hero, and the result is that the poet provokes his friend to a duel. An old retired officer, a true duelist, is mixed up in the affair, and Onyéghin, who cares very much about what the country gentlemen, whom he pretends to despise, may say about him, accepts the provocation and fights the duel. He kills his poet friend and is compelled to leave the country. Several years pass. Tatiána, recovered from an illness, goes one day to the house where formerly Onyéghin stayed and, making friends with an old keeper, spends days and months reading in his library; but life has no attraction for her. After insistent supplication from her mother, she goes to Moscow, and there she marries an old general. This marriage brings her to St. Petersburg, where she plays a prominent part in the Court circles. In these surroundings Onyéghin meets her once more, and hardly recognises his Tánya in the worldly lady whom he sees now; he falls madly in love with her. She takes no notice of him, and his letters remain unanswered. At last one day he goes, at an unseemly hour, into her house. He finds her reading his letters, her eyes full of tears, and makes her a passionate declaration of his love. To this Tatiána replies by a monologue which is so beautiful that it ought to be quoted here, if there existed an English translation which rendered at least the touching simplicity of Tatiána’s words, and consequently the beauty of the verses. A whole generation of Russian women have cried over this monologue, as they were reading these lines: “Onyéghin, I was younger then, and better looking, I suppose; and I loved you” ... but the love of a country girl offered nothing new to Onyéghin. He paid no attention to her.... “Why then does he follow her now at every step? Why such display of his attention? Is it because she is now rich and belongs to the high society, and is well received at Court? “_Because my fall, in such condition, Would be well noted ev’rywhere, And bring to you an envied reputation?_” And she continues: “_For me, Onyéghin, all this wealth, This showy tinsel of Court life, All my successes in the world, My well-appointed house and balls ... For me are nought!--I gladly would Give up these rags, this masquerade, And all the brilliancy and din, For a small shelf of books, a garden wild, Our weather-beaten house so poor-- Those very places where I met With you, Onyéghin, that first time; And for the churchyard of our village, Where now a cross and shady trees Stand on the grave of my poor nurse._ * * * * * _And happiness was possible then! It was so near!_” ... She supplicates Onyéghin to leave her. “I love you,” she says: “_Why should I hide from you the truth? But I am given to another, And true to him I shall remain._”[11]