Nothing torments my despondency. The darkness of night lies on the hills of Georgia. Analysis of the poem “On the Hills of Georgia” by Pushkin

The darkness of night lies on the hills of Georgia;
Aragva makes noise in front of me.
I feel sad and light; my sadness is light;
My sadness is full of you,
By you, by you alone... My despondency
Nothing torments, nothing worries,
And the heart burns and loves again - because
That it cannot help but love.

29-year-old Alexander Pushkin, upset by the refusal of the first beauty of Moscow, Natalya Goncharova, leaves for the Caucasus, where he writes these poems. Pushkin was in Tbilisi, or as it was commonly called then - Tiflis, for two weeks - from May 27 to June 10, 1829. He was noticed not only at receptions, but also committed actions unacceptable for his position - wandered through the bazaars, played with boys, went to sulfur baths and (oh, horror!) bought pears here in this square and ate them unwashed. Tbilisi had already been turned into a garrison city for the army of the Russian Empire, which intended to capture not only the Caucasus, but also to conquer Persia and Turkey. Of course, according to Russian tradition, most of the streets of houses being built in the modern areas of Sololaki and Mtatsminda were named after generals and high tsarist officials. And the lover and rejected poet was looking for an opportunity to escape from his sadness. Only. And again, according to Russian tradition, the best distraction is to go to war.

One can have different views on Pushkin’s literary talent, but the fact that he was a propagandist of the wars of conquest of the Russian Empire is beyond doubt. When Pushkin returned from the Caucasus, Thaddeus Bulgarin wrote in his newspaper “Northern Bee”: “Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin returned to the local Capital from Arzrum. He was in the brilliant field of victories and triumphs of the Russian army, enjoying the spectacle, curious for everyone, especially for the Russian. Many admirers of his Muse hope that he will enrich our Literature with some work inspired under the shadow of military tents, in view of the inaccessible mountains and strongholds on which the mighty hand of the Erivan hero planted Russian banners.”

During the trip, Pushkin enjoyed the full attention of the Erivan hero, General Paskevich, who, during the poet’s farewell visit, on July 21, 1829 in Erzurum, presented him with a Turkish saber, and Pushkin in response dedicated the lines to him in the poem “Borodin Anniversary”:
"The mighty avenger of evil grievances
Who conquered the peaks of the Taurus
Before whom did Erivan humble herself?
To whom the Suvorov Lavra
The wreath was woven with triple abuse.

Pushkin was called a poet of the army, in our opinion - a propagandist. There was no television then, no radio, newspapers were published rarely, and the only way to glorify conquests was to write laudatory poems. However, Paskevich turned out to be the most sincere after the death of the poet, writing a letter to Nicholas I, which contains the following lines: “It’s a pity for Pushkin, as a writer, at a time when his talent was maturing; but he was a bad man.” It’s also a Russian tradition to exalt and humiliate, at the same time... a propo...

The darkness of night lies on the hills of Georgia;
Aragva makes noise in front of me.
I feel sad and light; my sadness is light;
My sadness is full of you,
By you, by you alone... My despondency
Nothing torments, nothing worries,
And the heart burns and loves again - because
That it cannot help but love.

Analysis of the poem “On the Hills of Georgia” by Pushkin

In 1829, Pushkin made his second trip to the Caucasus. Contemporaries noted that at this time the poet was constantly in a thoughtful and sad state. He probably sympathized with the fate of the Decembrists, many of whom were his close friends. The poet's release from exile only strengthened secret surveillance. The poet all the time felt the close, unremitting attention of the royal authorities. His exile made him the subject of ridicule and suspicion among high society. The doors of many houses were closed to him. Trying to escape from this suffocating atmosphere, Pushkin decides to voluntarily go to the Caucasus. During a trip to Georgievsk, he writes the poem “On the hills of Georgia lies the darkness of the night...” (1829).

The small work relates simultaneously to landscape and love lyrics. Researchers of the poet’s work have not come to a single conclusion about whose female image is described in the poem. According to one version, Pushkin is referring to his first unsuccessful matchmaking with N. Goncharova. The girl's parents gave a vague answer. They claimed that their daughter was still very young. But the real reason preventing the marriage was probably the scandalous fame of the poet. According to another version, Pushkin turns to M.N. Volkonskaya, to whom he felt great attraction. Volkonskaya herself was sure that the poem was dedicated to her.

The first lines describe the majestic night landscape spread out before the poet. This description is extremely brief and serves only as a background against which the author reveals his mental torment. The poet is “sad and light” at the same time. This strange combination is explained by the fact that the sad state is caused by a great feeling of love. Pushkin idolized women. He always considered them to be airy, unearthly creatures, to which the rudeness and cruelty of the physical world did not apply. Even in the case of love failure, the poet was never overcome by a feeling of anger or revenge. He admitted his imperfection and humbly walked away, still feeling awe and admiration for his beloved.

Pushkin completely surrenders to his memories. They are light and cloudless. “Nothing torments or worries” is a line that fully explains the poet’s state.

Many consider Pushkin a heartless womanizer who did not value anything for the sake of possessing the object of his passion. This is far from true. The poet's broad creative nature was aimed at the constant search for the female ideal. He found this ideal for a while in different women, and each time he surrendered with all his soul to the flaring feeling. Love was an essential spiritual need of the poet, similar to the need for breath or food. Therefore, at the end of the poem, Pushkin declares that his heart “cannot help but love.”

Text of the evening about A.S. Pushkin

Now it was 1863. Natalya Nikolaevna was 51 years old. And she was dying. The children gathered in the next room. Four adult children of Pushkin. And three daughters from Lansky. There was still life in her. I held on to the memories. I couldn’t let go of the thought that she hadn’t done everything yet, hadn’t figured everything out yet...

And she remembered...

Their first meeting took place in December 1828.

16-year-old Natalya had just begun to be taken out into the world. Immediately her divine beauty made a stunning impression. She was surrounded by a crowd of fans. But the fans were in no hurry to propose to the young beauty, knowing about the difficult financial situation of the Goncharovs, and the mother did not see a worthy contender for the hand of her youngest daughter.

At that Moscow ball at Yogel's, Natalya was wearing a gold hoop on her head. She amazed Pushkin with her spiritual and harmonious beauty.

Pushkin immediately forgot his previous hobbies. “For the first time in my life I was timid,” he later admitted. Finally, he turned to his old acquaintance Fyodor Ivanovich Tolstoy to introduce him to the Goncharovs’ house. At the end of April 1829, Pushkin, through Count Tolstoy, proposed to Natalya Nikolaevna. Natalya's mother hoped to find the best husband for her daughter. In addition, Pushkin’s financial situation and unreliability filled her with fear. Pushkin then received an indefinite answer: Natalya, they say, is still young, we must wait. This answer left hope. He wrote to his future mother-in-law: “This answer is not a refusal: You allow me to hope; and if I still grumble, if sadness and bitterness are still mixed with the feeling of happiness, do not accuse me of ingratitude. I understand the mother's caution and tenderness. But forgive the impatience of a heart that is sick and (intoxicated) with happiness. “I’m leaving now and taking away in the depths of my soul the image of a heavenly being who owes his life to you.” He was traveling to the Caucasus, where he had been planning for a long time, where the Russian army was fighting heavy battles with the Turkish army. The road to Tiflis has just arrived.

In the North Caucasus he writes his famous lines:

The darkness of night lies on the hills of Georgia;

Aragva makes noise in front of me.

I feel sad and light; my sadness is light;

My sadness is full of you,

By you, by you alone... My despondency

Nothing torments, nothing worries,

And the heart burns and loves again - because

That it cannot help but love.

Returning from the Caucasus to Moscow, Pushkin immediately hurried to the Goncharovs, but received a rather cold reception from them. Having heard about the political and religious views of the candidate for her daughter’s hand, Natalya’s deeply religious mother became convinced that Pushkin was not a good match for her beautiful daughter. At that time, Natalya really did not have any tender feelings for Pushkin. Pushkin then left for Mikhailovskoye, and then to St. Petersburg. In the poem “Let’s go, I’m ready...” he writes about his readiness to go anywhere, “running away arrogantly” - to Paris, to Italy, to China.

Tell me: will my passion die while traveling?

Will I forget the proud, tormented maiden

Or at her feet, her youthful anger,

As a usual tribute, will I bring love?

However, the government rejected his request to travel abroad (Pushkin forever remained a poet banned from traveling abroad).

And now Pushkin is back in Moscow. He again visits the Goncharovs’ house on Bolshaya Nikitskaya. This time he persistently decides to get the final answer. His fate was decided; on April 6, he made another proposal to Natalya Nikolaevna. This time it was accepted. The day before, he writes to the bride’s mother a letter rare in its frankness and insight: “Habit and long intimacy alone could help me earn the favor of your daughter; I can hope to bind her to me over a long time - but there is nothing about me that she could like. If she agrees to give me her hand, I will see in this only proof of the calm indifference of her heart. But being surrounded by admiration, worship, temptations, how long will she maintain this calm? ...Won't she regret it? Will they look at me as a nuisance, as an insidious kidnapper? Will she feel disgust towards me? God is my witness that I am ready to die for her, but to die just to leave her as a brilliant widow, free to choose a new husband for herself tomorrow, is the thought of hell for me.” That's what Pushkin thought. However, he was wrong. It was Natalya who persuaded her mother to this marriage. It was she who tried to refute the rumors defaming Pushkin: “I learned with regret the bad opinions that are instilled in you about him,” she writes to her grandfather, “and I beg you, out of your love for me, not to believe them, because they are nothing more than like low slander. In the hope, dear grandfather, that all your doubts will disappear... and that you will agree to make my happiness...” Natalya Nikolaevna persuaded her mother not to oppose her marriage. She also began to understand that there was hardly a better groom for her daughter. She became more affectionate and finally agreed. After re-matchmaking and the consent of the bride's mother, a month later his engagement to Natalya Goncharova was officially announced. However, the wedding was still far away. Relations with the future mother-in-law remained difficult.

Leaving for Boldino, he writes to his bride: “... for a moment I believed that happiness was created for me... I assure you with my word of honor that I will belong only to you, or I will never marry.” Then in Boldino he writes the poem “Elegy”:

Crazy years of faded fun

It's hard for me, like a vague hangover.

But, like wine, the sadness of days gone by

In my soul, the older, the stronger.

My path is sad. Promises me work and grief

The troubled sea of ​​the future.

But I don’t want, O friends, to die;

I want to live so that I can think and suffer;

And I know I will have pleasures

Between sorrows, worries and worries:

Sometimes I’ll get drunk again with harmony,

I will shed tears over the fiction,

And maybe - at my sad sunset

Love will flash with a farewell smile.

The day after writing these lines, he receives a letter from Natalie, which dispelled all his fears. Natalya Nikolaevna showed determination and activity towards her mother and thanks to her great efforts the wedding took place.

This letter not only calmed Pushkin, but caused an unprecedented creative surge in him. It was in this “Boldino autumn” that he wrote “Belkin’s Stories”, “The History of the Village of Goryukhin”, “House in Kolomna”, “Little Tragedies”, the last chapters of “Eugene Onegin”, many poems, literary critical articles. But inspired work cannot keep Pushkin in Boldino. He strives to Moscow, to his bride. And only the cholera epidemic and quarantine force him to stay in the village. Only letters connect them, and in these letters there is so much love, tenderness, anxiety, dreams...

Pushkin then managed to overcome all obstacles, including financial ones. The mother did not want to give her daughter away without a dowry, which she did not have, and Alexander Sergeevich lent her 11 thousand rubles for the dowry (for which she then called him a greedy and despicable usurer). On the eve of the wedding, Pushkin was sad. He wrote to his friend Krivtsov: “Married - or almost... My youth was noisy and fruitless. Until now I have lived differently from how people usually live. I was not happy. … I am 30 years old. ...I'm getting married without rapture, without childish charm. The future appears to me not in roses, but in all its nakedness. Sorrows do not surprise me: they are included in my household calculations. Every joy will be a surprise to me.”

Moscow, blizzard February 1831, Church of the Great Ascension on Nikitskaya Street. She is in a wedding dress with a long train; a transparent veil falls from the head, decorated with white flowers, slides over open shoulders, falls onto the back. You can feel how good she is from the admiring glances of her family and friends. And Pushkin doesn’t notice anyone except her. Natalya Nikolaevna meets her gaze with burning blue eyes and reads in them love and boundless happiness. And Natalya Nikolaevna’s heart skips a beat with happiness and some vague fear of the future. She loves Pushkin. She is proud that he, the famous poet, chose her as his life friend.

They exchange rings. Pushkin's ring falls and rolls on the carpet. He hastily bends down to pick it up, and the candle in his left hand goes out, and the cross and the Gospel fall from the lectern that he touched. Natalya Nikolaevna sees how his face becomes deathly pale. The same pallor, she thinks, as on the very last day...

Eighteen-year-old Natalya Pushkina, yesterday still Goncharova, woke up after yesterday's wedding, her eyes met the enthusiastic eyes of her husband. He was kneeling next to the bed, “obviously, he stood there all night,” she thought with exciting bewilderment and smiled at him...

Until mid-May 1831, the young people lived in Moscow. Pushkin’s unsuccessful relationship with his mother-in-law forced him not to stay here.

The Pushkins came to St. Petersburg for a short time, and then went to Tsarskoe Selo, where he rented a dacha. The beauty of Natalya Nikolaevna made a great impression on secular St. Petersburg. Pushkin’s close friend Daria Fikelmon wrote: “Pushkin came from Moscow and brought his young wife... she is a very young and beautiful person, thin, slender, tall - Madonna’s face, extremely pale, with a meek, shy and melancholy expression - greenish-brown eyes , light and transparent, - not exactly a sidelong glance, but vague, delicate features, beautiful black hair. He's very much in love with her." Pushkin sometimes jokingly called his wife: “my sideways Madonna.”

The young wife cried bitterly in the first days of the honeymoon because Pushkin, having hastily kissed her, spent time talking with friends from morning to evening. Once he spent the whole night arguing about literary topics, and begging for forgiveness, said that he had completely forgotten that he was married. Only then did Natalya realize that Pushkin was not like everyone else and prepared for her difficult fate as the wife of the poet Pushkin.

The summer of 1831 was the happiest in his family life. It seemed that all the failures and troubles were a thing of the past. In Tsarskoye Selo, Pushkin wrote his fairy tales, constantly asking his wife’s opinion. She rewrote his works. She will remain the same assistant to him throughout their entire life together.

In the morning, Pushkin wrote, locked in his office. She realized that in these sacred moments he could not be disturbed. He loved to write while lying on the couch, and the covered sheets of writing would fall straight to the floor. Near the couch there was a table littered with books, papers, feathers... There were no curtains on the windows. He loved the sun and the heat, and said that he got it from his ancestors... It created silence for him. And slowly, from her husband, she composed poems for him and sent them in letters. In one of his response letters, he humorously asked his “wife” to switch to prose.

Relatives and friends also felt that this marriage was happy: “Great friendship and harmony reign between them; Tasha adores her husband, who loves her just as much,” Natalya’s brother wrote to his family. And Zhukovsky wrote to Vyazemsky: “His wife is a very sweet creation. And I really like him with her. I am more and more happy for him that he is married. And the soul, and life, and poetry benefit.”

The Pushkins' family life was not painted only in light or dark colors. It combined all the colors. He loved his wife very much, but sometimes he envied his friends whose wives were not beautiful. Natalya was taller than Pushkin, and he jokingly said that it was “humiliating” for him to be next to his wife.

At first, Pushkin was pleased with his wife’s success in society. He only asked: “My angel, please don’t flirt.” In turn, Natalya Nikolaevna did not cease to torment him with jealous suspicions. In his letters he only fought back and made excuses. Pushkin was a poet, and in his words, he had a “pretty heart.”

In 1833, in Boldin, Pushkin grew a beard while writing the brilliant work “The Bronze Horseman”. On the way back, he didn’t even stop in Moscow so that Natasha, whom he missed, would be the first to see him with a beard. In general, he was very simple-minded in his foppishness: when he wrote “Gypsy,” he wore a red shirt and a wide-brimmed hat, and came from Crimea wearing a skullcap.

He was like a child, but he was a king of spirit. One day he wandered in without prior agreement to one of his friends, didn’t find them, and was left waiting. When they arrived, they found Pushkin in the company of their little son. The king of the spirit and the little one sat on the floor and spat at each other to see who was more accurate. And at the same time they both laughed.

But if it occurred to someone to pat him on the shoulder in a friendly manner, then a challenge to a duel could follow.

Pushkin often read his poems to his wife. He sat on a chair, crossed his legs, and his movement and this pose were aristocratically refined, not deliberate. This was given to him from birth. He read with enthusiasm and loudly. Blue eyes sparkled with a soulful brilliance, seeing something that no one had ever seen.

Pushkin more than once gave 25 rubles to a beggar when there was money in the house. Natalya Nikolaevna was silent. But when he gave away literary plots (and Gogol himself recalled that the plot of “The Inspector General” and “Dead Souls” belonged to Pushkin), she was worried and reproached her husband. “Oh, my cheapskate! - Pushkin once said contentedly, hugging her, - Yes, I have here, - he touched his head with well-groomed hands, - there are a great many of these stories. Enough for my share!”

She rarely called him by his pet name. He was Alexander Pushkin, Alexander Sergeevich or simply Pushkin. Since her unmarried youth, she had always felt his superiority over the people around her. She knew all his letters by heart. They were like works of art, and she bequeathed them for posterity. Studying these letters, only from them alone can one restore the image of the one whose soul Pushkin loved more than her beautiful face, and remove the accusations of high society and unkind descendants from her... Just take it and believe Pushkin...

Pushkin wrote a letter to his mother-in-law on Angel’s Day: “My wife is lovely, and the longer I live with her, the more I love this sweet, pure, kind creature, whom I have done nothing to deserve before God.”

As a child, Natasha was called “modest” and “silent.” She was silent even in her youth. When she got married and appeared in high society at the dawn of her amazing beauty and charm, she did not lose this property. Her silence was assessed differently: some considered it a lack of intelligence, others thought it was out of pride.

Natalie herself later explains herself this way: “... sometimes such melancholy overcomes me that I feel the need for prayer... Then I again find peace of mind, which was previously mistaken for coldness and I was reproached for it. What can you do? The heart has its own modesty. Allowing one to read one's feelings seems profanation to me. Only God and a chosen few have the key to my heart.”

A well-known fortune teller at that time, Kutuzov’s granddaughter, Daria Fedorovna Fikelmon, very correctly predicted the fate of Natalya Nikolaevna: “The poetic beauty of Mrs. Pushkina penetrates to the very heart. There is something airy and touching in her whole appearance - this woman will not be happy, I am sure of that! Now everyone is smiling at her, she is completely happy, life is opening up before her, brilliant and joyful, and yet her head is bowed and her whole appearance seems to say: “I am suffering.” But what a difficult fate she faces - to be the wife of a poet, a poet like Pushkin.”

Pushkin's fate was also predicted for him in his youth by a fortune teller. And he believed in this prediction. She told fortunes on cards, and then looked at his hand with completely unusual lines, thought about something for a long time, and then said: “You will become famous throughout the fatherland. You will be loved by the people even after death. Forced loneliness awaits you twice, it seems like imprisonment, but not a prison. And you will live a long time if in the 37th year you do not die from a white horse or from the hand of a white man. You should be especially wary of them. So far, everything that the fortune teller predicted has come true.

When the Pushkins returned to St. Petersburg in October 1831, Natalya Nikolaevna became the decoration of social balls. Around this time, an event occurred that quarreled him with the all-powerful Mrs. Nesselrode, the wife of the Russian Foreign Minister. Countess Nesselrode, without Pushkin’s knowledge, took his wife and took him to the Anichkovsky evening, because... The Empress really liked Pushkin. But Pushkin himself was enraged by this, spoke rudely to the countess and, among other things, said: “I don’t want my wife to go where I don’t go.” We were talking about intimate balls in the imperial palace. Such an invitation to a wife without a husband was insulting to Pushkin.

The writer Vladimir Sallogub wrote: “I fell madly in love with her the first time; I must say that at that time there was almost not a single young man in St. Petersburg who did not secretly sigh for Pushkina; her radiant beauty next to this magical name turned everyone’s heads.”

Natalya Nikolaevna continued to shine in the world until the most tragic days of January 1837. As the Empress's maid of honor, she could attend two balls every day. I often had dinner at eight o’clock in the evening and returned home at 4-5 o’clock in the morning. At first, Pushkin did not object to such a life. He was proud that his wife had conquered secular Petersburg. But soon the social entertainments and balls to which he had to accompany his wife began to irritate him. ...The first child is born - a girl, Maria. Natalya Nikolaevna will never forget how Pushkin cried during her birth, seeing her suffering. In six years of marriage - four children.

The winter balls of 1834 cost Pushkin his unborn child.

This year of 1834 was difficult for Pushkin. Against his will, he became a chamber cadet. “The court wanted Natalya Nikolaevna to dance in Anichkovo,” he explained the reason for the royal favor. This year was difficult for him financially as well; he had to take out a loan from the government. The police opened one of his letters to his wife, and for an unflattering review of his chamber cadet he received a reprimand from the emperor. His attempts to resign ended in failure. Pushkin shares his sad thoughts with his wife in a letter: “Okay, if I live another 25 years; and if I turn up before ten, I don’t know what you will do, and what Mashka, and especially Sashka, will say. There will be little consolation for them in the fact that their daddy was buried like a buffoon, and that their mother was so terribly sweet at the Anichkov balls.”

In the same year, 1834, Pushkin wrote a poem:

It's time, my friend, it's time! the heart asks for peace, -

Days fly by, and every hour carries away

A piece of existence, and you and I together

We assume to live, and lo and behold, we’ll just die.

There is no happiness in the world, but there is peace and will.

I have long dreamed of an enviable share -

Long ago, a tired slave, I planned to escape

To the distant monastery of labors and pure bliss.

Pushkin valued freedom as an internal element he needed to breathe. Once, in his youth, he wrote: “I am tired of submitting to the good or bad digestion of this or that boss; I’m tired of seeing that in my homeland they treat me less respectfully than any English dunce who comes to show us his vulgarity, his incomprehensibility, his muttering.”

Pushkin came to the Goncharovs' estate at the Linen Factory and lived here with his family for two weeks, walked, rode horseback, and studied in the Goncharovs' magnificent library.

Leaving the Linen Factory, Natalya Nikolaevna begged her husband to take his older sisters with him to the capital. Pushkin was dissatisfied with this, but, loving her, he gave in to her requests.

Pushkin has a prophetic letter on this matter:

“But do you take both sisters to you? hey wifey! look... My opinion: the family should be one under one roof: husband, wife, children - still small; parents when they are already elderly. Otherwise there will be trouble and there will be no family peace.”

