Secret Journal 1836-1837 by Pushkin

A note for the reader of this post:
Dear reader, be warned that this diary of Pushkin doesn't resemble the least sense of vulgarity in his books, but instead overflows with it. If you were to read his diary, you would understand. I tried not to include many quote with "naughty" terms in them, but sometimes it couldn't be helped. Anyways, I think it's fair to mention because such words are a sort of taboo in today's society. Well, onward.
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"I look at my hand as it writes these lines and try to visualize it dead, as a piece of my skeleton, buried in the ground. Although this fate is undeniable, I am unable to imagine it. The trustworthiness of death is the only indisputable truth, and despite that it is the most difficult to comprehend, whereas we can easily and thoughtlessly accept and believe many different lies."
"Her mother is a real bitch, mad at everybody because no one besides the stablemen at Polotnyani Zavod wanted to screw her. She would not have minded laying under me, I think, but of course I did not care."

This was my first shock... and more are to follow. I think it depicts a slight immaturity on Pushkin's part...

"She oppressed her daughters in many ways and kept them as if they were in a convent. I watched N.’s sisters and thought of turning that convent into my harem."

"Our honeymoon flew by in sweet education: I was learning the tongue her body speaks and N. learned to respond not only to my tongue. My persistence and her diligence brought her more and more often to rapturous screams, which sounded like music to me."

I wanted to quote this one to show how he's still witty when he's describing something that is extremely immodest (especially during that time). He writes this extremely well, and such witticism is to flow through the entire journal. You see, he is Pushkin through and through, no matter what he's writing about.

"The difference between a wife and a lover is that with a wife you go to bed without lust. This is why marriage is sacred, because lust is gradually excluded from it and the relationship becomes just friendly, even indifferent or often hostile. It is then that the naked body is not considered a sin, because it no longer tempts."

"Death is the most reliable way to stay faithful to your sweetheart."

"I understand the reason for Romeo and Juliet's suicide. They acted intuitively, without understanding, but with the same purpose - to stay faithful to their lovers even after death, which is impossible for any young, beautiful living body."

"I told myself over and over again that a poet cannot live without quivering and is not intended for the world of marriage." "And a wife's name should be inviolate."

How extremely ironic. He doesn't have a problem with cheating on her, but once another man uses N.'s name vulgarly, he cannot stand it. This shows how much he loved his wife, and viewing her as an ideal figure.

"The human being is a creation of God, and human society is the creation of the Devil." "The nuptial bed is the cradle of passion, which turns into its grave." "My library is my harem."
"In India, they kill the wife and bury her with her dead husband. It is easy to imagine how a wife nurses her sick husband and cherishes him. Fear of her own death is an excellent incetive to love and devotion.

He's actually serious. I love his cleverness in this, even though it is extremely crude.
"The stronger the desire a man has, the less capable he is of distinguishing the word "woman" from the word "cunt." The only thing that opens his eyes to the existence in a woman of something besides cunt is satisfied desire. That is why the smart woman first of all gives herself to a man - to free his imagination from her cunt so that, sated with cunt, he becomes capable of appreciating her mind, talent, kindness and all the fineness she possesses."

"I long ago looked for the pistols at Kurakin's, and I drop in there from time to time to glance at my death. I look into the blackness of the muzzle where my fate hides and asks, 'When?' The pistols lying in the case reminds me of two sixes mutliplied. The number mimics my 36 years in 1836 and 6 from N. who is 24 (2+4). It is the Devil's figure, and I am scared of it." "I do not doubt the purpose of my life when the Muse or Venus visits me. But their visits are short, and once they leave me, my emotional sufferings envelop me and I cannot find the answer to an even simpler question: how to live. My life becomes too complex and all the threads of my deeds tie in knots and I cannot untangle them. But I cannot live with them, so I must cut them."

The poet.

"I cannot be faithful to my wife, but I value most of all faithfulness in others men's wives and demand it inflexibly from my own. I even drew her an example in Tatyana."

This forever changed my perception of Eugene Onegin. Now I will forever think about Pushkin's personal life when I read his works.

" I watch her trembling when she sees d'Antes, and I admire the strength of her character in choosing duty and rejecting passion. But with his impetuosity, she will not be able to hold back forever, so I must help her. How bitter it is fro me to write about it." "I am drawn to jump into the abyss not by a desire to die but by the total oblivion of it."

