Eugene Onegin
Page 23
Were these the thoughts that crossed my mind
When, 'neath your endless chant I pined
And then in silence meditated
And pondered my Zarma's* fate? . . .
Within those empty halls ornate,
Upon my trail, three years belated,
While travelling near that selfsame sea,
Onegin, pausing, thought of me.
* * *
I lived back then in dry Odessa . ..
Where skies for endless days are clear,
Where commerce, bustling, crowds and presses
And sets its sails for far and near;
Where all breathes Europe to the senses,
And sparkling Southern sun dispenses
A lively, varied atmosphere.
Along the merry streets you'll hear
Italian voices ringing loudly;
You'll meet the haughty Slav, the Greek,
Armenian, Spaniard, Frenchman sleek,
The stout Moldavian prancing proudly;
And Egypt's son as well you'll see,
The one-time corsair, Morali*
***
Our friend Tumnsky* sang enchanted
Odessa's charms in splendid verse,
But we must say that he was granted
A partial viewthe poet's curse.
No sooner here than he went roaming,
Lorgnette in hand and senses foaming,
Above the lonely sea . . . and then
With his enraptured poet's pen
He praised Odessa's gardens greatly.
That's fine of course, but all I've found
Is barren steppeland all around,
Though here and there much labour lately
Has forced young boughs, I must admit,
To spread their grudging shade a bit.
* * *
But where's my rambling story rushing?
'In dry Odessa'so said I. I might have said:
'Odessa gushing' And even so have told no lie.
For six whole weeks it happens yearly,
On stormy Zeus's orders clearly:
Odessa's flooded, drowned, and stuck,
Immersed in thickly oozing muck.
In mud waist-high the houses snuggle;
On stilts alone can feeble feet
Attempt to ford the muddy street.
The coaches and the people struggle,
And then the bent-head oxen pant
To do what helpless horses can't.
* * *
But now the hammer's smashing boulders,
And soon with ringing slabs of slate
The salvaged streets will muster shoulders,
As if encased in armoured plate.
But moist Odessa, all too sadly,
Is lacking yet one feature badly:
You'll never guess . . . it's water-short!
To find the stuff is heavy sport.. .
But why succumb to grim emotion?
Especially since the local wine
Is duty free and rather fine.
And then there's Southern sun and ocean . . .
What more, my friends, could you demand?
A blessed and most favoured land!
* * *
No sooner would the cannon, sounding,
Proclaim from ship the dawn of day
Than, down the sloping shoreline bounding,
Towards the sea I'd make my way.
And there, my glowing pipe ignited,
By briny waves refreshed and righted,
In Muslim paradise complete,
I'd sip my Turkish coffee sweet.
I take a stroll. Inciting urges,
The great Casino's opened up;
I hear the ring of glass and cup;
The marker, half asleep, emerges
Upon the porch, with broom in hand,
Where two expectant merchants stand.
***
And soon the square grows gay and vital.
Life pulses full as here and there,
Preoccupied by work ... or idle,
All race about on some affair.
That child of ventures and finances,
The merchant to the port advances,
To learn the news: has heaven brought
The long-awaited sail he sought?
Which just-delivered importations
Have gone in quarantine today?
Which wines have come without delay?
And how's the plague? What conflagrations,
What wars and famines have occurred?
He has to have the latest word.
* * *
But we, we band of callow joysters,
Unlike those merchants filled with cares,
Have been expecting only oysters . . .
From Istanbul, the seaside's wares.
What news of oysters? Here? What rapture!
And off runs glutton youth to capture
And slurp from salty shells those bites
Of plump and living anchorites,
With just a dash of lemon flavour.
What din, debates! The good Automne*
From cellar store has just now come
With sparkling wine for us to savour.
The time goes by and, as it goes,
The bill to awesome stature grows.
* * *
But now blue evening starts to darken,
And to the opera we must get,
The great Rossini there to harken,
Proud Orpheus and Europe's pet.
Before no critic will he grovel,
He's ever constant, ever novel;
He pours out tunes that effervesce,
That in their burning flow caress
The soul with endless youthful kisses,
With sweetly flaming love's refrain,
A golden, sparkling fine champagne,
A stream that bubbles, foams, and hisses.
But can one justly, friends of mine,
Compare this do-re-mi with wine?
* * *
And what of other fascinations?
And what of keen lorgnettes, I say ... ?
And in the wings . . . the assignations?
The prima donna? The ballet?