But Natalya Nikolaevna felt very sorry for the sisters. She wanted to introduce them to St. Petersburg social life, and, to be honest, get them married... The sisters received a good comprehensive education and were good riders. Even before Natalya Nikolaevna’s marriage, all three sisters were ardent admirers of Pushkin’s talent. They read his poems, copied them into albums, and quoted them. They were very friendly.

What could he do? Pushkin just rented a more spacious apartment for his expanded family.

In the world they were noticed only as the sisters of the beautiful Mrs. Pushkina. They succeeded in enlisting Sister Catherine as a lady-in-waiting of the Empress.

Managing the house was difficult. Four children, sisters. Constant shortages of money tormented us and debts oppressed us. In addition to housekeeping and maternal responsibilities, Natalya had to attend balls, receptions, and accompany the Empress during her trips. But she coped with everything.

Pushkin wrote: “It seems to me that you are fighting at home without me... Oh, wow, woman! what’s good is good!” And another letter: “...I’m not going to you on business, because I’m printing Pugachev, and I’m mortgaging estates, and I’m busy and busy - but your letter upset me, and at the same time made me happy; if you cried without receiving a letter from me, it means that you still love me, wife. For that I kiss your hands and feet.”

She also remembered this letter by heart: “Thank you for your sweet and very sweet letter. Of course, my friend, there is no consolation in my life except you - and living with you apart is as stupid as it is difficult.”

She often helped her husband. In 1836, leaving for Moscow, he even entrusted his wife with managing many of the affairs of his Sovremennik magazine.” She got paper for him, did other errands, and was successful in everything.

On Kamenny Island, where she came with her older sister Ekaterina (who would later become the wife of Dantes, her husband’s killer), an orchestra was playing in the park. Here, at the end of the park, Natalya Nikolaevna takes medicinal baths every other day. Women leave the park, and a noisy crowd of young cavalry guards surrounds them. They spout funny, but not very smart, one-liners and jokes. One of them, Dantes, is a handsome man with a bold look in his bright eyes, blond hair and the arrogant manners of a man aware of his irresistibility. He says to Natalya Nikolaevna, showing off, deliberately emphasizing his excitement and amazement:

I never thought that such unearthly creatures existed on earth! Rumors about your beauty are spreading throughout St. Petersburg. I'm happy that I saw you. - Crossing his arms over his chest, he bows low. - But, alas, blame yourself, I won’t be able to forget you now. From now on I will be next to you at balls, evenings, at the theater... Alas, this is my lot.

Without answering anything, Natalya Nikolaevna, in annoyance, walks straight towards the cavalry guards, and they make way for her, and her sister hurries after her with a slight flirtatious smile.

This incident is immediately forgotten - she is already tired of daily compliments. Sometimes she wants to become invisible.

But soon, at the Karamzins’ ball, he no longer leaves her side, does not take his loving gaze off her.

Baron Dantes appeared in the world recently. He came to Russia in 1833 with the goal of making a career. In France he failed. He brought with him to Russia a recommendation from Prince William of Prussia, brother-in-law of Tsar Nicholas 1, and despite the fact that he did not know the Russian language at all, he was immediately accepted as a cornet into the cavalry regiment. Dantes was handsome, quite smart and cunning, knew how to please, especially women, and in St. Petersburg secular society he soon became one of the most fashionable young people.

And so, day after day, month after month, he follows Natalya Nikolaevna everywhere, writes desperate letters to her, whispers hot words during dances at balls, lies in wait everywhere... In front of the eyes of the whole world, he demonstrated that he had lost his head from love, and the world I watched with curiosity and slander what would happen next.

At first, Natalya Nikolaevna is intrigued by Dantes' courtship, then irritated. Then she begins to be surprised at his constancy and feel sorry for him. And then... then she becomes necessary for her at balls, on visits, on walks. She tells Alexander Sergeevich everything, without hiding anything and without feeling guilty before her husband.

I have more fun when he’s around me,” she laughs. - But I love only you. And you know the strength of my feelings and duty to you, to the children and to myself.

Pushkin, reluctantly, tolerates this constant presence of Dantes near his wife. Dantes often visits them as a friend. Pushkin expects that the frivolous young man will get tired of fruitless sighs and fall in love with another woman. But a year passed, a second began - everything remained the same.

The atmosphere thickened. The ring of intrigue tightened around Pushkin and his wife, who, due to her youth, did not understand much. I didn’t understand... I didn’t understand...

But Pushkin’s good friend Maria Volkonskaya at her age, without hesitation, went to Siberia for her Decembrist husband...

The year 1836 was ending. The Pushkins experienced great financial difficulties...

Pushkin's need reached the point that he pawned his wife's shawls to moneylenders, owed money to a small shop, borrowed from house porters, while the tsar forcibly kept him at court in the form of a special decoration (as jesters were kept in the old days).

On the eve of the duel, one person observes Pushkin at the book stall, sees his bald spot and a dangling button on the strap of his shabby frock coat, and he feels sorry for the poet. The painter Bryullov, nicknamed “The European,” condescendingly pities Pushkin, who has never visited Europe, and also for the fact that he divorced so many children and was so mired.

On November 4, 1836, Pushkin received a letter by mail - “Diploma of the Most Serene Order of Cuckolds”; the letter hinted at Natalya Nikolaevna’s connection with Tsar Nicholas I. Nicholas’s interest in his wife is visible to everyone. It turns out that he, knowing about his wife’s connection with the emperor, does not hesitate to enjoy various benefits from him... And he quickly sat down at the table and wrote about his desire to immediately return the money he owed to the treasury. “What about Natasha? It’s not her fault that she’s young and beautiful, which everyone, including scoundrels, likes...”

Around the hunted Pushkin, everyone was having fun, laughing, joking, spying, winking, whispering, and being mean. “Well, have fun...” This had to be ended somehow at once. Did Pushkin seek death? Yes and no. “I don’t want to live,” he told his second Danzas.

But he was also full of creative plans. Work on “Peter the Great” was in full swing. Plans for novels, stories, new issues of Sovremennik. A new Pushkin was born in him, whom we do not know and, alas, will never know.

In 1835, Nadezhda Osipovna became seriously ill, and Pushkin looked after his mother with such tenderness and care that everyone was amazed, knowing their very reserved relationship. A filial feeling, unknown to that time, suddenly awakened in him. And the mother, dying, asked her son for forgiveness for that. that all my life I couldn’t appreciate him. She died. Pushkin buried her in Mikhailovskoye, near the church. He bought a place for himself next to her.

Saying goodbye to his sister Olga for the last time, he burst into tears, saying:

“We’ll hardly see you again in this world; but by the way, I’m tired of life; You won’t believe how tired I am! Melancholy, melancholy! everything is the same, I don’t want to write anymore, I can’t put my hands to anything, but... I feel: I won’t be staggering on earth for long.”

And I read my life with disgust,

And I shed tears...

But I don’t wash away the sad lines.

In 1831 - a terrible loss for Pushkin - Delvig left.

And it seems like it’s my turn,

My dear Delvig is calling me,

A living comrade of youth,

Comrade of sad youth,

Companion of young songs,

Feasts and pure thoughts,

There, to the land of shadows of relatives

A genius that has escaped us forever...

They said that Pushkin broke down, tears came, and he could not finish reading. In 16 days the duel story will begin, and after 102 days Pushkin will die.

Every year, every year

I'm used to accompanying thoughts,

Coming death anniversary

Trying to guess between them.

And a little earlier, he created the requiem itself - “Monument” - solemnly majestic and seemingly unearthly sounds, rolling towards us from an incredible height, from the unattainable peaks of eternity.

