He’s not been seen, none word from dear;
Ooh! What encirclement she has Of christening coldness, princess!
To try to keep the indignation Her bps, such stubborn, now want!
Onegin’s fixing eyes upon; Where are compassions, perturbation?
Of tears tracks?..
But none she had!
Her face but has of wrath a track...
XXXIV
And may be tracks of secret fear Of own husband and of world
For pranks or weakness of the dear... (That’s all he knew in own world...)
And no hope!... full of sadness, He now curses own madness.
In it immersed, he there quite The whole world again denied,
And in his own study silent Remembered times, when after him
Severe anguish, called a spleen, Was seeking in the world unquiet,
And took him by the scruff of neck And in a gloomy corner kept.
XXXV
Again promiscuosly he’s reading… Has read all Gibbon and Rousseau,
Manzony, Herder; was re-reading Madame de Stael, Bichat, Tissot,
From Bade that sceptical was reading, With works of Fontanelle was meeting.
Of Russian works he something read, Rejecting nothing for effect;
The almanacs and all the journals In which to us they lectures give,
In which they all are cursing me; Some kinds of madrigals, not oral,
To me I met sometimes in them! E sempre bene, gentlemen! (37)
XXXVI
And what?
His eyes the books were reading, But all his thoughts were far away;
Desires, sorrows, some dreamings In soul crowded each day.
To him among the lines all printed His eyes in spirit always hinted
At other kinds of lines.
To them He paid his all attention then.
They were some secret good traditions Of tender, shady old age:
The dreams, not bound with this day, The threats, the talkings and predictions,
Some lively rots in long a tale Or hearty letters of young maid.
XXXVII
And by degrees to sleep he’s reading His passions, thoughts, his own wit:
In front of him gay fancy’s giving His Pharaoh, and tries to fit;
He sees some smelted snow; now, As if he sleeps in some doss-house,
A youth unmoving lies on it; He hears voices: ‘Well, he’s killed...’
Or can he see forgotten foes, Some cravens, slanderers, a swarm
Of traitresses quite young at all, Of mates despised a circle close;
Or village house - at the pane Is sitting she.., and she again!,.
XXXIII
He so used to live in visions That he could go mad quite free
Or could be poet with reasons (And I confess - could favour me).
Indeed, by magnetism’s all forces The mechanism of Russian verses
To grasp that time he had a chance, But as a student he’s a dunce.
He real bard resented there, When all alone, lost in haze,
In front of flaming fire-place Was Benedetta purring fair {38}
Or Idol mio; dropped by chance {39} On fire journals or his pumps.
XXXIX