Читать «Комментарии к «Евгению Онегину» Александра Пушкина» онлайн - страница 531

I

   In those days when in the Lyceum's gardens    I bloomed serenely,    would eagerly read Apuleius,   did not read Cicero;    in those days, in mysterious valleys,    in springtime, to the calls of swans,    near waters shining in the stillness,   the Muse began to visit me.    My student cell was all at once    radiant with light: in it the Muse    opened a banquet of young fancies,  sang childish gaieties,    and glory of our ancientry,    and the heart's tremulous dreams.

II

   And with a smile the world received her;    the first success provided us with wings;    the aged Derzhavin noticed us — and blessed us   as he descended to the grave.    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

III

   And I, setting myself for law    only the arbitrary will of passions,    sharing emotions with the crowd,   I led my frisky Muse into the hubbub    of feasts and turbulent discussions —    the terror of midnight patrols;    and to them, in mad feasts,   she brought her gifts,    and like a little bacchante frisked,    over the bowl sang for the guests;    and the young people of past days  would turbulently dangle after her;    and I was proud 'mong friends    of my volatile mistress.

IV

   But I dropped out of their alliance —    and fled afar... she followed me.    How often the caressive Muse   for me would sweeten the mute way    with the bewitchment of a secret tale!    How often on Caucasia's crags,    Lenorelike, by the moon,   with me she'd gallop on a steed!    How often on the shores of Tauris    she in the gloom of night    led me to listen the sound of the sea,  Nereid's unceasing murmur,    the deep eternal chorus of the billows,    the praiseful hymn to the sire of the worlds.

V

   And the far capital's glitter and noisy feasts    having forgotten in the wilds    of sad Moldavia,   she visited the humble tents    of wandering tribes;    and among them grew savage, and forgot    the language of the gods   for scant, strange tongues,    for songs of the steppe dear to her.    Suddenly everything around    changed, and lo! in my garden she appeared  as a provincial miss,    with a sad thought in her eyes, with a French    book in her hands.

VI

   And now my Muse for the first time    I'm taking to a high-life rout;    at her steppe charms   with jealous apprehensiveness I look.    Through a dense series of aristocrats,    of military fops, of diplomats    and haughty dames, she glides; now quietly   she has sat down and looks, admiring    the noisy crush,    the flickering of dress and speech,    the apparition of slow guests  in front of the young hostess,    and the dark frame of men    around ladies, as about pictures.

VII

   She likes the stately order    of oligarchic colloquies,    and the chill of calm pride,   and this mixture of ranks and years.    But who's that standing in the chosen throng,    silent and nebulous?    To everyone he seems a stranger.   Before him faces come and go    like a series of tedious specters.    What is it — spleen or smarting morgue    upon his face? Why is he here?  Who is he? Is it really — Eugene?    He, really? So, 'tis he, indeed.    —  Since when has he been blown our way?

VIII

   Is he the same, or grown more peaceful?    Or does he still play the eccentric?    Say, in what guise has he returned?   What will he stage for us meanwhile?    As what will he appear now? As a Melmoth?    a cosmopolitan? a patriot?    a Harold? a Quaker? a bigot?   Or will he sport some other mask?    Or else be simply a good fellow    like you and me, like the whole world?    At least here's my advice:  to drop an antiquated fashion.    Sufficiently he's gulled the world...    —  You know him?  — Yes and no.

IX

   —  Why so unfavorably then    do you report on him?    Because we indefatigably   fuss, judge of everything?    Because of fiery souls the rashness    to smug nonentity is either    insulting or absurd?   Because, by liking room, wit cramps?    Because too often conversations    we're glad to take for deeds,    because stupidity is volatile and wicked?  Because to grave men grave are trifles,    and mediocrity alone    is to our measure and not odd?

X

   Blest who was youthful in his youth;    blest who matured at the right time;    who, with the years, the chill of life   was gradually able to withstand;    who never was addicted to strange dreams;    who did not shun the fashionable rabble;    who was at twenty fop or dasher,   and then at thirty, profitably married;    who rid himself at fifty    of private and of other debts;    who gained repute, money, and rank  calmly in turn;    about whom lifelong one kept saying:    N. N. is an excellent man.

