Words new to me: репетир

From stanza 31 of Afanasii Fet’s narrative poem The Student (Студент, 1884):

Без опыта, без денег и без сил,
У чьей груди я мог искать спасенья?
Серебряный я кубок свой схватил,
Что подарила мать мне в день рожденья,
И пенковую трубку, что хранил
В чехле, как редкость, полную значенья,
Был и бинокль туда же приобщен
И с репетиром золотой Нортон.

With no experience, money, or strength, at whose breast could I seek salvation? I grabbed the silver cup that my mother had given me for my birthday and the meerschaum pipe that I kept in a case as if it were a rarity filled with significance; a pair of binoculars was added to the lot, and a gold Norton with a repetir.

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The more common repetitor ‘tutor’ doesn’t make any sense, so repetir must be something new, connected to whatever was sold under the brand name Norton. In a place like this you just know there will be a footnote, and Boris Bukhstab indeed provided one: “s repetirom zolotoi Norton—a gold pocket watch made by a company called Norton, which would strike the hour when a special spring was pressed” (701). A Russian website about fancy watches explains that a repetir can also be called a retransliator, and watches with one are different from clocks that strike the hour because they make noise only when you ask them to by pressing a button, which is convenient if you’re trying to sleep in the same room as one. The English word for this mechanism is “repeater.”

Before this I don’t think I’d read any of Fet’s long poemy as opposed to his short stikhotvoreniia. Bukhshtab’s notes also explain that the poem is autobiographical, about the time the young Fet was living with Apollon Grigor’ev, and indeed the events in this 1884 poem were described decades earlier in two stories by Grigor’ev, “Ophelia¨ (Офелия, 1846) and “The Man of the Future” (Человек будущего, 1845).

Much of The Student is written in a “sensible old man looks back longingly at the follies of his youth” vein, but even the young Fet turns out to be cautious. He lives with his Moscow friend (unnamed in the poem, but assumed to be Grigor’ev) and the friend’s parents, and the poet (who I’ll just call Fet) is not drawn to women, though Grigor’ev is constantly falling in love and skipping through fields “the moment the women weren’t absolutely hideous” (stanzas 1–4). Among the visitors to Grigor’ev’s parents’ house is Liza, Grigor’ev’s mother’s goddaughter, who becomes engaged to an officer who is neither tall nor handsome, nor of high rank, but owns property. Fet and Grigor’ev serve as the shafera who hold the crowns over the bride’s and groom’s heads at the wedding; Fet thinks the bride looks scared or sad (5–13). At the wedding reception, the bride asks Fet to dance and uses the mazurka to say she has ruined her life by going along with her mother’s plans for her, since she has long loved another man—Fet (14–19). Fet begins a clandestine affair with the married Liza, with Grigor’ev’s knowledge, including ill-advised letters where the lovers make plans to meet by slipping away dressed as peasants (20–26). Liza’s husband discovers the letters and is enraged, but Liza manages to send her maid with one more letter containing a dramatic proposal: Fet should kill Liza’s husband in a duel, after which Liza will follow Fet to his country estate and become his wife. Also, they should meet at a monastery at eight o’clock the day after tomorrow (27–30).

So far we have a recognizable love story, though I think the declaration of love coming from the woman immediately after the wedding is unusual. The last ten stanzas are strange, though. Fet tells us which valuable items he gathers, apparently preparing to flee with Liza (31, quoted above), then addresses the dead Grigor’ev, nostalgic for their time drinking tea and reading a Roman poet (32). He brings his sack of valuables to his teacher, who tells him he should save himself (and Liza) by not going along with her plan; the teacher offers to have Fet restricted to the barracks for a month to keep him out of trouble (33–34). Fet does, however, show up for the meeting at the monastery, and Liza manages to come too (35–37). But they do not flee together, and Fet does not fight a duel. The old poet reflects on the intense suffering of youth versus the bitter routine of age (38). The end of the young poet’s story: Fet and Grigor’ev learn that Liza and her husband have gone to the country (39). Fet also leaves Moscow, learns that Liza’s husband has died, and tries to get in touch with her, but she doesn’t want to meet him. Rumor has it that she has found a general, but maybe that was a lie (40).

I’m going to have to read the Grigor’ev stories someday (Bukhshtab hints that they cast an interesting light on the psychology of the character modeled on Fet, “Voldemar”). I find it strange that the old poet narrating The Student, for all his ironic attitude toward his young and old selves, seems to take seriously the contrast between reckless youth and cautious old age, even as the young man is already astonishingly prudent from the moment his letters are discovered.