Moscow

   Moscow, Russia’s darling daughter,
   Where thine equal shall we find?
                                Dmitrieff

   Who can help loving mother Moscow?
                      Baratynski (Feasts)

   A journey to Moscow! To see the world!
   Where better?
                 Where man is not.
               Griboyédoff (Woe from Wit)

   Canto The Seventh

   [Written 1827-1828 at Moscow, Mikhailovskoe, St. Petersburg
   and Malinniki.]

   I

   Impelled by Spring’s dissolving beams,
   The snows from off the hills around
   Descended swift in turbid streams
   And flooded all the level ground.
   A smile from slumbering nature clear
   Did seem to greet the youthful year;
   The heavens shone in deeper blue,
   The woods, still naked to the view,
   Seemed in a haze of green embowered.
   The bee forth from his cell of wax
   Flew to collect his rural tax;
   The valleys dried and gaily flowered;
   Herds low, and under night’s dark veil
   Already sings the nightingale.

   II

   Mournful is thine approach to me,
   O Spring, thou chosen time of love!
   What agitation languidly
   My spirit and my blood doth move,
   What sad emotions o’er me steal
   When first upon my cheek I feel
   The breath of Spring again renewed,
   Secure in rural quietude—
   Or, strange to me is happiness?
   Do all things which to mirth incline.
   And make a dark existence shine
   Inflict annoyance and distress
   Upon a soul inert and cloyed?—
   And is all light within destroyed?

   III

   Or, heedless of the leaves’ return
   Which Autumn late to earth consigned,
   Do we alone our losses mourn
   Of which the rustling woods remind?
   Or, when anew all Nature teems,
   Do we foresee in troubled dreams
   The coming of life’s Autumn drear.
   For which no springtime shall appear?
   Or, it may be, we inly seek,
   Wafted upon poetic wing,
   Some other long-departed Spring,
   Whose memories make the heart beat quick
   With thoughts of a far distant land,
   Of a strange night when the moon and—

   IV

   ’Tis now the season! Idlers all,
   Epicurean philosophers,
   Ye men of fashion cynical,
   Of Levshin’s school ye followers,(67)
   Priams of country populations
   And dames of fine organisations,
   Spring summons you to her green bowers,
   ’Tis the warm time of labour, flowers;
   The time for mystic strolls which late
   Into the starry night extend.
   Quick to the country let us wend
   In vehicles surcharged with freight;
   In coach or post-cart duly placed
   Beyond the city-barriers haste.

   [Note 67: Levshin—a contemporary writer on political economy.]

   V

   Thou also, reader generous,
   The chaise long ordered please employ,
   Abandon cities riotous,
   Which in the winter were a joy:
   The Muse capricious let us coax,
   Go hear the rustling of the oaks
   Beside a nameless rivulet,
   Where in the country Eugene yet,
   An idle anchorite and sad,
   A while ago the winter spent,
   Near young Tattiana resident,
   My pretty self-deceiving maid—
   No more the village knows his face,
   For there he left a mournful trace.

   VI

   Let us proceed unto a rill,
   Which in a hilly neighbourhood
   Seeks, winding amid meadows still,
   The river through the linden wood.
   The nightingale there all night long,
   Spring’s paramour, pours forth her song
   The fountain brawls, sweetbriers bloom,
   And lo! where lies a marble tomb
   And two old pines their branches spread—
   “Vladimir Lenski lies beneath,
   Who early died a gallant death,”
   Thereon the passing traveller read:
   “The date, his fleeting years how long—
   Repose in peace, thou child of song.”

   VII

   Time was, the breath of early dawn
   Would agitate a mystic wreath
   Hung on a pine branch earthward drawn
   Above the humble urn of death.
   Time was, two maidens from their home
   At eventide would hither come,
   And, by the light the moonbeams gave,
   Lament, embrace upon that grave.
   But now—none heeds the monument
   Of woe: effaced the pathway now:
   There is no wreath upon the bough:
   Alone beside it, gray and bent,
   As formerly the shepherd sits
   And his poor basten sandal knits.

   VIII

   My poor Vladimir, bitter tears
   Thee but a little space bewept,
   Faithless, alas! thy maid appears,
   Nor true unto her sorrow kept.
   Another could her heart engage,
   Another could her woe assuage
   By flattery and lover’s art—
   A lancer captivates her heart!
   A lancer her soul dotes upon:
   Before the altar, lo! the pair,
   Mark ye with what a modest air
   She bows her head beneath the crown;(68)
   Behold her downcast eyes which glow,
   Her lips where light smiles come and go!

   [Note 68: The crown used in celebrating marriages in Russia
   according to the forms of the Eastern Church. See Note 28.]

   IX

   My poor Vladimir! In the tomb,
   Passed into dull eternity,
   Was the sad poet filled with gloom,
   Hearing the fatal perfidy?
   Or, beyond Lethe lulled to rest,
   Hath the bard, by indifference blest,
   Callous to all on earth become—
   Is the world to him sealed and dumb?
   The same unmoved oblivion
   On us beyond the grave attends,
   The voice of lovers, foes and friends,
   Dies suddenly: of heirs alone
   Remains on earth the unseemly rage,
   Whilst struggling for the heritage.

   X

   Soon Olga’s accents shrill resound
   No longer through her former home;
   The lancer, to his calling bound,
   Back to his regiment must roam.
   The aged mother, bathed in tears,
   Distracted by her grief appears
   When the hour came to bid good-bye—
   But my Tattiana’s eyes were dry.
   Only her countenance assumed
   A deadly pallor, air distressed;
   When all around the entrance pressed,
   To say farewell, and fussed and fumed
   Around the carriage of the pair—
   Tattiana gently led them there.

   XI

   And long her eyes as through a haze
   After the wedded couple strain;
   Alas! the friend of childish days
   Away, Tattiana, hath been ta’en.
   Thy dove, thy darling little pet
   On whom a sister’s heart was set
   Afar is borne by cruel fate,
   For evermore is separate.
   She wanders aimless as a sprite,
   Into the tangled garden goes
   But nowhere can she find repose,
   Nor even tears afford respite,
   Of consolation all bereft—
   Well nigh her heart in twain was cleft.

   XII

   In cruel solitude each day
   With flame more ardent passion burns,
   And to Onéguine far away
   Her heart importunately turns.
   She never more his face may view,
   For was it not her duty to
   Detest him for a brother slain?
   The poet fell; already men
   No more remembered him; unto
   Another his betrothed was given;
   The memory of the bard was driven
   Like smoke athwart the heaven blue;
   Two hearts perchance were desolate
   And mourned him still. Why mourn his fate?

   XIII

   ’Twas eve. ’Twas dusk. The river speeds
   In tranquil flow. The beetle hums.
   Already dance to song proceeds;
   The fisher’s fire afar illumes
   The river’s bank. Tattiana lone
   Beneath the silver of the moon
   Long time in meditation deep
   Her path across the plain doth keep—
   Proceeds, until she from a hill
   Sees where a noble mansion stood,
   A village and beneath, a wood,
   A garden by a shining rill.
   She gazed thereon, and instant beat
   Her heart more loudly and more fleet.

   XIV

   She hesitates, in doubt is thrown—
   “Shall I proceed, or homeward flee?
   He is not there: I am not known:
   The house and garden I would see.”
   Tattiana from the hill descends
   With bated breath, around she bends
   A countenance perplexed and scared.
   She enters a deserted yard—
   Yelping, a pack of dogs rush out,
   But at her shriek ran forth with noise
   The household troop of little boys,
   Who with a scuffle and a shout
   The curs away to kennel chase,
   The damsel under escort place.

   XV

   “Can I inspect the mansion, please?”
   Tattiana asks, and hurriedly
   Unto Anicia for the keys
   The family of children hie.
   Anicia soon appears, the door
   Opens unto her visitor.
   Into the lonely house she went,
   Wherein a space Onéguine spent.
   She gazed—a cue, forgotten long,
   Doth on the billiard table rest,
   Upon the tumbled sofa placed,
   A riding whip. She strolls along.
   The beldam saith: “The hearth, by it
   The master always used to sit.

   XVI

   “Departed Lenski here to dine
   In winter time would often come.
   Please follow this way, lady mine,
   This is my master’s sitting-room.
   ’Tis here he slept, his coffee took,
   Into accounts would sometimes look,
   A book at early morn perused.
   The room my former master used.
   On Sundays by yon window he,
   Spectacles upon nose, all day
   Was wont with me at cards to play.
   God save his soul eternally
   And grant his weary bones their rest
   Deep in our mother Earth’s chill breast!”