XI

   But it is sad to think that youth    was given us in vain,    that we betrayed it every hour,   that it duped us;    that our best aspirations,    that our fresh dreamings,    in quick succession have decayed   like leaves in putrid autumn.    It is unbearable to see before one    only of dinners a long series,    to look on life as on a rite,  and in the wake of the decorous crowd    to go, not sharing with it either    the general opinions or the passions.

XII

   When one becomes the subject    of noisy comments, it's unbearable    (you will agree) to pass among   sensible people for a feigned eccentric    or a sad crackbrain,    or a satanic monster,    or even for my Demon.   Onegin (let me take him up again),    having in single combat killed his friend,    having without a goal, without exertions,    lived to the age of twenty-six,  irked by the inactivity of leisure,    without employment, wife, or occupation,    could think of nothing to take up.

XIII

   A restlessness took hold of him,    the inclination to a change of places    (a most excruciating property,   a cross that few deliberately bear).    He left his countryseat,    the solitude of woods and fields,    where an ensanguined shade   daily appeared to him,    and started upon travels without aim,    accessible to one sensation;    and to him journeys,  like everything on earth,    grew boring. He returned and found himself,    like Chatski, come from boat to ball.

XIV

   But lo! the throng has undulated,    a murmur through the hall has run....    Toward the hostess there advanced a lady,   followed by an imposing general.    She was unhurried,    not cold, not talkative,    without a flouting gaze for everyone,   without pretensions to success,    without those little mannerisms,    without mimetic artifices....    All about her was quiet, simple.  She seemed a faithful reproduction    du comme il faut.... ([Shishkov,] forgive me:    I do not know how to translate.)

XV

   Closer to her the ladies moved;    old women smiled to her;    the men bowed lower, sought   to catch her gaze;    maidens before her passed more quietly    across the room; and higher    than anyone lifted his nose and shoulders   the general who had come in with her.    None could have called her    a beauty; but from head to foot    none could have found in her  what is by autocratic fashion    in the high London circle    called “vulgar.” (I'm unable —

XVI

   —  of that word I am very fond,    but am unable to translate it; in our midst    for the time being it is new   and hardly bound to be in favor;    it might do nicely in an epigram....    But to our lady let me turn.)    Winsome with carefree charm,   she at a table sat    with brilliant Nina Voronskóy,    that Cleopatra of the Neva;    and, surely, you would have agreed  that Nina with her marble beauty    could not — though dazzling —    eclipse her neighbor.

XVII

   “Can it be possible?” thinks Eugene.    “Can it be she?... But really... No...    What! From outback steppe villages...”   and a tenacious quizzing glass    he keeps directing every minute    at her whose aspect vaguely has    recalled to him forgotten features.   “Tell me, Prince, you don't know    who is it there in the framboise beret    talking with the Spanish ambassador?”    The prince looks at Onegin:  “Aha! Indeed, long have you not been in the monde.    Wait, I'll present you.”    “But who is she?” “My wife.”

XVIII

   “So you are married! Didn't know before.    How long?” “About two years.”    “To whom?” “The Larin girl.” “Tatiana!”   “She knows you?” “I'm their neighbor.”    “Oh, then, come on.” The prince goes up    to his wife and leads up to her    his kin and friend.   The princess looks at him... and whatsoever    troubled her soul,    however greatly    she was surprised, astounded,  nothing betrayed her,    her ton remained the same,    her bow was just as quiet.

XIX

   Forsooth! It was not merely that she didn't    flinch, or blanch suddenly, or flush —    she simply never moved an eyebrow,   did not even compress her lips.    Though he looked with the utmost care,    not even traces of the old Tatiana could    Onegin find.   With her he wished to start a conversation —    and... and could not. She asked: How long    had he been there? And whence came he —    from their own parts, maybe?  Then on her spouse she turned a look    of lassitude; glided away....    And moveless he remained.