In some ways, throughout his life, he was searching for this oblivion.

"When a body falls into a real abyss, it is pulverized, but the soul revives. Does it? Because of this doubt, I fear death, or else I would jump over and over. "When you plunge into the abyss, you live counted moments, during which nothing can affect your submission to God. You fly within his power, completely free of their laws. These are moments when you are face to face with God. You are alive and nothing can stop the approaching Truth."

This process he compares to sex, even though he says he's afraid of death. So I guess he is afraid of the ultimate Truth. But, what is the Truth?? Is it death?

"I see myself dying, looking at books, trees, miserable that I will never see all that again."

His tragic end, and yet a great exit:

"Pushkin was fatally wounded in the stomach by Dantes, who shot first. Pushkin gathered his last strength and shot at Dantes. The bullet ricocheted off a metal button on Dantes' uniform, which saved his life. Rumor said that the Tsar sent his men to stop the duel but that they were sent to the wrong place on purpose. After Pushkin's death, Dantes was demoted to the rank of private and expelled from Russia. He left for France with his wife, where they lived the rest of their lives. Pushkin's widow was mourning for Pushkin for two years and remarried in 1844".

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First off, I think it is my duty to mention that this was the most vulgar book I've ever read. And yes I do realize that I only need to pick up any young adult novel to get a taste of vulgarity- but still, this isn't any average author, this is the great master: Pushkin himself. And it is incredibly ironic, because I don't think the rest of the world truly knows what he was like. For instance, my Grandma (she was forced to read all Russian literature due to the communists) praised Pushkin for his Christian principles, and his love for his wife. But in his defense, it isn't just vulgarity... because under that vulgarity lies a deep meaning, his attempt to search for Truth. The man was truly messed up- to put it into modern terms. He was struggling with an unsatisfiable passion and yet trying to preserve his love for his wife. Because, yes, he did love her in his own way. And actually, I think he slept around so much, because of her. Because she was so perfect.

I will modeslty try to breach upon a very "sketchy" (what the kids of today apparently use) subject: mainly his obsession with the female sex organ. He uses a horribly attrocious term, but maybe it seems so because of this this wonderful conservative American society preserving our naive little ears from such a raw term. Personally, I cannot bring myself to use it. Anyways, I find it extremely interesting that he mentally separates the vagina from the female body: he doesn't view it as being part of the whole, the woman. He constantly capitalizes the word, emphasizing this point. He says he worships it. You see, he doesn't worship the woman itself, but only the organ that gives him pleasure. The woman might as well not have been attached to it, as he put it. When in reality, the organ is part OF the woman. Pushkin sees this the other way around. I think this affects his view upon women, since he just sees them as "possessors" of the vagina, so this makes it easier for him to move from one to the other. He's dehumanizing women, by making their sex organ their identity.

Even after reading this, I still maintain that Pushkin is an extremely complex writer. Even in this diary he cleverly describes everything, and his wit can be clearly seen. It makes it entertaining. Throughout his "escapades" Pushkin is still trying to cope with marriage and his pure love for his wife, and the fact that she doesn't love him. Maybe that is why he was trying to protect her faithfulness, because in his eyes, she was still an ideal, still the love of his life.

This wasn't published because of the censorship in Russia. It makes me think whether all the Russian authors thought like this, (not exactly like Pushkin) but indulge in this vulgarity. Because their works are absolutely stupendous and very very modest. I think that is why I was so shocked when I read his diary, because I was expecting something along the lines of Eugene Onegin, something pure and innocent. But at heart, I think he really was, even at his most grotesque points in his life. He has this marvelous childish heart that can be clearly seen in anything he writes.

I will end, and agreeing with, Mikhail Armalinsky (the one who published this journal) remark about this "explosive" journal:

"Pushkin's literary reputation is so strong that his personal reputation could not shake it, but on the contrary promises us a remarkable study of human nature, which, because of its immutability, makes us all one with the past as well as the future."

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Published by M.I.P Company (http://www.mipco.com/english/push.html)

Narrative Poems by Alexander Pushkin & Mikhail Lermontov

Onegin's Journey by Pushkin

"Whatever feelings may have smarted
inside me then, they fled away:
They're all transmitted or departed...
Peace to you storms of yesterday!
Then my imagination ordered
deserts, and billows pearly-bordered,
sea-tumult, summits craggy-browed,
with my ideal, the maiden proud
And sufferings quite beyond redeeming...
and yet new seasons always bring
new visions; humbled is my spring
with its inebriated dreaming,
and, as a poet, I've topped up
the water-quotient in my cup."

The visual imagery here so marvelously describes the energy of the storm, and by positioning the "maiden proud" right in the middle of this electricity, cries out poetry in its most violent form. For what poet does not dream of this exact scene, this scene that is so dramatic which provides so many contrasts? -this extreme violence of nature, and the maiden proud standing it through all.

Also, I was extremely excited to find this book- because it was a "missing part" to the real Eugene Onegin. But of course this did not affect the ending whatsoever, just the journey part of Onegin was explained in more detail in this story/poem.

Pushkin is so extremely entertaining! It is as if one is watching comedy in a play. Like Graf-Nulin; hilariously written!

Mozart and Salieri by Pushkin

"I murdered sounds, and the dissected
Music like a cadaver. Harmony
Became for me an algebra."

I am so afraid of doing that! Goodness. I hope it won't become a science for me- because then it will kill it all.

" No.
To me, nothing's for laughter when a useless
Dauber is botching up Raphael's Madonna;
To me, nothing's for laughter, when some base
Buffoon in an ignoble parody
Degrades the name of Dante..."

I can actually relate to that. Some people don't accept that they don't have talent, and by this denial they blaspheme masterpieces that humble.

" If only
everybody could so feel the strength
Of harmony! But no: for in that case
The world could not continue: no one would
Trouble about life's grosser cares.' and all
Would dedicate themselves to untrammeled art!
How few of us there are, we happy idlers,
Chosen ones who spurn the ignoble call
Of mere utility, priests dedicated
Only to beauty."

Spurn means to disdain. It is interesting that he uses the same word ignoble- for both characters. It shows that they both believe in the same idea, but in different ways. Mozart here, of course, is the real genius. He is the "god: of music- so to speak and the true worshiper. And Salieri is only a novice in his worship. And yet, as he himself describes- he forgot how to truly worship- to get lost in it- and only the "idea" of worship remains. Not the act itself. Salieri raised Mozart up to the stars- consciously knowing that he himself is drifting farther away from it. Maybe that is why it bothers him so much when the old man sings Mozart- because it is insulting the rank of his ideal. Mozart on the other hand is still a worshiper, "a priest", and by getting lost in this harmony, this music, he learned its secrets. One has to let it (the mysteries of the universe, the beauty of nature) teach him. That is true genius. Maybe that is why Salieri killed Mozart- because he knew he had lost it...as I went back in the poem he clearly says,

"No, I can't fight my fate
I've been picked out to stop him, otherwise
We'll all be ruined, music's priests, its servants,
not I alone, with my dull reputation..
No, what use is it, if Mozart lives on
and reaches a new summit? by so doing
will he raise art up higher? No! as soon
As he is gone, it will sink down again:"

There! Mozart only continues to go up higher, while Salieri would descend lower. he raised the bar not only for all humanity to see, but for other Salieris- while knowing what is happening...the contrast will provide greater failure on their part. Because then, it will be all too apparent that they cannot continue being music priests at all, they would know that it is all a lie- that all their harmony became "algebra". And that is something they cannot accept- they failed their "idol".

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Pub by Vintage Books

Alexander Pushkin, complete prose fiction

Dubrovskii


"The moon was shining. It was still July night. The wind rose now and then, and a light rustle ran over the entire garden.
Like a light shadow, the young beauty drew near the appointed meeting place. Nobody was yet in sight. Suddenly Dubrovskii, coming out from behind the arbor, appeared in front of her
(...)
'My unhappy destiny,' he said with a bitter sigh. 'I would give my life for you; just to see you from a distance, to touch your hand used to be ecstasy for me. And now, when there might be an opportunity for me to clasp you to my agitated heart and say, 'Angel! Let us die together!'- now I have to beware of happiness, have to avoid it, unlucky creature that I am, by every means possible. I dare not throw myself at your feet and thank heaven for an inexplicable, undeserved reward. Oh, how I ought to hate the man who...but I feel that at this moment there can be no room for hatred in my heart.'
He gently put his arm around her slender waist and gently drew her near to his heart.She leaned her head trustingly on the young robber's shoulder."

The beauty of one word- robber! Makes a world of difference!

