Your virtues are a vain temptation,
For I'm not worthy of them all.
Believe me (conscience be your token):
In wedlock we would both be broken.
However much I loved you, dear,
Once used to you ... I'd cease, I fear;
You'd start to weep, but all your crying
Would fail to touch my heart at all,
Your tears in fact would only gall.
So judge yourself what we'd be buying,
What roses Hymen means to send
Quite possibly for years on end!
15
'In all this world what's more perverted
Than homes in which the wretched wife
Bemoans her worthless mate, deserted
Alone both day and night through life;
Or where the husband, knowing truly
Her worth (yet cursing fate unduly)
Is always angry, sullen, mute
A coldly jealous, selfish brute!
Well, thus am I. And was it merely
For
When you, with so much strength of mind,
Unsealed your heart to me so clearly?
Can Fate indeed be so unkind?
Is this the lot you've been assigned?
16
'For dreams and youth there's no returning;
I cannot resurrect my soul.
I love you with a tender yearning,
But mine must be a brother's role.
So hear me through without vexation:
Young maidens find quick consolation
From dream to dream a passage brief;
Just so a sapling sheds its leaf
To bud anew each vernal season.
Thus heaven wills the world to turn.
You'll fall in love again; but learn . . .
To exercise restraint and reason,
For few will understand you so,
And innocence can lead to woe.'
17
Thus spake Eugene his admonition.
Scarce breathing and bereft of speech,
Gone blind with tears, in full submission,
Tatyana listened to him preach.
He offered her his arm. Despairing,
She took it and with languid bearing