XX

   Could it be that the same Tatiana    to whom, alone with her,    at the beginning of our novel   back in a stagnant, distant region,    in the fine fervor of moralization    precepts he once had preached;    the one from whom a letter he preserves   where the heart speaks,    where all is out, all unrestrained;    that little girl — or is he dreaming? —    that little girl whom in her humble state  he had passed over — could it be that now    she had been so indifferent,    so bold with him?

XXI

   He leaves the close-packed rout,    he drives home, pensive; by a fancy  —    now sad, now charming,   his first sleep is disturbed.    He wakes; is brought    a letter: Prince N. begs the honor of his presence    at a soiree. Good God — to her?   I will, I will! And rapidly a courteous    reply he scrawls. What is the matter    with him? In what strange daze is he?    What has stirred at the bottom of that cold  and sluggish soul?    Vexation? Vanity? Or once again    youth's worry — love?

XXII

   Once more Onegin counts the hours,    once more he can't wait for the day to end.    But ten strikes: he drives off,   he has flown forth, he's at the porch;    with tremor he goes in to the princess:    he finds Tatiana    alone, and for some minutes   they sit together. From Onegin's lips    the words come not. Ill-humored,    awkward, he barely, barely    replies to her. His head  is full of a persistent thought.    Persistently he looks: she sits    easy and free.

XXIII

   The husband comes. He interrupts    this painful tête-à-tête;    he with Onegin recollects   the pranks, the jests of former years.    They laugh. Guests enter.    Now with the large-grained salt of high-life malice    the conversation starts to be enlivened.   Before the lady of the house, light nonsense    flashed without stupid affectation,    and meantime interrupted it    sensible talk, without trite topics,  eternal truths, or pedantry,    nor did its free vivacity    shock anybody's ears.

XXIV

   Yet here was the flower of the capital,    both high nobility and paragons of fashion;    the faces one meets everywhere,   the fools one cannot go without;    here were, in mobcaps and in roses,    elderly ladies, wicked-looking;    here were several maidens —   unsmiling faces;    here was an envoy, speaking    of state affairs;    here was, with fragrant hoary hair,  an old man in the old way joking —    with eminent subtility and wit,    which is somewhat absurd today!

XXV

   Here was, to epigrams addicted    a gentleman cross with everything:    with the too-sweet tea of the hostess,   the ladies' platitudes, the ton of men,    the comments on a foggy novel,    the badge two sisters had been granted,    the falsehoods in reviews, the war,   the snow, and his own wife.    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

XXVI

   Here was […], who had gained    distinction by the baseness of his soul    and blunted in all albums,   Saint-P[riest], your pencils;    in the doorway another ball dictator    stood like a fashion plate,    as rosy as a Palm Week cherub,   tight-coated, mute and motionless;    and a far-flung traveler,    an overstarched jackanapes,    provoked a smile among the guests  by his studied deportment,    and an exchange of silent glances was    his universal condemnation.

XXVII

   But my Onegin the whole evening heeds    only Tatiana:    not the shy little maiden,   enamored, poor and simple —    but the indifferent princess,    the inaccessible    goddess of the luxurious, queenly Neva.   O humans! All of you resemble    ancestress Eve:    what's given to you does not lure,    incessantly the serpent calls you  to him, to the mysterious tree:    you must have the forbidden fruit supplied to you,    for paradise without that is no paradise to you.

XXVIII

   How changed Tatiana is!    Into her role how firmly she has entered!    The ways of a constricting rank   how fast she has adopted!    Who'd dare to seek the tender little lass    in this majestic,    this careless legislatrix of salons?   And he had stirred her heart!    About him in the dark of night,    as long as Morpheus had not come flying,    time was, she virginally brooded,  raised to the moon a dying eye,    dreaming that someday she might make    with him life's humble journey!