   XVII

   Tattiana’s eyes with tender gleam
   On everything around her gaze,
   Of priceless value all things seem
   And in her languid bosom raise
   A pleasure though with sorrow knit:
   The table with its lamp unlit,
   The pile of books, with carpet spread
   Beneath the window-sill his bed,
   The landscape which the moonbeams fret,
   The twilight pale which softens all,
   Lord Byron’s portrait on the wall
   And the cast-iron statuette
   With folded arms and eyes bent low,
   Cocked hat and melancholy brow.(69)

   [Note 69: The Russians not unfrequently adorn their apartments
   with effigies of the great Napoleon.]

   XVIII

   Long in this fashionable cell
   Tattiana as enchanted stood;
   But it grew late; cold blew the gale;
   Dark was the valley and the wood
   Slept o’er the river misty grown.
   Behind the mountain sank the moon.
   Long, long the hour had past when home
   Our youthful wanderer should roam.
   She hid the trouble of her breast,
   Heaved an involuntary sigh
   And turned to leave immediately,
   But first permission did request
   Thither in future to proceed
   That certain volumes she might read.

   XIX

   Adieu she to the matron said
   At the front gates, but in brief space
   At early morn returns the maid
   To the abandoned dwelling-place.
   When in the study’s calm retreat,
   Wrapt in oblivion complete,
   She found herself alone at last,
   Longtime her tears flowed thick and fast;
   But presently she tried to read;
   At first for books was disinclined,
   But soon their choice seemed to her mind
   Remarkable. She then indeed
   Devoured them with an eager zest.
   A new world was made manifest!

   XX

   Although we know that Eugene had
   Long ceased to be a reading man,
   Still certain authors, I may add,
   He had excepted from the ban:
   The bard of Juan and the Giaour,
   With it may be a couple more;
   Romances three, in which ye scan
   Portrayed contemporary man
   As the reflection of his age,
   His immorality of mind
   To arid selfishness resigned,
   A visionary personage
   With his exasperated sense,
   His energy and impotence.

   XXI

   And numerous pages had preserved
   The sharp incisions of his nail,
   And these the attentive maid observed
   With eye precise and without fail.
   Tattiana saw with trepidation
   By what idea or observation
   Onéguine was the most impressed,
   In what he merely acquiesced.
   Upon those margins she perceived
   Onéguine’s pencillings. His mind
   Made revelations undesigned,
   Of what he thought and what believed,
   A dagger, asterisk, or note
   Interrogation to denote.

   XXII

   And my Tattiana now began
   To understand by slow degrees
   More clearly, God be praised, the man,
   Whom autocratic fate’s decrees
   Had bid her sigh for without hope—
   A dangerous, gloomy misanthrope,
   Being from hell or heaven sent,
   Angel or fiend malevolent.
   Which is he? or an imitation,
   A bogy conjured up in joke,
   A Russian in Childe Harold’s cloak,
   Of foreign whims the impersonation—
   Handbook of fashionable phrase
   Or parody of modern ways?

   XXIII

   Hath she found out the riddle yet?
   Hath she a fitting phrase selected?
   But time flies and she doth forget
   They long at home have her expected—
   Whither two neighbouring dames have walked
   And a long time about her talked.
   “What can be done? She is no child!”
   Cried the old dame with anguish filled:
   “Olinka is her junior, see.
   ’Tis time to marry her, ’tis true,
   But tell me what am I to do?
   To all she answers cruelly—
   I will not wed, and ever weeps
   And lonely through the forest creeps.”

   XXIV

   “Is she in love?” quoth one. “With whom?
   Bouyànoff courted. She refused.
   Pétòushkoff met the selfsame doom.
   The hussar Pykhtin was accused.
   How the young imp on Tania doted!
   To captivate her how devoted!
   I mused: perhaps the matter’s squared—
   O yes! my hopes soon disappeared.”
   “But, mátushka, to Moscow you(70)
   Should go, the market for a maid,
   With many a vacancy, ’tis said.”—
   “Alas! my friend, no revenue!”
   “Enough to see one winter’s end;
   If not, the money I will lend.”

   [Note 70: “Mátushka,” or “little mother,” a term of endearment
   in constant use amongst Russian females.]

