Tatiana

“ Tatiana was busy at the stove and singing softly. Ilya looked at her, and again felt a painful discomfort; but almost immediately the sensation vanished under the influence of new impressions and cares. During these days he had no time to give to brooding; the arrangement of the shop and the purchase of goods occupied him entirely, and from day to day amidst his work he grew accustomed to this woman, almost without knowing, like a drunkard to the taste of brandy. She pleased him more and more as a mistress, although her caresses often caused him shame, even anxiety ”

“ His emotion increased presently when Prince Gremin brought his beautiful young wife forward, and introduced her to him with pride and affection; for although Tatiana greeted him with easy calm and even coldness, making no attempt to hide their former acquaintance, yet the intense look of repressed passion in her deep tender eyes told him plainly that her feeling for him had not altered, but had deepened with her growth. ”

“ Our evenings passed much more pleasantly than our days. As a rule the setting sun and the long shadows falling across the courtyard found Tatiana, Pobedimski, and me seated on the porch of our wing. We did not speak until darkness fell—what could we talk about when everything had already been said? There had been one novelty, my uncle's arrival, but that theme had soon become exhausted as well as the others. My tutor constantly kept his eyes fixed on Tatiana's face and fetched one deep sigh after another. ”

“ Tatiana corrected.
Ilya looked first at her, then at her husband, laughed softly and asked:
"You call it luck to kill some one?"
"Why, yes; to kill some one and not get caught."
"You've given me ace of diamonds again," cried the inspector.
"I could do with an ace," said Ilya seriously.
"Kill a rich man, that's the best ace!" said Tatiana jokingly.
"Hold on a bit with your killing, here's an ace of cards to go on with," cried Kirik, with a loud laugh and played two nines and an ace. ”

“ Ilya unclasped her hands from his neck, and said moodily:
"She can hardly drag one foot after the other, but she cares for those she loves."
"Whom does she love?" asked the woman, and looked with wonder and curiosity at Ilya's anxious face.
"Wait, Tatiana, wait! Don't make fun of her."
He told her briefly of Masha, and asked: "What is to be done?"
"Here, nothing," answered Tatiana, shrugging her shoulders. "By the law, the wife belongs to her husband, and no one has any right to take her from him." ”

“ The discredited wise-woman now took to roaming the woods, armed with her sickle, in hopes of meeting and, by some fortunate combination of circumstances in which cursing and cunning and violence were all to play a part, compassing the death of her arch-enemy, the ruiner of her position and prospects, the hated, the accursed, the demoniac bear. Strangely enough, Tatiana still believed in herself though the rest of the village had learned to doubt her powers, and she was not without hope that a second curse, if personally applied, might yet prove efficacious. ”

“ Up till this time Tatiana Markovna had been so gay. Her one anxiety, and at the moment the only one perhaps, had been the celebration of Vera’s nameday a fortnight ahead, she would have liked to have celebrated it with the same magnificence as Marfinka’s birthday, although Vera had roundly declared that on that day she meant to go on a visit to Anna Ivanovna Tushin, or to her friend Natasha. But how Tatiana Markovna had changed since Mass. As she talked with her guests she was thinking only of Vera, and gave absent-minded answers. ”

“ She looked on him with favor as a strong and faithful watchman. Gerasim stood in considerable awe of her, but, all the same, he had hopes of her favor, and was preparing to go to her with a petition for leave to marry Tatiana. He was only waiting for a new coat, promised him by the steward, to present a proper appearance before his mistress, when this same mistress suddenly took it into her head to marry Tatiana to Kapiton. ”

“ She is the type of all that is best in the Russian woman; that is to say, of all that is best in Russia; and it is a type taken straight from life, and not from fairy-land—a type that exists as much to-day as it did in the days of Pushkin. She is the first of that long gallery of Russian women which Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Dostoyevsky have given us, and which are the most precious jewels of Russian literature, because they reflect the crowning glory of Russian life. Tatiana falls in love with Onegin at first sight. ”