XXIX

   All ages are to love submissive;    but to young virgin hearts    its impulses are beneficial   as are spring storms to fields.    They freshen in the rain of passions,    and renovate themselves, and ripen,    and vigorous life gives   both rich bloom and sweet fruit.    But at a late and barren age,    at the turn of our years,    sad is the trace of a dead passion....  Thus storms of the cold autumn    into a marsh transform the meadow    and strip the woods around.

XXX

   There is no doubt: alas! Eugene    in love is with Tatiana like a child.    In throes of amorous designs   he spends both day and night.    Not harking to the mind's stern protests,    up to her porch, glass vestibule,    daily he drives.   He chases like a shadow after her;    he's happy if he casts    the fluffy boa on her shoulders,    or touches torridly  her hand, or if he parts in front of her    the motley host of liveries, or picks up    her handkerchief.

XXXI

   She does not notice him,    no matter how he strives — even to death;    receives him freely at her house; at those   of others says two or three words to him;    sometimes welcomes with a mere bow,    sometimes does not take any notice:    there's not a drop of coquetry in her,   the high world does not tolerate it.    Onegin is beginning to grow pale;    she does not see or does not care;    Onegin wastes away:  he's practically phthisical.    All send Onegin to physicians;    in chorus these send him to spas.

XXXII

   Yet he's not going. He beforehand    is ready to his forefathers to write    of an impending meeting; yet Tatiana   cares not one bit (such is their sex).    But he is stubborn, won't desist,    still hopes, bestirs himself;    a sick man bolder than one hale,   he with a weak hand to the princess    writes an impassioned missive.    Though generally little sense in letters    he saw, not without reason;  but evidently torment of the heart    had now passed his endurance.    Here you have his letter word for word.

Onegin'S Letter To Tatiana

   I foresee everything: the explanation    of a sad secret will offend you.    What bitter scorn   your proud glance will express!    What do I want? What is my object    in opening my soul to you?    What wicked merriment   perhaps I give occasion to!    Chancing to meet you once,    noting in you a spark of tenderness,    I did not venture to believe in it:  did not give way to a sweet habit;    my tedious freedom    I did not wish to lose. Another thing    yet separated us:  a hapless victim Lenski fell.    From all that to the heart is dear    then did I tear my heart away;    alien to everybody, tied by nothing,  I thought: liberty and peace are    a substitute for happiness. Good God!    How wrong I was, how I am punished!    No — every minute to see you; to follow  you everywhere;    the smile of your lips, movement of your eyes,    to try to capture with enamored eyes;    to listen long to you, to comprehend  all your perfection with one's soul;    to melt in agonies before you,    grow pale and waste away... that's rapture!    And I'm deprived of that; for you  I drag myself at random everywhere;    to me each day is dear, each hour is dear,    while I in futile dullness squander    the days told off by fate — they are  sufficiently oppressive anyway.    I know: my span is well-nigh measured;    but that my life may be prolonged    I must be certain in the morning  of seeing you during the day.    I fear: in my meek plea    your severe gaze will see    the schemes of despicable cunning —  and I can hear your wrathful censure.    If you hut knew how terrible it is    to languish with the thirst of love,    burn — and by means of reason hourly  subdue the tumult in one's blood;    wish to embrace your knees    and, in a burst of sobbing, at your feet    pour out appeals, avowals, plaints,  all, all I could express,    and in the meantime with feigned coldness    arm speech and gaze,    maintain a placid conversation,  glance at you with a cheerful glance!...    But let it be: against myself    I've not the force to struggle any more;    all is decided: I am in your power,  and I surrender to my fate.

XXXIII

   There is no answer. He sends a new missive.    To the second, to the third letter —    there is no answer. He drives out to some   reception. Hardly has he entered — there she is    coming in his direction. How severe!    He is not seen, to him no word is said.    Ugh! How surrounded she is now   with Twelfthtide cold!    How anxious are to hold back indignation    her stubborn lips!    Onegin peers with a keen eye:  where, where are discomposure, sympathy,    where the tearstains? None, none!    There's on that face but the imprint of wrath...

