DiiGMaa

A few months back, my father asked me to sit by him closely and uttered a strange question quietly..

“What is your most treasured possession in your room?

I looked at my dad and instantly said “my books…”

He suddenly froze and glanced away stunned… I feared his expression… had I offended him? I feared he misunderstood me… He had always gifted and provided me with the worlds desires… and the day he asks what I treasured the most I state the oddest of them all…

I try to ease the tension and state:

“..If you are referring to treasures and jewels then mum keeps them for me… other than that my true treasures I do not own”

He went silent for a bit longer and looked away… I then gathered how happy he was as he expressed his joy in a soft tone explaining to me that he wanted to entrust me with a few items while he was away on his travels. His greatest joy was that I, like my father, loved my books… our endless visits to book stores, meeting after 2 hours just to discuss our findings over coffee and tea and then back to the books… ending up at the counter with piles of books and a lighter pocket..

While moving last week… I packed one of my favorite books… Eugene Onegin a novel in verse by Aleksandr Pushkin, and when I came to unpack that box… in our new home.. I realized that… never have I held it without the urge to open and read a verse or two…

Hence i wanted to share a verse or two from one of my favorite turning points of the story… But I could not decide which verse.. so I posted “Onegin’s Letter to Tatyana” in full.. The story has many twists and turns but I shan’t spoil it for you.. go read it ppl.. in the meantime enjoy this passage…

`I know it all: my secret ache

will anger you in its confession.

What scorn I see in the expression

that your proud glance is sure to take!

What do I want? what am I after,

stripping my soul before your eyes!

I know to what malicious laughter

my declaration may give rise!

“I noticed once, at our chance meeting,

in you a tender pulse was beating,

yet dared not trust what I could see.

I gave no rein to sweet affection:

what held me was my predilection,

my tedious taste for feeling free.

And then, to part us in full measure,

Lensky, that tragic victim, died…

From all sweet things that gave me pleasure,

since then my heart was wrenched aside;

freedom and peace, in substitution

for happiness, I sought, and ranged

unloved, and friendless, and estranged.

What folly! and what retribution!

“No, every minute of my days,

to see you, faithfully to follow,

watch for your smile, and catch your gaze

with eyes of love, with greed to swallow

your words, and in my soul to explore

your matchlessness, to seek to capture

its image, then to swoon before

your feet, to pale and waste… what rapture!

“But I’m denied this: all for you

I drag my footsteps hither, yonder;

I count each hour the whole day through;

and yet in vain ennui I squander

the days that doom has measured out.

And how they weigh! I know about

my span, that fortune’s jurisdiction

has fixed; but for my heart to beat

I must wake up with the conviction

that somehow that same day we’ll meet…

“I dread your stern regard surmising

in my petition an approach,

a calculation past despising –

I hear the wrath of your reproach.

How fearful, in and out of season

to pine away from passion’s thirst,

to burn — and then by force of reason

to stem the bloodstream’s wild outburst;

how fearful, too, is my obsession

to clasp your knees, and at your feet

to sob out prayer, complaint, confession,

and every plea that lips can treat;

meanwhile with a dissembler’s duty

to cool my glances and my tongue,

to talk as if with heart unwrung,

and look serenely on your beauty!…

“But so it is: I’m in no state

to battle further with my passion;

I’m yours, in a predestined fashion,

and I surrender to my fate.”

Can you even begin to imagine how it would sound if we spoke Russian ? damn translation !!