Текст книги "Комментарии к «Евгению Онегину» Александра Пушкина"

Автор книги: Владимир Набоков

13. Рифма

…Строго говоря, для рифмы не существует законов или правил, кроме правила самого общего: рифма должна, в лучшем случае, способствовать «удовлетворению и удивлению» (как говорят французы) или, по крайней мере, чувству эйфорической безопасности (создаваемому рутинными рифмами в любом языке) посредством традиционного соблюдения определенных условностей. Но даже эти ощущения могут быть изменены и эти традиции низвержены таким поэтом, гений которого достаточно силен и оригинален, чтобы открыть новые пути, по которым пойдут другие…

Хорошие поэты России первой трети девятнадцатого века имели тенденцию отказываться от легких глагольных рифм (формы неопред. времени на «-ать», «-еть», «-ить»; прошед. времени на «-ал», «-ала», «-ало», «-али», «-ил», «-ила» и т. д.; формы наст. времени на «-ит», «-ят», «-ает», «-ают» и многие другие сплошь и рядом повторяющиеся формы), либо употреблять их как можно реже, либо обогащать их «consonne d'appui» <«опорной согласной»>. Хотя в «ЕО» бедные глагольные рифмы, как и бедные рифмы существительных (на «-анье» и «-енье» и падежные окончания, как «-ой»), встречаются, возможно, более часто, чем могло бы допустить чудодейственное мастерство нашего поэта, указанная тенденция прослеживается и в таких пассажах, где идет неторопливое перечисление действий или эмоций и трудно избежать монотонности рифмы.

Зачерпывая наугад горсть рифм из «ЕО», мы можем обнаружить такие богатые, как:

пиров

здоров

зевал

зал

да-с

глас

кровью

Прасковью (женск. имя, вин. пад.)

несносный

сосны

исторья

Красногорья (название места, род. пад.)

доволен

колоколен

рада

маскарада (род. пад.)

и лучшую рифму во всей поэме:

синий

Россини.

Велик урожай слабых или бедных рифм, как, например:

Ричардсона (вин. пад.)

Грандисона (вин. пад.)

ближе

ниже,

простых падежных окончаний:

умом (тв. пад.)

лицом (тв. пад.),

простых и неточных:

проворно

покорна

приезд

присест

и банальных рифм, как:

любовь

кровь

очи

ночи…

Начало строфы XLIV главы Четвертой содержит одну из самих изобретательных рифм «ЕО», в которой неожиданно, но, вместе с тем, совершенно естественно и восхитительно иностранное имя перекликается с очень русским оборотом речи, имеющим ударение на предлоге:

 
Прямым Онегин Чильд Гарольдом
Вдался в задумчивую лень:
Со сна садится в ванну со льдом,
И после, дома целый день…
 

То обстоятельство, что рифмы, независимо от их длины, не входят в метрическую схему строки, ведет к некоторым забавным последствиям. Если мы изобретем, к примеру, ямбическое двустишие, рифмы которого не просто длинные, но чудовищные и являют собой по длине настоящего морского дракона, то увидим, что, хотя после икта идет еще шесть дополнительных слогов, строка все равно остается четырехстопной (или «восьмисложником», как ее еще называют):

 
Есть рифмы прочные, напрашивающиеся,
И многоножки есть, подкашивающиеся.
 

Метрически это двустишие идентично, скажем, такому:

 
Есть рифмы точные, и есть
Другие. Всех не перечесть.
 

EUGENE ONEGIN
A Novel in Verse
by Aleksandr Pushkin

Pétri de vanité il avait encore plus de cette espèce d'orgueil qui fait avouer avec la même indifférence les bonnes comme les mauvaises actions, suite d'un sentiment de supériorité, peut-être imaginaire.

Tiré d'une lettre particulière

 
   Not thinking to amuse the haughty world,
   having grown fond of friendship's heed,
   I wish I could present you with a gage
 ⁴ that would be worthier of you —
   be worthier of a fine soul
   full of a holy dream,
   of live and limpid poetry,
 ⁸ of high thoughts and simplicity.
   But so be it. With partial hand
   take this collection of pied chapters:
   half droll, half sad,
¹² plain-folk, ideal,
   the careless fruit of my amusements,
   insomnias, light inspirations,
   unripe and withered years,
¹⁶ the intellect's cold observations,
   and the heart's sorrowful remarks.
 

