Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] Part 17

The colonel sent it. Oh! delight!

So there will be a dance to-night.

Girls in antic.i.p.ation skip!

But dinner-time comes. Two and two They hand in hand to table go.

The maids beside Tattiana keep-- Men opposite. The cross they sign And chattering loud sit down to dine.

XXIX

Ceased for a s.p.a.ce all chattering.

Jaws are at work. On every side Plates, knives and forks are clattering And ringing wine-gla.s.ses are plied.

But by degrees the crowd begin To raise a clamour and a din: They laugh, they argue, and they bawl, They shout and no one lists at all.

The doors swing open: Lenski makes His entrance with Oneguine. "Ah!

At last the author!" cries Mamma.

The guests make room; aside each takes His chair, plate, knife and fork in haste; The friends are called and quickly placed.

x.x.x

Right opposite Tattiana placed, She, than the morning moon more pale, More timid than a doe long chased, Lifts not her eyes which swimming fail.

Anew the flames of pa.s.sion start Within her; she is sick at heart; The two friends' compliments she hears Not, and a flood of bitter tears With effort she restrains. Well nigh The poor girl fell into a faint, But strength of mind and self-restraint Prevailed at last. She in reply Said something in an undertone And at the table sat her down.

x.x.xI

To tragedy, the fainting fit, And female tears hysterical, Oneguine could not now submit, For long he had endured them all.

Our misanthrope was full of ire, At a great feast against desire, And marking Tania's agitation, Cast down his eyes in trepidation And sulked in silent indignation; Swearing how Lenski he would rile, Avenge himself in proper style.

Triumphant by antic.i.p.ation, Caricatures he now designed Of all the guests within his mind.

x.x.xII

Certainly not Eugene alone Tattiana's trouble might have spied, But that the eyes of every one By a rich pie were occupied-- Unhappily too salt by far; And that a bottle sealed with tar Appeared, Don's effervescing boast,(59) Between the blanc-mange and the roast; Behind, of gla.s.ses an array, Tall, slender, like thy form designed, Zizi, thou mirror of my mind, Fair object of my guileless lay, Seductive cup of love, whose flow Made me so tipsy long ago!

[Note 59: The _Donskoe Champanskoe_ is a species of sparkling wine manufactured in the vicinity of the river Don.]

x.x.xIII

From the moist cork the bottle freed With loud explosion, the bright wine Hissed forth. With serious air indeed, Long tortured by his lay divine, Triquet arose, and for the bard The company deep silence guard.

Tania well nigh expired when he Turned to her and discordantly Intoned it, ma.n.u.script in hand.

Voices and hands applaud, and she Must bow in common courtesy; The poet, modest though so grand, Drank to her health in the first place, Then handed her the song with grace.

x.x.xIV

Congratulations, toasts resound, Tattiana thanks to all returned, But, when Oneguine's turn came round, The maiden's weary eye which yearned, Her agitation and distress Aroused in him some tenderness.

He bowed to her nor silence broke, But somehow there shone in his look The witching light of sympathy; I know not if his heart felt pain Or if he meant to flirt again, From habit or maliciously, But kindness from his eye had beamed And to revive Tattiana seemed.

x.x.xV

The chairs are thrust back with a roar, The crowd unto the drawing-room speeds, As bees who leave their dainty store And seek in buzzing swarms the meads.

Contented and with victuals stored, Neighbour by neighbour sat and snored, Matrons unto the fireplace go, Maids in the corner whisper low; Behold! green tables are brought forth, And testy gamesters do engage In boston and the game of age, Ombre, and whist all others worth: A strong resemblance these possess-- All sons of mental weariness.

x.x.xVI

Eight rubbers were already played, Eight times the heroes of the fight Change of position had essayed, When tea was brought. 'Tis my delight Time to denote by dinner, tea, And supper. In the country we Can count the time without much fuss-- The stomach doth admonish us.

And, by the way, I here a.s.sert That for that matter in my verse As many dinners I rehea.r.s.e, As oft to meat and drink advert, As thou, great Homer, didst of yore, Whom thirty centuries adore.

x.x.xVII

I will with thy divinity Contend with knife and fork and platter, But grant with magnanimity I'm beaten in another matter; Thy heroes, sanguinary wights, Also thy rough-and-tumble fights, Thy Venus and thy Jupiter, More advantageously appear Than cold Oneguine's oddities, The aspect of a landscape drear.

Or e'en Istomina, my dear, And fashion's gay frivolities; But my Tattiana, on my soul, Is sweeter than thy Helen foul.

x.x.xVIII

No one the contrary will urge, Though for his Helen Menelaus Again a century should scourge Us, and like Trojan warriors slay us; Though around honoured Priam's throne Troy's sages should in concert own Once more, when she appeared in sight, Paris and Menelaus right.

But as to fighting--'twill appear!

For patience, reader, I must plead!

A little farther please to read And be not in advance severe.

There'll be a fight. I do not lie.

My word of honour given have I.

x.x.xIX

The tea, as I remarked, appeared, But scarce had maids their saucers ta'en When in the grand saloon was heard Of ba.s.soons and of flutes the strain.

His soul by crash of music fired, His tea with rum no more desired, The Paris of those country parts To Olga Petoushkova darts: To Tania Lenski; Kharlikova, A marriageable maid matured, The poet from Tamboff secured, Bouyanoff whisked off Poustiakova.

All to the grand saloon are gone-- The ball in all its splendour shone.

XL

I tried when I began this tale, (See the first canto if ye will), A ball in Peter's capital, To sketch ye in Albano's style.(60) But by fantastic dreams distraught, My memory wandered wide and sought The feet of my dear lady friends.

O feet, where'er your path extends I long enough deceived have erred.

The perfidies I recollect Should make me much more circ.u.mspect, Reform me both in deed and word, And this fifth canto ought to be From such digressions wholly free.

[Note 60: Francesco Albano, a celebrated painter, styled the "Anacreon of Painting," was born at Bologna 1578, and died in the year 1666.]

XLI

The whirlwind of the waltz sweeps by, Undeviating and insane As giddy youth's hilarity-- Pair after pair the race sustain.

The moment for revenge, meanwhile, Espying, Eugene with a smile Approaches Olga and the pair Amid the company career.

Soon the maid on a chair he seats, Begins to talk of this and that, But when two minutes she had sat, Again the giddy waltz repeats.

All are amazed; but Lenski he Scarce credits what his eyes can see.

XLII

Hark! the mazurka. In times past, When the mazurka used to peal, All rattled in the ball-room vast, The parquet cracked beneath the heel, And jolting jarred the window-frames.

'Tis not so now. Like gentle dames We glide along a floor of wax.

However, the mazurka lacks Nought of its charms original In country towns, where still it keeps Its stamping, capers and high leaps.

Fashion is there immutable, Who tyrannizes us with ease, Of modern Russians the disease.

XLIII

Bouyanoff, wrathful cousin mine, Unto the hero of this lay Olga and Tania led. Malign, Oneguine Olga bore away.

Gliding in negligent career, He bending whispered in her ear Some madrigal not worth a rush, And pressed her hand--the crimson blush Upon her cheek by adulation Grew brighter still. But Lenski hath Seen all, beside himself with wrath, And hot with jealous indignation, Till the mazurka's close he stays, Her hand for the cotillon prays.