“Eugene Onegin” by Pushkin in brief summary
A young nobleman Eugene Onegin travels from St. Petersburg to the village to his dying rich uncle, annoyed at the impending boredom. Twenty-four-year-old Eugene received as a child a home education, he was brought up by French tutors. He spoke French fluently, easily danced, knew Latin a little, he knew how to keep silent in a conversation or to flash an epigram – that was enough for the light to be favorable to him.
Onegin leads a life full of secular fun and love adventures. Every day he receives several invitations for the evening, goes for a walk to the boulevard, then dines at the restaurateur, and from there goes to the theater. At home Evgeni spends a lot of time in front of the mirror behind the toilet. In his office there are all the fashionable ornaments and devices: perfume, combs, nail files, scissors, brushes. “You can be a sensible person / And think about the beauty of nails.” Onegin again hurries – now to the ball. The holiday is in full
Returning from the ball, Eugene goes to bed early in the morning, when Petersburg is already awake. “And tomorrow is the same as yesterday.” But is Eugene happy? No, everything bored him: friends, beauties, light, spectacles. Like Byild’s Childe Harold, he is gloomy and disappointed, Onegin, locked up at home, tries to read a lot, tries to write himself – but it’s all to no avail. They are again seized by a spleen.
After the death of his father, who lived in debt and eventually broke down, Onegin, not wanting to deal with litigation, gives family status to the creditors. He hopes to inherit his uncle’s property. Indeed, when he came to a relative, Evgeni learns that he died, leaving his nephew with an estate, factories, forests and lands.
Eugene settles in the village – life has somehow changed. At first the new position amuses him, but soon he becomes convinced that here as boringly as in Petersburg.
Eliminating the fate of the peasants, Eugene replaced the corvee by dung. Because
At the same time, eighteen-year-old Vladimir Lensky, “a fan of Kant and a poet,” comes back from Germany to the neighboring estate. His soul is not yet spoiled by the light, he believes in love, glory, the highest and mysterious goal of life. With cute simplicity, he sings “something, and foggy distance” in sublime verse. Handsome, a profitable bridegroom, Lensky does not want to restrain himself by marriage, nor even participation in everyday conversations of neighbors.
Quite different people, Lensky and Onegin nevertheless converge and often spend time together. Eugene with a smile hears the “young delirium” Lensky. Believing that, with years of delusion, they themselves will disappear, Onegin does not hasten to disappoint the poet, the ardor of Lensky’s feelings still arouses respect in him. Lensky tells a friend about his extraordinary love for Olga, whom he knows from childhood and whom he has long been told to be a bride.
On the ruddy, blond, always cheerful Olga is not at all like her older sister, Tatyana. Thoughtful and sad, she prefers noisy games to loneliness and reading foreign novels.
Mother Tatyana and Olga in due time has been given out in marriage against will. In the village, where she was taken away, she at first cried, but then got used to it, got used to it, and became “autocratic” managing the household and husband. Dmitry Larin sincerely loved his wife, trusting her in everything. The family revered the ancient customs and rituals: they sent to the post, pancakes were baked in carnival. So quietly flowed their lives, while “simple and kind gentleman” did not die.
Lensky visits the grave of Larin. Life goes on, generations are replaced by others. The time will come, “… our grandchildren in a good hour / From the world will also push us!”.
One evening Lensky is going to visit the Larin. Onegin, this pastime seems boring, but then he decides to join his friend in order to look at the object of his love. On the way back, Eugene frankly shares his impressions: Olga, in his opinion, is ordinary, in place of a young poet he would rather choose his older sister.
Meanwhile, the unexpected visit of friends gave rise to gossip about the future wedding of Eugene and Tatiana. Tatyana herself secretly thinks about Onegin: “It’s time she came, she fell in love”. Immersed in reading novels, Tatiana imagines herself to be their heroine, and Onegin a hero. At night, she can not fall asleep and starts a conversation about love with a nanny. She tells how she was married at thirteen, and she can not understand the young lady. Suddenly Tatyana asks for a pen, paper and starts a letter to Onegin. In it, trusting, obedient to the attraction of feelings, Tatyana is frank. She in her sweet simplicity does not know about the danger, does not observe the caution inherent in the “inaccessible” cold Petersburg beauties and cunning coquette, luring fans into their networks. The letter was written in French, because the ladies at that time were much more accustomed to express themselves in that language. Tatyana believes that Eugene was “sent by God” to her, that she can not entrust her fate to anyone else. She waits for Onegin to decide and answer.