CHAPTER ONE

 
To live it hurries and to feel it hastes.
 

Prince Vyazemski

 

I

   “My uncle has most honest principles:
   when he was taken gravely ill,
   he forced one to respect him
 ⁴ and nothing better could invent.
   To others his example is a lesson;
   but, good God, what a bore to sit
   by a sick person day and night, not stirring
 ⁸ a step away!
   What base perfidiousness
   to entertain one half-alive,
   adjust for him his pillows,
¹² sadly serve him his medicine,
   sigh – and think inwardly
   when will the devil take you?”
 
 

II

   Thus a young scapegrace thought
   as with post horses in the dust he flew,
   by the most lofty will of Zeus
 ⁴ the heir of all his kin.
   Friends of Lyudmila and Ruslan!
   The hero of my novel,
   without preambles, forthwith,
 ⁸ I'd like to have you meet:
   Onegin, a good pal of mine,
   was born upon the Neva's banks,
   where maybe you were born,
¹² or used to shine, my reader!
   There formerly I too promenaded —
   but harmful is the North to me.¹
 
 

III

   Having served excellently, nobly,
   his father lived by means of debts;
   gave three balls yearly
 ⁴ and squandered everything at last.
   Fate guarded Eugene:
   at first, Madame looked after him;
   later, Monsieur replaced her.
 ⁸ The child was boisterous but charming.
   Monsieur l'Abbé, a poor wretch of a Frenchman,
   not to wear out the infant,
   taught him all things in play,
¹² bothered him not with stern moralization,
   scolded him slightly for his pranks,
   and to the Letniy Sad took him for walks.
 
 

IV

   Then, when the season of tumultuous youth
   for Eugene came,
   season of hopes and tender melancholy,
 ⁴ Monsieur was ousted from the place.
   Now my Onegin is at large:
   hair cut after the latest fashion,
   dressed like a London Dandy² —
 ⁸ and finally he saw the World.
   In French impeccably
   he could express himself and write,
   danced the mazurka lightly, and
¹² bowed unconstrainedly —
   what would you more? The World decided
   that he was clever and most charming.
 
 

V

   All of us had a bit of schooling
   in something and somehow:
   hence in our midst it is not hard,
 ⁴ thank God, to flaunt one's education.
   Onegin was, in the opinion
   of many (judges resolute and stern),
   a learned fellow but a pedant.
 ⁸ He had the happy talent,
   without constraint, in conversation
   slightly to touch on everything,
   keep silent, with an expert's learned air,
¹² during a grave discussion, and provoke
   the smiles of ladies with the fire
   of unexpected epigrams.
 
 

VI

   Latin has gone at present out of fashion;
   still, to tell you the truth,
   he had enough knowledge of Latin
 ⁴ to make out epigraphs,
   expatiate on Juvenal,
   put at the bottom of a letter vale,
   and he remembered, though not without fault,
 ⁸ two lines from the Aeneid.
   He had no inclination
   to rummage in the chronological
   dust of the earth's historiography,
¹² but anecdotes of days gone by,
   from Romulus to our days,
   he did keep in his memory.
 
 

VII

   Lacking the lofty passion not to spare
   life for the sake of sounds,
   an iamb from a trochee —
 ⁴ no matter how we strove – he could not tell apart.
   Theocritus and Homer he disparaged,
   but read, in compensation, Adam Smith,
   and was a deep economist:
 ⁸ that is, he could assess the way
   a state grows rich,
   what it subsists upon, and why
   it needs not gold
¹² when it has got the simple product.
   His father could not understand him,
   and mortgaged his lands.
 
 

VIII

   All Eugene knew besides
   I have no leisure to recount;
   but where he was a veritable genius,
 ⁴ what he more firmly knew than all the arts,
   what since his prime had been to him
   toil, torment, and delight,
   what occupied the livelong day
 ⁸ his fretting indolence —
   was the art of soft passion
   which Naso sang,
   wherefore a sufferer
¹² his brilliant and unruly span
   he ended, in Moldavia,
   deep in the steppes, far from his Italy.
 
 

IX.

   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
 
 

X

   How early he was able to dissemble,
   conceal a hope, show jealousy,
   shake one's belief, make one believe,
 ⁴ seem gloomy, pine away,
   appear proud and obedient,
   attentive or indifferent!
   How languorously he was silent,
 ⁸ how fierily eloquent,
   in letters of the heart, how casual!
   With one thing breathing, one thing loving,
   how self-oblivious he could be!
¹² How quick and tender was his gaze,
   bashful and daring, while at times
   it shone with an obedient tear!
 
 

XI

   How he was able to seem new,
   in jest astonish innocence,
   alarm with ready desperation,
 ⁴ amuse with pleasant flattery,
   capture the minute of softheartedness;
   the prejudices of innocent years
   conquer by means of wits and passion,
 ⁸ wait for involuntary favors,
   beg or demand avowals,
   eavesdrop upon a heart's first sound,
   pursue love – and all of a sudden
¹² obtain a secret assignation,
   and afterward, alone with her,
   amid the stillness give her lessons!
 
 

XII

   How early he already could disturb
   the hearts of the professed coquettes!
   Or when he wanted to annihilate
 ⁴ his rivals,
   how bitingly he'd tattle!
   What snares prepare for them!
   But you, blest husbands,
 ⁸ you remained friends with him:
   him petted the sly spouse,
   Faublas' disciple of long standing,
   and the distrustful oldster,
¹² and the majestical cornuto,
   always pleased with himself,
   his dinner, and his wife.
 
 

XIII. XIV.

   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
 
 

XV

   It happened, he'd be still in bed
   when little billets would be brought him.
   What? Invitations? Yes, indeed,
 ⁴ to a soiree three houses bid him:
   here, there will be a ball; elsewhere, a children's fete.
   So whither is my scamp to scurry?
   Whom will he start with? Never mind:
 ⁸ 'tis simple to get everywhere in time.
   Meanwhile, in morning dress,
   having donned a broad bolivar³,
   Onegin drives to the boulevard
¹² and there goes strolling unconfined
   till vigilant Bréguet
   to him chimes dinner.
 
 

XVI

   'Tis dark by now. He gets into a sleigh.
   The cry “Way, way!” resounds.
   With frostdust silvers
 ⁴ his beaver collar.
   To Talon's⁴ he has dashed off: he is certain
   that there already waits for him [Kavérin];
   has entered – and the cork goes ceilingward,
 ⁸ the flow of comet wine spurts forth,
   a bloody roast beef is before him,
   and truffles, luxury of youthful years,
   the best flower of French cookery,
¹² and a decayless Strasbourg pie
   between a living Limburg cheese
   and a golden ananas.
 
 

XVII

   Thirst is still clamoring for beakers
   to drown the hot fat of the cutlets;
   but Bréguet's chime reports to them
 ⁴ that a new ballet has begun.
   The theater's unkind
   lawgiver; the inconstant
   adorer of enchanting actresses;
 ⁸ an honorary citizen of the coulisses,
   Onegin has flown to the theater,
   where, breathing criticism,
   each is prepared to clap an entrechat,
¹² hiss Phaedra, Cleopatra,
   call out Moëna – for the purpose
   merely of being heard.
 
 

XVIII

   A magic region! There in olden years
   the sovereign of courageous satire,
   sparkled Fonvízin, freedom's friend,
 ⁴ and imitational Knyazhnín;
   there Ózerov involuntary tributes
   of public tears, of plaudits
   shared with the young Semyónova;
 ⁸ there our Katénin resurrected
   Corneille's majestic genius;
   there caustic Shahovskóy brought forth the noisy
   swarm of his comedies;
¹² there, too, Didelot did crown himself with glory;
   there, there, beneath the shelter of coulisses,
   my young days sped.
 
