Комментарии к «Евгению Онегину» Александра Пушкина

 you spend your evenings?” “At the Larins'.”   “Now, that's a fine thing. Mercy, man —
   and you don't find it difficult
   thus every evening to kill time?”
 ⁸ “Not in the least.” “I cannot understand.
   From here I see what it is like:
   first — listen, am I right? —
   a simple Russian family,
¹² a great solicitude for guests,
   jam, never-ending talk
   of rain, of flax, of cattle yard.”

   “So far I do not see what's bad about it.”
   “Ah, but the boredom — that is bad, my friend.”
   “Your fashionable world I hate;
 ⁴ dearer to me is the domestic circle
   in which I can…” “Again an eclogue!
   Ah, that will do, old boy, for goodness' sake.
   Well, so you're off; I'm very sorry.
 ⁸ Oh, Lenski, listen — is there any way
   for me to see this Phyllis,
   subject of thoughts, and pen,
   and tears, and rhymes, et cetera?
¹² Present me.” “You are joking.” “No.”
   “I'd gladly.” “When?” “Now, if you like.
   They will be eager to receive us.”

   “Let's go.” And off the two friends drove;
   they have arrived; on them are lavished
   the sometimes onerous attentions
 ⁴ of hospitable ancientry.
   The ritual of the treat is known:
   in little dishes jams are brought,
   on an oilcloth'd small table there is set
 ⁸ a jug of lingonberry water.
   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
¹² . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

   They by the shortest road
   fly home at full career.¹⁷
   Now let us eavesdrop furtively
 ⁴ upon our heroes' conversation.
   “Well now, Onegin, you are yawning.”
   “A habit, Lenski.” “But somehow
   you are more bored than ever.” “No, the same.
 ⁸ I say, it's dark already in the field;
   faster! come on, come on, Andryushka!
   What silly country!
   Ah, apropos: Dame Larin
¹² is simple but a very nice old lady;
   I fear that lingonberry water
   may not unlikely do me harm.

   “Tell me, which was Tatiana?”
   “Oh, she's the one who, sad
   and silent like Svetlana,
 ⁴ came in and sat down by the window.”
   “Can it be it's the younger one
   that you're in love with?” “Why not?” “I'd have chosen
   the other, had I been like you a poet.
 ⁸ In Olga's features there's no life,
   just as in a Vandyke Madonna:
   she's round and fair of face
   as is that silly moon
¹² up in that silly sky.”
   Vladimir answered curtly
   and thenceforth the whole way was silent.

   Meanwhile Onegin's apparition
   at the Larins' produced
   on everyone a great impression
 ⁴ and regaled all the neighbors.
   Conjecture on conjecture followed.
   All started furtively to talk,
   to joke, to comment not without some malice,
 ⁸ a suitor for Tatiana to assign.
   Some folks asserted even that
   the wedding was quite settled,
   but had been stayed because
¹² of fashionable rings' not being got.
   Concerning Lenski's wedding, long ago
   they had it all arranged.

   Tatiana listened with vexation
   to gossip of that sort; but secretly
   she with ineffable elation
 ⁴ could not help thinking of it;
   and the thought sank into her heart;
   the time had come — she fell in love.
   Thus, dropped into the earth, a seed
 ⁸ is quickened by the fire of spring.
   For long had her imagination,
   consumed with mollitude and anguish,
   craved for the fatal food;
¹² for long had the heart's languishment
   constrained her youthful bosom;
   her soul waited — for somebody.

   And not in vain it waited. Her eyes opened;
   she said: “'Tis he!”
   Alas! now both the days and nights,
 ⁴ and hot, lone sleep,
   all's full of him; to the dear girl
   unceasingly with magic force
   all speaks of him. To her are tedious
 ⁸ alike the sounds of friendly speeches
   and the gaze of assiduous servants.
   Immersed in gloom,
   to visitors she does not listen,
¹² and imprecates their leisures,
   their unexpected
   arrival and protracted sitting down.

   With what attention does she now
   read some delicious novel,
   with what vivid enchantment
 ⁴ imbibe the ravishing illusion!
   Creations by the happy power
   of dreaming animated,
   the lover of Julie Wolmar,
 ⁸ Malek-Adhel, and de Linar,
   and Werther, restless martyr,
   and the inimitable Grandison,¹⁸
   who brings upon us somnolence —
¹² all for the tender, dreamy girl
   have been invested with a single image,
   have in Onegin merged alone.

   Imagining herself the heroine
   of her beloved authors —
   Clarissa, Julia, Delphine —
 ⁴ Tatiana in the stillness of the woods
   alone roams with a dangerous book;
   in it she seeks and finds
   her secret ardency, her dreams,
 ⁸ the fruits of the heart's fullness;
   she sighs, and having made her own
   another's ecstasy, another's woe,
   she whispers in a trance, by heart,
¹² a letter to the amiable hero.
   But our hero, whoever he might be,
   was certainly no Grandison.

   His style to a grave strain having attuned,
   time was, a fervid author
   used to present to us
 ⁴ his hero as a model of perfection.
   He'd furnish the loved object —
   always iniquitously persecuted —
   with a sensitive soul, intelligence,
 ⁸ and an attractive face.
   Nursing the ardor of the purest passion,
   the always enthusiastic hero
   was ready for self-sacrifice,
¹² and by the end of the last part, vice always
   got punished,
   and virtue got a worthy crown.

   But nowadays all minds are in a mist,
   a moral brings upon us somnolence,
   vice is attractive in a novel, too,
 ⁴ and there, at least, it triumphs.
   The fables of the British Muse
   disturb the young girl's sleep,
   and now her idol has become
 ⁸ either the pensive Vampyre,
   or Melmoth, gloomy vagabond,
   or the Wandering Jew, or the Corsair,
   or the mysterious Sbogar.^19
12 Lord Byron, by an opportune caprice,
   in woebegone romanticism
   draped even hopeless egotism.

   My friends, what sense is there in this?
   Perhaps, by heaven's will,
   I'll cease to be a poet; a new demon
 ⁴ will enter into me;
   and having scorned the threats of Phoebus,
   I shall descend to humble prose:
   a novel in the ancient strain
 ⁸ will then engage my gay decline.
   There, not the secret pangs of crime
   shall I grimly depict,
   but simply shall detail to you
¹² the legends of a Russian family,
   love's captivating dreams,
   and manners of our ancientry.

   I shall detail a father's, an old uncle's,
   plain speeches; the assigned
   trysts of the children
 ⁴ by the old limes, by the small brook;
   the throes of wretched jealousy,
   parting, reconciliation's tears;
   once more I'll have them quarrel, and at last
 ⁸ conduct them to the altar. I'll recall
   the accents of impassioned languish,
   the words of aching love,
   which in days bygone at the feet
¹² of a fair mistress
   came to my tongue;
   from which I now have grown disused.

   Tatiana, dear Tatiana!
   I now shed tears with you.
   Into a fashionable tyrant's hands
 ⁴ your fate already you've relinquished.
   Dear, you shall perish; but before,
   in dazzling hope,
   you summon somber bliss,
 ⁸ you learn the dulcitude of life,
   you quaff the magic poison of desires,
   daydreams pursue you:
   you fancy everywhere
¹² retreats for happy trysts;
   everywhere, everywhere before you,
   is your fateful enticer.

   The ache of love chases Tatiana,
   and to the garden she repairs to brood,
   and all at once her moveless eyes she lowers
 ⁴ and is too indolent farther to step;
   her bosom has risen, her cheeks
   are covered with an instant flame,
   her breath has died upon her lips,
 ⁸ and there's a singing in her ears, a flashing
   before her eyes. Night comes; the moon
   patrols the distant vault of heaven,
   and in the gloam of trees the nightingale
¹² intones sonorous chants.
   Tatiana in the darkness does not sleep
   and in low tones talks with her nurse.

   “I can't sleep, nurse: 'tis here so stuffy!
   Open the window and sit down by me.”
   “Why, Tanya, what's the matter with you?” “I am dull.
 ⁴ Let's talk about old days.”
   “Well, what about them, Tanya? Time was, I
   stored in my memory no dearth
   of ancient haps and never-haps
 ⁸ about dire sprites and about maidens;
   but everything to me is dark now, Tanya:
   I have forgotten what I knew. Yes, things
   have come now to a sorry pass!
¹² I'm all befuddled.” “Nurse,
   tell me about your old times. Were you then
   in love?”

   “Oh, come, come, Tanya! In those years
   we never heard of love;
   elsewise my late mother-in-law
 ⁴ would have chased me right off the earth.”
   “But how, then, were you wedded, nurse?”
   “It looks as if God willed it so. My Vanya
   was younger than myself, my sweet,
 ⁸ and I was thirteen. For two weeks or so
   a woman matchmaker kept visiting
   my kinsfolk, and at last
   my father blessed me. Bitterly
¹² I cried for fear; and, crying, they unbraided
   my tress and, chanting,
   they led me to the church.

   “And so I entered a strange family.
   But you're not listening to me.”
   “Oh, nurse, nurse, I feel dismal,
 ⁴ I'm sick at heart, my dear,
   I'm on the point of crying, sobbing!”
   “My child, you are not well;
   the Lord have mercy upon us and save us!
 ⁸ What would you like, do ask.
   Here, let me sprinkle you with holy water,
   you're all a-burning.” “I'm not ill;
   I'm... do you know, nurse... I'm in love.”
¹² “My child, the Lord be with you!”
   And, uttering a prayer, the nurse
   crossed with decrepit hand the girl.

   “I am in love,” anew she murmured
   to the old woman mournfully.
   “Sweetheart, you are not well.”
 ⁴ “Leave me. I am in love.”
   And meantime the moon shone
   and with dark light irradiated
   the pale charms of Tatiana
 ⁸ and her loose hair,
   and drops of tears, and, on a benchlet,
   before the youthful heroine,
   a kerchief on her hoary head, the little
¹² old crone in a long “body warmer”;
   and in the stillness everything
   dozed by the inspirative moon.

   And far away Tatiana's heart was ranging
   as she looked at the moon....
   All of a sudden in her mind a thought was born....
 ⁴ “Go, let me be alone.
   Give me, nurse, a pen, paper, and move up
   the table; I shall soon lie down.
   Good night.” Now she's alone,
 ⁸ all's still. The moon gives light to her.
   Tatiana, leaning on her elbow, writes,
   and Eugene's ever present in her mind,
   and in an unconsidered letter
¹² the love of an innocent maid breathes forth.
   The letter now is ready, folded.
   Tatiana! Whom, then, is it for?

   I've known belles inaccessible,
   cold, winter-chaste;
   inexorable, incorruptible,
 ⁴ unfathomable by the mind;
   I marveled at their modish morgue,
   at their natural virtue,
   and, to be frank, I fled from them,
 ⁸ and I, meseems, with terror read
   above their eyebrows Hell's inscription:
   “Abandon hope for evermore!”²⁰
   To inspire love is bale for them,
¹² to frighten folks for them is joyance.
   Perhaps, on the banks of the Neva
   similar ladies you have seen.

   Amidst obedient admirers,
   other odd females I have seen,
   conceitedly indifferent
 ⁴ to sighs impassioned and to praise.
   But what, to my amazement, did I find?
   While, by austere demeanor,
   they frightened timid love,
 ⁸ they had the knack of winning it again,
   at least by their condolence;
   at least the sound of spoken words
   sometimes would seem more tender,
¹² and with credulous blindness
   again the youthful lover
   pursued sweet vanity.

   Why is Tatiana, then, more guilty?
   Is it because in sweet simplicity
   deceit she knows not and believes
 ⁴ in her elected dream?
   Is it because she loves without art, being
   obedient to the bent of feeling?
   Is it because she is so trustful
 ⁸ and is endowed by heaven
   with a restless imagination,
   intelligence, and a live will,
   and headstrongness,
¹² and a flaming and tender heart?
   Are you not going to forgive her
   the thoughtlessness of passions?

   The coquette reasons coolly;
   Tatiana in dead earnest loves
   and unconditionally yields
 ⁴ to love like a sweet child.
   She does not say: Let us defer;
   thereby we shall augment love's value,
   inveigle into toils more surely;
 ⁸ let us first prick vainglory
   with hope; then with perplexity
   exhaust a heart, and then
   revive it with a jealous fire,
¹² for otherwise, cloyed with delight,
   the cunning captive from his shackles
   hourly is ready to escape.

   Another problem I foresee:
   saving the honor of my native land,
   undoubtedly I shall have to translate
 ⁴ Tatiana's letter. She
   knew Russian badly,
   did not read our reviews,
   and in her native tongue expressed herself
 ⁸ with difficulty. So,
   she wrote in French.
   What's to be done about it! I repeat again;
   as yet a lady's love
¹² has not expressed itself in Russian,
   as yet our proud tongue has not got accustomed
   to postal prose.

   I know: some would make ladies
   read Russian. Horrible indeed!
   Can I image them
 ⁴ with The Well-Meaner²¹in their hands?   My poets, I appeal to you!
   Is it not true that the sweet objects
   for whom, to expiate your sins,
 ⁸ in secret you wrote verses,
   to whom your hearts you dedicated —
   did not they all, wielding the Russian language
   poorly, and with difficulty,
¹² so sweetly garble it,
   and on their lips did not a foreign language
   become a native one?

   The Lord forbid my meeting at a ball
   or at its breakup, on the porch,
   a seminarian in a yellow shawl
 ⁴ or an Academician in a bonnet!
   As vermeil lips without a smile,
   without grammatical mistakes
   I don't like Russian speech.
 ⁸ Perchance (it would be my undoing!)
   a generation of new belles,
   heeding the magazines' entreating voice,
   to Grammar will accustom us;
¹² verses will be brought into use.
   Yet I... what do I care?
   I shall be true to ancientry.

   An incorrect and careless patter,
   an inexact delivery of words,
   as heretofore a flutter of the heart
 ⁴ will in my breast produce;
   in me there's no force to repent;
   to me will Gallicisms remain
   as sweet as the sins of past youth,
 ⁸ as Bogdanóvich's verse.
   But that will do. 'Tis time I busied
   myself with my fair damsel's letter;
   my word I've given — and what now? Yea, yea!
¹² I'm ready to back out of it.
   I know: tender Parny's
   pen in our days is out of fashion.

   Bard of The Feasts and languorous sadness,²²   if you were still with me,
   I would have troubled you,
 ⁴ dear fellow, with an indiscreet request:
   that into magic melodies
   you would transpose
   a passionate maiden's foreign words.
 ⁸ Where are you? Come! My rights
   I with a bow transfer to you....
   But in the midst of melancholy rocks,
   his heart disused from praises,
¹² alone, under the Finnish sky
   he wanders, and his soul
   hears not my worry.

   Tatiana's letter is before me;
   religiously I keep it;
   I read it with a secret heartache
 ⁴ and cannot get my fill of reading it.
   Who taught her both this tenderness
   and amiable carelessness of words?
   Who taught her all that touching tosh,
 ⁸ mad conversation of the heart
   both fascinating and injurious?
   I cannot understand. But here's
   an incomplete, feeble translation,
¹² the pallid copy of a vivid picture,
   or Freischütz executed by the fingers
   of timid female learners.

   I write to you — what would one more?
   What else is there that I could say?
   'Tis now, I know, within your will
 ⁴ to punish me with scorn.
   But you, preserving for my hapless lot
   at least one drop of pity,
   you'll not abandon me.
 ⁸ At first, I wanted to be silent;
   believe me: of my shame
   you never would have known
   if I had had the hope but seldom,
¹² but once a week,
   to see you at our country place,
   only to hear you speak,
   to say a word to you, and then
¹⁶ to think and think about one thing,
   both day and night, till a new meeting.
   But, they say, you're unsociable;
   in backwoods, in the country, all bores you,
²⁰ while we... in no way do we shine,
   though simpleheartedly we welcome you.

   Why did you visit us?

   In the backwoods of a forgotten village,
²⁴ I would have never known you
   nor have known this bitter torment.
   The turmoil of an inexperienced soul
   having subdued with time (who knows?),
²⁸ I would have found a friend after my heart,
   have been a faithful wife
   and a virtuous mother.

   Another!... No, to nobody on earth

³² would I have given my heart away!
   That has been destined in a higher council,
   that is the will of heaven: I am thine;
   my entire life has been the gage
³⁶ of a sure tryst with you;
   I know that you are sent to me by God,
   you are my guardian to the tomb....
   You had appeared to me in dreams,
⁴⁰ unseen, you were already dear to me,
   your wondrous glance would trouble me,
   your voice resounded in my soul
   long since.... No, it was not a dream!
⁴⁴ Scarce had you entered, instantly I knew you,
   I felt all faint, I felt aflame,
   and in my thoughts I uttered: It is he!
   Is it not true that it was you I heard:
⁴⁸ you in the stillness spoke to me
   when I would help the poor
   or assuage with a prayer
   the anguish of my agitated soul?

⁵²

 And even at this very moment   was it not you, dear vision,
   that slipped through the transparent darkness
   and gently bent close to my bed head?
⁵⁶ Was it not you that with delight and love
   did whisper words of hope to me?
   Who are you? My guardian angel
   or a perfidious tempter?
⁶⁰ Resolve my doubts.
   Perhaps, 'tis nonsense all,
   an inexperienced soul's delusion, and there's destined
   something quite different....

⁶⁴

 But so be it! My fate   henceforth I place into your hands,
   before you I shed tears,
   for your defense I plead.
⁶⁸ Imagine: I am here alone,
   none understands me,
   my reason sinks,
   and, silent, I must perish.
⁷² I wait for you: revive
   my heart's hopes with a single look
   or interrupt the heavy dream
   with a rebuke — alas, deserved!

⁷⁶

 I close. I dread to read this over.   I'm faint with shame and fear... But to me
   your honor is a pledge,
   and boldly I entrust myself to it.

   By turns Tatiana sighs and ohs.
   The letter trembles in her hand;
   the rosy wafer dries
 ⁴ upon her fevered tongue.
   Her poor head shoulderward has sunk;
   her light chemise
   has slid down from her charming shoulder.
 ⁸ But now the moonbeam's radiance
   already fades. Anon the valley
   grows through the vapor clear. Anon the stream
   starts silvering. Anon the herdsman's horn
¹² wakes up the villager.
   Here's morning; all have risen long ago:
   to my Tatiana it is all the same.

   She takes no notice of the sunrise;
   she sits with lowered head
   and on the letter does not
 ⁴ impress her graven seal.
   But, softly opening the door,
   now gray Filatievna brings her
   tea on a tray.
 ⁸ “'Tis time, my child, get up;
   why, pretty one,
   you're ready! Oh, my early birdie!
   I was so anxious yesternight —
¹² but glory be to God, you're well!
   No trace at all of the night's fret!
   Your face is like a poppy flower.”

   “Oh, nurse, do me a favor.”
   “Willingly, darling, order me.”
   “Now do not think... Really... Suspicion...
 ⁴ But you see... Oh, do not refuse!”
   “My dear, to you God is my pledge.”
   “Well, send your grandson quietly
   with this note to O… to that… to
 ⁸ the neighbor. And let him be told
   that he ought not to say a word,
   that he ought not to name me.”
   “To whom, my precious?
¹² I'm getting muddled nowadays.
   Neighbors around are many; it's beyond me
   even to count them over.”

   “Oh, nurse, how slow-witted you are!”
   “Sweetheart, I am already old,
   I'm old; the mind gets blunted, Tanya;
 ⁴ but time was, I used to be sharp:
   time was, one word of master's wish.”
   “Oh, nurse, nurse, is this relevant?
   What matters your intelligence to me?
 ⁸ You see, it is about a letter, to
   Onegin.” “Well, this now makes sense.
   Do not be cross with me, my soul;
   I am, you know, not comprehensible.
¹² But why have you turned pale again?”
   “Never mind, nurse, 'tis really nothing.
   Send, then, your grandson.”

   But the day lapsed, and there's no answer.
   Another came up; nothing yet.
   Pale as a shade, since morning dressed,
 ⁴ Tatiana waits: when will the answer come?
   Olga's adorer drove up. “Tell me,
   where's your companion?” was to him
   the question of the lady of the house;
 ⁸ “He seems to have forgotten us entirely.”
   Tatiana, flushing, quivered.
   “He promised he would be today,”
   Lenski replied to the old dame,
¹² “but evidently the mail has detained him.”
   Tatiana dropped her eyes
   as if she'd heard a harsh rebuke.

   'Twas darkling; on the table, shining,
   the evening samovar
   hissed as it warmed the Chinese teapot;
 ⁴ light vapor undulated under it.
   Poured out by Olga's hand,
   into the cups, in a dark stream,
   the fragrant tea already
 ⁸ ran, and a footboy served the cream;
   Tatiana stood before the window;
   breathing on the cold panes,
   lost in thought, the dear soul
¹² wrote with her charming finger
   on the bemisted glass
   the cherished monogram: an O and E.

   And meantime her soul ached,
   and full of tears was her languorous gaze.
   Suddenly, hoof thuds! Her blood froze.
 ⁴ Now nearer! Coming fast... and in the yard
   is Eugene! “Ach!” — and lighter than a shade
   Tatiana skips into another hallway,
   from porch outdoors, and straight into the garden;
 ⁸ she flies, flies — dares not
   glance backward; in a moment has traversed
   the platbands, little bridges, lawn,
   the avenue to the lake, the bosquet;
¹² she breaks the lilac bushes as she flies
   across the flower plots to the brook,
   and, panting, on a bench

   she drops. “He's here! Eugene is here!
   Good God, what did he think!”
   Her heart, full of torments, retains
 ⁴ an obscure dream of hope;
   she trembles, and she hotly glows, and waits:
   does he not come? But hears not. In the orchard
   girl servants, on the beds,
 ⁸ were picking berries in the bushes
   and singing by decree in chorus
   (a decree based on that
   sly mouths would not in secret
¹² eat the seignioral berry
   and would be occupied by singing; a device
   of rural wit!):

   Maidens, pretty maidens,
   darling girl companions,
   romp unhindered, maidens,
 ⁴ have your fling, my dears!
   Start to sing a ditty,
   sing our private ditty,
   and allure a fellow
 ⁸ to our choral dance.

   When we lure a fellow,

   when afar we see him,
   let us scatter, dearies,
¹² pelting him with cherries,
   cherries and raspberries,
   and red currants too.

   “Do not come eavesdropping

¹⁶ on our private ditties,
   do not come a-spying
   on our girlish games!”

   They sing; and carelessly
   attending to their ringing voice,
   Tatiana with impatience waits
 ⁴ for the heart's tremor to subside in her,
   for her cheeks to cease flaming;
   but in her breasts there's the same trepidation,
   nor ceases the glow of her cheeks:
 ⁸ yet brighter, brighter do they burn.
   Thus a poor butterfly both flashes
   and beats an iridescent wing,
   captured by a school prankster; thus
¹² a small hare trembles in the winter corn
   upon suddenly seeing from afar
   the shotman in the bushes crouch.

   But finally she sighed
   and from her bench arose;
   started to go; but hardly had she turned
 ⁴ into the avenue when straight before her,
   eyes blazing, Eugene
   stood, similar to some grim shade,
   and as one seared by fire
 ⁸ she stopped.
   But to detail the consequences
   of this unlooked-for meeting I, dear friends,
   have not the strength today;
¹² after this long discourse I need
   a little jaunt, a little rest;
   some other time I'll tell the rest.