The Blackamoor of Peter the Great

"The Countess, frightened of her violence of his passion, tried to counter with friendly exhortations and prudent admonitions, but all in vain; she herself was awakening. Incautiously granted favors followed one another in quick succession. And at last, carried away by the force of the passion she herself inspired, overpowered by its moment, she gave herself to the ecstatic Ibrahim..."

Such an interesting pair.

The Blizzard

"'Oh my God, oh my God,' said Maria Gavrilovna, seizing his hand, 'so it was you? And you don't recognize me?'
Burmin blushed and threw himself at her feet..."

The Undertaker

"The room was full of corpses. The moon shining through the windows lit up their yellow and blue faces, gaping mouths, murky half-closed eyes, and protruding noses... To his horror Adrian recognized in them the people who had been buried through his efforts, and in the guest entering with him, the brigadier whose funeral had taken place in the pelting rain. (...) All the others were properly dressed, the lady corpses in caps and ribbons, the gentle men of rank in uniform, though with their chins unshaven, and the merchants in their holiday outfits."

It is as if they continued being who they were in the afterlife. It also gives the impression that it ridicules our activities and ambitions once we are dead. For what difference does it make whether the ladies were in "caps and ribbons"? It seems as if all the efforts that were so treasured in real life are mere petty trifles in the afterlife. -They are beyond not being important, they are childish.

The Queen of Spades

"From that time on, not one day passed without the young men arriving at a certain hour, under the windows of the house. An undefined relationship was established between him and her. Sitting in her place over her work, she could sense his approach; she raised her head and looked at him longer with each day. The young man seemed to be grateful for it: she could see with her keen young eyes that a sudden blush spread over his pale cheeks each time their glances met. By the end of the week she gave him a smile..."

Marvelously said - "undefined relationship"; for who can define it? Who can define what is not mean to be defined? And that is the beauty and romantic aspect of it.

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I remember reading this book- remember thinking how nothing can be better than to snuggle up with a Pushkin book. :) It really is something. I love the way the book was organized- and all of his works! Pushkin is so similar to Turgenev, or rather the other way around. They both have this marvelous 'vagueness' about their works, how they slightly define the fragile, but not enough to impose on it.

Eugene Onegin

"Tomorrow too will be the same."

"All poets, I need hardly mention,
have drawn from the love abundant themes;
I too have gazed in rapt attention
When cherished beings filled my dreams.
My soul preserved their secret features;
The Muse then made them living creatures.
Just so in carefree song I paid
My tribute to the mountain maid,
And sang the Salghir Captives' praises.
And now, my friends, I hear once more
That question you have put before;
'For whom these sighs your lyre raises?
To whom amid the jealous throng
Do you today devote your song?

Whose gaze, evoking inspiration,
Rewards you with soft caress?
Whose form, in pensive adoration,
Do you now clothe in sacred dress?'
Why no one, friends, as God's my witness,
And maddened pangs of love's refrain
Oh, blest is he who joins his pain
To fevered rhyme: for thus he doubles
The sacred ecstasy of art;
Like Petrarch then, he calms the heart,
Subduing passion's host of troubles,
And captures worldly fame to boot!-
But I, in love, was dense and mute.

The Muse appeared as love was ending
And cleared the darkened mind she found.
One, free, I seek again the blending
Of feeling, thought, and magic sound.
I write...and want no more embraces,
My straying pen no longer traces,
Beneath a verse left incomplete ,
The shape of ladies' heads and feet.
Extinguished ashes won't rekindle,
And though I grieve, I weep no more;
And soon, quite soon, the tempest's core
Within my soul will fade and dwindle:
And then I'll write this world a song
That's five and twenty cantons long!"

The personification of the Muse is marvelous here... "The sacred ecstasy of art"- The true worshipers! One is to suffer and strip himself completely- then he is able to truly write.

"And found the source of lyrics fire
Beneath the skies of distant lands,
From Goethe's and from Schiller's hands."

Such creation these masters produce in our minds...

"He sang of love, by love commended,
A simple and affecting tune,
As clear as maiden thoughts, as candid
As Infant slumber, as the moon
In heaven's peaceful desert flying,
That queen of secrets and of sighing.
He sang of parting and of pain,
Of something vague, of mists and rain;
He sang the rose, romantic flower,
And distant lands where once he'd shed
His living tears upon the bed
Of silence at a lonely hour;
He sang life's bloom gone pale and sere-
He'd almost reached his eighteenth year."