 

XIX

   My goddesses! What has become of you?
   Where are you? Hearken to my woeful voice:
   Are all of you the same? Have other maidens
 ⁴ taken your place without replacing you?
   Am I to hear again your choruses?
   Am I to see Russian Terpsichore's
   soulful volation?
 ⁸ Or will the mournful gaze not find
   familiar faces on the dreary stage,
   and at an alien world having directed
   a disenchanted lorgnette,
¹² shall I, indifferent spectator
   of merriment, yawn wordlessly
   and bygones recollect?
 
 

XX

   By now the house is full; the boxes blaze;
   parterre and stalls – all seethes;
   in the top gallery impatiently they clap,
 ⁴ and, soaring up, the curtain swishes.
   Resplendent, half ethereal,
   obedient to the magic bow,
   surrounded by a throng of nymphs,
 ⁸ Istómina stands: she,
   while touching with one foot the floor,
   gyrates the other slowly,
   and lo! a leap, and lo! she flies,
¹² she flies like fluff from Eol's lips,
   now twines and now untwines her waist
   and beats one swift small foot against the other.
 
 

XXI

   All clap as one. Onegin enters:
   he walks – on people's toes – between the stalls;
   askance, his double lorgnette trains
 ⁴ upon the loges of strange ladies;
   he has scanned all the tiers;
   he has seen everything; with faces, garb,
   he's dreadfully displeased;
 ⁸ with men on every side
   he has exchanged salutes; then at the stage
   in great abstraction he has glanced,
   has turned away, and yawned,
¹² and uttered: “Time all were replaced;
   ballets I long have suffered,
   but even of Didelot I've had enough.”⁵
 
 

XXII

   Amors, diaboli, and dragons
   still on the stage jump and make noise;
   still at the carriage porch the weary footmen
 ⁴ on the pelisses are asleep;
   still people have not ceased to stamp,
   blow noses, cough, hiss, clap;
   still, outside and inside,
 ⁸ lamps glitter everywhere;
   still, chilled, the horses fidget,
   bored with their harness,
   and round the fires the coachmen curse their masters
¹² and beat their palms together;
   and yet Onegin has already left;
   he's driving home to dress.
 
 

XXIII

   Shall I present a faithful picture
   of the secluded cabinet,
   where fashions' model pupil
 ⁴ is dressed, undressed, and dressed again?
   Whatever, for the lavish whim,
   London the trinkleter deals in
   and o'er the Baltic waves to us
 ⁸ ships in exchange for timber and for tallow;
   whatever hungry taste in Paris,
   choosing a useful trade,
   invents for pastimes,
¹² for luxury, for modish mollitude;
   all this adorned the cabinet
   of a philosopher at eighteen years of age.
 
 

XXIV

   Amber on Tsargrad's pipes,
   porcelain and bronzes on a table,
   and – joyance of the pampered senses —
 ⁴ perfumes in crystal cut with facets;
   combs, little files of steel,
   straight scissors, curvate ones, and brushes
   of thirty kinds —
 ⁸ these for the nails, those for the teeth.
   Rousseau (I shall observe in passing) was unable
   to understand how the dignified Grimm
   dared clean his nails in front of him,
¹² the eloquent crackbrain.⁶
   The advocate of liberty and rights
   was in the present case not right at all.
 
 

XXV

   One can be an efficient man —
   and mind the beauty of one's nails:
   why vainly argue with the age?
 ⁴ Custom is despot among men.
   My Eugene, a second [Chadáev],
   being afraid of jealous censures,
   was in his dress a pedant
 ⁸ and what we've called a fop.
   Three hours, at least,
   he spent in front of glasses,
   and from his dressing room came forth
¹² akin to giddy Venus
   when, having donned a masculine attire,
   the goddess drives to a masqued ball.
 
 

XXVI

   With toilette in the latest taste
   having engaged your curious glance,
   I might before the learned world
 ⁴ describe here his attire;
   this would, no doubt, be daring;
   however, 'tis my business to describe;
   but “dress coat,” “waistcoat,” “pantaloons” —
 ⁸ in Russian all these words are not;
   in fact, I see (my guilt I lay before you)
   that my poor idiom as it is
   might be diversified much less
¹² with words of foreign stock,
   though I did erstwhile dip
   into the Academic Dictionary.
 
