A.S.Pushkin. - Eugene Onegin (tr.Ch.Johnston) - Chapter Seven

Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven

Moscow, loved daughter of Russia,
where can we find your equal?
Dmitriev

``How can one not love mother Moscow?''
Baratynsky

``You criticize Moscow? why make such a fuss
of seeing the world? what on earth could be better?''
``A place where you'll find none of us.''
Griboedov

I

By now the rays of spring are chasing
the snow from all surrounding hills;
it melts, away it rushes, racing
down to the plain in turbid rills.
Smiling through sleep, nature is meeting
the infant year with cheerful greeting:
the sky is brilliant in its blue
and, still transparent to the view,
the downy woods are greener-tinted;
from waxen cell the bees again
levy their tribute on the plain;
the vales dry out, grow brightly printed;
cows low, in the still nights of spring
the nightingale's begun to sing.
{178}

II

O spring! o time for love! how sadly
your advent swamps me in its flood!
and in my soul, o spring, how madly
your presence aches, and in my blood!
How heavy, and how near to sobbing,
the bliss that fills me when your throbbing,
caressing breath has fanned my face
in rural calm's most secret place!
Or from all notion of enjoyment
am I estranged, does all that cheers,
that lives, and glitters, and endears,
now crush with sorrow's dull deployment
a soul that perished long ago,
and finds the world a darkling show?

III

Or, unconsoled by the returning
of leaves that autumn killed for good,
are we recalled to grief still burning
by the new whisper in the wood?
or else does nature, fresh and staring,
set off our troubled mind comparing
its newness with our faded days,
with years no more to meet our gaze?
Perhaps, when thoughts are all a-quiver
in midst of a poetic dream,
some other, older spring will gleam,
and put our heart into a shiver
with visions of enchanted night,
of distant countries, of moonlight...
{179}

IV

It's time: kind-hearted, idle creatures,
dons of Epicurean rule,
calm men with beatific features,
graduates of the Levshin1 school,
Priam-like agricultural sages,
sensitive ladies of all ages --
the spring invites you to the land
now warmth and blossom are on hand,
field-work, and walks with inspiration,
and magic nights. In headlong course
come to the fields, my friends! To horse!
With mounts from home, or postal station,
in loaded carriages, migrate,
leave far behind that city-gate.

V

Forsake, indulgent reader -- driven
in your calèche of foreign cast --
the untiring city, where you've given
to feasts and fun this winter past;
and though my muse may be capricious,
we'll go with her to that delicious
and nameless rivulet, that scene
of whispering woods where my Eugene,
an idle monk in glum seclusion,
has lately wintered, just a space
from young Tatyana's dwelling-place,
dear Tanya, lover of illusion;
though there he's no more to be found,
he's left sad footprints on the ground.
{180}

VI

Amidst the hills, down in that valley,
let's go where, winding all the time
across green meadows, dilly-dally,
a brook flows through a grove of lime.
There sings the nightingale, spring's lover,
the wild rose blooms, and in the covert
the source's chattering voice is heard;
and there a tombstone says its word
where two old pinetrees stand united:
``This is Vladimir Lensky's grave
who early died as die the brave'' --
the headpiece-text is thus indited --
the year, his age, then: ``may your rest,
young poet, be for ever blest!''

VII

There was a pine-branch downward straying
towards the simple urn beneath;
time was when morning's breeze was swaying
over it a mysterious wreath:
time was, in evening hours of leisure,
by moonlight two young girls took pleasure,
closely embraced, in wending here,
to see the grave, and shed a tear.
Today... the sad memorial's lonely,
forgot. Its trodden path is now
choked up. There's no wreath on the bough;
grey-haired and weak, beneath it only
the shepherd, as he used to do,
sings as he plaits a humble shoe.
{181}

(VIII,2 IX,) X

Poor Lensky! Set aside for weeping,
or pining, Olga's hours were brief.
Alas for him! there was no keeping
his sweetheart faithful to her grief.
Another had the skill to ravish
her thoughts away, knew how to lavish
sweet words by which her pain was banned --
a Lancer wooed and won her hand,
a Lancer -- how she deified him!
and at the altar, with a crown,
her head in modesty cast down,
already there she stands beside him;
her eyes are lowered, but ablaze,
and on her lips a light smile plays.

