4
Sunday bath; meantime she'd give the maids a beating if her cross mood was at its worst -- but
never
asked her husband first. XXXIII No, soon she changed her old demeanour: girls' albums, signed in blood for choice; Praskovya re-baptized ``Polina''; conversing in a singsong voice; lacing her stays up very tightly; pronouncing through her nose politely the Russian N, like N in French; soon all that went without a wrench: album and stays, Princess Alina, sentiment, notebook, verses, all she quite forgot -- began to call ``Akulka'' the onetime Selina, and introduced, for the last lap, a quilted chamber-robe and cap. {79} XXXIV Her loving spouse with approbation left her to follow her own line, trusted her without hesitation, and wore his dressing-gown to dine. His life went sailing in calm weather; sometimes the evening brought together neighbours and friends in kindly group, a plain, unceremonious troop, for grumbling, gossiping and swearing and for a chuckle or a smile. The evening passes, and meanwhile here's tea that Olga's been preparing; after that, supper's served, and so bed-time, and time for guests to go. XXXV Throughout their life, so calm, so peaceful, sweet old tradition was preserved: for them, in Butterweek
5
the greaseful, Russian pancakes were always served; < ... ... >
2
they needed kvas like air; at table their guests, for all they ate and drank, were served in order of their rank. {80} XXXVI And so they lived, two ageing mortals, till he at last was summoned down into the tomb's wide open portals, and once again received a crown. Just before dinner, from his labours he rested -- wept for by his neighbours, his children and his faithful wife, far more than most who leave this life. He was a good and simple
barin;
6
above the dust of his remains the funeral monument explains: ``A humble sinner, Dimitry Larin, beneath the stone reposes here, servant of God, and Brigadier.'' XXXVII Lensky, restored to his manorial penates, came to cast an eye over his neighbour's plain memorial, and offer to that ash a sigh; sadly he mourned for the departed. ``Poor Yorick,'' said he, broken-hearted: ``he dandled me as a small boy. How many times I made a toy of his Ochákov
7
decoration! He destined Olga's hand for me, kept asking: "shall I live to see"...'' so, full of heart-felt tribulation, Lensky composed in autograph a madrigal for epitaph. {81} XXXVIII There too, he honoured, hotly weeping, his parents' patriarchal dust with lines to mark where they were sleeping... Alas! the generations must, as fate's mysterious purpose burrows, reap a brief harvest on their furrows; they rise and ripen and fall dead: others will follow where they tread... and thus our race, so fluctuating, grows, surges, boils, for lack of room presses its forebears to the tomb. We too shall find our hour is waiting; it will be our descendants who out of this world will crowd us too. XXXIX So glut yourselves until you're sated on this unstable life, my friends! its nullity I've always hated, I know too surely how it ends. I'm blind to every apparition; and yet a distant admonition of hope sometimes disturbs my heart; it would be painful to depart and leave no faint footprint of glory... I never lived or wrote for praise; yet how I wish that I might raise to high renown my doleful story, that there be just one voice which came, like a true friend, to speak my name. {82} XL And someone's heart will feel a quiver, for maybe fortune will have saved from drowning's death in Lethe river the strophe over which I slaved; perhaps -- for flattering hope will linger -- some future dunce will point a finger at my famed portrait and will say:
he
was a poet in his day. I thank him without reservation, the peaceful Muses' devotee, whose memory will preserve for me the fleeting works of my creation, whose kindly hand will ruffle down the laurel in the old man's crown! {83}
Notes to Chapter Two
1
Pushkin first wrote ``imperial portraits''; but this he later altered ``for reasons of censorship'' because, as Nabokov explains, ``tsars were not to be mentioned in so offhand a way''.
2
Lines discarded by Pushkin.
3
``Sweet-sounding Greek names like Agathon... etc., are only current in Russia among the common people.'' Pushkin's note.
4
Serfs chosen as recruits for the army had their forelock cut off.
5
The week before Lent.
6
Gentleman, squire.
7
Fortress captured from the Turks in 1788. --------
Chapter Three
Elle était fille, elle était amoureuse. Malfilâtre ``You're off? why, there's a poet for you!'' ``Goodbye, Onegin, time I went.'' ``Well, I won't hold you up or bore you; but where are all your evenings spent?'' ``At the Larins'!'' ``But how mysterious. For goodness' sake, you can't be serious killing each evening off like that?'' ``You're wrong.'' ``But what I wonder at is this -- one sees from here the party: in first place -- listen, am I right? -- a simple Russian family night: the guests are feasted, good and hearty, on jam, and speeches in regard to rains, and flax, and the stockyard.'' {84} II ``I don't see what's so bad about it.'' ``Boredom, that's what so bad, my friend.'' ``Your modish world, I'll do without it; give me the homely hearth, and lend...'' ``You pile one eclogue on another! for God's sake, that will do. But, brother, you're really going? Well, I'm sad. Now, Lensky, would it be so bad for me to glimpse this Phyllis ever with whom your thoughts are so obsessed -- pen, tears, and rhymes, and all the rest? Present me, please.'' ``You're joking.'' ``Never.'' ``Gladly.'' ``So when?'' ``Why not tonight? They will receive us with delight.'' III ``Let's go.'' The friends, all haste and vigour, drive there, and with formality are treated to the fullest rigour of old-lime hospitality. The protocol is all one wishes: the jams appear in little dishes; on a small table's oilcloth sheen the jug of bilberry wine is seen.