   XXV

   The venerable dame opined
   The counsel good and full of reason,
   Her money counted, and designed
   To visit Moscow in the season.
   Tattiana learns the intelligence—
   Of her provincial innocence
   The unaffected traits she now
   Unto a carping world must show—
   Her toilette’s antiquated style,
   Her antiquated mode of speech,
   For Moscow fops and Circes each
   To mark with a contemptuous smile.
   Horror! had she not better stay
   Deep in the greenwood far away?

   XXVI

   Arising with the morning’s light,
   Unto the fields she makes her way,
   And with emotional delight
   Surveying them, she thus doth say:
   “Ye peaceful valleys all, good-bye!
   Ye well-known mountain summits high,
   Ye groves whose depths I know so well,
   Thou beauteous sky above, farewell!
   Delicious nature, thee I fly,
   The calm existence which I prize
   I yield for splendid vanities,
   Thou too farewell, my liberty!
   Whither and wherefore do I speed
   And what will Destiny concede?”

   XXVII

   Farther Tattiana’s walks extend—
   ’Tis now the hillock now the rill
   Their natural attractions lend
   To stay the maid against her will.
   She the acquaintances she loves,
   Her spacious fields and shady groves,
   Another visit hastes to pay.
   But Summer swiftly fades away
   And golden Autumn draweth nigh,
   And pallid nature trembling grieves,
   A victim decked with golden leaves;
   Dark clouds before the north wind fly;
   It blew: it howled: till winter e’en
   Came forth in all her magic sheen.

   XXVIII

   The snow descends and buries all,
   Hangs heavy on the oaken boughs,
   A white and undulating pall
   O’er hillock and o’er meadow throws.
   The channel of the river stilled
   As if with eider-down is filled.
   The hoar-frost glitters: all rejoice
   In mother Winter’s strange caprice.
   But Tania’s heart is not at ease,
   Winter’s approach she doth not hail
   Nor the frost particles inhale
   Nor the first snow of winter seize
   Her shoulders, breast and face to lave—
   Alarm the winter journey gave.

   XXIX

   The date was fixed though oft postponed,
   But ultimately doth approach.
   Examined, mended, newly found
   Was the old and forgotten coach;
   Kibitkas three, the accustomed train,(71)
   The household property contain:
   Saucepans and mattresses and chairs,
   Portmanteaus and preserves in jars,
   Feather-beds, also poultry-coops,
   Basins and jugs—well! everything
   To happiness contributing.
   Behold! beside their dwelling groups
   Of serfs the farewell wail have given.
   Nags eighteen to the door are driven.

   [Note 71: In former times, and to some extent the practice still
   continues to the present day, Russian families were wont to
   travel with every necessary of life, and, in the case of the
   wealthy, all its luxuries following in their train. As the
   poet complains in a subsequent stanza there were no inns;
   and if the simple Làrinas required such ample store of creature
   comforts the impediments accompanying a great noble on his
   journeys may be easily conceived.]

   XXX

   These to the coach of state are bound,
   Breakfast the busy cooks prepare,
   Baggage is heaped up in a mound,
   Old women at the coachmen swear.
   A bearded postillion astride
   A lean and shaggy nag doth ride,
   Unto the gates the servants fly
   To bid the gentlefolk good-bye.
   These take their seats; the coach of state
   Leisurely through the gateway glides.
   “Adieu! thou home where peace abides,
   Where turmoil cannot penetrate,
   Shall I behold thee once again?”—
   Tattiana tears cannot restrain.

   XXXI

   The limits of enlightenment
   When to enlarge we shall succeed,
   In course of time (the whole extent
   Will not five centuries exceed
   By computation) it is like
   Our roads transformed the eye will strike;
   Highways all Russia will unite
   And form a network left and right;
   On iron bridges we shall gaze
   Which o’er the waters boldly leap,
   Mountains we’ll level and through deep
   Streams excavate subaqueous ways,
   And Christian folk will, I expect,
   An inn at every stage erect.

   XXXII

   But now, what wretched roads one sees,
   Our bridges long neglected rot,
   And at the stages bugs and fleas
   One moment’s slumber suffer not.
   Inns there are none. Pretentious but
   Meagre, within a draughty hut,
   A bill of fare hangs full in sight
   And irritates the appetite.
   Meantime a Cyclops of those parts
   Before a fire which feebly glows
   Mends with the Russian hammer’s blows
   The flimsy wares of Western marts,
   With blessings on the ditches and
   The ruts of his own fatherland.