XI

Poor Lensky! where the tomb is bounded
by dull eternity's purlieus,
was the sad poet not confounded
at this betrayal's fateful news?
Or, as by Lethe's bank he slumbered,
perhaps no more sensations lumbered
the lucky bard, and as he dozed
the earth for him grew dumb and closed?...
On such indifference, such forgetting
beyond the grave we all must build --
foes, friends and loves, their voice is stilled.
Only the estate provides a setting
for angry heirs, as one, to fall
into an unbecoming brawl.
{182}

XII

Presently Olga's ringing answer
inside the Larins' house fell mute.
Back to his regiment the Lancer,
slave of the service, was en route.
Weltered in tears, and sorely smarting,
the old dame wept her daughter's parting,
and in her grief seemed fit to die;
but Tanya found she couldn't cry:
only the pallor of heart-breaking
covered her face. When all came out
onto the porch, and fussed about
over the business of leave-taking,
Tatyana went with them, and sped
the carriage of the newly-wed.

XIII

And long, as if through mists that spurted,
Tanya pursued them with her gaze...
So there she stood, forlorn, deserted!
The comrade of so many days,
oh! her young dove, the natural hearer
of secrets, like a friend but dearer,
had been for ever borne off far
and parted from her by their star.
Shade-like, in purposeless obsession
she roams the empty garden-plot...
in everything she sees there's not
a grain of gladness; tears' repression
allows no comfort to come through --
Tatyana's heart is rent in two.
{183}

XIV

Her passion burns with stronger powder
now she's bereft, and just the same
her heart speaks to her even louder
of far-away Onegin's name.
She'll not see him, her obligation
must be to hold in detestation
the man who laid her brother low.
The poet's dead... already though
no one recalls him or his verses;
by now his bride-to-be has wed
another, and his memory's fled
as smoke in azure sky disperses.
Two hearts there are perhaps that keep
a tear for him... but what's to weep?

XV

Evening, and darkening sky, and waters
in quiet flood. A beetle whirred.
The choirs of dancers sought their quarters.
Beyond the stream there smoked and stirred
a fisher's fire. Through country gleaming
silver with moonlight, in her dreaming
profoundly sunk, Tatyana stalked
for hours alone; she walked and walked...
Suddenly, from a crest, she sighted
a house, a village, and a wood
below a hill; a garden stood
above a stream the moon had lighted.
She looked across, felt in her heart
a faster, stronger pulsing start.
{184}

XVI

She hesitates, and doubts beset her:
forward or back? it's true that he
has left, and no one here has met her...
``The house, the park... I'll go and see!''
So down came Tanya, hardly daring
to draw a breath, around her staring
with puzzled and confused regard...
She entered the deserted yard.
Dogs, howling, rushed in her direction...
Her frightened cry brought running out
the household boys in noisy rout;
giving the lady their protection,
by dint of cuff and kick and smack
they managed to disperse the pack.

XVII

``Could I just see the house, I wonder?''
Tatyana asked. The children all
rushed to Anisia's room, to plunder
the keys that opened up the hall.
At once Anisia came to greet her,
the doorway opened wide to meet her,
she went inside the empty shell
in which our hero used to dwell.
She looks: forgotten past all chalking
on billiard-table rests a cue,
and on the crumpled sofa too
a riding whip. Tanya keeps walking...
``And here's the hearth,'' explains the crone,
``where master used to sit alone.
{185}

XVIII

``Here in the winter he'd have dinner
with neighbour Lensky, the deceased.
Please follow me. And here's the inner
study where he would sleep and feast
on cups of coffee, and then later
he'd listen to the administrator;
in morning time he'd read a book...
And just here, in the window-nook,
is where old master took up station,
and put his glasses on to see
his Sunday game of cards with me.
I pray God grant his soul salvation,
and rest his dear bones in the tomb,
down in our damp earth-mother's womb!''

XIX

Tatyana in a deep emotion
gazes at all the scene around;
she drinks it like a priceless potion;
it stirs her drooping soul to bound
in fashion that's half-glad, half-anguished:
that table where the lamp has languished,
beside the window-sill, that bed
on which a carpet has been spread,
piled books, and through the pane the sable
moonscape, the half-light overall,
Lord Byron's portrait on the wall,
the iron figure3 on the table,
the hat, the scowling brow, the chest
where folded arms are tightly pressed.
{186}

XX

Longtime inside this modish cloister,
as if spellbound, Tatyana stands.
It's late. A breeze begins to roister,
the valley's dark. The forest lands
round the dim river sleep; the curtain
of hills has hid the moon; for certain
the time to go has long since passed
for the young pilgrim. So at last
Tatyana, hiding her condition,
and not without a sigh, perforce
sets out upon her homeward course;
before she goes, she seeks permission
to come back to the hall alone
and read the books there on her own.

