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It lasted a long while, and swept from the face of the earth my wife and my aunt herself and my strength. From the little station in the steppe it has flung me, as you see, into this dark street. Now tell me what further evil can happen to me? NADYA ZELENIN had just come back with her mamma from the theatre where she had seen a performance of "Yevgeny Onyegin."
Rakitin, of course, but ... old Byelinsky said that, too, so they say.” “Byelinsky? I don’t remember. He hasn’t written that anywhere.” “If he didn’t write it, they say he said it. I heard that from a ... but never mind.” “And have you read Byelinsky?” “Well, no ... I haven’t read all of him, but ... I read the passage about Tatyana, why she didn’t go off with Onyegin.”
Pushkin's best work, his novel in verse, "Evgeny Onyegin," although it came so early, was constructed according to realistic principles; and although we still distinguish romantic tints, it is a striking picture of Russian society at the beginning of the 19th century.
"I know you don't think much of Shtchedrin at the high school, but that's not the point. Tell me, in what sense is Pushkin a psychologist?" "Why, do you mean to say he was not a psychologist? If you like, I'll give you examples." And Nikitin recited several passages from "Onyegin" and then from "Boris Godunov." "I see no psychology in that." Varya sighed.
For some reason the idea came into his head that in the course of the summer he might grow fond of this little, weak, talkative creature, might be carried away and fall in love; in their position it was so possible and natural! This thought touched and amused him; he bent down to her sweet, preoccupied face and hummed softly: "'Onyegin, I won't conceal it; I madly love Tatiana. . . ."
As a friend I pitched into him, asking him why he drank too much, why he lived beyond his means and got into debt, why he did nothing and read nothing, why he had so little culture and so little knowledge; and in answer to all my questions he used to smile bitterly, sigh, and say: 'I am a failure, a superfluous man'; or: 'What do you expect, my dear fellow, from us, the debris of the serf-owning class? or: 'We are degenerate. . . . Or he would begin a long rigmarole about Onyegin, Petchorin, Byron's Cain, and Bazarov, of whom he would say: 'They are our fathers in flesh and in spirit. So we are to understand that it was not his fault that Government envelopes lay unopened in his office for weeks together, and that he drank and taught others to drink, but Onyegin, Petchorin, and Turgenev, who had invented the failure and the superfluous man, were responsible for it.
We find the same tendency in Lermontov's prose novel, "A Hero of Our Times," in which the hero, Pechorin, has many traits in common with Evgeny Onyegin. This book immediately made a deep impression. It was really nothing more than a step taken in a new direction by its author. But it was a step that promised much.
“Didn’t go off with Onyegin? Surely you don’t ... understand that already?” “Why, you seem to take me for little Smurov,” said Kolya, with a grin of irritation. “But please don’t suppose I am such a revolutionist. I often disagree with Mr. Rakitin. Though I mention Tatyana, I am not at all for the emancipation of women. I acknowledge that women are a subject race and must obey.
The man pulls Onyegin and Tatyana down from their pedestals, but Pushkin remains unhurt. Pisarev is the grandfather and father of all the critics of to-day, including Burenin the same pettiness in disparagement, the same cold and conceited wit, and the same coarseness and indelicacy in their attitude to people. It is not Pisarev's ideas that are brutalizing, for he has none, but his coarse tone.
He went to "Eugen Onyegin" and enjoyed it, because there was still a great deal of the schoolgirl in him; but after that he was flung on to Glinka's "Russlan and Ludmilla," and this seemed to him quite interminable and to have nothing to do with the gentleman and lady mentioned in the title.
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