A. S. Pushkin. Kamer-junker: "I will not be a slave and a jester with the king of heaven." Part 9
The king loves, but the huntsman does not. Gossip. Barren autumn. Death of the mother. Between urethra and sound. And again Pugachev.
Part 1 ─ Part 2 ─ Part 3 ─ Part 4 ─ Part 5 ─ Part 6 ─ Part 7 ─ Part 8
Pushkin left the lyceum with the rank of collegiate secretary. Avoiding service all his life, he never grew up in ranks. Lacking a natural desire for ranking, the urethral poet ignored any suggestions to move him up the career ladder. And those did. Benckendorff, wishing to have Pushkin closer to him, offered him a chamberlain. This rank solved, if not all, then most of the poet's money problems. Pushkin refused, it was inconceivable for him to work for the chief of the gendarmes, besides A. S. was sure that he could earn money by poetry, his only craft. His fees were indeed "gold".
Alas, the expenses of the growing family far exceeded both royalties and income from book sales. A salary of 5 thousand rubles was barely enough to pay for an apartment and a summer residence. The Sovremennik magazine, under which the loans were obtained, turned out to be commercially unprofitable. Pushkin was a bad journalist. Urgent work, requiring the properties of the skin, did not suit A. S. The first issue of the magazine was sold by a third. Pushkin's debts, aggravated by card debts, grew.
The court wanted N. N. to dance in Anichkov …
A New Year's "t" in 1834 was for Pushkin the junkerism that suddenly fell on him. To obtain this rank, the lowest in the court hierarchy, the civil rank of the collegiate assessor was not enough, and Pushkin was first promoted to titular adviser and only then to chamber junker. There was only one reason for such a rapid "promotion": the emperor wanted to see Natalia Nikolaevna at the balls in the Anichkov Palace, where the Tsar's chosen circle gathered. It is clear that she could not leave without her husband, and Alexander Pushkin, a civilian official of the VIII class, had no right to attend such evenings.
When Pushkin was asked whether he was satisfied with his chamber-cadetism, he joked: "For me, at least in a chamber-page, only they would not be forced to learn arithmetic." Only friends knew what was happening in the poet's soul. The natural place of the urethral leader is at the top of the hierarchy, not on its lower floors. V. A. Zhukovsky, fearing that Pushkin would go to the palace to speak rude things beside himself, poured cold water on him - in such an indescribable anger was A. S. from the royal award. The situation was aggravated by rumors that Pushkin allegedly sought the camera-cadets by intrigue and flattery.
Secular skin gossips judged "through themselves", ranks need to be achieved, and for good, any means are good. Gossip was transmitted not only by word of mouth, something was also printed. Pushkin was furious, he was never a seeker of ranks, such rumors were perceived at the subconscious level as a demotion, incompatible with the life of an urethral leader. This was just the beginning. A primitive, but for centuries acting court meat grinder forced to play by skin rules.
Pushkin did not like the camera-cadet uniform; he appeared at balls in a tailcoat. When the Grand Duke congratulated Pushkin on his appointment, he boldly replied: “Thank you most humbly. Until now, everyone laughed at me, you were the first to congratulate me. " To react to kamer-junkerism was supposed to be the lowest loyal affection. Pushkin not only did not deign to be moved, but also in a letter to his wife contrived to comment on the event with irony: “I saw three kings. The first ordered me to take off my cap and chided my nanny, the second didn’t favor me, the third confined me to the chamber-pages in my old age …”Pushkin's letter was intercepted and sent to the 3rd department to Benckendorff. This disgusting event caused a fit of the poet's strongest anger and pushed him into the sound for a long time: "I could not take a pen in my hands."
The costumed camarilla pretty much got on A. S.'s nerves. Either the tailcoat is not the same, the wrong buttons on the uniform, the wrong hat. He left the court balls in a rage, leaving N. N. to dance and have fun, so as not to delve into the intricacies of the court masquerade.
Meanwhile, a new phenomenon appeared on the court scene. Just through the efforts of his early ripening "father", the Dutch envoy Louis Heckeren, he was admitted to the cavalry regiment, but a certain Dantes, a creature, in Pushkin's opinion, is empty, is still sparkling at evenings with worn-out leggings; However, the pants were soon replaced by new uniforms, and the fellow shone more confidently. Natalya Nikolaevna, having “jumped” to a miscarriage, leaves for a while to recover in the Kaluga village to her sisters, whom she will soon bring with her, despite her husband's protests.
The news that Natalya Nikolaevna threw it out immediately aroused evil tongues: "Pushkin is beating his wife!" Complete nonsense, but who checked? Only those close to him knew that not Pushkin, but his Madonna had a "heavy hand." Seeing her husband's courtship for a lady, Natalie left the ball in a fit of indignation. At home, Pushkin asked why she left. NN without further ado slapped her husband in the face. He laughed, as usual, "so that the guts were visible." There is nothing funnier than being jealous of a urethral man.
