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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XLIV

   Buyánov, my mettlesome cousin,
   toward our hero leads Tatiana
   with Olga; deft
 4 Onegin goes with Olga.
   He steers her, gliding nonchalantly,
   and, bending, whispers tenderly to her
   some common madrigal, and squeezes
 8 her hand — and brighter glows
   on her conceited face
   the rosy flush. My Lenski
   has seen it all; flares up, beside himself;
12 in jealous indignation,
   the poet waits for the end of the mazurka
   and invites her for the cotillion.

XLV

   But no, she cannot. Cannot? But what is it?
   Why, Olga has given her word
   already to Onegin. Ah, good God, good God!
 4 What does he hear? She could...
   How is it possible? Scarce out of swaddling clothes —
   and a coquette, a giddy child!
   Already she is versed in guile,
 8 has learned already to betray!
   Lenski has not the strength to bear the blow;
   cursing the tricks of women,
   he leaves, calls for a horse,
12 and gallops off. A brace of pistols,
   two bullets — nothing more —
   shall in a trice decide his fate.

CHAPTER SIX

Là, sotto i giorni nubilosi e brevi,
Nasce una gente a cui '1 morir non dole.

Petr.

I

   On noticing that Vladimir had vanished,
   Onegin, by ennui pursued again,
   by Olga's side sank into meditation,
 4 pleased with his vengeance.
   After him Ólinka yawned too,
   sought Lenski with her eyes,
   and the endless cotillion
 8 irked her like an oppressive dream.
   But it has ended. They go in to supper.
   The beds are made. Guests are assigned
   night lodgings — from the entrance hall
12 even to the maids' quarters. Restful sleep
   by all is needed. My Onegin
   alone has driven home to sleep.

II

   All has grown quiet. In the drawing room
   the heavy Pustyakov
   snores with his heavy better half.
 4 Gvozdin, Buyanov, Petushkov,
   and Flyanov (who is not quite well)
   have bedded in the dining room on chairs,
   with, on the floor, Monsieur Triquet
 8 in underwaistcoat and old nightcap.
   All the young ladies, in Tatiana's
   and Olga's rooms, are wrapped in sleep.
   Alone, sadly by Dian's beam
12 illumined at the window, poor Tatiana
   is not asleep
   and gazes out on the dark field.

III

   With his unlooked-for apparition,
   the momentary softness of his eyes,
   and odd conduct with Olga,
 4 to the depth of her soul
   she's penetrated. She is quite unable
   to understand him. Jealous
   anguish perturbs her,
 8 as if a cold hand pressed
   her heart; as if beneath her an abyss
   yawned black and dinned....
   “I shall perish,” says Tanya,
12 “but perishing from him is sweet.
   I murmur not: why murmur?
   He cannot give me happiness.”

IV

   Forward, forward, my story!
   A new persona claims us.
   Five versts from Krasnogórie,
 4 Lenski's estate, there lives
   and thrives up to the present time
   in philosophical reclusion
   Zarétski, formerly a brawler,
 8 the hetman of a gaming gang,
   chieftain of rakehells, pothouse tribune,
   but now a kind and simple
   bachelor paterfamilias,
12 a steadfast friend, a peaceable landowner,
   and even an honorable man:
   thus does our age correct itself!

V

   Time was, the monde's obsequious voice
   used to extol his wicked pluck:
   he, it is true, could from a pistol
 4 at twelve yards hit an ace,
   and, furthermore, in battle too
   once, in real rapture, he distinguished
   himself by toppling from his Kalmuk steed
 8 boldly into the mud,
   swine drunk, and to the French
   fell prisoner (prized hostage!) —
   a modern Regulus, the god of honor,
12 ready to yield anew to bonds
   so as to drain on credit at Véry's37
   two or three bottles every morning.

VI

   Time was, he bantered drolly,
   knew how to gull a fool
   and capitally fool a clever man,
 4 for all to see or on the sly;
   though some tricks of his, too,
   did not remain unchastised;
   though sometimes he himself, too, got
 8 trapped like a simpleton.
   He knew how to conduct a gay dispute,
   make a reply keen or obtuse,
   now craftily to hold his tongue,
12 now craftily to raise a rumpus,
   how to get two young friends to quarrel
   and place them on the marked-out ground,

VII

   or have them make it up
   so as to lunch all three,
   and later secretly defame them
 4 with a gay quip, with prate....
   Sed alia tempora! Daredevilry
   (like love's dream, yet another caper)
   passes with lively youth.
 8 As I've said, my Zarétski,
   beneath the racemosas and the pea trees
   having at last found shelter
   from tempests, lives like a true sage,
12 plants cabbages like Horace,
   breeds ducks and geese,
   and teaches [his] children the A B C.

VIII

   He was not stupid; and my Eugene,
   while rating low the heart in him,
   liked both the spirit of his judgments
 4 and his sane talk of this and that.
   He would frequent him
   with pleasure, and therefore was not at all
   surprised at morn
 8 when he saw him;
   the latter, after the first greeting, interrupting
   the started conversation,
   with eyes atwinkle, to Onegin
12 handed a billet from the poet.
   Onegin went up to the window
   and read it to himself.

IX

   It was a pleasant, gentlemanly,
   brief challenge or cartel:
   politely, with cold clearness, to a duel
 4 Lenski called out his friend.
   Onegin, on a first impulsion
   to the envoy of such an errand
   turning, without superfluous words
 8 said he was “always ready.”
   Zaretski got up without explanations —
   did not want to stay longer,
   having at home a lot of things to do —
12 and forthwith left; but Eugene,
   alone remaining with his soul,
   felt ill-contented with himself.

X

   And serve him right: on strict examination,
   he, having called his own self to a secret court,
   accused himself of much:
 4 first, it had been already wrong of him
   to make fun of a timid, tender love
   so casually yesternight;
   and secondly: why, let a poet
 8 indulge in nonsense! At eighteen
   'tis pardonable. Eugene,
   loving the youth with all his heart,
   ought to have shown himself to be
12 no bandyball of prejudices,
   no fiery boy, no scrapper, but a man
   of honor and of sense.

XI

   He might have manifested feelings
   instead of bristling like a beast;
   he ought to have disarmed
 4 the youthful heart. “But now
   too late; the time has flown away....
   Moreover,” he reflects, “in this affair
   an old duelist has intervened;
 8 he's wicked, he's a gossip, he talks glibly....
   Of course, contempt should be the price
   of his droll sallies; but the whisper,
   the snickering of fools...”
12 And here it is — public opinion!38
   Honor's mainspring, our idol!
   And here is what the world turns on!

XII

   The poet, with impatient enmity
   boiling, awaits at home the answer.
   And here the answer solemnly
 4 by the grandiloquent neighbor is brought.
   Now, what a boon 'tis for the jealous one!
   He had kept fearing that the scamp
   might joke his way out somehow,
 8 a trick devising and his breast
   averting from the pistol.
   The doubts are now resolved:
   tomorrow to the mill they must
12 drive before daybreak,
   at one another raise the cock,
   and at the thigh or at the temple aim.

XIII

   Having decided to detest
   the coquette, boiling Lenski did not wish
   to see before the duel Olga.
 4 The sun, his watch he kept consulting;
   at last he gave it up —
   and found himself at the fair neighbors'.
   He thought he would embarrass Ólinka,
 8 confound her by his coming;
   but nothing of the sort: just as before
   to welcome the poor songster
   Olinka skipped down from the porch,
12 akin to giddy hope,
   spry, carefree, gay — in fact, exactly
   the same as she had been.

XIV