END OF CANTO THE FIFTH
CANTO THE SIXTH
The Duel
'La, sotto giorni nubilosi e brevi,
Nasce una gente a cui 'l morir non duole.'
Petrarch
Canto The Sixth
[Mikhailovskoe, 1826: the two final stanzas were, however, written at Moscow.]
I
Having remarked Vladimir's flight,
Oneguine, bored to death again,
By Olga stood, dejected quite
And satisfied with vengeance ta'en.
Olga began to long likewise
For Lenski, sought him with her eyes,
And endless the cotillon seemed
As if some troubled dream she dreamed.
'Tis done. To supper they proceed.
Bedding is laid out and to all
Assigned a lodging, from the hall(61)
Up to the attic, and all need
Tranquil repose. Eugene alone
To pass the night at home hath gone.
[Note 61: Hospitality is a national virtue of the Russians. On festal occasions in the country the whole party is usually accommodated for the night, or indeed for as many nights as desired, within the house of the entertainer. This of course is rendered necessary by the great distances which separate the residences of the gentry. Still, the alacrity with which a Russian hostess will turn her house topsy-turvy for the accommodation of forty or fifty guests would somewhat astonish the mistress of a modern Belgravian mansion.]
II
All slumber. In the drawing-room
Loud snores the cumbrous Poustiakoff
With better half as cumbersome;
Gvozdine, Bouyanoff, Petoushkoff
And Flianoff, somewhat indisposed,
On chairs in the saloon reposed,
Whilst on the floor Monsieur Triquet
In jersey and in nightcap lay.
In Olga's and Tattiana's rooms
Lay all the girls by sleep embraced,
Except one by the window placed
Whom pale Diana's ray illumes—
My poor Tattiana cannot sleep
But stares into the darkness deep.
III
His visit she had not awaited,
His momentary loving glance
Her inmost soul had penetrated,
And his strange conduct at the dance
With Olga; nor of this appeared
An explanation: she was scared,
Alarmed by jealous agonies:
A hand of ice appeared to seize(62)
Her heart: it seemed a darksome pit
Beneath her roaring opened wide:
