A. S. Pushkin. Providence and conduct: how the hare saved the poet for Russia. Part 6
Poet and Tsar. Poet and death. Losses from the inner circle - the execution and exile of the Decembrists. Return to Moscow. Conversation with the king.
Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5
Poet and Tsar. Poet and death. Losses from the inner circle - the execution and exile of the Decembrists. Return to Moscow. Conversation with the king.
Boris Godunov was completed on November 7, 1825. In St. Petersburg, a conspiracy of the Decembrists is brewing, and in Mikhailovskoye, Pushkin plays billiards with himself with a blunt cue, breaks the ice with his fist in the bath and, after the morning ice font, rides out on horseback, reads and writes a lot. Four chapters of Onegin and the hilarious Count Nulin, romantic Gypsies and the brilliant Scene from Faust, Bacchic Song - a hymn to the sun from the darkness of captivity - and many beautiful lyric poems:
In slender sizes flowed
My obedient words
And closed in ringing rhyme.
In harmony, my rival
Was the noise of the forests, or a violent whirlwind, Or the orioles singing alive,
Or at night the sea is a dull rumble, Or the whisper of a quiet river.
The arrivals of the Lyceum friends Pushchin and Delvig are like breaths of air in an exhausting, sixth year lasting captivity. The interlocutors of the 25-year-old Poet during long evenings are only books and the old nanny Arina Rodionovna. “Mom,” so affectionately calls the nanny AS, brightens up the monotonous days of her favorite with fairy tales and epics.
I'm bored, devil …
The visual imagination of Pushkin, in the absence of a change in external impressions, is absorbed by the vivid and original Russian folklore. Signs and fortune-telling always occupied him. Not being religious, A. S. fervently believed in omens. In a sonic way, he tried to comprehend the mystical connection between completely different objects - the basis of all signs and fortune-telling. Visually, he was afraid to meet the priest at the door, and moreover, a hare crossing the road. Both are true signs: there will be no way. Often, ready-made horses unharnessed and had to wait 12 hours (this is how much, according to A. S., the omen worked).
Back in St. Petersburg, the famous fortune-teller Kirchhoff predicted the death of Pushkin "from a white head." An indistinct prediction was interpreted by the Poet as "from the hand of a blond man." The old soothsayer immediately singled out Pushkin from the group of young people who came with him. She told A. S. what would happen to him the other day, and then predicted an imminent violent death.
The fortune-teller's insignificant predictions soon came true with stunning accuracy, and the amazed Pushkin became visually afraid of the fair-haired. But here's what is surprising: at the moment of mortal danger in the face of his blond killer Dantes, Pushkin was completely calm. The visual fear brought to love for his wife ceased to exist.
And I could …
The first obscure news of the unrest in St. Petersburg was brought to Trigorskoye by the Osipovs' man, who had arrived from the capital from the bazaar. Pushkin, who was staying in the house, became terribly pale and intended to immediately go to Petersburg incognito. Returning on horseback to Mikhailovskoye, he ordered to lay the carriage. The servant was ill with delirium tremens. They ordered another. As soon as they started, a local priest was at the gate - he came out of necessity. The coachman balked at driving - a bad sign. Pushkin insisted.
We left. We did not manage to reach the nearest churchyard when the hare crossed the road! At this point both the servant and the coachman begged: "A bad sign, sir, to turn around!" We went back. Superstitious Pushkin had more than enough signs. Later, recalling this incident, the Decembrist NI Lorer wrote: "Providence was pleased to overshadow our poet." Indeed, if Pushkin had reached St. Petersburg, he would certainly have been at a meeting with K. F. Ryleev on the night of 13-14 December 1825, in the words of Prince. Vyazemsky, "would have thrown into the very boiling water of the rebellion."
This was not destined to happen. Miracle? Who knows. Maybe a person who strictly follows his natural destiny, until the final fulfillment of his life task … is invulnerable? Probably we are not given to know. One thing is certain: Pushkin's life was constantly in mortal danger. In the Lyceum, his servant was the serial killer K. Sazonov, the first duel with V. Küchelbecker took place at the same time, and then there were 29 more! From his youth, the poet suffered from varicose veins, the danger of a blood clot ruptured in the absence of treatment was extremely high, which meant certain death. A. S. could have died of fever in Yekaterinoslav. A happy chance sent the family of General Raevsky with a doctor to the house where the poet was rushing about in delirium. Pushkin did not die from a Turkish bullet, making desperate forays into the enemy's camp.
Each time, as if an invisible hand removes Death from the Poet, while he stubbornly challenges her to a duel, trying to jump out of the boundaries of the vicious circle of bondage. One episode comes to mind. Dissuading Pushkin from participating in the Turkish campaign, he was cited as an example of the brutally murdered A. S. Griboyedov. Pushkin's answer was: “So what? He has already written "Woe from Wit". Pushkin admired his namesake: "He married the one he loved and died in battle." A similar fate awaited Pushkin himself. The Poet began to feel his sonic destiny early and followed it with all his urethral passion. A spider in the eyes of a sniper and a hare on the road are enough to implement the Plan.
Meanwhile, power has changed in Russia. After the death of Alexander, an interregnum arose. Nikolai Pavlovich had no choice but to take the reins of government of a huge country, which was obviously going out of obedience in an unprecedented way in history. It was not the mob who rebelled, they still knew how to cope with this, the nobles, the mainstay of the autocracy, refused to swear allegiance to the tsar. Nobody expected from the young and handsome Nikolai Pavlovich medieval atrocities to the representatives of the best families in Russia. The death penalty in Russia was abolished in 1741, its application to a nobleman was unimaginable. Those arrested sincerely hoped that for going to Senate Square they would be demoted to soldiers. The king declared that he would amaze everyone with his mercy. Looking ahead, let us recall that the tsar's mercy was shown: five leaders of the uprising were replaced by quartering by hanging, three out of five were hung twice.
Experienced courtier V. A. Zhukovsky believes that right now, after the failed uprising, it is high time to ask the monarch's favor to Pushkin, who has been in exile for six years out of 26. Pushkin feared that an older friend would bail him. “Don't vouch for me. My behavior will depend on the circumstances and the attitude of the government towards me,”the disgraced poet writes to Zhukovsky. Captivity is unbearable for the urethral leader, but pacification (demotion) is impossible. Pushkin decides to write to the new emperor himself. Days, weeks, months of anxious waiting passed.
On the night of July 12-13, 1826, Pushkin dreamed that he lost five teeth. The news of the execution of the five leaders of the December uprising echoed with groans and tears on Russian estates. All were related to everyone. Pushkin, who personally knew each of the five, perceives the loss of friends as the loss of body parts. He will carry this feeling of irreplaceability throughout his life:
And at night I will hear
Not the voice of a bright nightingale, Not the sound of the dull oak trees -
And the cry of my comrades, Yes, the cursing of the night caretakers, Yes, screeching, but the ringing of chains.
(God forbid me to go crazy, 1833)
"In the papers of each of the acting (sentenced to execution and exile - IK) your poems", - writes Zhukovsky from St. Petersburg. Pushkin burns papers that "could have mixed up many and, perhaps, multiplied the number of victims." He is awaiting arrest.
And God's voice called to me …
In these painful days, Pushkin is immersed in the emptiness of a lack of sound: "we languish with spiritual thirst, I dragged myself in a gloomy desert." From the darkness of the sound fall, the poem "The Prophet" is born - an echo of the verses of the Book of Isaiah and an attempt to convey sound voids with an artistic word.
He touched my ears, -
And they were filled with noise and ringing:
And I heeded the shudder of the sky, And the flight of angels from the mountains, And the reptile underwater passage, And the valley vine vegetation.
On a chilly September night, not a six-winged seraphim came to Mikhailovskoye, but a courier with an urgent order to Pushkin to follow him immediately. Throwing on his overcoat and taking pistols, Pushkin is ready to set off. “Mr. Pushkin, your pistols are very dangerous for me,” the courier hesitates. - “What is it to me? This is my joy,”the Poet replies, confident that he is going to hard labor.
Four days' journey through bumps and potholes, practically without stopping, Pushkin was taken as a criminal. Unshaven, frozen, crumpled and tired Pushkin appeared before the royal eyes. Nikolay, who strangled and exiled the best people of Russia to Siberia, needs a beautiful gesture. He decided to return Pushkin to his admirers with prepared words: “Here is a new Pushkin for you. Forget about the old."
The mise-en-scene, contrived by the tsar-actor, was not entirely successful. Pushkin from the road, although he did not look the best, stood not only not on the hood, but openly warming his backside by the fireplace, then in conversation he casually sat down on the edge of the autocrat's table. To the Tsar's question, "What would you do if you were in St. Petersburg on December 14?" boldly replied: "I would join the ranks of the rebels." To reduce the intensity of the conversation, the tsar asked what Pushkin was writing now. “Nothing,” was the answer. The censorship does not allow anything. He was not chained against expectations, but released with a couple more theatrical remarks in pursuit: "I will be your censor!" And towards those close to him: "Now he is mine!"
It was unbearable for Pushkin to observe the semblance of decency, to select words and convey meanings to a person whose flat, hypocritical essence was in full view. And yet A. S. managed to restrain himself. He hoped that, by remaining free, he would be able to soften the fate of the exiled friends. He tried to make the convict Küchelbecker crazy, the awkward, dear Kühlu, whom he loved so much. Those who saw Pushkin leaving the Tsar's rooms noticed tears in his eyes. In the Poet's pocket, in case of an unfavorable outcome of the audience, there was a "gift to the king" - a leaflet with the "Prophet" in the original edition:
Rise, rise, the prophet of Russia, Put on a shameful robe
And with a rope around the humble neck
To the vile killer appear …
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 7. Between Moscow and St. Petersburg: "Will I soon be thirty?"
Part 8. Natalie: “My fate is decided. I am getting married.
Part 9. Kamer-junker: "I will not be a slave and a buffoon with the king of heaven"
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 …"
