A Book Thing
I don’t usually post “memes” on this blog, but this one on Balloon Juice was somewhat more interesting. So I’m going to do it, even though I wasn’t tagged. (And I’m also not going to tag anyone else, ’cause I’ve always thought that was kinda lame.) Man, I’m a total failure as a meme transmission vector.
Anyway, the idea is that you grab the closest book on hand, turn to page 123, and list sentences six through nine from that page. It’s a good thing that the closest book to me right now isn’t Nabokov, since I don’t think he ever uses more than two or three sentences per page. What I’ve got here at work is Evgeniy Onegin by Alexander Pushkin, as translated by some random English guy. (Unfortunately, I don’t own the Nabokov version.)
The guests all squeeze toward the centre,
Each moves his setting, shifts his chair,
And in a trice they seat the pair.Across from Tanya — there they place them;
And paler than the moon at dawn,
She cannot raise her eyes to face them
And trembles like a hunted fawn.
Inside her, stormy passion’s seething;
The wretched girl is scarcely breathing;
The two friends’ greetings pass unheard;
Her tears well up without a word
And almost fall; the poor thing’s ready
To faint; but deep within her, will
And strength of mind were working still,
And they prevailed.
So it’s the scene where Lensky and Onegin arrive at the fateful party where Onegin teases Lensky by flirting with Olga, kicking off their duel. I always felt Lensky was a bit the lucky one in all this, to be honest. But, man. Sucks to be Tanya, huh?