g as vain and
weak as she is pretty, does her share. The result is, that Lensky
challenges Onyegin to a duel, and the seconds insist that it must be
fought, though Onyegin would gladly apologize. He kills Lensky,
unintentionally, and immediately departs on his travels. Olga speedily
consoles herself, and marries a handsome officer. Tatyana, a girl of
profound feelings, remains inconsolable, refuses all offers of marriage,
and at last, yielding to the entreaties of her anxious relatives,
consents to spend a season in Moscow. As a wall-flower, at her first
ball, she captivates a wealthy prince, of very high standing in St.
Petersburg, and is persuaded by her parents to marry him. When Onyegin
returns to the capital he finds the little country girl, whose love he
had scorned, one of the greatest ladies at the court and in society; and
he falls madly in love with her. Her cold indifference galls him, and
increases his love. He writes three letters, to which she does not
reply. Then he forces himself into her boudoir and finds her reading one
of his letters and weeping over it. She then confesses that she loves
him still, but dismisses him with the assurance that she will remain
true to her noble and loving husband. Tatyana is regarded as one of the
finest, most vividly faithful portraits of the genuine Russian woman in
all Russian literature; while Olga is considered fully her equal, as a
type, and in popular sympathy; and the other characters are almost
equally good in their various lines.

Besides a host of beautiful lyric poems, Pushkin left several dramatic
fragments: "The Rusalka" or "Water Nymph," on which Dargomyzhsky founded
a beautiful opera, "The Stone Guest,"[11] "The Miserly Knight," and
chief of all, and like "Evgeny Onyegin," epoch-making in its line, the
historical dramatic fragment "Boris Godunoff." This founded a school in
Russian dramatic writing. It is impossible to do justice in translation
to the exquisite lyrics; but the following soliloquy, from "Boris
Godunoff," will serve to show Pushkin's power in blank verse. Boris
Godunoff, brother-in-law to the Tzar Feodor Mikhailovitch, has at last
reached the goal of his ambition, and mounted the throne, at what cost
his own speech shows: Scene: The Imperial Palace. The Tzar enters:

I've reached the height of power;
'Tis six years now that I have reigned in peace;
But there's no happiness within my soul.
Is it not thus--in y