In the morning Tatyana, in excitement, asks nurse Filipyevna to send a letter to her neighbor. There is a long wait. Lensky arrives, finally, after him – Onegin. Tatiana quickly escapes into the garden, there the girls-maid sing, collecting berries. Tatiana can not calm down at all, and suddenly – before her appears Eugene…
The sincerity and simplicity of Tatyana’s letter touched Onegin. Not wishing to deceive the trusting Tanya, Eugene turns to her with a “confession”: if he was looking for a quiet family life, he would choose Tatyana as his girlfriend, but he was not created for bliss. Gradually, “confession” becomes a “sermon”: Onegin advises Tatiana to restrain feelings, otherwise inexperience will lead her to disaster. The girl in tears listens to him.
We have to admit that Onegin acted with Tanya quite nobly, no matter how honorable his enemies and friends were. We in our lives can not rely on friends, relatives or loved ones. What is left? “Love yourself…”
After an explanation with Onegin, Tatyana “withers, turns pale, goes out and keeps silent.” Lensky and Olga, on the contrary, are merry. They are together all the time. Lensky decorates the drawings and elegies of Holguin’s album.
And Onegin, meanwhile, betrays a quiet village life: “walks, reading, deep sleep.” The northern summer is passing quickly, the boring autumn season is coming, and behind it – and frosts. On winter days Onegin sits at home, Lensky visits him. Friends drink wine, talk at the fireplace, and remember about the neighbors. Lensky sends Eugene an invitation to Tatiana’s name-day party, talking about Olga with enthusiasm. The wedding is already planned, Lensky does not doubt that he is loved, so he is happy. His faith is naive, but is it better than someone who “has cooled his heart”?
Tatiana likes Russian winter: sleigh rides, sunny frosty days and dark evenings. Come Christmas. Divination, ancient legends, dreams and signs – Tatyana believes all this. At night she is going to revive, but she becomes scared. Tatiana goes to bed, taking off her silk belt. She has a strange dream.
She alone walks through the snow, the stream rushes ahead, a thin bridge over it. Suddenly, a huge bear appears, which helps Tatiana to move to the other side, and then follows her. Tatiana tries to escape, but falls exhausted. The bear brings her to some hut and disappears. Recovering herself, Tatyana hears cries and noise, and through the crack in the door she sees incredible monsters, among them as the master – Onegin! Suddenly, from the breeze of the wind, the door opens, and the whole gang of hell ghosts, laughing wildly, approaches her. Hearing Onegin’s menacing word, everyone disappears. Eugene draws Tatiana to her, but then Olga and Lenski appear. A dispute develops. Onegin, unhappy with uninvited guests, grabs a knife and kills Lensky. Darkness, scream… Tatyana wakes up and immediately tries to solve the dream, leafing through the dream book of Martyn Zadeki.
The day of the name day comes. Guests are coming: Pustyakov, Skotinin, Buyanov, Monsieur Tricquet and other amusing figures. The arrival of Onegin leads Tanya into agitation, and Eugene is annoying. He is indignant at Lenski who called him here. After lunch, the ball begins. Onegin finds an excuse to take revenge on Lensky: he compliments with Olga, constantly dances with her. Lenski is amazed. He wants to invite Olga to the next dance, but his fiancee already gave the floor to Onegin. The insulted Lensky is removed: only a duel can now resolve his fate.
The next morning Onegin receives a note from Lensky with a challenge to a duel. The letter is brought in second by Zaretsky, a cynical, but intelligent person, a former ruffian, a card thief, an inveterate duelist who knew how to quarrel and reconcile friends. Now he is a peaceful landowner. Onegin takes the challenge calmly, but in the soul remains unhappy with himself: it was not necessary to joke so much evil over the love of a friend.
Lensky looks forward to hearing the answer, he is glad that Onegin did not avoid the duel. After some hesitation, Vladimir still goes to Larin. It was as if nothing was happily met by Olga. Embarrassed, touched, happy, Lensky is no longer jealous, but he is still obliged to save his beloved from the “corrupter”. If Tatiana knew about everything, she, perhaps, would prevent the upcoming fight. But Onegin and Lenski keep silence.
In the evening, the young poet composes farewell poems in a lyrical heat. A little napping Lensky awakens a neighbor. Eugene, after sleeping, is late for the meeting. He is waited a long time by the mill. Onegin presents his servant Guillot as a second, which causes Zaretsky’s displeasure.
As if in a terrible dream, the “enemies” coolly prepare each other’s doom. They could make peace, but we have to pay tribute to secular customs: a sincere impulse would be taken for cowardice. Preparations are finished. Opponents on the team converge, aim – Eugene manages to shoot first. Lenski was killed. Onegin runs up, calls him – all in vain.
Perhaps, the young poet was waiting for eternal glory, and maybe – and an ordinary boring life. But anyway, the young dreamer is dead. Zaretsky takes the icy corpse home.
Spring came. At the creek, in the shadow of two pines, there is a simple monument: the poet Vladimir Lensky is resting here. Once upon a time, Larina’s sisters often came to sorrow, now this place is forgotten by people.
Olga, after Lensky’s death, did not cry for a long time-she fell in love with an ulan, she married, and soon left with him. Tatiana was left alone. She still thinks about Onegin, although she should have hated him for killing Lensky. Walking one evening, Tatiana comes to Onegin’s deserted estate. The clerk leads her into the house. Tatiana looks with tenderness at the “fashionable cell”. Since then, she often comes here to read books from the library of Eugene. Tatiana carefully examines the marks in the fields, with their help, she begins to understand more clearly who she adored. Who is he: an angel or a demon, “not a parody of him”?
Tatyana’s mother is worried: her daughter refuses all the grooms. Following the advice of neighbors, she decides to go to Moscow, “to the bride’s fair.” Tatiana says goodbye to her favorite forests, meadows, with freedom, which she will have to change to the bustle of light.
In winter, the Larins finally finish noisy gatherings, say goodbye to their servants, sit down in a carriage and go on a long journey. In Moscow, they stop at the aged cousin Alina. All the days are busy with visits to numerous relatives. The girls surround Tanya, they tell her their secrets of the heart, but she does not tell them anything about her love. Quite nonsense, indifferent speech, gossip hears Tatiana in the secular living rooms. In a meeting amidst the noise, the thunder of music, Tatiana is carried away by her dream to her village, to flowers and alleys, to memories of him. She does not see anyone around, but an important general does not take her eyes from her…
More than two years later, in Onegin, a lonely and silent Onegin appeared on a secular raut. Once again, he remains a stranger to society. People are ready to condemn all the strange and unusual, only mediocrity to them on the shoulder. And the one who, having got rid of unnecessary dreams, achieves glory, money and ranks in time, everyone recognizes as “a wonderful person”. But sad to look at life as a rite and obediently follow all. Onegin, having lived “without service, without a wife, without business” to twenty-six years old, does not know what to do. He left the village, but he was bored with traveling. And now, returning, he gets “from the ship to the ball.”
General attention is attracted to the lady who appeared accompanied by an important general. Although it can not be called beautiful, everything in it is nice and simple, without the slightest share of vulgarity. Vague conjectures of Eugene are confirmed: this is the same Tatyana, now the princess. The prince represents his friend Onegin’s wife. Evgenie is embarrassed, Tatyana is absolutely calm.
The next day, receiving an invitation from the prince, Onegin eagerly waits for the evening to see Tatyana as soon as possible. But alone with her, he again feels uncomfortable. There are guests. Onegin is busy only with Tatyana. Such are all people: they are attracted only by the forbidden fruit. Not appreciating in due time the charm of the “tender girl”, Eugene falls in love with the impregnable and majestic “legislator” of the higher world. He persistently follows the princess, but can not get attention from her. In desperation he writes to Tatiana a passionate message, where he justifies himself for his former coldness and begs for reciprocity. But Onegin does not receive a reply to this or to any other letters. At the meetings Tatiana is cold and does not notice him. Onegin locked himself in his study and began to read, but his thoughts constantly carry him to the past.
One spring morning Onegin leaves his imprisonment and goes to Tatiana. The princess alone reads a letter and quietly cries. Now it is possible to recognize the former poor Tanya. Onegin falls at her feet. Tatiana after a long silence turns to Eugene: it was his turn to listen. Once he rejected the love of a humble girl. Why persecute her now? Is it because she is rich and noble, that her shame would bring Onegin “a seductive honor”? Tatyana is alien to the splendor, the brilliance of social life. She would be glad to give all this for a poor home, for a garden, where she first met Onegin. But her fate is decided. She had to give in marriage to mother’s entreaties. Tatiana admits that she loves Onegin. And yet he must leave her. “But I’m given to someone else, I’ll be faithful to him” – with these words she leaves. Eugene is amazed.
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