32.

He stays: beforehand he'd been ready To warn his forebears to expect That soon he'd be among them, yet she Cares not a bit (such is their s.e.x).

But he is stubborn, won't surrender, Still hopes and keeps to his agenda.

Far bolder than a healthy man, Unwell, he writes with feeble hand The Princess an impa.s.sioned letter, Although (in this I share his views) He saw in letters little use; But with his heart held in a fetter, A missive could not be deferred.

Here is his letter, word for word.

Onegin's Letter to Tatiana

I can predict: I shall offend You29 with my secret, sad confession, And I foresee your proud expression Of bitter scorn for what I send.

What do I want? To what end, after I've opened up my soul to you?

What wicked merriment, what laughter I'll give, perhaps, occasion to!

When first I met you, I detected A tender spark, I was affected, But to the challenge dared not rise, I'd curbed myself of that sweet habit, And I had no desire to forfeit The hateful freedom I so prize.

Yet one more thing drove us asunder...

Lensky, a hapless victim, fell...

And then, from all a heart finds tender I tore my own; an alien soul, Without allegiances, I vanished, Thinking that liberty and peace Could take the place of happiness.

My G.o.d, how wrong, how I've been punished!

To see you as each minute flies, To follow you in all directions, To capture with enamoured eyes Your smiling lips, your eyes' reflections, To listen and to understand With all my soul your perfect nature, To melt in torments at your hand, Grow pale and waste away a that's rapture!

And I'm deprived of that: for you I drag myself at random, wander, Each day is dear, each hour too: Yet I in futile dullness squander The days my fate has counted off.

And they are burdensome enough.

I know: my end may well be dawning, But so as to prolong my stay, I must be certain every morning That I shall see you that same day...

I fear that my meek supplication Will be by your relentless gaze Seen as a shameful machination a I hear your furious dispraise.

If you but knew the frightful torment To languish after your beloved, To burn a while reason every moment Tells you to quell your raging blood, To wish to hold your knees, and, pouring My tears out at your feet, to press, Entreat, confess, reproach, imploring All, all I've wanted to express, To do so, feigning reservation, To arm each glance and every phrase, To look at you with cheerful gaze And hold a placid conversation...

But let that be: I'm in no state To struggle further with my pa.s.sion; My life depends on your decision And I surrender to my fate.

33.

He gets no answer to this letter, A second and a third he sends, But neither one fares any better.

At a reception he attends, He's hardly entered than towards him Tatiana comes, and she ignores him, Says nothing, does not see him there.

What frost surrounds her, how severe!

How, holding back her indignation, Her stubborn lips remain in place!

Onegin peers with searching gaze: Where, where's the pity, perturbation?

The tear stains, where? No trace, no trace, Anger alone has marked this face...

34.

And, possibly the apprehension That monde or husband might suppose Some waywardness, some casual penchant...

And everything Onegin knows...

No hope! He drives from the reception, Cursing his crazy self-deception; Though part of it, he did not rue Bidding the monde again adieu; The silence of his study brought him Remembrance of another time, When in the loud monde's pantomime, Khandra had cruelly chased and caught him, And seized him by the collar, then Enclosed him in his gloomy den.

35.

He read again, but all at random: Manzoni, Gibbon30 and Rousseau, Madame de Stael, Chamfort31 in tandem, Bichat and Herder and Tissot.32 He read the sceptic Bayle,33who led him To Fontenelle,34 and when he'd read him, He tried some authors of our own Without rejecting anyone a The almanachs, reviews that ever Are drumming sermons into us, And treating me with animus,35 But where, time was, I might discover Such madrigals to me back then: E sempre bene,36 gentlemen!

36.

But even while his eyes were reading, His thoughts were far away, as old Desires, dreams, sorrows kept invading And crowding deep inside his soul.

Between the lines before him, printed, His inward eye saw others hinted.

On these he concentrated most, In their decipherment engrossed.

These were the secret legends, fictions The heart's dark story had collected, The dreams with all else unconnected, The threats, the rumours, the predictions, Or else some lengthy, crazy tale Or letters from a fledgling give.

37.

And by degrees his thought and feeling By lethargy are overcome, Meanwhile, imagination's dealing Its motley faro cards to him.

He sees on melted snow, rec.u.mbent, As if asleep at some encampment, A youth on his nocturnal bed And hears a voice: 'Well then, he's dead!'

He sees past enemies forgotten, Base cowards and calumniators, A swarm of youthful, female traitors, A group of former friends turned rotten, And then a country house a where she Sits at the window... constantly.

38.

Such musings soon became a habit And nearly drove him off his head Or, failing this, made him a poet a That would have been a boon, indeed!

Truly: by means of magnetism37 He almost grasped the mechanism Of Russian poetry of the time a This muddled neophyte of mine.

He looked a poet to the letter: Ensconced before a blazing hearth, He sat alone as flames would dart, Hummed Idol Mio, Benedetta,38 And dropped into the fire, unseen, A slipper or a magazine.

39.

Winter, as warming air blew through it, Was over now; the days rushed by; And he did not become a poet, Nor turn insane, nor did he die.

Enlivened by the spring's returning, He leaves upon one cloudless morning The shuttered rooms, where he had spent The winter like a marmot pent.

From fireplace and the double windows, By sleigh, past the Neva he flies.

Upon blue blocks of hewn-out ice39 The sun disports; in dirty cinders The furrowed snow melts on the street: Where, then, upon it with such speed

40.

Is he proceeding? Oh, already You've guessed, you're right: my unreformed Eccentric's rushing to his lady, To his Tatiana, unforewarned.

He walks in like a corpse, n.o.body Is there to greet him in the lobby.

In the reception room there's not A soul. A door he opens... what What confronts him then, what makes him shudder?

Before him the Princess alone Sits pale and unadorned, forlorn, Immersed in what looks like a letter, A flood of tears she softly sheds With cheek on hand... Ah, what regrets,

41.