XXI

Outside the gate Tatyana parted
with old Anisia. The next day
at earliest morning out she started,
to the empty homestead made her way,
then in the study's quiet setting,
at last alone, and quite forgetting
the world and all its works, she wept
and sat there as the minutes crept;
the books then underwent inspection...
at first she had no heart to range;
but then she found their choice was strange.
To reading from this odd collection
Tatyana turned with thirsting soul:
and watched a different world unroll.
{187}

XXII

Though long since Eugene's disapproval
had ruled out reading, in their place
and still exempted from removal
a few books had escaped disgrace:
Don Juan's and the Giaour's creator,
two or three novels where our later
epoch's portrayed, survived the ban,
works where contemporary man
is represented rather truly,
that soul without a moral tie,
all egoistical and dry,
to dreaming given up unduly,
and that embittered mind which boils
in empty deeds and futile toils.

XXIII

There many pages keep the impression
where a sharp nail has made a dent.
On these, with something like obsession,
the girl's attentive eyes are bent.
Tatyana sees with trepidation
what kind of thought, what observation,
had drawn Eugene's especial heed
and where he'd silently agreed.
Her eyes along the margin flitting
pursue his pencil. Everywhere
Onegin's soul encountered there
declares itself in ways unwitting --
terse words or crosses in the book,
or else a query's wondering hook.
{188}

XXIV

And so, at last, feature by feature,
Tanya begins to understand
more thoroughly, thank God, the creature
for whom her passion has been planned
by fate's decree: this freakish stranger,
who walks with sorrow, and with danger,
whether from heaven or from hell,
this angel, this proud devil, tell,
what is he? Just an apparition,
a shadow, null and meaningless,
a Muscovite in Harold's dress,
a modish second-hand edition,
a glossary of smart argot...
a parodistic raree-show?

XXV

Can she have found the enigma's setting?
is this the riddle's missing clue?
Time races, and she's been forgetting
her journey home is overdue.
Some neighbours there have come together;
they talk of her, of how and whether:
``Tanya's no child -- it's past a joke,''
says the old lady in a croak:
``why, Olga's younger, and she's bedded.
It's time she went. But what can I
do with her when a flat reply
always comes back: I'll not be wedded.
And then she broods and mopes for good,
and trails alone around the wood.''
{189}

XXVI

``She's not in love?'' ``There's no one, ever.
Buyánov tried -- got flea in ear.
And Ivan Petushkóv; no, never.
Pikhtín, of the Hussars, was here;
he found Tatyana so attractive,
bestirred himself, was devilish active!
I thought, she'll go this time, perhaps;
far from it! just one more collapse.''
``You don't see what to do? that's funny:
Moscow's the place, the marriage-fair!
There's vacancies in plenty there.''
``My dear good sir, I'm short of money.''
``One winter's worth, you've surely got;
or borrow, say, from me, if not.''

XXVII

The old dame had no thought of scouring
such good and sensible advice;
accounts were done, a winter outing
to Moscow settled in a trice.
Then Tanya hears of the decision.
To face society's derision
with the unmistakeable sideview
of a provincial ingénue,
to expose to Moscow fops and Circes
her out-of-fashion turns of phrase,
parade before their mocking gaze
her out-of-fashion clothes!... oh, mercies!
no, forests are the sole retreat
where her security's complete.
{190}

XXVIII

Risen with earliest rays of dawning,
Tanya today goes hurrying out
into the fields, surveys the morning,
with deep emotion looks about
and says: ``Farewell, you vales and fountains!
farewell you too, familiar mountains!
Farewell, familiar woods! Farewell,
beauty with all its heavenly spell,
gay nature and its sparkling distance!
This dear, still world I must forswear
for vanity, and din, and glare!...
Farewell to you, my free existence!
whither does all my yearning tend?
my fate, it leads me to what end?''

