Eugene Onegin: A Novel in Verse (Oxford World's Classics) Read online

  JAKOBSON, R., Pushkin and his Sculptural Myth, tr. J. Burbank (The Hague, 1975).

  KODJAK, A., and TARANOVSKY, K. (eds.), Alexander Pushkin: A Symposium on the 175th Anniversary of his Birth (New York, 1976).

  ———Alexander Pushkin Symposium II (Columbus, Oh. 1980).

  LAVRIN, J., Pushkin and Russian Literature (London, 1947).

  LEVITT, M., Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880 (Ithaca, NY, 1989).

  MAGARSHACK, D., Pushkin: A Biography (London, 1967).

  MIRSKY, D., Pushkin (London, 1926; repr. New York, 1963).

  NABOKOV, V., Eugene Onegin: A Novel in Verse by Alexander Pushkin, Translated from the Russian with a Commentary, 4 vols. (New York, 1964; rev. edn. Princeton, 1975).

  PROFFER, C. (ed. and tr.), The Critical Prose of Alexander Pushkin (Bloomington, Ind. 1969).

  RICHARDS, D., and COCKRELL, C. (eds.), Russian Views of Pushkin (Oxford, 1976).

  SANDLER, S., Distant Pleasures: Alexander Pushkin and the Writing of Exile (Stanford, Ca., 1989).

  SHAW, J. (ed.), The Letters of Alexander Pushkin (Bloomington, Ind. 1963).

  ———Pushkin’s Rhymes (Madison, Wis., 1974).

  SHAW, J. Pushkin: A Concordance to the Poetry (Columbus, Oh., 1985).

  SIMMONS, E., Pushkin (New York, 1964).

  TERTZ, A. (Sinyavsky), Strolls with Pushkin, tr. C. Nepomnyashchy and S. Yastremski (New Haven, Conn., 1993).

  TODD, W., Fiction and Society in the Age of Pushkin (Cambridge, Mass., 1986).

  TROYAT, H., Pushkin, tr. N. Amphoux (London, 1974).

  VICKERY, W., Pushkin: Death of a Poet (Bloomington, Ind., 1968).

  ———Alexander Pushkin (New York, 1970; rev. edn. New York, 1992).

  WOLFF, T., Pushkin on Literature (London, 1971).

  A CHRONOLOGY OF ALEXANDER SERGEEVICH PUSHKIN

  (all dates are old style)

  1799

  Born 26 May in Moscow. On his father’s side Pushkin was descended from a somewhat impoverished but ancient aristocratic family. The poet’s maternal great-grandfather, Abram Hannibal, was an African princeling (perhaps Abyssinian) who had been taken hostage as a boy by the Turkish sultan. Brought eventually to Russia and adopted by Peter the Great, he became a favourite of the emperor and under subsequent rulers enjoyed a distinguished career in the Russian military service. All his life Pushkin retained great pride in his lineage on both sides of the family.

  1800–11

  Entrusted in childhood to the care of governesses and French tutors, Pushkin was largely ignored by his parents. He did, however, avail himself of his father’s extensive library and read widely in French literature of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. His mastery of contemporary Russian speech owes much to his early contact with household serfs, especially with his nurse, Arina Rodionovna.

  1811–17

  Attends Lycée at Tsarskoe Selo near St Petersburg, an academy newly established by Emperor Alexander I for the education of young noblemen and their preparation for government service. During these school years he writes his earliest surviving verse. Pushkin’s poetic talent was recognized early and admired by prominent Russian writers, including the poets Derzhavin and Zhukovsky and the historian Karamzin.

  1817–20

  Appointed to a sinecure in the Department of Foreign Affairs, he leads a dissipated life in St Petersburg. Writes satirical epigrams and circulates in manuscript form mildly seditious verse that incurs the displeasure of Emperor Alexander I. His first narrative poem, the mock epic Ruslan and Lyudmila, is published in 1820 and enjoys great success.

  1820–4

  Arrested for his liberal writings and exiled to service in the south of Russia (Ekaterinoslav, Kishinev, Odessa), he travels in the Caucasus, Crimea, Bessarabia. During this ‘Byronic period’ he composes his ‘southern poems’, including The Prisoner of the Caucasus and The Fountain of Bakhchisarai.

  1823

  Begins Eugene Onegin on 9 May (first chapter published in 1825).

  1824

  Writes narrative poem The Gypsies. After further conflict with the authorities he is dismissed from the service.

  1824–6

  Lives in exile for two more years at family estate of Mikhailovskoe.

  1825

  Writes verse drama Boris Godunov. Decembrist Revolt, in which several of the poet’s friends participated, takes place while Pushkin is still absent from the capital.

  1826–31

  Pardoned by new Czar Nicholas I (September 1826) and allowed to return to Moscow, he resumes dissipated living. Continuing problems with censorship and growing dissatisfaction with the court and autocracy.

  1827

  Begins prose novel The Moor of Peter the Great (never completed), an account of the life and career of his ancestor Abram Hannibal.

  1828

  Writes narrative poem Poltava celebrating the victory of Peter the Great over Charles XII of Sweden.

  1830

  While stranded by a cholera epidemic at his country estate of Boldino he enjoys an especially productive autumn: effectively completes Eugene Onegin; writes The Tales of Belkin (prose stories); finishes ‘Little Tragedies’: The Covetous Knight, Mozart and Salieri, The Stone Guest, Feast in Time of Plague.

  1831

  Marries Natalya Goncharova on 18 February; settles in St Petersburg; appointed official historiographer. Finally abandons work on Eugene Onegin, which has occupied him for more than eight years.

  1831–7

  Increasing personal and professional difficulties: financial troubles, unhappy married life, dismissal as a literary force by younger generation.

  1833

  Second ‘Boldino autumn’. Writes short story The Queen of Spades, narrative poem The Bronze Horseman; works on A History of the Pugachev Rebellion

  1836

  Completes historical romance The Captain’s Daughter.

  1837

  Incensed by the attentions paid to his wife by Baron Georges d’Antès, a French adventurer in the Russian service, Pushkin challenges him to a duel and on 27 February is mortally wounded; he dies two days later and his coffin is taken at night to Svyatogorsky Monastery near Mikhailovskoe for burial.

  EUGENE ONEGIN

  Pétri de vanité il avait encore plus

  de cette espèce d’orgueil qui fait

  avouer avec la même indifférence les

  bonnes comme les mauvaises actions,

  suite d’un sentiment de supériorité,

  peut-être imaginaire.

  Tiré d’une lettre particulière*

  Dedication*

  Not thinking of the proud world’s pleasure,

  But cherishing your friendship’s claim,

  I would have wished a finer treasure

  To pledge my token to your name—

  One worthy of your soul’s perfection,

  The sacred dreams that fill your gaze,

  Your verse’s limpid, live complexion,

  Your noble thoughts and simple ways.

  But let it be. Take this collection

  Of sundry chapters as my suit:

  Half humorous, half pessimistic,

  Blending the plain and idealistic—

  Amusement’s yield, the careless fruit

  Of sleepless nights, light inspirations,

  Born of my green and withered years …

  The intellect’s cold observations,

  The heart’s reflections, writ in tears.

  Chapter 1

  To live he hurries and to feel makes haste.

  Prince Vjazemsky

  1

  ‘My uncle, man of firm convictions* …

  By falling gravely ill, he’s won

  A due respect for his afflictions—

  The only clever thing he’s done.

  May his example profit others;

  But God, what deadly boredom, brothers,

  To tend a sick man night and day,

  Not daring once to st
eal away!

  And, oh, how base to pamper grossly

  And entertain the nearly dead,

  To fluff the pillows for his head,

  And pass him medicines morosely—

  While thinking under every sigh:

  The devil take you, Uncle. Die!’

  2

  Just so a youthful rake reflected,

  As through the dust by post he flew,

  By mighty Zeus’s will elected

  Sole heir to all the kin he knew.

  Ludmíla’s and Ruslán’s adherents!*

  Without a foreword’s interference,

  May I present, as we set sail,

  The hero of my current tale:

  Onégin, my good friend and brother,

  Was born beside the Neva’s span,

  Where maybe, reader, you began,

  Or sparkled in one way or other.

  I too there used to saunter forth,

  But found it noxious in the north.*

  3

  An honest man who’d served sincerely,

  His father ran up debts galore;

  He gave a ball some three times yearly,

  Until he had no means for more.

  Fate watched Eugene in his dependence;

  At first Madame was in attendance;

  And then Monsieur took on the child,

  A charming lad, though somewhat wild.

  Monsieur l’Abbé, a needy fellow,

  To spare his charge excessive pain,

  Kept lessons light and rather plain;

  His views on morals ever mellow,

  He seldom punished any lark,

  And walked the boy in Letny Park.*

  4

  But when the age of restless turnings

  Became in time our young man’s fate,

  The age of hopes and tender yearnings,

  Monsieur l’Abbé was shown the gate.

  And here’s Onegin—liberated,

  To fad and fashion newly mated:

  A London dandy, hair all curled,

  At last he’s ready for the world!

  In French he could and did acutely

  Express himself and even write;

  In dancing too his step was light,

  And bows he’d mastered absolutely.

  Who’d ask for more? The world could tell

  That he had wit and charm as well.

  5

  We’ve all received an education

  In something somehow, have we not?

  So thank the Lord that in this nation

  A little learning means a lot.

  Onegin was, so some decided

  (Strict judges, not to be derided),

  A learned, if pedantic, sort.

  He did possess the happy forte

  Of free and easy conversation,

  Or in a grave dispute he’d wear

  The solemn expert’s learned air

  And keep to silent meditation;

  And how the ladies’ eyes he lit

  With flashes of his sudden wit!

  6

  The Latin vogue today is waning,

  And yet I’ll say on his behalf,

  He had sufficient Latin training

  To gloss a common epigraph,

  Cite Juvenal in conversation,

  Put vale in a salutation;

  And he recalled, at least in part,

  A line or two of Virgil’s art.