XXXIV

   plus, possibly, a secret fear    lest husband or monde guess    the escapade, the casual foible,   all my Onegin knows....    There is no hope! He drives away,    curses his folly —    and, deeply plunged in it,   the monde he once again renounces    and in his silent study comes to him    the recollection of the time    when cruel chondria  pursued him in the noisy monde,    captured him, took him by the collar,    and shut him up in a dark hole.

XXXV

   Again, without discrimination,    he started reading. He read Gibbon,    Rousseau, Manzoni, Herder,   Chamfort, Mme de Staël, Bichat, Tissot.    He read the skeptic Bayle,    he read the works of Fontenelle,    he read some [authors] of our own,   without rejecting anything —    the “almanacs” and the reviews    where sermons into us are drummed,    where I'm today abused so much  but where such madrigals addressed tome    I used to meet with now and then:    e sempre bene, gentlemen.

XXXVI

   And lo — his eyes were reading, but his thoughts    were far away;    chimeras, desires, sorrows   kept crowding deep into his soul.    Between the printed lines    he with spiritual eyes    read other lines. It was in them   that he was utterly absorbed.    These were the secret legends of the heart's    dark ancientry;    dreams unconnected  with anything; threats, rumors, presages;    or the live tosh of a long tale,    or a young maiden's letters.

XXXVII

   And by degrees into a lethargy    of feelings and of thoughts he falls,    while before him Imagination   deals out her motley faro deck.    Now he sees: on the melted snow,    as at a night's encampment sleeping,    stirless, a youth lies; and he hears   a voice: “Well, what — he's dead!”    Now he sees foes forgotten,    calumniators, and malicious cowards,    and a swarm of young traitresses,  and a circle of despicable comrades;    and now a country house, and by the window    sits she... and ever she!

XXXVIII

   He grew so used to lose himself in this    that he almost went off his head    or else became a poet. (Frankly,   that would have been a boon, indeed!)    And true: by dint of magnetism,    the mechanism of Russian verses    my addleheaded pupil   at that time nearly grasped.    How much a poet he resembled    when in a corner he would sit alone,    and the hearth blazed in front of him,  and he hummed “Benedetta”    or “Idol mio,” and into the fire    dropped now a slipper, now his magazine!

XXXIX

   Days rushed. In warmth-pervaded air    winter already was resolving;    and he did not become a poet,   he did not die, did not go mad.    Spring quickens him: for the first time    his close-shut chambers, where he had    been hibernating like a marmot,   his double windows, inglenook —    he leaves on a bright morning,    he fleets in sleigh along the Neva's bank.    Upon blue blocks of hewn-out ice  the sun plays. In the streets    the furrowed snow thaws muddily:    whither, upon it, his fast course

XL

   directs Onegin? You beforehand    have guessed already. Yes, exactly:    apace to her, to his Tatiana,   my unreformed eccentric comes.    He walks in, looking like a corpse.    There's not a soul in the front hall.    He enters the reception room. On! No one.   A door he opens.... What is it    that strikes him with such force?    The princess before him, alone,    sits, unadorned, pale, reading  some kind of letter,    and softly sheds a flood of tears,    her cheek propped on her hand.

XLI

   Ah! Her mute sufferings —    in this swift instant who would not have read!    Who would not have the former Tanya,   poor Tanya, recognized now in the princess?    In throes of mad regrets,    Eugene falls at her feet;    she gives a start,   and is silent, and looks,    without surprise, without wrath, at Onegin....    His sick, extinguished gaze,    imploring aspect, mute reproof,  she takes in everything. The simple maid,    with the dreams, with the heart of former days    again in her has resurrected now.

XLII

   She does not bid him rise    and, not taking her eyes off him,    does not withdraw   her limp hand from his avid lips....    What is her dreaming now about?    A lengthy silence passes,    and finally she, softly:   “Enough; get up. I must    frankly explain myself to you.    Onegin, do you recollect that hour    when in the garden, in the avenue, fate brought us  together and so meekly    your lesson I heard out.    Today it is my turn.