   XXXIII

   Yet on a frosty winter day
   The journey in a sledge doth please,
   No senseless fashionable lay
   Glides with a more luxurious ease;
   For our Automedons are fire
   And our swift troikas never tire;
   The verst posts catch the vacant eye
   And like a palisade flit by.(72)
   The Làrinas unwisely went,
   From apprehension of the cost,
   By their own horses, not the post—
   So Tania to her heart’s content
   Could taste the pleasures of the road.
   Seven days and nights the travellers plod.

   [Note 72: This somewhat musty joke has appeared in more than one
   national costume. Most Englishmen, if we were to replace
   verst-posts with milestones and substitute a graveyard for
   a palisade, would instantly recognize its Yankee extraction.
   In Russia however its origin is as ancient at least as the
   reign of Catherine the Second. The witticism ran thus: A
   courier sent by Prince Potemkin to the Empress drove so
   fast that his sword, projecting from the vehicle, rattled
   against the verst-posts as if against a palisade!]

   XXXIV

   But they draw near. Before them, lo!
   White Moscow raises her old spires,
   Whose countless golden crosses glow
   As with innumerable fires.(73)
   Ah! brethren, what was my delight
   When I yon semicircle bright
   Of churches, gardens, belfries high
   Descried before me suddenly!
   Moscow, how oft in evil days,
   Condemned to exile dire by fate,
   On thee I used to meditate!
   Moscow! How much is in the phrase
   For every loyal Russian breast!
   How much is in that word expressed!

   [Note 73: The aspect of Moscow, especially as seen from the Sparrow
   Hills, a low range bordering the river Moskva at a short distance
   from the city, is unique and splendid. It possesses several domes
   completely plated with gold and some twelve hundred spires most of
   which are surmounted by a golden cross. At the time of sunset they
   seem literally tipped with flame. It was from this memorable spot
   that Napoleon and the Grand Army first obtained a glimpse at the
   city of the Tsars. There are three hundred and seventy churches in
   Moscow. The Kremlin itself is however by far the most interesting
   object to the stranger.]

   XXXV

   Lo! compassed by his grove of oaks,
   Petrovski Palace! Gloomily
   His recent glory he invokes.
   Here, drunk with his late victory,
   Napoleon tarried till it please
   Moscow approach on bended knees,
   Time-honoured Kremlin’s keys present.
   Not so! My Moscow never went
   To seek him out with bended head.
   No gift she bears, no feast proclaims,
   But lights incendiary flames
   For the impatient chief instead.
   From hence engrossed in thought profound
   He on the conflagration frowned.(74)

   [Note 74: Napoleon on his arrival in Moscow on the 14th September
   took up his quarters in the Kremlin, but on the 16th had to
   remove to the Petrovski Palace or Castle on account of the
   conflagration which broke out in all quarters of the city. He
   however returned to the Kremlin on the 19th September. The Palace
   itself is placed in the midst of extensive grounds just outside
   the city, on the road to Tver, i.e. to the northwest. It is
   perhaps worthy of remark, as one amongst numerous circumstances
   proving how extensively the poet interwove his own life-experiences
   with the plot of this poem, that it was by this road that he
   himself must have been in the habit of approaching Moscow from his
   favourite country residence of Mikhailovskoe, in the province of
   Pskoff.]

   XXXVI

   Adieu, thou witness of our glory,
   Petrovski Palace; come, astir!
   Drive on! the city barriers hoary
   Appear; along the road of Tver
   The coach is borne o’er ruts and holes,
   Past women, sentry-boxes, rolls,
   Past palaces and nunneries,
   Lamp-posts, shops, sledges, families,
   Bokharians, peasants, beds of greens,
   Boulevards, belfries, milliners,
   Huts, chemists, Cossacks, shopkeepers
   And fashionable magazines,
   Balconies, lion’s heads on doors,
   Jackdaws on every spire—in scores.(75)

   [Note 75: The first line refers to the prevailing shape of the
   cast-iron handles which adorn the porte cochères. The
   Russians are fond of tame birds—jackdaws, pigeons, starlings,
   etc., abound in Moscow and elsewhere.]