Song of humanity, sung by a true poet. He sings it in such a mournful tone... It's marvelous how he defines this vagueness of "mists and rain"- how pain is to be found in such vague things...

"We all take on Napoleon's features,
And millions of our fellow creatures
Are nothing more to us than tools
Since feelings are for freaks and fools."

Reminds me of something Gogol wrote- saying that Napoleon was the anti-Christ... Hilarious.

"Upon her balcony appearing,
She loved to greet Arora's show,
When dancing stars are disappearing
Against the heaven's pallid glow,
When earth's horizon softly blushes,
And wind, the morning's herald, rushes
And slowly day begins its flight.
In winter, when the shade of night
Still longer half the glove encumbers,
And near the misty moon on high
An idle stillness rules the sky,
And late the lazy East still slumbers."

"Long since her keen imagination,
With tenderness and pain imbued,
Had hungered for the fatal food;
Long since her heart's sweet agitation
Had choked her maiden breast too much:
Her soul awaited someone's touch."

You see how delicately he addresses the most sensitive point in a woman's life? How gently he touches it and admires it?

"Tatyana, O my dear Tatyana!
I shed with you sweet tears too late,
Relying on a tyrant's honour,
you're now resigned to him your fate
My dear one, you are doomed to perish;
But first in dazzling hope you nourish
And summon forth a somber bliss,
You learn life's sweetness...feel its kiss,
And drink the droughts of love's temptations,
As phantom daydreams haunt your mind:
On every side you seem to find
Retreats for happy assignations,
While everywhere before your eyes
Your fateful tempter's figure lies."

This if phenomenal. It's immortal.

************
"But whom to love? To trust and treasure?
Who won't betray us in the end?
And who'll be kind enough to measure
Our words and deeds as we intent?
Who won't sow slander all about us?
To whom will all our faults be few?
Who'll never bore us through and through?
You futile, searching phantom-breeder,
Why spend your efforts all in vain,
Just love yourself and ease the pain,
My most esteemed and valued reader!
A worthy object! Nevermind,
A truer love you'll never find!"

This verse I memorized... This is the ultimate question of mankind. Whom to love and whom to trust... Phantom-breeder says SO much in this passage-- it distinguishes the melancholy from the optimists... It is as if Pushkin mocks the melancholy, because that is what they DON'T need- more of themselves...

"Perhaps in thought we reassemble,
Within a dream to which we cling,
Some other and more ancient spring,
That sets the aching heart atremble
With visions of some distant place,
A magic night, the moon's embrace..."

Distant place...distant realm. It is as if we are more alive in our thought...

"He got so lost in his depression,
He just about went mad, I fear,
Or else turned poet, (an obsession that I'd be the first to cheer!)"

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I almost cried. How beautiful, and oh so sad. It shows that life moves on, and Fate can be so cruel, so heartless. No matter what it does to the victims, it's still silent and moves on. Love, passion, no matter. All will soon pass, given the right opportunities. She married, he was left alone in his depression for ever.

Most romantic poetry I've ever and will probably read. I really can't image better. Pushkin is the ultimate Poet. He says everything so incredibly delicately and fine... And with such a personality- such humor. Turgenev and Gogol all combined into one...

Also seems like a very good translation:

http://www.stihi.ru/2004/04/16-1484

The Gypsies by Alexander Pushkin

"But even amongs you innocents there is no lasting happiness! Inside your worn and tattered tents surge dreams of violence and distress, and as you wander through the steppe catastrophe in hiding waits, dark passions everywhere run deep, there is no refuge from the Fates."

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The gypsies do not have any morals whatsoever (as he portrays it) they are like wild animals. Not very different from civilization. I guess human nature is the same no matter where, and no matter under what conditions- imprisoned or free. The gypsies make it more apparent. Beautiful poem about a civilized person and a gypsy, and how they react to different things. She thought it was okay to cheat, but he thought it was okay to kill. The old man got mad, so maybe they have limists? Or just different limits. But isn't it all teh same in the end? In both forms of society?

I love how romantic Pushkin is- how he so marvelously portrayed society and an anarchic sort of life- and how each have flaws... They are essentially the same. Society as well as the gypsies are described does not truly have morals either. They basically live the same types of life but in complete different ways- But in the end, they both reach the same conclusion; that morality is based on society and does not exist. Morality is very limited- and stops at duty- not at love, which is endless.