Why is Tatiana, then, more guilty?
Is it because in dear simplicity
she does not know deceit
and in her chosen dream believes?
Is it because she loves without art,
obedient to the bent of feeling?
Because she is so trustful,
because by heaven is endowed
with a restless imagination,
intelligence, and live will,
and headstrongness,
and a flaming and tender heart?
Can it be that you won't forgive her
the thoughtlessness of passions?
Aleksandr Pushkin
Eugene Onegin
A Novel in Verse
Chapter three, xxiv
Vladimir Nabokov
translation
Bollingen Series LXXII
Princeton University Press, 1975©
A correspondent took time to take me to task for resorting to this translation. I post this information to concede that I'm aware of everyone's concern, but that I think editorial corrections can never really erase the underlying offense. On the other hand I am glad, I have to say, that nobody wrote in to denounce the sentiment. It must have been Christmas.
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