Part 39 (1/2)

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.