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.

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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.

CHAPTER FIVE

Never know these frightful dreams,
     You, O my Svetlana!

Zhukovski

I

   That year autumnal weather
   was a long time abroad;
   nature kept waiting and waiting for winter.
 4 Snow only fell in January,
   on the night of the second. Waking early,
   Tatiana from the window saw
   at morn the whitened yard,
 8 flower beds, roofs, and fence;
   delicate patterns on the panes;
   the trees in winter silver,
   gay magpies outside,
12 and the hills softly overspread
   with winter's brilliant carpeting.
   All's bright, all's white around.

II

   Winter! The peasant, celebrating,
   in a flat sledge inaugurates the track;
   his naggy, having sensed the snow,
 4 shambles at something like a trot.
   Plowing up fluffy furrows,
   a bold kibitka flies:
   the driver sits upon his box
 8 in sheepskin coat, red-sashed.
   Here runs about a household lad,
   upon a hand sled having seated “blackie,”
   having transformed himself into the steed;
12 the scamp already has frozen a finger.
   He finds it both painful and funny — while
   his mother, from the window, threatens him...

III

   But, maybe, pictures of this kind
   will not attract you;
   all this is lowly nature;
 4 there is not much refinement here.
   Warmed by the god of inspiration,
   another poet in luxurious language
   for us has painted the first snow
 8 and all the shades of winter's delectations.27
   He'll captivate you, I am sure of it,
   when he depicts in flaming verses
   secret promenades in sleigh;
12 but I have no intention of contending
   either with him at present or with you,
   singer of the young Finnish Maid!28

IV

   Tatiana (being Russian
   at heart, herself not knowing why)
   loved, in all its cold beauty,
 4 a Russian winter:
   rime in the sun upon a frosty day,
   and sleighs, and, at late dawn,
   the radiance of the rosy snows,
 8 and gloam of Twelfthtide eves.
   Those evenings in the ancient fashion
   were celebrated in their house:
   the servant girls from the whole stead
12 told their young ladies' fortunes
   and every year made prophecies to them
   of military husbands and the march.

V

   Tatiana credited the lore
   of plain-folk ancientry,
   dreams, cartomancy,
 4 prognostications by the moon.
   Portents disturbed her:
   mysteriously all objects
   foretold her something,
 8 presentiments constrained her breast.
   The mannered tomcat sitting on the stove,
   purring, would wash his muzzlet with his paw:
   to her 'twas an indubitable sign
12 that guests were coming. Seeing all at once
   the young two-horned moon's visage
   in the sky on her left,

VI

   she trembled and grew pale.
   Or when a falling star
   along the dark sky flew
 4 and dissipated, then
   in agitation Tanya hastened
   to whisper, while the star still rolled,
   her heart's desire to it.
 8 When anywhere she happened
   a black monk to encounter,
   or a swift hare amid the fields
   would run across her path,
12 so scared she knew not what to undertake,
   full of grievous forebodings,
   already she expected some mishap.

VII

   Yet — in her very terror
   she found a secret charm:
   thus has created us
 4 nature, inclined to contradictions.
   Yuletide is here. Now that is joy!
   Volatile youth divines —
   who nought has to regret,
 8 in front of whom the faraway of life
   extends luminous, boundless;
   old age divines, through spectacles,
   at its sepulchral slab,
12 all having irrecoverably lost;
   nor does it matter: hope to them
   lies with its childish lisp.

VIII

   Tatiana with a curious gaze
   looks at the submerged wax:
   with its wondrously cast design,
 4 to her a wondrous something it proclaims.
   From a dish full of water
   rings come out in succession;
   and when her ring turned up,
 8 'twas to a ditty of the ancient days:
   “There all the countrymen are rich;
   they heap up silver by the spadeful!
   To those we sing to will come Good
12 and Glory!” But portends bereavements
   the pitiful tune of this dit:
   to maidens' hearts sweeter is “Kit.”29

IX

   The night is frosty; the whole sky is clear;
   the splendid choir of heavenly luminaries
   so gently, so unisonally flows....
 4 Tatiana, in her low-cut frock,
   into the wide courtyard comes out;
   she trains a mirror on the moon;
   but in the dark glass only
 8 the sad moon trembles....
   Hark!... the snow creaks... a passer-by; the maiden
   flits up to him on tiptoe —
   and her little voice sounds
12 more tender than a reed pipe's strain:
   “What is your name?”30 He looks,
   and answers: “Agafón.”

X

   On the nurse's advice, Tatiana,
   planning that night to conjure,
   has ordered in the bathhouse secretly
 4 a table to be laid for two.
   But suddenly Tatiana is afraid....
   And I — at the thought of Svetlana —
   I am afraid; so let it be...
 8 we're not to conjure with Tatiana.
   Tatiana has removed
   her silken sash, undressed,
   and gone to bed. Lel hovers over her,
12 while under her pillow of down
   there lies a maiden's looking glass.
   Now all is hushed. Tatiana sleeps.

XI

   And dreams a wondrous dream Tatiana.
   She dreams that she
   over a snowy lawn is walking,
 4 surrounded by sad gloom.
   In front of her, between the snowdrifts,
   dins, swirls its wave
   a churning, dark, and hoary torrent,
 8 by the winter not chained; two thin poles, glued
   together by a piece of ice
   (a shaky, perilous small bridge),
   are laid across the torrent; and before
12 the dinning deep,
   full of perplexity,
   she stopped.

XII