  He lacked, it’s true, all predilection

  For rooting in the ancient dust

  Of history’s annals full of must,

  But knew by heart a fine collection

  Of anecdotes of ages past:

  From Romulus to Tuesday last.

  7

  Lacking the fervent dedication

  That sees in sounds life’s highest quest,

  He never knew, to our frustration,

  A dactyl from an anapest.

  Theocritus and Homer bored him,

  But reading Adam Smith restored him,

  And economics he knew well;

  Which is to say that he could tell

  The ways in which a state progresses—

  The actual things that make it thrive,

  And why for gold it need not strive,

  When basic products it possesses.

  His father never understood

  And mortgaged all the land he could.

  8

  I have no leisure for retailing

  The sum of all our hero’s parts,

  But where his genius proved unfailing,

  The thing he’d learned above all arts,

  What from his prime had been his pleasure,

  His only torment, toil, and treasure,

  What occupied, the livelong day,

  His languid spirit’s fretful play

  Was love itself, the art of ardour,

  Which Ovid sang in ages past,

  And for which song he paid at last

  By ending his proud days a martyr—

  In dim Moldavia’s vacant waste,

  Far from the Rome his heart embraced.

  (9)* 10

  How early on he could dissemble,

  Conceal his hopes, play jealous swain,

  Compel belief, or make her tremble,

  Seem cast in gloom or mute with pain,

  Appear so proud or so forbearing,

  At times attentive, then uncaring!

  What languor when his lips were sealed,

  What fiery art his speech revealed!

  What casual letters he would send her!

  He lived, he breathed one single dream,

  How self-oblivious he could seem!

  How keen his glance, how bold and tender;

  And when he wished, he’d make appear

  The quickly summoned, glistening tear!

  11

  How shrewdly he could be inventive

  And playfully astound the young,

  Use flattery as warm incentive,

  Or frighten with despairing tongue.

  And how he’d seize a moment’s weakness

  To conquer youthful virtue’s meekness

  Through force of passion and of sense,

  And then await sweet recompense.

  At first he’d beg a declaration,

  And listen for the heart’s first beat,

  Then stalk love faster—and entreat

  A lover’s secret assignation …

  And then in private he’d prepare

  In silence to instruct the fair!

  12

  How early he could stir or worry

  The hearts of even skilled coquettes!

  And when he found it necessary

  To crush a rival—oh, what nets,

  What clever traps he’d set before him!

  And how his wicked tongue would gore him!

  But you, you men in wedded bliss,

  You stayed his friends despite all this:

  The crafty husband fawned and chuckled

  (Faublas’* disciple and his tool),

  As did the skeptical old fool,

  And the majestic, antlered cuckold—

  So pleased with all he had in life:

  Himself, his dinner, and his wife.

  (13–14) 15

  Some mornings still abed he drowses,

  Until his valet brings his tray.

  What? Invitations? Yes, three houses

  Have asked him to a grand soirée.

  There’ll be a ball, a children’s party;

  Where will he dash to, my good hearty?

  Where will he make the night’s first call?

  Oh, never mind—he’ll make them all.

  But meanwhile, dressed for morning pleasure,

  Bedecked in broad-brimmed Bolivar*

  He drives to Nevsky Boulevard,

  To stroll about at total leisure,

  Until Bréguet’s* unsleeping chime

  Reminds him that it’s dinner time.

  16


  He calls a sleigh as daylight’s dimming;

  The cry resounds: ‘Make way! Let’s go!’

  His collar with its beaver trimming

  Is silver bright with frosted snow.

  He’s off to Talon’s,* late, and racing,

  Quite sure he’ll find Kavérin* pacing;

  He enters—cork and bottle spout!

  The comet wine* comes gushing out,

  A bloody roastbeef’s on the table,

  And truffles, youth’s delight so keen,

  The very flower of French cuisine,

  And Strasbourg pie,* that deathless fable;

  While next to Limburg’s lively mould

  Sits ananás in splendid gold.

  17

  Another round would hardly hurt them,

  To wash those sizzling cutlets down;

  But now the chime and watch alert them:

  The brand new ballet’s on in town!

  He’s off!—this critic most exacting

  Of all that touches art or acting,

  This fickel swain of every star,

  And honoured patron of the barre—

  To join the crowd, where each is ready

  To greet an entrechat with cheers,

  Or Cleopatra with his jeers,

  To hiss at Phèdre—so unsteady,

  Recall Moïna* … and rejoice

  That everyone has heard his voice.

  18

  Enchanted land! There for a season,

  That friend of freedom ruled the scene,

  The daring satirist Fonvízin,

  As did derivative Knyazhnín;

  There Ózerov received the nation’s

  Unbidden tears and its ovations,

  Which young Semyónova did share;

  And our Katénin gave us there

  Corneille’s full genius resurrected;

  And there the caustic Shakhovskóy

  Refreshed the stage with comic joy,

  Didelot his crown of fame perfected.*