I should not have entered the service and, even worse, entangled myself with monetary obligations … (from a letter to my wife)
Pushkin asks for resignation. The frustrated affairs of the father demand to take the estate into their own hands. The king is against. Pushkin's resignation will automatically entail his removal to the village, where the poet has been striving for a long time, which means that his beautiful wife will also leave with him. The king does not want this very much. The court poet V. A. Zhukovsky persuades Pushkin to stay in St. Petersburg. A long, exhausting correspondence with officials about the withdrawal of the resignation begins. The form of the letters does not suit, the syllable is too free. Benckendorff's opinion: "It is better for him (Pushkin) to be in the service than to be left to himself." Understand - on a leash, preferably on a short one. Pushkin retreats …
Natalya Nikolaevna returns to St. Petersburg with her sisters Ekaterina and Alexandra. Now they will live in the Pushkins' apartment. A. S. reluctantly resigns himself to this, the situation in the estate of a drunken mother-in-law is really not for maidens of marriageable age. The three Goncharov sisters begin to leave. Sometimes A. S. is forced to accompany them, as "pasha of three wives."
The History of Pugachev, written by Pushkin based on the materials of a trip to Orenburg, the result of two years of painstaking work in the archives and in the field, was certified by the Minister of Public Education S. S. Uvarov as an “outrageous composition”. The book printed at public expense is not for sale. "The tsar loves, but the huntsman does not love", - sums up Pushkin. Uvarov's assistant - Dundukov, "a fool and a bardash", persecutes the poet with a censorship committee. Pushkin in anger: "For these gentlemen, the Tsar's permission is no longer enough!"
The evil epigram is stunning:
Prince Dunduk is in session at the Academy of Sciences.
They say that
such an honor is not fitting for Dunduk;
Why is he in session?
Because it is.
I never had such a fruitless autumn
Monetary difficulties, gossip, the failure of "Pugachev", the need to enter into the affairs of his father's ruined estate, the gambling debts of his own and his brother Lev, the inability to leave for the village, the grip of censorship and the hard labor of court amusements - all this is pretty depressing for Pushkin. Only for a short time does he manage to escape to Mikhailovskoye in order to "think, think until his head starts spinning." What was Pushkin thinking? Yes, all about the same, about debts and how to live: "I do not think about writing poetry or prose." Finding himself in a state where the urethral beating of life is no longer felt, and sound immersion in poetry is inaccessible, Pushkin falls into emptiness, the most difficult state in sound.
A sudden illness of his mother forces Pushkin to return to St. Petersburg. Secular gossips are right there. Pushkin's mother did not stay with her son, what a disgrace to the poet's wife! Dislike for N. N. in the world is gaining momentum like an avalanche. Who cares that in Pushkin's apartment there is nowhere to turn away from the children and relatives, and the beloved childhood friend of Nadezhda Osipovna is more desirable and calmer. "At the very box in the theater, and the father-in-law and mother-in-law are starving!" - are indignant in the light. At the same time, Sergei Lvovich, despite all his abilities for extravagance, still has 1200 souls, one cannot seriously talk about the poverty of such a person. But who cares when such a fat excuse to pat a famous name.
Pushkin took the death of his mother very hard. Deprived of his mother's love in childhood, he courted Nadezhda Osipovna with great tenderness in the last months of her life. To bury his mother Pushkin went to the Holy Mountains. There I bought a place for myself. This was a year before his death. "I visited your grave, but it is cramped there …" - he will write in his diary either the beginning of a poem, or a fragment of thought.
Returning to St. Petersburg, the poet took up the affairs of "Contemporary", wrote a lot. Completed "The Captain's Daughter". In contrast to the documentary "History of the Pugachev rebellion", the people's leader is represented here by a mighty nature, almost an epic hero. This is absolutely not in the tradition of official historiography, but it fully corresponds to the imprint in the collective psychic of the Russian people. The tragic Russian triad "autocracy, imposture, rebellion", to which Pushkin addressed in Boris Godunov, finds a detailed and powerful interpretation in "The Captain's Daughter".
Flesh of the flesh of the people, Pugachev is shown by Pushkin with sympathy and admiration. The mercy of the natural leader, his desire to fill the desires of the oppressed flock he led could not fail to evoke a strong response in the urethral psychic of Pushkin, which is why the image of a rebel was molded with such striking infallibility. The Kalmyk tale about the eagle and the raven, told by Pugachev to Peter Grinev, surprisingly accurately shows the essence of the urethral four-dimensional love of life, when 300 years are compressed into 33 years of living life.
“My street is narrow; will is not enough for me. My guys are getting smart. They are thieves. I must keep my ears open; at the first failure they will redeem their neck with my head. How many years must it take for these words to lose their relevance in Russia, and the urethral head would have a chance for years longer than plus or minus forty?..
Continue reading.
Other parts:
Part 1. "The heart lives in the future"
Part 2. Childhood and Lyceum
Part 3. Petersburg: "Unrighteous Power Everywhere …"
Part 4. Southern link: "All pretty women have husbands here"
Part 5. Mikhailovskoe: "We have a gray sky, and the moon is like a turnip …"
Part 6. Providence and conduct: how the hare saved the poet for Russia
Part 7. Between Moscow and St. Petersburg: "Will I soon be thirty years old?"
Part 8. Natalie: “My fate is decided. I am getting married"
Part 10. The last year: "There is no happiness in the world, but there is peace and will"
Part 11. Duel: "But the whisper, the laughter of fools …"
