Eugene Onegin
Page 23
18. 39, 40: There is no stanza missing here. Pushkin is probably trying to convey a sense of passing 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 fashion 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 Schelling (1775–1854) known as the lyubomudry (‘lovers of wisdom’ – 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 – in the epigraph to Chapter I and in lines 6–7 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 Assembly: The Russian Assembly of Nobility, 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 lycée 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 lycée was taken from France.
3. Apuleius: Lucius Apuleius, Roman author (c. AD125–180), whose fantastic and erotic tale The Golden Ass was popular in the eighteenth century in Russia. Pushkin read it in French.
4. Cicero: Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 BC), renowned Roman writer, politician and thinker.
5. Derzhavin: Gavrila Derzhavin (1743–1816), 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 lycée 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 noblemen that Pushkin joined after leaving the lycée 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 (1820–21) 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 1820–24. The Gipsies (1824), written later in Odessa and Mikhailovskoye, his family estate, drew its material from the environs of Kishinev, 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 1648–50, 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. Shishkov: Admiral Alexander Shishkov (1754–1841), 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 ambassador: An anachronism. There was no Spanish ambassador in St Petersburg in 1824, when Chapter VIII takes place. A new ambassador 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 soirée 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 23–6 that either reinforce the civility surrounding Tatiana in stanza 23 or sharpen the satire of stanzas 24–6.
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 (1806–28) was a hussar and fashionable cartoonist, son of a French émigré.
26. Palm Week cherub: Paper figures of cherubs (glued to gingerbread, etc.) sold at the annual fair during Palm Week, the week preceding Easter.
27. A jackanapes… overstarched: The reference is possibly to Thomas Raikes, an Englishman who claims he met Pushkin in 1829. Beau Brummell had set the fashion for a lightly starched cravat in the first decade and a half of the century. Overstarching, which became the fashion in the late twenties, in France and Russia, was considered vulgar.
28. Morpheus: God of sleep.
29. I shall offend you: An echo of St Preux’s letter to Julie (part 1, letter 2) in Rousseau’s La Nouvelle Héloise: ‘Je sens d’avance le poids de votre indignation…’
30. Manzoni, Gibbon: Alessandro Manzoni (1785–1873), Italian novelist, author of I promessi sposi (The Betrothed, 1825–7), which laid the basis for modern literary Italian. Edward Gibbon (1737–94), English historian. Onegin would have read his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776–88) in a French translation.
31. Chamfort: Sébastien Roch Nicolas Chamfort (1741–94), author of Maximes et Pensées (Maxims and Thoughts, 1803). Pushkin liked his aphorisms.
32. Bichat and Herder and Tissot: Marie Francois Xavier Bichat (1771–1802), French anatomist and physiologist. Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803), German philosopher and critic, notable collector of folk songs, and writer on history, literature and language. Simon Andre Tissot (1728–97), famous Swiss doctor, author of De la santé des gens de lettres (On the Health of Men of Letters, 1768).
33. Bayle: Pierre Bayle (1647–1706), French philosopher, author of famous Dictionnaire historique et critique (Historical and Critical Dictionary, 1697).
34. Fontenelle: Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle (1657–1757), French sceptical philosopher, author of Entretiens sur la pluralité des mondes (Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds, 1686), the Russian translation of which was banned by the Church.
35. The almanachs… treating me with animus: Almanachs, unlike journals or reviews, appeared irregularly and were more like anthologies. While he was writing Chapter VIII, Pushkin came under attack from the main literary journals, especially The Northern Bee, edited by the police spy Bulgarin.
36. E sempre bene: ‘And excellently’.
37. magnetism: ‘Magnetism’ became a fashionable word at the time to designate immaterial influences.
38. Idol Mio, Benedetta: The barcarolle was popular in Russia at the time. Pushkin’s neighbours at Trigorskoye enjoyed singing Kozlov’s poem ‘Venetian Night’ to the tune of a gondolier’s recitative (‘Benedetta sia la madre’ (‘Blest be the mother’)). ‘Idol mio’ is probably a duet by the Italian composer Vicenzo Gabusi: ‘Se, o cara, sorridi’ (‘If you were to smile, my dear’), the refrain of which is: ‘Idol mio, piú pace non ho’ (‘My idol, I have no peace any more’).
39. blue blocks of hewn-out ice: In winter huge blocks of ice were cut from the Neva to be stored in refrigerators. During the March thaw sledges would transport them to buyers.
40. Sadi: Sadi or Saadi (b. between 1203 and 1210, d. 1292) was a Persian poet, born in Shiraz. Pushkin’s quotation from Saadi gave cause to official suspicion that he was referring to the Decembrists.
FRAGMENTS OF ONEGIN’S JOURNEY
1. Fragments of Onegin’s Journey: This was originally intended to be chapter VIII (with the preceding chapter in the present volume intended as chapter IX). It was published separately and includes stanzas written at various times. The description of Odessa was composed in 1825 while Pushkin was working on Chapter IV. The beginning of the published text was written in the autumn of 1829 and the final stanzas were completed on 18 December 1830, when Pushkin was staying at his Boldino estate. The Foreword first appeared in a separate 1832 edition of Chapter VIII. In the 1833 edition of the entire novel Pushkin included the Foreword and the Journey after his Notes. It is unclear whether a completed version of the Journey ever existed despite Pushkin’s reference to it in the Foreword.
The route of the Journey is unclear. It is possible that Onegin spent some time abroad. He is away for some three and a half years. Since the surviving stanzas of the Journey represent him rushing from place to place, driven by ennui, it is unlikely that he spent all of that time in Russia. Moreover, his return to St Petersburg is compared with Chatsky’s leap from boat to ball’ in Chapter VIII, stanza 13, line 14.
Some of the stanzas were omitted with an eye to censorship, especially Onegin’s visit to the notorious military settlements set up by Count Arakcheev (1769–1854), Alexander I’s military adviser. These were harsh detention centres to which peasants were conscripted. Katenin (see below) wrote to Annenkov, Pushkin’s first biographer, on 24 April 1853, that the poet had decided to sacrifice the entire chapter because of the violence of his comments. In his Foreword Pushkin is silent about his intentions and simply acknowledges Katenin’s very different criticism of the omission there. Since Novgorod was one of the locations of these settlements, it has been suggested that Onegin’s visit to them coincides with his stay in the town. In other words, the Fragments may have begun with such a visit. It is possible that Onegin also saw the settlements outside Odessa, the town that takes up most of the Journey. Pavel Ivanovich Pestel’ (1793–1826), one of the leaders of the Decembrists in the South, wanted to foment a revolt in these camps.
2. nine Camenae: Roman water nymphs identified with the nine Greek Muses.
3. Makaryev: Annual fair originating outside the Makaryev monastery some sixty miles east of Nizhny and transferred into the town in 1817.
4. Terek: Caucasian river.
5. Kura, Aragva: Caucasian rivers. The Kura is the most important river in Transcaucasia.
6. There were the Russian tents unfurled: The Caucasus was first annexed by Peter the Great in 1722.
7. Beshtu: One of the five peaks of Besh Tau, a mountain, another one of which is Mashuk.
8. Pylades, Orestes: In Greek mythology, Orestes, accompanied by his friend Pylades, sails to Tauris to seek absolution from matricide. The rule of the small kingdom requires all strangers to be sacrificed to Diana, the local deity. Each of the two friends wants to die in the place of the other.
9. Mithridates: King of Pontus, who in 63 BC ordered a Gallic mercenary to kill him.
10. Mickiewicz sang his passion: Adam Bernard Mickiewicz (1798–1855), Polish poet, spent four and a half years in Russia, visiting the Crimea in 1825 and composing the Crimean Sonnets. A friend of Pushkin until the Polish uprising of 1830, the suppression of which Pushkin enthusiastically supported.
11. What yearning pressed my flaming heart: Pushkin was in love with a daughter of the Raevsky family, with whom he was staying.
12. trepak: An energetic peasant dance.
13. ‘And cabbage soup, while I’m the squire’: Quotation from the poet Antiokh Dimitrievich Kantemir’s (1708–44) fifth satire, ‘On Human Depravity in General, in literal translation: ‘A pot of cabbage soup, but I m the big one, master of the house. A similar Russian proverb reads: ‘My fare is plain, but I am my own master.
14. O fountain of Bakhchisaray: Pushkin’s narrative poem The Fountain of Bakhchisaray, composed in 1822 and published in 1824. Zarema is one of two female characters.
15. Morali: Born in Tunis, Morali (Ali) was a sea captain, suspected of piracy. He cut an extravagant figure in Odessa and was a close friend of Pushkin who referred to him as the Corsair (hero of Byron’s eponymous poem).
16. Tumansky: Vasily Ivanovich Tumansky (1800–1860), a minor poet, worked with Pushkin as a clerk for Count Vorontsov, Pushkin’s employer in Odessa.
17. Why, water… must be wrought: Water was transported to the town for about two miles uphill in small barrels. Later, aqueducts were used.
18. casino: Pushkin spells ‘casino in Western letters. It was c
alled ‘casino de commerce, where not only gambling, but all manner of financial transactions took place, and it doubled as a ballroom.
19. Oton: Russian version of Automne or Autonne, the name of a well-known French restaurateur in Odessa.
20. A trader’s youthful wife: Probably Amalia Riznich, one of Pushkin’s Odessa loves.
21. Ausonia: Italy.
CHAPTER X
1. Chapter X: Pushkin composed this politically explosive chapter in 1830, but burned most of it. Historical in character, it has nothing to do with the previous narrative, although there is evidence to suggest that Onegin might turn up, possibly as a Decembrist.
2. A ruler… those years ago: Pushkin’s attitude to Alexander I changed over the years as the latter became more reactionary. ‘Those years ago’ refers to the defeats of 1805–7, at Austerlitz and Eylau, when Alexander signed the humiliating Tilsit peace treaty with Napoleon.
3. To pluck… pitched his tent: Alexander’s authority was drastically undermined by these losses and the initial failures of the 1812 war, symbolized here by the ‘plucking’ of the Russian eagle. Napoleon’s tent refers to the one he constructed on a raft in the middle of the Neman river where he conducted the negotiations of the Tilsit peace treaty. By appearing here several minutes before Alexander, Napoleon played the host, so humiliating the Tsar with his cheerful welcome.
4. Barclay: Prince Mikhail Bogdanovich Barclay-de-Tolly (1761–1818) commanded the Russian armies during the first part of the war, but his policy of retreat gave rise to accusations of treachery.
5. king of kings: A paraphrase of Agamemnon’s title in the Iliad, often applied to Alexander I during the period 1813–15 by official publications. Another provenance is a song sung in the French opera in 1814.
6. as he fattened: The Russian says simply: And the fatter, the heavier’, but it seems likely that the reference is to Alexander, whose personal fatness’ after victory creates greater heaviness’ for the Russian people.