A crowd of slaves on every side?
She heeds and doesn't heed the roses,
The cavatina, heated sighs,
The jesting praise, the pleading eyes .. .
While in the back her husband dozes,
Cries out from sleep Encore!and then
Emits a yawn and snores again.
* * *
The great finale's thunder surges.
In noisy haste the throng departs;
Upon the square the crowd emerges,
Beneath the gleam of lamps and stars.
Ausonia's * happy sons are humming
The playful tune that keeps on drumming,
Against the will, inside their brains
While I roar out the light refrains.
But now it's late. Odessa's dreaming;
The breathless night is warm and soft,
While high above the moon's aloft,
The sky all lightly veiled and streaming.
No stir disturbs the silence round,
Except the sea's incessant sound.
* * *
And so I lived in old Odessa . . .
EXPLANATORY NOTES
2 Ptri. . . particulire: the main epigraph to the novel, apparently written by Pushkin himself, translates roughly as follows: 'Steeped in vanity, he was possessed moreover by that particular sort of pride that makes a man acknowledge with equal indifference both his good and evil actions, a consequence of a sense of superiority, perhaps imaginary. From a private letter.'
dedication: The dedication was originally addressed to Pushkin's friend (and the first publisher of Eugene Onegin) P. A. Pletnyov ( 1792-1862). In later editions, the piece was retained as a kind of preface, but without the inscription to Pletnyov.
Chapter 1
5 My uncle, man of firm convictions: the novel's opening words mimic a line from the fable The Ass and the Peasant by Ivan Krylov (1796-1844): 'An ass of most sincere convictions.'
Ludmila's and Rusln's adherents: the author's address to his readers and references to other of his writings are devices used throughout the novel. The allusion here is to Pushkin's first major work, the mock epic Ruslan and Ludmila.
noxious in the north: 'Written in Bessarabia' (Pushkin's note). A lightly veiled allusion to the poet's troubles with the court: a few poems of liberal sentiment and some caustic epigrams had incurred the wrath of the emperor, and as a consequence, in May 1820, Pushkin was required to leave St Petersburg for an unspecified term of exile in the south of Russia. He would not return to the capital for more than six years.
6 Letny Park: the Summer Garden, a public park situated along the embankment of the Neva and adorned with shade trees and the statues of Greek deities.
9 (9): here and elsewhere, numbers in parentheses indicate stanzas omitted by Pushkin in the published text.
10 Faublas: the hero of a novel by the French writer Louvet de Couvrai (1760-97). Abetted in the seduction of other men's wives by a rakish count, Faublas, it turns out, has seduced his accomplice's bride as well.
io Bolivar. 'Hat la Bolivar' (Pushkin's note). A wide-brimmed black top hat, named after the South American liberator, which was fashionable in both Paris and St Petersburg in the 1820s.
Brguet: an elegant pocket-watch made by the celebrated French watchmaker, Abraham Louis Brguet (1747-1823).
11 Talon's: Talon was a well-known French restaurateur in St Petersburg.
Kavrin: Pyotr Kaverin (1794-1855) was a hussar, man about town, and friend of Pushkin.
comet mine: champagne from the year of the comet (1811), a year of especially good vintage.
