Golden Earrings

Golden Earrings

Eugene Onegin: "Reading Fashion"

Tatyana's dream sequence, highlighting the commonality (and hidden dangers) of jewelry.

Elizabeth LaFave

Text: Alexander Pushkin; Eugene Onegin 
Image: Accessories to Modernity: Fashion and the Feminine in Nineteenth-Century France.

Text: Oxford's World Classics
Image: University of Pennsylvania Press

«Снег рыхлый по колено ей;

То длинный сук её за шею

Зацепит вдруг, то из ушей

Златые серьги вырвет силой;

То в хрупком снеге с ножки милой

Увязнет мокрый башмачок;

То выронит она платок» (5, XXIV, 115). 


Soft snow, knee-deep, lies all about;

A jutting branch looms up, attacking,

And tears her golden earrings out;

And now another tries to trip her,

And from one charming foot her slipper,

All wet, comes off in crumbly snow;

And now she feels her kerchief go” (Chapter 5, Stanza 14, Page 115).