Eugene Onegin - Alexander Pushkin (graded readers txt) 📗

little shoes she wore,
Grown clammy, stick fast in the snow;
Her handkerchief she loses now;
No time to pick it up! afraid,
She hears the bear behind her press,
Nor dares the skirting of her dress
For shame lift up the modest maid.
She runs, the bear upon her trail,
Until her powers of running fail. XV

She sank upon the snow. But Bruin
Adroitly seized and carried her;
Submissive as if in a swoon,
She cannot draw a breath or stir.
He dragged her by a forest road
Till amid trees a hovel showed,
By barren snow heaped up and bound,
A tangled wilderness around.
Bright blazed the window of the place,
Within resounded shriek and shout:
“My chum lives here,” Bruin grunts out.
“Warm yourself here a little space!”
Straight for the entrance then he made
And her upon the threshold laid.

XVI

Recovering, Tania gazes round;
Bear gone⁠—she at the threshold placed;
Inside clink glasses, cries resound
As if it were some funeral feast.
But deeming all this nonsense pure,
She peeped through a chink of the door.
What doth she see? Around the board
Sit many monstrous shapes abhorred.
A canine face with horns thereon,
Another with cock’s head appeared,
Here an old witch with hirsute beard,
There an imperious skeleton;
A dwarf adorned with tail, again
A shape half cat and half a crane.

XVII

Yet ghastlier, yet more wonderful,
A crab upon a spider rides,
Perched on a goose’s neck a skull
In scarlet cap revolving glides.
A windmill too a jig performs
And wildly waves its arms and storms;
Barking, songs, whistling, laughter coarse,
The speech of man and tramp of horse.
But wide Tattiana oped her eyes
When in that company she saw
Him who inspired both love and awe,
The hero we immortalize.
Onegin sat the table by
And viewed the door with cunning eye.

XVIII

All bustle when he makes a sign:
He drinks, all drink and loudly call;
He smiles, in laughter all combine;
He knits his brows⁠—’tis silent all.
He there is master⁠—that is plain;
Tattiana courage doth regain
And grown more curious by far
Just placed the entrance door ajar.
The wind rose instantly, blew out
The fire of the nocturnal lights;
A trouble fell upon the sprites;
Onegin lightning glances shot;
Furious he from the table rose;
All arise. To the door he goes.

XIX

Terror assails her. Hastily
Tattiana would attempt to fly,
She cannot⁠—then impatiently
She strains her throat to force a cry⁠—
She cannot⁠—Eugene oped the door
And the young girl appeared before
Those hellish phantoms. Peals arise
Of frantic laughter, and all eyes
And hoofs and crooked snouts and paws,
Tails which a bushy tuft adorns,
Whiskers and bloody tongues and horns,
Sharp rows of tushes, bony claws,
Are turned upon her. All combine
In one great shout: she’s mine! she’s mine!

XX

“Mine!” cried Eugene with savage tone.
The troop of apparitions fled,
And in the frosty night alone
Remained with him the youthful maid.
With tranquil air Onegin leads
Tattiana to a corner, bids
Her on a shaky bench sit down;
His head sinks slowly, rests upon
Her shoulder⁠—Olga swiftly came⁠—
And Lenski followed⁠—a light broke⁠—
His fist Onegin fiercely shook
And gazed around with eyes of flame;
The unbidden guests he roughly chides⁠—
Tattiana motionless abides.

XXI

The strife grew furious and Eugene
Grasped a long knife and instantly
Struck Lenski dead⁠—across the scene
Dark shadows thicken⁠—a dread cry
Was uttered, and the cabin shook⁠—
Tattiana terrified awoke.
She gazed around her⁠—it was day.
Lo! through the frozen windows play
Aurora’s ruddy rays of light⁠—
The door flew open⁠—Olga came,
More blooming than the Boreal flame
And swifter than the swallow’s flight.
“Come,” she cried, “sister, tell me e’en
Whom you in slumber may have seen.”

XXII

But she, her sister never heeding,
With book in hand reclined in bed,
Page after page continued reading,
But no reply unto her made.
Although her book did not contain
The bard’s enthusiastic strain,
Nor precepts sage nor pictures e’en,
Yet neither Virgil nor Racine
Nor Byron, Walter Scott, nor Seneca,
Nor the Journal des Modes, I vouch,
Ever absorbed a maid so much:
Its name, my friends, was Martin Zadeka,
The chief of the Chaldean wise,
Who dreams expound and prophecies.

XXIII

Brought by a pedlar vagabond
Unto their solitude one day,
This monument of thought profound
Tattiana purchased with a stray
Tome of Malvina, and but three66
And a half rubles down gave she;
Also, to equalise the scales,
She got a book of nursery tales,
A grammar, likewise Petriads two,
Marmontel also, tome the third;
Tattiana every day conferred
With Martin Zadeka. In woe
She consolation thence obtained⁠—
Inseparable they remained.

XXIV

The dream left terror in its train.
Not knowing its interpretation,
Tania the meaning would obtain
Of such a dread hallucination.
Tattiana to the index flies
And alphabetically tries
The words bear, bridge, fir, darkness, bog,
Raven, snowstorm, tempest, fog,
Et cetera; but nothing showed
Her Martin Zadeka in aid,
Though the foul vision promise made
Of a most mournful episode,
And many a day thereafter laid
A load of care upon the maid.

XXV

“But lo! forth from the valleys dun
With purple hand Aurora leads,
Swift following in her wake, the sun,”67
And a grand festival proceeds.
The Làrinas were since sunrise
O’erwhelmed with guests; by families
The neighbours come, in sledge approach,
Britzka, kibitka, or in coach.
Crush and confusion in the hall,
Latest arrivals’ salutations,
Barking, young ladies’ osculations,
Shouts, laughter, jamming ’gainst the wall,
Bows and the scrape of many feet,
Nurses who scream and babes who bleat.

XXVI

Bringing his partner corpulent
Fat Poustiakoff drove to the door;
Gvozdine, a landlord excellent,
Oppressor of the wretched poor;
And the Skatènines, aged pair,
With all their progeny were there,
Who from two years to thirty tell;
Pétòushkoff, the provincial swell;
Bouyànoff too, my cousin, wore68
His wadded coat and cap with peak
(Surely you know him as I speak);
And Fliànoff, pensioned councillor,
Rogue and extortioner of yore,
Now buffoon, glutton, and a bore.

XXVII

The family of Kharlikoff,
Came with Monsieur Triquet, a prig,
Who arrived lately from Tamboff,
In spectacles and chestnut wig.
Like a true Frenchman, couplets wrought
In Tania’s praise in pouch he brought,
Known unto children perfectly:
Reveillez-vouz, belle endormie.
Among some ancient ballads thrust,
He found them in an almanac,
And the sagacious Triquet back
To light had brought them from their dust,
Whilst he “belle Nina” had the face
By “belle Tattiana” to replace.

XXVIII

Lo! from the nearest barrack came,
Of old maids the divinity,
And comfort of each country dame,
The captain of a company.
He enters. Ah! good news to-day!
The military band will play.
The