Deep in our mother Earth's chill breast!"

XVII

Tattiana's eyes with tender gleam

On everything around her gaze,

Of priceless value all things seem

And in her languid bosom raise

A pleasure though with sorrow knit:

The table with its lamp unlit,

The pile of books, with carpet spread

Beneath the window-sill his bed,

The landscape which the moonbeams fret,

The twilight pale which softens all,

Lord Byron's portrait on the wall

And the cast-iron statuette

With folded arms and eyes bent low,

Cocked hat and melancholy brow.(69)

[Note 69: The Russians not unfrequently adorn their apartments with effigies of the great Napoleon.]

XVIII

Long in this fashionable cell

Tattiana as enchanted stood;

But it grew late; cold blew the gale;

Dark was the valley and the wood

slept o'er the river misty grown.

Behind the mountain sank the moon.

Long, long the hour had past when home

Our youthful wanderer should roam.

She hid the trouble of her breast,

Heaved an involuntary sigh

And turned to leave immediately,

But first permission did request

Thither in future to proceed

That certain volumes she might read.

XIX

Adieu she to the matron said

At the front gates, but in brief space

At early morn returns the maid

To the abandoned dwelling-place.

When in the study's calm retreat,

Wrapt in oblivion complete,

She found herself alone at last,

Longtime her tears flowed thick and fast;

But presently she tried to read;

At first for books was disinclined,

But soon their choice seemed to her mind

Remarkable. She then indeed

Devoured them with an eager zest.

A new world was made manifest!

XX

Although we know that Eugene had

Long ceased to be a reading man,

Still certain authors, I may add,

He had excepted from the ban:

The bard of Juan and the Giaour,

With it may be a couple more;

Romances three, in which ye scan

Portrayed contemporary man

As the reflection of his age,

His immorality of mind

To arid selfishness resigned,

A visionary personage

With his exasperated sense,

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.

Petoushkoff met the selfsame doom.