Евгений Онегин / Eugene Onegin

Rousseau, I would remark in passing,[12 - “Tout le monde sut qu’il (Grimm) mettait du blanc; et moi, qui n’en croyait rien, je commencai de le croire, non seulement par l’embellissement de son teint, et pour avoir trouvé des tasses de blanc sur la toilette, mais sur ce qu’entrant un matin dans sa chambre, je le trouvais brossant ses ongles avec une petite vergette faite exprès, ouvrage qu’il continua fièrement devant moi. Je jugeai qu’un homme qui passe deux heures tous les matins à brosser ses ongles peut bien passer quelques instants à remplir de blanc les creux de sa peau”.

Could not conceive how serious Grimm

Dared calmly cleanse his nails ’fore him,

Eloquent raver all-surpassing, —

The friend of liberty and laws

In this case quite mistaken was.

XXII

The most industrious man alive

May yet be studious of his nails;

What boots it with the age to strive?

Custom the despot soon prevails.

A new Kaverine Eugene mine,

Dreading the world’s remarks malign,

Was that which we are wont to call

A fop, in dress pedantical.

Three mortal hours per diem he

Would loiter by the looking-glass,

And from his dressing-room would pass

Like Venus when, capriciously,

The goddess would a masquerade

Attend in male attire arrayed.

XXIII

On this artistical retreat

Having once fixed your interest,

I might to connoisseurs repeat

The style in which my hero dressed;

Though I confess I hardly dare

Describe in detail the affair,

Since words like pantaloons, vest, coat,

To Russ indigenous are not;

And also that my feeble verse —

Pardon I ask for such a sin —

With words of foreign origin

Too much I’m given to intersperse,

Though to the Academy I come

And oft its Dictionary thumb.

XXIV

But such is not my project now,

So let us to the ball-room haste,

Whither at headlong speed doth go

Eugene in hackney carriage placed.

Past darkened windows and long streets

Of slumbering citizens he fleets,

Till carriage lamps, a double row,

Cast a gay lustre on the snow,

Which shines with iridescent hues.