Комментарии к «Евгению Онегину» Александра Пушкина
Текст книги "Комментарии к «Евгению Онегину» Александра Пушкина"
Автор книги: Владимир Набоков
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CHAPTER TWO
O rus!
Horace
O Rus'!
I
The country place where Eugene
moped was a charming nook;
a friend of innocent delights
4 might have blessed heaven there.
The manor house, secluded,
screened from the winds by a hill, stood
above a river; in the distance,
8 before it, freaked and flowered, lay
meadows and golden grainfields;
one could glimpse hamlets here and there;
herds roamed the meadows;
12 and its dense coverts spread
a huge neglected garden, the retreat
of pensive dryads.
II
The venerable castle
was built as castles should be built:
excellent strong and comfortable
4 in the taste of sensible ancientry.
Tall chambers everywhere,
hangings of damask in the drawing room,
portraits of grandsires on the walls,
8 and stoves with varicolored tiles.
All this today is obsolete,
I really don't know why;
and anyway it was a matter
12 of very little moment to my friend,
since he yawned equally amidst
modish and olden halls.
III
He settled in that chamber where the rural
old-timer had for forty years or so
squabbled with his housekeeper,
4 looked through the window, and squashed flies.
It all was plain: a floor of oak, two cupboards,
a table, a divan of down,
and not an ink speck anywhere. Onegin
8 opened the cupboards; found in one
a notebook of expenses and in the other
a whole array of fruit liqueurs,
pitchers of eau-de-pomme,
12 and the calendar for eighteen-eight:
having a lot to do, the old man never
looked into any other books.
IV
Alone midst his possessions,
merely to while away the time,
at first conceived the plan our Eugene
4 of instituting a new system.
In his backwoods a solitary sage,
the ancient corvée's yoke
by the light quitrent he replaced;
8 the muzhik blessed fate,
while in his corner went into a huff,
therein perceiving dreadful harm,
his thrifty neighbor.
12 Another slyly smiled,
and all concluded with one voice that he
was a most dangerous eccentric.
V
At first they all would call on him,
but since to the back porch
habitually a Don stallion
4 for him was brought
as soon as one made out along the highway
the sound of their domestic runabouts —
outraged by such behavior,
8 they all ceased to be friends with him.
“Our neighbor is a boor; acts like a crackbrain;
he's a Freemason; he
drinks only red wine, by the tumbler;
12 he won't go up to kiss a lady's hand;
'tis all ‘yes,’ ‘no’ – he'll not say ‘yes, sir,’
or ‘no, sir.’ ” This was the general voice.
VI
At that same time a new landowner
had driven down to his estate
and in the neighborhood was giving cause
4 for just as strict a scrutiny.
By name Vladimir Lenski,
with a soul really Göttingenian,
a handsome chap, in the full bloom of years,
8 Kant's votary, and a poet.
From misty Germany
he'd brought the fruits of learning:
liberty-loving dreams, a spirit
12 impetuous and rather queer,
a speech always enthusiastic,
and shoulder-length black curls.
VII
From the world's cold depravity
not having yet had time to wither,
his soul was warmed by a friend's greeting,
4 by the caress of maidens.
He was in matters of the heart
a charming dunce. Hope nursed him,
and the globe's new glitter and noise
8 still captivated his young mind.
With a sweet fancy he amused
his heart's incertitudes.
The purpose of our life to him
12 was an enticing riddle;
he racked his brains
over it and suspected marvels.
VIII
He believed that a kindred soul
to him must be united;
that, cheerlessly pining away,
4 she daily kept awaiting him;
he believed that his friends were ready to accept
chains for his honor
and that their hands would falter not in smashing
8 the vessel of his slanderer;
that there were some chosen by fate
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
12 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
IX
Indignation, compassion,
pure love of Good,
and fame's delicious torment
4 early had stirred his blood.
He wandered with a lyre on earth.
Under the sky of Schiller and of Goethe,
with their poetic fire
8 his soul had kindled;
and the exalted Muses of the art
he, happy one, did not disgrace:
he proudly in his songs retained
12 always exalted sentiments,
the surgings of a virgin fancy, and the charm
of grave simplicity.
X
To love submissive, love he sang,
and his song was as clear
as a naïve maid's thoughts,
4 as the sleep of an infant, as the moon
in the untroubled deserts of the sky,
goddess of mysteries and tender sighs.
He sang parting and sadness,
8 and a vague something, and the dim
remoteness, and romantic roses.
He sang those distant lands
where long into the bosom of the stillness
12 flowed his live tears.
He sang life's faded bloom
at not quite eighteen years of age.
XI
In the wilderness where Eugene alone
was able to appreciate his gifts,
he cared not for the banquets of the masters
4 of neighboring manors;
he fled their noisy concourse.
Their reasonable talk
of haymaking, of liquor,
8 of kennel, of their kin,
no doubt did not sparkle with feeling,
or with poetic fire,
or sharp wit, or intelligence,
12 or with the art of sociability;
but the talk of their sweet wives was
much less intelligent.
XII
Wealthy, good-looking, Lenski everywhere
was as a marriageable man received:
such is the country custom;
4 all for their daughters planned a match
with the half-Russian neighbor.
Whenever he drops in, at once the conversation
broaches a word, obliquely,
8 about the tedium of bachelor life;
the neighbor is invited to the samovar,
and Dunya pours the tea;
they whisper to her: “Dunya, mark!”
12 Then the guitar (that, too) is brought,
and she will start to shrill (good God!):
“Come to me in my golden castle!..”12
XIII
But Lenski, having no desire, of course,
to bear the bonds of marriage,
wished cordially to strike up with Onegin
4 a close acquaintanceship.
They got together; wave and stone,
verse and prose, ice and flame,
were not so different from one another.
8 At first, because of mutual
disparity, they found each other dull;
then liked each other; then
met riding every day on horseback,
12 and soon became inseparable.
Thus people – I'm the first to own it —
out of do-nothingness are friends.
XIV
But among us there's even no such friendship:
having destroyed all prejudices, we
deem all men naughts
4 and ourselves units.
We all aspire to be Napoleons;
for us the millions
of two-legged creatures are but tools;
8 feeling to us is weird and ludicrous.
More tolerant than many was Eugene,
though he, of course, knew men
and on the whole despised them;
12 but no rules are without exceptions:
some people he distinguished greatly
and, though estranged from it, respected feeling.
XV
He listened with a smile to Lenski:
the poet's fervid conversation,
and mind still vacillant in judgments,
4 and gaze eternally inspired —
all this was novel to Onegin;
the chilling word
on his lips he tried to restrain,
8 and thought: foolish of me
to interfere with his brief rapture;
without me just as well that time will come;
meanwhile let him live and believe
12 in the perfection of the world;
let us forgive the fever of young years
both its young ardor and young ravings.
XVI
Between them everything engendered
discussions and led to reflection:
the pacts of bygone races,
4 the fruits of learning, Good and Evil,
and centuried prejudices,
and the grave's fateful mysteries,
destiny and life in their turn —
8 all was subjected to their judgment.
The poet in the heat of his contentions
recited, in a trance, meantime,
fragments of Nordic poems,
12 and lenient Eugene,
although he did not understand them much,
would dutifully listen to the youth.
XVII
But passions occupied more often
the minds of my two anchorets.
Having escaped from their tumultuous power,
4 Onegin spoke of them
with an involuntary sigh of regret.
Happy who knew their agitations
and finally detached himself from them;
8 still happier who did not know them, who
cooled love with separation, enmity
with obloquy; sometimes
with friends and wife yawned, undisturbed
12 by jealous torment,
and the safe capital of forefathers
did not entrust to a perfidious deuce!
XVIII
When we have flocked under the banner
of sage tranquillity,
when the flame of the passions has gone out
4 and laughable become to us
their waywardness
or surgings and belated echoes;
reduced to sense not without trouble,
8 sometimes we like to listen
to the tumultuous language of the passions
of others, and it stirs our heart;
exactly thus an old disabled soldier
12 does willingly bend an assiduous ear
to the yarns of young mustached braves,
[while he remains] forgotten in his shack.
XIX
Now flaming youthhood, on the other hand,
cannot hide anything:
enmity, love, sadness, and joy
4 'tis ready to blab out.
Deemed invalided as to love,
with a grave air Onegin listened
as, loving the confession of the heart,
8 the poet his whole self expressed.
His trustful conscience
naïvely he laid bare.
Eugene learned without trouble
12 the youthful story of his love —
a tale abounding in emotions
long since not new to us.
XX
Ah, he loved as one loves
no longer in our years; as only
the mad soul of a poet
4 is still condemned to love:
always, and everywhere, one reverie,
one customary wish,
one customary woe!
8 Neither the cooling distance,
nor the long years of separation,
nor hours given to the Muses,
nor foreign beauties,
12 nor noise of merriments, nor studies,
had changed in him a soul
warmed by a virgin fire.
XXI
When scarce a boy, by Olga captivated,
not having known yet torments of the heart,
he'd been a tender witness
4 of her infantine frolics.
He, in the shade of a protective park,
had shared her frolics,
and for these children wedding crowns
8 their fathers, who were friends and neighbors, destined.
In the backwoods, beneath a humble roof,
full of innocent charm,
she under the eyes of her parents
12 bloomed like a hidden lily of the valley
which is unknown in the dense grass
to butterflies or to the bee.
XXII
She gave the poet the first dream
of youthful transports,
and the thought of her animated
4 his pipe's first moan.
Farewell, golden games! He
began to like thick groves,
seclusion, stillness, and the night,
8 and the stars, and the moon —
the moon, celestial lamp,
to which we dedicated
walks midst the evening darkness,
12 and tears, of secret pangs the solace...
But now we only see in her
a substitute for bleary lanterns.
XXIII
Always modest, always obedient,
always as merry as the morn,
as naïve as a poet's life,
4 as winsome as love's kiss;
her eyes, as azure as the sky,
smile, flaxen locks,
movements, voice, light waist – everything
8 in Olga... but take any novel,
and you will surely find
her portrait; it is very sweet;
I liked it once myself,
12 but it has come to bore me beyond measure.
Let me, my reader,
take up the elder sister.
XXIV
Her sister
was called Tatiana.13
For the first time a novel's tender pages
4 with such a name we willfully shall grace.
What of it? It is pleasing, sonorous,
but from it, I know, is inseparable
the memory of ancientry
8 or housemaids' quarters. We must all
admit that we have very little
taste even in our names
(to say nothing of verses);
12 enlightenment does not suit us,
and what we have derived from it
is affectation – nothing more.
XXV
So she was called
Tatiana. Neither with her sister's beauty
nor with her [sister's] rosy freshness
4 would she attract one's eyes.
Sauvage, sad, silent,
as timid as the sylvan doe,
in her own family
8 she seemed a strangeling.
She knew not how to snuggle up
to her father or mother;
a child herself, among a crowd of children,
12 she never wished to play and skip,
and often all day long, alone,
she sat in silence by the window.
XXVI
Pensiveness, her companion,
even from cradle days,
adorned for her with dreams
4 the course of rural leisure.
Her delicate fingers
knew needles not; over the tambour bendin
with a silk pattern she
8 did not enliven linen.
Sign of the urge to domineer:
the child with her obedient doll
prepares in play
12 for etiquette, law of the monde,
and gravely to her doll repeats the lessons
of her mamma;
XXVII
but even in those years Tatiana
did not take in her hands a doll;
about town news, about the fashions,
4 did not converse with it;
and childish pranks
to her were foreign; grisly tales
in winter, in the dark of nights,
8 charmed more her heart.
Whenever nurse assembled
for Olga, on the spacious lawn,
all her small girl companions,
12 she did not play at barleybreaks,
dull were to her both ringing laughter
and noise of their giddy diversions.
XXVIII
She on the balcony
liked to prevene Aurora's rise,
when, in the pale sky, disappears
4 the choral dance of stars,
and earth's rim softly lightens,
and, morning's herald, the wind whiffs,
and rises by degrees the day.
8 In winter, when night's shade
possesses longer half the world,
and longer in the idle stillness,
by the bemisted moon,
12 the lazy orient sleeps,
awakened at her customary hour
she would get up by candles.
XXIX
She early had been fond of novels;
for her they replaced all;
she grew enamored with the fictions
4 of Richardson and of Rousseau.
Her father was a kindly fellow
who lagged in the precedent age
but saw no harm in books;
8 he, never reading,
deemed them an empty toy,
nor did he care
what secret tome his daughter had
12 dozing till morn under her pillow.
As to his wife, she was herself
mad upon Richardson.
XXX
The reason she loved Richardson
was not that she had read him,
and not that Grandison
4 to Lovelace she preferred;14
but anciently, Princess Alina,
her Moscow maiden cousin,
would often talk to her about them.
8 Her husband at that time still was
her fiancé, but against her will.
She sighed after another
whose heart and mind
12 were much more to her liking;
that Grandison was a great dandy,
a gamester, and an Ensign in the Guards.
XXXI
Like him, she always
dressed in the fashion and becomingly;
but without asking her advice
4 they took the maiden to the altar;
and to dispel her grief
the sensible husband repaired
soon to his countryseat, where she,
8 God knows by whom surrounded, tossed
and wept at first,
almost divorced her husband, then
got occupied with household matters, grew
12 habituated, and became content.
Habit to us is given from above:
it is a substitute for happiness.15
XXXII
Habit allayed the grief
that nothing else could ward;
a big discovery soon came
4 to comfort her completely.
Between the dally and the do
a secret she discovered: how to govern
her husband monocratically,
8 and forthwith everything went right.
She would drive out to supervise the farming,
she pickled mushrooms for the winter,
she kept the books, “shaved foreheads,”
12 to the bathhouse would go on Saturdays,
walloped her maids when cross —
all this without asking her husband's leave.
XXXIII
Time was, she wrote in blood
in tender maidens' albums,
would call Praskóvia “Polína,”
4 and speak in singsong tones;
very tight stays she wore,
and knew how to pronounce a Russian n
as if it were a French one, through the nose;
8 but soon all this ceased to exist; stays, album,
Princess [Alina],
cahier of sentimental verselets, she
forgot, began to call
12 “Akúl'ka” the one-time “Selína,”
and finally inaugurated
the quilted chamber robe and mobcap.
XXXIV
But dearly did her husband love her,
he did not enter in her schemes,
on every score lightheartedly believed her
4 whilst in his dressing gown he ate and drank
His life rolled comfortably on;
at evenfall sometimes assembled
a kindly group of neighbors,
8 unceremonious friends,
to rue, to tattle,
to chuckle over this or that.
Time passed; meanwhile
12 Olga was told to prepare tea;
then supper came, and then 'twas bedtime,
and off the guests would drive.
XXXV
They in their peaceful life preserved
the customs of dear ancientry:
with them, during fat Butterweek
4 Russian pancakes were wont to be.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
12 kvas was as requisite to them as air,
and at their table dishes were presented
to guests in order of their rank.
XXXVI
And thus they both grew old,
and the grave's portals
opened at last before the husband,
4 and a new crown upon him was bestowed.
He died at the hour before the midday meal,
bewailed by neighbor,
children, and faithful wife,
8 more candidly than some.
He was a simple and kind squire,
and there where lies his dust
the monument above the grave proclaims:
12 “The humble sinner Dmitri Larin,
slave of our Lord, and Brigadier,
enjoyeth peace beneath this stone.”
XXXVII
Restored to his penates,
Vladimir Lenski visited
his neighbor's humble monument,
4 and to the ashes consecrated
a sigh, and long his heart was melancholy.
“Poor Yorick!”16 mournfully he uttered, “he
hath borne me in his arms.
8 How oft I played in childhood
with his Ochákov medal!
He destined Olga to wed me;
he used to say: ‘Shall I be there
12 to see the day?’ ” and full of sincere sadness,
Vladimir there and then set down for him
a gravestone madrigal.
XXXVIII
And with a sad inscription,
in tears, he also honored there his father's
and mother's patriarchal dust.
4 Alas! Upon life's furrows,
in a brief harvest, generations
by Providence's secret will
rise, ripen, and must fall;
8 others in their tracks follow.... Thus
our giddy race
waxes, stirs, seethes,
and tombward crowds its ancestors.
12 Our time likewise will come, will come,
and one fine day our grandsons
out of the world will crowd us too.
XXXIX
Meanwhile enjoy your fill of it
– of this lightsome life, friends!
Its insignificance I realize
4 and little am attached to it;
to phantoms I have closed my eyelids;
but distant hopes
sometimes disturb my heart:
8 without an imperceptible trace, I'd be sorry
to leave the world.
I live, I write not for the sake of praise;
but my sad lot, meseems,
12 I would desire to glorify,
so that a single sound at least
might, like a faithful friend, remind one about me.
XL
And it will touch
the heart of someone; and preserved by fate,
perhaps in Lethe will not drown
4 the strophe made by me;
perhaps – flattering hope! —
a future dunce will point
at my famed portrait
8 and utter: “That now was a poet!”
So do accept my thanks, admirer
of the peaceful Aonian maids,
0 you whose memory will preserve
12 my volatile creations,
you whose benevolent hand will pat
the old man's laurels!
CHAPTER THREE
Elle était fille; elle était amoureuse.
Malfilâtre
I
“Whither? Ah me, those poets!”
“Good-by, Onegin. Time for me to leave.”
“I do not hold you, but where do
4 you spend your evenings?” “At the Larins'.”
“Now, that's a fine thing. Mercy, man —
and you don't find it difficult
thus every evening to kill time?”
8 “Not in the least.” “I cannot understand.
From here I see what it is like:
first – listen, am I right? —
a simple Russian family,
12 a great solicitude for guests,
jam, never-ending talk
of rain, of flax, of cattle yard.”
II
“So far I do not see what's bad about it.”
“Ah, but the boredom – that is bad, my friend.”
“Your fashionable world I hate;
4 dearer to me is the domestic circle
in which I can…” “Again an eclogue!
Ah, that will do, old boy, for goodness' sake.
Well, so you're off; I'm very sorry.
8 Oh, Lenski, listen – is there any way
for me to see this Phyllis,
subject of thoughts, and pen,
and tears, and rhymes, et cetera?
12 Present me.” “You are joking.” “No.”
“I'd gladly.” “When?” “Now, if you like.
They will be eager to receive us.”
III
“Let's go.” And off the two friends drove;
they have arrived; on them are lavished
the sometimes onerous attentions
4 of hospitable ancientry.
The ritual of the treat is known:
in little dishes jams are brought,
on an oilcloth'd small table there is set
8 a jug of lingonberry water.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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12 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
IV
They by the shortest road
fly home at full career.17
Now let us eavesdrop furtively
4 upon our heroes' conversation.
“Well now, Onegin, you are yawning.”
“A habit, Lenski.” “But somehow
you are more bored than ever.” “No, the same.
8 I say, it's dark already in the field;
faster! come on, come on, Andryushka!
What silly country!
Ah, apropos: Dame Larin
12 is simple but a very nice old lady;
I fear that lingonberry water
may not unlikely do me harm.
V
“Tell me, which was Tatiana?”
“Oh, she's the one who, sad
and silent like Svetlana,
4 came in and sat down by the window.”
“Can it be it's the younger one
that you're in love with?” “Why not?” “I'd have chosen
the other, had I been like you a poet.
8 In Olga's features there's no life,
just as in a Vandyke Madonna:
she's round and fair of face
as is that silly moon
12 up in that silly sky.”
Vladimir answered curtly
and thenceforth the whole way was silent.
VI
Meanwhile Onegin's apparition
at the Larins' produced
on everyone a great impression
4 and regaled all the neighbors.
Conjecture on conjecture followed.
All started furtively to talk,
to joke, to comment not without some malice,
8 a suitor for Tatiana to assign.
Some folks asserted even that
the wedding was quite settled,
but had been stayed because
12 of fashionable rings' not being got.
Concerning Lenski's wedding, long ago
they had it all arranged.
VII
Tatiana listened with vexation
to gossip of that sort; but secretly
she with ineffable elation
4 could not help thinking of it;
and the thought sank into her heart;
the time had come – she fell in love.
Thus, dropped into the earth, a seed
8 is quickened by the fire of spring.
For long had her imagination,
consumed with mollitude and anguish,
craved for the fatal food;
12 for long had the heart's languishment
constrained her youthful bosom;
her soul waited – for somebody.
VIII
And not in vain it waited. Her eyes opened;
she said: “'Tis he!”
Alas! now both the days and nights,
4 and hot, lone sleep,
all's full of him; to the dear girl
unceasingly with magic force
all speaks of him. To her are tedious
8 alike the sounds of friendly speeches
and the gaze of assiduous servants.
Immersed in gloom,
to visitors she does not listen,
12 and imprecates their leisures,
their unexpected
arrival and protracted sitting down.
IX
With what attention does she now
read some delicious novel,
with what vivid enchantment
4 imbibe the ravishing illusion!
Creations by the happy power
of dreaming animated,
the lover of Julie Wolmar,
8 Malek-Adhel, and de Linar,
and Werther, restless martyr,
and the inimitable Grandison,18
who brings upon us somnolence —
12 all for the tender, dreamy girl
have been invested with a single image,
have in Onegin merged alone.
X
Imagining herself the heroine
of her beloved authors —
Clarissa, Julia, Delphine —
4 Tatiana in the stillness of the woods
alone roams with a dangerous book;
in it she seeks and finds
her secret ardency, her dreams,
8 the fruits of the heart's fullness;
she sighs, and having made her own
another's ecstasy, another's woe,
she whispers in a trance, by heart,
12 a letter to the amiable hero.
But our hero, whoever he might be,
was certainly no Grandison.
XI
His style to a grave strain having attuned,
time was, a fervid author
used to present to us
4 his hero as a model of perfection.
He'd furnish the loved object —
always iniquitously persecuted —
with a sensitive soul, intelligence,
8 and an attractive face.
Nursing the ardor of the purest passion,
the always enthusiastic hero
was ready for self-sacrifice,
12 and by the end of the last part, vice always
got punished,
and virtue got a worthy crown.
XII
But nowadays all minds are in a mist,
a moral brings upon us somnolence,
vice is attractive in a novel, too,
4 and there, at least, it triumphs.
The fables of the British Muse
disturb the young girl's sleep,
and now her idol has become
8 either the pensive Vampyre,
or Melmoth, gloomy vagabond,
or the Wandering Jew, or the Corsair,
or the mysterious Sbogar.19
12 Lord Byron, by an opportune caprice,
in woebegone romanticism
draped even hopeless egotism.
XIII
My friends, what sense is there in this?
Perhaps, by heaven's will,
I'll cease to be a poet; a new demon
4 will enter into me;
and having scorned the threats of Phoebus,
I shall descend to humble prose:
a novel in the ancient strain
8 will then engage my gay decline.
There, not the secret pangs of crime
shall I grimly depict,
but simply shall detail to you
12 the legends of a Russian family,
love's captivating dreams,
and manners of our ancientry.
XIV
I shall detail a father's, an old uncle's,
plain speeches; the assigned
trysts of the children
4 by the old limes, by the small brook;
the throes of wretched jealousy,
parting, reconciliation's tears;
once more I'll have them quarrel, and at last
8 conduct them to the altar. I'll recall
the accents of impassioned languish,
the words of aching love,
which in days bygone at the feet
12 of a fair mistress
came to my tongue;
from which I now have grown disused.
XV
Tatiana, dear Tatiana!
I now shed tears with you.
Into a fashionable tyrant's hands
4 your fate already you've relinquished.
Dear, you shall perish; but before,
in dazzling hope,
you summon somber bliss,
8 you learn the dulcitude of life,
you quaff the magic poison of desires,
daydreams pursue you:
you fancy everywhere
12 retreats for happy trysts;
everywhere, everywhere before you,
is your fateful enticer.
XVI
The ache of love chases Tatiana,
and to the garden she repairs to brood,
and all at once her moveless eyes she lowers
4 and is too indolent farther to step;
her bosom has risen, her cheeks
are covered with an instant flame,
her breath has died upon her lips,
8 and there's a singing in her ears, a flashing
before her eyes. Night comes; the moon
patrols the distant vault of heaven,
and in the gloam of trees the nightingale
12 intones sonorous chants.
Tatiana in the darkness does not sleep
and in low tones talks with her nurse.
XVII
“I can't sleep, nurse: 'tis here so stuffy!
Open the window and sit down by me.”
“Why, Tanya, what's the matter with you?” “I am dull.
4 Let's talk about old days.”
“Well, what about them, Tanya? Time was, I
stored in my memory no dearth
of ancient haps and never-haps
8 about dire sprites and about maidens;
but everything to me is dark now, Tanya:
I have forgotten what I knew. Yes, things
have come now to a sorry pass!
12 I'm all befuddled.” “Nurse,
tell me about your old times. Were you then
in love?”
XVIII
“Oh, come, come, Tanya! In those years
we never heard of love;
elsewise my late mother-in-law
4 would have chased me right off the earth.”
“But how, then, were you wedded, nurse?”
“It looks as if God willed it so. My Vanya
was younger than myself, my sweet,
8 and I was thirteen. For two weeks or so
a woman matchmaker kept visiting
my kinsfolk, and at last
my father blessed me. Bitterly
12 I cried for fear; and, crying, they unbraided
my tress and, chanting,
they led me to the church.
XIX
“And so I entered a strange family.
But you're not listening to me.”
“Oh, nurse, nurse, I feel dismal,
4 I'm sick at heart, my dear,
I'm on the point of crying, sobbing!”
“My child, you are not well;
the Lord have mercy upon us and save us!
8 What would you like, do ask.
Here, let me sprinkle you with holy water,
you're all a-burning.” “I'm not ill;
I'm... do you know, nurse... I'm in love.”
12 “My child, the Lord be with you!”
And, uttering a prayer, the nurse
crossed with decrepit hand the girl.
XX
“I am in love,” anew she murmured
to the old woman mournfully.
“Sweetheart, you are not well.”
4 “Leave me. I am in love.”
And meantime the moon shone
and with dark light irradiated
the pale charms of Tatiana
8 and her loose hair,
and drops of tears, and, on a benchlet,
before the youthful heroine,
a kerchief on her hoary head, the little
12 old crone in a long “body warmer”;
and in the stillness everything
dozed by the inspirative moon.
XXI
And far away Tatiana's heart was ranging
as she looked at the moon....
All of a sudden in her mind a thought was born....
4 “Go, let me be alone.
Give me, nurse, a pen, paper, and move up
the table; I shall soon lie down.
Good night.” Now she's alone,
8 all's still. The moon gives light to her.
Tatiana, leaning on her elbow, writes,
and Eugene's ever present in her mind,
and in an unconsidered letter
12 the love of an innocent maid breathes forth.
The letter now is ready, folded.
Tatiana! Whom, then, is it for?
XXII
I've known belles inaccessible,
cold, winter-chaste;
inexorable, incorruptible,
4 unfathomable by the mind;
I marveled at their modish morgue,
at their natural virtue,
and, to be frank, I fled from them,
8 and I, meseems, with terror read
above their eyebrows Hell's inscription:
“Abandon hope for evermore!”20
To inspire love is bale for them,
12 to frighten folks for them is joyance.
Perhaps, on the banks of the Neva
similar ladies you have seen.
XXIII
Amidst obedient admirers,
other odd females I have seen,
conceitedly indifferent
4 to sighs impassioned and to praise.
But what, to my amazement, did I find?
While, by austere demeanor,
they frightened timid love,
8 they had the knack of winning it again,
at least by their condolence;
at least the sound of spoken words
sometimes would seem more tender,
12 and with credulous blindness
again the youthful lover
pursued sweet vanity.
XXIV
Why is Tatiana, then, more guilty?
Is it because in sweet simplicity
deceit she knows not and believes
4 in her elected dream?
Is it because she loves without art, being
obedient to the bent of feeling?
Is it because she is so trustful
8 and is endowed by heaven
with a restless imagination,
intelligence, and a live will,
and headstrongness,
12 and a flaming and tender heart?
Are you not going to forgive her
the thoughtlessness of passions?
XXV
The coquette reasons coolly;
Tatiana in dead earnest loves
and unconditionally yields
4 to love like a sweet child.
She does not say: Let us defer;
thereby we shall augment love's value,
inveigle into toils more surely;
8 let us first prick vainglory
with hope; then with perplexity
exhaust a heart, and then
revive it with a jealous fire,
12 for otherwise, cloyed with delight,
the cunning captive from his shackles
hourly is ready to escape.
XXVI
Another problem I foresee:
saving the honor of my native land,
undoubtedly I shall have to translate
4 Tatiana's letter. She
knew Russian badly,
did not read our reviews,
and in her native tongue expressed herself
8 with difficulty. So,
she wrote in French.
What's to be done about it! I repeat again;
as yet a lady's love
12 has not expressed itself in Russian,
as yet our proud tongue has not got accustomed
to postal prose.
XXVII
I know: some would make ladies
read Russian. Horrible indeed!
Can I image them
4 with The Well-Meaner21in their hands?
My poets, I appeal to you!
Is it not true that the sweet objects
for whom, to expiate your sins,
8 in secret you wrote verses,
to whom your hearts you dedicated —
did not they all, wielding the Russian language
poorly, and with difficulty,
12 so sweetly garble it,
and on their lips did not a foreign language
become a native one?
XXVIII
The Lord forbid my meeting at a ball
or at its breakup, on the porch,
a seminarian in a yellow shawl
4 or an Academician in a bonnet!
As vermeil lips without a smile,
without grammatical mistakes
I don't like Russian speech.
8 Perchance (it would be my undoing!)
a generation of new belles,
heeding the magazines' entreating voice,
to Grammar will accustom us;
12 verses will be brought into use.
Yet I... what do I care?
I shall be true to ancientry.
XXIX
An incorrect and careless patter,
an inexact delivery of words,
as heretofore a flutter of the heart
4 will in my breast produce;
in me there's no force to repent;
to me will Gallicisms remain
as sweet as the sins of past youth,
8 as Bogdanóvich's verse.
But that will do. 'Tis time I busied
myself with my fair damsel's letter;
my word I've given – and what now? Yea, yea!
12 I'm ready to back out of it.
I know: tender Parny's
pen in our days is out of fashion.
XXX
Bard of The Feasts and languorous sadness,22
if you were still with me,
I would have troubled you,
4 dear fellow, with an indiscreet request:
that into magic melodies
you would transpose
a passionate maiden's foreign words.
8 Where are you? Come! My rights
I with a bow transfer to you....
But in the midst of melancholy rocks,
his heart disused from praises,
12 alone, under the Finnish sky
he wanders, and his soul
hears not my worry.
XXXI
Tatiana's letter is before me;
religiously I keep it;
I read it with a secret heartache
4 and cannot get my fill of reading it.
Who taught her both this tenderness
and amiable carelessness of words?
Who taught her all that touching tosh,
8 mad conversation of the heart
both fascinating and injurious?
I cannot understand. But here's
an incomplete, feeble translation,
12 the pallid copy of a vivid picture,
or Freischütz executed by the fingers
of timid female learners.
Tatiana's Letter To Onegin
I write to you – what would one more?
What else is there that I could say?
'Tis now, I know, within your will
4 to punish me with scorn.
But you, preserving for my hapless lot
at least one drop of pity,
you'll not abandon me.
8 At first, I wanted to be silent;
believe me: of my shame
you never would have known
if I had had the hope but seldom,
12 but once a week,
to see you at our country place,
only to hear you speak,
to say a word to you, and then
16 to think and think about one thing,
both day and night, till a new meeting.
But, they say, you're unsociable;
in backwoods, in the country, all bores you,
20 while we... in no way do we shine,
though simpleheartedly we welcome you.
Why did you visit us?
In the backwoods of a forgotten village,
24 I would have never known you
nor have known this bitter torment.
The turmoil of an inexperienced soul
having subdued with time (who knows?),
28 I would have found a friend after my heart,
have been a faithful wife
and a virtuous mother.
Another!... No, to nobody on earth
32 would I have given my heart away!
That has been destined in a higher council,
that is the will of heaven: I am thine;
my entire life has been the gage
36 of a sure tryst with you;
I know that you are sent to me by God,
you are my guardian to the tomb....
You had appeared to me in dreams,
40 unseen, you were already dear to me,
your wondrous glance would trouble me,
your voice resounded in my soul
long since.... No, it was not a dream!
44 Scarce had you entered, instantly I knew you,
I felt all faint, I felt aflame,
and in my thoughts I uttered: It is he!
Is it not true that it was you I heard:
48 you in the stillness spoke to me
when I would help the poor
or assuage with a prayer
the anguish of my agitated soul?
52 And even at this very moment
was it not you, dear vision,
that slipped through the transparent darkness
and gently bent close to my bed head?
56 Was it not you that with delight and love
did whisper words of hope to me?
Who are you? My guardian angel
or a perfidious tempter?
60 Resolve my doubts.
Perhaps, 'tis nonsense all,
an inexperienced soul's delusion, and there's destined
something quite different....
64 But so be it! My fate
henceforth I place into your hands,
before you I shed tears,
for your defense I plead.
68 Imagine: I am here alone,
none understands me,
my reason sinks,
and, silent, I must perish.
72 I wait for you: revive
my heart's hopes with a single look
or interrupt the heavy dream
with a rebuke – alas, deserved!
76 I close. I dread to read this over.
I'm faint with shame and fear... But to me
your honor is a pledge,
and boldly I entrust myself to it.
XXXII
By turns Tatiana sighs and ohs.
The letter trembles in her hand;
the rosy wafer dries
4 upon her fevered tongue.
Her poor head shoulderward has sunk;
her light chemise
has slid down from her charming shoulder.
8 But now the moonbeam's radiance
already fades. Anon the valley
grows through the vapor clear. Anon the stream
starts silvering. Anon the herdsman's horn
12 wakes up the villager.
