Александр Пушкин – Eugene Onegin / Евгений Онегин (страница 9)

That vicious set whom I don't blame — Because a member I became. Once more to idleness consigned, He felt the laudable desire From mere vacuity of mind The wit of others to acquire. A case of books he doth obtain — He reads at random, reads in vain. This nonsense, that dishonest seems, This wicked, that absurd he deems, All are constrained and fetters bear, Antiquity no pleasure gave, The moderns of the ancients rave — Books he abandoned like the fair, His book-shelf instantly doth drape With taffety instead of crape. Having abjured the haunts of men, Like him renouncing vanity, His friendship I acquired just then; His character attracted me. An innate love of meditation, Original imagination, And cool sagacious mind he had: I was incensed and he was sad. Both were of passion satiate And both of dull existence tired, Extinct the flame which once had fired; Both were expectant of the hate With which blind Fortune oft betrays The very morning of our days. He who hath lived and living, thinks, Must e'en despise his kind at last; He who hath suffered ofttimes shrinks From shades of the relentless past. No fond illusions live to soothe, But memory like a serpent's tooth With late repentance gnaws and stings. All this in many cases brings A charm with it in conversation. Onéguine's speeches I abhorred At first, but soon became inured To the sarcastic observation, To witticisms and taunts half-vicious And gloomy epigrams malicious. How oft, when on a summer night Transparent o'er the Neva beamed The firmament in mellow light, And when the watery mirror gleamed No more with pale Diana's rays,[18] We called to mind our youthful days — The days of love and of romance! Then would we muse as in a trance, Impressionable for an hour, And breathe the balmy breath of night; And like the prisoner's our delight Who for the greenwood quits his tower, As on the rapid wings of thought The early days of life we sought. Absorbed in melancholy mood And o'er the granite coping bent, Onéguine meditative stood, E'en as the poet says he leant.[19] 'Tis silent all! Alone the cries Of the night sentinels arise And from the Millionaya afar[20]