Will be like Melmoth? patriotic? Cosmopolite? or has he got it?
Like Harold, Quaker will he fit? Like hypocrite or other fig?
Or will he be a lad good natured Like you and I, like all the world?
At least he’d my advice have held: Refuse the modes antiquated,
Enough he fooled the whole world? At least he’d my advice have held: Refuse the modes antiquated. Enough he fooled the whole world…
D’you know?...
- Yes and no yet.
IX
- But why you so indisposed Are speaking bad about him?
Because we restlessly disclose Defects; are bustling; judge the whim?
Because uncautious ardent soul Annoys, ridicules, as a whole
Insults all proud paltry males: The wit them presses, needs a space?
Because we often take the talkings For real, useful, vital things?
The folly’s wicked, giddy, needs Grand rubbish for the grand high persons;
But persons ordinary for us Are never strange, they fit all u.0
X
He’s blessed, who in his youth was youthful! He’s blessed, who well in time was ripe.
Who made his life not cooled, but useful, With years could his aims abide;
To queer dreams did not abandon, From mob apart was never standing,
At twenty dandy was with brain, At thirty married was with gain,
At. fifty who was liberated From private and from other debts,
Who glory, money and the ranks In turn and quietly effected,
Of whom they spoke till the end: N.N. is excellent a man.
XI
Its sad to think, indeed, that vainly The youth was given to all us,
We easily betrayed her daily And she was cheating all of us;
That all the best and sacred wishes, And all the fresh and pure dreamings
Have been decayed in nature’s train Like leaves in autumn, full of rain.
Unbearable is at rout Of mere dinners see a line
To look at life like at the rite, And follow the decent crowd,
But yet not sharing with throng Ideas, passions yours life long".
XII
As object of the judging noisy, In life you’d never have a wish:
Among the people wise quite choicely To pass for feigned a queer. fish,
Or kind of madcap; sad a version Of some Satanic ugly person,
Or even own demon mine. {33} Onegin (him I’ll occupy),
Who killed at duel friend his own, Had lived without aim, this sage,
To twenty six of own age. Was weary at leisure one
Without service, wife or deed, By something to engage unfit.
XIII
Some kind of trouble was him teasing: For change of places secret cue
(A highly torturing a feeling, A voluntary cross of few).
He left with real consolation Of woods and valleys isolation,
In which a bloody, dreadful shade To him appeared every day.
He aimlessly began to wander, With passions only agrees,
But all his journeys and the trips, Like all in world, began to bother:
And he returned just to the hall Like Chatsky: from the ship for ball. {34}
XIV
The crowd now all is waving, A whisper through the hall has flied...
To hostess a lady’s heading, Some plump grand general’s behind.