Chapter 5
no Another bard. . . shade: 'See First Snow, a poem by Prince Vyazemsky' (Pushkin's note). Prince Pyotr Vyazemsky (1792 1878), poet, critic, and wit, was a close friend of Pushkin. He appears in the novel by name in Chapter 7, stanza 49.
bard of Finland's maid divine!: 'See the descriptions of the Finnish winter in Baratynsky's Edd1(Pushkin's note).
112 lThe Kitty's Song': at Yuletide, and especially on Twelfth Night, several traditions for fortune-telling were observed by women and girls (particularly among the common people). The shapes taken by molten wax or lead when submerged in water were read as prophetic, and so-called 'dish divining songs' were sung. In the latter case, girls would place their rings in a covered bowl of water before singing carols. At the end of each song, a ring was drawn at random, and its owner would deduce some portent or meaning from the kind of song just sung. Tatyana's song on this occasion is a portent of death, whereas 'The Kitty's Song', which girls prefer, is a prophecy of marriage.
113 trains a mirror. . . nearer: training a mirror on the moon was another method of divination, the reflected face of the man-in-the-moon supposedly revealing to the enquiring maiden her future husband.
'Agafon': by asking the name of the first stranger she encountered, a girl hoped to learn the name of her future fianc. The name that Tatyana hears, Agafon (from the Greek 'Agathon'), sounds particularly rustic and old-fashioned, and therefore comic, to a Russian ear.
conjure all night through: another device for discovering one's husband-to-be: conjuring up his spirit at an all-night vigil.
Svetlana: the heroine of Zhukovsky's ballad. In the poem, when Svetlana conjures her absent lover, he carries her off to his grave. Fortunately, Svetlana's terrors remain only a dream.
Lel: supposedly a pagan Slavic deity of love; more likely (according to Nabokov) merely derived from the chanted refrain of old songs (e.g., the ay lyuli lyuli of many Russian folk-songs).
119 Martyn Zadck: the name, evidently a fabrication, appears as the author of several collections of prophecies and dream interpretations, published both in Russia and in Germany.
120 Malvina: a novel by Mme Cottin (1773-1807).
Two Petriads: heroic poems on Peter the Great, several of which were in circulation at the time.
Marmontel: Jean Franois Marmontel (1723-99), French encyclopedist and short- story writer.
121 But lo!. . . the sun: 'A parody of some well-known lines by Lomonosov' (Puskin's note). The crimson hand of Aurora (deriving of course from the Homeric 'rosy-fingered dawn') appears in several odes by M. V. Lomonosov (1711-65), scientist and poet and the founder of Moscow University.
Buynov: Mr Rowdy, the hero of a popular and racy poem by Pushkin's uncle, Vasily Pushkin; thus, playfully, Pushkin's cousin. The names given to the other guests are also traditionally comic ones: Pustyakov (Trifle), Gvozdin (Bash), Skotinin (Brute), Petushkov (Rooster).
122 Rveillez-vous, belle endormie: Awaken, sleeping beauty.
Tatyan: Triquet pronounces Tatyana's name in the French manner, with the stress on the last syllable. 124 a lavish pie: the Russian pirog, a meat- or cabbage-pie.
Zizi: Evpraksia Wulf (1809-83), who as a young girl lived near Pushkin's family estate at Mikhailovskoe and with whom he flirted when confined there in 1824. Pushkin became her lover briefly in 1829. Writing to a friend in 1836 from Mikhailovskoe on his last visit there, he recalls her as 'a formerly half-ethereal maiden, now a well-fed wife, big with child for the fifth time'.
127 Albani's glory: Francesco Albani (1578-1660): Italian painter much admired in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
Chapter 6
131 La sotto. . . dole: 'There, where the days are cloudy and short | Is born a race that has no fear of death.'
135 Regulus: the Roman general Marcus Atilius Regulus, who, upon his capture by the Carthaginians, was sent to Rome to deliver harsh terms for peace; whereupon he returned to his captors as he had promised and was executed.
Vry's: Caf Very, a Parisian restaurant.
141 Delvig: Baron Anton Delvig (1798-1831), minor poet and one of Pushkin's closest friends, his classmate at the Lyceum in Tsar-skoe Selo.
144 Lepage's deadly pieces: Jean Lepage (1779-1822), famous Parisian gunsmith.
Chapter 7
158 Lyovshin's crew: students of works by Vasily Lyovshin (1746-1826), author of numerous tracts on gardening and agriculture.
165 iron bust: A statuette of Napoleon.
166 The bard of Juan and the Giaour. Byron.
173 Automedons: Autmedon was the charioteer of Achilles in the Iliad.
174 Petrovsky Castle: the chateau not far from Moscow where Napoleon took refuge from the fires in the city.
