Владимир Набоков - Комментарии к «Евгению Онегину» Александра Пушкина

[X]

   Ennui!...

Onegin fares to Astrahan [XI], and from there to the[Caucasus:

[XII]

   He sees the wayward Térek   eroding its steep banks;   before him soars a stately eagle, 4 a deer stands, with bent horns;   the camel lies in the cliff's shade;   in meadows courses the Circassian's steed,   and round nomadic tents 8 the sheep of Kalmuks graze.   Afar [loom] the Caucasian masses.   The way to them is clear. War penetrated   beyond their natural divide,12 across their perilous barriers.   The banks of the Arágva and Kurá   saw Russian tents.

[XIII]

   Now, the eternal watchman of the waste,   Beshtú, compressed around by hills,   stands up, sharp-peaked, 4 and, showing green, Mashúk,   Mashúk, of healing streams dispenser;   around its magic brooks   a pallid swarm of patients presses, 8 the victims, some of martial honor,   some of the Piles, and some of Cypris.   In waves miraculous the sufferer   plans to make firm the thread of life.12 To leave the wicked years' offenses at the bottom   [plans] the coquette, and the old man   [plans] to grow young — if only for a moment.

[XIV]

   Onegin, nursing bitter meditations,   among their sorry tribe,   with a gaze of regret 4 looks at the smoking streams and muses,   bedimmed with rue: Why in the breast   am I not wounded by a bullet?   Why am I not a feeble oldster 8 like that poor farmer-general?   Why like a councilman from Tula   am I not lying paralyzed?   Why in the shoulder do I not12 at least feel rheumatism? Ah, Lord,   I'm young, life is robust in me,   what have I to expect? Ennui, ennui!...

Onegin then visits the Tauris [Crimea]:

[XV]

   land sacred unto the imagination:   there with Orestes argued Pylades;   there Mithridates stabbed himself;12 there sang inspired Mickiéwicz   and in the midst of coastal cliffs   recalled his Lithuania.

[XVI]

   Beauteous are you, shores of the Tauris,   when from the ship one sees you by the light   of morning Cypris, as I saw you 4 for the first time.   You showed yourselves to me in nuptial splendor.   Against a blue and limpid sky   shone the amassments of your mountains. 8 The pattern of valleys, trees, villages   was spread before me.   And there, among the small huts of the Tatars...   What ardency awoke in me!12 With what magical yearnfulness   my flaming bosom was compressed!   But, Muse, forget the past!

[XVII]

   Whatever feelings then lay hidden   within me — now they are no more:   they went or changed.... 4 Peace unto you, turmoils of former years!   To me seemed needful at the time   deserts, the pearly rims of waves,   and the sea's rote, and piles of rocks, 8 and the ideal of “proud maid,”   and nameless pangs.   Other days, other dreams;   you have become subdued,12 my springtime's high-flung fancies,   and unto my poetic goblet   I have admixed a lot of water.

[XVIII]

   Needful to me are other pictures:   I like a sandy hillside slope,   before a small isba two rowans, 4 a wicket gate, a broken fence,   up in the sky gray clouds,   before the thrash barn heaps of straw,   and in the shelter of dense willows 8 a pond — the franchise of young ducks.   I'm fond now of the balalaika   and of the trepak's drunken stomping   before the threshold of the tavern;12 now my ideal is a housewife,   my wishes, peace   and “pot of shchi but big myself.”

[XIX]

   The other day, during a rainy spell,   as I had dropped into the cattle yard —   Fie! Prosy divagations, 4 the Flemish School's variegated dross!   Was I like that when I was blooming?   Say, Fountain of Bahchisaray!   Were such the thoughts that to my mind 8 your endless purl suggested   when silently in front of you   Zaréma I imagined?...   Midst the sumptuous deserted halls12 after the lapse of three years, in my tracks   in the same region wandering, Onegin   remembered me.

[XX]

   I lived then in dusty Odessa....   There for a long time skies are clear.   There, stirring, an abundant trade 4 sets up its sails.   There all exhales, diffuses Europe,   all glitters with the South, and brindles   with live variety. 8 The tongue of golden Italy   resounds along the gay street where   walks the proud Slav,   Frenchman, Spaniard, Armenian,12 and Greek, and the heavy Moldavian,   and the son of Egyptian soil,   the retired Corsair, Moralí.

[XXI]

   Odessa in sonorous verses   our friend Tumanski has described,   but at the time with partial eyes 4 he gazed at it.   Upon arriving, he, like a true poet,   went off to roam with his lorgnette   alone above the sea; and then 8 with an enchanting pen   he glorified the gardens of Odessa.   All right — but there, in point of fact,   is a bare steppe around;12 in a few places recent labor   has forced young boughs on sultry days   to give compulsory shade.

[XXII]

   But where, pray, was my rambling tale? “In dusty   Odessa,” I had said.   I might have said “in muddy 4 Odessa” — and indeed would not have lied there either.   For five-six weeks a year   Odessa, by the will of stormy Zeus,   is flooded, is stopped up, 8 is in thick mud immersed.   Some two feet deep all houses are embedded.   Only on stilts does a pedestrian   dare ford the street. Chariots and people12 sink in, get stuck; and hitched to droshkies   the ox, horns bent, replaces   the debile steed.

[XXIII]

   But the sledge-hammer breaks up stones already,   and with a ringing pavement soon   the salvaged city will be covered 4 as with an armor of forged steel.   However, in this moist Odessa   there is another grave deficiency,   of — what would you think? Water. 8 Grievous exertions are required....   So what? This is not a great sorrow!   Particularly since wine is   imported free of duty.12 But then the Southern sun, but then the sea...   What more, friends, could you want?   Blest climes!

[XXIV]

   Time was, no sooner did the sunrise gun   roar from the ship   than, down the steep shore running, 4 I would be on my way toward the sea.   Then, sitting with a glowing pipe,   enlivened by the briny wave,   like in his paradise a Moslem, coffee 8 with Oriental grounds I quaff.   I go out for a stroll. Already the benevolent   Casino's open: the clatter of cups   resounds there; on the balcony12 the marker, half asleep, emerges   with a broom in his hands, and at the porch   two merchants have converged already.

[XXV]

   Anon the square grows freaked [with people].   All is alive now; here and there   they run, on business or not busy; 4 however, more on businesses.   The child of Calculation and of Venture,   the merchant goes to glance at ensigns,   to find out — are the skies 8 sending to him known sails?   What new wares have   entered today in quarantine?   Have the casks of expected wines arrived?12> And how's the plague, and where the conflagrations,   and is not there some famine, war,   or novelty of a like kind?

[XXVI]

   But we, fellows without a sorrow,   among the careful merchants,   expected only oysters 4 from Tsargrad's shores.   What news of oysters? They have come. O glee!   Off flies gluttonous juventy   to swallow from their sea shells 8 the plump, live cloisterers,   slightly asperged with lemon.   Noise, arguments; light wine   onto the table from the cellars12 by complaisant Automne[2] is brought.   The hours fly by, and the grim bill   meantime invisibly augments.

[XXVII]