Владимир Набоков - Комментарии к «Евгению Онегину» Александра Пушкина

• Название: Комментарии к «Евгению Онегину» Александра Пушкина
• Автор: Владимир Набоков
• Издательство: «Интелвак»
• Жанр: Критика
• Год: 1999
• ISBN: 5-93264-001-4

Комментарии В. В. Набокова освещают многообразие исторических, литературных и бытовых сторон романа. Книга является оригинальным произведением писателя в жанре научно-исторического комментария. Набоков обращается к «потаенным слоям» романа, прослеживает литературные влияния, связи «Евгения Онегина» с другими произведениями поэта, увлекательно повествует о тайнописи Пушкина.

Предназначена для широкого круга читателей и в первую очередь — для преподавателей и студентов гуманитарных вузов, а также для учителей и учащихся средней школы.

---

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!

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