XXIX

She wanders on without direction.
Often she halts against her will,
arrested by the sheer perfection
she finds in river and in hill.
As with old friends, she craves diversion
in gossip's rambling and discursion
with her own forests and her meads...
But the swift summer-time proceeds --
now golden autumn's just arriving.
Now Nature's tremulous, pale effect
suggests a victim richly decked...
The north wind blows, the clouds are driving --
amidst the howling and the blast
sorceress-winter's here at last.
{191}

XXX

She's here, she spreads abroad; she stipples
the branches of the oak with flock;
lies in a coverlet that ripples
across the fields, round hill and rock;
the bank, the immobile stream are levelled
beneath a shroud that's all dishevelled;
frost gleams. We watch with gleeful thanks
old mother winter at her pranks.
Only from Tanya's heart, no cheering --
for her, no joy from winter-time,
she won't inhale the powdered rime,
nor from the bath-house roof be clearing
first snow for shoulders, breast and head:
for Tanya, winter's ways are dread.

XXXI

Departure date's long overtaken;
at last the final hours arrive.
A sledded coach, for years forsaken,
relined and strengthened for the drive;
three carts -- traditional procession --
with every sort of home possession:
pans, mattresses, and trunks, and chairs,
and jam in jars, and household wares,
and feather-beds, and birds in cages,
with pots and basins out of mind,
and useful goods of every kind.
There's din of parting now that rages,
with tears, in quarters of the maids:
and, in the yard, stand eighteen jades.
{192}

XXXII

Horses and coach are spliced in marriage;
the cooks prepare the midday meal;
mountains are piled on every carriage,
and coachmen swear, and women squeal.
The bearded outrider is sitting
his spindly, shaggy nag. As fitting,
to wave farewell the household waits
for the two ladies at the gates.
They're settled in; and crawling, sliding,
the grand barouche is on its way.
``Farewell, you realms that own the sway
of solitude, and peace abiding!
shall I see you?'' As Tanya speaks
the tears in stream pour down her cheeks.

XXXIII

When progress and amelioration
have pushed their frontiers further out,
in time (to quote the calculation
of philosophic brains, about
five hundred years) for sure our byways
will blossom into splendid highways:
paved roads will traverse Russia's length
bringing her unity and strength;
and iron bridges will go arching
over the waters in a sweep;
mountains will part; below the deep,
audacious tunnels will be marching:
Godfearing folk will institute
an inn at each stage of the route.
{193}

XXXIV

But now our roads are bad, the ages
have gnawed our bridges, and the flea
and bedbug that infest the stages
allow no rest to you or me;
inns don't exist; but in a freezing
log cabin a pretentious-teasing
menu, hung up for show, excites
all sorts of hopeless appetites;
meanwhile the local Cyclops, aiming
a Russian hammer-blow, repairs
Europe's most finely chiselled wares
before a fire too slowly flaming,
and blesses the unrivalled brand
of ruts that grace our fatherland.

XXXV

By contrast, in the frozen season,
how pleasantly the stages pass.
Like modish rhymes that lack all reason,
the winter's ways are smooth as glass.
Then our Automedons are flashing,
our troikas effortlessly dashing,
and mileposts grip the idle sense
by flickering past us like a fence.
Worse luck, Larina crawled; the employment
of her own horses, not the post,
spared her the expense she dreaded most --
and gave our heroine enjoyment
of traveller's tedium at its peak:
their journey took them a full week.
{194}

XXXVI

But now they're near. Already gleaming
before their eyes they see unfold
the towers of whitestone Moscow beaming
with fire from every cross of gold.
Friends, how my heart would leap with pleasure
when suddenly I saw this treasure
of spires and belfries, in a cup
with parks and mansions, open up.
How often would I fall to musing
of Moscow in the mournful days
of absence on my wandering ways!
Moscow... how many strains are fusing
in that one sound, for Russian hearts!
what store of riches it imparts!

XXXVII

Here stands, with shady park surrounded,
Petrovsky Castle; and the fame
in which so lately it abounded
rings proudly in that sombre name.
Napoleon here, intoxicated
with recent fortune, vainly waited
till Moscow, meekly on its knees,
gave up the ancient Kremlin-keys:
but no, my Moscow never stumbled
nor crawled in suppliant attire.
No feast, no welcome-gifts -- with fire
the impatient conqueror was humbled!
From here, deep-sunk in pensive woe,
he gazed out on the threatening glow.
{195}

XXXVIII

Farewell, Petrovsky Castle, glimmer
of fallen glory. Well! don't wait,
drive on! And now we see a-shimmer
the pillars of the turnpike-gate;
along Tverskaya Street already
the potholes make the coach unsteady.
Street lamps go flashing by, and stalls,
boys, country women, stately halls,
parks, monasteries, towers and ledges,
Bokharans, orchards, merchants, shacks,
boulevards, chemists, and Cossacks,
peasants, and fashion-shops, and sledges,
lions adorning gateway posts
and, on the crosses, jackdaw hosts.

