No More Learning

"

[Note 80: A romance by Maturin. ]

IX

Wherefore regarding him express
Perverse, unfavourable views?
Is it that human restlessness
For ever carps, condemns, pursues?
Is it that ardent souls of flame
By recklessness amuse or shame
Selfish nonentities around?
That mind which yearns for space is bound?
And that too often we receive
Professions eagerly for deeds,
That crass stupidity misleads,
That we by cant ourselves deceive,
That mediocrity alone
Without disgust we look upon?

X

Happy he who in youth was young,
Happy who timely grew mature,
He who life's frosts which early wrung
Hath gradually learnt to endure;
By visions who was ne'er deranged
Nor from the mob polite estranged,
At twenty who was prig or swell,
At thirty who was married well,
At fifty who relief obtained
From public and from private ties,
Who glory, wealth and dignities
Hath tranquilly in turn attained,
And unto whom we all allude
As to a worthy man and good!

XI

But sad is the reflection made,
In vain was youth by us received,
That we her constantly betrayed
And she at last hath us deceived;
That our desires which noblest seemed,
The purest of the dreams we dreamed,
Have one by one all withered grown
Like rotten leaves by Autumn strown--
'Tis fearful to anticipate
Nought but of dinners a long row,
To look on life as on a show,
Eternally to imitate
The seemly crowd, partaking nought
Its passions and its modes of thought.

XII

The butt of scandal having been,
'Tis dreadful--ye agree, I hope--
To pass with reasonable men
For a fictitious misanthrope,
A visionary mortified,
Or monster of Satanic pride,
Or e'en the "Demon" of my strain. (81)
Oneguine--take him up again--
In duel having killed his friend
And reached, with nought his mind to engage,
The twenty-sixth year of his age,
Wearied of leisure in the end,
Without profession, business, wife,
He knew not how to spend his life.

[Note 81: The "Demon," a short poem by Pushkin which at its first
appearance created some excitement in Russian society. A more
appropriate, or at any rate explanatory title, would have been
the _Tempter_. It is descriptive of the first manifestation of
doubt and cynicism in his youthful mind, allegorically as the
visits of a "demon. " Russian society was moved to embody this
imaginary demon in the person of a certain friend of Pushkin's.
This must not be confounded with Lermontoff's poem bearing the
same title upon which Rubinstein's new opera, "Il Demonio," is
founded.
]

XIII

Him a disquietude did seize,
A wish from place to place to roam,
A very troublesome disease,
In some a willing martyrdom.
Abandoned he his country seat,
Of woods and fields the calm retreat,
Where every day before his eyes
A blood-bespattered shade would rise,
And aimless journeys did commence--
But still remembrance to him clings,
His travels like all other things
Inspired but weariness intense;
Returning, from his ship amid
A ball he fell as Tchatzki did. (82)

[Note 82: Tchatzki, one of the principal characters in Griboyedoff's
celebrated comedy "Woe from Wit" (_Gore ot Ouma_). ]

XIV

Behold, the crowd begins to stir,
A whisper runs along the hall,
A lady draws the hostess near,
Behind her a grave general.
Her manners were deliberate,
Reserved, but not inanimate,
Her eyes no saucy glance address,
There was no angling for success.
Her features no grimaces bleared;
Of affectation innocent,
Calm and without embarrassment,
A faithful model she appeared
Of "comme il faut. " Shishkoff, forgive!
I can't translate the adjective. (83)

[Note 83: Shishkoff was a member of the literary school which
cultivated the vernacular as opposed to the _Arzamass_ or
Gallic school, to which the poet himself and his uncle Vassili
Pushkin belonged. He was admiral, author, and minister of
education. ]

XV

Ladies in crowds around her close,
Her with a smile old women greet,
The men salute with lower bows
And watch her eye's full glance to meet.
Maidens before her meekly move
Along the hall, and high above
The crowd doth head and shoulders rise
The general who accompanies.
None could her beautiful declare,
Yet viewing her from head to foot,
None could a trace of that impute,
Which in the elevated sphere
Of London life is "vulgar" called
And ruthless fashion hath blackballed.

XVI

I like this word exceedingly
Although it will not bear translation,
With us 'tis quite a novelty
Not high in general estimation;
'Twould serve ye in an epigram--
But turn we once more to our dame.
Enchanting, but unwittingly,
At table she was sitting by
The brilliant Nina Voronskoi,
The Neva's Cleopatra, and
None the conviction could withstand
That Nina's marble symmetry,
Though dazzling its effulgence white,
Could not eclipse her neighbour's light.

XVII

"And is it," meditates Eugene.