grand monde
? that rank, and riches, and the wish to thank my husband for his wounds in battle earn us the favour of the Court? that, for all this, my shame's report would cause widespread remark and tattle, and so in the
salons
could make a tempting plume for you to take? {229} XLV ``I weep... In case there still should linger your Tanya's image in your mind, then know that your reproving finger, your cold discourse, were less unkind -- if I had power to choose your fashion -- than this humiliating passion and than these letters, and these tears. At least you then showed for my years respect, and mercy for my dreaming. But now! what brings you to my feet? What trifling could be more complete? What power enslaves you, with your seeming advantages of heart and brain, to all that's trivial and inane? XLVI ``To me, Onegin, all this glory is tinsel on a life I hate; this modish whirl, this social story, my house, my evenings, all that state -- what's in them? All this loud parading, and all this flashy masquerading, the glare, the fumes in which I live, this very day I'd gladly give, give for a bookshelf, a neglected garden, a modest home, the place of our first meeting face to face, and the churchyard where, new-erected, a humble cross, in woodland gloom, stands over my poor nurse's tomb. {230} XLVII ``Bliss was so near, so altogether attainable!... But now my lot is firmly cast. I don't know whether I acted thoughtlessly or not: you see, with tears and incantation mother implored me; my sad station made all fates look the same... and so I married. I beseech you, go; I know your heart: it has a feeling for honour, a straightforward pride. I love you (what's the use to hide behind deceit or double-dealing?) but I've become another's wife -- and I'll be true to him, for life.'' XLVIII She went -- and Eugene, all emotion, stood thunder-struck. In what wild round of tempests, in what raging ocean his heart was plunged! A sudden sound, the clink of rowels, met his hearing; Tatyana's husband, now appearing... But from the hero of my tale, just at this crisis of his gale, reader, we must be separating, for long... for evermore. We've chased him far enough through wild and waste. Hurrah! let's start congratulating ourselves on our landfall. It's true, our vessel's long been overdue. {231} XLIX Reader, I wish that, as we parted -- whoever you may be, a friend, a foe -- our mood should be warm-hearted. Goodbye, for now we make an end. Whatever in this rough confection you sought -- tumultuous recollection, a rest from toil and all its aches, or just grammatical mistakes, a vivid brush, a witty rattle -- God grant that from this little book for heart's delight, or fun, you took, for dreams, or journalistic battle, God grant you took at least a grain. On this we'll part; goodbye again! L And my companion, so mysterious, goodbye to you, my true ideal, my task, so vivid and so serious and yet so light. All that is real and enviable for a poet, in your pursuit I've come to know it: oblivion of life's stormy ways, sweet talk with friends. How many days since, through the mist that dreams arise on, young Tanya first appeared to me, Onegin too -- and there to see, a free romance's far horizon, still dim, through crystal's magic glass, before my gaze began to pass. {232} LI Of those who heard my opening pages in friendly gatherings where I read, as Sadi
17
sang in earlier ages, ``some are far distant, some are dead''. They've missed Eugene's completed etching. But she who modelled for the sketching of Tanya's image... Ah, how great the toll of those borne off by fate! Blest he who's left the hurly-burly of life's repast betimes, nor sought to drain its beaker down, nor thought of finishing its book, but early has wished it an abrupt goodbye -- and, with my Eugene, so have I. {233}
Notes to Chapter Eight
1
Gavrila Derzhávin (1745-1816), ``Russia's first outstanding poet'' (Nabokov). While still at the Lyceum in Tsarskoe Selo, in 1815, Pushkin read some of his verses to him. The stanza was unfinished.
2
Lenore,
romantic ballad by Gottfried August Bürger, 1773.
3
``
Rout
(Eng.), an evening assembly without dancing; means properly crowd.'' Pushkin's note.
4
Refers to Pushkin's poem
The Demon,
of 1823.
5
Hero of Griboedov's
Woe from Wit
, 1824.
6
Admiral Alexander Shishkov (1754-1841) championed the purity ot the Russian language against the encroachment of foreign words.
7
Probably an allusion to Bulgárin, an unfriendly critic of Pushkin's work.
8
Nina Voronskoy, imaginary belle of Petersburg society.
9
Court decoration given to the Empress's ladies-in-waiting. Stanza unfinished.
10
Name left blank by Pushkin.
11
Count Emmanuel Sen-Pri (1806-1828) had a reputation as a cartoonist. He was the son of the Comte de Saint-Priest, a French émigré.
12
Author of
Maximes et Pensées,
Paris, 1796.
13
Author of
Recherches physiologiques sur la vie et la mort,
Paris, 1799.
14
Author of
De la santé des gens de lettres,
Lausanne and Lyon, 1768.
15
Pierre Bayle, French philosopher.
16
Author of
Dialogues des Morts,
1683.
17
Persian poet of the thirteenth century.