Onegin locked himself indoors;                 yawning, took up a pen;                 wanted to write; but persevering toil                 to him was sickening: nothing                 from his pen issued,                 nor did he get into the cocky guild                 of people, upon whom I pass no judgment --                 since I belong to them.                   And once again to idleness consigned,                 oppressed by emptiness of soul,                 he settled down with the laudable aim                 to make his own another's mind;                 he put a troop of books upon a shelf,                 read, read. . . .                   -- Alexander Pushkin, Eugene Onegin                 (translated from the Russian by Vladimir Nabokov)

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