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

Автор книги: Владимир Набоков

CHAPTER FOUR

La morale est dans la nature des choses.

Necker

 

VII

   The less we love a woman
   the easier 'tis to be liked by her,
   and thus more surely we undo her
 ⁴ among bewitching toils.
   Time was when cool debauch
   was lauded as the art of love,
   trumpeting everywhere about itself,
 ⁸ taking its pleasure without loving.
   But that grand game
   is worthy of old sapajous
   of our forefathers' vaunted times;
¹² the fame of Lovelaces has faded
   with the fame of red heels
   and of majestic periwigs.
 
 

VIII

   Who does not find it tedious to dissemble;
   diversely to repeat the same;
   try gravely to convince one
 ⁴ of what all have been long convinced;
   to hear the same objections,
   annihilate the prejudices
   which never had and hasn't
 ⁸ a little girl of thirteen years!
   Who will not grow weary of threats,
   entreaties, vows, feigned fear,
   notes running to six pages,
¹² betrayals, gossiping, rings, tears,
   surveillances of aunts, of mothers,
   and the onerous friendship of husbands!
 
 

IX

   Exactly thus my Eugene thought.
   In his first youth
   he had been victim of tempestuous errings
 ⁴ and of unbridled passions.
   Spoiled by a habitude of life,
   with one thing for a while
   enchanted, disenchanted with another,
 ⁸ irked slowly by desire,
   irked, too, by volatile success,
   hearkening in the hubbub and the hush
   to the eternal mutter of his soul,
¹² smothering yawns with laughter:
   this was the way he killed eight years,
   having lost life's best bloom.
 
 

X

   With belles no longer did he fall in love,
   but dangled after them just anyhow;
   when they refused, he solaced in a twinkle;
 ⁴ when they betrayed, was glad to rest.
   He sought them without rapture,
   while he left them without regret,
   hardly remembering their love and spite.
 ⁸ Exactly thus does an indifferent guest
   drive up for evening whist:
   sits down; then, when the game is over,
   he drives off from the place,
¹² at home falls peacefully asleep,
   and in the morning does not know himself
   where he will drive to in the evening.
 
 

XI

   But on receiving Tanya's missive,
   Onegin was profoundly touched:
   the language of a maiden's daydreams
 ⁴ stirred up in him a swarm of thoughts;
   and he recalled winsome Tatiana's
   pale color, mournful air;
   and in a sweet and sinless dream
 ⁸ his soul became absorbed.
   Perhaps an ancient glow of feelings
   possessed him for a minute;
   but he did not wish to deceive
¹² an innocent soul's trustfulness.
   Now we'll flit over to the garden where Tatiana
   encountered him.
 
 

XII

   For a few seconds they were silent;
   Onegin then went up to her
   and quoth: “You wrote to me.
 ⁴ Do not deny it. I have read
   a trustful soul's avowals,
   an innocent love's outpourings;
   your candidness appeals to me,
 ⁸ in me it has excited
   emotions long grown silent.
   But I don't want to praise you —
   I will repay you for it
¹² with an avowal likewise void of art;
   hear my confession;
   unto your judgment I submit.
 
 

XIII

   “If I by the domestic circle
   had wanted to bound life;
   if to be father, husband,
 ⁴ a pleasant lot had ordered me;
   if with the familistic picture
   I were but for one moment captivated;
   then, doubtlessly, save you alone
 ⁸ no other bride I'd seek.
   I'll say without madrigal spangles:
   my past ideal having found,
   I'd doubtlessly have chosen you alone
¹² for mate of my sad days, in gage
   of all that's beautiful, and would have been
   happy – in so far as I could!
 
 

XIV

   “But I'm not made for bliss;
   my soul is strange to it;
   in vain are your perfections:
 ⁴ I'm not at all worthy of them.
   Believe me (conscience is thereof the pledge),
   wedlock to us would be a torment.
   However much I loved you,
 ⁸ having grown used, I'd cease to love at once;
   you would begin to weep; your tears
   would fail to touch my heart —
   they merely would exasperate it.
¹² Judge, then, what roses
   Hymen would lay in store for us —
   and, possibly, for many days!
 
 

XV

   “What in the world can be
   worse than a family where the poor wife frets
   over an undeserving husband
 ⁴ and day and evening is alone;
   where the dull husband,
   knowing her worth (yet cursing fate),
   is always sullen, silent, cross,
 ⁸ and coldly jealous?
   Thus I. And is it this you sought
   with pure flaming soul when
   with such simplicity,
¹² with such intelligence, to me you wrote?
   Can it be true that such a portion
   is by stern fate assigned to you?
 
 

XVI

   “For dreams and years there's no return;
   I shall not renovate my soul.
   I love you with a brother's love
 ⁴ and maybe still more tenderly.
   So listen to me without wrath:
   a youthful maid will more than once
   for dreams exchange light dreams;
 ⁸ a sapling thus its leaves
   changes with every spring.
   By heaven thus 'tis evidently destined.
   Again you will love; but.
¹² learn to control yourself;
   not everyone as I will understand you;
   to trouble inexperience leads.”
 
 

XVII

   Thus Eugene preached.
   Nought seeing through her tears,
   scarce breathing, without protests,
 ⁴ Tatiana listened to him.
   His arm to her he offered. Sadly
   (as it is said: “mechanically”),
   Tatiana leaned on it in silence,
 ⁸ bending her languid little head;
   homeward [they] went around the kitchen garden;
   together they arrived, and none
   dreamt of reproving them for this:
¹² its happy rights
   has country freedom
   as well as haughty Moscow has.
 
 

XVIII

   You will agree, my reader,
   that very nicely did our pal
   act toward melancholy Tanya;
 ⁴ not for the first time here did he reveal
   a real nobility of soul,
   though people's ill will
   spared nothing in him:
 ⁸ his foes, his friends
   (which, maybe, are the same)
   upbraided him this way and that.
   Foes upon earth has everyone,
¹² but God preserve us from our friends!
   Ah me, those friends, those friends!
   Not without cause have I recalled them.
 
 

XIX

   What's that? Oh, nothing. I am lulling
   empty black reveries;
   I only in parenthesis observe
 ⁴ that there's no despicable slander
   spawned in a garret by a babbler
   and by the rabble of the monde encouraged,
   that there's no such absurdity,
 ⁸ nor vulgar epigram,
   that with a smile your friend
   in a circle of decent people
   without the slightest malice or design
¹² will not repeat a hundred times in error;
   yet he professes to stand up for you:
   he loves you so!... Oh, like a kinsman!
 
 

XX

   Hm, hm, gent reader,
   are all your kindred well?
   Allow me; you might want, perhaps,
 ⁴ to learn from me now what exactly
   is meant by “kinsfolks”?
   Well, here's what kinsfolks are:
   we are required to pet them, love them,
 ⁸ esteem them cordially,
   and, following popular custom,
   come Christmas, visit them, or else
   congratulate them postally,
¹² so that for the remainder of the year
   they will not think about us.
   So grant them, God, long life!
 
 

XXI

   As to the love of tender beauties,
   'tis surer than friendship or kin:
   even mid restless tempests you retain
 ⁴ rights over it.
   No doubt, so. But one has to reckon
   with fashion's whirl, with nature's waywardness,
   with the stream of the monde's opinion —
 ⁸ while the sweet sex is light as fluff.
   Moreover, the opinions of her husband
   should by a virtuous wife
   be always honored;
¹² your faithful mistress thus
   may in a trice be swept away:
   with love jokes Satan.
 
 

XXII

   Whom, then, to love? Whom to believe?
   Who is the only one that won't betray us?
   Who measures all deeds and all speeches
 ⁴ obligingly by our own foot rule?
   Who does not sow slander about us?
   Who coddles us with care?
   To whom our vice is not so bad?
 ⁸ Who never bores us?
   Efforts in vain not wasting
   (as would a futile phantom-seeker),
   love your own self,
¹² my worthly honored reader.
   A worthy object! Surely, nothing
   more amiable exists.
 
 

XXIII

   What was the consequence of the interview?
   Alas, it is not hard to guess!
   Love's frenzied sufferings
 ⁴ did not stop agitating
   the youthful soul avid of sadness;
   nay, poor Tatiana more intensely
   with joyless passion burns;
 ⁸ sleep shuns her bed;
   health, life's bloom and its sweetness,
   smile, virginal tranquillity —
   all, like an empty sound, have ceased to be,
¹² and gentle Tanya's youth is darkling:
   thus a storm's shadow clothes
   the scarce-born day.
 
 

XXIV

   Alas, Tatiana fades away,
   grows pale, is wasting, and is mute!
   Nothing beguiles her
 ⁴ or moves her soul.
   Shaking gravely their heads,
   among themselves the neighbors whisper:
   Time, time she married!...
 ⁸ But that will do. I must make haste
   to cheer the imagination with the picture
   of happy love.
   I cannot help, my dears,
¹² being constrained by pity;
   forgive me: I do love so much
   my dear Tatiana!
 
 

XXV

   From hour to hour more captivated
   by the attractions of young Olga,
   Vladimir to delicious thralldom
 ⁴ fully gave up his soul.
   He's ever with her. In her chamber
   they sit together in the dark;
   or in the garden, arm in arm,
 ⁸ they stroll at morningtide;
   and what of it? With love intoxicated,
   in the confusion of a tender shame,
   he only dares sometimes,
¹² by Olga's smile encouraged,
   play with an unwound curl
   or kiss the border of her dress.
 
 

XXVI

   Sometimes he reads to Olya
   a moralistic novel —
   in which the author
 ⁴ knows nature better than Chateaubriand —
   and, meanwhile, two-three pages
   (empty chimeras, fables,
   for hearts of maidens dangerous)
 ⁸ he blushingly leaves out.
   Retiring far from everybody,
   over the chessboard they,
   leaning their elbows on the table,
¹² at times sit deep in thought,
   and Lenski in abstraction takes
   with a pawn his own rook.
 
 

XXVII

   When he drives home, at home he also
   is with his Olga occupied,
   the volatile leaves of an album
 ⁴ assiduously adorns for her:
   now draws therein agrestic views,
   a gravestone, the temple of Cypris,
   or a dove on a lyre
 ⁸ (using a pen and, slightly, colors);
   now on the pages of remembrance,
   beneath the signatures of others,
   he leaves a tender verse —
¹² mute monument of reverie,
   an instant thought's light trace,
   still, after many years, the same.
 
 

XXVIII

   You have, of course, seen more than once the album
   of a provincial miss, by all her girl friends
   scrawled over from the end,
 ⁴ from the beginning, and around.
   Here, in defiance of orthography,
   lines without meter, [passed on] by tradition,
   in token of faithful friendship are entered,
 ⁸ diminished, lengthened.
   On the first leaf you are confronted with:
   Qu' écrirez-vous sur ces tablettes?
   signed: toute à vous Annette;
¹² and on the last one you will read:
   “Whoever more than I loves you,
   let him write farther than I do.”
 
 

XXIX

   Here you are sure to find
   two hearts, a torch, and flowerets;
   here you will read no doubt
 ⁴ love's vows “Unto the tomb slab”;
   some military poetaster
   here has dashed off a roguish rhyme.
   In such an album, to be frank, my friends,
 ⁸ I too am glad to write,
   at heart being convinced
   that any zealous trash of mine
   will merit an indulgent glance
¹² and that thereafter, with a wicked smile,
   one will not solemnly examine
   if I could babble wittily or not.
 
 

XXX

   But you, odd volumes
   from the bibliotheca of the devils,
   the gorgeous albums,
 ⁴ the rack of fashionable rhymesters;
   you, nimbly ornamented
   by Tolstoy's wonder-working brush,
   or Baratïnski's pen,
 ⁸ let the Lord's levin burn you!
   Whenever her in-quarto a resplendent lady
   proffers to me,
   a tremor and a waspishness possess me,
¹² and at the bottom of my soul
   there stirs an epigram —
   but madrigals you have to write for them!
 
 

XXXI

   Not madrigals does Lenski
   write in the album of young Olga;
   his pen breathes love —
 ⁴ it does not glitter frigidly with wit.
   Whatever he notes, whatever he hears
   concerning Olga, this he writes about;
   and full of vivid truth
 ⁸ flow, riverlike, his elegies.
   Thus you, inspired Yazïkov,
   sing, in the surgings of your heart,
   God knows whom, and the precious code
¹² of elegies
   will represent for you someday
   the entire story of your fate.
 
 

XXXII

   But soft! You hear? A critic stern
   commands us to throw off
   the sorry wreath of elegies;
 ⁴ and to our brotherhood of rhymesters
   cries: “Do stop whimpering
   and croaking always the same thing,
   regretting 'the foregone, the past';
 ⁸ enough! Sing about something else!” —
   You're right, and surely you'll point out
   to us the trumpet, mask, and dagger,
   and everywhence a dead stock of ideas
¹² bid us revive.
   Thus friend?  – “Nowise!
   Far from it! Write odes, gentlemen,
 
 

XXXIII

   “as in a mighty age one wrote them,
   as was in times of yore established.”
   Nothing but solemn odes?
 ⁴ Oh, come, friend; what's this to the purpose?
   Recall what said the satirist!
   Does the shrewd lyrist in “As Others See It”
   seem more endurable to you
 ⁸ than our glum rhymesters? —
   “But in the elegy all is so null;
   its empty aim is pitiful;
   whilst the aim of the ode is lofty
¹² and noble.” Here I might
   argue with you, but I keep still:
   I do not want to make two ages quarrel.
 
