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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XIV

   “Why did you vanish yesternight so early?”
   was Olinka's first question.
   In Lenski all the senses clouded,
 4 and silently he hung his head.
   Jealousy and vexation disappeared
   before this clarity of glance,
   before this soft simplicity,
 8 before this sprightly soul!...
   He gazes with sweet tenderness;
   he sees: he is still loved!
   Already, by remorse beset,
12 he is prepared to beg her pardon,
   he quivers, can't find words:
   he's happy, he is almost well....

XVII

   And pensive, spiritless again
   before his darling Olga,
   Vladimir cannot make himself remind her
 4 of yesterday;
   “I,” he reflects, “shall be her savior.
   I shall not suffer a depraver
   with fire of sighs and compliments
 8 to tempt a youthful heart,
   nor let a despicable, venomous
   worm gnaw a lily's little stalk,
   nor have a blossom two morns old
12 wither while yet half blown.”
   All this, friends, meant:
   I have a pistol duel with a pal.

XVIII

   If he had known what a wound burned
   the heart of my Tatiana! If Tatiana
   had been aware, if she
 4 could have known that tomorrow
   Lenski and Eugene
   were to compete for the tomb's shelter,
   ah, then, perhaps, her love
 8 might have united the two friends again!
   But none, even by chance, had yet discovered
   that passion.
   Onegin about everything was silent;
12 Tatiana pined away in secret;
   alone the nurse
   might have known — but she was slow-witted.

XIX

   All evening Lenski was abstracted,
   now taciturn, now gay again;
   but he who has been fostered by the Muse
 4 is always thus; with knitted brow
   he'd sit down at the clavichord
   and play but chords on it;
   or else, his gaze directing toward Olga,
 8 he'd whisper, “I am happy, am I not?”
   But it is late; time to depart. In him
   the heart contracted, full of anguish;
   as he took leave of the young maiden,
12 it seemed to break asunder.
   She looks him in the face. “What is the matter with you?”
   “Nothing.” And he makes for the porch.

XX

   On coming home his pistols he inspected,
   then back into their case
   he put them, and, undressed,
 4 by candle opened Schiller;
   but there's one thought infolding him;
   the sad heart in him does not slumber:
   Olga, in beauty
 8 ineffable, he sees before him.
   Vladimir shuts the book,
   takes up his pen; his verses —
   full of love's nonsense — sound
12 and flow. Aloud
   he reads them in a lyric fever,
   like drunken D[elvig] at a feast.

XXI

   The verses chanced to be preserved;
   I have them; here they are:
   Whither, ah! whither are ye fled,
 4 my springtime's golden days?
   “What has the coming day in store for me?
   In vain my gaze attempts to grasp it;
   in deep gloom it lies hidden.
 8 It matters not; fate's law is just.
   Whether I fall, pierced by the dart, or whether
   it flies by — all is right:
   of waking and of sleep
12 comes the determined hour;
   blest is the day of cares,
   blest, too, is the advent of darkness!

XXII

   “The ray of dawn will gleam tomorrow,
   and brilliant day will scintillate;
   whilst I, perhaps — I shall descend
 4 into the tomb's mysterious shelter,
   and the young poet's memory
   slow Lethe will engulf;
   the world will forget me; but thou,
 8 wilt thou come, maid of beauty,
   to shed a tear over the early urn
   and think: he loved me,
   to me alone he consecrated
12 the doleful daybreak of a stormy life!...
   Friend of my heart, desired friend, come,
   come: I'm thy spouse!”

XXIII

   Thus did he write, “obscurely
   and limply” (what we call romanticism —
   though no romanticism at all
 4 do I see here; but what is that to us?),
   and finally, before dawn, letting sink
   his weary head,
   upon the fashionable word
 8 “ideal,” Lenski dozed off gently;
   but hardly had he lost himself
   in sleep's bewitchment when the neighbor
   entered the silent study
12 and wakened Lenski with the call,
   “Time to get up: past six already.
   Onegin's sure to be awaiting us.”

XXIV

   But he was wrong: at that time Eugene
   was sleeping like the dead.
   The shadows of the night now wane,
 4 and Vesper by the cock is greeted;
   Onegin soundly sleeps away.
   By now the sun rides high,
   and shifting flurries
 8 sparkle and spin; but still his bed
   Onegin has not left,
   still slumber hovers over him.
   Now he awakes at last
12 and draws apart the curtain's flaps;
   looks — and sees that already
   it is long since time to drive off.

XXV

   Quickly he rings — and his French valet,
   Guillot, comes running in,
   offers him dressing gown and slippers,
 4 and hands him linen.
   Onegin hastes to dress,
   orders his valet to get ready
   to drive together with him and to take
 8 along with him also the combat case.
   The racing sleigh is ready; in he gets;
   flies to the mill. Apace they come.
   He bids his valet carry after him
12 Lepage's39 fell tubes
   and has the horses moved away
   into a field toward two oaklings.

XXVI

   On the dam leaning, Lenski had been waiting
   impatiently for a long time;
   meanwhile Zaretski, a rural mechanic,
 4 with the millstone was finding fault.
   Onegin with apologies came up.
   “But where,” quoth with amazement
   Zaretski, “where's your second?”
 8 In duels classicist and pedant, he
   liked method out of feeling and allowed
   to stretch one's man not anyhow
   but by the strict rules of the art
12 according to all the traditions
   of ancientry
   (which we must praise in him).

XXVII

   “My second?” Eugene said.
   “Here's he: my friend, Monsieur Guillot.
   I don't foresee
 4 objections to my presentation:
   although he is an unknown man,
   quite surely he's an honest chap.”
   Zaretski bit his lip. Onegin
 8 asked Lenski: “Well, are we to start?”
   “Let's start if you are willing,” said
   Vladimir. And they went
   behind the mill.
12 While, at a distance, our Zaretski and the “honest chap”
   enter into a solemn compact,
   the two foes stand with lowered eyes.

XXVIII

   Foes! Is it long since bloodthirst
   turned them away from one another?
   Is it long since they shared their hours of leisure,
 4 meals, thoughts, and doings
   in friendliness? Now, wickedly,
   similar to hereditary foes,
   as in a frightful, enigmatic dream,
 8 in silence, for each other they
   prepare destruction coolly....
   Should they not burst out laughing while
   their hand is not yet crimsoned?
12 Should they not amiably part?...
   But wildly beau-monde enmity
   is of false shame afraid.

XXIX

   The pistols now have gleamed. The mallet clanks
   against the ramrod. The balls go
   into the polyhedral barrel,
 4 and the cock clicks for the first time.
   The powder in a grayish streamlet
   now pours into the pan. The jagged,
   securely screwed-in flint
 8 anew is drawn back. Disconcerted
   Guillot behind a near stump takes his stand.
   The two foes shed their cloaks.
   Zaretski paces off thirty-two steps
12 with excellent accuracy; his friends
   apart he places at the farthest mark,
   and each takes up his pistol.

XXX

   “Now march.” The two foes, coolly,
   not aiming yet,
   with firm tread, slowly, steadily
 4 traversed four paces,
   four mortal stairs.
   His pistol Eugene then,
   not ceasing to advance,
 8 gently the first began to raise.
   Now they have stepped five paces more,
   and Lenski, closing his left eye,
   started to level also — but right then
12 Onegin fired.... The clock of fate
   has struck: the poet
   in silence drops his pistol.

XXXI