Владимир Набоков - Комментарии к «Евгению Онегину» Александра Пушкина

   He settled in that chamber where the rural
   old-timer had for forty years or so
   squabbled with his housekeeper,
 4 looked through the window, and squashed flies.
   It all was plain: a floor of oak, two cupboards,
   a table, a divan of down,
   and not an ink speck anywhere. Onegin
 8 opened the cupboards; found in one
   a notebook of expenses and in the other
   a whole array of fruit liqueurs,
   pitchers of eau-de-pomme,
12 and the calendar for eighteen-eight:
   having a lot to do, the old man never
   looked into any other books.

   Alone midst his possessions,
   merely to while away the time,
   at first conceived the plan our Eugene
 4 of instituting a new system.
   In his backwoods a solitary sage,
   the ancient corvée's yoke
   by the light quitrent he replaced;
 8 the muzhik blessed fate,
   while in his corner went into a huff,
   therein perceiving dreadful harm,
   his thrifty neighbor.
12 Another slyly smiled,
   and all concluded with one voice that he
   was a most dangerous eccentric.

   At first they all would call on him,
   but since to the back porch
   habitually a Don stallion
 4 for him was brought
   as soon as one made out along the highway
   the sound of their domestic runabouts —
   outraged by such behavior,
 8 they all ceased to be friends with him.
   “Our neighbor is a boor; acts like a crackbrain;
   he's a Freemason; he
   drinks only red wine, by the tumbler;
12 he won't go up to kiss a lady's hand;
   'tis all ‘yes,’ ‘no’ — he'll not say ‘yes, sir,’
   or ‘no, sir.’ ” This was the general voice.

   At that same time a new landowner
   had driven down to his estate
   and in the neighborhood was giving cause
 4 for just as strict a scrutiny.
   By name Vladimir Lenski,
   with a soul really Göttingenian,
   a handsome chap, in the full bloom of years,
 8 Kant's votary, and a poet.
   From misty Germany
   he'd brought the fruits of learning:
   liberty-loving dreams, a spirit
12 impetuous and rather queer,
   a speech always enthusiastic,
   and shoulder-length black curls.

   From the world's cold depravity
   not having yet had time to wither,
   his soul was warmed by a friend's greeting,
 4 by the caress of maidens.
   He was in matters of the heart
   a charming dunce. Hope nursed him,
   and the globe's new glitter and noise
 8 still captivated his young mind.
   With a sweet fancy he amused
   his heart's incertitudes.
   The purpose of our life to him
12 was an enticing riddle;
   he racked his brains
   over it and suspected marvels.

   He believed that a kindred soul
   to him must be united;
   that, cheerlessly pining away,
 4 she daily kept awaiting him;
   he believed that his friends were ready to accept
   chains for his honor
   and that their hands would falter not in smashing
 8 the vessel of his slanderer;
   that there were some chosen by fate
   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
12 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

   Indignation, compassion,
   pure love of Good,
   and fame's delicious torment
 4 early had stirred his blood.
   He wandered with a lyre on earth.
   Under the sky of Schiller and of Goethe,
   with their poetic fire
 8 his soul had kindled;
   and the exalted Muses of the art
   he, happy one, did not disgrace:
   he proudly in his songs retained
12 always exalted sentiments,
   the surgings of a virgin fancy, and the charm
   of grave simplicity.

   To love submissive, love he sang,
   and his song was as clear
   as a naïve maid's thoughts,
 4 as the sleep of an infant, as the moon
   in the untroubled deserts of the sky,
   goddess of mysteries and tender sighs.
   He sang parting and sadness,
 8 and a vague something, and the dim
   remoteness, and romantic roses.
   He sang those distant lands
   where long into the bosom of the stillness
12 flowed his live tears.
   He sang life's faded bloom
   at not quite eighteen years of age.

   In the wilderness where Eugene alone
   was able to appreciate his gifts,
   he cared not for the banquets of the masters
 4 of neighboring manors;
   he fled their noisy concourse.
   Their reasonable talk
   of haymaking, of liquor,
 8 of kennel, of their kin,
   no doubt did not sparkle with feeling,
   or with poetic fire,
   or sharp wit, or intelligence,
12 or with the art of sociability;
   but the talk of their sweet wives was
   much less intelligent.

   Wealthy, good-looking, Lenski everywhere
   was as a marriageable man received:
   such is the country custom;
 4 all for their daughters planned a match
   with the half-Russian neighbor.
   Whenever he drops in, at once the conversation
   broaches a word, obliquely,
 8 about the tedium of bachelor life;
   the neighbor is invited to the samovar,
   and Dunya pours the tea;
   they whisper to her: “Dunya, mark!”
12 Then the guitar (that, too) is brought,
   and she will start to shrill (good God!):
   “Come to me in my golden castle!..”12

   But Lenski, having no desire, of course,
   to bear the bonds of marriage,
   wished cordially to strike up with Onegin
 4 a close acquaintanceship.
   They got together; wave and stone,
   verse and prose, ice and flame,
   were not so different from one another.
 8 At first, because of mutual
   disparity, they found each other dull;
   then liked each other; then
   met riding every day on horseback,
12 and soon became inseparable.
   Thus people — I'm the first to own it —
   out of do-nothingness are friends.

   But among us there's even no such friendship:
   having destroyed all prejudices, we
   deem all men naughts
 4 and ourselves units.
   We all aspire to be Napoleons;
   for us the millions
   of two-legged creatures are but tools;
 8 feeling to us is weird and ludicrous.
   More tolerant than many was Eugene,
   though he, of course, knew men
   and on the whole despised them;
12 but no rules are without exceptions:
   some people he distinguished greatly
   and, though estranged from it, respected feeling.

   He listened with a smile to Lenski:
   the poet's fervid conversation,
   and mind still vacillant in judgments,
 4 and gaze eternally inspired —
   all this was novel to Onegin;
   the chilling word
   on his lips he tried to restrain,
 8 and thought: foolish of me
   to interfere with his brief rapture;
   without me just as well that time will come;
   meanwhile let him live and believe
12 in the perfection of the world;
   let us forgive the fever of young years
   both its young ardor and young ravings.