His energy and impotence.
XXI
And numerous pages had preserved
The sharp incisions of his nail,
And these the attentive maid observed
With eye precise and without fail.
Tattiana saw with trepidation
By what idea or observation
Oneguine was the most impressed,
In what he merely acquiesced.
Upon those margins she perceived
Oneguine's pencillings. His mind
Made revelations undesigned,
Of what he thought and what believed,
A dagger, asterisk, or note
Interrogation to denote.
XXII
And my Tattiana now began
To understand by slow degrees
More clearly, God be praised, the man,
Whom autocratic fate's decrees
Had bid her sigh for without hope—
A dangerous, gloomy misanthrope,
Being from hell or heaven sent,
Angel or fiend malevolent.
Which is he? or an imitation,
A bogy conjured up in joke,
A Russian in Childe Harold's cloak,
Of foreign whims the impersonation—
Handbook of fashionable phrase
Or parody of modern ways?
XXIII
Hath she found out the riddle yet?
Hath she a fitting phrase selected?
But time flies and she doth forget
They long at home have her expected—
Whither two neighbouring dames have walked
And a long time about her talked.
'What can be done? She is no child!'
Cried the old dame with anguish filled:
'Olinka is her junior, see.
'Tis time to many her, 'tis true,
But tell me what am I to do?
To all she answers cruelly—
I will not wed, and ever weeps
And lonely through the forest creeps.'
XXIV
'Is she in love?' quoth one. 'With whom?
Bouyanoff courted. She refused.
