Eugene Onegin Part 39

3. Hetman: Headman or captain, from the Polish hetman.

4. He's even honest... every stage: Quotations from Voltaire (1694a1778): 'et meme devint honnete homme' (Candide, 1759); '... combien le siecle se perfectionne' (opening of Canto 4 of Civil War in Geneva, 1768).

5. Regulus: Roman general Marcus Atilius Regulus (d. c.250 BC), captured by the Carthaginians and sent to Rome with harsh terms of peace. Once there, he advised the Senate to continue the war and returned to Carthage, as he had promised, to face execution.

6. chez Very: Pushkin's note 37: A Parisian restaurateur.

7. Sed alia tempora: Latin: 'But times are different.'

8. Where bird cherry, acacia climb: Nabokov, with customary botanical expertise, translates 'bird cherry' as 'racemosa' and 'acacia' as 'pea tree'. He finds 'racemosa' more exact than 'bird cherry' and points out that the acacia' of northern Russia (where the story takes place) is imported from Asia, has yellow flowers and is therefore not a true acacia, but a 'pea tree'. (The more familiar acacia of southern Russia has a white blossom.) Nabokov refers to the yellow' epithet in the following couplet by Konstantin Batyushkov (1787a1855), which Pushkin is parodying: In the shade of milky racemosas And golden-glistening pea trees (Nabokov's translation) He may be right, but I have preferred the more recognizable 'bird cherries' and 'acacias'. Batyushkov (1787a1855) was one of Pushkin's predecessors from whom he learned standards of harmony and precision.

9. planting cabbages, like Horace: Planting cabbages' is taken from the French planter des (ses) choux, meaning 'to cultivate a rural life', which Horace lauded on his withdrawal from Rome to a country estate given to him by Gaius Cilnius Maecenas, adviser to the emperor Augustus.

10. cartel: A written challenge which the duellist's second delivers to the former's opponent. Lensky's second is Zaretsky.

11. And there it is a public opinion: Pushkin's note 38: 'A verse of Griboyedov's.' The verse comes from the comedy Woe from Wit (finished, but not published, in 1824) by Alexander Griboyedov (1795a1829) in which the hero, Chatsky, is hounded by the rumour that he is mad. Only fragments of the play were published during the author's lifetime. The whole play, still with cuts, appeared posthumously in 1833. Pushkin knew it from ma.n.u.scripts which were widely circulated. The fact that Pushkin has not italicized the quotation means that he has a.s.similated it to his own viewpoint rather than treating it as a comment from outside.

12. A temple or a thigh to claim: The duellist would aim at his opponent's leg if he wished to satisfy his honour with a simple wound. He would aim at his head if he wished to kill him.

13. [15, 16]: The omitted stanzas, 15 and 16, deal with the theme of jealousy.

14. Delvig: Baron Anton Delvig (1798a1831), a minor poet, one of Pushkin's closest friends and a cla.s.smate at the lycee.

15. his verse... ready for your gaze: Every phrase of Lensky's poem is a stereotype of contemporary elegiac poetry, including Pushkin's own early verse, and translations from French and German poetry. Nevertheless, as elsewhere in the novel, parody blends with genuine feeling. The arrow' in line 9 is not a poetic synonym for 'bullet', but a conventional literary euphemism for death.

16. Romantic: By 'Romantic' Pushkin meant something more full-blooded and realistic, as he explains in his preface to his historical drama Boris G.o.dunov. Obscurely' and limply' are terms used by Pushkin's friend the poet Wilhelm Kukhelbeker (1797a1846) in his attack on elegiac poetry.

17. Lepage's fatal tubes: Jean Lepage (1779a1822) was a Parisian gunsmith.

18. The pistols... to the place: A Lepage pistol had six edges on the outside of the barrel; the inside was smooth. Powder was poured into the barrel through the opening and secured with a wad. The bullets were inserted with the help of a mallet and ramrod. The flint, which was held in place by a special screw, was raised and tiny grains of powder were poured on to the pan, a steel shelf near an opening in the breech. The powder would burst into flame when struck and ignite the powder charge inside the barrel, causing the bullet to be fired. One of the seconds would load the pistols, while the other observed him.

19. To call his people: Presumably inaccuracy on the part of Pushkin, since Onegin has brought no men with him, only Guillot.

20. [38]: This omitted stanza reinforces the previous one by suggesting that Lensky might have become a Kutuzov (the Russian general who defeated Napoleon), a Nelson, a Napoleon in exile or a Ryleyev (Pushkin's Decembrist friend) executed by Nicholas I on the gallows.

21. But, reader... monument is laid: This stanza is written in a traditional elegiac mode. Lensky is buried here because, as a duellist, his grave is not allowed in consecrated ground.

22. And wonders: 'How did Olga suffer?': It is Pushkin who is doing the wondering, since the townswoman has no idea who Olga, Tatiana and Onegin are.

23. cherished... perished: Pushkin's stock rhyme here is in Russian 'sladost'/'mladost', 'sweetness'/'youth' (he employs an archaic word for 'youth'). I have subst.i.tuted 'cherish'/'perish' because these are hackneyed Romantic terms in English and are often used by Pushkin.

24. my thirtieth year: Pushkin was twenty-eight when he wrote this stanza.

25. In that intoxicating... together now: Pushkin points out in his note 40 that in the first edition of the novel the last two lines of stanza 46 were different and linked with another stanza, 47, all of which he quotes. This version reinforces the anger and satire of the previous stanza: Stanza 46, lines 13a14: Midst swaggerers bereft of soul, Midst fools who s.h.i.+ne in very role,

Stanza 47

Midst children, crafty and faint-hearted, Spoiled and alive to every ruse, Ludicrous villains, dull, outsmarted And judges, captious and obtuse, Midst the coquettes, devout and fervent, Midst those who play the part of servant, Midst modish scenes that daily hail Polite, affectionate betrayal; Midst the forbidding dispensations Of cruel-hearted vanity, Midst the ba.n.a.l inanity Of schemes, of thoughts and conversations, In that intoxicating slough, Where, friends, we bathe together now.

The last two lines are the same as the final couplet of the present stanza 46.

CHAPTER VII.

1. Dmitriyev... Baratynsky... Griboyedov: The first epigraph is from Ivan Dmitriev's (1760a1837) poem The Liberation of Moscow (1795), the second from Baratynsky's The Feasts, the third from Griboyedov's Woe from Wit. Dmitriev's poem is an official ode. Baratynsky's gives an ironic representation of private mores. Griboyedov's play, banned by the censor, is a biting satire on Moscow social life. Together they symbolize three contradictory aspects of contemporary Moscow.

2. Lyovs.h.i.+n: Vasily Lyovs.h.i.+n (1746a1826), a Tula landowner and prolific author of a vast range of subjects. Known in the 1820s for his books Flower Gardens and Vegetable Gardens and A Manual of Agriculture (1802a4). The school's 'fledglings' are gentry and country landowners.

3.Priam: Last king of Troy, a venerable and kind ruler.

4. 'tomfoolery': A simple card game, played today in Russia mainly by children.

5. a cast-iron statuette... hat: Certain to be Napoleon in cla.s.sic pose.

6. Juan and the Giaour: Poems by Byron.

7. three novels of the hour: In a draft Pushkin refers to Melmoth, Rene, Constant's Adolphe' as three novels which Onegin always took with him.

8. Circe: Sorceress in Homer's Odyssey who turns men into swine. Here the meaning is coquette'.

9. philosophic measurement: The Russian has philosophic tables', which is perhaps an ironic reference to Charles Dupin's statistical tables' showing the economic growth of European states including Russia in his book Forces productives et commerciales de la France (Paris, 1827), which was popular in Russia.

10. automedons: Ironic reference to Achilles' charioteer in the Iliad.

11. Petrovsky Castle: Built in 1776, then rebuilt in 1840, the castle was roughly two miles from Moscow. Napoleon stopped here on his way to Moscow from St Petersburg. When the fire broke out in Moscow, he took up residence in the castle. The Larins followed the same route in their journey to Moscow, pa.s.sing Petrovsky Castle on their left.

12. turnpike pillars: The turnpike pillars belonged to a triumphal arch, celebrating victory over Napoleon, which was still unfinished when the Larins entered Moscow.

13. street lamps: The streets were illumined by oil-lit lamps attached to striped pillars. These were lit at dusk and extinguished in the morning by a special staff. They gave out a dullish light.

14. Bokharans: Originating in Bokhara, Central Asia, they sold Eastern goods in Russia. Their shawls were very popular among Russian women in the 1820s.

