Eugene Onegin

And you, my true ideal, my own!

And you, small book, my constant labour,

In whose bright company I've known

All that a poet's soul might cherish:

Oblivion when tempests flourish,

Sweet talk with friends, on which I've fed.

Oh, many, many days have fled

Since young Tatyana with her lover,

As in a misty dream at night,

First floated dimly into sight

And I as yet could not uncover

Or through the magic crystal see

My novel's shape or what would be.

51

But those to whom, as friends and brothers,

My first few stanzas I once read

'Some are no more, and distant. . . others.'*

As Sadi* long before us said.

Without them my Onegin's fashioned.

And she from whom I drew, impassioned,

My fair Tatyana's noblest trait. . .

Oh, much, too much you've stolen, Fate!

But blest is he who rightly gauges

The time to quit the feast and fly,

Who never drained life's chalice dry,

Nor read its novel's final pages;

But all at once for good withdrew

As I from my Onegin do.

THE END

APPENDIX

EXCERPTS FROM ONEGIN'S JOURNEY

PUSHKIN'S FOREWORD

The last (eighth) chapter of Eugene Onegin was published separately with the following foreword:

The omission of certain stanzas has given rise on more than one occasion to criticism and jesting (no doubt most just and witty). The author candidly confesses that he has removed from his novel an entire chapter, in which Onegin's journey across Russia was described. It behoved him to indicate this omitted chapter by dots or a numeral, but to avoid ambiguity he thought it preferable to label as number eight, instead of nine, the final chapter of Eugene Onegin, and to sacrifice one of its closing stanzas:

It's time: my pen demands a pillow; Nine cantos have I duly wrought, And now the ninth and final billow To joyful shore my bark has brought. All praise to you, #62038; nine Camenae,* etc.

P. A. Katenin* (whose fine poetic talent in no way prevents him from being a subtle critic as well) has observed to us that this excision, though advantageous perhaps for the reader, is none the less harmful to the work as a whole, for it makes the transition from Tatyana the provincial miss to Tatyana the exalted lady too sudden and unexplained: an observation that reveals the accomplished artist. The author himself felt the justness of this reproach but decided to omit the chapter for reasons important to him, but not to the public. Some few excerpts have been published already; we insert them here, along with several other stanzas.

ONEGIN TRAVELS FROM MOSCOW TO NIZHNI NOVGOROD

*    * *

before his eyes Makriev Market* stirs and bustles,

A-seethe with plenty's wares and cries.

The Hindu's herehis pearls to proffer,

All Europespecious wines to offer;

The breeder from the steppe as well

Has brought defective steeds to sell;