 

XXVII

   Not this is our concern at present:
   we'd better hurry to the ball
   whither headlong in a hack coach
 ⁴ already my Onegin has sped off.
   In front of darkened houses,
   alongst the sleeping street in rows
   the twin lamps of coupés
 ⁸ pour forth a cheerful light
   and project rainbows on the snow.
   Studded around with lampions,
   glitters a splendid house;
¹² across its whole-glassed windows shadows move:
   there come and go the profiled heads
   of ladies and of modish quizzes.
 
 

XXVIII

   Up to the porch our hero now has driven;
   past the hall porter, like a dart,
   he has flown up the marble steps,
 ⁴ has run his fingers through his hair,
   has entered. The ballroom is full of people;
   the music has already tired of dinning;
   the crowd is occupied with the mazurka;
 ⁸ there's all around both noise and squeeze;
   there clink the cavalier guard's spurs;
   the little feet of winsome ladies flit;
   upon their captivating tracks
¹² flit flaming glances,
   and by the roar of violins is drowned
   the jealous whispering of fashionable women.
 
 

XXIX

   In days of gaieties and desires
   I was mad about balls:
   there is no safer spot for declarations
 ⁴ and for the handing of a letter.
   O you, respected husbands!
   I'll offer you my services;
   pray, mark my speech:
 ⁸ I wish to warn you.
   You too, mammas: most strictly
   follow your daughters with your eyes;
   hold up your lorgnettes straight!
¹² Or else... else – God forbid!
   If this I write it is because
   I have long ceased to sin.
 
 

XXX

   Alas, on various pastimes I have wasted
   a lot of life!
   But to this day, if morals did not suffer,
 ⁴ I'd still like balls.
   I like riotous youth,
   the crush, the glitter, and the gladness,
   and the considered dresses of the ladies;
 ⁸ I like their little feet; but then 'tis doubtful
   that in all Russia you will find
   three pairs of shapely feminine feet.
   Ah me, I long could not forget
¹² two little feet!... Despondent, fervorless,
   I still remember them, and in sleep they
   disturb my heart.
 
 

XXXI

   So when and where, in what desert, will you
   forget them, madman? Little feet,
   ah, little feet! Where are you now?
 ⁴ Where do you trample vernant blooms?
   Brought up in Oriental mollitude,
   on the Northern sad snow
   you left no prints:
 ⁸ you liked the sumptuous contact
   of yielding rugs.
   Is it long since I would forget for you
   the thirst for fame and praises,
¹² the country of my fathers, and confinement?
   The happiness of youthful years has vanished
   as on the meadows your light trace.
 
 

XXXII

   Diana's bosom, Flora's cheeks, are charming,
   dear friends! Nevertheless, for me
   something about it makes more charming
 ⁴ the small foot of Terpsichore.
   By prophesying to the gaze
   an unpriced recompense,
   with token beauty it attracts the willful
 ⁸ swarm of desires.
   I like it, dear Elvina,
   beneath the long napery of tables,
   in springtime on the turf of meads,
¹² in winter on the hearth's cast iron,
   on mirrory parquet of halls,
   by the sea on granite of rocks.
 
 

XXXIII

   I recollect the sea before a tempest:
   how I envied the waves
   running in turbulent succession
 ⁴ with love to lie down at her feet!
   How much I wished then with the waves
   to touch the dear feet with my lips!
   No, never midst the fiery days
 ⁸ of my ebullient youth
   did I long with such anguish
   to kiss the lips of young Armidas,
   or the roses of flaming cheeks,
¹² or bosoms full of languor —
   no, never did the surge of passions
   thus rive my soul!
 
 

XXXIV

   I have remembrance of another time:
   in chary fancies now and then
   I hold the happy stirrup
 ⁴ and feel a small foot in my hand.
   Again imagination seethes,
   again that touch has kindled
   the blood within my withered heart,
 ⁸ again the ache, again the love!
   But 'tis enough extolling haughty ones
   with my loquacious lyre:
   they are not worth either the passions
¹² or songs by them inspired;
   the words and gaze of the said charmers
   are as deceptive as their little feet.
 