The loge, where, beautiful and gleaming,
The merchant's youthful wife sits dreaming,
All vain and languorous with pride,
A crowd of slaves on every side?
She heeds and doesn't heed the roses,
The cavatina, heated sighs,
The jesting praise, the pleading eyes .. .
While in the back her husband dozes,
Cries out from sleep Encore!and then
Emits a yawn and snores again.
* * *
The great finale's thunder surges.
In noisy haste the throng departs;
Upon the square the crowd emerges,
Beneath the gleam of lamps and stars.
Ausonia's * happy sons are humming
The playful tune that keeps on drumming,
Against the will, inside their brains
While I roar out the light refrains.
But now it's late. Odessa's dreaming;
The breathless night is warm and soft,
While high above the moon's aloft,
The sky all lightly veiled and streaming.
No stir disturbs the silence round,
Except the sea's incessant sound.
* * *
And so I lived in old Odessa . . .
EXPLANATORY NOTES
2 Ptri. . . particulire: the main epigraph to the novel, apparently written by Pushkin himself, translates roughly as follows: 'Steeped in vanity, he was possessed moreover by that particular sort of pride that makes a man acknowledge with equal indifference both his good and evil actions, a consequence of a sense of superiority, perhaps imaginary. From a private letter.'
dedication: The dedication was originally addressed to Pushkin's friend (and the fi
rst publisher of Eugene Onegin) P. A. Pletnyov ( 1792-1862). In later editions, the piece was retained as a kind of preface, but without the inscription to Pletnyov.
Chapter 1
5 My uncle, man of firm convictions: the novel's opening words mimic a line from the fable The Ass and the Peasant by Ivan Krylov (1796-1844): 'An ass of most sincere convictions.'
Ludmila's and Rusln's adherents: the author's address to his readers and references to other of his writings are devices used throughout the novel. The allusion here is to Pushkin's first major work, the mock epic Ruslan and Ludmila.
noxious in the north: 'Written in Bessarabia' (Pushkin's note). A lightly veiled allusion to the poet's troubles with the court: a few poems of liberal sentiment and some caustic epigrams had incurred the wrath of the emperor, and as a consequence, in May 1820, Pushkin was required to leave St Petersburg for an unspecified term of exile in the south of Russia. He would not return to the capital for more than six years.
6 Letny Park: the Summer Garden, a public park situated along the embankment of the Neva and adorned with shade trees and the statues of Greek deities.
9 (9): here and elsewhere, numbers in parentheses indicate stanzas omitted by Pushkin in the published text.
10 Faublas: the hero of a novel by the French writer Louvet de Couvrai (1760-97). Abetted in the seduction of other men's wives by a rakish count, Faublas, it turns out, has seduced his accomplice's bride as well.
io Bolivar. 'Hat la Bolivar' (Pushkin's note). A wide-brimmed black top hat, named after the South American liberator, which was fashionable in both Paris and St Petersburg in the 1820s.
Brguet: an elegant pocket-watch made by the celebrated French watchmaker, Abraham Louis Brguet (1747-1823).
11 Talon's: Talon was a well-known French restaurateur in St Petersburg.
Kavrin: Pyotr Kaverin (1794-1855) was a hussar, man about town, and friend of Pushkin.
comet mine: champagne from the year of the comet (1811), a year of especially good vintage.
Strasbourg pie: a rich pastry made with goose liver, for which the French city is famous.
11 Cleopatra , . . Phdre . . . Mona: the heroines of various plays, operas, or ballets performed in St Petersburg at the time. The Cleopatra that Pushkin had in mind is uncertain; the Phdre was either Racine's tragedy or an opera based on it; Mona is the heroine of Ozerov's tragedy, Fingal.
12 Enchanted land!. . . perfected: the stanza evokes the Russian theatre around the turn of the century, when for the most part imitations of Corneille, Racine, and Molire prevailed. D. Fon-vizin (1745-92), the most noteworthy of the playwrights mentioned, was the author of two successful satires, The Minor and
KThe Brigadier. Y. Knyazhnin (1742-91), V. Ozerov (1769-1816), and P. Katenin (1792-1852) wrote Frenchified tragedies; A. Shakhovskoy (1777-1846) wrote equally derivative comedies. E. Semyonova (1786-1849) was an accomplished Shakespearian actress who performed in Russian dramas as well. Charles-Louis Didelot (1767-1837), French ballet master and choreographer, was associated with the St Petersburg ballet.
