leave their shores and fly away. {123}
XXXVI6
< My gaze pursues them... but on station the hunter in the wood will swear at verse, and hiss an imprecation, and ease his catch with all due care. We each enjoy a special hobby, each of us has his favourite lobby: one sees a duck and aims his gun, one raves in verse like me, and one hunts cheeky flies, with swatter sweeping, one leads the multitude in thought, one finds in war amusing sport, one wallows in delicious weeping; the wine-addict adores the cup: and good and bad are all mixed up. >
XXXVII
But what about Eugene? With reason reader, you ask, and I'll expound -- craving your tolerance in season -- the programme of his daily round. In summertime -- for he was leading a hermit's life -- he'd be proceeding on foot, by seven o'clock, until he reached the stream below the hill; lightly attired, like the creator of Gulnare, he would play a card out of the hand of that same bard: he'd swim this Hellespont; then later he'd drink his coffee, flutter through the pages of some dull review, then dress... {124}
(XXXVIII) XXXIX
Books, riding, walks, sleep heavy-laden, the shady wood, the talking stream; sometimes from a fair, black-eyed maiden the kiss where youth and freshness gleam; a steed responsive to the bridle, and dinner with a touch of idle fancy, a wine serene in mood, tranquillity, and solitude -- Onegin's life, you see, was holy; unconsciously he let it mount its grip on him, forgot to count bright summer days that passed so slowly, forgot to think of town and friends and tedious means to festive ends.
XL
Our evanescent northern summer parodies winter in the south; it's like a vanishing newcomer -- but here we must control our mouth. The sky breathed autumn, time was flowing, and good old sun more seldom glowing; the days grew shorter, in the glade with mournful sound the secret shade was stripped away, and mists encroaching lay on the fields; in caravan the clamorous honking geese began their southward flight: one saw approaching the season which is such a bore -- November stood outside the door. {125}
XLI
Dawn comes in mist and chill; no longer do fields echo with work and shout; in pairs, their hunger driving stronger, on the highroad the wolves come out; the horse gets wind of them and, snorting, sets the wise traveller cavorting up the hillside at breakneck pace; no longer does the herdsman chase his beasts outdoors at dawn, nor ringing at noontime does his horn resound as it assembles them around; while in the hut a girl is singing; she spins and, friend of winter nights, the matchwood chatters as it lights.
XLII
Hoar-frost that crackles with a will is already silvering all the plain... (the reader thinks the rhyme is lilies: here, seize it quick for this quatrain! ) Like modish parquetry, the river glitters beneath its icing-sliver; boy-tribes with skates on loudly slice their joyous way across the ice; a red-foot goose, weight something fearful, anticipates a swim, in stead tries out the ice with cautious tread, and skids and tumbles down; the cheerful first flakes of snow whirl round and sink in stars upon the river-brink. {126}
XLIII
In backwoods, how d'you pass this season? Walking? The country that you roam is a compulsive bore by reason of its unvarnished monochrome. Riding on the lugubrious prairie? Your horse, blunt-shoed and all unwary, will find the ice elude his grip and, any moment, down he'll slip. Or, in your lonely homestead, moping, you'll read: here's Pradt, 7 here's Walter Scott! to pass the evening. No? then tot up your accounts, and raging, toping, let evening pass, tomorrow too -- in triumph you'll see winter through!
XLIV
Childe-Harold-like, Eugene's devoting his hours to dreaming them away: he wakes; a bath where ice is floating; and then, indoors the livelong day, alone, and sunk in calculation, with a blunt cue for the duration, from early morning on he will at two-ball billiards prove his skill; then, country evening fast arriving, billiards are dropped, cue put to bed: before the fire a table's spread; Evgeny waits: and here comes driving, with three roan horses in a line Vladimir Lensky. Quick, let's dine! {127}
XLV
From widow Clicquot and from Moë t, the draught whose blessings are agreed, in frosted bottle, for the poet is brought to table at full speed. Bubbles like Hippocrene are spraying; once, with its foaming and its playing, (a simile of this and that) it held me captive; tit for tat, friends, recollect how I surrendered my last poor lepton for a sup! recall, by its bewitching cup, how many follies were engendered; how many lines of verse, and themes for jokes, and rows, and merry dreams!
XLVI
Yet hissing froth deals a malicious, perfidious blow to my inside, and now it's Bordeaux the Judicious that I prefer to Champagne's tide; to Aÿ 's vintage in the sequel I find myself no longer equal; for, mistress-like, it's brilliant, vain, lively, capricious, and inane... But in misfortune or displeasure, Bordeaux, you're like a faithful friend, a true companion to the end, ready to share our quiet leisure with your good offices, and so long life to our dear friend, Bordeaux! {128}
XLVII
The fire was dying; cinders faintly covered the golden coal -- the steam tumbled and whirled and twisted quaintly its barely noticeable stream. The hearth was low beyond all stoking. Straight up the chimney, pipes were smoking. Still on the board, the beakers hissed, and evening now drew on in mist... (I like a friendly conversation, the enjoyment of a friendly drink, at hours, which, why I cannot think, somehow have got the designation of time between the wolf and dog. ) Now hear the friends in dialogue:
XLVIII
``Tell me, our neighbours, are they thriving? and how's Tatyana? Olga too, your dashing one, is she surviving? '' ``Just half a glass more... that will do... All flourishing; they send their duty. Take Olga's shoulders now -- the beauty! What breasts! What soul!... We'll go one day visit the family, what d'you say? if you come with me, they'll be flattered; or else, my friend, how does it look? you called there twice, and since then took no notice of them. But I've chattered so much, I'm left no time to speak! of course! you're bidden there next week. '' {129}
XLIX
``I? '' ``Saturday. The invitation Olinka and her mother sent: Tatyana's name day celebration. It's right and proper that you went. '' ``But there'll be such a rout and scrabble with every different kind of rabble... '' ``No, no, I'm sure the party's small. Relations. No-one else at all. Let's go, our friendship's worth the labour! '' ``All right, I'll come then... '' ``What a friend! '' He drained his glass down to the end by way of toast to their fair neighbour; then he began to talk once more of Olga: love's that kind of bore!
L
Lensky rejoiced. His designated rapture was just two weeks ahead; love's crown, delectable, awaited his transports, and the marriage-bed in all its mystery. Hymen's teasing, the pain, the grief, the marrow-freezing onset of the incipient yawn, were from his vision quite withdrawn. While under the connubial banner I can see naught, as Hymen's foe, beyond a string of dull tableaux, a novel in Lafontaine's8 manner... my wretched Lensky in his heart was just created for the part. {130}
LI
And he was loved... at least he never doubted of it, so lived in bliss. Happy a hundredfold, whoever can lean on faith, who can dismiss cold reason, sleep in sensual welter like a drunk traveller in a shelter, or, sweeter, like a butterfly in flowers of spring it's drinking dry: but piteous he, the all-foreseeing, the sober head, detesting each human reaction, every speech in the expression of its being, whose heart experience has cooled and saved from being charmed or fooled! {131}
Notes to Chapter Four
1 Stanzas I to VI were discarded by Pushkin. 2 Count F. P. Tolstoy (1783-1873), well-known artist. 3 See Chapter Three, note 13. 4 Poet and acquaintance of Pushkin. 5 Satiric poem by Ivan Dimitriev, 1795. The reference is -- summarizing very briefly -- to a controversy between different literary cliques about the relative merits of the classic ode and the romantic elegy. 6 Stanza discarded by Pushkin, also stanza XXXVIII. 7 Dominique de Pradt (1759-1837), voluminous French political writer. 8 August Lafontaine (1758-1851), German novelist of family life.
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