   XXXVII

   The weary way still incomplete,
   An hour passed by—another—till,
   Near Khariton’s in a side street
   The coach before a house stood still.
   At an old aunt’s they had arrived
   Who had for four long years survived
   An invalid from lung complaint.
   A Kalmuck gray, in caftan rent
   And spectacles, his knitting staid
   And the saloon threw open wide;
   The princess from the sofa cried
   And the newcomers welcome bade.
   The two old ladies then embraced
   And exclamations interlaced.

   XXXVIII

   “Princesse, mon ange!”—“Pachette!”—
   “Aline!”
   “Who would have thought it? As of yore!
   Is it for long?”—“Ma chère cousine!”
   “Sit down. How funny, to be sure!
   ’Tis a scene of romance, I vow!”
   “Tania, my eldest child, you know”—
   “Ah! come, Tattiana, come to me!
   Is it a dream, and can it be?
   Cousin, rememb’rest Grandison?”
   “What! Grandison?”—“Yes, certainly!”
   “Oh! I remember, where is he?”—
   “Here, he resides with Simeon.
   He called upon me Christmas Eve—
   His son is married, just conceive!”

   XXXIX

   “And he—but of him presently—
   To-morrow Tania we will show,
   What say you? to the family—
   Alas! abroad I cannot go.
   See, I can hardly crawl about—
   But you must both be quite tired out!
   Let us go seek a little rest—
   Ah! I’m so weak—my throbbing breast!
   Oppressive now is happiness,
   Not only sorrow—Ah! my dear,
   Now I am fit for nothing here.
   In old age life is weariness!”
   Then weeping she sank back distressed
   And fits of coughing racked her chest.

   XL

   By the sick lady’s gaiety
   And kindness Tania was impressed,
   But, her own room in memory,
   The strange apartment her oppressed:
   Repose her silken curtains fled,
   She could not sleep in her new bed.
   The early tinkling of the bells
   Which of approaching labour tells
   Aroused Tattiana from her bed.
   The maiden at her casement sits
   As daylight glimmers, darkness flits,
   But ah! discerns nor wood nor mead—
   Beneath her lay a strange courtyard,
   A stable, kitchen, fence appeared.

   XLI

   To consanguineous dinners they
   Conduct Tattiana constantly,
   That grandmothers and grandsires may
   Contemplate her sad reverie.
   We Russians, friends from distant parts
   Ever receive with kindly hearts
   And exclamations and good cheer.
   “How Tania grows! Doth it appear
   Long since I held thee at the font—
   Since in these arms I thee did bear—
   And since I pulled thee by the ear—
   And I to give thee cakes was wont?”—
   Then the old dames in chorus sing,
   “Oh! how our years are vanishing!”

   XLII

   But nothing changed in them is seen,
   All in the good old style appears,
   Our dear old aunt, Princess Helène,
   Her cap of tulle still ever wears:
   Luceria Lvovna paint applies,
   Amy Petrovna  utters lies,
   Ivan Petròvitch still a gaby,
   Simeon Petròvitch just as shabby;
   Pélagie Nikolavna has
   Her friend Monsieur Finemouche the same,
   Her wolf-dog and her husband tame;
   Still of his club he member was—
   As deaf and silly doth remain,
   Still eats and drinks enough for twain.

   XLIII

   Their daughters kiss Tattiana fair.
   In the beginning, cold and mute,
   Moscow’s young Graces at her stare,
   Examine her from head to foot.
   They deem her somewhat finical,
   Outlandish and provincial,
   A trifle pale, a trifle lean,
   But plainer girls they oft had seen.
   Obedient then to Nature’s law,
   With her they did associate,
   Squeeze tiny hands and osculate;
   Her tresses curled in fashion saw,
   And oft in whispers would impart
   A maiden’s secrets—of the heart.

   XLIV

   Triumphs—their own or those of friends—
   Hopes, frolics, dreams and sentiment
   Their harmless conversation blends
   With scandal’s trivial ornament.
   Then to reward such confidence
   Her amorous experience
   With mute appeal to ask they seem—
   But Tania just as in a dream
   Without participation hears,
   Their voices nought to her impart
   And the lone secret of her heart,
   Her sacred hoard of joy and tears,
   She buries deep within her breast
   Nor aught confides unto the rest.

   XLV

   Tattiana would have gladly heard
   The converse of the world polite,
   But in the drawing-room all appeared
   To find in gossip such delight,
   Speech was so tame and colourless
   Their slander e’en was weariness;
   In their sterility of prattle,
   Questions and news and tittle-tattle,
   No sense was ever manifest
   Though by an error and unsought—
   The languid mind could smile at nought,
   Heart would not throb albeit in jest—
   Even amusing fools we miss
   In thee, thou world of empty bliss.

