Eugene Onegin. A Romance of Russian Life in Verse

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 three(56)

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.

[Note 56: 'Malvina,' a romance by Madame Cottin.]

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,'(57)

And a grand festival proceeds.

The Larinas were since sunrise

O'erwhelmed with guests; by families

The neighbours come, in sledge approach,