 

XXXIV

   A votary of fame and freedom,
   in the excitement of his stormy thoughts,
   Vladimir might have written odes,
 ⁴ only that Olga did not read them.
   Have ever chanced larmoyant poets
   to read their works before the eyes
   of their beloved ones? It is said, no higher
 ⁸ rewards are in the world.
   And, verily, blest is the modest lover
   reading his daydreams to the object
   of songs and love,
¹² a pleasantly languorous belle!
   Blest – though perhaps by something
   quite different she is diverted.
 
 

XXXV

   But I the products of my fancies
   and of harmonious device
   read but to an old nurse,
 ⁴ companion of my youth;
   or after a dull dinner, when a neighbor
   strays in to see me – having caught
   him by a coat skirt unexpectedly —
 ⁸ I choke him in a corner with a tragedy,
   or else (but that's apart from jesting),
   haunted by yearnings and by rhymes,
   roaming along my lake,
¹² I scare a flock of wild ducks; they, on heeding
   the chant of sweet-toned strophes,
   fly off the banks.
 
 

XXXVII

   But what about Onegin? By the way,
   brothers! I beg your patience:
   his daily occupations in detail
 ⁴ I shall describe to you.
   Onegin anchoretically lived;
   he rose in summer between six and seven
   and, lightly clad, proceeded to the river
 ⁸ that ran under the hillside. Imitating
   the songster of Gulnare,
   across this Hellespont he swam,
   then drank his coffee, while he flipped
¹² through some wretched review,
   and dressed
 
 

XXXIX

   Rambles, and reading, and sound sleep,
   the sylvan shade, the purl of streams,
   sometimes a white-skinned, dark-eyed girl's
 ⁴ young and fresh kiss,
   a horse of mettle, bridle-true,
   a rather fancy dinner,
   a bottle of bright wine,
 ⁸ seclusion, quiet —
   this was Onegin's saintly life;
   and he insensibly to it
   surrendered, the fair summer days
¹² in carefree mollitude not counting,
   oblivious of both town and friends
   and of the boredom of festive devices.
 
 

XL

   But our Northern summer is a caricature
   of Southern winters;
   it will glance by and vanish: this is known,
 ⁴ though to admit it we don't wish.
   The sky already breathed of autumn,
   the sun already shone more seldom,
   the day was growing shorter,
 ⁸ the woods' mysterious canopy
   with a sad murmur bared itself,
   mist settled on the fields,
   the caravan of clamorous geese
¹² was tending southward; there drew near
   a rather tedious period;
   November stood already at the door.
 
 

XLI

   Dawn rises in cold murk;
   stilled in the grainfields is the noise of labors;
   with his hungry female, the wolf
 ⁴ comes out upon the road;
   the road horse, sensing him,
   snorts, and the wary traveler
   goes tearing uphill at top speed;
 ⁸ no longer does the herdsman drive at sunrise
   the cows out of the shippon,
   and at the hour of midday in a circle
   his horn does not call them together;
¹² in her small hut singing, the maiden²³
   spins and, the friend of winter nights,
   in front of her the splintlight crackles.
 
 

XLII

   And now the frosts already crackle
   and silver 'mid the fields
   (the reader now expects the rhyme “froze-rose” —
 ⁴ here, take it quick!).
   Neater than modish parquetry,
   the ice-clad river shines.
   The gladsome crew of boys^24
 8 cut with their skates resoundingly the ice;
   a heavy goose with red feet, planning
   to swim upon the bosom of the waters,
   steps carefully upon the ice,
¹² slidders, and falls. The gay
   first snow flicks, whirls,
   falling in stars upon the bank.
 
 

XLIII

   What can one do at this time in the wilds?
   Walk? But the country at that time
   is an involuntary eyesore
 ⁴ in its unbroken nakedness.
   Go galloping in the harsh prairie?
   But, catching with a blunted shoe
   the treacherous ice, one's mount
 ⁸ is likely any moment to come down.
   Stay under your desolate roof,
   read; here is Pradt, here's Walter Scott!
   Don't want to? Verify expenses,
¹² grumble or drink, and the long evening
   somehow will pass; and next day the same thing,
   and famously you'll spend the winter.
 
