Autumn. The Larin estate in the Russian countryside.

Madame Lárina makes preserves and listens to her daughters Tatyana and Olga. As the girls sing of young love lost, Lárina and the old nurse Filipyevna remember their own youth. A group of peasants carries in a decorated sheaf of grain, and they sing and dance for Lárina. Olga, wishing to join their merriment, teases Tatyana for being bookish and misty. Then Lárina enters and likewise asks Tatyana the reason for her pallor. Olga in turn teases both her mother and sister, for she sees the approach of her fiancé, the poet Vladimir Lensky. Tatyana, learning that his elegant friend Eugene Onegin is with him, tries to flee in embarrassment.

Lensky arrives with Onegin. Tatyana falls instantly for the handsome stranger, who derides Lensky in private for having chosen the less interesting sister. Lensky and Olga commiserate having spent a whole day apart.

At bedtime, Tatyana can’t sleep. She asks the nurse to tell her stories of the olden days — then confesses she’s fallen in love. She spends the night writing to Onegin; and in the morning she asks Filipyevna to have her letter delivered.

Onegin finds Tatyana in the garden. He’s read her letter and wishes to reciprocate her candor — for he cannot reciprocate her feeling. She is a treasure, but he’s simply not the marrying kind: and she’d do well to restrain her artless ardor, lest another take advantage of her. His sermon ended, he offers her his arm and leads her inside.