13 Istmina: A. I. Istomina (1799-1848). A celebrated ballerina who was a pupil of Didelot. She danced in ballets that were based on works by Pushkin, and early in her career the poet had courted her.
15 Grimm: Frdric Melchior Grimm (1723-1807). French encyclopedist. In a note to these lines Pushkin quotes from Rousseau's Confessions on the encounter between the two men and then comments: 'Grimm was ahead of his age: nowadays, all over enlightened Europe, people clean their nails with a special brush.'
15 Chadyev: the manuscript provides evidence for the name given here. Pyotr Chadayev (1793-1856) was a friend of the poet and a brilliant personality. Both fop and philosopher, he was the author of the famous Lettres philosophiques, of which only one was published in Russia during his lifetime. His work helped to precipitate, through its critique of Russian history, the great debate between the Westernizer and Slavophile camps of Russian thought. For the expression of his ideas, Chadayev was officially declared insane, although he continued to take an active part in Moscow social life.
22 Say or Bentham: the French economist Jean Baptiste Say (1767 1832) and the English jurist and philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) were much discussed at the time in progressive circles.
Capricious. . . spleen: in a note to the stanza Pushkin comments archly: 'The whole of this ironical stanza is nothing but a subtle compliment to our fair compatriots. Thus Boileau, under the guise of reproach, eulogizes Louis XIV. Our ladies combine enlightenment with amiability, and strict purity of morals with that Oriental charm which so captivated Mme. de Stal.' See Dix ans d'exil.
25 As . . . himself: a mocking allusion to M. Muravyov (1757-1807) and his lyric poem 'To the Goddess of the Neva'.
26 Brenta: the river that flows into the Adriatic near Venice.
Albion's great and haughty lyre: the reference is to Byron's poetry.
shore: 'Written in Odessa' (Pushkin's note).
my Africa's warm sky: 'The author, on his mother's side, is of African descent. His great-grandfather, Abram Petrovich Anni-bal, in his eighth year was abducted from the coast of Africa and taken to Constantinople. The Russian envoy, after rescuing him, sent him as a gift to Peter the Great, who had him baptized in Vilno.' Thus Pushkin begins a rather lengthy note on the life of his African ancestor. The young man was subsequently sent abroad by Peter to study fortification and military mining. After a sojourn of some seven years in France, he was recalled to the service in Russia, where he had a rather chequered career as a military engineer. He was eventually made a general by the empress Elizabeth and died in retirement, in 1781, at nearly 90 years of age, on one of the estates granted him by the crown. The third of his eleven children (by a second wife) was the poet's maternal grandfather.
30 sang the Salghir captives' praises: the references are to the heroines in two of Pushkin's narrative poems: the Circassian girl in The Caucausian Captive and the harem girls in The Fountain of Bakhchisarai. The Salghir is a river near Bakhchisarai, a Tartar town and former residence of the Crimean khans.
Chapter 2
33 0 rus!... #62038; Rus'!: the epigraph employs a pun. The first 'O rus!' (Horace, Satires 2. 6) means 'O countryside!'; the second invokes the old and lyrical name for 'Russia'.
36 corve. . . rate: the corve was the unpaid labour that a serf was required to provide to his master. Onegin, an enlightened squire, has decided to improve the lot of his peasants by asking instead for a small payment.
37 Mason: since Masonic organizations at the time were centres of liberal thought, a provincial landowner would have considered the member of such a group a revolutionary.
38 That there exists. . . redeeming grace: the last five lines of this stanza, which give Lensky's views on the mission of poets, were omitted by Pushkin from the final text, presumably because he anticipated the censor's objection.
43 passions: the dangerous emotions or 'passions' refer here not only to sensual love but also to feelings of enmity, jealousy, and 1 avarice.
46 that name: 'The most euphonious Greek names, such as, for example, Agathon, Philetus, Theodora, Thecla, and so forth, are used with us only among the common people' (Pushkin's note).
50 shaved the shirkers: serfs who were chosen by their owners for army service had their forelocks shaved for easy recognition.
52 At Trinity. . . deserved: lines 5-11 were omitted in all editions during Pushkin's lifetime. On Trinity Day, the Sunday after Whitsunday, people often brought a birch-tree branch or a bouquet of field flowers to church. The tradition in some regions, according to Vladimir Nabokov, called for the worshipper to shed as many tears for his sins as there were dewdrops on the branch he carried.