Here's morning; all have risen long ago:
to my Tatiana it is all the same.
XXXIII
She takes no notice of the sunrise;
she sits with lowered head
and on the letter does not
4 impress her graven seal.
But, softly opening the door,
now gray Filatievna brings her
tea on a tray.
8 “'Tis time, my child, get up;
why, pretty one,
you're ready! Oh, my early birdie!
I was so anxious yesternight —
12 but glory be to God, you're well!
No trace at all of the night's fret!
Your face is like a poppy flower.”
XXXIV
“Oh, nurse, do me a favor.”
“Willingly, darling, order me.”
“Now do not think... Really... Suspicion...
4 But you see... Oh, do not refuse!”
“My dear, to you God is my pledge.”
“Well, send your grandson quietly
with this note to O… to that… to
8 the neighbor. And let him be told
that he ought not to say a word,
that he ought not to name me.”
“To whom, my precious?
12 I'm getting muddled nowadays.
Neighbors around are many; it's beyond me
even to count them over.”
XXXV
“Oh, nurse, how slow-witted you are!”
“Sweetheart, I am already old,
I'm old; the mind gets blunted, Tanya;
4 but time was, I used to be sharp:
time was, one word of master's wish.”
“Oh, nurse, nurse, is this relevant?
What matters your intelligence to me?
8 You see, it is about a letter, to
Onegin.” “Well, this now makes sense.
Do not be cross with me, my soul;
I am, you know, not comprehensible.
12 But why have you turned pale again?”
“Never mind, nurse, 'tis really nothing.
Send, then, your grandson.”
XXXVI
But the day lapsed, and there's no answer.
Another came up; nothing yet.
Pale as a shade, since morning dressed,
4 Tatiana waits: when will the answer come?
Olga's adorer drove up. “Tell me,
where's your companion?” was to him
the question of the lady of the house;
8 “He seems to have forgotten us entirely.”
Tatiana, flushing, quivered.
“He promised he would be today,”
Lenski replied to the old dame,
12 “but evidently the mail has detained him.”
Tatiana dropped her eyes
as if she'd heard a harsh rebuke.
XXXVII
'Twas darkling; on the table, shining,
the evening samovar
hissed as it warmed the Chinese teapot;
4 light vapor undulated under it.
Poured out by Olga's hand,
into the cups, in a dark stream,
the fragrant tea already
8 ran, and a footboy served the cream;
Tatiana stood before the window;
breathing on the cold panes,
lost in thought, the dear soul
12 wrote with her charming finger
on the bemisted glass
the cherished monogram: an O and E.
XXXVIII
And meantime her soul ached,
and full of tears was her languorous gaze.
Suddenly, hoof thuds! Her blood froze.
4 Now nearer! Coming fast... and in the yard
is Eugene! “Ach!” – and lighter than a shade
Tatiana skips into another hallway,
from porch outdoors, and straight into the garden;
8 she flies, flies – dares not
glance backward; in a moment has traversed
the platbands, little bridges, lawn,
the avenue to the lake, the bosquet;
12 she breaks the lilac bushes as she flies
across the flower plots to the brook,
and, panting, on a bench
XXXIX
she drops. “He's here! Eugene is here!
Good God, what did he think!”
Her heart, full of torments, retains
4 an obscure dream of hope;
she trembles, and she hotly glows, and waits:
does he not come? But hears not. In the orchard
girl servants, on the beds,
8 were picking berries in the bushes
and singing by decree in chorus
(a decree based on that
sly mouths would not in secret
12 eat the seignioral berry
and would be occupied by singing; a device
of rural wit!):
The Song Of The Girls
Maidens, pretty maidens,
darling girl companions,
romp unhindered, maidens,
4 have your fling, my dears!
Start to sing a ditty,
sing our private ditty,
and allure a fellow
8 to our choral dance.
When we lure a fellow,
when afar we see him,
let us scatter, dearies,
12 pelting him with cherries,
cherries and raspberries,
and red currants too.
“Do not come eavesdropping
16 on our private ditties,
do not come a-spying
on our girlish games!”
XL
They sing; and carelessly
attending to their ringing voice,
Tatiana with impatience waits
4 for the heart's tremor to subside in her,
for her cheeks to cease flaming;
but in her breasts there's the same trepidation,
nor ceases the glow of her cheeks:
8 yet brighter, brighter do they burn.
Thus a poor butterfly both flashes
and beats an iridescent wing,
captured by a school prankster; thus
12 a small hare trembles in the winter corn
upon suddenly seeing from afar
the shotman in the bushes crouch.
XLI
But finally she sighed
and from her bench arose;
started to go; but hardly had she turned
4 into the avenue when straight before her,
eyes blazing, Eugene
stood, similar to some grim shade,
and as one seared by fire
8 she stopped.
But to detail the consequences
of this unlooked-for meeting I, dear friends,
have not the strength today;
12 after this long discourse I need
a little jaunt, a little rest;
some other time I'll tell the rest.