“ Tatiana Semenovna never made her appearance until dinner time, taking her tea alone, and only sending an ambassador to wish us goodmorning. I always found it hard not to burst out laughing, when the maid entered, took her stand before us with her hands crossed one upon the other, and, in her measured tones informed us that Tatiana Semenovna desired to know whether we had slept well, and whether we liked the little cakes we had for tea. Until dinner time we seldom remained together. ”

“ When Tatiana quietly took her knitting into a corner after supper, his eyes never left her little fingers, and he babbled without a moment's pause.
"Friends, you must hurry and begin to enjoy life as fast as you can!" he said. "For heaven's sake, don't sacrifice the present to the future ! You have youth and health and passion now, and the future is deceitful—a vapour ! As soon as your twentieth year knocks at the door, then begin to live ! ”

“ Suffice it to say that never was bear better cursed, and never was praise more lavished upon human being. For several years after this, if there was a wise woman in all Russia whose blessings and cursings were esteemed absolutely effective in all emergencies, and carried their own steady market value for miles around Spask, that woman was Tatiana. ”

“ Two other commissaries went to Tobolsk to remove the remainder of the family—Tatiana had been left in charge of the invalid and household. Olga, the eldest daughter, did not enjoy her mother’s confidence in the same degree. She took far more interest in literature than in the practical affairs of life, and would hide herself in a corner with a book or tell stories to the soldiers, utterly forgetting domestic trifles. Anastasia, still a child, and rather backward, could be left in Tatiana’s care. ”

“ I could not, indeed, put it before the mistress that Gerasim's courting Tatiana. But, after all, it's true enough; he's a queer sort of husband. But on the other hand, that devil, God forgive me, has only got to find out they're marrying Tatiana to Kapiton, he'll smash up everything in the house, 'pon my soul! There's no reasoning with him; why, he's such a devil, God forgive my sins, there's no getting over him nohow . . . 'pon my soul!"
Kapiton's entrance broke the thread of Gavrila's reflections. ”

“ No song could have been sweeter to the ears of Tatiana Markovna. “I should not be happy with him,” Vera continued. “I could never forget what he had been, or believe in the new Mark. I have endured more than enough to kill any passion. There is nothing left in my heart but a cold emptiness, and but for you, Grandmother, I should despair.”
She wept convulsively, her head pressed against her aunt’s shoulder.
“Do not recall your sufferings, Veroshka, and do not distress yourself unnecessarily. ”

“ This change in the behaviour of both men I explained by the theory that Gundasoff had hurt their feelings. My absent-minded uncle always confused their names, and on the day of his departure had not learned which was my tutor, and which was Tatiana’s husband. Tatiana herself he sometimes called Nastasia, sometimes Pelagia, sometimes Evdokia. Full of affectionate enthusiasm as he was for us all, he laughed at us and treated us as if we had been children. All this, of course, might easily have offended the young men. ”

“ The questions they had asked me gave me hope that Tatiana had been saved.
Absorbed in these thoughts, I was unaware that someone had come down the ladder until I suddenly realized the man stood beside me. Behind him was the woman holding a lighted candle. Waves of fresh, sweet air wafted out from his clothes.
“Good evening,” he said, “it is cool outside.” “How do you feel?” he asked. ”

“ Her two daughters, Tatiána and Olga, are very different in nature: Olga is a quite artless girl, full of the joy of living, who worries herself with no questions, and the young poet is madly in love with her; they are going to marry. As to Tatiána, she is a poetical girl, and Púshkin bestows on her all the wonderful powers of his talent, describing her as an ideal woman: intelligent, thoughtful, and inspired with vague aspirations towards something better than the prosaic life which she is compelled to live. ”

“ She was small, dark-eyed, deep-voiced, always beautifully groomed. I wanted to be like Tatiana, tall, beautiful and graceful. Often after I was tucked in bed, I whispered a prayer that God might transform me overnight into a girl like Tatiana. Grandmother was Alexei’s favorite. He loved her more than we sisters did. She was Father’s mother and there was a strong bond between them.
[Pg 14]
I remember the satisfaction I felt when some Danish relatives were visiting us and my Grandmother said to one, “Anastasia is certainly small,” and the relative replied, “You are not very tall yourself.” ”