 

XXXV

   And my Onegin? Half asleep,
   he drives from ball to bed,
   while indefatigable Petersburg
 ⁴ is roused already by the drum.
   The merchant's up, the hawker's out,
   the cabby to the hack stand drags,
   the Okhta girl hastes with her jug,
 ⁸ the morning snow creaks under her.
   Morn's pleasant hubbub has awoken,
   unclosed are shutters, chimney smoke
   ascends in a blue column, and the baker,
¹² a punctual German in a cotton cap,
   has more than once already
   opened his vasisdas.
 
 

XXXVI

   But by the tumult of the ball fatigued,
   and turning morning into midnight,
   sleeps peacefully in blissful shade
 ⁴ the child of pastimes and of luxury.
   He will awake past midday, and again
   till morn his life will be prepared,
   monotonous and motley, and tomorrow
 ⁸ 'twill be the same as yesterday.
   But was my Eugene happy —
   free, in the bloom of the best years,
   amidst resplendent conquests,
¹² amidst delights of every day?
   Was it to him of no avail
   midst banquets to be rash and hale?
 
 

XXXVII

   No, feelings early cooled in him.
   Tedious to him became the social hum.
   The fairs remained not long
 ⁴ the object of his customary thoughts.
   Betrayals had time to fatigue him. Friends
   and friendship palled,
   since plainly not always could he
 ⁸ beefsteaks and Strasbourg pie
   sluice with a champagne bottle
   and scatter piquant sayings when
   he had the headache;
¹² and though he was a fiery scapegrace,
   he lost at last his liking
   for strife, saber and lead.
 
 

XXXVIII

   A malady, the cause of which
   'tis high time were discovered,
   similar to the English “spleen” —
 ⁴ in short, the Russian “chondria” —
   possessed him by degrees.
   To shoot himself, thank God,
   he did not care to try,
 ⁸ but toward life became quite cold.
   He like Childe Harold, gloomy, languid,
   appeared in drawing rooms;
   neither the gossip of the monde nor boston,
¹² neither a winsome glance nor an immodest sigh,
   nothing touched him;
   he noticed nothing.
 
 

XXXIX. XL. XLI.

   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
 
 

XLII

   Capricious belles of the grand monde!
   Before all others you he left;
   and it is true that in our years
 ⁴ the upper ton is rather tedious.
   Although, perhaps, this or that dame
   interprets Say and Bentham,
   in general their conversation
 ⁸ is insupportable, though harmless tosh.
   On top of that they are so pure,
   so stately, so intelligent,
   so full of piety,
¹² so circumspect, so scrupulous,
   so inaccessible to men,
   that the mere sight of them begets the spleen.⁷
 
 

XLIII

   And you, young beauties, whom
   at a late hour daredevil droshkies
   carry away over the pavement
 ⁴ of Petersburg,
   you also were abandoned by my Eugene.
   Apostate from the turbulent delights,
   Onegin locked himself indoors;
 ⁸ yawning, took up a pen;
   wanted to write; but persevering toil
   to him was loathsome: nothing
   from his pen issued, and he did not get
¹² into the cocky guild of people
   on whom I pass no judgment – for the reason
   that I belong to them.
 
 

XLIV

   And once again to idleness consigned,
   oppressed by emptiness of soul,
   he settled down with the laudable aim
 ⁴ to make his own another's mind;
   he crammed a shelf with an array of books,
   and read, and read – and all for nothing:
   here there was dullness; there, deceit and raving;
 ⁸ this one lacked conscience; that one, sense;
   on all of them were different fetters;
   and outworn was the old, and the new raved
   about the old.
¹² As he'd left women, he left books
   and, with its dusty tribe, the shelf
   with funerary taffeta he curtained.
 
