XLI

The whirlwind of the waltz sweeps by,

Undeviating and insane

As giddy youth's hilarity—

Pair after pair the race sustain.

The moment for revenge, meanwhile,

Espying, Eugene with a smile

Approaches Olga and the pair

Amid the company career.

Soon the maid on a chair he seats,

Begins to talk of this and that,

But when two minutes she had sat,

Again the giddy waltz repeats.

All are amazed; but Lenski he

Scarce credits what his eyes can see.

XLII

Hark! the mazurka. In times past,

When the mazurka used to peal,

All rattled in the ball-room vast,

The parquet cracked beneath the heel,

And jolting jarred the window-frames.

'Tis not so now. Like gentle dames

We glide along a floor of wax.

However, the mazurka lacks

Nought of its charms original

In country towns, where still it keeps

Its stamping, capers and high leaps.

Fashion is there immutable,

Who tyrannizes us with ease,

Of modern Russians the disease.

XLIII

Bouyanoff, wrathful cousin mine,

Unto the hero of this lay

Olga and Tania led. Malign,

Oneguine Olga bore away.

Gliding in negligent career,

He bending whispered in her ear

Some madrigal not worth a rush,

And pressed her hand—the crimson blush

Upon her cheek by adulation

Grew brighter still. But Lenski hath

Seen all, beside himself with wrath,

And hot with jealous indignation,

Till the mazurka's close he stays,

Her hand for the cotillon prays.

XLIV

She fears she cannot.—Cannot? Why?—

She promised Eugene, or she would

With great delight.—O God on high!

Heard he the truth? And thus she could—

And can it be? But late a child

And now a fickle flirt and wild,

Cunning already to display

And well-instructed to betray!

Lenski the stroke could not sustain,

At womankind he growled a curse,

Departed, ordered out his horse

And galloped home. But pistols twain,

A pair of bullets—nought beside—

His fate shall presently decide.

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: