Стихотворения - Владимир Набоков

444–445. FROM EUGENE ONEGIN

I «My uncle has most honest principles:when taken ill in earnest,he has made one respect himand nothing better could invent.To others his example is a lesson;but, good God, what a boreto sit by a sick man both day and night,without moving a step away!What base perfidiousnessthe half-alive one to amuse,adjust for him the pillows,sadly present the medicine,sigh — and think inwardlywhen will the devil take you?»

II Thus a young scapegrace thought,with posters flying in the dust,by the most lofty will of Zeusthe heir of all his relatives.Friends of Lyudmila and Ruslan!The hero of my novel,without preambles, forthwith,I'd like to have you meet:Onegin, a good pal of mine,was born upon the Neva's banks,where maybe you were born,or used to shine, my reader!There formerly I too promenaded —but harmful is the North to me.

III Having served excellently, nobly,his father lived by means of debts;gave three balls yearlyand squandered everything at last.Fate guarded Eugene:at first, Madame looked after him;later, Monsieur replaced her.The child was boisterous but nice.Monsieur l'Abbé, a poor wretch of a Frenchman,not to wear out the infant,would teach him everything in play,bothered him not with stern moralization,scolded him slightly for his pranks,and to Letniy Sad took him for walks.

IV Then, when tumultuous youth'sseason for Eugene came,season of hopes and tender melancholy,Monsieur was ousted from the place.Now my Onegin is at large:hair cut after the latest fashion,dressed like a London Dandy —and finally he saw the World.In French impeccablyhe could express himself and write,danced the mazurka lightly,and bowed unconstrainedly —what would you more? The World decidedhe was clever and very nice.

V All of us had a bit of schoolingin something and somehow:hence education, God be praised,is in our midst not hard to flaunt.Onegin was, in the opinion of many(judges resolute and stern),a learned fellow but a pedant.He had the happy talent,without constraint, in conversationslightly to touch on everything,keep silent, with an expert's learned air,during a grave discussion,and provoke the smiles of ladieswith the fire of unexpected epigrams.

VI Latin has gone at present out of fashion;still, to tell you the truth,he had enough knowledge of Latinto make out epigraphs,descant on Juvenal,put at the bottom of a letter vale,and he remembered, though not without fault,two lines from the Aeneid.He had no urge to rummagein the chronological dustof the earth's historiography,but anecdotes of days gone by,from Romulus to our dayshe did keep in his memory.

VII Lacking the lofty passion not to sparelife for the sake of sounds,an iamb from a trochee —no matter how we strove — he could not tell apart;dispraised Homer, Theocritus,but read, in compensation, Adam Smith,and was a deep economist:that is, he could assess the waya state grows rich,and what it lives upon, and whyit needs not goldwhen it has got the simple product.His father could not understand him,and mortgaged his lands.

VIII All Eugene knew besidesI have no leisure to recount;but where he was a veritable genius,what he more firmly knew than all the arts,what since his prime had been to himtoil, anguish, joy,what occupied the livelong dayhis fretting indolence —was the art of soft passionwhich Naso sang,wherefore a sufferer he endedhis brilliant and tumultuous spanin Moldavia, in the wild depth of steppes,far from his Italy.

XXXII Diana's bosom, Flora's dimpleare very charming, I agree —but there's greater charm, less simple,— the instep of Terpsichore.By prophesying to the eyea prize with which no prize can vie'tis a fair token and a snarefor swarms of daydreams. Everywhereits grace, sweet reader, I admire:at long-hemmed tables, half-concealed,in spring, upon a velvet field,in winter, at a grated fire,in ballrooms, on a glossy floor,on the bleak boulders of a shore.

XXXIII I see the surf, the storm-rack flying....Oh, how I wanted to competewith the tumultuous breakers dyingin adoration at her feet!Together with those waves — how muchI wished to kiss what they could touch!No — even when my youth would burnits fiercest — never did I yearnwith such a torturing sensationto kiss the lips of nymphs, the rosethat on the cheek of beauty glowsor breasts in mellow palpitation —no, never did a passion rollsuch billows in my bursting soul.

XXXIV Sometimes I dream of other minutesby hidden memory retold —and feel her little ankle in itscontented stirrup which I hold;again to build mad builders start;again within a withered heartone touch engenders fire; again— the same old love, the same old pain…But really, my loquacious lyrehas lauded haughty belles too long— for they deserve neither the song,not the emotions they inspire:eyes, words — all their enchantments cheatas much as do their pretty feet.

446. EPIGRAM{*}

(On Vorontzov)

Half-merchant and half-princehalf-scholar and half-dunce,half-knave — but there's a chancehe'll be complete for once.

447. THE NAME{*}

What is my name to you? 'Twill die:a wave that has but rolled to reachwith a lone splash a distant beach;or in the timbered night a cry…

'Twill leave a lifeless trace amongnames on your tablets: the designof an entangled gravestone linein an unfathomable tongue.

What is it then? A long-dead past,lost in the rush of madder dreams,upon your soul it will not castMnemosyne's pure tender beams.

But if some sorrow comes to you,utter my name with sighs, and tellthe silence: «Memory is true —there beats a heart wherein I dwell».

448. WINTER MORNING{*}

A magic day — sunshine and frost —but you, in dreamland still are lost…Come, open your enchanting eyeswith honeyed indolence replete....Star of the North, arise to meetAurora in her wintry skies.

That blizzard yesternight! It spreaddimness and tumult overheard.The moon through a lugubrious veilwas but a blur of jaundiced grey,and you were listless.... But to-day —well, let the window tell its tale:

Fabulous carpets of rich snowunder the cloudless heavens glow.Alone the gauzy birches seemto show some black, while green occursamong the frost-bespangled firs,and blue-shot ice adorns the stream.

The room is flooded with a lightlike amber, and with all its mightthe hot stove crackles. Lolling therein meditation is no doubtenjoyable… but what abouta sledge behind the chestnut mare?

Sweet friend, together we shall speedyielding to our impatient steedon new-born whiteness, fleet and free,and visit silent fields of snow,woods that were lush two months ago,a lakeshore that is dear to me…

Михаил Лермонтов{*}

449. FAREWELL{*}

Farewell! Nevermore shall we meet,we shall never touch hands — so farewell!Your heart is now free, but in nonewill it ever be happy to dwell.

One moment together we came:time eternal is nothing to this!All senses we suddenly drained,burned all in the flame of one kiss.

Farewell! And be wise, do not grieve:our love was too short for regret,and hard as we found it to partharder still would it be if we met.

450. MY NATIVE LAND{*}

If I do love my land, strangely I love it:'tis something reason cannot cure.Glories of war I do not covet,but neither peace proud and secure,not the mysterious past and dim romancescan spur my soul to pleasant fancies.

And still I love thee — why I hardly know:I love thy fields so coldly meditative,native dark swaying woods and nativerivers that sea-like foam and flow.

In a clattering cart I love to travelon country roads: watching the rising star,yearning for sheltered sleep, my eyes unravelthe trembling lights of sad hamlets afar.

I also love the smoke of burning stubble,vans huddled in the prairie night;corn on a hill crowned with the doublegrace of twin birches gleaming white.

Few are the ones who feel the pleasureof seeing barns bursting with grain and hay,well-thatched cottage-roofs made to measureand shutters carved and windows gay.

And when the evening dew is glistening,long may I hear the festive soundof rustic dancers stamping, whistlingwith drunkards clamoring around.

451. THE TRIPLE DREAM{*}

I dreamt that with a bullet in my sidein a hot gorge of Daghestan I lay.Deep was the wound and steaming, and the tideof my life-blood ebbed drop by drop away.

Alone I lay amid a silent mazeof desert sand and bare cliffs rising steep,their tawny summits burning in the blazethat burned me too; but lifeless was my sleep.

And in a dream I saw the candle-flameof a gay supper in the land I knew;young women crowned with flowers.... And my nameon their light lips hither and thither flew.

But one of them sat pensively apart,not joining in the light-lipped gossiping,and there alone, God knows what made her heart,her young heart dream of such a hidden thing....

For in her dream she saw a gorge, somewherein Daghestan, and knew the man who laythere on the sand, the dead man, unawareof steaming wound and blood ebbing away.

452. THE ANGEL{*}