Eugene Onegin ( without commentary )

326

Notes Izmaylov rather negligently. He once apologized in print to the public, saying that during the holidays he had "caroused." [Three: XXVII: 4.] 22. E. A. Baratinski. [Three: xxx: 1.] 23. Reviewers wondered how one could call a simple peasant girl "maiden" when, a little further, genteel misses are called "young things." [Four: XLI: 12.] 24. "This signifies," remarks one of our critics, "that the urchins are skating." Right. [Four: XLII: 8.]

the poetical Ay pleased me with its noisy foam, with this simile of love, or of frantic youth… ("Epistle to L. P.") [Four: XLV: 1-7.] 26. August Lafontaine, author of numerous family novels. [Four: L: 12.] 27. See "First Snow," a poem by Prince Vyazemski. [Five:?: 6.] 28. See the descriptions of the Finnish winter in Baratin-ski's "Eda." [Five: in: 14.]

to sleep in the stove nook. The presage of a wedding; the first song foretells death. [Five: vm: 14.] 30. In this manner one finds out the name of one's future fiance. [Five: ix: 6-13.] 31. Reviewers condemned the words hlop [clap], molv' }27 Eugene Onegin [parle], and top [stamp] as indifferent neologisms. These words are fundamentally Russian. "Bova stepped out of the tent for some fresh air and heard in the open country the parle of man and the stamp of steed" ("The Tale of Bova the Prince"). Hlop and ship are used in plain-folk speech instead of hldpanie [clapping] and shipenie [hissing]: "he let out a hiss of the snaky sort" {Ancient Russian Poems). One should not interfere with the freedom of our rich and beautiful language. [Five: xvn: 7-8.] 32. One of our critics, it would seem, finds in these lines an indecency incomprehensible to us. [Five: xx: 5-7.] 33. Divinatory books in our country come out under the imprint of Martin Zadeck-a worthy person who never wrote divinatory books, as?.?. Fyodorov observes. [Five: xxn: 12.] 34. A parody of Lomonosov's well-known lines: Aurora with a crimson hand from morning stilly waters leads forth with the sun after her, etc. [Five: xxv: 1-4.] 35- Buyanov, my neighbor, called yesterday on me: mustache unshaven, tousled, fluff-covered, wearing a peaked cap. (The Dangerous Neighbor) [Five: xxvi: 9.] 36. Our critics, faithful admirers of the fair sex, strongly blamed the indecorum of this verse. [See n. 23 above.] 37. Parisian restaurateur. [Six: v: 13.] 38. Griboedov's line. [Six: xi: 12.] p8 Notes 39. A famous arms fabricator. [Six: xxv: 12.] 40. In the first edition Chapter Six ended in the following: 5 And you, young inspiration, stir my imagination, the slumber of the heart enliven, 8 into my nook more often fly, let not a poet's soul grow cold, callous, crust-dry, and finally be turned to stone 12 in the World's deadening intoxication, amidst the soulless proudlings, amidst the brilliant fools,