No, all of me will not die -

Soul in the treasured lyre

My ashes will survive

And decay will flee...

The clouds were gathering over Pushkin...

He challenges Dantes to a duel. Here a comedy with a wedding played out: Dantes proposed to Natalya Nikolaevna’s sister Ekaterina Nikolaevna (she is madly in love with Dantes), and lives right there in the Pushkin’s house.

There is now a pre-wedding bustle in their house, Pushkin tries not to be at home. The wedding took place. Natalya Nikolaevna was at the wedding, but the Pushkins were not at the wedding dinner.

After the wedding, Dantes resumed his courtship of Natalya Nikolaevna, he became bolder and, as a relative, began to pursue her with new assertiveness, saying that he married out of despair and in order to be able to see her more often. “Pathetic, pitiful fate of Catherine,” Natalya Nikolaevna thinks now in her declining days.

Now that so many years have passed, it’s too late to say that we should have left everything and gone to the village. This is what Pushkin wanted, and she did not object. But circumstances, as if on purpose, always turned out differently: Mikhailovskoye was being sold; Boldino was in a deplorable state, and there was no money for repairs.

For Poletika, life is a game; she has no difficulties. And she arranges a meeting at her apartment for Natalya Nikolaevna and Dantes for explanations. Natalya does not agree. Then Idalia simply invites her to her place. Natalya arrives and, instead of Poletika, meets Dantes in the living room. Georges at her feet. He wrings his hands and talks about unhappy love. Natalya is shocked: he is the husband of her sister... she is Pushkin’s wife and mother of four children. When will this madman calm down? She calls the hostess and hastily says goodbye: she sees him for the last time. So he will remain in her memory, confused with his trembling hand gracefully extended. And at the door is the beautiful Idalia with the sly smile of a predator.

She often wondered if Dantes loved her. At first there was passion, and then some kind of intrigue between him and Baron Heeckeren, incomprehensible to her understanding, and maybe it was necessary to take it higher. All this was directed against Pushkin, Pushkin knew everything and took the secret to his grave.

Here is what one Pushkin scholar subsequently wrote about her: “She was too noticeable, both as the wife of a brilliant poet, and as one of the most beautiful women. The slightest mistake or wrong step was invariably noticed, and admiration was replaced by envious condemnation, harsh and unfair.”

And Pushkin complained to his friend Osipova: “In this sad situation, I am still saddened to see that my poor Natalya has become a target for the hatred of the world.” Many reproached Natalya Nikolaevna for ruining her husband with her outfits, meanwhile these gossips and gossips knew very well that the ballgown for her was bought for her by her aunt E.I., who loved her and patronized her. Zagryazhskaya. All this worried Pushkin very much. But all the rumors and gossip were nothing compared to the avalanche of abomination that fell on the Pushkin family during Dantes’s brazen courtship. Needless to say, with what pleasure the world discussed this topic. Everyone watched more than once how the silent, pale and threatening Pushkin looked at the cavalry guard who was complimenting his wife.

At one ball, Dantes compromised Mrs. Pushkin so much with his views and hints that everyone was horrified, and Pushkin’s decision (about the duel) has since been made finally. The cup overflowed; there was no way to stop the misfortune.”

Some people write about his wife with poorly concealed disdain.

But we will spare the poet’s intimate feelings if we do not know how to bow to them. Pushkin loved his wife. That says it all. He loved generously, jealously, royally. Natalya Nikolaevna’s beauty also contained some kind of royal mystery that attracted the eyes and hearts of the St. Petersburg society. Nicholas I himself sighed for Natalie, but understood well whose wife she was. He, perhaps, would have sent a duel challenge to Nikolai if he had dared to offend his honor.

The poet’s sister recalled: “My brother confessed to me that during every ball he becomes a martyr, and then spends sleepless nights from the oppressive thoughts that oppress him.” “Having witnessed the brilliant successes of Natalya Nikolaevna at the evenings of great society, seeing her surrounded by a crowd of high-society gentlemen of all kinds lavishing compliments on her, (he) walked around the ballrooms, from corner to corner, stepping on ladies’ dresses, men’s feet, and did other things similar awkwardness; he was thrown into heat and cold. (Pushkin was watched by his ill-wishers, although he hid this unworthy feeling, jealousy caught their eye, so they discovered a weak string, a weak point of defense.

The poet breaks out of this oppressive atmosphere and asks to go abroad, even to China. They refuse him. Moreover, Benckendorff rudely reprimands even for a short absence to Moscow. They do not stand on ceremony with the poet, they treat him like a serf of His Imperial Majesty.

“Now they look at me as a slave with whom they can do as they please. Disgrace is lighter than contempt! I, like Lomonosov, do not want to be a buffoon below the Lord God.”

Natalya Nikolaevna closes her eyes, and the face of Tsar Nicholas I appears in her memory. It is very changeable. When he is talking with someone or silently surveying his subjects, his right hand casually clasped behind a wide belt and fingering the buttons of his uniform with his left, his somewhat bulging eyes look without any expression, his face is not inspired by either thought or feeling; it is dead and, despite its regular features, is unpleasant and closed. When he talks to Natalya Nikolaevna, his face shines with friendliness. His movements represent nobility, power, strength. He is tall and has a good figure.

A century after the death of Pushkin, Marina Tsvetaeva branded Tsar Nicholas I for the death of her beloved poet.

So majestic

In gold barm.

Pushkin glory

Manuscript - cut.

Polish region

Brutal butcher.

Take a closer look!

Do not forget:

Singerkiller

Tsar Nicholas

Pushkin had heart disease; surgery should have been done. He begged for mercy to be allowed to go abroad. He was refused, leaving him to be treated by V. Vsevolodov - “very skilled in veterinary medicine and known in the scientific world for his book on the treatment of horses,” notes Pushkin. Get treatment for an aneurysm at the vet!

He dreams of salvation, now of the smallest thing: to run away to the village and write poetry. Get away from “swine Petersburg” at all costs.

But it was not there. And this little thing is denied him. A feeling of imminent personal catastrophe is brewing within him.

Pushkin has recently had many personal attacks and libels against influential people. One of them created the hidden cause of the hostile action that led the poet to the final disaster. This is the famous poem “For the recovery of Lucullus,” very bright, strong in form, but in meaning it represented only gross personal slander about the then Minister of Public Education Uvarov, who was also in charge of the censorship department. Haunted by the government and critics (Bulgarin ominously croaked about him as “a luminary that went out at noon,” and Belinsky echoed him), the poet becomes painfully vulnerable. In the year before his death in 1836, he sent three challenges to a duel for completely insignificant reasons. All the more pleasure did his enemies take in teasing him and fanning the “slightly hidden fire.”

And here, just in time, is the story of Dantes and Natalya Nikolaevna. The noble pack perked up; the spectacle promised to be exciting. Now there was something for everyone to do: pimp, intrigue, slander, spread gossip, make fun of this “mad jealous” husband, who is really so funny in his impotent rage. And he could be even more funny in the role of a cuckold.

“Pushkin’s wife, completely innocent, had the imprudence to inform her husband about everything and only infuriated him,” their friends recall.

Natalya Nikolaevna extinguished the pachytoska in a crystal ashtray... She recently started smoking... And again the memories...

Pushkin did not tell anyone about the upcoming fight. At 11 o'clock he had a quiet dinner with his family. Then he left the house for a short time to meet with his second K.K. Danzas. Danzas went to get pistols, and Pushkin returned to his place. At about 12 noon, librarian F.F. came to the apartment on the Moika. Tsvetaev. He spoke with the poet about a new edition of his works.

Now we will visit this apartment.

Before us is the sixth St. Petersburg apartment of the Pushkins. They are used to wandering. That fall, Pushkin worked a lot and made plans. I was finishing “The Captain’s Daughter”, 31 notebooks of “The History of Peter” lay in the office... A lot of work had begun... The poet was at the height of his fame, in the prime of his creative genius. He had already written “Poltava”, “Boris Godunov”, “Eugene Onegin”, conceived new works, and began historical research. Everything seemed to be ahead...

Pushkin's office is the most important room in the apartment. The chair was comfortable for work - with a book stand and a pull-out footstool. Pushkin liked to work reclining, with his hands behind his head out of youthful habit, then sit down and write. And the written sheets fell to the floor...

Pushkin considered books to be his real friends.

A man of average height, with fiery eyes on a yellowish, nervous face, he was well known in the famous bookstores of St. Petersburg and in simpler shops.

It immediately catches your eye: Pushkin was a highly educated man. The books in the library are published in 16 languages! Excellent knowledge of many languages ​​gave him the opportunity to read the best works of world literature in original. The shelves are crowded with chronicles, dictionaries, textbooks, memoirs, philosophical and medical works, works of historians, ethnographers, and economists. The great poet was interested in astronomy, travel, songs and customs of many peoples, the theory of chess, and the origin of words. Pushkin was a man of the most versatile knowledge and enormous erudition, as his contemporaries claimed. Belinsky called Pushkin a “world-encompassing genius.”

That day, the gray, gray St. Petersburg morning, with wind and sleet, a gray, threatening sky hanging over the darkened houses, gave way to a clear, cold day. Natalya Nikolaevna went to pick up the older children who were with Princess Meshcherskaya, a close friend of the Pushkins. Usually, Natalya Nikolaevna’s prophetic heart did not sense trouble that day. She also did not notice how, having turned slightly to the side, her sleigh was missed by the oncoming ones, in which Pushkin and Dantes were riding, going to shoot at the Black River...

The family gathered for dinner, late in the capital. The clock struck six times and candles were brought into the room. In winter it is completely dark by six.

Alexander Sergeevich was expected for dinner, but he was late. The table had already been set for a long time. From the nursery came the soft hits of the ball, the roar of falling toys, the voice of the nanny, in a word, the usual evening bustle of a large family waiting for the head of this family to come home... Natalya Nikolaevna’s sister Alexandra, who also lived with them, recalled with a laugh how Natalya Nikolaevna was at the ball yesterday at Countess Razumovskaya's, she beat a self-confident foreigner, a master of chess, at chess. When he lost, Countess Razumovskaya, laughing, said to the guest: “This is what our Russian women are like!” And again the prophetic heart fell silent... Yesterday at the ball it was fun. Pushkin danced several times. This surprised Natalya Nikolaevna and made her happy. Lately he had not danced at balls and was gloomy... He always behaved at balls as if he was serving a duty, as if he was completely out of his league. In a large company of close friends, there was no one more fun, witty, or interesting than him.

But attendance at the balls was mandatory.

Only after a long time, she learned that, while engaged in business conversations and dancing with the ladies, he was also secretly looking for a second for tomorrow's duel...

Natalya Nikolaevna, tired at the ball, was fast asleep and did not hear how Dantes’s second D’Archiac came to Pushkin at night and handed over a challenge to a duel. Pushkin accepted the challenge.

An hour before going to shoot, Pushkin wrote a letter, the tone of the letter was calm, the handwriting was clear, fluid and precise as always.

In the confectionery shop of Wolf and Béranger, the poet was last seen healthy and unharmed... Here he met his second, his lyceum friend Danzas, and the sleigh took them along Nevsky Prospect, Palace Square, across the Neva and further to the Black River.

Pushkin chose Konstantin Danzas as his second. If Wilhelm Kuchelbecker, Ivan Pushchin and Ivan Malinovsky - Pushkin’s closest and dearest lyceum friends - were in St. Petersburg, perhaps he would have chosen one of them. But then the duel might not have taken place. The Decembrist Pushchin wrote to Malinovsky from his prison cell: “... if I were in Danzas’s place, the fatal bullet would have met my chest, I would have found a way to save my poet-comrade, the heritage of Russia.”

But it was Danzas who found himself with Pushkin in his terrible hour...

When they were going to the duel, on Palace Embankment they met Mrs. Pushkina in the carriage. Danzas recognized her, hope flashed in him, this meeting could fix everything. But Pushkin's wife was nearsighted, and Pushkin looked in the other direction.

The day was clear. St. Petersburg high society went on a roller coaster ride, and at that time some were already returning from there. Acquaintances bowed to Pushkin and Danzas and no one seemed to guess where they were going. Prince Golitsyn shouted to them, “Why are you leaving so late, everyone is leaving already?!”

Both opponents arrived almost simultaneously. Pushkin got out of the sleigh. The snow was knee-deep. He lay down on the snow and began to whistle. Dantes deftly helped the seconds trample down the path.

The participants in the duel, seconds Danzas and d’Archiac (Dantès’s second), recall:

“We arrived at the meeting place at half past four. A very strong wind was blowing, which forced us to seek shelter in a small pine grove.”

“The frost was 15 degrees. Wrapped in a bear fur coat, Pushkin was silent, apparently as calm as he had been during the journey, but he expressed strong impatience to get down to business as quickly as possible...

Having measured their steps, Danzas and d'Archiac marked the barrier with their greatcoats and began to load their pistols. It was all over. The opponents were stationed, pistols were given to them, and at the signal given by Danzas, waving his hat, they began to converge.

Pushkin was a real athlete: he jumped, took ice baths, and shot well. He carried an iron cane and trained his hand so that it wouldn’t shake when shooting. He had every chance to kill Dantes. Fate decreed otherwise.

But it was Pushkin who set the bloodiest conditions for the duel. They shot from ten paces; it was difficult for even a wounded man to miss. In case of such a mistake on both sides, the fight was resumed. Pushkin was an excellent shooter, he trained his hand all the time and could have shot without missing even before approaching the barrier, but he never shot first and, having quickly walked his ten steps, stopped, waiting for Dantes’ shot.

Dantes, before reaching the barrier, shot first. Mortally wounded, Pushkin fell.

I think my hip is shattered.

He fell onto his greatcoat, which served as a barrier, and remained motionless, face to the ground.

When Pushkin fell, his pistol fell into the snow, and therefore Danzas gave him another. Having risen a little and leaning on his left hand, Pushkin fired.

Dantes fell, but only a severe concussion knocked him down; the bullet pierced the fleshy parts of his right arm, with which he covered his chest and, thus weakened, hit a button... this button saved Dantes. Pushkin, seeing him falling, threw his pistol up and shouted “Bravo!” Meanwhile, blood poured from the wound.

When Pushkin found out that he had not killed Dantes, he said: “If we get better, we’ll start again.”

Pushkin was wounded in the right side of the abdomen; the bullet, shattering the bone of the upper leg at the junction with the groin, entered deeply into the abdomen and stopped there.

Pushkin lost consciousness and, lying in the snow, was bleeding.

There was no doctor at the scene of the duel. Danzas did not care about this. It was impossible to carry a seriously wounded person in a sleigh. And Danzas was forced to use Dantes’ carriage. She slowly drove the poet back along the same road...

So dinner was getting cold...

Natalya Nikolaevna went to the window and, recognizing Dantes’s carriage stopping near their house, exclaimed indignantly: “How dare he come here again?!”

The door opened without warning, and Konstantin Karlovich Danzas, who appeared in its opening, wearing unbuttoned outerwear, said in an excited voice:

Natalya Nikolaevna! Don't worry. Everything will be fine. Alexander Sergeevich is slightly wounded...

