Евгений Онегин / Eugene Onegin. Александр Пушкин

mphasis>Tiré d’une lettre particulière.

      Canto the First

      ‘He rushes at life and exhausts the passions.’

Prince Viazemski

      I

      “My uncle’s goodness is extreme,

      If seriously he hath disease;

      He hath acquired the world’s esteem

      And nothing more important sees;

      A paragon of virtue he!

      But what a nuisance it will be,

      Chained to his bedside night and day

      Without a chance to slip away.

      Ye need dissimulation base

      A dying man with art to soothe,

      Beneath his head the pillow smooth,

      And physic bring with mournful face,

      To sigh and meditate alone:

      When will the devil take his own!”

      II

      Thus mused a madcap young, who drove

      Through clouds of dust at postal pace,

      By the decree of Mighty Jove,

      Inheritor of all his race.

      Friends of Liudmila and Ruslan[1],

      Let me present ye to the man,

      Who without more prevarication

      The hero is of my narration!

      Onegin, O my gentle readers,

      Was born beside the Neva, where

      It may be ye were born, or there

      Have shone as one of fashion’s leaders.

      I also wandered there of old,

      But cannot stand the northern cold[2].

      III

      Having performed his service truly,

      Deep into debt his father ran;

      Three balls a year he gave ye duly,

      At last became a ruined man.

      But Eugene was by fate preserved,

      For first “madame” his wants observed,

      And then “monsieur” supplied her place[3];

      The boy was wild but full of grace.

      “Monsieur l’Abbé,” a starving Gaul,

      Fearing his pupil to annoy,

      Instructed jestingly the boy,

      Morality taught scarce at all;

      Gently for pranks he would reprove

      And in the Summer Garden rove.

      IV

      When youth’s rebellious hour drew near

      And my Eugene the path must trace —

      The path of hope and tender fear —

      Monsieur clean out of doors they chase.

      Lo! my Onegin free as air,

      Cropped in the latest style his hair,

      Dressed like a London dandy he

      The giddy world at last shall see.

      He wrote and spoke, so all allowed,

      In the French language perfectly,

      Danced the mazurka gracefully,

      Without the least constraint he bowed.

      What more’s required? The world replies,

      He is a charming youth and wise.

      V

      We all of us of education

      A something somehow have obtained,

      Thus, praised be God! a reputation

      With us is easily attained.

      Onegin was – so many deemed

      [Unerring critics self-esteemed],

      Pedantic although scholar like,

      In truth he had the happy trick

      Without constraint in conversation

      Of touching lightly every theme.

      Silent, oracular ye’d see him

      Amid a serious disputation,

      Then suddenly discharge a joke

      The ladies’ laughter to provoke.

      VI

      Latin is just now not in vogue,

      But if the truth I must relate,

      Onegin knew enough, the rogue

      A mild quotation to translate,

      A little Juvenal to spout,

      With “vale” finish off a note;

      Two verses he could recollect

      Of the Aeneid, but incorrect.

      In history he took no pleasure,

      The dusty chronicles of earth

      For him were but of little worth,

      Yet still of anecdotes a treasure

      Within his memory there lay,

      From Romulus unto our day.

      VII

      For empty sound the rascal swore he

      Existence would not make a curse,

      Knew not an iamb from a choree,

      Although we read him heaps of verse.

      Homer, Theocritus, he jeered,

      But Adam Smith to read appeared,

      And at economy was great;

      That is, he could elucidate

      How empires store of wealth unfold,

      How flourish, why and wherefore less

      If the raw product they possess

      The medium is required of gold.

      The father scarcely understands

      His son and mortgages his lands.

      VIII

      But upon all that Eugene knew

      I have no leisure here to dwell,

      But say he was a genius who

      In one thing really did excel.

      It occupied him from a boy,

      A labour, torment, yet a joy,

      It whiled his idle hours away

      And wholly occupied his day —

      The amatory science warm,

      Which Ovid once immortalized,

      For which the poet agonized

      Laid down his life of sun and storm

      On the steppes of Moldavia lone,

      Far from his Italy – his own.

      IX

      How soon he learnt deception’s art,

      Hope to conceal and jealousy,

      False confidence

1

Ruslan and Liudmila, the title of Pushkin’s first important work, written 1817–1820. It is a tale relating the adventures of the knight-errant Ruslan in search of his fair lady Liudmila, who has been carried off by a kaldoon, or magician.

2

Written in Bessarabia.

3

In Russia foreign tutors and governesses are commonly styled “monsieur” or “madame”.