 

XLV

   Having cast off the burden of the monde's conventions,
   having, as he, from vain pursuits desisted,
   with him I made friends at that time.
 ⁴ I liked his traits,
   to dreams the involuntary addiction,
   nonimitative oddity,
   and sharp, chilled mind;
 ⁸ I was embittered, he was gloomy;
   the play of passions we knew both;
   on both, life weighed;
   in both, the heart's glow had gone out;
¹² for both, there was in store the rancor
   of blind Fortuna and of men
   at the very morn of our days.
 
 

XLVI

   He who has lived and thought
   cannot help in his soul despising men;
   him who has felt disturbs
 ⁴ the ghost of irrecoverable days;
   for him there are no more enchantments;
   him does the snake of memories,
   him does repentance gnaw.
 ⁸ All this often imparts
   great charm to conversation.
   At first, Onegin's language
   would disconcert me; but I grew
¹² accustomed to his biting argument
   and banter blent halfwise with bile
   and virulence of somber epigrams.
 
 

XLVII

   How oft in summertide, when limpid
   and luminous is the nocturnal sky
   above the Neva,⁸ and the gay
 ⁴ glass of the waters
   does not reflect Diana's visage —
   rememorating intrigues of past years,
   rememorating a past love,
 ⁸ impressible, carefree again,
   the breath of the benignant night
   we mutely quaffed!
   As to the greenwood from a prison
¹² a slumbering clogged convict is transferred,
   so we'd be carried off in fancy
   to the beginning of young life.
 
 

XLVIII

   With soul full of regrets,
   and leaning on the granite,
   Eugene stood pensive – as himself
 ⁴ the Poet⁹ has described.
   'Twas stillness all; only night sentries
   to one another called,
   and the far clip-clop of some droshky
 ⁸ resounded suddenly from Million Street;
   only a boat, oars swinging,
   swam on the dozing river,
   and, in the distance, captivated us
¹² a horn and a brave song.
   But, 'mid the night's diversions, sweeter
   is the strain of Torquato's octaves.
 
 

XLIX

   Adrian waves,
   O Brenta! Nay, I'll see you
   and, filled anew with inspiration,
 ⁴ I'll hear your magic voice!
   'Tis sacred to Apollo's nephews;
   through the proud lyre of Albion
   to me 'tis known, to me 'tis kindred.
 ⁸ In the voluptuousness of golden
   Italy's nights at liberty I'll revel,
   with a youthful Venetian,
   now talkative, now mute,
¹² swimming in a mysterious gondola;
   with her my lips will find
   the tongue of Petrarch and of love.
 
 

L

   Will the hour of my freedom come?
   'Tis time, 'tis time! To it I call;
   I roam above the sea,¹⁰ I wait for the right weather,
 ⁴ I beckon to the sails of ships.
   Under the cope of storms, with waves disputing,
   on the free crossway of the sea
   when shall I start on my free course?
 ⁸ 'Tis time to leave the dull shore of an element
   inimical to me,
   and sigh, 'mid the meridian swell, beneath the
   sky of my Africa,^11
12 for somber Russia, where
   I suffered, where I loved,
   where I buried my heart.
 
 

LI

   Onegin was prepared with me
   to see strange lands;
   but soon we were to be by fate
 ⁴ sundered for a long time.
   'Twas then his father died.
   Before Onegin there assembled
   a greedy host of creditors.
 ⁸ Each has a mind and notion of his own.
   Eugene, detesting litigations,
   contented with his lot,
   abandoned the inheritance to them,
¹² perceiving no great loss therein,
   or precognizing from afar
   the demise of his aged uncle.
 
 

LII

   All of a sudden he indeed
   got from the steward
   a report that his uncle was nigh death in bed
 ⁴ and would be glad to bid farewell to him.
   Eugene, the sad epistle having read,
   incontinently to the rendezvous
   drove headlong, traveling post,
 ⁸ and yawned already in anticipation,
   preparing, for the sake of money,
   for sighs, boredom, and guile
   (and 'tis with this that I began my novel);
¹² but when he reached apace his uncle's manor,
   he found him laid already on the table
   as a prepared tribute to earth.
 