She rushes into the hallway, her legs can’t support her. He leans against the wall and through the veil of fading consciousness sees how the valet Nikita carries Pushkin into the office, hugging him to himself like a child. And the open, sliding fur coat drags along the floor. “It’s hard for you to carry me,” Pushkin says in a weak voice...

Be calm. You are not guilty of anything. “Everything will be fine,” he tells her with just his lips and tries to smile.

She was then told that he was wounded in the leg. He suddenly shouted in a firm and strong voice so that his wife should not enter the office where they had put him. The extraordinary presence of mind did not leave the patient. Only from time to time he complained of pain in his stomach, and forgot himself for a short time.

One after another, friends began to come to Pushkin. They did not leave his house until his death and only left for a short time.

The usual appearance of the apartment has changed. In the living room, near the door leading to the office where Pushkin lay, they placed a couch for Natalya Nikolaevna. Pushkin spared his wife and asked her not to come to him - at first the truth about his mortal wound was hidden from her. Natalya Nikolaevna remained in the living room to hear what was happening in the office and wait for him to call her. It took a long time to find doctors. After examining the wound, the royal doctor Arendt told the patient: there was no hope for recovery. For two days the wounded man lay with the feeling of being sentenced to death. He endured the excruciating pain with extraordinary firmness. He rubbed ice on his temples and applied poultices to his stomach. Zhukovsky, Vyazemsky, and Dal were constantly next to him. Relatives came to say goodbye.

Vladimir Ivanovich Dal is a close friend of Pushkin, a doctor, and the author of the Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language.

Dahl was hopelessly with the dying poet. Pushkin always loved him. In the last hours I said “you” to him for the first time. “I answered him the same and fraternized with him not for this world,” he later said bitterly. Pushkin spent his last night alone with Dahl. Zhukovsky, Vilyegorsky and Vyazemsky were resting in the next room. The doctors left, trusting Dahl's healing experience. Dahl gave Pushkin cold water from a spoon, held a bowl of ice, and Pushkin himself rubbed his temples with ice, saying: “That’s wonderful!”

Not just anyone, but his, Dal’s, hand was held by Pushkin in his cold hand; not just anyone’s, but his, Dal’s, he called, while dying, brother. Not just anyone, but Dahl was with him in his last dreams: “Well, lift me up, let’s go, higher, higher! ... I dreamed that I was climbing with you up these books and shelves, high, and my head was spinning. - And again Pushkin weakly squeezed Dahl’s hand with his now completely cold fingers. “Let’s go! Well, let’s go, please, together!”

Natalya Nikolaevna did not know that these days people crowded not only in the hallway, but also in the yard, near the house and on the street. I didn’t know that St. Petersburgers hired cab drivers, giving them the address: “To Pushkin!” And Zhukovsky hung a bulletin on the health status of Alexander Sergeevich on the doors.

Natalya Nikolaevna cried for the first time when they brought the children, frightenedly huddling together, not understanding what happened to their father, mother, why there were so many people, what was happening around.

After all, Mashenka, like two peas in a pod and with curly hair and blue eyes, is only four, Sashenka, Pushkin’s blond favorite, is only three: thick-cheeked, curly-haired Grishenka is not even two yet, and eight-month-old Tasha, white and like an angel, holding Alexandra, Natalya Nikolaevna’s sister, in her arms.

Dying, he asked for a list of debts and signed them. He asked Danzas to burn some paper in front of him. He took the rings from the box given to him and distributed them to his friends. Danzas - with turquoise, the one that his best friend Nashchokin once gave him, gave it with meaning (It was charmed from violent death); Zhukovsky - a ring with carnelian...

She did not know that in the evening he became worse. As the night continued, Pushkin's suffering intensified to such an extent that he decided to shoot himself. Calling the man, he ordered one of the desk drawers to be given to him; the man carried out his will, but, remembering that there were pistols in this box, he warned Danzas. Danzas approached Pushkin and took the pistols from him, which he had already hidden under the blanket; giving them to Danzas, Pushkin admitted that he wanted to shoot himself because his suffering was unbearable...

He did not want his wife to see his suffering, which he overcame with amazing courage, and when she entered, he asked to take her away. At two o'clock in the afternoon on January 29, Pushkin had three-quarters of an hour left to live. He opened his eyes and asked for pickled cloudberries. He asked to call his wife so that she could feed him. Natalya Nikolaevna knelt down at the head of her deathbed, brought him a spoon, then another, and pressed her face to the brow of her departing husband. Pushkin stroked her head and said:

Well, well, nothing, thank God, everything is fine.

Then there were nights and days, but she didn’t know when.

Sometimes, when I regained consciousness, I saw the changing faces of Pushkin’s friends bending over the bed.

She also did not realize her insane cry “Pushkin! You will live!” But I remembered his face - majestic, calm and beautiful, such as she had not known in his previous life.

Friends and neighbors were silent, arms folded, surrounding the head of the departing man. At his request, he was raised higher on the pillows. He suddenly, as if waking up, quickly opened his eyes, his face cleared up and he said:

Life is over. It’s hard to breathe, it’s oppressive.

These were his last words.

Another weak, barely noticeable sigh - an immense, immeasurable abyss separated the living from the dead. He died so quietly that those present did not notice his death.

On Pushkin's desk there is an inkwell with a figurine of a little black man leaning on an anchor - a New Year's gift from Nashchokin's friend. Little Arab is an allusion to Hannibal, a native of Abyssinia, who was brought as a gift to Peter the Great. Most of all, Pushkin valued independence and dignity in dealing with kings in his great-grandfather.

He has grown diligent, incorruptible,

The king is a breastfeeder, not a slave.

This clock stopped at the moment of the poet's death at 14:45. Both arrows form one horizontal line, dividing the circle in half, as if drawing a line...

They say that when his comrade and second Danzas, wanting to find out in what feelings he was dying for Dantes, asked him if he would entrust him with something in the event of death regarding Dantes, he answered: “I demand that you not avenge my death: I forgive him and want to die a Christian.”

Describing the first minutes after death, Zhukovsky writes: “When everyone left, I sat down in front of him and looked into his face for a long time. Never on this face have I seen anything similar to what was on him in that first minute of death... What was expressed on his face, I cannot say in words. It was so new to me and at the same time so familiar. It was neither sleep nor peace; there was no expression of mind so previously characteristic of this face; there was also no poetic expression. No! some important, amazing thought developed on it, something like a vision, some kind of complete, deeply satisfying knowledge. Peering at him, I kept wanting to ask: what do you see, friend?”

Now I stand like a sculptor

In his great workshop.

Before me - like giants,

Unfinished dreams!

Like marble, they wait for one

For a life of creative streak...

Sorry, lush dreams!

I couldn’t realize you!..

Oh, I'm dying like a god

In the midst of the beginning of the universe!

45 minutes after Pushkin’s death, gendarmes came to the house on the Moika with a search. They looked through and numbered his manuscripts in red ink, and sealed all the papers.

During the search, Zhukovsky managed to hide Pushkin’s letters given to him by Natalya Nikolaevna. Pushkin's body was taken out and secretly taken to the Konyushennaya Church.

And a few days later, lists of M.Yu. Lermontov’s poem “The Death of a Poet” were distributed throughout St. Petersburg.

The Poet is dead! - slave of honor -

Fell, slandered by rumors...

The wondrous genius has faded away like a torch,

The ceremonial wreath has faded.

The funeral service took place on February 1. The small church could barely accommodate relatives, friends, and comrades from the Lyceum. Huge crowds of people gathered in the square and nearby streets to say goodbye to Pushkin. Contemporaries recalled that St. Petersburg had not seen such an incredible crowd of people since the Decembrist uprising. There was no one from high circles...

On the night of February 3, the box with the coffin, wrapped in dark matting, was placed on a simple sleigh. Pushkin’s old uncle, Nikita Timofeevich Kozlov, perched in them.

