The Twelfth Victim

Chapter 1

“It’ll be ten years soon,” said the Count. “In just over two months it will be ten years since she’s been gone! My angel! My Sarah! What am I living for if she’s not in this world? Lord, you have punished me fully for my sins! You punished me even here, in this world! Could anything be more terrible for me than this punishment in the next world? No! Nothing could be worse than this! Woe, woe is me! Lord! Take me already! Send me death! Let it be Purgatory, let it be Hell, let it be the fiery Gehenna! It’s unbearable!”

The Count sank exhausted onto the couch. He felt himself suffocating. Something in his chest tightened and turned cold. He tried to lie down, but it got even worse: he couldn't breathe!

"Praskovushka!" the count croaked. "My daughter, my darling!"

Praskovia ran in and began fussing over her father. She made him sit more comfortably and placed soft pillows behind his back.

“Read me something from Sarah’s notebook,” the count croaked.

“Right now, Father, I’ll bring the notebook in a jiffy,” answered Praskovya and left the room to get her sister’s notebook.

"Where is it?" Praskovya asked, hurriedly rummaging through the closet shelf after shelf.

Books fell to the floor, Praskovya hastily sorted through them, but the notebook was nowhere to be found. Finally, the notebook was found.

“Found it!” she shouted. “I’m coming! I’m bringing it!”

With a joyful smile she entered the room where the count was sitting in an armchair, surrounded by pillows.

"He seems to have dozed off?" thought Praskovya. "If so, let him sleep."

She walked over to straighten the blanket on the Count's lap. Carefully, trying not to wake her father, she straightened the blanket, then looked into his face. With horror, she saw that the Count seemed to be staring at her with an unblinking gaze. And only then did she realize that he wasn't looking at her and didn't see her. Because the Count was dead.

But perhaps we shouldn't have started our story from the end. Let's return to the beginning of this story, or at least to its middle.


Chapter 2


The count's wife, the gypsy Avdotya, bore him children regularly. But they all died in infancy.

And suddenly, in one instant, the count realized that the death of every baby was God’s punishment for those whom the count had killed in duels.

As many victims as there are, so many deaths will there be of his children!

"Lord, I see Your will, I see Your punishment!" he whispered in horror. "You are taking my children as payment for the lives I took out of mischief! Well, You are within Your rights... Let Your just punishment be carried out..."

The count shared his terrible guess with his wife.

"How many have you killed, Fedyusha?" asked Avdotya.

"Don't ask!" the Count cried out in fear. "It's terrible! I can't tell you."

Avdotya hugged the count and whispered tenderly in his ear.

“If this is so, no matter how many there are, I will bear you children until we atone for your sin together, and then our next child will remain with us.

"My dear, are you out of your mind?" the Count whispered in horror. "There were so many of my victims! Will God really take that many of my children? There were... No! I can't say!"

“Confess, Fedenka, and repent, it will become easier,” Avdotya whispered.

“One…” said the count and began to cough and burst into tears.

"One?" Avdotya asked again. "What, have four babies already passed away?"

"I have ruined eleven souls, my dear!" the count said with difficulty.

Avdotya screamed and recoiled from her husband in horror. But suddenly she came to her senses and embraced him warmly.

"So be it!" she said decisively. "So be it eleven! I will bear you children until the Lord forgives us and leaves us our child! The twelfth will be with us! I will bear you a twelfth child, and a thirteenth, and if God allows, even more. We will have a happy family, Fedenka! Just don't sin anymore! Leave it alone!"

"I've abandoned it, Avdotyushka, I've abandoned it long ago, I've abandoned this buffoonery and this foolishness! Do you believe me?" the count asked, looking into his wife's eyes with hope mingled with fear of disappointment.

“I believe you, Fedenka, and you should believe me,” said Avdotya. “As before God, I tell you with all the truth. I will bear you children. I will bear as many as you need. If you need eleven, I will bear eleven. And I will continue to bear children. If God forgives you on our twelfth child, we will be happy. We will have children. Living ones. Just promise me, do you hear, promise! You already promised! Just keep your word! Never ruin another soul again! Will you keep it?”

"I'll hold on, Avdotyushka!" the Count replied heatedly. "From this moment on, that's it. I'll be quiet, I won't quarrel with anyone. Even if they hit me on the back with a poker, I'll smile and walk away!"

"Well then, I'll keep my word, but you keep yours too!" said Avdotya.

And the Lord took away the fifth child, and the sixth, and the seventh.
 
The Count only whispered: “This is for the fifth soul I lost,” “This will be the sixth death,” “Now the seventh.”

The Count kept a list of his victims in a little book, and each time one of his children died, he crossed out one name from the list, wrote in the name of the deceased baby, crossed himself, and said a strange phrase: “Another debt paid.”

The eleventh was a daughter named Prya. She was still alive when Avdotya gave birth to her twelfth child, a girl named Praskovia, in 1818.

But soon, at the age of three, Prya also died.

The Count crossed out the last name of the victim in his little book, wrote “Prya” and said: “The debt is paid in full.”

Returning from the funeral, the count looked tenderly at Praskovya.
 
“Thank God, at least my little gypsy will live now,” said Count Fyodor Ivanovich Tolstoy, who was called the American because he lived on an island near the shores of America, where Captain Kruzenshtern had landed him for his violent temper, disobedience, and for inciting the crew to mutiny.

Indeed, Praskovya Feodorovna Tolstaya did not die in infancy. Apparently, by that time the debt had indeed been paid. The Lord granted Praskovya life until 1887, although no one could have known it at the time.

And in 1820, Sarah was born, who was so sweet, good, smart and affectionate that the Count finally decided that the Lord had granted him complete absolution for all his sins on this sinful Earth in this raging world.

Perhaps so. But only for past sins. The Lord certainly did not forgive him his future sin, the monstrous sin, the mortal sin he committed after the birth of Praskovia and Sarah.

And the Count... It seems he calmed down so much that he completely forgot about his eleven offspring who died so early, and about the promise he made over the bed of his deceased third baby.


Chapter 3


The Count knew how to have fun, he knew how to be bored, he knew how to hate and love, he knew how to take revenge cruelly, subtly, viciously, and completely, and he knew how to be patient, waiting for the right moment to exact his revenge. And the Count also knew how to pretend. He could be gentle and kind to those who had offended him, giving the impression of a forgiving and forgiving person, which he was anything but. For the sake of revenge, he could embrace his enemy, kiss him with the Judas kiss, and praise him not only to his face but behind his back. In short, no one could suspect the Count of plotting revenge on his offender, least of all the one against whom he plotted his revenge.

The Count, however, had many other remarkable qualities, and almost none of them did him any favors. Perhaps only his ability to mock others, which endeared him to everyone else and antagonized those he joked about. And his jokes were subtle, their sting always aimed at his opponent's most vulnerable spot. He sought to publicly humiliate the proud, to expose the timid as a coward, to arrange circumstances for the hot-tempered that would drive him mad so that everyone could see how hot-tempered he was, and to the jealous, he gave such powerful reasons for jealousy that they were tempted to hang themselves.

To retell Count Fyodor's entire story, even five hundred pages of dense text wouldn't be enough. And besides, it wouldn't be necessary.

The Count was an inveterate card sharper. He made a living off that, because his money never lasted, and he squandered everything generously bestowed upon him. But he mastered the art of cheating at cards so skillfully that he had no equal in St. Petersburg, Moscow, or anywhere else where people gamble.

The Count was a very accurate shot and an excellent user of bladed weapons. So no one wanted to duel him, as he dispatched all those who dared, eleven in number.

However, for the reasons stated above, the Count began to avoid duels, which was extremely easy for him, since, knowing his accuracy and dexterity, no one dared to quarrel with him anymore.

So the count cheated at cards without fear of consequences or exposure.

It must be said that in those days, cheating at cards wasn't considered as grave a sin as, say, stealing. So what if he cheats at cards? Who didn't get up to mischief in their youth?


Chapter 4


The Russian poet Alexander Pushkin, who achieved considerable fame in his youth, nevertheless constantly needed money. He loved to gamble his last pennies. If Fate decided to mock him, what could he expect from the naked man? Perhaps his friends would keep him from starving, or a publisher would pay him an advance for poems yet to be written, but certain to be written. And if Fortune smiled, then he could carouse with friends, with a pipe and a bowl, visit cheerful young ladies and gypsies, carouse all night and celebrate his winnings, so that by morning not a memory of them would remain. When Pushkin had money, he didn't count it and didn't skimp on entertaining his friends. Indeed, without such feasts, there would be fewer themes for poems and verses. If "The Queen of Spades" hadn't been written, and many other works wouldn't have had the same flavor, the same spicy aroma of a dissolute bachelor's life. It's true that life's vicissitudes make philosophers of some, poets of others. And if Pushkin hadn't married on February 18, 1831, would he have written "The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish" on October 2, 1833? The question is rhetorical.

Well, Pushkin played, and took the card game very seriously.

Even before he was married, he would sometimes gamble his last money in vain hope, but even if he lost in a fair game, he never regretted it. After all, he was captivated by the thrill of the unknown, by the thrill of defying Fate. And defying Fate was the favorite pastime of Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin, the great-grandson of Ivan Mikhailovich Golovin, an admiral and, part-time, Peter the Great's jester. That's why Pushkin disliked jesters and buffoonery, and why he sometimes acted like one, but he would never forgive anyone for portraying him as one.


Chapter 5


After graduating from the Naval Cadet Corps, Count Fyodor Tolstoy was assigned to the Preobrazhensky Regiment. His lifestyle matched his wild personality. Cards, women, wine, the wildest antics, duels, insolence, utter uncontrollability, unpredictability, and desertion—it was all about him. The Count did not attend the scheduled review, as he had become interested in hot air ballooning. When Colonel Baron Yegor Vasilyevich Drizen reprimanded the Count in public, the Count barely listened, openly contemptuous, interjecting reproaches and insults in return. At the end of his speech, when the Colonel approached and ordered the Count to be silent, the Count simply spat in the Colonel's face.

"My ancestors were among the first dignitaries even during the reign of Peter the Great!" the count exclaimed.

"But what does this have to do with you?" Baron Driesen replied calmly, wiping his face with a white officer's glove. "You think you'll get off with a stint in the guardhouse?"

After this, the colonel threw the glove in the count's face.

During a duel, the count seriously wounded the baron. According to the law, for a duel, especially with his immediate regimental commander, the count's right hand was to be amputated. It was imperative to leave the capital immediately.

Fate itself provided an opportunity for escape. The Count's cousin, Fyodor Petrovich Tolstoy, was scheduled to depart soon as part of Ivan Fyodorovich Kruzenshtern's expedition, financed by the Russo-American Company. The expedition was led by Nikolai Petrovich Rezanov, a diplomat and entrepreneur representing the company. But Fyodor Petrovich disliked the sea, suffered from seasickness, and was reluctant to set sail. The documents listed only his first and last name as an officer. The cousins exchanged documents, so Fyodor Ivanovich Tolstoy joined Kruzenshtern's expedition in Fyodor Petrovich's stead.

Kruzenshtern, having read the positive characterization of Count Fyodor Tolstoy, which spoke of his docile nature and the most exemplary behavior of a “young, well-bred person,” treated the lieutenant who arrived on board the ship “Nadezhda” favorably, but disappointment was not long in coming.

Although Rezanov and Kruzenshtern themselves were at odds, they shared the same opinion regarding Fyodor Tolstoy. Rezanov described him as an unbridled man, "a man without any rules, respecting neither God nor the authorities established by Him. This depraved man causes quarrels every day, insults everyone, and constantly swears."

Fyodor beat other officers at cards, drank heavily, and incited the crew to mutiny. His arguments often led to duels. One officer, rightfully offended, chose a rather unusual method of dueling: he suggested they both jump overboard and wrestle with officers' daggers.

“Nonsense!” the Count objected. “I can’t swim!”

"Lieutenant, you are a coward!" the officer exclaimed.

Then Count Tolstoy snatched up his dagger, ran up to the officer, grabbed him by the robes, and threw himself and him overboard. Once in the water, the Count began furiously stabbing his enemy with his dagger.

Life preservers were thrown into the water, and the sailors hastily launched a boat. Junior officers jumped in and, with great difficulty, pulled the duelists from the water, locked in a fierce fight. The next day, the officer the count had fought died. For this death, the count paid with Arinushka's life.


Chapter 6


Kruzenshtern's patience was truly angelic, but the Count wouldn't let up. After getting the ship's chaplain, Father Gideon, drunk, the Count glued his beard to the ship's deck and affixed the captain's seal he had stolen. He intimidated the priest, who had awakened, by claiming that the seal had been affixed by the captain himself, and that its integrity could not be violated. Putting scissors in Father Gideon's hand, he convinced him to cut off his beard, claiming that the only way for him to gain his freedom and get free from the deck was to sacrifice his beard, as violating the seal was absolutely forbidden, as doing so would be considered treason . The poor priest was forced to lose his beard, and to do this outrageous deed with his own hands.

In May 1804, the Nadezhda dropped anchor near the island of Nuku Hiva in the Marquesas archipelago.

Once ashore, the crew indulged in debauchery with local women, drinking, and gambling. The senior officers turned a blind eye to such amusements. Count Tolstoy excelled in this deeply familiar activity. Having outsmarted the entire crew and relieved them of their pay, he threw money around, treating the crew generously at their own expense, and in the evening, he stumbled into a local tattoo parlor and ordered him to adorn himself with all manner of tattoos. Thus, a huge, colorful bird of prey appeared on the Count's chest, surrounded by outlandish and obscene images of every imaginable nature.

In the port of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, the Count acquired an adult female orangutan, christening her Dunka. With great difficulty, he persuaded Krusenstern to allow him to take this enormous red ape aboard the Nadezhda. The Count dressed the ape as a woman, danced with her on deck, and performed such tricks with her that rumors began to circulate among the sailors that the Count had married her. But these pranks seemed harmless, something the Count couldn't accept, for harmless pranks weren't his strong suit! He needed more than just silent, playful contemplation; he needed to evoke more intense emotions in those around him.

Sneaking into the captain's cabin with Dunka, the Count piled the ship's diaries and placed a couple of papers on top, which the monkey watched as he began to stain with ink, crumple, and tear. Having abused two sheets of paper, the Count stepped aside and let Dunka repeat his actions with the remaining papers. The monkey decided this was a fun new game, so she approached the pile of documents and began to destroy the expedition's most valuable asset—the logbooks and the captain's notes.

Kruzenshtern was furious. The ship "Nadezhda" set course for the nearest island, which turned out to be Siktab Island in the Russian American chain—Alaska and the Aleutian Islands. The captain ordered the Count and his monkey to be disembarked on this island. The Count's belongings were thrown ashore after him, followed by a crumpled letter of character from Count Fyodor Tolstoy, which praised his exemplary behavior and docile nature.

"Captain!" the Count cried. "How am I supposed to get back to Petersburg from here?"

“I hope not,” the captain replied, spitting overboard and ordering them to cast off as quickly as possible.


Chapter 7


Wandering the island, the Count collected random branches, tree bark, dried seaweed—in short, anything that could burn. Dunka helped him in this new game. Having dumped the collected fuel into a huge pile, the Count sat down next to her. Digging through his pockets, the Count found an old biscuit. Biting off half, he handed the other half to Dunka. The monkey approached and, pursing her lips, carefully took the biscuit in her mouth and crunched it.

“Do you like it?” asked the Count. “Want some more? Come here, I’ll treat you.”

He extended his left hand toward her, his fist clenched. Dunka leaned toward it and began sniffing it. At that moment, the count drew his dagger with his right hand and thrust it into Dunka's neck with all his strength.

He cut up the monkey and roasted it over a fire, for which Dunka helped him collect the fuel.

He placed the monkey's head on a low stone next to him and turned it to face the fire.

Having had his fill, the count turned to the head.

"You've fed me, mistress, thank you!" he said sarcastically. "But how long will you last?"

The head was silent.

"Why are you silent?" the Count asked fiercely. "Don't like it? Well, then go away!"

And he kicked his head hard into the dying fire. A shower of sparks shot up into the night sky. And then the captain heard the sound of a blank shot. He jumped to his feet and looked out to sea. A ship was approaching the island, having spotted his fire on the shore. Saved!

This merchant ship carried the Count to the mainland in Petropavlovsk. From there, he spent two years traveling to St. Petersburg, infecting local beauties with the foreign disease along the way.

Traveling by hitchhiking, and sometimes even on foot, fleecing local simpletons at cards, and passing through Siberia and the Urals, the Count finally arrived in the capital. And although he was forbidden to appear there by decree of Emperor Alexander I , upon learning that a grand ball was being held in the capital in honor of the successful return of Kruzenshtern's expedition, the Count showed up to personally thank the captain, with a droll air, for the joyful time he had spent in the Aleutian Islands, as well as throughout the expedition.

"You, Captain, are being celebrated for circumnavigating the globe on the ship Nadezhda, while I, on the other hand, completed my own circumnavigation on foot, without any hope!" said the Count. "But for some reason, you, who were given a ride on a ship, are being celebrated like a hero, with a ball being held in your honor, while I, who was carried only by my own two feet, wasn't even invited to this celebration."

Kruzenshtern's palms clenched into fists, but he pulled himself together.

“Unfortunately, here at the ball you are not in my power, but if you had said something similar on the ship, I know how I would have treated you, Count,” Ivan Fyodorovich answered calmly.

“I’ll get married, I’ll have a son, I’ll name him Ivan, and I’ll beat him every hour and say: ‘What a brute you are, Ivan Fyodorovich!’” the count replied and left the hall with a proud look.

At the exit he was met by guards.

“By order of His Imperial Majesty, you are being sent to the garrison of the Neishlot Fortress for further service,” the captain of the guard announced to him.

To earn forgiveness, the Count began to apply for active service in the army, where he became adjutant to Prince Mikhail Petrovich Dolgorukov. The Prince was killed in the Battle of Idensalmi, but the Count was luckier and escaped.


Chapter 8


After the Patriotic War of 1812, taking into account his military merits, Count Fyodor Tolstoy was completely forgiven for his past sins, as well as for the new ones he had committed even during wartime. Courage akin to madness was his defense. The Count settled in his house on Sivtsev Vrazhek Lane. He began devoting more time to organizing celebrations, developed a passion for fine cuisine, and took an active part in noble gatherings and balls. The Count became acquainted with the capital's bohemian elite. Among his acquaintances were the poets Zhukovsky, Griboyedov, Baratynsky, Batyushkov, and Vyazemsky. Denis Davydov, a hussar and partisan, had a special affection for him. Like the Count, he disliked any kind of command and preferred to act independently. Although he demanded discipline from his subordinates, he himself was not at all inclined to obedience. In Count Fyodor Tolstoy, the poet-hussar mistakenly saw a kindred spirit.

After some time, Pushkin and Gogol also entered the Count's circle of acquaintances. However, Pushkin was in no hurry to become close to the Count, who, in his promiscuity, also cultivated a friendship with Thaddeus Buglarin, who had fought on Napoleon's side against his own compatriots during the Patriotic War. This did not prevent him from occupying a highly respected position among Russian bohemians and even fulfilling, in some sense, the duties of imperial censor. Truly, Alexander I was weak in spirit , unjustly considered Bonaparte's chief conqueror, having appropriated this title stolen from the Russian people, from Prince Mikhail Kutuzov and other Russian commanders, not always Russian in origin, but far more Russian in spirit than Thaddeus Buglarin.

Some say Prince Feodor's card games were sometimes unfair. They're shamelessly lying. Prince Feodor's card games weren't just sometimes unfair; they were always unfair. He played no other way.

Chaadaev once said about him to Pushkin:


“Our prince is so dashing in everything,
A brawler, a gambler and a slob.
He is certainly a good fellow,
Although he is quite a scoundrel."


Pushkin smiled, thought for a few seconds and answered:


"His soul is dark,
But she is not capable of betrayal:
He would sell his father and brother,
But only for double the price."


"This, my brother, must be published!" Chaadayev exclaimed.

"It's not worth it at all, forget it," Pushkin objected. "He'll still get offended! What for?"

"He won't be offended, because we won't indicate who the epigram is addressed to," Chaadayev countered. "We'll just write 'To' and three asterisks."

"Will this save us?" Pushkin asked.

"Ah, yes, you're right!" Chaadayev replied. "The portrait is so accurate that all of Petersburg will immediately understand who it's about, as if the title had said: 'Prince Fyodor Ivanovich Tolstoy.'"

They both laughed, and that was the end of it.


Chapter 9


Nikolai Gogol completed his comedy "The Gamblers" only in 1842. But he had conceived of it much earlier, right around the time he met Count Tolstoy. While gathering material for his future comedy, Gogol sought out a wide variety of card sharpers, writing down their tricks and sayings in a book. One day, he encountered a professional who simply amazed him with his skill. Gogol decided to teach Prince Tolstoy a lesson. He persuaded the sharper to cheat the prince. The prank was a success. The prince was furious.

He never played for luck, preferring to rely on strict calculation and his ability to cheat.

"Only fools play for luck!" he said of his credo, not at all ashamed of it. "Playing for sure—that's what I consider smart!"

And then he, the seasoned cheater, was plucked like a chicken!

The prince decided that someone he knew had played this prank on him. He began to scrutinize all his friends and foes more closely, suspecting everyone. And his enemies numbered half Moscow and half St. Petersburg. But after a string of lucky wins, which he owed not to fortune but to his sleight of hand, his extraordinary ability to feign emotions completely different from his actual feelings, and his extraordinary powers of observation, which allowed him to memorize the individual signs of good and bad luck in each opponent, the count calmed down somewhat and abandoned the idea of finding and punishing the joker who had tipped off such a professional card sharper to him.

The Count continued to lead the same lifestyle he'd led before his epic encounter on the Nadezhda. He gambled, had affairs, and was a matchmaker, and for all these reasons, he was often the protagonist in duels.

One day, Prince Gagarin offered to be his second and warned him that he would pick him up early in the morning. The next morning, he found the count sleeping peacefully in his bed.

"Why are you sleeping?" Gagarin exclaimed. "You're my second! It's time to go! We'll be late for the duel!"

"We won't be late," the Count replied. "There won't be a duel. I stopped by your opponent's place at six in the morning, talked to him, we had a fight, we had a duel, and I shot him."

Such was the Count. The entire capital spoke of his exploits with both anger and admiration.

"Here's another touch to the portrait of Count Three Stars!" Pushkin once said to Chaadaev:


“His duels are countless.
But what's the reason? There's an answer!
On them he defends his honor,
“The very one that doesn’t exist.”


"Pushkin, you're a genius, but why don't you leave him alone?" Chaadayev asked.

“You’re right, he’s not worth my time,” the poet replied.

It's entirely possible that the card sharpers have connections, and that the one who beat the Count tipped off his comrades, so that they rigged the game so that the Count lost again, and a very large sum at that. But it seems more mysterious. Fate intervened. After all, this time the Count was playing not only for cash but also on credit. And no card sharper would play on credit! However, it's possible that they would; who knows what their plans might be? In any case, the Count played on credit and lost not only everything he had, but also what he didn't have and didn't expect.

At the English Club, his outstanding payment was posted on the notice board. From then on, the Count was banned from the club; he became an outcast. He couldn't find the money to pay the debt, as no one wanted to lend him money, knowing his unreliability. The Count seriously considered shooting himself. His Gypsy mistress, Avdotya Maximovna Tugaeva, seeing his agitated state, initially questioned him, but he merely brushed her off rudely.

"What are you bothering me for?" he growled. "This is my business! Get out!"

And then Avdotya saw that he took a pistol out of the desk drawer.

"You've lost everything and you have nothing to pay with," she said. "Tell me the amount, and I'll bring you the money tomorrow."

"Where did you get them?" the count asked in surprise.

“Name the amount, and you’ll find out everything tomorrow,” Avdotya answered.

The Count named the sum and put the pistol back in the drawer.

"I'll shoot myself tomorrow morning, what difference does it make?" he thought. "And before that, I'll see what she's capable of! Who knows? What if she really does get the money?"

Avdotya came to her camp to see the baron. She laid out golden trinkets before him.

“What is this?” asked the baron.

"I need money," Avdotya replied. "Take all this and give me the money."

She named the amount.

“There’s not even a third of that amount here,” the baron replied.

“Then kill me,” said Avdotya, pulling a dagger from her belt and handing it to the baron, then kneeling in front of him and bowing her head.

"I remember your father well," the baron replied. "I held you in my arms when you were just a few days old. I baptized you with a Christian name. How can you ask me to kill you? Tell me, why do you need money?"

“My drago manus wants to kill himself because of a gambling debt,” said Avdotya.

"I'll give you as much money as you ask for," the baron replied. "You can take it."

Avdotya kissed the baron's hand.

"Thank you, Baron!" she said. "I won't take it. If you don't need it, give it to those who need it more."

In the morning she placed a package of money in front of the count.

"Where did you get the money?" the count asked in surprise, having counted the entire sum and confirmed that it exactly matched the debt he had mentioned, which he had slightly exaggerated.

“This isn’t my money, this is your money,” Avdotya replied. “You gave me gifts. I kept them. Now I’ve sold them. Take the money, it’s yours. From you. Everything you gave me, I hid it all. Now take it, it’s yours. And you don’t owe anyone anything. Not even me.”

The Count immediately went to the club, paid off the debt, after which he took Avdotya Tugaeva to church and married her.


Chapter 10


"Pushkin, stop wasting your time!" said Nikolai Korsakov.
Come have fun with us!

"Who will be there?" Pushkin asked.

Korsakov began to list those who would be at the party, but after Count Fyodor Tolstoy's name was mentioned, Pushkin shook his head decisively.

"An American? I won't go," he said. "I don't like this Tolstoy."

He emphasized the word “this” because there were other Tolstoys among his acquaintances.

"Who likes him?" Korsakov asked with a laugh. "But he can be funny. He makes puns, jokes, and comes up with all sorts of pranks!"

“I could surprise anyone with that, but I don’t like card sharps!” Pushkin retorted. “ Do you know how I met him? At a game at Shakhovsky’s, on Malaya Morskaya. We sat down to play, and I saw the Count was fibbing. I told him so bluntly, and do you know what he replied? ‘Yes, I know myself that this is my game, but there was no other way I could have won! And you noticed, so keep quiet! I don’t like such remarks and won’t let anyone get away with it!’ It almost came to a duel, but Shakhovsky barely managed to reconcile us. The Count apologized through his lips, but nevertheless, I see that I have become unpleasant to him; he doesn’t love me, and I pay him back in kind.”

"But where I'm inviting you, there won't be any maps!" Korsakov persisted.

“But Tolstoy will be there, and I find it disgusting to see him,” Pushkin replied.

"You're so touchy, really!" Korsakov replied with a laugh. "After all, you're a poet, a writer! You should be glad you encountered such a colorful and vivid image! Put it in your poem, and you'll benefit from this acquaintance!"

“That’s what I’ll do,” Pushkin replied.

That evening Pushkin wrote in his Eugene Onegin:


“As for me, I get my share
I got a fiery passion.
Passion for the bank! Nor love of freedom
Neither Phoebus, nor friendship, nor feasts
Wouldn't have been distracted in the past years
I'm not into card games -
Pensive, all night, until light
I was ready in those summers
To interrogate the covenant of fate,
Will the jack fall to the left?
The bells of the dinner were already ringing
Among the scattered decks
The tired banker dozed
And I am frowning, cheerful and pale
Full of hope, closing my eyes
"Bent the corner of the third ace"


"Okay, but it's not about him, it's about me!" Pushkin said to himself. "Griboyedov said it better!"

Pushkin took Woe from Wit from the shelf, leafed through it, found the right page and underlined the following lines with his fingernail:


“But if you order a genius to be named:
Udushev Ippolit Markelych!!!
You are his writings
Have you read anything? Even a little thing?
Read it, brother, but he doesn’t write anything;
These are the kind of people who should be flogged,
And say: write, write, write;
In magazines, however, you can find
His passage, his look and something.
What is something about? - about everything;
He knows everything, we are saving him for a rainy day.
But we have a head that Russia doesn’t have,
No need to name him, you'll recognize him by his portrait:
Night robber, duelist,
He was exiled to Kamchatka and returned as an Aleut.
And the hand is unclean;
Yes, an intelligent person cannot but be a rogue.
When he speaks of high honesty,
Some demon inspires:
Eyes are bloodshot, face is burning,
He cries himself, and we all cry.
These people, are there anyone like them? Unlikely...
Well, among them, of course, I am mediocre."


"Eyes in blood!" repeated Pushkin.

The Count really did have red circles around his eyes, so his eyes also seemed red.

"And he's not exactly clean-fingered, but a smart person can't help but be a rogue!" Pushkin read. "What kind of society is this around us, where a smart person can't help but be a rogue?"

In anger, Pushkin slammed the book shut and fell into thought.


Chapter 11


"Onegin and Lensky could have made peace, but someone intervened!" thought Pushkin. "Someone violent! Let it be Buyanov! No, it's too obvious. Let it be Zaretsky."

Pushkin sat down to write the sixth chapter of Eugene Onegin.

The words fell from his pen, smoothly and almost without hesitation, like the trills of a nightingale.


"Forward, forward, my story!
A new face calls us.
Five miles from Krasnogorye,
Village of Lensky, lives
And it is still alive today
In the philosophical desert
Zaretsky, once a rowdy,
The chieftain of a gambling gang,
The head of the rakes, the tavern tribune,
Now he is kind and simple
The father of the family is single,
A reliable friend, a peaceful landowner
And even an honest man:
This is how our century is being corrected!


"So, he's not a family man yet, and he hasn't reformed!" Pushkin said to himself. "But do people like him ever reform? However, let's continue!"

Pushkin began the fifth stanza:


“It used to be that the flattering voice of the world
He praised evil courage in him:
He's really an ace with a pistol
It hit within five fathoms,
And it must be said that in battle
Once in a true rapture
He distinguished himself by boldly going into the mud
Having fallen from the Kalmyk horse,
Like a drunkard, and to the French
Captured: precious collateral!
The newest Regulus, god of honor,
Ready to surrender to bonds again,
So that every morning at Vera's
"On credit, drain three bottles."


"Excellent! Everyone will recognize him!" Pushkin praised himself. "But the portrait is not finished! Let's continue!"


“He used to joke funny,
He knew how to fool a fool
And it’s nice to fool a smart person,
Either openly or surreptitiously,
Although he has other things
Didn't pass without science,
Even though sometimes I'm in trouble myself
He was caught like a simpleton.
He knew how to argue cheerfully,
To answer sharply and stupidly,
Sometimes it’s prudent to remain silent,
Sometimes it’s a calculated thing to quarrel,
To make young friends quarrel
And put them on the barrier,

Or force them to make peace,
In order to have breakfast for three,
And then secretly disgrace
"A funny joke, a lie."


“Now try not to recognize Count Fyodor in this portrait!” Pushkin exclaimed. “Well, so what? It was him that Lensky chose as his second! The fool! There should be two seconds, and their primary duty is to try to reconcile the parties! But this scoundrel is not like that! He wants to set young friends at odds and put them on the defensive! Why does the world tolerate such scoundrels?! I know a story about him! But that’s not the point now!”

Pushkin continued, the poems were written easily and smoothly.


“He was not stupid; and my Eugene,
Without respecting the heart in it,
I loved the spirit of his judgments,
And common sense about this and that.
He used to be happy to
I saw him and it wasn't that bad
I wasn't surprised in the morning,
When he saw it.
That one after the first greeting,
Interrupting the conversation that had begun,
Onegin, grinning,
He handed over a note from the poet.
Onegin approached the window
And I read it to myself.

He was pleasant, noble,
Short call, or cartel:
Politely, with cold clarity
Lensky challenged his friend to a duel.
Onegin from the first movement,
To the ambassador of such an assignment
Turning around, without further ado
He said he was always ready.
Zaretsky stood up without explanation;
I didn't want to stay for a while,
Having a lot to do at home,
And he immediately went out; but Eugene
Alone with my soul
I was dissatisfied with myself.

And rightly so: in a strict analysis,
Having summoned myself to the secret judgment,
He blamed himself for many things:
First of all, he was already wrong,
What is above timid, tender love
This is how he joked casually in the evening.
And secondly: let the poet
Fooling around; at eighteen years old
It's forgivable. Evgeny,
Loving the young man with all my heart,
I had to prove myself
Not a ball of prejudices,
Not an ardent boy, a fighter,
But a husband with honor and intelligence.

He could discover feelings,
And not bristle like a beast;
He had to disarm
Young heart. "But now
It's late; time has flown away...
Besides, he thinks about this matter.
The old duelist intervened;
He is angry, he is a gossip, he is talkative...
Of course there must be contempt
At the cost of his funny words,
But the whisper, the laughter of fools…”
And here is public opinion!
Spring of honor, our idol!
And this is what the world revolves on!”


“Now that’s great!” Pushkin exclaimed. “Good Lord! How stupid we all are! We fear the condemnation of those we despise! And they twist us around their finger! I’d throw that Zaretsky down the stairs! Eugene should have gone to Lensky and turned the whole thing into a joke! ‘Forgive me, brother Lensky, I was bored, I just wanted to irritate you a little, to make you jealous, I was wrong, let’s hug and forget all this!’ But no, then Zaretsky intervened! He’ll probably tell the whole world that Onegin apologized, which means he chickened out! Lensky forgave, which means he never loved! And it’s so bad that perhaps neither Lensky nor Onegin wish each other, let alone death, even the slightest unpleasantness! No one cares about that! If there was a quarrel, there must be a challenge, if there was a challenge, there must be a duel! The shackles of honor!” The opinion of a worthless person is more important to us than friendship, more important than love, more important than our conscience! That's how we all are! Will I really be like that, or will I have the strength to detach myself from the opinions of scoundrels, to despise them and go my own way as if they were dust beneath my feet or weeds on the roadside? Damn me! I seem to have become emotional over the fate of my heroes. So this will do, it will touch the hearts of both my readers, male and female.

Pushkin was pleased with himself, and therefore was no longer angry at the source of his inspiration, the scoundrel and cheat Count Fyodor.


Chapter 12


But Count Fyodor didn't exactly stop writing. He scribbled occasionally. And anonymously distributed his vicious poems, mostly pamphlets and epigrams.

They circulated in lists. The Count began signing some of them "A.P.", which he intended to mean "American of Petersburg."

But those who read these evil epigrams thought that they came from the pen of Alexander Pushkin.

Even Emperor Alexander I , having once read several examples of evil satire, commented:

"This Pushkin has flooded all of Russia with his vile verses! It's time to put an end to this."
 
Pushkin had no idea what had provoked the emperor's anger. After all, although he called for liberty and freedom, like most graduates of the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum, he never personally insulted the imperial family, and especially Elizabeth Alexeyevna, for whom he had special, tender feelings that far exceeded the bounds of acceptable respect! How could Pushkin have uttered a single unkind word about her? Meanwhile, poems were being circulated under the name of a certain "A.P." accusing her of adultery and God knows what else!

The tension between the emperor and the poet grew, but the reasons for this were still hidden from Pushkin.

Thunder struck from an unexpected source. Rumors began to circulate throughout St. Petersburg that Pushkin had allegedly been arrested, taken to the Secret Chancellery, where he was simply flogged like a boy, and then sent home.
To top it all off, the Count distributed anonymous poems with the following content:


, moderate your ardor ,
Forget about those you were aiming at!
You are for your poems now
He responded with his ass!


People he barely knew pointed at Pushkin and giggled. Pushkin couldn't understand the reason for this attitude. Finally, the rumors reached his friends, who mostly disbelieved them, though a few admitted the possibility, considering it entirely plausible. No one guessed that the rumor had been started by Count Tolstoy, who had harbored a grudge against Pushkin ever since their first meeting, when the poet publicly called him a card sharper.

When Pushkin himself accidentally learned of this rumor, he was shocked to the core. How could this have happened? Who was the scoundrel who had concocted this vile slander? And what was most important to Pushkin, how could he restore his honor in the eyes of the world?

“And here it is – public opinion!” he thought, not suspecting how close he had come to solving the source of this slander.

Pushkin decided to show up at the palace and simply shoot the emperor. Investigation, punishment, the death penalty—all these are mere trifles compared to vile gossip and vile mockery! No one would laugh at a hanged man! No one would dare call a man who dared to shoot the emperor a coward! No one would remember the foolish rumor about a flogging in the Secret Chancellery for raising his hand against the Tsar!

"They'll say I killed him out of revenge!" Pushkin decided. "That will confirm their belief that I was actually flogged! No, that won't do!"

Then Pushkin decided to insult the emperor with his poetry so severely that he would be subjected to cruel punishment. It would have been better if the poet had been exiled to Siberia. This would have shaken all of Russia! What cruelty towards a poet! What an unthinkable punishment for mere poetry!

The idea was brilliant, and Pushkin liked it. He sat down to write offensive poems. He succeeded.

The exile order was ready. Zhukovsky learned of it. He immediately rushed to Empress Elizabeth Alexeyevna, who favored Pushkin. Their joint intercession softened the emperor's anger. Alexander I exiled the poet to Yekaterinoslav. He was then assigned a new place of exile: first to the Caucasus, then to Crimea, and finally to Bessarabia.

Thus, in 1820 Pushkin was forced to leave St. Petersburg.

Already in exile, he learned from friends who had invented and spread the vile rumor. That person turned out to be Count Fyodor Ivanovich Tolstoy.

Pushkin acquired a cane with an iron knob. He carried it with him everywhere, sometimes tossing it in his hand. He trained his hand so that it wouldn't tremble when he had to shoot. He was firm in his resolve. As soon as he returned to St. Petersburg, his first order of business was to challenge Count Tolstoy to a duel. His second order of business was to kill him. This was no easy task. Count Tolstoy was a very accurate shot, brave, and cool-headed.


"He's really an ace with a pistol
"It hit within five fathoms."


So, the duel will have to take place from ten paces away, after which the duelists will have to close in. Then the chances will be equal. The hand must not tremble. For this, a cane with an iron knob is needed.

Pushkin eagerly awaited his return to St. Petersburg. Meanwhile, Pushkin wrote an epigram about Count F. I. Tolstoy:


"In a dark and despicable life
He was immersed for a long time,
For a long time all the ends of the universe
He defiled with debauchery.
But, having corrected myself little by little,
He made amends for his shame,
And now he is - thank God -
"Just a card thief."


In a letter to Chaadaev, Pushkin ascribed to himself a calmness towards slander, which he by no means possessed:


“The voice of slander could not offend me,
I knew how to despise, knowing how to hate.
What need did I have of a solemn trial?
A noble serf, an ignoramus under the star,
Or a philosopher who in former years
He amazed the four parts of the world with his debauchery,
But, having enlightened himself, he atoned for his shame:
"He gave up wine and became a card thief?"


Pushkin couldn't reduce his feelings for Count Tolstoy to mere contempt. He was filled with anger and a thirst for revenge.

When it was pointed out to him that the word "thief" was overly offensive, and that one might think that the count was stealing cigarette cases from tables, Pushkin wrote the following lines:


“It’s in vain that the sharper is indignant.
I, speaking about theft,
I meant that he was cheating.
At least he doesn't steal cigarette cases,
But he hides his cards up his sleeve."


Chapter 13


In exile, Pushkin meticulously prepared for the duel for a long time, regularly practicing shooting. He not only hit the ace, he drove one bullet into another.

On September 8, 1826, Pushkin was allowed to come to Moscow. Almost immediately upon his arrival, he ordered a summons to be conveyed to Tolstoy. But the Count was not in Moscow. He had to wait.

It is believed that Sergei Sobolevsky learned of the challenge and decided to reconcile Pushkin and Tolstoy. Historians are surprised that Tolstoy did not object to the reconciliation. He suddenly became accommodating. He was not eager for duels.

The explanation for the count's change lies in the fact that by that time, the count had already vowed to his wife, Avdotya, never to kill anyone. He paid too high a price for each person he killed! He had to keep track of the deaths of his own children, and something happened that made him realize that these deaths were far from accidental. He firmly believed that each death of his descendant was God's punishment for someone else's life taken.

No one knew he was dreaming. In his dream, he saw Saint Spyridon.

The saint appeared to him for the second time. The first time, he announced to the count that he would be saved from the island. And so it happened: his fire was seen by a random merchant ship, on which the count returned to the mainland.

Now Saint Spyridon announced to the Count:

"For every soul you destroy, the Lord will take your baby. The number of souls you destroy is the number of children the Lord will take."

"Will I have so many children?" the count asked in his dream.

"It will," Saint Spyridon replied. "And if it doesn't, then you will burn in eternal flame until Judgment Day."

The Count woke up in a cold sweat.

He remembered this dream forever. And the deaths of his infants, occurring with astonishing regularity, convinced him like nothing else that this dream was prophetic. The Count kept track of the deaths. He had trained himself not to become attached to the infants. They were small change in his accounts with God. Five... Six... Seven... Eight... Nine... Ten...

By the day of Pushkin's return, the accounts were closed. The eleventh child had died, and the Count now had two daughters—the eldest, Praskovia, and the youngest, Sara. The Count was certain they wouldn't die. And they both lived!

He deliberately left Moscow when he learned that Pushkin would soon arrive there.

The Count wrote a short note to Sergei Sobolevsky: "For God's sake, reconcile me with Pushkin. Ever yours, Fyodor."

Pushkin was forgiving. The enemies reconciled. Tolstoy was kind to Pushkin, trying to make amends for past wrongs. From the outside, it seemed that not only were they no longer enemies, but they had now become best friends.

As proof of their friendship, Count Tolstoy even took the trouble to introduce Pushkin to the Goncharov family, which included three unmarried girls, the youngest of whom, Natalya Nikolaevna, was quite beautiful. Pushkin, of course, fell in love with her at first sight. He even decided to ask for Natalya Nikolaevna's hand in marriage after the Count informed him that it was not hopeless. Pushkin was incredulous at first, believing that nothing would help his matchmaking. Natalya Nikolaevna's mother was adamant, and Natalya Nikolaevna herself categorically refused to discuss the matter without her mother's consent. Pushkin learned of this through mutual acquaintances.

Count Tolstoy was very supportive of this marriage. In 1829, Pushkin instructed Tolstoy to deliver a letter to Natalya Ivanovna Goncharova, Natalya Nikolaevna's mother. In this letter, Pushkin proposed for the first time for the hand of her 17-year-old daughter, Natalya. The elder Goncharova did not deign to give a positive answer and began making inquiries. Pushkin's fortune seemed insufficient to her. Furthermore, she wanted to first arrange for her older daughters, who were less beautiful and had already spent considerable time unmarried. Natalya's marriage could wait. But Pushkin, whose enthusiasm Count Tolstoy skillfully fueled, enlisted the help of all their mutual acquaintances, who convinced Natalya Ivanovna that Pushkin was a famous Russian poet, that a glorious future awaited him, and that a marriage between her daughter and him would be highly advantageous. With a cash contribution of thirty thousand rubles, which Pushkin mistakenly believed to be his last payment but which was merely the first in a series of demands from his future mother-in-law, Pushkin secured Natalya Ivanovna's consent, and as a result, he and Natalya were married in 1831. Natalya Nikolaevna was twelve years younger than her husband. Pushkin considered this a major advantage.

But Count Tolstoy had a different opinion on this matter.

"Wait a minute, you vile scribbler!" he thought. "You've mocked cuckolds so often! In your poem 'Count Nulin,' you made fun of a husband whose wife had cuckolded him? Let's see how you'll sing when you find yourself in that husband's shoes!"

Pushkin had no idea that the name "Natasha," which he gave to the heroine of his poem "Count Nulin," was no coincidence, the same as the name of his current wife. Was this a chance twist of fate? Or was it part of a Jesuit plot that Count Tolstoy had been nurturing for many years? Having abandoned revenge with pistols, Count Tolstoy had not abandoned revenge as such. He had become neither nobler nor more honest. He had merely become more refined, more patient, more cunning. He had chosen the victim for his revenge. He had fallen in love with Natalya Nikolaevna because of her uncanny resemblance to his own youngest daughter, Sarah. It seemed as if Sarah were Natalya Nikolaevna's younger sister! The Count initially had his eye on her, but soon realized she wasn't raised to be the mistress of an elderly Count, and the Count had neither the slightest desire nor the slightest opportunity to marry her, as he was already married to Avdotya. The Count eyed Natalya for a long time. And suddenly, an idea struck him! What if the hated Pushkin married her? And then became a cuckold? Now that would be a glorious excuse to laugh at the impudent poet!

"How easily you forgot about our quarrel!" the count said, looking at Pushkin's portrait on one of the books. "But I, brother, haven't forgotten anything!"

He pulled out his notebook, where he'd written down his most vicious poems against Pushkin. He even managed to publish one of them. Here it is:


"The stinging sting of moral satire
It doesn't resemble libelous slander at all.
In the delight of vile feelings, you, Chushkin, forgot,
I consider you contemptible, as insignificant as I considered you.
Strike with example, not with verse, vices
And remember, dear friend, that you have cheeks."


This was his poetic response to Pushkin's epigram. The verse is awkward, angular, but utterly angry. How could Pushkin forget this verse? How could he reconcile with the Count?

Pushkin was in love with Natalya Nikolaevna, which means he was already insane at that time. Logic and memory failed him. He called "friend" the man who hated him and was desperately seeking revenge—cruel, vile, and powerful!


Chapter 14


In 1825, in his poem “Count Nulin,” Pushkin wrote:


“And what does the wife do?
Alone without a spouse?
She has a lot to do:
…
Unfortunately, our heroine...
(Ah! I forgot to give her a name.
Her husband simply called her: Natasha,
But we - we will call:
Natalya Pavlovna) unfortunately,
Natalya Pavlovna completely
With its economic part
I didn't do it; then,
What is not in the paternal law
She was brought up,
And in a noble boarding school
At the emigrant Falbala.
She is sitting in front of the window.
The fourth volume is open in front of her.
Sentimental novel:
"Love of Eliza and Armand".


Natalya Nikolaevna, unfortunately, read Mademoiselle de Lafayette's French novel, "The Princess of Cleves." Ah, I wish she hadn't read it! And you, young ladies, never read it under any circumstances! This novel, it seems to us, justifies what should never happen under any circumstances; it excuses behavior that is indefensible; it forces sympathy for what should not be sympathized with. It provides moral justification through appeal to completely uncontrollable feelings—justification for actions that would never have been carried out if the young wife simply forbade herself thoughts that are neither bright, nor noble, nor sublime.

Who gave her this novel? The young Baron Dantes! On whose advice, tell me? On the advice of Count Fyodor Tolstoy.

Mrs. Natalya Pushkina, you see, had nothing to read! Her husband's library contained only ten thousand volumes of the most intelligent and fascinating books, including more than two dozen works by Pushkin himself, in a wide variety of editions. But Mrs. Pushkina found these books boring. She found them so, without ever opening a single one. But she found a French novel, which had not yet been translated into Russian, extremely appealing, and she read it in secret from her husband.

Baron Dantes knew what books to give to the young ladies you had your eye on!

We won't tell the story of Baron Dantes here. We're generally not inclined to recount the fates of men who chose not only the male role in love but also repeatedly assumed the female role. Every time the name Georges Dantes is mentioned, we resist the urge to rinse our mouths and, after writing it, wash our hands thoroughly. But Natalya Nikolaevna was extremely attracted to this man because he was blond, because he was young—a perfect match for her—because he was brazen, complimented her to her face, and because he was rumored to be an exceptionally gallant cavalier. But the word "gallant" in those days didn't mean politeness, but the quality it describes in French: impudent persistence with women, the ability to get what you want even when you don't really want it! In this sense of the word, Georges Dantes was extremely "gallant." And it was none other than Count Fyodor Tolstoy who introduced him to their mutual circle of acquaintances. Did he do this with a long-term view? I'm afraid so.


Chapter 15


Tatyana Larina from Pushkin's poem "Eugene Onegin" says:


“But I am given to another;
I will be faithful to him forever."


Although Natalya Nikolaevna hadn't read the poem, she knew the phrase and applied it to herself. She wished someone would woo her by committing the most incredible acts of madness, so that she could reciprocate.

Natalya Nikolaevna never dreamed that Tatyana Larina had first fallen in love with Eugene Onegin and then, convinced of the impossibility of their relationship, had married a man she didn't love but was suitable for her. Having decided to deny herself the feelings that had arisen entirely innocently—for unmarried young ladies are not at all forbidden from harboring romantic feelings for a young man with whom she could marry—Tatyana first ordered herself to discard Eugene Onegin, after which she married simply because it was accepted, it was necessary, it was right. But, having married, Tatyana dotted all the i 's at their very first meeting , thereby completely and forever depriving Eugene of any opportunity to continue gallant encounters or cherish gallant dreams, thereby commanding him to leave her and no longer bother her with reports of his new feelings for her.