“ How many there are, who, after confiding to her their family secrets and their private griefs, have found themselves so relieved by unburdening their minds, that they have bathed her hands with their tears. In general, she sits right before her guest, her head leaning lightly on her left hand, looking in his face with so much kindly interest, smiling with such friendly good-nature, that one can scarcely keep himself from saying, “Ah! what an excellent woman you are, Tatiana Borissovna. ”

“ Now that Ilya grasped that Tatiana had cleverly over-reached him over the business, he felt a kind of disgust towards her.
"If she were a stranger—well and good," he thought. "All men try to cheat one another, but she is almost like my wife." He began to behave coldly and suspiciously towards her, and to avoid meeting her on all sorts of pretexts.
Just at this time he became acquainted with another woman. This was Gavrik's sister, who came now and then to see her brother. Tall, thin, and lanky, she was not pretty, and though Gavrik had said she was nineteen she seemed to Ilya much older. ”

“ Annouchka was the daughter of my father and of an old waiting maid of my mother, named Tatiana. I recollect Tatiana very well. She was tall, with large, dark eyes, noble, severe, and intelligent features, and passed for a proud girl, rather unapproachable. As far as I could understand by the simple story with respectful omissions that Iskof related, my father did not notice Tatiana until several years after the death of my mother. At that time Tatiana no longer lived in the manor-house, but with one of her married sisters, charged with looking after the courtyard. ”

“ LETTER FROM NICHOLAS II TO MME. VEROUBOVA. TOBOLSK, 1917.
LETTERS FROM ALEXEI, TATIANA, AND MARIE, SMUGGLED FROM TOBOLSK IN 1917.
The children’s letters were devoured because they gave so many details of the family life in Tobolsk. On December 9 Tatiana wrote:
My darling: I often think and pray for you, and we are always remembering and speaking of you. It is hard that we cannot see each other, but God will surely help us, and we will meet again in better times. We wear the frocks your kind friends sent us, and your little gifts are always with us, reminding us of you. ”

“ As she moved away again on the arm of her husband, Onegin felt the sharp pangs of jealousy for the first time in his life, and knew that he now loved this woman with his whole heart; and he was seized with a passionate desire to possess the love he had once refused.
Unable to restrain his overwhelming feelings, he [327] determined to declare himself at all costs; and, making his way to a retired spot, he waited until Tatiana came by alone; and then, hastening towards her, trembling with emotion, he told her of his love, and implored her to grant him hers in return ”

“ He longed to laugh out loud.
"There's nothing more silly than to hang your head down," continued Tatiana, in the tone of an experienced man of the world. "It will pass. Love is a disease that is easily cured. Before I was married I fell in love three times, fit to drown myself, but it passed. And when I saw that it was time for me to marry, I married without all that love."
"Ilya raised his head and looked at the woman as she said this:
"What's the matter?" she asked. "Afterwards I learnt to love my husband. It happens often that a woman falls in love with her husband." ”

“ Onegin was arresting because he did not love Tatiana, but Tatiana was enchanting because she loved so ardently. Had they both loved one another equally well and been happy, might not both have been uninteresting?
“No longer think that you love me,” Nadia continued, thinking of Gorni. “I cannot believe it. You 87are clever and serious and wise; you are a very talented man, and may have a brilliant future before you. I am a stupid, frivolous girl and you know yourself that I should only hinder you in your life. ”

“ Since then no one addressed a word to Tatiana. And all this cost him nothing. It is true the wardrobe-maid, as soon as she reached the maids’ room, promptly fell into a fainting-fit, and behaved altogether so skilfully that Gerasim’s rough action reached his mistress’s knowledge the same day. But the capricious old lady only laughed, and several times, to the great offence of the wardrobe-maid, forced her to repeat “how he bent your head down with his heavy hand,” and next day she sent Gerasim a rouble. She looked on him with favour as a strong and faithful watchman. ”