15. Cossack messengers: Cossacks were employed to take errands by horse.

16. gates where lions curl: Heraldic animals made of iron or alabaster and painted green with no connection to the sculpted lion, nor any necessary resemblance to a real one.

17. Crosses where flocks of jackdaws swirl: According to the censor, the Metropolitan of Moscow took offence at Pushkin's reference. The censor replied that, as far as he knew, jackdaws did indeed alight on church crosses, but that this was a matter for the Chief of Police, who allowed this to happen. The complaint went to the Tsar's minister, Count Benkendorf, who politely advised the Metropolitan not to meddle in trivialities beneath his dignity.

18. 39, 40: There is no stanza missing here. Pushkin is probably trying to convey a sense of pa.s.sing time.

19. St Khariton: A Muscovite identified his address by its proximity to this or that church. The saint in question was a martyr in the Orient, under Diocletian, in about AD 303. Pushkin had spent several years in this residential quarter as a child. The parish was in east Moscow, which explains why the Larins, who entered Moscow by the western gate, had to traverse the entire city.

20. grey-haired Kalmyk: The Kalmyks were originally a Mongolian people who moved westwards in the seventeenth century and were absorbed into the province of Astrakhan in south-west Russia in the eighteenth century, later to become a republic under the Soviets. It was an aristocratic fas.h.i.+on in the eighteenth century to keep a Kalmyk boy in the household, a practice that had fallen into disuse when the Larins arrived, so that the original boy is here an old man. Only a few very rich houses employed a special doorman; in most cases one of the household staff would take over this function like the Kalmyk here, who is still engaged in a household task as he does so.

21. Pachette: A Frenchified (and comic) version of the purely Russian Pasha.

22. St Simeon's: St Simeon's was in the same parish as St Khariton. St Simeon Stylites the Elder (390?-459) was a Syrian hermit who spent thirty-seven years on a pillar.

23. And since I pulled you by the ears: A slightly altered quotation from Griboyedov's Woe from Wit, a recurrent source for this chapter, starting with the epigraph.

24. Lyubov Petrovna, Ivan Petrovich... Semyon Petrovich: These three are siblings.

25. Monsieur Finemouche: Probably a French tutor.

26. Pomeranian dog: The custom of keeping house dogs went back to the second half of the eighteenth century.

27. clubber: The reference is to the prestigious English club, a private establishment founded in 1770, famed for its good food and gambling.

28. graces of young Moscow: An ironic reference to three maids of honour, known in Moscow as the three graces'.

29. The 'archive boys': A designation coined by Pushkin's friend S. Sobolevsky for a circle of writers inspired by the German philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Sch.e.l.ling (1775a1854) known as the lyubomudry ('lovers of wisdom' a a Russified version of philosophy' or philosopher'). The majority of them served in the archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Despite the satire here, Pushkin was by no means hostile to the group, who included the outstanding men of letters Prince Vladimir Odoyevsky, Stefan Shevyryov and Dmitri Venevitinov.

30. Vyazemsky: Pushkin has already referred twice to his friend Vyazemsky a in the epigraph to Chapter I and in lines 6a7 of Chapter III. Here he makes him a member of the cast just as he had done with his friend Kaverin in Chapter I, stanza 16. But, apart from the joke, Vyazemsky appears here as the only surviving figure of any substance in the 'desert' of Russian social life after the collapse of the Decembrist revolt.

31. an old man: Vyazemsky suggested that this is the poet Ivan Dmitriyev (see epigraph).

32. Melpomene: The Greek Muse of tragedy. Pushkin took a negative view of Russian tragedy at the time, arguing for a Shakespearean theatre in place of bad imitations of Racine.

33. Thalia: The Greek Muse of comedy. Given the banning of Griboyedov's Woe from Wit and the general stagnation of comic drama in the mid-1820s, Pushkin took a sceptical view of Russian comedy, too.

34. the a.s.sembly: The Russian a.s.sembly of n.o.bility, founded in 1783.

CHAPTER VIII.

1. Fare thee well... well: The opening of Byron's poem Fare Thee Well' from the cycle Poems of Separation, 1816.

2. The lycee Established by Alexander I in 1810 in the grounds of the Summer Palace outside St Petersburg to educate young gentlemen destined for a professional career. Pushkin boarded there from 1811 to 1817, regarding the school as his real home, and celebrated the date of its opening, 19 October 1811, with anniversary poems from 1817 until the year of his death. The model of the lycee was taken from France.

3. Apuleius: Lucius Apuleius, Roman author (c. AD125a180), whose fantastic and erotic tale The Golden a.s.s was popular in the eighteenth century in Russia. Pushkin read it in French.

4. Cicero: Marcus Tullius Cicero (106a43 BC), renowned Roman writer, politician and thinker.

5. Derzhavin: Gavrila Derzhavin (1743a1816), Russia's first outstanding poet. As a schoolboy, Pushkin enthralled the ancient man with his recitation of his poem Recollections at Tsarskoe Selo' at a public examination at the lycee in 1815.

6. joined the dust: Pushkin excluded the remaining ten lines of this stanza together with several others that were to follow stanza I. They offered a more extended and detailed poetic autobiography.

7. The noise and feasts... excursions: This probably refers to the Green Lamp, a libertarian organization of young n.o.blemen that Pushkin joined after leaving the lycee and that, already conspiratorial, foreshadowed the Decembrist movement.

8. But I seceded... fled a far: Pushkin refers here to his exile through the prism of his Romantic narrative poems, Prisoner of the Caucasus (1820a21) and The Gipsies (1824), where the hero voluntarily flees from civilization.

9. Leonora: Heroine of the much-translated Lenore by Burger.

10. Tauris: The Crimea, where Pushkin spent three weeks during his first year of exile.

11. The Nereids: In Greek mythology, sea nymphs, the fifty daughters of Nereus and Doris.

12. Moldavia: Part of the province of Bessarabia, where Pushkin was exiled 1820a24. The Gipsies (1824), written later in Odessa and Mikhailovskoye, his family estate, drew its material from the environs of Kis.h.i.+nev, capital of Bessarabia.

13. Then suddenly... French book: This refers to the third stage of Pushkin's exile at his family estate at Mikhailovskoye, when the Muse is transformed into Tatiana.

14. A Harold, Quaker, Pharisee: 'Harold: i.e. Byron's Childe Harold. Quaker: a member of the religious society of friends, founded by George Fox in 1648a50, adopting peaceful principles and plain living. Pharisee: originally a member of an ancient Jewish sect distinguished by its strict obsevance of tradition and written law; latterly, a self-righteous person or hypocrite.

15. Demon: A reference to Pushkin's poem 'The Demon' (1824).

16. leaving boat for ball: An allusion to Griboyedov's Woe from Wit, referring to the hero Chatsky's return to Moscow in 1819 after three years abroad.

17. s.h.i.+shkov: Admiral Alexander s.h.i.+shkov (1754a1841), leader of the Archaist group of writers who contested the inclusion or adaptation of French vocabulary into Russian.

18. The Cleopatra of Neva: Probably Countess Yelena Zavadovsky, whose cold, queenly beauty was the talk of society.

19. Spain's amba.s.sador: An anachronism. There was no Spanish amba.s.sador in St Petersburg in 1824, when Chapter VIII takes place. A new amba.s.sador appeared in 1825, when Russia resumed diplomatic relations with Spain, broken off during the Spanish revolution. This and similar anachronisms in the last two chapters suggest that Pushkin wanted to set a post-Decembrist background to his story.

20. ten strikes: Ten o'clock. Onegin visits at the earliest opportunity. Normally, guests would arrive at a soiree much later.

21. The badge of which two sisters prated: The badge is a court decoration inscribed with the royal monogram granted by the Tsar to women who became ladies-in-waiting to the Empress. In an unpublished version of this stanza the sisters are referred to as orphans. When their father, General Borozdin, died, leaving them penniless, the Tsar took them under his wing.

22. the war: The reference is presumably to the war with Poland of 1830, another anachronism.

23. he found a bore: Omitted lines: there are a number of variants behind stanzas 23a6 that either reinforce the civility surrounding Tatiana in stanza 23 or sharpen the satire of stanzas 24a6.

24. Prolasov: Prolasov or Prolazov is derived from prolaz' or pro-laza', meaning climber' or sycophant'. He is also a ridiculous figure in eighteenth-century Russian comedies and popular prints.

25. Saint-Priest: Count Emmanuil Saint-Priest (1806a28) was a hussar and fas.h.i.+onable cartoonist, son of a French emigre.

26. Palm Week cherub: Paper figures of cherubs (glued to gingerbread, etc.) sold at the annual fair during Palm Week, the week preceding Easter.