Natalya Nikolaevna had been preparing to use this phrase differently. She mentally used it as bait, like a toy mouse, running away from a cat only to have him chase it and finally catch it. She deliberately fueled Dant;s's feelings for her, whatever they might have been. She had agreed to this "last meeting" so many times, to "explain things" and "finally resolve everything," that we cannot imagine she sincerely wanted such a meeting to be her last.

In other words, Count Tolstoy knew who to introduce the hated Pushkin to.

And so Pushkin, when he found himself stuck in Boldino for a long time while Natalya Nikolaevna was in the capital, wrote to her about how much he missed her and how eagerly he looked forward to seeing her. But he also insisted that until the quarantine was lifted, she wouldn't even think of coming to see him, but would remain where she was, awaiting better times. At the same time, Pushkin wrote to Pushchin about how happy he was, living in Boldino all alone! No one demanded money for new dresses for himself and his marriageable sisters. No one demanded attention to something that simply didn't appeal to his wife, exhausted by her silly aspirations. No one found fault. More than two years of marriage gave Pushkin enough experience to write "The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish." This fact sufficiently characterizes this "happy marriage."
   
In a letter to Natalya Nikolaevna, Pushkin recommends that she read Sumarokov’s fable.


“You rejoice that the dogs follow you like a bitch, with their tails raised and sniffing your backside; there is something to rejoice about! It’s easy to train single freeloaders to follow you; it’s worth spreading the word that I’m a great hunter. That’s the whole secret of coquetry. If there’s a trough, there will be pigs. Why should you accept men who court you? You never know who you’ll run into. Read A. Izmailov’s fable about Foma and Kuzma. Foma fed Kuzma caviar and herring. Kuzma began to ask for a drink, but Foma didn’t give it to him. Kuzma beat Foma like a scoundrel. From this the poet draws the following moral lesson: Beauties! Don’t feed herring if you don’t want to give him a drink; otherwise you might run into Kuzma. Do you see? Please, don’t have these academic breakfasts with me. Now, my angel, I kiss you as if nothing had happened; and I thank you for describing your dissolute life to me in such detail and frankly. Have fun, my dear; just don't go too far and don't forget me."


Pushkin, jealous to the point of disgust, sought out soft words and dropped hints. If there were no basis for such hints, any honest wife would have been offended by such words. Natalya Nikolaevna was not offended, for she knew Pushkin was right.

The book "The Princess of Cleves" should have been confiscated and thrown into the fire. But Pushkin didn't know what Natalya Nikolaevna was reading, much less who was supplying her with such books, or on whose recommendation. And in vain! It was Count Tolstoy who recommended this book.


Chapter 16


My God, how inattentive Natalya Nikolaevna was to her husband's poetry! What prevented her from reading Tatyana's rebuke to Onegin more attentively?


"Onegin, I was younger then,
I think I was better,
And I loved you; so what?
What did I find in your heart?
…
“Then, isn’t it? – in the desert,
Far from the vain rumors,
You didn't like me... Well, what now?
Are you following me?
Why do you have my name in mind?
Is it not because in high society
Now I must appear;
That I am rich and noble,
That the husband is maimed in battles,
Why does the yard caress us?
Is it not because of my shame
Now everyone would notice me
And could bring in society
"A tempting honor for you?"


"Why are you pursuing me?" asks Tatyana, who doesn't exist in the real world, this ideal of Pushkin, a woman who, despite her love, categorically rejects any advances from a man who could have had every right to her if he had wanted it when she was younger, more beautiful, when she was in love.

Had Tatyana read these poems? If she had, she didn't understand them. If she had sought to understand the feelings of the husband with whom she had children, shouldn't she have read these lines? Marriage doesn't obligate, love does. Natalya Nikolaevna felt no obligation to understand her husband. He was her husband, but she didn't love him. Just like the Princess of Cleves.

Pushkinskaya Tatyana reproaches Evgeny for trying to join her marriage, to create a triangle. How petty this is compared to the fact that she offered him her whole self!


“I’m crying… if your Tanya
You haven't forgotten yet,
Then know: the sting of your abuse,
A cold, stern conversation,
If only it were in my power,
I would prefer offensive passion
And to these letters and tears.
To my childhood dreams
Then you at least had pity,
At least some respect for the summer...
And now! - what at my feet
What brought you here? What a trifle!
As with your heart and mind
"To be a slave to petty feelings?"


Far from encouraging Onegin to continue his courtship, Tatyana mercilessly exposes the shameful nature of his actions. This supposed declaration of love is a banal attempt to turn her into a mistress in memory of her former feelings for him, and nothing more. Tatyana admits that her love for Onegin has not completely passed, but she says this not to encourage him to pursue her further, but simply to prove the sincerity of her words, so that he will accept the words that follow this confession as the true and final truth, irrevocable.


“And happiness was so possible,
So close!.. But my destiny
It's already decided. Carelessly,
Perhaps I did:
Me with tears of spells
Mother prayed; for poor Tanya
All lots were equal...
I got married. You should,
I ask you to leave me;
I know there is something in your heart
Both pride and direct honor.
I love you (why lie?),
But I am given to another;
I will be faithful to him forever."


After this, Onegin stands "as if struck by lightning." After such categorical words, nothing else remains. But such were not Natalya Nikolaevna's words. She continued to play with Georges d'Anth;s, dance with him, and allowed herself to meet him alone, and more than once. Would Tatyana Larina have done such a thing?

Pushkin, your only fault is believing your own fantasy. You thought you'd found Tatyana Larina in Natalya Nikolaevna. But haven't you really found Natalya Pavlovna from the poem "Count Nulin"? Open your eyes, poet!

No, he doesn't open his eyes. "My wife's beauty isn't just her looks." You're mistaken, poet. She's just her looks, and many, too many, see this. Emperor Nicholas I , too, notices this, still respecting Russia's first poet too much to directly court his wife, but not everyone is like that, and Nicholas I himself won't always be . The visiting Frenchman Georges d'Anth;s is anything but deft. His experience seducing married Russian women invigorates his imagination. The old libertine Baron Heeckeren, whose dubious relationship to him he attempted to legitimize—a relationship of the kind that arises between spouses, and which in Russia has never been legitimized between people of the same sex, and, God willing, never will be again—is not at all jealous of his supposed son, who is in no way old enough to be a father, for his relationships with women. He merely encourages him in this and wants to know every detail, the slightest sign of his bedfellow's success in this latest adventure. How many have tried to get into, or at least peek into, the marital bed of Russia's first poet! None of them should be allowed into Russia! But it's impossible, sir, diplomatic immunity!


Chapter 17


The Count unfolded the piece of paper he had kept for many years.


“I am not offended by women’s attention
And it seems he is rich in friendship,
But soon you will be humiliated,
"Friend! You'll get horned!"


He sent this anonymous letter, rewritten in someone else's handwriting, to Pushkin. But it had no effect. That was a long time ago. But the Count kept drafts of such works in a separate folder. Also kept there were carefully copied poems by Pushkin from the time when he was unmarried. Everything Pushkin had ever written to any woman was now a weapon against him. Sending these poems to Natalya Nikolaevna little by little became the Count's favorite pastime. A drop wears away a stone. The Count was fostering Natalya Nikolaevna's estrangement from Alexander Sergeyevich.

She should show these poems to her husband and ask when and to whom they were written. Or better yet, throw the letters away without reading them. Anything that defames the people you love should be rejected without delving into it. If you love, slander against your loved one has no effect. Only one condition: if you love! And if you don't love? Jealousy based on love is a harmful, difficult, destructive feeling. But jealousy in the absence of love is much worse. It's not regret for a loss, it's a feeling of indignation towards a person whose feelings you don't care about. Morally mature people aren't subject to such feelings. They shouldn't be. And how many of them are there in the world—morally mature people? Can you name even one?

At the very time the Count wrote this quatrain, Pushkin, still in exile in the Caucasus, also took up his pen to respond to his offender. Then, dipping his pen in ink, he took a clean sheet of paper and hastily wrote:


“Your soul is black as tar,
Eyes are red like a tomato.
You are Fedor, but not Theodore.
"Get out of here. And don't bother me again."


"No, that won't do!" he said. "A street jester might have earned a standing ovation from the crowd for something like that, but Pushkin isn't supposed to write like that."

And the crumpled sheet of paper flew into the fire.

Pushkin had long since forgotten about this poem. But the Count carefully guarded everything that could hurt, offend, or disgrace the man he hated with all his petty soul.

The Count vowed never to kill again. He even swore this to his wife. But he never vowed not to take revenge on those who had wronged him.

"But this isn't murder!" he thought. "Just a joke that's been going on for years! So much the funnier it will be!"

There are people who know how to have fun watching other people suffer.


Chapter 18


Prince Pyotr Vladimirovich Dolgorukov was the nephew of Mikhail Petrovich Dolgorukov, to whom Count Fyodor Tolstoy served as an aide-de-camp. For this reason, the prince and the count maintained a friendly relationship.

The prince once showed him a humorous cuckold diploma he'd bought in Vienna. The diploma was printed on excellent paper, but in German, a language not commonly spoken in Russia, though known by many nobles. Fyodor Tolstoy, among others, knew it well.

The Count read the document carefully. The Dutch sounded similar to German, and the Count guessed what it was about.

"What a great idea!" he thought. "I should definitely take note of that!"
 
In early November 1838, sealed envelopes containing other envelopes addressed to Alexander Pushkin were sent to ten of Pushkin's closest friends. Seven of them dared to open the envelopes; what they found outraged them deeply, and they were all consigned to the fire. But three unopened envelopes were delivered to Pushkin himself.

They contained “Diplomas” printed on embossed paper, containing the following text.


“The Knights of the First Degree, Commanders and Knights of the Most Serene Order of Cuckolds, assembled in the Grand Chapter under the chairmanship of the Most Honorable Grand Master of the Order, His Excellency D. L. Naryshkin , unanimously elected Mr. Alexander Pushkin as Coadjutor Grand Master of the Order of Cuckolds and Historiographer of the Order.
Permanent Secretary Count I. Borch."


The spring was cocked. The affair had begun that would end in a duel between Pushkin and Dantes, resulting in Pushkin's death from his wounds.

To Georges d'Anth;s's disgrace, it must be said that despite being struck by Pushkin's bullet, he remained virtually unharmed, later attributing his miraculous survival to a button from his trousers. Facts and ballistics, however, indicate that d'Anth;s was wearing, at the very least, a whalebone corset under his uniform. However, that's a whole other story, one that merely makes one view this duel not as a duel at all, but as a cold-bloodedly planned murder.

The year following Pushkin's death, Count Fyodor Tolstoy's beloved daughter, Sara Fyodorovna, died suddenly at the age of seventeen.

The Count was in despair. A week after the funeral, he found his notebook, where the names of the eleven officers he had killed were written.

With a trembling hand, he wrote there: "Pushkin Alexander, poet, 1837." Then he crossed it out and wrote "Sarah, 1838. Paid."

The account was closed. In 1846, on the night before Christmas, the day when all the devils are raging, Count Tolstoy died.

The date of his death indicates that although he had to pay his dues, he was most likely not completely forgiven.




Chapter 19. Evidence


Why do I consider Fyodor Tolstoy guilty of Pushkin’s death?
Let's figure it out.
Serena Vitale's book, Pushkin's Button, explores in great detail the question of who might be to blame for this tragedy.
This book is available in the public domain at https://royallib.com/index
The book is also known under another title – “Pushkin in a Trap”.

This is what she writes in the chapter DIABLE BOITEUX :

QUOTE

“Pushkin’s youngest daughter recalled: ‘My mother always recognized Prince Pyotr Vladimirovich Dolgorukov as the author of the letters... Another person my mother pointed to... was Prince Ivan Sergeevich Gagarin.’”

END OF QUOTE

It is interesting that in her book Serena Vitale does not even mention Count Fyodor Ivanovich Tolstoy!

But he was well acquainted with both of them. Pyotr Vladimirovich Dolgorukov was the nephew of Prince Mikhail Petrovich Dolgorukov, under whom Fyodor Tolstoy had fought in the War of 1812. He was on friendly terms with his nephew. Prince Ivan Sergeevich Gagarin was also very close to Fyodor Tolstoy, as was the entire Gagarin family.

Meanwhile, Fyodor Tolstoy repeatedly and publicly and very strongly quarreled with Alexander Pushkin.

Moreover, Fyodor Tolstoy was very vindictive, and he could nurse his revenge for years.
For example, after being marooned on one of the islands of "Russian America," he then made his way to the mainland on a merchant ship that happened to pick him up, after which it took him two years to get from the Far East to the capital. During these two years, he hatched plans for revenge against Ivan Fyodorovich Kruzenshtern, and at a ball in his unit, he caused a scandal that led to a very harsh punishment. Right from the ball, Fyodor Tolstoy was sent to a distant garrison and demoted.

The cruel joke about the cuckold's diploma was apparently prompted by a diploma from Austria. Meanwhile, Count Tolstoy had an excellent knowledge of several European languages, certainly including German, French, and English. However, this is not certain about Gagarin and Dolgorukov. So, if these two are guilty, then Fyodor Tolstoy could have been the instigator, as such jokes are his style, and even worse than this one. For him, any baseness is no obstacle—that's the Count. And he had reason to hate Pushkin, since at least two of Pushkin's rather scathing verse epigrams against him were well known throughout Russia, as is his response, which, while not particularly talented, was brimming with malice and hatred.

Read about Fyodor Tolstoy on Wikipedia and here.


Also the novel “The Tattooed Count” by Evgeny Zvyagin
https://www.vasha-kniga.com/productdetail.asp?productid=199617

In his book "The Most Jokingly Council," Lev Berdnikov reports on Fyodor Tolstoy's close connection with the Gagarin family. Count Tolstoy harbored tender feelings for Nadezhda Feodorovna Chetvertinskaya, n;e Gagarina. "Tolstoy's connection with the Gagarin family was not only friendship but also family." Berdnikov then goes on to prove this with a quote from the writer I.M. Dolgorukov. See how it all connects? Fyodor Tolstoy was very close to both the Dolgorukov and Gagarin families!

Sirena Vitale suspects Pyotr Vladimirovich Dolgorukov and Prince Ivan Sergeevich Gagarin, but does not mention Fyodor Ivanovich Tolstoy, who was friendly with them and who hated Pushkin but carefully hid his hatred under the guise of friendship.

But we know that Tolstoy was not at all of the kind to forgive the epigrams Pushkin wrote about him, or to so easily forget such intense mutual hatred, which, if it could be weakened at all, it would only be by an even stronger feeling of contempt . They say that hatred and contempt are mutually exclusive? Not at all! They feed each other, passing from one to the other. Contempt is what every hater tries to feign, and sometimes succeeds. But unquenched hatred rarely turns into contempt. It takes a very strong character to stop hating and start despising. A character so strong that neither Tolstoy nor Pushkin had it.

Let's return to Serena Vitale

QUOTE

"Dolgorukov, Gagarin... Sensitive observers avert their gaze. A sharp smell of sulfur wafts across the stage, violet flashes tear through the darkness, the hatch opens with an ominous creak—and lo, look and behold! Satan, appearing in the roles the Russian popular imagination has ascribed to him since time immemorial: an apostate, like the Jesuit Ivan Gagarin, a lame man—like the crippled Dolgorukov (whose physical handicap earned him the nickname le bancal—the lame one). Dolgorukov also displayed other signs of Lucifer: squat, poorly built, with irregular features; shifty eyes hidden behind thick glasses. He had a poisonous tongue, a talent for behind-the-scenes play, and was an enthusiast of gossip, intrigue, and deception. He was cruel, repulsive, stingy and indulgent, full of self-love and contempt for his fellows; an untrustworthy man, always at war with the world—in short, a common Antichrist."

END OF QUOTE

Interestingly, Klementy Rosset immediately suspected Gagarin. There were grounds, but no proof.

QUOTE

"Klementy Rosset was also the recipient of a double letter on November 4, 1836: the package was delivered to the house where he lived with his brother, Arkady, and Nikolay Skalon, a former colleague from the Corps of Pages. The young Rossets owed their friendship to the most famous writers of their time... Pushkin loved both Rossets... Their reaction, Pushkin said, was far more important to him than the opinions of those in power and aristocrats. Klementy Rosset decisively opened the letter addressed to Pushkin and immediately showed it to his brother and his friend, sharing his impressions with them. He felt that the author must be familiar with their small apartment on Mikhailovskaya Square, since the address on the envelope was explained with extraordinary care: 'in the Zanfteleben house, on the left hand side, on the third floor.' He seemed to recognize the letter's paper and handwriting—where had he seen them before? Having remembered, the very next day I went to look for Prince Gagarin.
...Rosset dined with Dolgorukov and Gagarin, but didn't mention the purpose of his visit in the presence of the servants. Later, he and his two friends retired to his office, where he presented them with the diploma, cautiously trying to gauge their reaction as he wondered aloud who could have written it and what the consequences might be.
This conversation, perhaps coupled with considerations unknown to us, must have aroused Clement Rosset's suspicions , since immediately after the duel, the names of these two princes began to surface as possible authors of the fatal diplomas. On January 31, 1837, Alexander Ivanovich Turgenev noted in his diary: "Dinned at Karamzina's. Argument about Heeckeren and Pushkin. Suspicion again falls on Prince I. Gagarin." Turgenev followed Gagarin at the poet's funeral the following day: had he failed to approach Pushkin's body for a final farewell, it would have been an indirect confirmation of his guilt. But the young man, who seemed "deeply overcome with a secret sadness," approached the hearse and touched the dead poet's ashen forehead with his lips. No one but Turgenev was convinced by this pious gesture: in 1843, when Gagarin entered the French Jesuit College as a novice, many believed that, driven by repentance, he left Russia and withdrew from the world to atone for the crime that was on his conscience.
But these were merely whispered rumors, and no one, it seems, openly named Gagarin or Dolgorukov until 1863 , when a little-known poet named Ammosov published a slim book reconstructing the events leading to Pushkin's tragic death, "from the words of his former lyceum classmate and second, Konstantin Karlovich Danzas." Now, suddenly, in Russia, it could be read in black and white: " After Pushkin's death, many... suspected Prince Gagarin; now, however, this suspicion remained with Dolgorukov... Once abroad, Gagarin admitted that the notes had indeed been written on his paper, but not by him, but by Prince Pyotr Vladimirovich Dolgorukov ."
END OF QUOTE
Interestingly, Sirena Vitale points out an important fact. Whoever sent the dozen letters with the mocking diplomas sent them to extremely carefully chosen addresses—those whose opinions were especially important and dear to Pushkin. The letters were addressed to Pushkin's friends. Therefore, whoever organized the mailing knew all of Pushkin's friends very well. Doesn't this indicate that this person was part of this circle of friends? Fyodor Tolstoy, who introduced Pushkin to Natalia Goncharova and greatly facilitated their marriage, was certainly already considered a friend of Pushkin. But he didn't receive such a letter! Even if the author wasn't Tolstoy himself, this author saw no need to disgrace Pushkin in Tolstoy's eyes. This in itself is evidence.

From the source "The Devil" who paid with children

QUOTE
"Feodor Ivanovich, sensing death, called for a priest. The American's confession lasted five hours, and the priest left the dying man quite frightened. Crossing himself, he quickly descended the steps, even forgetting to say goodbye to his relatives. What the count told him remained a mystery."

END OF QUOTE

Apparently, the confessor was informed of the count's sins. His guilt in the deaths of 11 people is known. Therefore, the count told the confessor something new, something unknown to him and those around him .
It is precisely one of the unsolved crimes – the actions of a mysterious unknown person who, over the course of several months, persistently pushed Pushkin to a duel with Dantes.
After the first challenge, Dantes tried his best to avoid the duel.
The second challenge was actually deliberately provoked by Dantes.
Dantes wasn't a very good shot. Pushkin was an excellent marksman; he'd trained for a long time. Pushkin fired first. His bullet only damaged the soft part of Dantes's hand, which he instinctively used to cover his chest. After all, the soft part of his hand obviously wouldn't have protected him from the bullet. To explain Dantes's uninjured state, a legend was used about a button from his trousers, which supposedly saved him. Indeed, there was no pocket where the bullet struck; it couldn't be explained by a cigarette case or anything like that. And the trousers... Do you believe that?
What kind of button is capable of stopping a bullet? What size does it need to be to prevent it from traveling further into the body along with the bullet? How thick does it need to be and what material does it need to be to prevent it from shattering into pieces?
Dantes was a cavalryman. Cavalrymen in those days wore corsets to make their waists appear smaller. Whalebone, at the very least. It's actually a fairly hard and wide bone. It's not a button.
It was also around this time that a proposal emerged for custom-made bulletproof corsets. So it's only natural to recall that Pushkin didn't miss! Why did d'Anth;s survive, and not even actually receive a body wound, but only a hand one? Apparently, only because the bullet, having damaged his fingers, should have penetrated further into his body, but was stopped by something more substantial. Something more substantial than a button. And in this case, we can easily understand why, during the first challenge to a duel, both d'Anth;s and Heeckeren made every effort to ensure that the duel did not take place under any circumstances. And during the second challenge, which occurred after ample time for the bulletproof corset to be ordered and received, d'Anth;s effectively begged for a duel, behaving so provocatively that Pushkin, who had promised the Tsar that he would not challenge d'Anth;s to a duel without first notifying His Majesty, broke his promise. For him, the matter was so serious that he no longer even feared the wrath of Nicholas I.
If we accept this version, then we must admit that Pushkin died not in a duel, but in a pre-planned assassination . He had no chance of killing his opponent; his opponent intended to kill him, so Pushkin had no chance of surviving the duel. Just as he had no chance of evading the challenge to a duel after the insults heaped upon him by an unknown individual , whom we see as Count Fyodor Ivanovich Tolstoy .
Why didn't Natalya Goncharova-Pushkina point the finger at Tolstoy? He facilitated her marriage to Pushkin. Natalya Nikolaevna couldn't imagine that the man who facilitated her marriage would be her enemy. But Natalya Nikolaevna was a very poor psychologist, as she proved throughout her life.
If you are interested, read the story "The Twelfth Victim"
litsovet.ru/books/992978-dvenadcataya-zhertva

Let's return to Serena Vitale.
QUOTE
"Pyotr Dolgorukov was not yet twenty years old in November 1836. He had completed his studies at the Corps of Pages, but in 1831 he was deprived of the title of Page of the Chamber (which he had received earlier that year) "for bad behavior and laziness" ... As the sole heir to a considerable fortune, the young man had no financial worries and had a lot of free time, which he devoted mainly to social life and his hobby - genealogy. His Notice sur les principales families de Russie [ Russian pedigree The book ( French ) was published in France in 1843 under the pseudonym Count Almargo and provoked the wrath of the Tsar, the attention of the secret police, and the indignation of many of his compatriots. As time passed and Dolgorukov's prolific publishing program continued , their anger grew, as the prince enjoyed adding facts he plucked from the archives along with witty salon anecdotes, thus exposing and ridiculing the sycophants who had acquired titles and positions through flattery, intrigue, sham marriages, and erotic escapades . … Dolgorukov viewed the Romanovs as nothing more than upstarts. An ominous cry from Nicholas I summoned the prince back to his homeland… he was forced to spend a year in exile in Vyatka… After his exile ended, Dolgorukov devoted himself exclusively to his studies and genealogical charts… In 1859, he secretly fled the country, finding refuge in France, where he was granted official status as a political exile. There, he continued to publish his merciless "truths about Russia" in newspapers, pamphlets, and memoirs, producing fiercely satirical pamphlets exposing the vices of his homeland's aristocracy and autocracy. He died in exile in 1868, by which time many in Russia were convinced—and some claimed it with certainty—that he was ultimately responsible for Pushkin's death. This accusation, based on circumstantial evidence and analogy, remains widely circulated today .
END OF QUOTE
Serena Vitale then recounts Dolgorukov's personality and the jokes he made. He offered Chaadayev treatment for his delusions of grandeur, and offered Vorontsov a bribe of 50,000 rubles to confirm his pedigree, which he claimed was, as it turned out, a sham.
This is the evil manner in which Dolgorukov wrote about V.F. Odoevsky:

QUOTE
In the first issue of the magazine "Future," published in Paris in September 1860, Dolgorukov wrote about Pushkin's friend V. F. Odoevsky: "In his youth, he lived in Moscow, diligently studied German philosophy, and scribbled out bad poetry. He conducted unsuccessful chemical experiments and, with his incessant musical practice, tormented the ears of all his acquaintances... Nowadays, Odoevsky is considered a literary figure among society people, and among literary men, a man of the world. He has a back made of rubber, an insatiable greed for ribbons and court invitations, and, constantly wriggling now to the right, now to the left, he crawled to the rank of chamberlain."
An indignant Odoevsky responded with a vengeance: "Until now, this half-educated gentleman had practiced only in the area of gossip, the transfer of anonymous, anonymous letters, and had operated in this field with great success: many quarrels, family disasters, and, incidentally, one great loss that Russia mourns to this day have resulted from them." But he could not publish his response: responding to banned letters in Russia was impossible."
END OF QUOTE
So, Odoevsky directly accuses Dolgorukov of spreading gossip, from which Russia suffered a loss, which it still mourns to this day; here, of course, we are talking about the loss of Pushkin.
Sobolevsky also accuses Dolgorukov.
QUOTE
On February 7, 1862, Sergei Alexandrovich Sobolevsky, a friend of Pushkin's whose tireless efforts to expose the author of the diplomas continued even after the poet's death, wrote to the younger Prince Vorontsov: "I have just been told that Dantes-Heeckeren wants to start another case with Dolgorukov and that he intends to prove that it was Dolgorukov who wrote the vile anonymous letters... I know that the memoirs (real or forged) of Princess Dolgorukova are circulating in St. Petersburg... If you come across them, it is worthwhile to see what they say about the Pushkin case; this is of particular interest, since the princess always believed (and was in the habit of informing anyone who would listen) that her husband told her that he was the author of the whole intrigue."
END OF QUOTE
Here are a few more touches to Dolgorukov's portrait.
QUOTE
On February 8, 1862, the printer E. I. Weimar wrote to the same Prince Vorontsov to report an unpleasant incident that had occurred after he had printed the third volume of Dolgorukov's Russian Genealogical Book: "On March 2, 1856, I brought the bill to his home... He pounced on me, saying that some of the copies were damaged... 'Sign the receipt,' he said. I signed. He took the bill, went into the office, supposedly to bring the money, and returned a few minutes later, asking: 'What are you waiting for?' - 'What do you mean, what am I waiting for, Your Excellency? My money!' - 'You have received your money, you have signed the receipt!' ... He began to shower me with the most offensive expressions, called the butler and ordered me to be taken out." Weimar filed a lawsuit, but later withdrew it, fearing the need to challenge such a "powerful and famous man" as Dolgorukov in a public court.
…
In 1892, the publisher of the Russian Archives reported, citing the late Count Adlerberg: “In the winter of 1836-37, at one of the big evenings in St. Petersburg, the young Prince P. V. Dolgorukov (later a famous genealogist), standing behind Pushkin, pointed to Dantes and at the same time raised his fingers up, spreading them like horns.”
In 1895, the Russian Archives published Baron Fyodor Andreyevich B;hler's notes to an unpublished letter by Pushkin. In them, we read: "In the 1840s, during one of Prince V. F. Odoevsky's literary and musical Saturdays, I happened to stay so late that I remained in his study for a quarter with Count Mikhail Yuryevich Vielgorsky and Lev Sergeyevich Pushkin, once known as Levushka... and it was then that Levushka learned for the first time, from Count Vielgorsky's detailed, highly entertaining account, all the treacherous incitement that drove his brother to the duel. It would be inappropriate to report in print what I heard then, even now. I will only say that the later renowned writer and genealogist Prince P. V. Dolgorukov was named here among the authors of the inflammatory anonymous letters."
END OF QUOTE
To put it briefly, the debate on this topic reached a dead end. Dolgorukov wrote an open letter, denying any involvement in the thesis. This convinced few. Regarding Dolgorukov's guilt, Vyazemsky wrote: "This has not yet been proven, although Dolgorukov was capable of committing this vile act."
Two years later, in 1865, Gagarin also cast his vote, declaring that anyone could have bought stamped paper similar to his, and that he had too much respect for Pushkin. Not everyone believed Gagarin either, but more people believed in his innocence, as he seemed less obviously base.
QUOTE
Sobolevsky wrote to Semyon Mikhailovich Vorontsov (in the letter we quoted earlier): “I respect Gagarin too much to have even the slightest suspicion against him; however, last year I most decisively questioned him about this; in answering me, he did not even think of justifying himself in this, confident in his innocence; but, justifying Dolgorukov in this matter, he told me about many facts that seemed to me more likely to prove the guilt of the latter than anything else.”
END OF QUOTE
In 1886, four years after Gagarin's death, Nikolai Leskov came to his defense in the pages of the Historical Herald, calling for "extreme caution in speculation about him." "Both justice and mercy demand it," he wrote.
But no one stood up for Dolgorukov except the Russian exile, Alexander Herzen, who, although he saw nothing attractive in him, felt obliged to defend a like-minded person – an opponent of the despotic regime.
For this same reason, Lenin later interceded for Dolgorukov. And for this reason alone, Dolgorukov's guilt was never seriously discussed again in Soviet literature.
Thus, Dolgorukov was more valuable for Soviet history as an enemy of tsarism than as the culprit of Pushkin’s death.

Many years later, the lame devil found another admirer in Lenin, who preferred him to the lying liberal historians and welcomed the publication of his political letters in a Russia liberated from the Tsarist yoke.
QUOTE
Sollogub said the following regarding the so-called diplomas: "Only experts need examine the handwriting, and the name of Pushkin's real murderer will become known, to the eternal contempt of the entire Russian people. That name is on the tip of my tongue." Many "experts" sought this prize in the twentieth century, but it has forever remained on the tip of Sollogub's overly cautious tongue.
END OF QUOTE
I think we are talking about Fyodor Tolstoy.
In 1927, Shchegolev presented samples of the handwriting of Gagarin, Dolgorukov, and Heeckeren to graphologist Salkov, who decided that the handwriting on the two surviving copies of the diplomas undoubtedly belonged to Prince Pyotr Dolgorukov.
In 1966, Pushkin's biographer Yashin, supported by expert Tomilin, discovered the handwriting of Prince Ivan Gagarin at the end of the diploma and Vasily Zavyazkin, a servant of Gagarin's father (who lived in Moscow at the time), in the address "To Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin." Another expert, Lyubarsky, challenged Tomilin's conclusions, demonstrating that they were unfounded.
In 1974, expert Tsipenyuk argued that Salkov's methods and conclusions lacked scientific basis; therefore, Dolgorukov's guilt could not be considered conclusively proven.
Not proven, but not disproven either.
Why hasn't the question of Fyodor Tolstoy's possible involvement been raised? Has everyone forgotten about him? Was he considered a friend of the Pushkin family? Aren't traitors drawn from among friends? And hasn't Serena Vitale demonstrated that to know who to send letters to, and in some cases to provide such precise addresses and directions to the recipients' homes, one would have to be a member of Pushkin's circle!
Dolgorukov or Gagarin don't really fit this role, although they do fit the role of accomplices. But we highly likely attribute the idea itself, the list of addresses, the funding for it, and the writing of the text to F.I. Tolstoy.
“THE HANDS ARE NOT CLEAN”
Here are a few more touches to the portrait of F.I. Tolstoy
Griboyedov wrote, as already noted, about him in the play "Woe from Wit":

"Night robber, duelist,
He was exiled to Kamchatka and returned as an Aleut.
And his hands are not clean.”

Tolstoy, who had cheated almost openly at the card table, took offense. He carefully crossed out the second line and wrote next to it, "The devil wore it in Kamchatka," adding in parentheses, "For he was never exiled." Then, on another occasion, he asked Griboyedov:
- What did you write, as if I was dishonest?
- But everyone knows that you cheat when you play cards.
"And that's all?" the American was genuinely surprised. "You should have written it that way, otherwise they'll think I'm stealing snuffboxes from the table."
Griboyedov was once forced to officially declare that "not clean-handed" only meant card fraud, and that Fyodor Tolstoy, they say, does not steal snuffboxes.
According to another version, during the premiere of the play "Woe from Wit," Fyodor Tolstoy deliberately took a seat in the front row, and after Repetilov's monologue, he stood up and loudly said, addressing the audience: "By God, I didn't take bribes, because I didn't serve!", which was met with general delight.

Chapter 20. Dantes' Button

http://proza.ru/2024/11/24/1601

The correct spelling would be d'Anth;s, but I'm writing Dantes, and I think you'll agree with me.

When the duel between Pushkin and Dantes began, it was decided to shoot from twenty paces. The duelists were to begin moving toward each other at the signal of their seconds and shoot whenever they deemed it necessary, but upon reaching the barter, marked by the seconds' greatcoats, they were to stop. This meant they could shoot earlier, or when they were at the closest possible range. After firing, a duelist was to remain in position, although they could turn sideways and shield themselves with their hand.

Pushkin, in this case, was extremely determined about the duel; he stipulated the minimum shooting distance and, of course, intended to shoot only after reaching the barrier itself. That is, not from the initial forty paces, but from the twenty remaining when both duelists reached the barrier. The first shooter had the advantage of wounding or even killing his opponent, increasing his chances. But if he missed, he was at a disadvantage, since he couldn't fire until his opponent fired back. If the first round failed, a reconciliation or a second round was possible. Pushkin firmly stated that reconciliation was impossible, and he had very good reasons for this.

And here's what history tells us. D'Anth;s fired one step short of the barrier. That is, just when, as he could have guessed, Pushkin would not have time to fire. And he hit. Pushkin fell, struck down by a bullet. But he was still alive. D'Anth;s was about to leave his position, but Pushkin demanded that his opponent return to his place so that he could also fire. They handed him another pistol, since his own had become filled with snow from his fall. He took aim and fired. D'Anth;s fell.

"Is he dead?" Pushkin asked.

"No, wounded in the arm," replied D'Archiac, D'Anth;s's second.

It later turned out that Pushkin had been shot in the lower abdomen, a fatal wound. He had also lost a great deal of blood.

When they brought him home, they couldn't find a doctor for a long time. Finally, a doctor arrived who had already examined D'Anth;s, having been summoned because of an arm wound. Why only the arm? After all, he had been covering his body with his arm, and the bullet had pierced only the soft part of the arm, not the bone. What happened next to the bullet? And why did D'Anth;s fall? Do people fall from arm wounds? Isn't that odd?
Here's what Zhukovsky, who calls D'Anth;s Heeckeren after the baron who adopted him, writes about this:

"Heeckeren fell, but only from a severe concussion." The bullet pierced the fleshy parts of his right hand, which he used to cover his chest, and, weakened by this, struck the button holding his trousers up with suspenders. A trousers button? Protected him from the bullet? The soft tissue of his hand weakened its flight?! Seriously?!

There is also the claim that it was a uniform button. Let's be a little more serious. Can a button stop a bullet?

The diameter of a button is so small that no, it can't. Even if we assume it was a copper button, it won't shatter into pieces from the bullet, but it won't stop the bullet either. It will enter the body along with the bullet, or, if the impact isn't exactly centered, it will slightly deflect the bullet, but it won't save the person on whose uniform it's located. Moreover, the buttons on uniforms are convex, so the bullet must hit the exact center for the button to be effective. And on the back, the button has a loop that can act as a tip, helping to pierce flesh. In short, given the bullet's momentum, a button is no obstacle; it won't save a duelist from death. And if, as Zhukovsky writes, we're talking about a button from trousers, then, as you can imagine, it would have to be a bone button, which would shatter into pieces. Unless, of course, Dant;s used buttons five centimeters or more in diameter, flat, at least three millimeters thick, or even more. Well, then, of course, a bullet from a 19th-century pistol wouldn't have penetrated such a so-called "button." A sort of five-kopeck coin from the time of Catherine the Great. Well, if Dant;s had placed such a coin under his uniform, it could have saved him, by accident. But if he really did have such a coin on his chest, he should have honestly admitted it was a copper coin, about 5 mm thick. Placing such a coin under one's uniform would be a deliberate attempt to protect oneself from a bullet.

And here, it seems, the truth has flashed through its edges! Why did Dantes, through his adoptive father—in reality, the dominant figure in homosexual relationships—request a postponement of the duel, first for 24 hours, then for two weeks? Twenty-four hours was explained by his official commitments, but what was the purpose of two weeks?

When Pushkin announced his challenge, both Heeckerens, young and old, were shaking with fear like aspen leaves! And they both tried their best to calm Pushkin, to convince him that there was nothing serious between Dant;s and Natalya Pushkina. Meanwhile, the duel issue was settled by Dant;s confessing to being in love with Natalya Nikolaevna's older sister, Ekaterina Goncharova, and even asking for her hand in marriage. Pushkin didn't believe the wedding would take place. This announcement of his desire to marry surprised everyone—all of St. Petersburg, as well as Ekaterina herself, and most of all, Natalya Nikolaevna.

For a while, Dant;s pretended to be in love with Ekaterina. But after a while, he began to behave with extreme impudence. He resumed his courtship of Natalya Pushkina, and things escalated to the point of secret meetings, explanations, blackmail (he threatened to shoot himself in front of her if she didn't give in), and much more that is simply disgusting to recount.

So, Dant;s, who had been terribly afraid of a duel, suddenly began resolutely asking for one!

Pushkin essentially had no choice. Even if he left Petersburg, everyone would assume he was a cuckold, that Natalya Nikolaevna was dishonest. But even that was impossible. Pushkin was tied down by debt, the need to continue working on his history of Peter the Great, and the preparation of the journal Sovremennik, which he hoped would pay off his debts. He could not bear to remain in Petersburg, where Natalya Nikolaevna continued to openly flirt with d'Anth;s, and he with her, they were once again behaving like a "couple."

In a rage, Pushkin wrote an insulting letter to Heeckeren Sr., the insult essentially consisting of telling him the truth about his role as a matchmaker in this affair. In response, he received the challenge to a duel between himself and d'Anth;s, which he had longed for.

d'Anth;s, who had cowardly requested a delay, now challenges Pushkin to a duel himself.
Let us read Pushkin's letter carefully. It contains no text that would preclude a reconciliation. So, even in this letter, Pushkin actually assumed that he would be apologized to, that the situation would improve, that Dant;s would finally leave his wife alone and focus on his own.

Here are the last words of Pushkin's letter, verbatim:

"And so, I am forced to turn to you to ask you to put an end to all these intrigues if you want to avoid a new scandal, which I, of course, will not hesitate to cause. I have the honor to be, Baron. Your most humble and obedient servant." There is no indication here of the impossibility of a peaceful separation! On the contrary, there is a request here that Heeckeren and his "son," Dant;s, leave him, Pushkin, and his wife alone. He is "asking" to put an end to the intrigues. Not demanding, but asking. There are also phrases like: "I am forced to admit, Baron, that your own role was not entirely proper. You, a representative of the crowned head, you played a fatherly matchmaker for your son. Apparently, you were the one directing his entire behavior (though rather awkward). It was you, no doubt, who dictated the vulgarities he uttered and the absurdities he dared to write." And so on. There are the words "probably," "apparently," "forced to admit." So Pushkin, torn with anger, still finds mitigating words! If Heeckeren had been, as before, terrified by the prospect of a duel, he would have only written: "You doubt your accusations, and rightly so. In fact, I have nothing to do with this, and if anything in my actions gave rise to suspicion, I assure you, you are mistaken! As for my son's actions, I will simply remind you that he is the legal spouse of your sister-in-law, so I believe he has every right to see your wife, who is his own wife's sister. If the ladies decide to invite him for conversation or other innocent entertainment, he can hardly be blamed for not rejecting his sister-in-law's invitation. However, since you are asking for these meetings to cease, I will once again try to influence my son and implore him to behave more modestly toward your esteemed wife, although I assure you there is no reason for your concern in this regard, nor could there be. "With that, I remain your humble servant, Baron Heeckeren."
If Heeckeren had written such a reply, the duel would most likely never have taken place. Especially if Dant;s had stopped seeing Natalya Pushkina, which, in my opinion, was obligatory for any decent man, which Dant;s certainly was not.

So, the duel, which Dant;s and his "father" dreaded terribly, took place solely as a result of the concerted actions of both these scoundrels, and according to their scenario, exactly at the time they had set for it. Not when Pushkin challenged Dant;s in early November, but more than three months later, when...

What are we supposed to write after the word "when"?!

Do with me what you will, but I will write "When both were ready for this terrible event!"

So, allow me to assume that Dant;s used those three months for shooting practice, which Pushkin certainly did not do.

But this is clearly not enough, and it is not at all vile.

But the second, obvious suspicion is that Dant;s wore some kind of bulletproof vest under his standard cavalry guards uniform. And this suspicion is well-founded. Firstly, something similar was being proposed at that very time.

Serena Vitale reports: "Old documents indicate that in 1835-1836, the cavalry guards tried out various bulletproof vests," invented by Dr. Papandopoulos-Vreto. Serena Vitale herself rejects this hypothesis on the grounds that if a bullet had struck his neck or shoulder, he would have had to unbutton his uniform, revealing that Dant;s was wearing such bulletproof vests, and then he would have been disgraced, dishonored.

Well, pardon me, but wasn't he disgraced? Do you think soldiers and officers of that time didn't understand that a "trouser button" couldn't protect against a bullet, any more than the soft part of the arm could? After all, the chest can only be covered by the part of the arm below the elbow. And how much muscle is there there? Especially in a young man as gracefully built as Dantes? He's not some modern bodybuilder! And if a bullet passed through the soft tissue of the arm below the elbow without hitting the bone, it's not a wound at all, just a scratch! After all, you won't find more than one centimeter of soft tissue from the edge of the arm on a man of Dantes's build!

Perhaps a trouser button could convince the naive Zhukovsky? But not me! The doctor who examined Dantes reported that he was wounded ONLY IN THE ARM. If the bullet had hit an ordinary button, at the very least, his chest would have needed to be bandaged! Even if the bullet and button had pierced the skin and flesh, they could have been stopped by a rib, but that's unlikely. The rib would have been broken or pierced. Or the bullet could have passed between the ribs, or even slid along them and entered the lungs or heart. Dantes' chest was undamaged! And this raises very serious suspicions. And the fact that he was expelled from Russia in disgrace only confirms that, apparently, all the officers understood what was going on! Finally, to dispel any doubts, I turned to Wikipedia to see what kind of buttons the cavalry guards wore during the reign of Nicholas I. And this is what the very first line of the relevant section revealed to me:

"Under Nicholas I, uniforms and greatcoats were initially made very narrow, especially in the cavalry, where officers even had to wear corsets." Read the article "Uniforms of the Russian Army."

So, undoubtedly, d'Anth;s was familiar with the concept of a "corset," since they were worn at that time by the branches of the military where he served. Even if he wore a simple whalebone corset under his uniform, it could, of course, have protected him completely from a bullet!

And if he had been clever and mean enough to use the special equipment from Papandshomulo-Vreto, then he would have risked being killed only if Pushkin had fired and hit him in the head. But Pushkin wouldn't have shot at the head, of course; he was aiming for the chest, for the heart! And, of course, d'Anth;s foresaw this. He couldn't wear a helmet, but no one stopped him from putting on a corset, or even a reinforced corset.

For this reason, d'Anth;s didn't allow anyone to examine his wound; he immediately went home, where, of course, after changing clothes, he invited a surgeon to examine and bandage his HAND.

Just his arm.

Knowing he was wearing a sturdy corset, Dant;s fired first, realizing he wasn't risking much.

Knowing he would be wearing a sturdy corset, Dant;s acted in a way that would ensure the duel would take place.

Realizing that the corset was not an asset, he didn't approach Pushkin to assist him, but hurried away from the scene of the duel, which I would call a crime scene.

Anticipating this course of events, Dant;s no longer merely feared a duel; he was asking for one, whereas when he first heard about it, he was mortally frightened.

What happened could be called murder. Apparently, in France, it wasn't considered cowardly to show up to a duel in a corset, chainmail, or bulletproof vest without warning your seconds. Fouquet wore chainmail when he feared attack. Well, that was back in the seventeenth century. So Dant;s knew how to protect himself. In case of a duel, among other things. I assume Heeckeren tearfully begged Dant;s to wear this corset-like bulletproof vest. Then a ridiculous story was invented about a button that was never produced. Since the uniform button didn't fit where Pushkin's bullet struck, a story was invented about a button from trousers. Armored?!?
Dant;s told part of the truth. The bullet hit an obstacle. That was the only truth. And the truth was that the bullet hit a more serious obstacle than a bone button from trousers.


When a man dies, an entire world perishes—the world that existed in his consciousness, his worldview, his feelings.

With the death of Alexander Pushkin, an entire universe perished.

 
Chapter 21. The Pentagonal Triangle with a Scoundrel in the Center

http://proza.ru/2024/11/25/415

In a comment on my post "Dant;s's Button," I received a suggestion that Dant;s was supposedly a decent man. "After Catherine's death—Georges was just over 30—Dant;s never remarried. He said he wouldn't find another woman like her, and he didn't want another." And so on.
Firstly, Dant;s's life after the murder, whatever it was, doesn't prove he wasn't a scoundrel in the matter. Sometimes scoundrels repent. In this case, the womanizer calmed down. What does that prove? Pushkin, in his youth, also flirted with various women, of all levels of social responsibility. He even, it seems, made advances on other people's wives. That's not what I was talking about, but simply that showing up to a duel wearing something like chainmail, a corset, or a bulletproof vest under your uniform is despicable. I also said that too many things point to this being the case, and I simply cannot believe that a pantaloon button could have stopped a bullet. Moreover, D'Anth;s fell from the shot, but received absolutely no chest wound—only his arm, which he used to cover his chest, and only the soft part of it. Secondly, comparing Pushkin's courtship with D'Anth;s's. Pushkin was infatuated, but he did not disgrace either his lady or her husband. D'Anth;s not only "became infatuated" with Natalya Pushkina, but publicly flaunted their special relationship for over two years. He invited her to the first dance, and not only the first. In fact, he behaved with her in public as if he were her husband or fianc;! In Pushkin's presence and in his absence!
Thirdly, Pushkin repeatedly tried, with increasing persuasiveness, to persuade Natalie herself to stop this inappropriate behavior, first jokingly, then playfully asking her to stop, then no longer jokingly, then very seriously. Finally, after he received three "joking" cuckold diplomas—at least ten such diplomas had been sent to his friends in his name—Pushkin had a serious conversation with Natalia, who was forced to show him the far from innocent letters from d'Anth;s, which she had not hesitated to receive, read, and even kept! Pushkin explained at length to Natalia how inappropriate and unpleasant this all was. Natalia promised to end the affair, d'Anth;s' letters were destroyed, and Natalia Pushkin convinced her husband that from now on she not only disliked but even despised d'Anth;s. For a while, she avoided meeting him, but soon contact with him resumed, increasingly openly and explicitly, even leading to a one-on-one meeting, where Dant;s demanded that Natalia belong to him or he would commit suicide on the spot. This theatrical performance was accompanied by him drawing a pistol and pointing it at himself! Natalie began protesting loudly, trying to convince him not to do it. Eventually, the owners of the house where the meeting was arranged entered, and Dant;s retreated. But even these events did not stop Dant;s's advances or Natalia Nikolaevna's tolerance!

I consider this behavior, on the part of both Natalia and Georges, to be unworthy and vile. So I see no reason to dismiss the possibility that Dant;s wore a corset, given that he served in the cavalry, where corsets were used at that very time! So even if Dant;s had stated, "At the time of the duel I was wearing nothing but my regular uniform," which he never did, it could still be argued that if wearing a corset was his usual attire, then such a statement could be considered conditionally true. Although, of course, anything that impedes the bullet's flight should have been disclosed to the seconds. I think in that case, the seconds would have either suggested that Dant;s remove his corset, or that Pushkin put on a similar corset, or that the duel be postponed. If Pushkin had assumed he was wearing a corset, he would have aimed for the head, not the chest. And he certainly would have hit and killed Dant;s with the first bullet.
So, according to the rules of a fair duel, wearing a corset would have been vile, and Dant;s's character was such that he was quite capable of committing such a vile act. And I insist that a button could never have stopped a bullet without Dant;s even receiving a chest wound. And when a surgeon examined him, he presented only one wound—to the soft tissue of his arm! But for the sake of Dant;s's portrait, I will also cite a couple of his letters, published in Serena Vitelle's book "Pushkin in the Trap." This work was previously published in a shortened form under the title "Pushkin's Button," which is publicly available. The Italian writer Serena Vitelle received these letters from the heirs of the Heeckeren-Dant;s family. So there's no reason to doubt this document. If the letter revealed Dant;s's full nobility, it could have been written later to justify him, which would cast doubt on it. But it is unlikely that he would later write a letter that reveals his essence as Natalie’s seducer, a man who is by no means in love or loving, but a man who subtly seeks intimacy with his intended victim.

LETTER ONE (fragment)

"Tell Alphonse to show you my latest passion, and tell me if I have good taste and if it is possible to remember the commandment to deal only with married women with such a girl."

END OF THE FIRST LETTER.

As you can see, Georges seduces women in abundance and boasts about it to his older lover, who isn't at all jealous of his women. Dant;s has a COMMANDMENT—to have affairs only with married women. That is, the commandment is such that he doesn't incur responsibility for his passion's accidental pregnancy, so as not to risk a forced marriage. But if he meets an unmarried woman he really likes, he makes an exception to this rule. Once, he made an exception because the girl was very attractive. The second time, he flirted with Natalya Nikolaevna's older sister, Ekaterina Goncharova, simply to get closer to Natalya Nikolaevna. But Ekaterina herself fell sincerely in love with him. So, Dant;s subsequently used this marriage to avoid a duel that seemed inevitable, and for which Dant;s was not yet ready. And what does "not ready" mean? I suspect he hadn't yet prepared a reliable "corset" and probably hadn't learned to shoot accurately enough to kill Pushkin with a preemptive shot, or at least to wound him severely enough to make him a poor marksman. Otherwise, why would he have had this delay? After all, it's clear from his subsequent actions that he wasn't trying to avoid the duel at all, but, on the contrary, was doing everything he could to ensure that it would inevitably take place!

LETTER TWO

Dantes to Heeckeren: “My dear friend, I wanted to talk to you this morning, but there was so little time that it was impossible. Yesterday it happened that I spent the evening tete-a-tete with that very lady, and when I say tete-a-tete, I mean that I was the only man, for at least a whole hour, at Princess Vyazemskaya’s; you can imagine the state I was in; at last I summoned all my strength and played my part honestly and was even quite happy. In short, I played my part until eleven, but then my strength left me, and such weakness came over me that I barely had time to go out, and only in the street did I begin to cry like a real fool, which in any case was a great relief, for I was ready to explode; and, on returning home, I found myself with a high fever and could not sleep all night and suffered agonizingly until I realized that I was going mad.
So I've decided to ask you to do what you promised for me this evening. It's absolutely necessary that you talk to her, so that I know once and for all how to behave. She's going to the Lerchenfelds' this evening, and if you miss the card game, you'll find a convenient moment to talk to her. This is how I see it: I think you should go up to her and ask her sincerely, making sure her sister can't hear you, whether she happened to be at the Vyazemskys' yesterday, and when she says yes, tell her that you thought so and that she can do you a great favor; and then tell her what happened to me yesterday, as if you had seen everything that happened to me when I returned home: that my servant was frightened and went to wake you at two in the morning, that you asked me many questions but received no answer from me [The following lines were apparently added diagonally in the margin: "besides, I do not need to tell you what you know very well: that I have lost my head because of her, that the changes in my behavior and character have proven this to you, and gradually even her husband has understood it" - note by Serena Vitale] and was convinced that I had quarreled with her husband, and to prevent a misfortune you are turning to her (the husband was not there). This will only prove that I have not told you anything about yesterday evening, which is absolutely necessary, since she must believe that I am acting without your knowledge and that this is nothing more than a father's concern for his son - that is why you ask her. It won't do any harm to create the impression that you believe the relationship between us is much more intimate, because when she protests her innocence, you'll find a way to convince her that it must be so, given the way she behaves towards me. In any case, the hardest part is the beginning, and I think this is the right way, because, as I've already said, she must have absolutely no suspicion that all this was planned, and she must regard your step as a perfectly natural feeling of concern for my health and future, and you must ask her to keep this secret from everyone, and especially from me. But it would be prudent not to ask her to accept me immediately. That can be done next time, and be careful not to use phrases that might have appeared in the letter [probably the one where he asked her to elope with him abroad - Serena Vitale's note]. I ask you once again, my dear, to help me. I place myself entirely in your hands, because if this continues without me understanding where it is leading me, I will go mad.
You might even frighten her, to make her understand [three or four illegible words]... [Dantes crossed out the entire sentence (the words "You might even frighten her, to make her understand" are barely legible in the text). In fact, he apparently never finished it; instead of crossing it out, he blotted out the last words in ink so painstakingly that no meticulous method of studying ancient manuscripts can help us decipher what he intended to frighten Natalie with. Was it a dramatic declaration ("I will kill myself") or a more prosaic threat ("I will tell my husband everything...")? Even the latter assumption would not be surprising – note by Serena Vitale.]

END OF THE SECOND LETTER.

So, Dantes, a cunning schemer and seducer, demands (absolutely necessary) that his guardian-mover assist him in seducing Natalia Pushkina. To this end, he invents a lie. Heeckeren must frighten Natalia with the idea that Dantes is determined, ready to commit suicide, tell her husband everything, or commit some other rash act. Dantes has known Natalia Pushkina for over two years. He knows perfectly well that she is susceptible to pity; he has almost crushed her, and he wants the old pimp to help him complete the task. By deception, of course, and by blackmail. Do you still have questions about the "nobility" of Georges Dantes? What good was it that later, in his old age, he claimed to have loved Natalia Pushkina? He simply used a word he knew well and used very often. But he didn't know the meaning of that word! He understood perfectly well, unless he was a complete idiot, that nothing he did would bring Natalya Nikolaevna happiness. So he didn't wish her, the mother of four, happiness. He simply wanted to possess her. In his understanding, that's love. In the minds of decent people, it's an excessively obsessive flirtation, going beyond even the most flexible notions of decency. With flexible ethics, we can probably forgive flirting with married women, which husbands tolerate and the women themselves encourage. But if the lady herself is already suffering from this and begs for it all to stop, if this is threatening to erupt into a scandal throughout the capital, if for over a month all of Petersburg has been talking about nothing but this ugly pentagon, at the center of which are Pushkin, Natalie, and d'Anth;s, and to which Heeckeren and Natalie's sister, Ekaterina, have been monstrously grafted, first as an unloved bride and then as an unloved wife—then what other words can describe this behavior? And as for whether Ekaterina Goncharova was happy in her marriage to d'Anth;s? She was already a spinster by the standards of the time, she wasn't as beautiful as Natalie, she was in love with d'Anth;s, but upon hearing the news that d'Anth;s was asking for her hand, she fled to her bedroom, unable to hide her despair and sobs. She understood she was being used as a screen. She said she would have dreamed of dying in this situation. When Dant;s finally married her, he was affectionate with her in private and in front of Aunt Zagryazhskaya, who was delighted with the marriage. But in the presence of Natalie Pushkina, Dant;s treated his wife with extreme disdain and rudeness, demonstrating to Natalia that he had only married under duress. He behaved similarly in the presence of other strangers. Everyone around understood that Catherine was a screen, a victim, and that the main lovers in this farce were Georges Dant;s and Natalie Pushkina.
A farce that ended in the death of Russia's greatest poet. Not vileness? What then?


Chapter 22. Please clear the chair!

http://proza.ru/2024/11/29/395

After the tragedy between Pushkin and d'Anth;s, the Heeckeren family was soon forced to leave Russia, where they were unwelcome. The Baron, d'Anth;s's adoptive "father," who had acquired numerous luxury items—furniture, paintings, and jewelry—over the years of his residence in Russia, decided to sell off all his possessions and turn them into cash. The enterprising Baron decided to hold an auction.

But buyers were reluctant, even though the items were worthy of every attention. People came to the auction mainly to express their disdain for Heeckeren. The auction degenerated into a simple sale; no one raised the prices.

The Baron sat on one of his chairs, which had a price sign hanging on it.

An officer approached him, handed him money corresponding to the price, and then pulled the now-his chair out from under its former owner.

Ostap Bender's famous line comes to mind: "Please clear the chair!"

By the way, there are two more references from the story of Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin to the story of "The Twelve Chairs" in

Pushkin's invoices. Let's take a look. To Master Gambs for a furniture set (chairs).

What's that? It turns out that the same Gambs who made the sets belonging to the famous Madame Petukhova, Ippolit Matveyevich Vorobyaninov's mother-in-law, and General Popova, actually existed and made chairs for Alexander Pushkin himself and his family!

We also find the name of Doctor Bruns in the invoices! In Ilf and Petrov's account, he became Engineer Bruns, the owner of General Popova's set. Well, engineers in the early Soviet era were well-off people; the state took care of them, and their salaries were high. Progress in the new socialist republic depended on these people.



Chapter 23. "I Forgive Him"

http://proza.ru/2024/11/29/448

The phrase "I forgive him" baffles me...

Who do you think said it and about whom?

You'll never guess!

Here's a letter.

Alexander Turgenev to Praskovya Osipova, St. Petersburg, February 24, 1837:

"Natalya Nikolaevna left on February 16th... I saw her the day before her departure and said goodbye to her. Her health is not so bad; her spiritual strength is also returning. It seems she said goodbye to her other sister, and her aunt told her everything she felt in response to her words that "she forgives Pushkin.""
On January 29th, in a duel that occurred through Natalya Nikolaevna's fault, her husband, Russia's greatest poet, Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin, died. The whole country mourns. His wife declared on February 16th that she "forgives" him. How is that? Two and a half weeks later, she "forgave" him for going to his death to save her honor, to protect the sanctity of his family, out of his understanding of a husband's sense of duty, which is not to allow his wife's name to be bandied about in every salon and every smoking room with completely unacceptable epithets, omissions, and so on.

She FORGIVES him!

One more letter to complete the picture.

Ekaterina Karamzina to her son Andrei, St. Petersburg, March 3, 1837:

"You rightly thought that I would not abandon Mrs. Pushkina in my care. I visited her almost daily, and the first few days - with a feeling of deep compassion for this great grief, but then, alas! with the conviction that if she is now overcome with grief, it will be neither long-lasting nor deep. It's painful to say, but it's true: the great and kind Pushkin should have had a wife better able to understand him and more suited to his level... She was in the village with one of her brothers, passing through Moscow, where, after the death of his wife, the unfortunate old man, her husband's father, had settled. So she passed by without giving him any sign of life, without inquiring about him, without sending his children to him... Poor, poor Pushkin, a victim of the frivolity, carelessness, and rash behavior of his beautiful young wife, who, without suspecting it, risked his life against a few hours of coquetry. Don't think I'm exaggerating, I don't blame her, after all, one can't blame children when they cause harm out of ignorance and thoughtlessness."

Well, she FORGIVED him.

What a blessing on her part! What indulgence towards a late husband who could have lived and lived! ...If it weren't for her foolish infatuations and her foolish flirtation with Georges d'Anthes...

Let's not follow Yulia Menshova (who recorded a program in defense of Natalia Goncharova, the video is available on YouTube) and draw justifications for Natalia Nikolaevna from the book of her daughter, Alexandra Arapova, who would never have been born if her mother hadn't been who she was, and if Pushkin hadn't been killed in a duel. Of course, this daughter views all these circumstances differently. Could she really have written that she regretted the death of her mother's first husband, and that therefore her mother remarried, and that she, as well as her sister and brother, were born in that marriage? We don't condemn Arapova. But regarding Natalia Nikolaevna...

I have my own opinion.

Chapter 24. "It's Not Your Fault"

http://proza.ru/2024/11/07/587

This is a detailed response to Yulia Menshova's YouTube post, which describes Natalya Nikolaevna Goncharova, Pushkin's wife, as "white and fluffy" and completely innocent.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iX6dJer4W8

The main argument is that Pushkin told her before his death: "You are not guilty of anything."

I'd like to question this.

Yulia Menshova is NOT a historian, she's an actress. Her charm plays a role and influences the perception of her statements. Therefore, everything she says is perceived as truth. Many people write their responses not because they understood what she said, but simply because they fell under Yulia Menshova's spell.

But tell me, how do we know that Pushkin told his wife before his death: "You are not guilty of anything"? If he said it without witnesses, this information isn't worth a dime, but if he said it in front of witnesses, it's obvious he said it for their sake. Even if he'd said it alone, and if she'd never told anyone about it, the phrase is still alarming. After all, he could only have said something like this if they both knew she was to blame for this tragic ending. Would he have said something like that to a friend, or children, or even seconds? Such things can only be said to two people—the opponent in a duel or the one over whom the duel took place, and in both cases, the phrase must be understood as: "In the face of death, I FORGIVE you." And nothing else!

I'd also like to ask those trying to defend Natalia Goncharova: "Why do you call her Natalia Goncharova and not Natalia Pushkina?"

This, too, provides an answer to how she influenced the poet's fate.

What if your wife received an invitation to a ball from your boss? What would you do?

A corporate event between colleagues can be held with or without spouses. But is it even possible to hold a corporate event where the company's employees themselves don't participate, while their spouses attend the boss's party? What would you call that?

Meanwhile, the Emperor made it clear that he would like to see Natalya Nikolaevna at court balls, but did not consider Alexander Sergeyevich himself a welcome guest. And the Pushkin couple's undoubted right to attend court balls was his position as a gentleman of the bedchamber. Natalya Nikolaevna could have been invited by the Emperor's wife, but not by the Emperor himself.

I cannot and do not want to accuse Natalya of cheating on her husband, much less with the Emperor or with Dantes. There are no facts. But there were more than enough facts to fuel such rumors. Why was no one spreading such gossip about the spouses of Karamzin or Zhukovsky? Why did Pushkin receive an anonymous "Cuckold Diploma"? And why was he so furious at receiving it?

If someone, my dear readers, who are convinced of your spouse's fidelity, had accused you of being unfaithful, whether in your face or behind your back, what would you have done? Would you have made a big deal out of it? Today, they don't challenge someone to a duel; today, they sue for slander. Or they do it some other way. Everyone decides for themselves. But one thing is certain: if you know for certain that your spouse is innocent, it would never occur to you to tell her so. The very statement, "You are innocent," is an expression of doubt, an acknowledgment that there is something to discuss.

If something bad has happened, people who cannot possibly be guilty of it don't say, "You are innocent." After all, it's obvious. Such things are only said to those who might be suspected. And when they do say such things, the sentence is usually a little longer!

For example, they say, "It's not you who are to blame, but...." Then comes either a person or people, or circumstances. Pushkin, as a believer, could, of course, believe that Fate was to blame! That is, a gypsy woman told him he would die at the hands of a blond man. Dantes was blond. Pushkin believed in prophecies. His phrase could mean, "Whatever it was, it was my Fate, it was unavoidable, one way or another a blond man would have appeared in my life, and my life would have been cut short by him. So Fate controls our lives, it cannot be avoided, and if not for what happened, something else would have happened, and I still would not have been saved. So don't blame yourself, accept Fate fearlessly, don't reproach yourself, live on for yourself and for our children."

This would be the most natural thought for a dying, deeply religious and superstitious person in these circumstances. Before his death, he wanted to make peace with everything and everyone in his soul. He had much to apologize to his wife for. He probably did, but in private, and no one writes about it because there was no point in Pushkina-Goncharova telling anyone. But the fact that he also said to her—essentially, "I don't blame you and I forgive you," which he phrased even more diplomatically, "You are not guilty"—is for some reason considered by many pseudo-historians to be proof of Natalia Goncharova's innocence.

Consider this.

First, could Pushkin have known for certain whether there was anything between Natalia and the Emperor, or between Natalia and d'Anth;s? How could he have known? There could only have been certainty, which is the highest form of trust, of faith. But that is not reliable knowledge.

Second, if Pushkin had known for certain that Natalia was innocent, what would have been the point of telling her? He could only have stated that he knew. Then it would have been like, "I know you're innocent." He would have been the one stating that he knew; that's a completely different matter. But even then, how could he have known? He most likely could have said, "I believe you're innocent."

Thirdly, since Pushkin went to the duel, this already proves that he believed Natalya was innocent. Otherwise, what was the point of the duel? Unless it was this: despite knowing she was guilty, he wanted to defend the family's honor, wanting everyone else to consider her innocent? So, there are two possible reasons for Pushkin's duel: either he had absolute faith in Natalya, or he knew she was guilty and didn't believe her—that is, he either doubted her—or he knew for certain that she was guilty, but despite everything, he wanted Natalya to remain pure and innocent in the eyes of the world. If he sacrificed his life for such a thing, would he really have crossed out this action and accused her from the brink of the grave? On the contrary! He finished his work, saw it through, defended her and his honor by asserting before witnesses that his family was inviolable, his wife was honest and had always been faithful to him. And that's what he did; he said it before witnesses!

Why does Pushkin, on his deathbed, tell Natalya to mourn for a year and then allow her to marry? Obviously, he has no doubt she will be able to marry. And this despite the family's numerous debts? Incidentally, the Emperor forgave Pushkin's family these debts after his death. But we know that even a dowryless, beautiful, virginal woman was not readily accepted as a wife. And here—a widow with four children and debts! Clearly, Pushkin was confident she would be taken. And this despite the fact that Pushkin, his wife, and his mother-in-law unsuccessfully tried to marry off two of Natalya Nikolaevna's sisters! True, there seemed to be a glimpse of the prospect of marriage. And, oddly enough, the prospect of one of Natalya's sisters with Dantes! But Pushkin didn't believe in this marriage. And he had no doubt that even a year from now, Natalya would be attractive enough to marry easily. Was this confidence out of thin air, or had he seen with his own eyes that many men were attracted to her? So attracted that they wouldn't refuse to marry her if she became a widow? Consider this, too.

Veresaev devoted a significant portion of his creative life to researching Pushkin's life. In fact, an entire volume of his four-volume collected works is dedicated specifically to Pushkin. Mikhail Bulgakov, when writing his play about Pushkin, consulted Veresaev extensively as a recognized Pushkin scholar. So, Veresaev writes that Natalya Nikolaevna is undoubtedly to blame for Pushkin's death. If she had behaved more prudently and not allowed herself to become infatuated with d'Anth;s and encourage him in his advances, none of this would have happened. Veresaev also writes that the dying Pushkin was preoccupied with only one thing—convincing everyone that Natalya Nikolaevna was innocent, and this desire and effort had nothing to do with his own opinion on the matter.

One can also turn to the modern book "Pushkin in a Trap" by Serena Vitale, a French researcher who, she claims, came into possession of a significant number of d'Anth;s's letters, received from his heirs. In her book, she sought to offer a new and even, perhaps, alternative perspective on these events. Incidentally, it's not a fact that the letters weren't written "after the fact," for self-justification; I'm not the first to suggest this. This can be found in the preface to the book.

But even from her "justifications," it's clear that Natalya Nikolaevna is directly responsible for Pushkin's death; she flirted with Emperor Nicholas I and with d'Anth;s. D'Anth;s enjoyed success with many French women, and some were even pregnant by him. D'Anth;s preferred married women, and only a few times did he win over unmarried women, but, of course, without intending to marry them. Everyone knew D'Anth;s's worth; everyone understood that this man could declare his love without actually feeling it, simply accumulating his conquests out of passion. D'Anth;s was in an unnatural relationship with Heeckeren (or Gekkern in other sources), who attempted to formalize this relationship by adopting him, as confirmed by the aforementioned book, that is, by D'Anth;s's letters. While he lived in Russia, he was unsuccessful, merely spreading rumors that this had been done, although his government had only permitted him to pass on the family name to D'Anth;s, not to adopt him. So you can judge the kind of man he was. Baron Heeckeren wasn't jealous of D'Anth;s's conquests with women; he even helped him, acting as a matchmaker. He also persuaded Natalya Nikolaevna to yield to D'Anth;s. History doesn't know whether she yielded, but history does know the firmly established fact that they had a private meeting, arranged in advance, meaning not a chance meeting, and the purpose of this meeting was precisely to "explain" themselves to each other. An honest wife shouldn't have simply shown up for such a meeting. An honest wife would say: "Baron, I do not understand your hints, and I hope that I have understood them wrongly, and that you did not actually mean anything that could be concluded from your hints. I ask you to leave this topic once and for all. If I am not mistaken, and I understood your hints exactly as you intended, I ask you not to meet me anymore and to behave from now on as if we did not know each other at all. Stay away from me. I would like you to stay away from my entire family, but if my husband, despite your words, finds it possible to continue to know you, that is his choice, I prefer to stay away from you." You don’t need private meetings to say this. Besides, she often danced with Dantes. Sometimes even the first dance at a ball. This is a message to everyone around that there is something between her and Dantes. All she had to do was coldly refuse Dantes another dance, and then refuse him again, and everything would have stopped, there would have been no rumors, all the evil tongues would have shut up! She didn't answer as she should have. Not verbatim, but in essence, she should have answered just that way. She didn't. And the private meeting was too long; if she had answered as I wrote, it wouldn't have lasted three minutes.

And we shouldn't dismiss her actions, justifying them by her youth. Yes, she married at eighteen, but by then she was already the mother of four children! And she'd already been pregnant five times. It's time to settle down, stop fluttering around at balls and seeking passionate affairs with notorious Don Juans and gigolos!

And as always, I remind you that I DO NOT CLAIM to know the truth, because there is a very wise saying: “Believe those who say they are looking for the truth, but never believe those who claim to have found it.”

Chapter 25. Pushkin at Kamensky's

http://proza.ru/2024/10/04/372

On Vasily Kamensky's novel "Pushkin and Dantes"
When I decide to write a work on this topic, I'll probably call it "Pushkin vs. Dantes" or even "Forget Dantes, Remember Pushkin." But a more commercial title would be "The Fatal Goncharov Sisters: Pushkin vs. Dantes."

But back to the topic! In the first chapters, the author depicts the still unmarried Pushkin in exile in Mikhailovskoye. There are some inaccuracies. Pushkin is burdened by exile and complains about the tsar's severity. And he even allegedly fears exile to Siberia. In fact, the opposite is true. Pushkin's fate unfolded in such a way that he was deeply offended and hurt in St. Petersburg by a rumor spread about him, allegedly having been taken to the gendarmerie and flogged there for his scathing epigrams and freedom-loving poems. He even intended to commit suicide. But such a suicide wouldn't have washed away this shame; it would have only deepened it, showing him as weak, which might have indirectly led people to believe these rumors. Be that as it may, Pushkin was quite a life-lover, but also extremely proud. Reconciling these two was difficult. He decided to write poetry that would lead to his imprisonment or, even better, exile to Siberia. In other words, he decided to offer himself as a solemn sacrifice to tsarism.
The reason for this was the education he received at the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum. The teachers there were all freethinkers. At first, everyone simply discussed freedom and encouraged each other to experiment with poetry on the topic. Then, things got worse. The Lyceum became a breeding ground for secret societies, which at first simply met in secret meetings without any concrete plans. But when Nikolai Ivanovich Turgenev, a future Decembrist, expressed the idea that it was vile to dream of freedom, to call for it, but to do nothing to liberate one's people from tsarism, this idea naturally became so popular that all writers became conspirators. Pushkin didn't become a Decembrist for two reasons. The first was that he couldn't, and didn't consider it necessary, to conceal his thoughts. Such a person could ruin the entire conspiracy. So even after one of the Decembrists let it slip that a secret society had already been created and existed (in response to Pushkin's calls for its creation), he came to his senses at the end of the conversation and said it was just a joke. But that happened much later. The second reason is that the Decembrists cherished Pushkin; they needed him alive, productive, and free, as his poetry contributed greatly to the awakening of freedom-loving thought. However, this helps us understand the fallacy of the novel's opening chapters. Thus, Pushkin was a product of the Lyceum, a crucial component of the alumni community. Pushkin raged, asking for repression. But Zhukovsky interceded for him before Emperor Alexander, as did Empress Elizabeth, who adored the Lyceum students, including Pushkin, and was considered the guardian of the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum. Her name day was a holiday and was invariably celebrated by the Lyceum students. Therefore, Pushkin was exiled not to Siberia, but to the south. And even then, he was not formally exiled, but sent on an errand to General Inzov and given a thousand rubles for his travel expenses. He was supposed to deliver a letter, and the recipient was supposed to detain Pushkin under a plausible pretext. So, Alexander I treated Pushkin extremely leniently, and Pushkin knew it, which infuriated him, as he no longer wished to accept handouts from the tsar, whom he considered his enemy.
During his southern exile, he didn't calm down, despite the advice of Karamzin and Zhukovsky, but rather continued writing freedom-loving poems and epigrams with even greater zeal. So, after his southern exile ended, he was sent to his parents' estate, Mikhailovskoye, where we find him at the beginning of the novel. So could Pushkin, in this situation, complain about the Tsar's severity? And here we see Pushkin confessing to his nanny, Arina Rodionovna, that she is everything to him, that his character and upbringing are all from her. The author supposedly quotes Pushkin's thoughts: "... Here before me is the nanny, this simple, illiterate old peasant woman, their serfs, ... and here I am, a lyceum alumnus, a renowned poet, an excellent mind, listening with thrilling amazement to her words, speeches, tales, songs, listening and thereby compensating for the shortcomings of my accursed upbringing. What did the lyceum give me? Nonsense. A few flighty, imperfect essays. What did the peasant nanny give me? All the best and most beloved. After all, each of her tales is my poem... And I learn from her to speak, compose, combine, write... Listen to her and I see, feel, realize that I am growing like a fairy-tale giant. Yes... A giant!.. If it weren't for Rodionovna, I wouldn't have the language for "Boris Godunov," "Eugene Onegin," and, even more so, there wouldn't be "Kashchei the Immortal," "Tsar Berendey," or "The Dead Princess." After all, these tales were written down from her, and what about the language of "Boris Godunov"? After all, it is her, the nanny's beauty of Russian speech... There she is—my muse! My inspiration! My life's companion! The author took the poem "Friend of My Harsh Days" too literally. And it's completely unfounded to speak so dismissively of the Lyceum. It was the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum—its teachers and Lyceum friends—who made Pushkin the great poet he was. Who taught Pushkin to write poetry? His nanny? No, his literature teachers. Who taught him to think historically and democratically, to condemn dictatorship? His history teachers, as they were then at the Lyceum! And who gave him knowledge of ancient Greek and Roman mythology? Where did all these Cupids, Psyches, and nymphs come from, whom Pushkin observed as statues all over St. Petersburg, and whose ancient legends he embodied in his poems? And philosophy? And popular rule, which is called "democracy," "republic"? Did Arina Rodionovna really whisper it? Who were the first enthusiastic listeners to Pushkin's poems? His Lyceum comrades and even his teachers! Who told Pushkin he was a great poet? First of all, his Lyceum friends who copied his poems, memorized them, and dictated them to others! And only later did Pushkin become a national hero, just as Vladimir Vysotsky did in the twentieth century. The people received his work, they recognized it as their own, and they spread it. This popular acclaim elevated the poet to unattainable heights. But the beginning of his poetic career and the first approval came from the Lyceum, not from his nanny.
Yes, it's possible that his nanny told him a few plots for his fairy tales. But that's just a plot! Fables based on the plots of Aesop's fables have been written by countless authors! However, only La Fontaine in France and Krylov in Russia have endured. All the others—and there were many—remain only in anthologies and encyclopedias. Plot is nothing; interpretation, adaptation, the thoughts derived from the plot, the poet's subtle wordplay—all this, taken together, is what we call a poet's genius. And how could Arina Rodionovna have given Pushkin the plot for "Eugene Onegin"? The plot is entirely based on social life, of which the serf nanny knew absolutely nothing. The plot should have unfolded a picture of how a frivolous wastrel grows into a rebel, who then embarks on a wandering life and, finally, becomes a Jacobin or a Carbonari, but the implication, of course, is that, if there had been no censorship, Onegin would certainly have become a Decembrist. And here's another thing. Pushkin openly berates the tsar, and the nanny supports him in everything. She also berates the tsar. This is an old serf woman? Where does such determination come from? An old woman who fearlessly accepts her fate as a serf nanny, and who, in fact, doesn't have such a bad life, since a nanny isn't exactly occupied with hard labor! Why would she hate the Tsar? Let me remind you: Pushkin first burned all his poems, then came to Miloradovich and confessed to authoring the free-thinking verses, after which he sat down and wrote them all down from memory. He thereby wanted to disavow other poems attributed to him. We don't know for sure whether these poems were truly someone else's or whether they were his own. Pushkin, too, later tactfully avoided this topic. Miloradovich showed the poems to Alexander I. What could one expect from this? He was accused of flooding Russia with outrageous poetry, and he was also accused of atheism. In those days, this was harshly condemned. Incidentally, it's not easy for atheists today either. There are countries where atheism is punishable by death. Pushkin disagreed with the accusation of atheism, but could a deeply religious man who honored the canons of Orthodoxy have written "Gabriliad"? And isn't the lyceum spirit emanating from every line of this overly playful poem?
The key to the discrepancy between the novel's first chapters and reality could probably be found in A.M. Gorky's statement about the constellation of writers to which Vasily Kamensky belonged: "There is no Russian Futurism. There are simply Igor Severyanin, Mayakovsky, Burliuk, V. Kamensky. Among them are undoubtedly talented people who, in the future, having cast aside the chaff, will grow to a certain stature. They know little, have seen little, but they will undoubtedly come to their senses, begin to work, to study... They were born of life itself, our modern conditions. They are not miscarriages, they are children born at the right time." So, they are talented, but they know little. They need to learn. Incidentally, this quote is cited in the introductory article, and is also partially used as an epigraph to this introductory article. So I didn't just "pull it in" by the ears. While reading this undoubtedly interesting novel, I became convinced of Gorky's correctness. His bitter correctness.

Chapter 26. Pushkin and Dantes – a book by Vasily Kamensky

http://proza.ru/2024/10/28/828

I already wrote about my impressions of Vasily Kamensky's "Pushkin and Dantes."

I finished reading it, although I strongly disagree with the author's hasty assessments and his simplification of the situation in some areas.

This is understandable: the book was written at the beginning of our country's revolutionary historical past. The tsar is portrayed entirely in black, and the courtiers are included in the same category. Even Zhukovsky was cast as a "bad guy."

It so happened that I had read a relatively large amount on this topic before this, although it is simply impossible to read everything.

Bulgakov's play about Pushkin's death is interesting. It's practically the same theme. Mikhail Afanasyevich decided that Pushkin doesn't appear in the play even once, yet he is constantly present—now in the next room, now as a silhouette in the window, now as the tsar looks at him and comments on how he arrived not in a uniform, but in a tailcoat.

Bulgakov's play has fewer words, but more power. But it's absurd to compare a novel with a play.

Pushkin is portrayed as idealistic in his family life, somewhat fatalistic in his personal life. Worst of all, the author shows that by the time of the duel, Pushkin was in a creative impasse. Not even a passing crisis, but a dead end that is final. It turns out that the country and his family effectively lost a man, but Russia and world culture did not lose a poet, because, according to Kamensky's description, Pushkin had already ceased to be a poet by this time. I

categorically disagree!

Pushkin wasn't so careless and foolish as to simply expect financial problems to resolve themselves. He created, and created prolifically. He simply didn't have the moral strength for a heart-to-heart talk with Natalya Nikolaevna. He believed that a wife should know her own duties as a wife, spouse, and mother. He probably considered it beneath his dignity to teach his young wife not to flirt with the emperor, with the handsome and impudent Dantes, and not to create fodder for gossip.

It's important to understand that Pushkin himself wasn't perfect; he had his "hobbies." It's also important to remember that Pushkin himself wouldn't have been deterred by the fact that the object of his affection wasn't single. He also courted married women. It's not a fact that he was successful, but he certainly allowed it. Consequently, by and large, he couldn't blame d'Anth;s for what he himself was sometimes guilty of. But that's precisely what infuriated him! It's very difficult for people to forgive others for their own shortcomings! Very, very difficult. For this reason, fathers sometimes quarrel with their sons, and mothers with their daughters.

Pushkin was infuriated by the fact that the Emperor himself was courting his wife. d'Anth;s joined the queue and was quite persistent, while Natalie wasn't so stubborn. Things were heading towards adultery, but Pushkin didn't have enough influence over his wife. He simply believed in her. For this reason, when he was dying, he told her, "It's not your fault." He said it out loud. I believe, contrary to his own opinion. Because he shot himself not to accuse Natalie, but to prove her innocence and that he wasn't a "cuckold." So, before his death, there would have been no reason for him to quarrel with his wife or heap the shame of public condemnation on her. So, admitting his wife's innocence is not proof of her innocence. And Kamensky's accusations against Nicholas I are too direct and unsubstantiated. It's unlikely that the emperor wanted Pushkin dead or participated in a conspiracy aimed at a duel to the death.

And here's another thing to remember! In Russia, duels weren't always fatal. Sometimes opponents deliberately fired into the air or inflicted only a minor wound. The main thing was politeness. But d'Anth;s was French! He perceived a duel as a mortal combat, from which the only way to survive was to kill the opponent.

D'Anth;s's name also played a role! Alexandre Dumas's novels were devoured by noblewomen. Edmond Dant;s sounded incredibly romantic! And suddenly Georges Dant;s arrived in Russia! The hearts of many ladies sank, as if they had touched the living legend from the famous book! Dant;s therefore quite easily won the hearts of Russian young ladies.

I'll also note that Kamensky convincingly reports that Heeckeren and Dant;s had a homosexual relationship, and also generalizes this relationship to such figures as Beckendorf and Adlerberg. The author boldly calls them all sodomites, while, incidentally, using an even more specific word, beginning with "pede" and ending with "-ast."

Incidentally, a certain Vitale Serena published a whole series of books about the duel between Pushkin and Dant;s, allegedly (or in reality) relying on the archives of the Dant;s-Heeckeren heirs. This is a FRENCH VIEW of these events.

You can download one of these books, "Pushkin's Button," for free

at
But there are also books like

"The Black River Before and After," "The Secret of Dantes," and "Pushkin in the Trap."

It claims to be objective. And not without reason!

It doesn't conceal the fact that Dantes and Heeckeren engaged in a sodomite relationship.

However, I already see that it refers to Dantes as Heeckeren's adopted son.

The same error is found in Kamensky's book. However, Serena Vitale later stated that Heeckeren only received permission for Dantes to bear his surname, but that there was no adoption.

In fact, Heeckeren sent a request to his native Holland (the Netherlands) asking for permission to adopt Dantes and allow Dantes to bear his name—Baron Heeckeren.

The problem was that Dant;s was a French citizen, Heeckeren was a Dutch citizen. Dant;s's father was still alive, and no one had asked for his father's consent, nor had anyone ever produced his written consent. Heeckeren was too old to be Dant;s's father—he wasn't that much older! And the whole story was murky, if only because both were in Russia at the time!

Heeckeren produced a response stating that his application to adopt Dant;s had been REFUSED, but Dant;s was permitted to use the name Heeckeren.

Heeckeren presented this document to the Tsar and the Russian government, declaring that he had officially adopted Dant;s.

Everyone believed this statement. They began calling Dant;s Heeckeren's son, and Heeckeren Dant;s's father. Even though Dant;s's real father was still alive.

Here's something else I found in Serena. It is claimed that Dant;s was a distant relative of Nesselrode and the Musin-Pushkins. And for this reason, in some way, a relative of Pushkin himself.

Allow me to express my surprise. For example, in Roman law, adoption meant complete legal identity, in that the person was now considered the son of the man who adopted him. Accordingly, he was no longer considered the son of his biological father (and, of course, in this case, his mother as well)!

So, if Dant;s had been adopted by Heeckeren, he would no longer be Dant;s, and, accordingly, would no longer be related to Nesselrode (through his biological father) or the Musin-Pushkins (through his mother).

For example, Claudius, a client of Gaius Julius Caesar and a patrician, had to be a non-patrician in order to be eligible for election as a tribune of the people or even to represent a certain section of the people (but not the patricians!) before him. For this purpose, Claudius's adoption by a plebeian was arranged. Thus, Claudius became Clodius and henceforth enjoyed the rights of a plebeian , but not those of a patrician. Curious, amusing, ridiculous! A poor man adopts a rich man, so that the rich man will henceforth be considered poor!

Let's be honest. This whole story of Heeckeren's adoption of Dant;s is yet another abomination, adding to the already repulsive image of Georges Dant;s. And no French writers will make a decent person out of him “retroactively.”

Chapter 27. Supplemented Pushkin

http://proza.ru/2024/07/26/295

What we actually have is that the text that is known reliably is only the text that is outside the brackets.

Source: https:// ru.wikisource.org/wiki/Çàñòàâíèêè_êíóòà_è_ïëåòè_(Ïóøêèí)

DEFENDERS OF THE KNUT AND THE PLAGUE


Defenders of the KNUT and the PLAGUE, [O famous<?>] prince<ya>, [For <vs¸> <?> <?>] my wife [and] children[Are grateful to you], as <and I><?>. I will pray to God for you And will never forget. When ... they call me To the full<?> reprisal, For your health and glory I<?> will give <?> the tsar<?> my first whip

<1825>
READING OPTIONS

Defenders of the KNUT and the PLAGUE, O famous princes, For everything my wife and childrenAre grateful to you, as <and I><?>. I will pray to God for you And will never forget. When ... they call me To the <tsar's> reprisal, For your health and glory, My first whip will fly <to the Tsar>.

<1825>

Defenders of the whip and lash,
O famous princes, For them my wife and children Are grateful to you, as am I. I will pray to God for you And will never forget, When they call me for a new reprisal, For your health and glory, <I will give the Tsar> my first whip.

<1825>Here this poem is published as if it has already been reliably restored

https://www.culture.ru/poems/5357/zastupniki-knuta-i-pleti

DEFENDERS OF THE WHIP AND THE LADY

Defenders of the whip and the lash, O famous princes, For everything my wife and children Are grateful to you, as am I. I will pray to God for you And will never forget. When <on business> they call me <to a new> reprisal, For your health and glory I will give the tsar my first whip.

1825

The entire text, as well as the year of writing, are given without angle brackets, I added the angle brackets, that is, the poem is given as if it has already been proven that the text was originally exactly like that.

Firstly, it is not a fact that Pushkin even managed to finish this poem. It is possible that he abandoned it.
Secondly, the insertions clearly do not correspond to Pushkin's style.

Thirdly, one can only hope that this draft was revised and that the final version of the poem existed somewhere, and that none of the words that were not crossed out were changed by the author.

A faint hope!

It is not at all a fact that all the original words that were in the draft made it into the final version.

Not a fact!


Here, the words "on the matter" and "new" have been restored.

I'm not sure.


But here is a version that matches the draft, and a transcript of the draft.

https://xn----7sbb5adknde1cb0dyd.xn--p1ai/----/

This same version is given by B.S. Meylakh, who publishes on page 189 the draft from which this verse is taken, is quoted as saying:

Defenders of the whip and lash, O illustrious princes, For everything my wife and children Are grateful to you, as am I. I will pray to God for you And will never forget. When … they call me To … reprisal, For your health and glory I will give the Tsar my first knuckle. A.S. Pushkin, 1825
If we agree that none of these words were changed in the final version, then we don't have many options.
But I would question the insertions of "on business" and "for a new one."

In that case, I would give a different version.


I think "brothers" should have been substituted for "on business.

" A "new reprisal" could only be written if there had been a previous reprisal. What are we talking about? The December Uprising? Wait, the poem was written in 1825. The Decembrist uprising took place on December 26, 1825, so Pushkin wrote it immediately, "hot on the heels"? I doubt it! He wouldn't have had time. And even then, the "new reprisal" doesn't really fit here. After all, the Decembrists didn't deal with the Tsar; it was the new Tsar who dealt with the Decembrists!

The essence of this poem is that it was written before the December uprising, it is directed against Tsar Alexander I, who was alive at the time of writing, but by the time of the December uprising he had already died. So the essence of this poem is this: Pushkin hoped that the members of the secret society, the existence of which he had already guessed due to Pushchin's visit, but he was not invited to this new secret society, they avoided drawing him into it for many reasons: firstly, they pitied him, and secondly, they feared that his antics and sometimes indiscriminate interlocutors, to whom he expounded his revolutionary views, could harm the cause of the secret union. Thus, Pushkin longs for and finally calls for reprisals against the Tsar in the near future by supporters of the people's liberation, as happened in France. Well, the words "new reprisal" could refer to the fact that the first reprisal was carried out against the King of France Louis The sixteenth and his wife, Marie Antoinette. The phrase "on business" would hardly have been used in this case. What business could a poet have? His main business is "to burn people's hearts with a verb." It doesn't seem like Pushkin was needed to deal with the tsar; it seems like he would be treated to the pleasure of dealing with the tsar who had arrested Vladimir Fedoseevich Raevsky.

I think Pushkin would have replaced "me <for a new one>" with the phrase "for the long-awaited one." Look what happens in this case: When my brothers summon me to the long-awaited execution, for your health and glory, I will give the tsar my first whip.

Here, the word "will call" immediately suggests replacing with "will summon." Further, instead of "For your health and glory," the phrase becomes weak, suggesting "I, for the glory of justice," and then the "I" in the last line disappears, and the dubious phrase "I will give... my first whip" also requires reworking. When my brothers summon me to the long-awaited reprisal, I will give the Tsar my first whip for the glory of justice.

The idea emerges that Pushkin is claiming to be the first to lash out with his whip across the Tsar's back. Specifically, ahead of everyone else. Because he was the most offended of all, having been exiled; he, a poet-citizen, was forbidden to be a poet-citizen and was exiled to the Caucasus for this purpose. Let's return to what we have.


Defenders of the whip and lash,[……….] prince<….>,[…….] wife […..] […] children[……..] as <….><….>. I will pray […] to God for you And I will never forget. When ... they call me To full<…> reprisal, For your health and glory I<….> will give<….> the tsar<…> my first whip.

So, the gap before "I will give" - it could well be "I will repay".
I believe that Pushkin wanted to refer us to the well-known phraseological unit: "Vengeance is mine, and I will repay." As you can see, he would have liked to include "I will repay", but he avoided Old Church Slavonic correlations, so instead of the obsolete "Az" "Ya" appeared, although it is not a fact that in the final version "Az I will repay" would not have been restored, why not? This means that the idea of vengeance runs like a red thread here! Therefore, it is perfectly clear that "my first whip" was meant to mean "the first whip is mine!" A striking final line emerges:

"Here I will repay my first whip."

Or, a little softer in relation to Old Church Slavonic, but it does provide an opportunity to insert the addressee of the first whip, the tsar.

"I will repay the tsar with my first whip."

Indeed, the combination "Tsar's reprisal" is highly dubious. After all, it could be interpreted as the tsar repaying someone. The last line will be strong both because it specifies the addressee of the first whip and because the word "repay" is firmly in place.

Indeed, the tsar is not the only one to blame for the slavery, so the reprisal must affect many, and in this case, the indication that "the first whip is for the tsar" will be very powerful in the very last line. The power of the last line in the poem cannot be ignored; Pushkin knew this, Pushkin took advantage of it.

So, we have a very complete last stanza:


"When my brothers call for the long-awaited reprisal, I will give the tsar my first whip for the glory of justice."

When reading, the emphasis should be on the word "tsar", then the verse will be as rebellious as Pushkin himself was.

Now let's return to the first lines. Would Pushkin have left them in the form attributed to him?


Defenders of the whip and lash, [……….] prince <….>, […….] wife […..] […] children [……..] as <….><….>. For you I will pray […] to God and never forget.


Here Pushkin simply threw in rhymes for the idea, but only the first and last lines of this passage are fully formulated. The first line is an appeal to those who sing the tsar's praises. It is destined to remain unchanged. And now let's remember what this is all about?

Pushkin was deeply hurt by rumors that he had been flogged at the police station. He was so hurt that this rumor was not only invented but also repeated on every street corner that he pondered what he should do. He seriously considered two options: first, kill Tsar Alexander I. Second, kill himself.

But he settled on the third option. He decided to write so boldly, so recklessly, that he would get himself exiled to Siberia. This unthinkable cruelty toward the poet on the part of the tsar would have shown everyone, firstly, that Pushkin hadn't given up, hadn't lost his nerve, that he was still who he was. This would have silenced the slanderers. And that's precisely what he did. He began writing poetry that was bound to incur the tsar's wrath.

But his friends and those who simply respected his talent stood up
for him. Among them were Karamzin, Miloradovich, and the tsar's wife, Elizaveta Alexeyevna. Pushkin was in a very difficult mood. On the one hand, exile had torn him away from his friends and his rebellious life, forcing him to lead an almost vegetative existence, far removed from real events. He refused to accept this, and he wrote extremely bold poetry. On the other hand, he also felt somewhat embarrassed by those who stood up for him. And so we found that very word – "DEFENDERS."

These "defenders" are his defenders, those who stood up for him, assuring the Tsar that Pushkin had not intended to insult or humiliate the Tsar, that he was simply writing historical works, and that it was not his fault that the censors and slanderers saw in his poems a rebellion against the current Tsar.

So, here are the facts. Pushkin rebelled specifically against Alexander I, whom he considered unworthy of the great honor of ruling Russia, and, incidentally, unworthy of being the husband of Elizabeth Alexeyevna. Pushkin, raised at the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum in the spirit that freedom should be striven for, that freedom is the liberation of the peasants from slavery, and that anyone who merely talks about freedom but does nothing to achieve it is unworthy of an orator, good in words but worthless in deeds. Pushkin sought to demonstrate, to demonstrate in poetry, that he was ready to personally participate in the struggle against the tsar. He understood that a secret society existed, but he was not invited, and even intuitively understood the reason for this. Thus, the intercessors are Karamzin, who wrote "The History of the Russian State," justifying the tsars and, specifically, the Romanov dynasty, the current tsar. This also includes Miloradovich, and even Elizaveta Alekseyevna. Miloradovich was a count. Elizaveta Alekseyevna, the margrave's daughter and later the emperor's wife, was a princess before Alexander's accession to the throne, but Pushkin hardly wrote such daring verses about her. Karamzin was not a prince.
So, the "defenders of the whip and lash" are not necessarily princes, and princes are not defenders of the whip and lash.
And the epithet "famous" hardly applies to them. First of all, it was, apparently, Alexander Semyonovich Shishkov, a minister, but not a prince. Alexei Andreevich Arakcheyev? A minister, but was he a prince? Alexander Khristoforovich Benckendorff? A general, but not a prince. The only possible interpretation of the phrase "famous princes" is that they refer to Emperor Alexander's brothers – Konstantin Pavlovich, Nikolai Pavlovich, and Mikhail Pavlovich! Could Pushkin really be writing to them?

But they could hardly have been the recipients of this poem. He hardly interacted with them at the time, and it's unlikely he could have had any complaints against them. The poem is nevertheless addressed to those who defend Alexander I's despotism in literary works, to those who grovel before the emperor, and to those who vouched for Pushkin.

That's where it all comes together! The first stanza (or something more than a stanza) tells us who the recipients of his message are, and they are precisely those who VOUCHERED that Pushkin HAS BECOME TAME, that he will no longer rebel against the tsar, that he actually respects him.

And the entire verse asserts this. Pushkin wanted to convey:

"You who defend the Tsar's whip and lash, and who think that I, my wife, and children should be grateful to the Tsar for his leniency towards me, know that I have not resigned myself, and that I eagerly await the hour when tyrants will be overthrown and punished, and then I will be the first to appear, to be the first to repay the Tsar with the first lashes of the whip!"

And then the phrase "Never forget" takes on a double meaning! Firstly, you, "defenders of the whip and lash," believe that I should be grateful to the Tsar and remember this, never forget. Secondly, I remember the offense, I will never forget my right to be the first to repay the Tsar with my lashes. Do you defend the whip and lash? And I sing the praises of this very whip, this very knout, but only if I can turn it against the one who lashed all of Russia with it!
That's what the simple line "And I will never forget" indicates.

The word "prince" appeared, in my opinion, because Pushkin was initially thinking of the word "execution"—that is, of the execution that threatened V.F. Raevsky, who had been arrested and held for three years.

And now, without claiming to fully understand Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin, I offer you something that, in my humble opinion, the poet intended to write when he took up his pen.

TO THE DEFENDERS OF SELF-RULE!

Defenders of the whip and lash, And you, all-merciful prince! To you my wife and children Must pray at all times.

I will pray to God for you, I will cast aside my dreams like a dream, and never forget, that I am supposedly forgiven?

So know, you vile orators, I have not humbled myself or calmed down, I am unbending as the messiah, and my verse also rages.

When my brothers call for the long-awaited reprisal, I will, to the glory of justice, give the tsar my first whip.


But this is not final. I think Alexander Sergeyevich should have wanted to squeeze this verse into the Onegin stanza.

What do you think?

To the defenders of autocracy - 2

Defenders of the whip and lash, And you, all-merciful prince! To you my wife and children Must pray every time. Having perceived forgiveness as a miracle, I will repeat everywhere that this is a wondrous, sweet dream, that I am pardoned, forgiven? No! To the glory of justice, a furious army will rise, the time will come to answer. In the blessed hour of holy reprisal, and I, like a new Brutus, will give the Tsar my first whip. Pushkin's expanded continuation.


But we missed the fact that the draft of this poem was written on a sheet of paper that has a draft of "Andrei Chenier" on the right.

Could it be that Pushkin was working on two poems simultaneously? Or did he use the sheet with the draft for the second poem? The draft of "Andrei Chenier" smoothly flows around the draft of this poem. So, he worked on "Andrei Chenier" after he had already stopped working on this poem. Did he rewrite this poem itself in fair copy on another sheet of paper, or did he abandon it? It's highly doubtful that he discarded the sheet of paper, which still had enough space even for another poem, and started on a new sheet. We could only assume this if Pushkin initially had a lot of blank paper and wasn't particularly sparing with it, and then he used up all the paper and decided to use the sheet already used for drafts, sparingly using the space at the top, right, and bottom? This is somehow strange, hard to believe.

What then? It seems very likely that Pushkin abandoned work on this poem, moving on to work on "Andrei Chenier." And here two options emerge. Either his reflection on this verse led him to the idea of writing a poem about Andrei Chenier, with whom Pushkin himself had many moral parallels, allowing him to express his own thoughts in this poem. Furthermore, there were strong parallels between A. Chenier and F.V. Raevsky.

It's entirely possible that Pushkin wanted to somehow incorporate the wild idea of promising to whip Alexander I in his poem "Andrei Chenier," so that this poem could contain an appeal to his contemporaries, inspired by Chenier's example of courage.

In Pushkin's interpretation, Henri Ch;nier, who supported the execution of the King of France but condemned the subsequent executions of ordinary French citizens and praised Charlotte Corday, who stabbed Marat, the most cruel new ruler of the Directory, to death in his bathtub, first reflects on his proud life and prepares for death with determination and courage. His reflections then lead him to the conclusion that he should not have been at odds with the authorities, and that then his life would have flowed peacefully and happily. Yet he still returns to the idea that only in the struggle against tyrants lay his true destiny, his lofty destiny. Thus, thoughts of struggle, like waves, recede only to gather strength and, in their final and conclusive blow, crush the tyrants with the greatest force.

Of course, we hear Pushkin's own thoughts here, which draw strength from the example; the reference to Ch;nier allows him to hide the fact that the verse is not so much dedicated to specific facts from the life of France, as to the life of the author at the time; this verse is as relevant as today's newspaper for the author, like a leaflet on the walls of a palace where the people are excited, where an uprising is ready to break out any day now. Indeed, almost immediately after Henri Ch;nier's execution, a coup d';tat occurred in France, and the bloody executioners of the first revolution themselves found themselves on the guillotine platform. After this, the brutal executions of anyone these monsters suspected of disloyalty, carried out on the slightest pretext, ceased or at least sharply decreased.
Henri Ch;nier would have been unlucky; had his execution been delayed even for a few days, perhaps he would have survived. But it's entirely possible that Henri Ch;nier's execution was the last straw that broke the people's patience and submission, the straw that broke the camel's back, the snowflake that unleashed an avalanche of popular anger. With his death, the poet influenced the people's struggle for freedom. And Pushkin draws parallels with his own fate.

How can one fail to see the intimate connection between the draft of the poem under consideration and the finished elegy? The lyrical hero mentally addresses his friends, advising them to conceal their grief.

"But, friends, if the memory of me is sacred to you, fulfill my final wish: mourn, my dears, my lot in silence; beware of arousing suspicion with tears; in our age, you know, even tears are a crime: a brother dares not regret a brother now."

This is an excellent pretext for blaming modern times, when Alexander I issued a decree banning secret unions, and officials and officers were asked to sign affidavits declaring their non-membership in any secret societies.

And this despite the fact that Miloradovich himself, the second most powerful man in the kingdom, was a member of a Masonic lodge, and the Tsar's late father, Paul I, was a Master of the Order of Malta!

Pushkin himself was a member of one of the Masonic lodges. And so he found a reason to say:

"In our age, you know, even tears are a crime: A brother does not dare to regret a brother now."


This is an accusation of tyranny. Not only deeds are forbidden, but also thoughts and feelings!

And here are some more lines for which the elegy "Andrei Ch;nier" was written:

"Be silent, cowardly murmur! Proud and rejoice, poet: You did not bow your obedient head Before the shame of our years; You disdained the powerful villain; Your torch, menacingly blazing, With cruel brilliance illuminated The council of inglorious rulers; Your scourge overtook them, executed These autocratic executioners; Your verse whistled over their heads; You called upon them, you glorified Nemesis; You sang to the priests of Marat The dagger and the Eumenid maiden!"

The Eumenides Maiden is Charlotte Corday, praised by Henri Ch;nier and also admired by Pushkin. The Eumenides are the muses of vengeance, also known as the Erinyes or Furies, but the word "Eumenide" is more elevated, while "Fury" has a negative connotation. Greek goddesses of vengeance were named Tisiphone, Alecto, and Megaera; the latter name has also become a household word in Russian, but Alecto and Tisiphone do not. Yet, the most elevated and poetic term is Eumenides, and Pushkin already used this word for Charlotte Corday in his poem "The Dagger."

Incidentally, it's not particularly brilliant of Pushkin to rhyme Nemesis and Eumenide—they are essentially the same thing; Nemesis is also a Greek goddess of retribution. Hence the common endings. Why didn't Pushkin notice this? Because for him, "Nemesis" is retribution as such, the "action" proper, while "Eumenis" is a specific person, the maiden who carried out the action. These are nouns of very different hypostases, so Pushkin didn't notice this flaw in his elegy. Moreover, as I already said, he had already called Charlotte Corday "Eumenis" in his poem "The Dagger," so he didn't even consider the origin of this name; for him, it had already become a stable, personal clich;.


Thus, Pushkin practically calls for a new Eumenis to fall upon the head of Alexander I, or, at least, is ready to praise her if one can be found.

Let's remember that Alexander several times tried to abdicate power and begin life as a simple private citizen, which is what his younger brother, Konstantin, did. Elizaveta Alekseyevna, Alexander's wife, naturally read Pushkin's poetry. Recall that Alexander went on a trip to the seaside, where he died suddenly in Taganrog, and Elizaveta Alekseyevna herself died almost immediately. For this reason, a legend became popular that Alexander secretly took the schema and hid in a monastery. A rumor even spread that he hid in Tomsk under the specific name of Elder Fyodor Kuzmich, a rumor supported by Leo Tolstoy. In this case, the sudden death of his wife would also be understandable; one might assume that she too had taken the veil, and that this act was carried out by prior agreement between them. But this, of course, is a myth, a legend, a fabrication. If such a thing had happened, Alexander would have first set things right, would have made arrangements for who would succeed him. After all, it was precisely because no one was prepared for such an event that chaos and a power vacuum ensued for several days, ultimately leading to the Decembrist revolt. They decided to take advantage of this situation, which could never be repeated. They were unwilling to miss such a chance, despite being completely unprepared for revolt.

What does Pushkin write next in his elegy "Henri Ch;nier"? This:

"My cry, my furious laughter haunts you! Drink our blood, live, destroying:
You are a pygmy, an insignificant pygmy.
And the hour will come... and it is already near: You will fall, tyrant! Indignation Will finally rise. The fatherland's sobbing Will awaken the weary fate."

So, here we have a prophecy about the tsar's fall (which didn't come true, but was highly anticipated). The draft under discussion is the same: a prophecy about the tsar's fall, about the poet himself lashing out at his back with a whip—whether literally or figuratively, in the form of scathing verses—those are details.

Therefore, I conclude that Pushkin became captivated by a new idea, the idea of writing about Henri Ch;nier, and immediately began to put it into action. He simply abandoned the poem known to us as "Defenders of the Whip and Lash." This poem, most likely, was never completed. The brilliant idea of writing that "I will give the first whip to the tsar" was reborn into a new idea, namely: "I will write my whip against the tsar right now." Pushkin set about it immediately. He didn't even bother to take a new sheet of paper. He drew his passion for writing "Andrei Chenier" from the outlines, the rhymes, and the idea of the first whip. So, as sad as it is, the idea for the poem "Defenders of the Whip and the Lash" remained just that—an idea.

I'm convinced that Pushkin wouldn't have stopped using that first page as a draft of this poem, which still had plenty of room, if he hadn't abandoned the idea of reworking it altogether. In any case, he stopped working on it at that point. Perhaps he came across the draft later, and he revised it, but by then it would have been a completely different poem, and many changes were certainly made. So those gaps that were originally in the draft remain just that—gaps.

This is just my insignificant opinion.

And if Pushkin had finished reworking this poem, what might it have turned out like?

Yes, I agree, comparisons to the messiah aren't very appropriate for Pushkin. He remained a believer. Here is what he writes in a letter to Vyazemsky on the topic of religion:

“Do not demonstrate, Asmodeus: your thoughts about the general opinion, about the vanity of persecution and suffering (let us assume) are justified - but have mercy ... this is my religion; I am not yet a fanatic, but I am still devout. Do not take away from the schemamonk the hope of paradise and the fear of hell” (letter to Vyazemsky, September 13 and 15, 1825).

But I cannot imagine that Pushkin, working on the verse, would not have introduced irony into its first part. Therefore, instead of “O famous ones”, I would put “High society”. Pushkin hardly added himself to the list of the grateful. He would have contrasted himself. They are grateful, but I am not. Therefore, instead of “for everything” we write “already”, and instead of “like me” we write “but not I”. Further - “Never” and “When” do not fit together in adjacent lines! If they get along, it won't be Pushkin anymore! In the draft - as much as you like, in the final version - under no circumstances! Also, the rhyme "I won't - I won't forget" seems extremely simplified. This is not Pushkin's level!


FOURTH OPTION

Defenders of the whip and lash, High-society princes, For everything, my wife and children Are grateful to you, but not I. I will not pray for you, But I promise without deception: When my brothers call For the long-awaited reprisal, I will give the Tsar my first whip to the glory of justice.
Then, I vouch,
my whip will pass Over your backs.



This final version has virtues that were not present in the previous versions.

FIRST. Here the "First Whip" is developed, now it becomes clear that there will also be "not the first."

SECOND. Completeness appears. In the beginning there was "whip and lash," in the end there was only "whip," but where was the "lash"? It appeared!

THIRD. The appeal to the defenders was somehow inappropriate. If a poet threatens the tsar, it's appropriate to address the tsar. Why then does he address his threats to the defenders of the whip and the lash? To someone else? And will they go unpunished? There's no proper finality here.

FOURTH. The juxtaposition of family values with civic ones is complete and has reached its full development. The wife and children are grateful, but the citizen within the poet rages. So what is the poem about? About how this inner turmoil will find an outlet. This sonata now has three distinct parts—exposition, development, and a reprise on a new level. In other words, at the end, the author returned to the stated theme and dotted the i's.

FIFTH. Only two lines are missing in this final version before the "Onegin stanza"! Could that be the whole point? Could this be the reason the final draft of this poem has not survived? But could it be that this initially stand-alone poem became one of the stanzas of the tenth chapter of "Eugene Onegin"? Of course, not in this form, but in a slightly modified one. It would be enough to add the previously formed two lines:

No, I have not resigned myself, I have not given up, My verse still rages!

But if I was deliberately striving for the third version and adding lines, then this fourth version, of its own accord, grew into the "Onegin stanza," and the last two lines, rhyming with each other, appeared of their own accord, no one asked for them, no one called them, they brazenly appeared and took their place! All that remains is to add a couple of lines in the middle, and there you have one of the stanzas of the tenth chapter of "Eugene Onegin."

The version in the Onegin stanza will be as follows:

OPTION FIVE

1. Defenders of the whip and lash, High-society princes, For everything, my wife and children Are grateful to you, but not I.

2 I will not pray for you, But I promise without deception: No, I have not humbled myself, I have not calmed down, My verse still rages!

3 For the long-awaited reprisal When my brothers call, I will give the king my first whip, For the glory of justice!

4 Then, I vouch, my whip will pass, Over your backs.

COMPARE:

1

"My uncle of the most honest principles, When he seriously fell ill, He made himself respected
And could not come up with a better one.

2 His example is a lesson to others; But, my God, what boredom To sit with a sick person day and night, Without moving a step away!

3 What base treachery To amuse the half-dead, Adjust his pillows, Sadly bring medicine,

4 Sigh and think to yourself: When will the devil take you?"

To perfectly match the "Onegin Stanza," the outer and inner lines in the third section had to be swapped. The meaning is not lost, although it's not quite as good; it's like "Master Yoda's Tongue."

Of course, it would have been better to leave it as is:

3 "When my brothers summon me to the long-awaited reprisal, I will, in the glory of justice, give the Tsar my first whip!"

Well, that's up to each their own! We can't consult with Pushkin; he's very busy right now.

I've spoken. Scold me.

Chapter 28. Pushkin's Choice

https://stihi.ru/2024/11/25/5037

The Tsar summoned the poet
and said: "Well then, rebel, everyone has their own destiny, but all life is a struggle! Will you be a victim or a despot?" The choice, he said, was endless.

To this, the poet gave him his final answer: "Fate has chosen omnipotence for you, and to watch over all of Russia, while I am left with misfortune, to resign myself to it and endure it all."


NOTE:

Since Pushkin was forbidden to speak about politics in Russian, so as not to embarrass the common people, he related his meeting with Alexander the First in a couplet in French, which can be literally translated as follows:

"He said to me: choose—to be an oppressor or a victim. I took misfortune for myself, and left him crime."

Or:

"I left him to be a tyrant, and chose for myself the destiny of victim."
Chapter 29. Pushkin's Heavy Thoughts

https://stihi.ru/2024/11/25/5413
How could you, my dear,
For two years in a row, again and again, Carried away by this scoundrel, Give him your love?

............................

I forgive her love without passion, I will forgive passion without love, But it is better to kill it at once, Than these two misfortunes together.

Let her flutter somewhere with passion at a ball... As if with delight piercing the heart with a needle of jealousy!

In the arms of a trembling friend She is neither a mother nor a wife. A Parisian oaf, a baron Is conquered by her beauty!

On the altar of her pride He sacrifices all shrines And for one moment is ready to renounce everything.

In the arms of a fashionable rake Her whole body trembles. Pride rejoices in Dantes, Victory flatters the wayward!

He treasures the happiness of those moments: His star rose to its zenith: "The evil-tongued genius is humiliated," And Dantes is prouder than ever.

But wait, messenger of Hell,
The moment of vengeance will come, The limit of your intrigues is approaching, You yourself will beg for mercy.

Should I strike you down with a lead bullet? But no! With a poisoned pill You will feel holy vengeance. From anger you will eat the earth!

You will be forever disgraced, Like the pimp - your "father"! You will become sickening to yourself, Everyone will call you: "Scoundrel!"

You will know shame to the fullest extent, And you will be expelled from the country, Like Bonaparte during the war, You will feel your losses.

Rejected by all, without a doubt, You will no longer joke, And the bitter cup of contempt You will drink with disgust.

Chapter 30. The Rebel Poet

https://stihi.ru/2024/07/11/2810

The sweet dream of quiet glory,
Is it truly unrealizable? The path to it is cool and shady, Not dangerous and thorny: Write poems, write short stories, And publish them now and then,
And after many years
it will find you.

So quiet glory will come And fall upon your head like a wreath.

And if not - what's the harm? There is little shame in that:

You lived your life in calm bliss, Never risked anything! You did not lose strength in a mad race, More often than not you rested on your laurels. You were an obedient citizen And indifferent to the troubles of others, Did not bet on zero, Did not sell your pen, Sang of nature and Cupid, Inscribed yourself in the tablet of culture. You were an exemplary family man And a noble citizen, You were never on the run, Were regularly well-off, And even the local newspaper Mentioned you somewhere.

But thoughts of quiet glory didn't long entertain your mind. "I have no right to be something average" - such is the result of rebellious thoughts.

And your laziness has given way to weakness: You dream of resounding glory. You read the samurai code, You have become thoughtful and sullen, Ryleyev, Gnedich, Chaadayev excite your rebellious mind: You no longer "don't care", And you dream of rebellion.

And you rage for a day or two,
But you hardly tire, You are drawn back to bed, And you think: "Really?

Is it fitting for me, at my age, To break my neutrality? With my frantic pen To wreak havoc on someone? And as if later, All this wouldn't come back to haunt me! And where are my friends for the battle? Some are gone, and those are far away."

Savoring the happiness of existence, You think: "Have I gone mad?" Fearing something, You tear up the rebellious pages, And feed the voracious flame of fire With former verses.

Everything that once burned the soul Is gone, forgotten, has healed, And life's evil no longer worries, The desire to rage has passed.

You take up the pen again To stir up the same themes, And rhymes, generously and colorful, Will adorn new poems.

"Now my publisher will accept this! He will certainly approve!" And writes with a firm hand: "Onegin, my good friend ..."

But the magazine is not ready to publish twenty stanzas of your work.

"Let's skip all this
And replace them with ellipses?"

"And the fee?" - "It won't suffer! The cashier will count all the lines!"

"Well then? The creation has been cut, All that remains is to sign it!

Inspiration is not for sale, but a manuscript can be sold!

Chapter 31. Curly Pushkin

https://stihi.ru/2004/08/05-194

Breaking cliches and theories,
one lady found in history that Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin covered the top of his head with a chignon.

Yes, our most famous poet was bald in the prime of life, and to preserve his appearance, he was forced to wear a wig.

What the hell! If there is power in words, then appearance is vanity and ashes. You dug into history in vain! For us, the poet is forever curly.

Look: the curly god Eros takes a sharpened arrow, and sends it, despite the years, into the hearts of his female acquaintances.

And a languid maiden sighs
and sheds tears for the poet, creeping sideways from his head, cutting a lock of hair for herself in an album,

and poor Pushkin is forced to buy a new chignon.


Chapter 32. Madam, you are selling yourself!

http://proza.ru/2024/11/18/312

INSTEAD OF AN EPIGRAPH

They say that the English queen asked George Bernard Shaw: - Is it true what you said, that all women are venal? - Yes, Your Majesty, - answered the writer. - And even me? ” - the queen was indignant. - My rule has no exceptions, Your Majesty, - answered Shaw. - And how much am I worth in your opinion? - asked the queen. - Ten pounds, - was the answer. - Why so little? ” - exclaimed the queen. - You see, Your Majesty, you are already bargaining, - answered the clever joker.

END OF EPIGRAPH

May those who find an inaccuracy in the quotation forgive me.

But I recalled this tale for the following reason. Mrs. Natalie Pushkin, as is widely known, sparked a duel between her husband, Russia's greatest poet, and the visiting Frenchman Georges d'Anth;s, who had been adopted (while his father was still alive) by the Dutch envoy Baron Heeckeren (or Gekkern). It's no secret that these two were bound by ties far from family, but rather by what was then called an Asian sin, a sin that also bound Uvarov and Dondukov, and which today would be approved in many Western countries, where such debauchery is declared not only the norm but also a desirable sign of genuine democracy. But I would call it a vile democracy. So, Heeckeren adored his "son," d'Anth;s, who, out of this "adoration," moved in with him and even adopted his surname. Although Georges d'Anth;s himself apparently played a passive role in this adoration, he nevertheless, unlike the Baron himself, was also attracted to women, but he had no desire to marry any of them. Being a brilliant cavalier in appearance, witty, and a good dancer (what else does one need to win the hearts of women?), he easily achieved conquests. It should be noted that he specialized in married women, only once or twice allowing himself to indulge in dalliances with young women, but, fearing responsibility (being forced into marriage), he nevertheless made it a rule to seduce married women. It was this French lifestyle that he realized at court, where he should never have found himself due to his insufficient position, but where he did, again, thanks to Heeckeren's promotion. In a similar vein, it was once said of a rapidly ascending young man: "Why are you surprised by his rapid advancement? Could it have been otherwise, with such active pressure from behind?"

So, the young and old libertine found each other. And since Madame Natalie Pushkina (n;e Natalia Nikolaevna Goncharova) was, by many accounts, the most prominent lady at court—that is, among the ladies-in-waiting of Her Majesty the Empress (including even all the noblewomen, all the nobility, and even Her Majesty herself, as evidenced by the unexpectedly tender attitude toward Natalie even from Emperor Nicholas I himself), the Frenchman, who had received ranks and positions undeservedly, and who at first couldn't even properly ride a horse, decided to make advances toward Natalie as well. Which he did, and for two years he did so literally before the eyes of her husband, Alexander Pushkin.

Pushkin's wife confessed to him that she had captivated d'Anth;s, as she had many others, including the Emperor. But the Russian suitors limited themselves to compliments, while d'Anth;s wasn't even satisfied with the fact that almost all of Natalie's dances were his by some incomprehensible and insulting right. Pushkin feigned indifference, believing his wife was faithful to him. And how could it be otherwise, considering she had already given birth to three children and was pregnant with a fourth? By the time Pushkin died in a duel, they had four children, and she had also suffered one miscarriage, and, of course, the cause was his unrestrained dancing! Pushkin was deeply distressed and anguished, but mistakenly believed that since Natalie was sharing the news with him, openly admitting that d'Anth;s was courting her, it meant there was nothing serious behind it.

Let's recall that Tatyana Larina, the heroine of his own beloved novel, "Eugene Onegin," when she was already married, replied to Eugene that—why hide it?—she still loved him, "but I am given to another and will be faithful to him forever."

Pushkin apparently believed he had given Natalie a sufficiently clear literary example of how a married woman should respond to such proposals.

Pushkin overestimated himself, Natalie's intelligence and integrity, and generally misjudged all the circumstances of the matter. Natalie, of course, responded more or less the same way. But was it right?

Tatyana Larina didn't marry for love; she loved Onegin even before their marriage, and she loved him so much that she was the first to write him a letter of confession. So she had a long history of true love, not infatuation. However, the only conversation she had with Onegin after her marriage was the one in which she made it absolutely clear to Eugene that they had nothing to talk about after that, and that if she had any feelings for him, they would remain hers, and there would be absolutely no privileges, prerogatives, or rights to even the slightest preference in dancing between them. Onegin was a civilized man—that is, Russian, not French. He realized that he had to leave this married woman behind once and for all. Dant;s was quite a different man.

Natalie declared to Dant;s that she loved him too, but that, to her regret, she was already married. This was only superficially the same thing. Tatyana loved Onegin "as before, for old times' sake," but she was decisively parting with him forever. Natalie declares to Dant;s that she loves him, despite the fact that she has known him for only a short time, ignoring the fact that many broken hearts of married women and one or two maidens are widely known. That is, Onegin was perhaps seeking a divorce from Tatyana, perhaps seeking a breakup from her current husband, a marriage in which there were no children, not to secretly take advantage of her a few times, but to tie his life to her. Dant;s was seeking concessions to rights only a husband had the right to; he wanted to be the third in this union, without her husband's consent, of course, secretly and vilely.

In this situation, Natalie's confession that she also loves Dant;s seems monstrous to me. This confession is a vague promise for the future, and a refusal in this form is not final, like a slight resistance that only calls for further struggle, the purpose of which is only to increase the cost of the persistent suitor's future victory. It seems to me that Natalie herself, at this point, hasn't yet fully decided what she wants.

So, for two years, with a short break, these two behave in public like a couple. At the ball, the first dance is Natalie and Georges. And not the only one. While Pushkin is in the smoking room, or playing cards, or not invited to the ball at all, Natalie flutters with D'Anth;s. While Pushkin is raising funds to buy new dresses for his carefree wife and her equally carefree sisters, remortgaging their inherited family estate (and he also had a brother and sister), his debt has skyrocketed to one hundred and thirty thousand, despite the fact that he spends almost nothing on himself, wears a coat missing a button for months, and his wife dances at balls whenever she is not busy with childbirth. And she enjoys D'Anth;s's company, she does not hide this from her husband or from any of the guests present at the ball.