(XXXIX,2) XL

This wearisome perambulation
takes up an hour or two; at last
the coach has reached its destination;
after Saint Chariton's gone past
a mansion stands just round a turning.
On an old aunt, who's long been burning
with a consumption, they've relied.
And now the door is opened wide,
a grizzled Calmuck stands to meet them,
bespectacled, in tattered dress;
and from the salon the princess,
stretched on a sofa, calls to greet them.
The two old ladies kiss and cry;
thickly the exclamations fly.
{196}

XLI

``Princess, mon ange!'' ``Pachette!'' ``Alina!''
``Who would have thought it?'' ``What an age!''
``How long can you... ?'' ``Dearest kuzina!''
``Sit down! how strange! it's like the stage
or else a novel.'' ``And my daughter
Tatyana's here, you know I've brought her...''
``Ah, Tanya, come to me, it seems
I'm wandering in a world of dreams...
Grandison, cousin, d'you remember?''
``What, Grandison? oh, Grandison!
I do, I do. Well, where's he gone?''
``Here, near Saint Simeon; in December,
on Christmas Eve, he wished me joy:
lately he married off his boy.''

XLII

``As for the other one... tomorrow
we'll talk, and talk, and then we'll show
Tanya to all her kin. My sorrow
is that my feet lack strength to go
outside the house. But you'll be aching
after your drive, it's quite back-breaking;
let's go together, take a rest...
Oh, I've no strength... I'm tired, my chest...
These days I'm finding even gladness,
not only pain, too much to meet...
I'm good for nothing now, my sweet...
you age, and life's just grief and sadness...''
With that, in tears, and quite worn out,
she burst into a coughing-bout.
{197}

XLIII

The invalid's glad salutation,
her kindness, move Tatyana; yet
the strangeness of her habitation,
after her own room, makes her fret.
No sleep, beneath that silken curtain,
in that new couch, no sleep for certain;
the early pealing of the bells
lifts her from bed as it foretells
the occupations of the morning.
She sits down by the window-sill.
The darkness thins away; but still
no vision of her fields is dawning.
An unknown yard, she sees from thence,
a stall, a kitchen and a fence.

XLIV

The kinsfolk in concerted action
ask Tanya out to dine, and they
present her languor and distraction
to fresh grandparents every day.
For cousins from afar, on meeting
there never fails a kindly greeting,
and exclamations, and good cheer.
``How Tanya's grown! I pulled your ear
just yesterday.'' ``And since your christening
how long is it?'' ``And since I fed
you in my arms on gingerbread?''
And all grandmothers who are listening
in unison repeat the cry:
``My goodness, how the years do fly!''
{198}

XLV

Their look, though, shows no change upon it --
they all still keep their old impress:
still made of tulle, the self-same bonnet
adorns Aunt Helen, the princess;
still powdered is Lukérya Lvovna,
a liar still, Lyubóv Petrovna,
Iván Petróvich still is dumb,
Semyón Petróvich, mean and glum,
and then old cousin Pelagéya
still has Monsieur Finemouche for friend,
same Pom, same husband to the end;
he's at the club, a real stayer,
still meek, still deaf as howd'youdo,
still eats and drinks enough for two.

XLVI

And in their daughters' close embraces
Tanya is gripped. No comment's made
at first by Moscow's youthful graces
while she's from top to toe surveyed;
they find her somewhat unexpected,
a bit provincial and affected,
too pale, too thin, but on the whole
not bad at all; and then each soul
gives way to nature's normal passion:
she's their great friend, asked in, caressed,
her hands affectionately pressed;
they fluff her curls out in the fashion,
and in a singsong voice confide
the inmost thoughts that girls can hide.
{199}

XLVII

Each others' and their own successes,
their hopes, their pranks, their dreams at night --
and so the harmless chat progresses
coated with a thin layer of spite.
Then in return for all this twaddle,
from her they strive to coax and coddle
a full confession of the heart.
Tatyana hears but takes no part;
as if she'd been profoundly sleeping,
there's not a word she's understood;
she guards, in silence and for good,
her sacred store of bliss and weeping
as something not to be declared,
a treasure never to be shared.