 

LIII

   He found the grounds full of attendants;
   to the dead man from every side
   came driving foes and friends,
 ⁴ enthusiasts for funerals.
   The dead man was interred,
   the priests and guests ate, drank,
   and solemnly dispersed thereafter,
 ⁸ as though they had been sensibly engaged.
   Now our Onegin is a rural dweller,
   of workshops, waters, forests, lands,
   absolute lord (while up to then he'd been
¹² an enemy of order and a wastrel),
   and very glad to have exchanged
   his former course for something.
 
 

LIV

   For two days new to him
   seemed the secluded fields,
   the coolness of the somber park,
 ⁴ the bubbling of the quiet brook;
   by the third day, grove, hill, and field
   did not engage him any more;
   then somnolence already they induced;
 ⁸ then plainly he perceived
   that in the country, too, the boredom was the same,
   although there were no streets, no palaces,
   no cards, no balls, no verses.
¹² The hyp was waiting for him on the watch,
   and it kept running after him
   like a shadow or faithful wife.
 
 

LV

   I was born for the peaceful life,
   for country quiet:
   the lyre's voice in the wild is more resounding,
 ⁴ creative dreams are more alive.
   To harmless leisures consecrated,
   I wander by a wasteful lake
   and far niente is my rule.
 ⁸ By every morn I am awakened
   unto sweet mollitude and freedom;
   little I read, a lot I sleep,
   volatile fame do not pursue.
¹² Was it not thus in former years,
   that in inaction, in the [shade],
   I spent my happiest days?
 
 

LVI

   Flowers, love, the country, idleness,
   ye fields! my soul is vowed to you.
   I'm always glad to mark the difference
 ⁴ between Onegin and myself,
   lest a sarcastic reader
   or else some publisher
   of complicated calumny,
 ⁸ collating here my traits,
   repeat thereafter shamelessly
   that I have scrawled my portrait
   like Byron, the poet of pride
¹² –  as if we were no longer able
   to write long poems
   on any other subject than ourselves!
 
 

LVII

   In this connection I'll observe: all poets
   are friends of fancifying love.
   It used to happen that dear objects
 ⁴ I'd dream of, and my soul
   preserved their secret image;
   the Muse revived them later:
   thus I, carefree, would sing
 ⁸ a maiden of the mountains, my ideal,
   as well as captives of the Salgir's banks.
   From you, my friends, at present
   not seldom do I hear the question:
¹² “For whom does your lyre sigh?
   To whom did you, among the throng
   of jealous maidens, dedicate its strain?
 
 

LVIII

   Whose gaze, while stirring inspiration,
   with a dewy caress rewarded
   your pensive singing? Whom did your
 ⁴ verse idolize?”
   Faith, nobody, my friends, I swear!
   Love's mad anxiety
   I cheerlessly went through.
 ⁸ Happy who blent with it the fever
   of rhymes: thereby the sacred frenzy
   of poetry he doubled,
   striding in Petrarch's tracks;
¹² as to the heart's pangs, he allayed them
   and meanwhile fame he captured too —
   but I, when loving, was stupid and mute.
 
 

LIX

   Love passed, the Muse appeared,
   and the dark mind cleared up.
   Once free, I seek again the concord
 ⁴ of magic sounds, feelings, and thoughts;
   I write, and the heart does not pine;
   the pen draws not, lost in a trance,
   next to unfinished lines,
 ⁸ feminine feet or heads;
   extinguished ashes will not flare again;
   I still feel sad; but there are no more tears,
   and soon, soon the storm's trace
¹² will hush completely in my soul:
   then I shall start to write a poem
   in twenty-five cantos or so.
 
 

LX

   I've thought already of a form of plan
   and how my hero I shall call.
   Meantime, my novel's
 ⁴ first chapter I have finished;
   all this I have looked over closely;
   the inconsistencies are very many,
   but to correct them I don't wish.
 ⁸ I shall pay censorship its due
   and give away my labors' fruits
   to the reviewers for devourment.
   Be off, then, to the Neva's banks,
¹² newborn work! And deserve for me
   fame's tribute: false interpretations,
   noise, and abuse!