Pushkin's patience is gradually wearing thin. But he convinces himself it's nothing serious. And suddenly he receives three identical "Cuckold Diplomas" in the mail—at least ten identical diplomas bearing his name—in sealed envelopes marked "For Alexander Pushkin." They were mailed in outer envelopes to all his acquaintances, whose opinions he valued, who were dear to him. This is nothing less than an artillery strike on what was most precious to Pushkin—the honor of his family, his personal honor, his friendship with those few he particularly favored among his acquaintances and friends!

A conversation took place between Pushkin and Natalie, of course, not the first, since there are also letters in which he asked Natalie to be more restrained, not to give d'Anth;s cause for hope, and so on.

As a result of this conversation, Natalie makes a surprising confession: there's more between her and Dant;s than she'd previously revealed. She brings him Dant;s's letters to her.

Note that it's not just one letter, but many. Dant;s wrote, she read them, she didn't send them back, she didn't destroy them, she kept them! In other words, she reread them. They were dear to her!

How would Pushkin have reacted to this?

Then came the well-known story of Pushkin challenging Dant;s to a duel. The letter reached Baron Heeckeren, who asked for a delay, first of 24 hours, then of two weeks. Pushkin granted the delay. Dant;s wanted to speak with Pushkin personally, but Pushkin rejected the request. Then two barons, one old and one young, concocted a tale claiming that Dant;s's courtship was directed not at Natalie, but at Catherine, Natalia Pushkina's older sister, and that it was her that Dant;s wanted to marry.

Pushkin didn't believe it. And rightly so. That's not how one courts! For two years, Dant;s flirts with Natalie, and suddenly, when things take an undesirable turn, it turns out he's not after Natalie at all, but her less beautiful sister! Catherine is older than Natalie, Dant;s is younger than Pushkin, and Natalie is more beautiful.

And so, to convince Pushkin of this, "material evidence" is presented: Dant;s proves that there was already something material between him and Catherine. So, marriage is, among other things, a means of saving her honor. Couldn't this be Catherine—the girl Dantes had written about, more than a year earlier, that he'd had sex with a girl, deeply regretted it, and vowed never to court girls again, only married women?

Pushkin realizes that Dantes wasn't courting Natalie to get close to Catherine, but Catherine to get close to Natalie!

This is enough to make him furious.

Zhukovsky persuades him to come to his senses and reason.

Pushkin, at the table that evening, tells Catherine, "Congratulations. Dantes wants to marry you."

Catherine rushes out from the table, covering her face with her hands. Natalie runs after her.

Do you think it was to calm Catherine down? Why should she calm down? She was in love with Dantes, even if she knew Dantes was proposing only to avoid marriage, then given some "material evidence" of the seriousness of her relationship with Dantes, she should only be glad that it would end in marriage. Oh well, let it be the usual female hysteria. It will pass! We know that the marriage took place, that Catherine Dantes left Russia with her husband, Georges Dantes. So, for her, "all is well."

But Natalie simply had to leave the table. To hide her feelings from her husband.

Because, as we all understand, this woman was basking in her polygamous dreams, even if they were semi-platonic. Her husband and children were at home, Dantes and other admirers were at the ball. Everyone adored her, everyone declared their love, everything was wonderful, life was a success! And in this situation, there was no need to think about her husband's feelings. He had given her permission!

Yes, he allowed her to have fun, but immediately asked her not to take advantage of his permission. In other words, he demonstrated to her that he wasn't a tyrant, that he wouldn't forbid her to live as she wanted, but within the bounds of decency and conscience. He also asked her not to do what he couldn't forbid, but which he categorically disliked. She heard his permission, but completely ignored his request not to take advantage of it. At first, she had fun, then she got carried away, then she fell in love. None of this is so terrible. What's scary is something else: she confessed to Dantes that, for her part, she loved him too. In other words, she essentially encouraged him to continue his courtship. And courtship can't always be the same. It can only wax and wane. If it wanes, both soon realize it's over, one way or another. If the courtship is always the same, monotonous, it's as if it's over and waning. Only a third option remains: he must not only remain her cavalier, but also come up with ever newer ways to prove his love. At first, their meetings were discreet, often secret, whispered only during dances. Then they openly stand next to each other and converse without any dancing. Then they even step aside from everyone to exchange a word or two without witnesses. Finally, it comes to secret, one-on-one meetings. Yes, we don't know and cannot know what happened on these secret meetings. Probably (maybe) only conversations. Or only conversations and kisses? Or conversations, kisses, and hugs? And vows? And confessions?

And do we really care whether the line has been crossed where we can talk about physical infidelity? Well, let's assume it hasn't. So what? Secret meetings remain secret meetings. There's no other way to describe them.

And so we come to what I actually wanted to reflect on. The wedding of Dant;s and Ekaterina Goncharova has been announced. So far, it's only an engagement.

Natalie, having cried her heart out, apparently became a little more distant in her interactions with Dant;s. But should she have communicated with him? Pushkin believed that after the conversation that took place, after his confessions and the showing of his letters, she realized, she was horrified, she forever swore off all communication with Dant;s. Pushkin was certain that from then on, Natalie "despised" Georges Dant;s. There's a clear difference of opinion here. Natalie didn't think so. Alas.

And then Heeckeren appears to Natalie and begs her to be more lenient, implores her to reciprocate Dant;s's love, tells her that his beloved Georges is pining for her, going mad. An old pimp offers her to go abroad, to flee from her husband with her lover, Dant;s. He promises wealth, protection from the Dutch government, and all the rest.

Natalie doesn't interrupt him, listening to him until the end.

Heeckeren, meanwhile, brings up additional arguments, denigrating Pushkin. He tells Natalie that her husband was unfaithful to her, that he deserves to be left.

Natalie listens to all this until the end.

When he finishes and waits for an answer, hoping for her consent, she refuses:

"Even if we admit that my husband committed the reprehensible acts against me that you attribute to him, even if we admit that there were no hesitations, at least on my part, that all these mistakes were of such a nature as to make me forget my duties to him, you still miss the most important point: I am a mother. If I were to go so far as to abandon my four children at their tender age, sacrificing them for the sake of a guilty love, I would be the most vile creature in my own eyes. We have nothing more to say to each other, and I demand that you leave me…”


https://biography.wikireading.ru/168974

Well then… My readers, male and female, apparently think Goncharova’s behavior is impeccable? After such a rebuke?

But let’s pay attention to the following.

First. While Heeckeren is laying out vile examples of Pushkin’s betrayals, Natalie doesn’t interrupt him, she doesn’t tell him that she’s not interested, that all this is none of his business, and she doesn’t demand that he leave her forever.

Second. While Heeckeren is laying out a plan for her and Dantes’s escape abroad, Natalie doesn’t interrupt him, she listens to the end.

Third. “Even if we admit that… hesitation… on my part does not exist.” But this is an admission that there are hesitations on her part! That she is generally torn between this choice and the one she made at the end of her monologue! So, in fact, she was undecided about how exactly she should act!

Fourth. She says: "Sacrificing... for the sake of criminal love"! In doing so, she acknowledges her love for Dantes, even if she calls it criminal!

Fifth. Where is that line from Tatyana Larina: "But I am given to another and will be faithful to him forever"? Where? The only argument for refusal is that I have four children, and they are small. But what if they weren't small? What if there weren't four? What if there were two? What if one child wasn't so small? Anna Karenina had one son, nine years old, and she left him for her lover, Vronsky. This novel hadn't yet been written, but it could already have happened if not for the four children? What if there were no children at all? For example, Natalie wouldn't have had children with Pushkin. So, would she have run away with her own sister's fianc;, abandoning her own husband? If she, having four children, HESSED, and admits to hesitating, then, having no children by Pushkin, she would have had less reason to doubt! So, COULD she have agreed to this vile proposal from an old homosexual, a libertine, and a pimp? After all, she DIDN'T SAID in anger: "How can you propose such a thing to a MARRIED woman!" and DIDN'T SAID: "How can you facilitate the pimping of MY SISTER'S FIANCE with another woman? Surely that would break her heart? How can one ask for the hand of one and then run away with another?!"

And here's another thing. If Heeckeren hadn't been sure that Dant;s would happily AGREE to elope with Natalie abroad, would he have proposed this plan to Natalie? Of course he wouldn't! So, he essentially came to facilitate a plan that had been agreed upon with Georges Dant;s!

Well, then Pushkin’s suspicions that Dantes did not love Catherine at all and was NOT INTENDING TO MARRY HER were quite REASONABLE! He KNEW it, and he was not mistaken about it.

Even after announcing his engagement to Natalie's sister, D'Anth;s did not cease his harassment, but acted with even greater persistence, attempting a new and breathtaking plan – to steal someone else's wife and run away with her abroad, steal his sister from his fianc;e! Steal a mother from four children! That, apparently, is so French!

In this case, Pushkin despises D'Anth;s and hates Heeckeren. And he's right. How could it be otherwise?

Pushkin declares that a duel is NOT ENOUGH for him, regardless of its outcome! Do you understand? It won't satisfy him, no matter what the outcome; revenge won't be enough!

Pushkin not only understands perfectly well that his opponent won't necessarily die in a duel, he also accepts the possibility that he himself will die in the duel. But even this seems insufficient vengeance, insufficient punishment for the scoundrel Heeckeren; he wants to ensure that he is expelled from Russia in disgrace. And that's exactly what happened—both Heeckeren and d'Anth;s were expelled from Russia in disgrace. In other words, Pushkin won, he achieved his goal.

If Pushkin had shot d'Anth;s, Heeckeren wouldn't have been expelled from Russia. It seemed like there was no reason for it. He would even have been the injured party!

Pushkin was so enraged that he wouldn't have been satisfied with a simple duel with d'Anth;s, in which he would have killed him. He HAD TO BECOME A VICTIM.

He may not have expected to be killed, but he did expect to be wounded, and I dare say he even went along with it openly, perhaps even willingly, almost joyfully. He may have been prepared to die. Most likely, he was.

Perhaps he wasn't as conscious of this as he should have been. Perhaps, had he known how it would all end, he would have come to his senses. But I find that unlikely. It seems to me that Pushkin was so enraged by all of this that he unhesitatingly sacrificed his own life for the sake of revenge. And he did. If you can't imagine Pushkin willing to take revenge at the cost of his own death, then you don't understand Pushkin's character, despite having read his rebellious works. Revenge was more important to Pushkin than his own life; he now had no other desire, no other passion, than to punish Heeckeren. It was the old man, not the young Dantes, whom he now merely despised. The cuckold's vile diplomas were written on foreign paper; Pushkin had heard from a friend that such paper was only available at the embassy. Even if this were not true, there was a strong suspicion that the diplomas were written by Pyotr Dolgoruky, but Pushkin was convinced he had figured out the author of the diplomas. Indeed, in Vienna, not long before, similar diplomas, printed by a printing press, had begun to be sold as practical jokes. All that was needed was to write the names. So the idea had been imported. But the diplomas were entirely handwritten on excellent foreign paper. Such paper could be bought, but it was expensive. Ten diplomas, ten mailings, all arriving simultaneously—that was beyond the means of a random, penniless person. The rich could afford such "jokes." Pushkin suspected Heeckeren, and I personally do not remove my suspicions from him. Heeckeren might not have expected what this would lead to. He was perhaps jealous of Natalie and wanted to open Pushkin's eyes to end the affair. And at the same time, teach his favorite a lesson, wean him off his ogling of young ladies. But Heeckeren had no idea that in Russia such things weren't treated as cheerfully as in Vienna. Vienna is a cheerful city. Austria is a cheerful country. To understand the difference between Austria and Germany, it's enough to understand the difference between Mozart and Beethoven. Holland is also a cheerful country. And France is an extremely cheerful country. In France, in those years, they shot at their own king, but for some reason the bullets more often hit Russian poetry! So, Heeckeren could have been, if not the person who personally wrote the diplomas, then the one who suggested the idea and perhaps supplied the jokers with the paper. At the very least, Pushkin was convinced of this. So the edge of his revenge had a very clear direction. And the price of this revenge was the poet's life.

It must be admitted that his revenge succeeded. For exactly the price he was willing to pay.

But let's return to Natalie. Was it proper for her to receive Heeckeren after she knew that Pushkin had challenged d'Anth;s to a duel?

Pushkin himself hoped that after all this, Natalie would despise d'Anth;s. Consequently, no love for d'Anth;s should have remained in her heart. Consequently, she should not have accepted a petition on his behalf from his so-called false "father," but essentially his partner, under any circumstances, under any guise.

There is a saying: "For him, I am never at home." And under no circumstances. That's what Natalie should have said about the strange family of two non-tribal barons.

She received him, she listened to him alone, she did not interrupt him. She didn't stop him at the first word, didn't stop him at the first phrase about Dantes, and in fact, didn't listen to him until the end. By this alone, she failed in her duty, even if all her previous actions of the last two years were justified by youth, immaturity, and the mistakes of youth. Four children! It's time to grow up!

And her answer contained indications that his proposal wasn't so alien to her, and she gave him material reasons JUSTIFYING her refusal.

But did she really need to justify it? Wouldn't it have been enough to say, "Get out of here!"?

I believe she should have said that just after hearing the newcomer's name.

She essentially replied, "I cannot accept your flattering offer because THERE ARE OBSTACLES." Or as if she were saying: "I would be delighted, but UNFORTUNATELY, there are obstacles in the form of my four children, who, as it turns out, are dearer to me than my beloved Dantes," perhaps only platonic, but one way or another, "BELOVED."

Madam! You sold yourself! I say this because YOU LISTENED TO THE END TO THE PROPOSAL OF YOUR PRICE.

You sold yourself, therefore, you are a sellout.

It is reported that in her third marriage, Natalie was intimate with the Russian Emperor Nicholas I. Who knows? I don't know, I will neither deny nor confirm. If a woman has a price, then surely there can be a man who will pay it?

Alexander Sergeyevich, how wrong you were, our dear fellow!

You took an eighteen-year-old beauty as your wife and expected love and intelligence from her!

But she was stupid and cold. She was INDIFFERENT towards you, at best.

She, of course, DIDN'T LOVE D'Anth;s either, and this will especially SHAME her.

What kind of love is this? Did she want him to be happy? No! She wanted recognition and praise from him. She loved only herself. Well, let's assume, and the children too. Those are instincts. Maternal ones. Let's praise her for that. Although... If she loved children, she would have wanted nothing more for them than a strong family. And for that, my dear, you need to be by your husband's side, and not by a salon wit and dancer.

D'Anth;s stated in court that he never wrote any letters to Natalie, only notes enclosed with books and tickets he sent her.

D'Anth;s sent Pushkin's wife books? BOOKS?!?

Yes, Pushkin had a whole library for every taste. It could have decorated any home.

Well, of course, his library wasn't as large as mine, which boasts over twelve thousand volumes. But still.

Couldn't find anything of interest? Really?

And couldn't she ask her husband, "My friend, what would you advise me to read?"

Listen, gentlemen, what books by D'Anth;s? French novels about French adultery, written in French? After all, D'Anth;s had barely learned the most basic phrases in Russian. He couldn't read Russian, and he couldn't understand the full depth of Pushkin, the man he had attacked, no matter how hard he tried, and he had no desire to do so.

Alexander Pushkin's greatest misfortune wasn't that a French D'Anth;s had appeared on the horizon, but that his wife, Natalya Nikolaevna Goncharova, whose father was a bitter drunkard who had drunk away his entire fortune, was naive, cold, and not at all in love with him at the age of eighteen when she married him. She found this marriage suitable for herself. And she saw it as a stepping stone, a path to court. To where her aunt Zagryazhskaya already was.

Being at court meant being rich, influential—that is, in Natalie's mind, being happy. She tried her best to please EVERYONE. And this captivated her. As for her husband, she apparently didn't care, or at least saw him as a source of money, prosperity, and perhaps some pleasures.

Pushkin longed for the countryside, Natalie for the capital. Pushkin wanted to save money, Natalie wanted to spend money, ignoring the fact that they were living on credit. To repay the debt, Pushkin had to work hard—either in government service, compiling the required descriptions and histories from archives, or creating world-class masterpieces that interested all of Russia but didn't sell as well as he would have liked, as they were circulated in lists. Pushkin needed peace, family comfort, and the absence of strangers. Natalie, however, required the presence of numerous strangers, daily balls, new outfits, ever newer and more expensive.

Natalie didn't create the conditions for Pushkin's creativity for one single reason: SHE DIDN'T UNDERSTAND HIS POETRY AND PROSE.

Natalya Nikolaevna Goncharova had not matured to the point of understanding the greatness of Pushkin's poetry, and when she became Natalya Pushkina, she did nothing to understand it.

Whether Dantes sent her books or not, perhaps he was lying, just as he lied about writing short notes, not letters.

But she had no desire to read her husband's works. She didn't think it interested her. She wasn't like Leo Tolstoy's wife, who copied his drafts, and then, after his revisions, rewrote them again and again, so thoroughly that she probably knew his works by heart. Where did Natalie find the time to read Pushkin? Did she have the intelligence to grasp the depth of his greatness, the sensitivity to understand his subtle nature as a writer?

You can give me as many proofs as you like that she read something somewhere. I don't believe it. She didn't read, didn't discuss it with him, didn't ask questions, and didn't praise him.

The very things that all the other women Pushkin met did were precisely what his wife, who should have been his most cherished and closest person, didn't give him. This isn't Nadezhda Krupskaya, who convinced Lenin he was great, who wasn't so much his wife as his comrade-in-arms, and above all, an enthusiastic admirer. Not at all.

Here's an episode. Pushkin asks, "Natalie, aren't you tired of me reading my poems out loud?" Natalie replies, "Never mind, go ahead, I'm not listening anyway."

If only any of us had the chance to hear Pushkin read his own poems!

When Gogol came with his new work to some venerable writer (Krylov, I think, or Zhukovsky) and read his works, the host dozed off. He generally liked to nap during the day. And Gogol, apparently, read without artistry. Then the host came to his senses and woke up, saying, "Forgive me, I haven't yet expressed my opinion of your work!" To which Gogol replied, "You have expressed it more than clearly." And he destroyed this work. Which, perhaps, was remarkable. We're not talking about the second volume of Dead Souls, which Gogol apparently burned by mistake, mistaking it for a draft. Do you see how vulnerable the author's feelings are towards his work?

Even if Natalie didn't understand something of Pushkin's, she HAD to approve it. And listen to it first. Or perhaps she shouldn't have married a famous and by then popular poet, a national idol in his lifetime.

Perhaps something Pushkin read to her that she didn't approve of was immediately thrown into the trash. But Pushkin was his own great critic, as we see from his drafts and from the fact that he decided to publish even before his marriage. So he didn't need a domestic censor in the form of his wife. He had at least three censors, maybe more. We know the names of three – Beckendorf, Uvarov, and Nicholas I himself. Not enough? And Natalie too? If Pushkin was smart enough not to read his works to her, it only proves how unhappy he was.

Imagine you're a poet, appreciated and loved by all of Russia. And your wife isn't even interested in what you write. But she is interested in how much money you'll receive for your work. That's reason to despair.

Pushkin didn't need a wife who was outwardly sweet. He had plenty of those around him. He needed someone who understood him. Natalie wasn't that.

In the film "We'll Live Till Monday," there was an essay by a young poet about happiness. He wrote, "Happiness is when you are understood." At first, he wrote something else, but after thinking about it, he crossed out the rest. Happiness lies only in this, only this is enough. And without this, there is no happiness. Pushkin married, but found no happiness.

Was Natalie obligated to make Pushkin happy? Of course not! She couldn't do that. She simply wasn't capable of it. She made him temporarily happy based on his sexual, erotic, passions. He saw in her a new "genius of pure beauty," apparently. But what about looking into her soul? Did he see a pure soul there? Granted! Then perhaps he should have started educating her? He told her, as we know, to read books. He hoped that she would understand him better. But she apparently didn't read. Or read what Dantes sent her. What's worse?

His wife is twelve and a half years younger than her husband. She became his wife at eighteen. He was already over thirty. What was he expecting? Enthusiastic love? On what grounds? Because all the women around him were shoving their albums at him, hoping he would write at least a few playful lines in them. And he wrote. And they were deliriously happy! He thought it would be just as easy with Natalie. But the marriage didn't happen right away. He spent a long time trying to secure his future mother-in-law's consent. He finally secured it through numerous embassies from mutual acquaintances and friends. It would have been better if he hadn't done that.

Pushkin's downfall began not with d'Anth;s's courtship of Natalie, but with his own marriage to Natalia Nikolaevna Goncharova. And his only salvation would have been his persistent efforts to introduce her to his work, to his poetry, to show her the beauty of his genius. But then she would no longer be Pushkin. After all, Pushkin was, first and foremost, a FREE AUTHOR, not a teacher!

You can't harness a horse and a timid doe to the same cart.

Pushkin couldn't become his wife's tutor.

Let's return to the events.

Wasn't what had happened enough for Pushkin to renew the challenge and summon not d'Anth;s, but Heeckeren? More than enough!

But that's not enough.

Natalie, a saintly simpleton, told her husband everything. Apparently, she was proud of having listened to Heeckeren to the end and of having, after confessing her continued love for Dant;s, nevertheless used the children as a cover. Was Pushkin pleased? Hardly. He probably would have expected more decisive action. After all, he had refused Dant;s and Heeckeren their home. Even after agreeing to his sister-in-law's marriage to Dant;s, he, firstly, didn't believe it would happen, and secondly, he had decided in advance that he would not communicate with Dant;s in any case, would pretend not to notice his presence anywhere, and that was precisely what he had done.

And then Poletika, a distant relative of the Goncharovs, invited Natalia Pushkina to her place without warning her that Dant;s would also be there, and then quietly disappeared, leaving the two of them alone. Why didn't Natalia Nikolaevna leave immediately?

Because even after Pushkin had cut off all contact with D'Anth;s, she continued to communicate with him! And this after Heeckeren's vile proposal. When she was told privately that this should stop, she retorted, "It's fun with him!"

A scoundrel or a complete fool? Take your pick. I'd say another word.

So, she communicates with D'Anth;s, but that's not all—she also communicates with him alone, at Poletika's house. D'Anth;s demands that Natalie give in, otherwise he threatens to shoot himself right there before her eyes.

Why didn't she leave the room? Why didn't she say, "My answer won't change, and your life is your business"?

If such blackmail compelled a woman to give in, there would be no faithful wives left in the world, except, perhaps, the utterly unattractive ones!

After this, Natalie began speaking deliberately loudly, and their t;te-;-t;te was disrupted, so she left. But those few minutes alone with Dant;s, when he insisted she give herself to him, did not brighten Natalie's mood at all. She should have left immediately. He hadn't physically prevented her from doing so, so what was she waiting for?

After this, Dant;s wrote a letter to his partner, Heeckeren, urging him to go to Natalie and repeat his attack on her. He instructed Heeckeren to make it appear as if the baron had come in person, on his own behalf, while Dant;s himself knew nothing about it. He also instructed him to describe Georges Dant;s's pitiful state, almost on the verge of death, either from despair or fever, or rather from both.

Dant;s remained unrelenting and continued to blackmail and pursue Natalie. At the same time, he unabashedly calls his previous behavior "a role," meaning he was playing a role; he wasn't truly in love; he needed (for what purpose, it's unclear) to win Natalia Nikolaevna over. To get from her what only a husband gets.

This is clearly not love, but pride, arrogance, stubbornness. This handsome Frenchman could not understand that he could not defeat Pushkin, who was those same fateful twelve years older than this fop. For Dant;s, Pushkin is an evil old man who has seized a beautiful woman. Dant;s fancies himself a hero who will abduct this beauty at any cost. Dant;s has no need for the mother of four "little Blackamoors." He has no plans for a long life with Natalia. If she agreed to leave with him, he would have had his fun with her and then returned her to her disgraced husband, or he would have left her somewhere abroad to fend for herself. It's obvious. Dantes wasn't seeking love in this case; he was seeking the humiliation of Pushkin, whom he obviously hated with all his soul by this point. Just like Heeckeren. Two base souls rose up against a man they couldn't understand, whose greatness they couldn't appreciate in their own insignificance.

And in this situation, Natalie is trying to somehow save Dantes, or at least maintain their old relationship with him. Which had been going on for two years now. And nothing bad, in her opinion, came out of it, so she's convinced it will be the same. She'll refuse Dantes, he'll flock around her again and amuse her, she'll be happy, and everything will be fine.

I want to go somewhere in the countryside, to a chicken coop. To look at some chicken. Because any given chicken from absolutely any chicken coop has more brains in its head than Natalya Nikolaevna Goncharova.