XLVIII

To talk, to general conversation
Tatyana seeks to attune her ear,
but the salon's preoccupation
is with dull trash that can't cohere:
everything's dim and unenthusing;
even the scandal's not amusing;
in talk, so fruitless and so stale,
in question, gossip, news and tale,
not once a day a thought will quiver,
not even by chance, once in a while,
will the benighted reason smile,
even in joke the heart won't shiver.
This world's so vacuous that it's got
no spark of fun in all its rot!
{200}

XLIX

In swarms around Tatyana ranging,
the modish Record Office clerks
stare hard at her before exchanging
some disagreeable remarks.
One melancholy fop, declaring
that she's ``ideal'', begins preparing
an elegy to her address,
propped in the door among the press.
Once Vyázemsky,4 who chanced to find her
at some dull aunt's, sat down and knew
how to engage in talk that drew
her soul's attention; just behind her
an old man saw her as she came,
straightened his wig, and asked her name.

L

But where, mid tragic storms that rend her,
Melpomene wails long and loud,
and brandishes her tinsel splendour
before a cold, indifferent crowd,
and where Thalia, gently napping,
ignores approval's friendly clapping,
and where Terpsichore alone
moves the young watcher (as was known
to happen long ago, dear readers,
in our first ages), from no place
did any glasses seek her face,
lorgnettes of jealous fashion-leaders,
or quizzing-glasses of know-alls
in boxes or the rows of stalls.
{201}

LI

They take her too to the Assembly.
The crush, the heat, as music blares,
the blaze of candles, and the trembly
flicker of swiftly twirling pairs,
the beauties in their flimsy dresses,
the swarm, the glittering mob that presses,
the ring of marriageable girls --
bludgeon the sense; it faints and whirls.
Here insolent prize-dandies wither
all others with a waistcoat's set
and an insouciant lorgnette.
Hussars on leave are racing hither
to boom, to flash across the sky,
to captivate, and then to fly.

LII

The night has many stars that glitter,
Moscow has beauties and to spare:
but brighter than the heavenly litter,
the moon in its azure of air.
And yet that goddess whom I'd never
importune with my lyre, whenever
like a majestic moon, she drives
among the maidens and the wives,
how proudly, how divinely gleaming,
she treads our earth, and how her breast
is in voluptuous languor dressed,
how sensuously her eyes are dreaming!
Enough, I tell you, that will do --
you've paid insanity its due.
{202}

LIII

Noise, laughter, bowing, helter-skelter
galop, mazurka, waltz... Meanwhile
between two aunts, in pillared shelter,
unnoticed, in unseeing style,
Tanya looks on; her own indictment
condemns the monde and its excitement;
she finds it stifling here... she strains
in dream toward the woods and plains,
the country cottages and hovels,
and to that far and lonely nook
where flows a little glittering brook,
to her flower-garden, to her novels, --
to where he came to her that time
in twilight of allées of lime.

LIV

But while she roams in thought, not caring
for dance, and din, and worldly ways,
a general of majestic bearing
has fixed on her a steady gaze.
The aunts exchanged a look, they fluttered,
they nudged Tatyana, and each muttered
at the same moment in her ear:
``Look quickly to the left, d'you hear?''
``Look to the left? where? what's the matter?''
``There, just in front of all that swarm,
you see the two in uniform...
just look, and never mind the chatter...
he's moved... you see him from the side.''
``Who? that fat general?'' Tanya cried.
{203}

LV

But here, with our congratulation
on her conquest, we leave my sweet;
I'm altering my destination
lest in forgetfulness complete
I drop my hero... I'll be truthful:
``It is a friend I sing, a youthful
amateur of caprice and quirk.
Muse of the epic, bless my work!
in my long task, be my upholder,
put a strong staff into my hand,
don't let me stray in paths unplanned.''
Enough. The load is off my shoulder!
I've paid my due to classic art:
it may be late, but it's a start.
{204}

Notes to Chapter Seven

1 Vasily Levshin (1746-1826), writer on gardening and agriculture.
2 Stanzas VIII and IX and XXXIX were discarded by Pushkin.
3 A statuette of Napoleon.
4 See note 1 to Chapter Five.