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.

---

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