LITMIR.BIZ

      His malady, whose cause I ween

      It now to investigate is time,

      Was nothing but the British spleen

      Transported to our Russian clime.

      It gradually possessed his mind;

      Though, God be praised! he ne’er designed

      To slay himself with blade or ball,

      Indifferent he became to all,

      And like Childe Harold gloomily

      He to the festival repairs,

      Nor boston nor the world’s affairs

      Nor tender glance nor amorous sigh

      Impressed him in the least degree, —

      Callous to all he seemed to be.

      Ye miracles of courtly grace,

      He left you first, and I must own

      The manners of the highest class

      Have latterly vexatious grown;

      And though perchance a lady may

      Discourse of Bentham or of Say,

      Yet as a rule their talk I call

      Harmless, but quite nonsensical.

      Then they’re so innocent of vice,

      So full of piety, correct,

      So prudent, and so circumspect

      Stately, devoid of prejudice,

      So inaccessible to men,

      Their looks alone produce the spleen.

      And you, my youthful damsels fair,

      Whom latterly one often meets

      Urging your droshkies swift as air

      Along Saint Petersburg’s paved streets,

      From you too Eugene took to flight,

      Abandoning insane delight,

      And isolated from all men,

      Yawning betook him to a pen.

      He thought to write, but labour long

      Inspired him with disgust and so

      Nought from his pen did ever flow,

      And thus he never fell among

      That vicious set whom I don’t blame —

      Because a member I became.

      Once more to idleness consigned,

      He felt the laudable desire

      From mere vacuity of mind

      The wit of others to acquire.

      A case of books he doth obtain —

      He reads at random, reads in vain.

      This nonsense, that dishonest seems,

      This wicked, that absurd he deems,

      All are constrained and fetters bear,

      Antiquity no pleasure gave,

      The moderns of the ancients rave —

      Books he abandoned like the fair,

      His book-shelf instantly doth drape

      With taffety instead of crape.

      Having abjured the haunts of men,

      Like him renouncing vanity,

      His friendship I acquired just then;

      His character attracted me.

      An innate love of meditation,

      Original imagination,

      And cool sagacious mind he had:

      I was incensed and he was sad.

      Both were of passion satiate

      And both of dull existence tired,

      Extinct the flame which once had fired;

      Both were expectant of the hate

      With which blind Fortune oft betrays

      The very morning of our days.

      He who hath lived and living, thinks,

      Must e’en despise his kind at last;

      He who hath suffered ofttimes shrinks

      From shades of the relentless past.

      No fond illusions live to soothe,

      But memory like a serpent’s tooth

      With late repentance gnaws and stings.

      All this in many cases brings

      A charm with it in conversation.

      Onegin’s speeches I abhorred

      At first, but soon became inured

      To the sarcastic observation,

      To witticisms and taunts half-vicious

      And gloomy epigrams malicious.

      How oft, when on a summer night

      Transparent o’er the Neva beamed

      The firmament in mellow light,

      And when the watery mirror gleamed

      No more with pale Diana’s rays[16],

      We called to mind our youthful days —

      The days of love and of romance!

      Then would we muse as in a trance,

      Impressionable for an hour,

      And breathe the balmy breath of night;

      And like the prisoner’s our delight

      Who for the greenwood quits his tower,

      As on the rapid wings of thought

      The early days of life we sought.

      Absorbed in melancholy mood

      And o’er the granite coping bent,

      Onegin meditative stood,

      E’en as the poet says he leant.[17]

      ‘Tis silent all! Alone the cries

      Of the night sentinels arise

      And from the Millionaya[18] afar

      The sudden rattling of a car.

      Lo! on the sleeping river borne,

      A boat with splashing oar floats by,

      And now we hear delightedly

      A

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