   XLVI

   In groups, official striplings glance
   Conceitedly on Tania fair,
   And views amongst themselves advance
   Unfavourable unto her.
   But one buffoon unhappy deemed
   Her the ideal which he dreamed,
   And leaning ’gainst the portal closed
   To her an elegy composed.
   Also one Viázemski, remarking
   Tattiana by a poor aunt’s side,
   Successfully to please her tried,
   And an old gent the poet marking
   By Tania, smoothing his peruke,
   To ask her name the trouble took.(76)

   [Note 76: One of the obscure satirical allusions contained in this
   poem. Doubtless the joke was perfectly intelligible to the
   habitués of contemporary St. Petersburg society. Viazemski of
   course is the poet and prince, Pushkin’s friend.]

   XLVII

   But where Melpomene doth rave
   With lengthened howl and accent loud,
   And her bespangled robe doth wave
   Before a cold indifferent crowd,
   And where Thalia softly dreams
   And heedless of approval seems,
   Terpsichore alone among
   Her sisterhood delights the young
   (So ’twas with us in former years,
   In your young days and also mine),
   Never upon my heroine
   The jealous dame her lorgnette veers,
   The connoisseur his glances throws
   From boxes or from stalls in rows.

   XLVIII

   To the assembly her they bear.
   There the confusion, pressure, heat,
   The crash of music, candles’ glare
   And rapid whirl of many feet,
   The ladies’ dresses airy, light,
   The motley moving mass and bright,
   Young ladies in a vasty curve,
   To strike imagination serve.
   ’Tis there that arrant fops display
   Their insolence and waistcoats white
   And glasses unemployed all night;
   Thither hussars on leave will stray
   To clank the spur, delight the fair—
   And vanish like a bird in air.

   XLIX

   Full many a lovely star hath night
   And Moscow many a beauty fair:
   Yet clearer shines than every light
   The moon in the blue atmosphere.
   And she to whom my lyre would fain,
   Yet dares not, dedicate its strain,
   Shines in the female firmament
   Like a full moon magnificent.
   Lo! with what pride celestial
   Her feet the earth beneath her press!
   Her heart how full of gentleness,
   Her glance how wild yet genial!
   Enough, enough, conclude thy lay—
   For folly’s dues thou hadst to pay.

   L

   Noise, laughter, bowing, hurrying mixt,
   Gallop, mazurka, waltzing—see!
   A pillar by, two aunts betwixt,
   Tania, observed by nobody,
   Looks upon all with absent gaze
   And hates the world’s discordant ways.
   ’Tis noisome to her there: in thought
   Again her rural life she sought,
   The hamlet, the poor villagers,
   The little solitary nook
   Where shining runs the tiny brook,
   Her garden, and those books of hers,
   And the lime alley’s twilight dim
   Where the first time she met with him.

   LI

   Thus widely meditation erred,
   Forgot the world, the noisy ball,
   Whilst from her countenance ne’er stirred
   The eyes of a grave general.
   Both aunts looked knowing as a judge,
   Each gave Tattiana’s arm a nudge
   And in a whisper did repeat:
   “Look quickly to your left, my sweet!”
   “The left? Why, what on earth is there?”—
   “No matter, look immediately.
   There, in that knot of company,
   Two dressed in uniform appear—
   Ah! he has gone the other way”—
   “Who? Is it that stout general, pray?”—

   LII

   Let us congratulations pay
   To our Tattiana conquering,
   And for a time our course delay,
   That I forget not whom I sing.
   Let me explain that in my song
   “I celebrate a comrade young
   And the extent of his caprice;
   O epic Muse, my powers increase
   And grant success to labour long;
   Having a trusty staff bestowed,
   Grant that I err not on the road.”
   Enough! my pack is now unslung—
   To classicism I’ve homage paid,
   Though late, have a beginning made.(77)

   [Note 77: Many will consider this mode of bringing the canto
   to a conclusion of more than doubtful taste. The poet evidently
   aims a stroke at the pedantic and narrow-minded criticism to
   which original genius, emancipated from the strait-waistcoat of
   conventionality, is not unfrequently subjected.]

   End of Canto The Seventh