The coffin was accompanied by two wagons: Alexander Ivanovich Turgenev was traveling in one, and the gendarmerie officer Rakeev was in the other.

The ashes of the great poet were secretly taken out of the capital... It was bitterly cold. The moon was shining. Snow dust flew into Nikita Timofeevich's eyes and melted into tears - the old man leaned his head against the coffin, and froze to the very spot... The coffin was upholstered in red velvet. Turgenev later told Natalya Nikolaevna that Nikita did not eat, did not drink, did not leave his master’s coffin...

The Svyatogorsk Monastery is the final resting place of the poet, who tragically died in January 1837, and is the Hannibal-Pushkin family cemetery. Here lie the ashes of his grandfather and grandmother, father and mother, and Alexander Sergeevich’s little brother, Plato.

As you know, the Tsar did not allow Pushkin to be buried in St. Petersburg. He remembered the poet’s desire to be buried in Svyatogorye, in the family cemetery.

And where will fate send me death?

Is it in battle, on a journey, in the waves?

Or the neighboring valley

Will my cold ashes take me?

And even to an insensitive body

Equally decay everywhere,

But closer to the cute limit

I would still like to rest.

And let at the tomb entrance

The young one will play with life,

And indifferent nature

Shine with eternal beauty.

Here his body was buried on February 18. At the top of the burial hill, among the frequent trunks of centuries-old oaks and lindens, there is a platform surrounded by a white marble balustrade. Nearby is the ancient Assumption Cathedral, like a hero on guard. Here lies the heart of Pushkin.

After the death of her husband, Natalya Nikolaevna and her children went to the Linen Factory to visit her relatives. Then she returned to St. Petersburg. I dreamed of buying Mikhailovskoye. As for the ruinous debts, the king took them upon himself.

And finally, with Mikhailovsky, everything was decided in favor of the Pushkin family. And they go to the village that Pushkin loved so much, in which he did a lot, and where, by his will, he was buried.

Natalya Nikolaevna came to her husband’s grave for the first time, four years after his death. The famous St. Petersburg master Permagorov made Pushkin’s tombstone. She liked it for its grace, simplicity and significance. She had to install it. She came for the first time on her own, accompanied only by her uncle Nikita Timofeevich. She was on her knees, clasping her hands on a turf-lined mound with a wooden cross, shaking in sobs. Nikita Timofeevich also cried, holding a crumpled cap in his hands.

The spirit of Pushkin reigned supreme in Mikhailovskoye; he lived everywhere here. And Natalya Nikolaevna felt his dear presence every minute. This increased the grief and instilled some incomprehensible strength.

When Natalya Nikolaevna cried out all the living pain, she brought the children to their father’s grave. They collected flowers, decorating the monument with them.

Above the grave is a white marble obelisk, erected four years after Pushkin’s death. Under the obelisk there is an urn with a blanket thrown over it, on the granite base there is the inscription:

ALEXANDER SERGEEVICH PUSHKIN

Now Natalya Nikolaevna was dying. The children gathered in the next room. Four adult children of Pushkin. And three daughters from Lansky, whom she married seven years after Pushkin’s death. There was still life in her. I held on to the memories. I couldn’t let go of the thought that she hadn’t done everything yet, hadn’t figured everything out yet...

She remembered her older sister Catherine, who became the wife of the killer of her first husband. Natalya Nikolaevna believed that her sister knew about the duel and did not prevent it. All her life she did not want to know anything about her sister, and only now, on her deathbed, pity for her was overwhelmed by the established alienation. And although her sister had already left this world, she told her: “I forgive you everything...”

Catherine died in France. The killer of the great poet did not live to see Pushkin’s 100th birthday only 4 years. He died in the city of Sulz in 1895 at the age of 83. One of his daughters, Leonia-Charlotte, was an extraordinary girl. Without seeing or knowing Russians, she studied the Russian language. Leonia adored Russia and more than anything else, Pushkin! One day, during an outburst of anger, she called her father a murderer and never spoke to him again. In her room, in place of the icon, Leonia hung a portrait of Pushkin. Love for Pushkin and hatred for her father led her to a nervous illness and she died very young.

The earthly life of the beautiful Natalie Goncharova, Natalya Nikolaevna Pushkina, was coming to an end. The last thing she heard in her dreams was her own insane cry: “You will live, Pushkin!”, and she realized that she was already dying. The soul that Pushkin loved so much slowly left this beautiful human form.

In St. Petersburg, at the cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra, there is a tombstone with the inscription “Natalia Nikolaevna Lanskaya. 1812-1863.” But maybe the hand of some descendant will add “- Pushkin” to the Lanskaya surname, in human and historical justice?

Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin’s poem “The darkness of the night lies on the hills of Georgia” is written in iambic. It combines iambic pentameter and hexameter. The rhyming in the poem is cross, with alternating male and female rhymes. This gives the work consistency; the speech flows slowly and measuredly, as if showing objects one after another, continuously and smoothly. The work was written in 1829 during a long trip to the Caucasus. Pushkin visited the site of the fighting, which was interesting to him because the poet was worried about the fate of the Decembrists. It is interesting that during this period he was in love with Natalya Goncharova, which means he wrote about his love for her. Natalya rejected the love of the young poet, but this did not mean that Pushkin could not admire his chosen one. The young poet shows his experiences by conveying a picture of nature. Darkness covers the world, calm comes to the poet's soul. He is not going to violently oppose the choice of his chosen one, but he cannot forget about her. Therefore, the calmness of nature exactly reflects his mood.

We bring to your attention the text of the poem by A.S. Pushkin:

The darkness of night lies on the hills of Georgia;

Aragva makes noise in front of me.

I feel sad and light; my sadness is light;

My sadness is full of you,

By you, by you alone... My despondency

Nothing torments, nothing worries,

And the heart burns and loves again - because

That it cannot help but love.

You can also listen to the text of the poem “The darkness of the night lies on the hills of Georgia” (read by Oleg Pogudin):

The darkness of night lies on the hills of Georgia; Aragva makes noise in front of me. I feel sad and light; my sadness is light; My sadness is full of you, you, you alone... Nothing torments or disturbs my despondency, And my heart burns and loves again - because it cannot help but love.

“On the Hills of Georgia” is one of the few poems about Pushkin’s love for his future wife, the beautiful Natalya Goncharova. The poet met Natalya Goncharova in Moscow in December 1828 at the ball of dance master Yogel. In April 1829, realizing that he might be refused, Pushkin asked Natalya’s hand in marriage from her parents through Fyodor Tolstoy the American. Goncharova’s mother’s answer was vague: Natalya Ivanovna believed that her then 16-year-old daughter was too young for marriage, but there was no final refusal. Having received a very vague answer, Pushkin decided to go to the active army in the Caucasus.

Pushkin’s friends, not wanting to put the poet’s life in danger, nevertheless persuaded Pushkin to stay for several months in Tiflis, where the short and sensual poem “On the Hills of Georgia” was created.

“On the Hills of Georgia” is a lyric poem written in the genre of elegy. The meter of the verse is iambic with cross rhyme. The description of nature serves the author as a way to express the feelings of the lyrical hero and reflections on the topic of love. The author narrates only his thoughts, without coloring them emotionally. There is only one metaphor in the verse - “the heart is on fire”, but it is so familiar that it is not even perceived as a metaphor.

During the period of writing the poem, Pushkin had a desire to abandon the idea of ​​getting married and never return to Moscow. However, his feelings for Natalya Goncharova turned out to be so strong that in 1830 the poet again proposed to Natalya Goncharova and this time received consent. It is curious that after marriage, Pushkin did not devote a single lyric poem to Natalya Goncharova.