 

XLIV

   Onegin like a regular Childe Harold
   lapsed into pensive indolence:
   right after sleep he takes a bath with ice,
 ⁴ and then, at home all day,
   alone, absorbed in calculations, armed
   with a blunt cue,
   using two balls,
 ⁸ ever since morn plays billiards.
   The country evening comes; abandoned
   are billiards, the cue is forgot.
   Before the fireplace the table is laid;
¹² Eugene waits; here comes Lenski,
   borne by a troika of roan horses;
   quick, let's have dinner!
 
 

XLV

   Of Veuve Clicquot or of Moët
   the blesséd wine
   in a chilled bottle for the poet
 ⁴ is brought at once upon the table.
   It sparkles Hippocrenelike;²⁵
   with its briskness and froth
   (a simile of this and that)
 ⁸ it used to captivate me: for its sake
   my last poor lepton I was wont
   to give away – remember, friends?
   Its magic stream engendered
¹² no dearth of foolishness,
   but also lots of jokes, and verses,
   and arguments, and merry dreams!
 
 

XLVI

   But with its noisy froth
   it plays false to my stomach,
   and nowadays sedate Bordeaux
 ⁴ already I've preferred to it.
   For Ay I'm no longer fit,
   Ay is like
   a mistress, brilliant, volatile, vivacious,
 ⁸ and whimsical, and shallow.
   But you, Bordeaux, are like a friend
   who in grief and misfortune
   is always, everywhere, a comrade,
¹² ready to render us a service
   or share our quiet leisure.
   Long live Bordeaux, our friend!
 
 

XLVII

   The fire is out; barely with ashes
   is filmed the golden coal;
   in a barely distinguishable stream
 ⁴ the vapor weaves, and the grate faintly
   exhales some warmth. The smoke of pipes
   goes up the chimney. The bright goblet
   amid the table fizzes yet.
 ⁸ The evening gloam comes on
   (I'm fond of friendly prate
   and of a friendly bowl of wine
   at that time which is called
¹² time between wolf and dog —
   though why, I do not see).
   Now the two friends converse.
 
 

XLVIII

   “Well, how are the fair neighbors? How's Tatiana?
   How is your sprightly Olga?”
   “Pour me half a glass more....
 ⁴ That'll do, dear chap.... The entire family
   is well; they send you salutations....
   Ah, my dear chap, how beautiful the shoulders
   of Olga have become!
 ⁸ Ah, what a bosom! What a soul!... Someday
   let's visit them; they will appreciate it;
   or else, my friend, judge for yourself —
   you dropped in twice, and after that
¹² you never even showed your nose.
   In fact – well, what a dolt I am!
   You are invited there next week.”
 
 

XLIX

   “I?” “Yes, Tatiana's name day
   is Saturday. Ólinka and the mother
   bade me ask you, and there's no reason
 ⁴ you should not come in answer to their call.”
   “But there will be a mass of people
   and all kinds of such scum.”
   “Oh, nobody, I am quite certain.
 ⁸ Who might be there? The family only.
   Let's go, do me the favor.
   Well?” “I consent.” “How nice you are!”
   And with these words he drained
¹² his glass, a toast to the fair neighbor —
   and then waxed voluble again,
   talking of Olga. Such is love!
 
 

L

   Merry he was. A fortnight hence
   the blissful date was set,
   and the nuptial bed's mystery
 ⁴ and love's sweet crown awaited
   his transports.
   Hymen's cares, woes,
   yawnings' chill train,
 ⁸ he never visioned.
   Whereas we, enemies of Hymen,
   perceive in home life but a series
   of tedious images,
¹² a novel in the genre of Lafontaine.²⁶
   O my poor Lenski! For the said
   life he at heart was born.
 
 

LI

   He was loved – or at least
   he thought so – and was happy.
   Blest hundredfold is he who is devoted
 ⁴ to faith; who, having curbed cold intellect,
   in the heart's mollitude reposes
   as, bedded for the night, a drunken traveler,
   or (more tenderly) as a butterfly
 ⁸ absorbed in a spring flower;
   but pitiful is he who foresees all,
   whose head is never in a whirl,
   who hates all movements and all words
¹² in their interpretation,
   whose heart is by experience
   chilled and forbidden to get lost in dreams.