Владимир Набоков - Комментарии к «Евгению Онегину» Александра Пушкина

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

   “Onegin, I was younger then,   I was, I daresay, better-looking,   and I loved you; and what then, what 4 did I find in your heart?   What answer? Mere severity.   There wasn't — was there?  — novelty for you   in a meek little maiden's love? 8 Even today — good heavens!  — my blood freezes   as soon as I remember   your cold glance and that sermon.... But I do not   accuse you; at that awful hour12 you acted nobly,   you in regard to me were right,   to you with all my soul I'm grateful....

XLIV

   “Then — is it not so?  — in the wilderness,   far from vain Hearsay,   I was not to your liking.... Why, then, now 4 do you pursue me?   Why have you marked me out?   Might it not be because I must   now move in the grand monde; 8 because I have both wealth and rank;   because my husband has been maimed in battles;   because for that the Court is kind to us?   Might it not be because my disrepute12 would be remarked by everybody now   and in society might bring you   scandalous honor?

XLV

   “I'm crying.... If your Tanya   you've not forgotten yet,   then know: the sharpness of your blame, 4 cold, stern discourse,   if it were only in my power   I'd have preferred to an offensive passion,   and to these letters and tears. 8 For my infantine dreams   you had at least some pity then,   at least consideration for my age.   But now!... What to my feet12 has brought you? What a trifle!   How, with your heart and mind,   be the slave of a trivial feeling?

XLVI

   “But as to me, Onegin, this magnificence,   a wearisome life's tinsel, my successes   in the world's vortex, 4 my fashionable house and evenings,   what do I care for them?... At once I'd gladly   give all the frippery of this masquerade,   all this glitter, and noise, and fumes, 8 for a shelfful of books, for a wild garden,   for our poor dwelling,   for those haunts where for the first time,   Onegin, I saw you,12 and for the humble churchyard where   there is a cross now and the shade   of branches over my poor nurse.

XLVII

   “Yet happiness had been so possible,   so near!... But my fate is already   settled. Imprudently, 4 perhaps, I acted.   My mother with tears of conjurement   beseeched me. For poor Tanya   all lots were equal. 8 I married. You must,   I pray you, leave me;   I know: in your heart are   both pride and genuine honor.12 I love you (why dissimulate?);   but to another I belong:   to him I shall be faithful all my life.”

XLVIII

   She has gone. Eugene stands   as if by thunder struck.   In what a tempest of sensations 4 his heart is now immersed!   But there resounds a sudden clink of spurs,   and there appears Tatiana's husband,   and here my hero, 8 at an unfortunate minute for him,   reader, we now shall leave   for long... forever.... After him   sufficiently along one path12 we've roamed the world. Let us congratulate   each other on attaining land. Hurrah!   It long (is it not true?) was time.

XLIX

   Whoever, O my reader,   you be — friend, foe — I wish to part   with you at present as a pal. 4 Farewell. Whatever in these careless strophes   you might have looked for as you followed me —   tumultuous recollections,   relief from labors, 8 live images or witticisms,   or faults of grammar —   God grant that in this book, for recreation,   for dreaming, for the heart,12 for jousts in journals,   you find at least a crumb.   Upon which, let us part, farewell!

L

   You, too, farewell, my strange traveling companion,   and you, my true ideal,   and you, my live and constant, 4 though small, work. I have known with you   all that a poet covets:   obliviousness of life in the world's tempests,   the sweet discourse of friends. 8 Rushed by have many, many days   since young Tatiana, and with her   Onegin, in a blurry dream   appeared to me for the first time —12 and the far stretch of a free novel   I through a magic crystal   still did not make out clearly.

LI

   But those to whom at amicable meetings   its first strophes I read —   “Some are no more, others are distant,” 4 as erstwhiles Sadi said.   Without them was Onegin's picture finished.   And she from whom was fashioned   the dear ideal of “Tatiana”... 8 Ah, much, much has fate snatched away!   Blest who left life's feast early,   not having to the bottom drained   the goblet full of wine;12 who never read life's novel to the end   and all at once could part with it   as I with my Onegin.THE END

NOTES TO EUGENE ONEGIN

1. Written in Bessarabia. >>

2. Dandy [Eng.], a fop. >>

3. Hat à la Bolivar. >>

4. Well-known restaurateur. >>

5. A trait of chilled sentiment worthy of Childe Harold. The ballets of Mr. Didelot are full of liveliness of fancy and extraordinary charm. One of our romantic writers found in them much more poetry than in the whole of French literature. >>

6. “Tout le monde sut qu'il mettoit du blanc, et moi qui n'en croyois rien je commençai de le croire, non seulement par l'embellissement de son teint, et pour avoir trouvé des tasses de blanc sur sa toilette, mais sur ce qu'entrant un matin dans sa chambre, je le trouvai brossant ses ongles avec une petite vergette faite exprès, ouvrage qu'il continua fi+èrement devant moi. Je jugeai qu'un homme qui passe deux heures tous les matins à brosser ses ongles peut bien passer quelques instans à remplir de blanc les creux de sa peau.”

(Les Confessions de Jean-Jacques Rousseau.)

Grimm was ahead of his age: nowadays people all over enlightened Europe clean their nails with a special brush. >>

7. The whole of this ironical stanza is nothing but a subtle compliment to our fair compatriots. Thus Boileau, under the guise of disapprobation, eulogizes Louis XIV. Our ladies combine enlightenment with amiability, and strict purity of morals with the Oriental charm that so captivated Mme de Staël

(Dix ans d'exil). >>

8. Readers remember the charming description of a Petersburg night in Gnedich's idyl:

   Here's night; but the golden stripes of the clouds do not darken.   Though starless and moonless, the whole horizon lights up.   Far out in the [Baltic] gulf one can see the silvery sails 4 Of hardly discernible ships that seem in the blue sky to float.   With a gloomless radiance the night sky is radiant,   And the crimson of sunset blends with the Orient's gold,   As if Aurora led forth in the wake of evening 8 Her rosy morn. This is the aureate season   When the power of night is usurped by the summer days;   When the foreigner's gaze is bewitched by the Northern sky   Where shade and ambrosial light form a magical union12 Which never adorns the sky of the South:   A limpidity similar to the charms of a Northern maiden   Whose light-blue eyes and rose-colored cheeks   Are but slightly shaded by auburn curls undulating.16 Now above the Neva and sumptuous Petropolis   You see eves without gloom and brief nights without shadow.   Now as soon as Philomel ends her midnight songs   She starts the songs that welcome the rise of the day.20 But 'tis late; a coolness wafts on the Nevan tundras;   The dew has descended;...   Here's midnight; after sounding all evening with thousands of oars,   The Neva does not stir; town guests have dispersed;24 Not a voice on the shore, not a ripple astream, all is still.   Alone now and then o'er the water a rumble runs from the bridges,   Or a long-drawn cry flies forth from a distant suburb   Where in the night one sentinel calls to another.28 All sleeps.... >>

9. Not in dream the ardent poet   the benignant goddess sees   as he spends a sleepless night 4 leaning on the granite.

Muravyov, “To the Goddess of the Neva.” >>

10. Written in Odessa. >>