XLIII

   “Onegin, I was younger then,    I was, I daresay, better-looking,    and I loved you; and what then, what   did I find in your heart?    What answer? Mere severity.    There wasn't — was there?  — novelty for you    in a meek little maiden's love?   Even today — good heavens!  — my blood freezes    as soon as I remember    your cold glance and that sermon.... But I do not    accuse you; at that awful hour  you acted nobly,    you in regard to me were right,    to you with all my soul I'm grateful....

XLIV

   “Then — is it not so?  — in the wilderness,    far from vain Hearsay,    I was not to your liking.... Why, then, now   do you pursue me?    Why have you marked me out?    Might it not be because I must    now move in the grand monde;   because I have both wealth and rank;    because my husband has been maimed in battles;    because for that the Court is kind to us?    Might it not be because my disrepute  would be remarked by everybody now    and in society might bring you    scandalous honor?

XLV

   “I'm crying.... If your Tanya    you've not forgotten yet,    then know: the sharpness of your blame,   cold, stern discourse,    if it were only in my power    I'd have preferred to an offensive passion,    and to these letters and tears.   For my infantine dreams    you had at least some pity then,    at least consideration for my age.    But now!... What to my feet  has brought you? What a trifle!    How, with your heart and mind,    be the slave of a trivial feeling?

XLVI

   “But as to me, Onegin, this magnificence,    a wearisome life's tinsel, my successes    in the world's vortex,   my fashionable house and evenings,    what do I care for them?... At once I'd gladly    give all the frippery of this masquerade,    all this glitter, and noise, and fumes,   for a shelfful of books, for a wild garden,    for our poor dwelling,    for those haunts where for the first time,    Onegin, I saw you,  and for the humble churchyard where    there is a cross now and the shade    of branches over my poor nurse.

XLVII

   “Yet happiness had been so possible,    so near!... But my fate is already    settled. Imprudently,   perhaps, I acted.    My mother with tears of conjurement    beseeched me. For poor Tanya    all lots were equal.   I married. You must,    I pray you, leave me;    I know: in your heart are    both pride and genuine honor.  I love you (why dissimulate?);    but to another I belong:    to him I shall be faithful all my life.”

XLVIII

   She has gone. Eugene stands    as if by thunder struck.    In what a tempest of sensations   his heart is now immersed!    But there resounds a sudden clink of spurs,    and there appears Tatiana's husband,    and here my hero,   at an unfortunate minute for him,    reader, we now shall leave    for long... forever.... After him    sufficiently along one path  we've roamed the world. Let us congratulate    each other on attaining land. Hurrah!    It long (is it not true?) was time.

XLIX

   Whoever, O my reader,    you be — friend, foe — I wish to part    with you at present as a pal.   Farewell. Whatever in these careless strophes    you might have looked for as you followed me —    tumultuous recollections,    relief from labors,   live images or witticisms,    or faults of grammar —    God grant that in this book, for recreation,    for dreaming, for the heart,  for jousts in journals,    you find at least a crumb.    Upon which, let us part, farewell!

L

   You, too, farewell, my strange traveling companion,    and you, my true ideal,    and you, my live and constant,   though small, work. I have known with you    all that a poet covets:    obliviousness of life in the world's tempests,    the sweet discourse of friends.   Rushed by have many, many days    since young Tatiana, and with her    Onegin, in a blurry dream    appeared to me for the first time —  and the far stretch of a free novel    I through a magic crystal    still did not make out clearly.

LI

   But those to whom at amicable meetings    its first strophes I read —    “Some are no more, others are distant,”   as erstwhiles Sadi said.    Without them was Onegin's picture finished.    And she from whom was fashioned    the dear ideal of “Tatiana”...   Ah, much, much has fate snatched away!    Blest who left life's feast early,    not having to the bottom drained    the goblet full of wine;  who never read life's novel to the end    and all at once could part with it    as I with my Onegin.