Читать «Комментарии к «Евгению Онегину» Александра Пушкина» онлайн - страница 581

Владимир Набоков

36. Our critics, faithful admirers of the fair sex, strongly blamed the indecorum of this verse. 

37. Parisian restaurateur. 

38. Griboedov's line. 

39. A famous arms fabricator. 

40. In the first edition Chapter Six ended in the following:

   And you, young inspiration,    stir my imagination,    the slumber of the heart enliven,  8 into my nook more often fly,    let not a poet's soul grow cold,    callous, crust-dry,    and finally be turned to stone 12 in the World's deadening intoxication,    amidst the soulless proudlings,    amidst the brilliant fools,

XLVII

   amidst the crafty, the fainthearted,    crazy, spoiled children,    villains both ludicrous and dull,  4 obtuse, caviling judges;    amidst devout coquettes;    amidst the voluntary lackeys;    amidst the daily modish scenes,  8 courtly, affectionate betrayals;    amidst hardhearted vanity's    cold verdicts;    amidst the vexing emptiness 12 of schemes, of thoughts and conversations;    in that slough where with you    I bathe, dear friends! 

41. Lyovshin, author of numerous works on rural econ omy. 

42. Our roads are for the eyes a garden:    trees, ditches, and a turfy bank;    much toil, much glory,  4 but, sad to say, no passage now and then.    The trees that stand like sentries    bring little profit to the travelers;    the road, you'll say, is fine,  8 but you'll recall the verse: “for passers-by!”    Driving in Russia is unhampered    on two occasions only:    when our McAdam — or McEve — winter — 12 accomplishes, crackling with wrath,    its devastating raid    and with ice's cast-iron armors roads    while powder snow betimes 16 as if with fluffy sand covers the tracks;    or when the fields are permeated    with such a torrid drought    that with eyes closed a fly 20 can ford a puddle.

(The Station, by Prince Vyazemski) 

43. A simile borrowed from K., so well known for the playfulness of his fancy. K. related that, being one day sent as courier by Prince Potyomkin to the Empress, he drove so fast that his épée, one end of which stuck out of his carriage, rattled against the verstposts as along a palisade. 

44. Rout [Eng.], an evening assembly without dances; means properly crowd [tolpa]. 

FRAGMENTS OF ONEGIN'S JOURNEY

The last [Eighth] Chapter of Eugene Onegin was published [1832] separately with the following foreword:

“The dropped stanzas gave rise more than once to reprehension and gibes (no doubt most just and witty). The author candidly confesses that he omitted from his novel a whole chapter in which Onegin's journey across Russia was described. It depended upon him to designate this omitted chapter by means of dots or a numeral; but to avoid ambiguity he decided it would be better to mark as number eight, instead of nine, the last chapter of Eugene Onegin, and to sacrifice one of its closing stanzas [Eight: XLVIIIa]: