Владимир Набоков - Комментарии к «Евгению Онегину» Александра Пушкина

Onegin'S Letter To Tatiana

   I foresee everything: the explanation   of a sad secret will offend you.   What bitter scorn 4 your proud glance will express!   What do I want? What is my object   in opening my soul to you?   What wicked merriment 8 perhaps I give occasion to!

   Chancing to meet you once,   noting in you a spark of tenderness,   I did not venture to believe in it:12 did not give way to a sweet habit;   my tedious freedom   I did not wish to lose. Another thing   yet separated us:16 a hapless victim Lenski fell.   From all that to the heart is dear   then did I tear my heart away;   alien to everybody, tied by nothing,20 I thought: liberty and peace are   a substitute for happiness. Good God!   How wrong I was, how I am punished!

   No — every minute to see you; to follow24 you everywhere;   the smile of your lips, movement of your eyes,   to try to capture with enamored eyes;   to listen long to you, to comprehend28 all your perfection with one's soul;   to melt in agonies before you,   grow pale and waste away... that's rapture!

   And I'm deprived of that; for you32 I drag myself at random everywhere;   to me each day is dear, each hour is dear,   while I in futile dullness squander   the days told off by fate — they are36 sufficiently oppressive anyway.   I know: my span is well-nigh measured;   but that my life may be prolonged   I must be certain in the morning40 of seeing you during the day.

   I fear: in my meek plea   your severe gaze will see   the schemes of despicable cunning —44 and I can hear your wrathful censure.   If you hut knew how terrible it is   to languish with the thirst of love,   burn — and by means of reason hourly48 subdue the tumult in one's blood;   wish to embrace your knees   and, in a burst of sobbing, at your feet   pour out appeals, avowals, plaints,52 all, all I could express,   and in the meantime with feigned coldness   arm speech and gaze,   maintain a placid conversation,56 glance at you with a cheerful glance!...

   But let it be: against myself   I've not the force to struggle any more;   all is decided: I am in your power,60 and I surrender to my fate.

XXXIII

   There is no answer. He sends a new missive.   To the second, to the third letter —   there is no answer. He drives out to some 4 reception. Hardly has he entered — there she is   coming in his direction. How severe!   He is not seen, to him no word is said.   Ugh! How surrounded she is now 8 with Twelfthtide cold!   How anxious are to hold back indignation   her stubborn lips!   Onegin peers with a keen eye:12 where, where are discomposure, sympathy,   where the tearstains? None, none!   There's on that face but the imprint of wrath...

XXXIV

   plus, possibly, a secret fear   lest husband or monde guess   the escapade, the casual foible, 4 all my Onegin knows....   There is no hope! He drives away,   curses his folly —   and, deeply plunged in it, 8 the monde he once again renounces   and in his silent study comes to him   the recollection of the time   when cruel chondria12 pursued him in the noisy monde,   captured him, took him by the collar,   and shut him up in a dark hole.

XXXV

   Again, without discrimination,   he started reading. He read Gibbon,   Rousseau, Manzoni, Herder, 4 Chamfort, Mme de Staël, Bichat, Tissot.   He read the skeptic Bayle,   he read the works of Fontenelle,   he read some [authors] of our own, 8 without rejecting anything —   the “almanacs” and the reviews   where sermons into us are drummed,   where I'm today abused so much12 but where such madrigals addressed tome   I used to meet with now and then:   e sempre bene, gentlemen.

XXXVI

   And lo — his eyes were reading, but his thoughts   were far away;   chimeras, desires, sorrows 4 kept crowding deep into his soul.   Between the printed lines   he with spiritual eyes   read other lines. It was in them 8 that he was utterly absorbed.   These were the secret legends of the heart's   dark ancientry;   dreams unconnected12 with anything; threats, rumors, presages;   or the live tosh of a long tale,   or a young maiden's letters.

XXXVII

   And by degrees into a lethargy   of feelings and of thoughts he falls,   while before him Imagination 4 deals out her motley faro deck.   Now he sees: on the melted snow,   as at a night's encampment sleeping,   stirless, a youth lies; and he hears 8 a voice: “Well, what — he's dead!”   Now he sees foes forgotten,   calumniators, and malicious cowards,   and a swarm of young traitresses,12 and a circle of despicable comrades;   and now a country house, and by the window   sits she... and ever she!

XXXVIII

   He grew so used to lose himself in this   that he almost went off his head   or else became a poet. (Frankly, 4 that would have been a boon, indeed!)   And true: by dint of magnetism,   the mechanism of Russian verses   my addleheaded pupil 8 at that time nearly grasped.   How much a poet he resembled   when in a corner he would sit alone,   and the hearth blazed in front of him,12 and he hummed “Benedetta”   or “Idol mio,” and into the fire   dropped now a slipper, now his magazine!

XXXIX

   Days rushed. In warmth-pervaded air   winter already was resolving;   and he did not become a poet, 4 he did not die, did not go mad.   Spring quickens him: for the first time   his close-shut chambers, where he had   been hibernating like a marmot, 8 his double windows, inglenook —   he leaves on a bright morning,   he fleets in sleigh along the Neva's bank.   Upon blue blocks of hewn-out ice12 the sun plays. In the streets   the furrowed snow thaws muddily:   whither, upon it, his fast course

XL

   directs Onegin? You beforehand   have guessed already. Yes, exactly:   apace to her, to his Tatiana, 4 my unreformed eccentric comes.   He walks in, looking like a corpse.   There's not a soul in the front hall.   He enters the reception room. On! No one. 8 A door he opens.... What is it   that strikes him with such force?   The princess before him, alone,   sits, unadorned, pale, reading12 some kind of letter,   and softly sheds a flood of tears,   her cheek propped on her hand.

XLI

   Ah! Her mute sufferings —   in this swift instant who would not have read!   Who would not have the former Tanya, 4 poor Tanya, recognized now in the princess?   In throes of mad regrets,   Eugene falls at her feet;   she gives a start, 8 and is silent, and looks,   without surprise, without wrath, at Onegin....   His sick, extinguished gaze,   imploring aspect, mute reproof,12 she takes in everything. The simple maid,   with the dreams, with the heart of former days   again in her has resurrected now.

XLII

   She does not bid him rise   and, not taking her eyes off him,   does not withdraw 4 her limp hand from his avid lips....   What is her dreaming now about?   A lengthy silence passes,   and finally she, softly: 8 “Enough; get up. I must   frankly explain myself to you.   Onegin, do you recollect that hour   when in the garden, in the avenue, fate brought us12 together and so meekly   your lesson I heard out.   Today it is my turn.

XLIII