Novels, Tales, Journeys by Alexander Pushkin

Author:Alexander Pushkin
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2016-11-21T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWO

I am a king, I am a slave, I am a worm, I am God.

DERZHAVIN3

The next day Charsky was searching for room number 35 in the dark and dirty corridor of an inn. He stopped at a door and knocked. Yesterday’s Italian opened it.

“Victory!” Charsky said to him. “Your affair is in the hat. Princess * * * offers you her reception room; at a rout yesterday I managed to recruit half of Petersburg; print the tickets and announcements. I guarantee you, if not the triumph, at least the gain…”

“And that’s the main thing!” cried the Italian, expressing his joy with the lively gestures peculiar to his southern race. “I knew you would help me. Corpo di Bacco!*4 You’re a poet, the same as I am; and, whatever you say, poets are fine lads! How can I show you my gratitude? Wait…would you like to hear an improvisation?”

“An improvisation!…You mean you can do without the public, without music, without the thunder of applause?”

“Trifles, trifles! Where could I find myself a better public? You’re a poet, you’ll understand me better than they will, and your quiet approval is dearer to me than a whole storm of applause…Sit down somewhere and give me a theme.”

Charsky sat down on a suitcase (of the two chairs in the cramped little hovel, one was broken, the other heaped with papers and underwear). The improvisator took a guitar from the table and stood before Charsky, strumming it with his bony fingers and awaiting his order.

“Here’s a theme for you,” Charsky said to him: “The poet himself chooses the subjects for his songs; the mob has no right to control his inspiration.”

The Italian’s eyes flashed, he played several chords, proudly raised his head, and passionate stanzas, expressive of instantaneous emotion, flew harmoniously from his lips…Here they are, freely passed on by one of our friends from words preserved in Charsky’s memory:

The poet goes, eyes open wide,

And yet he sees no one at all;

Meanwhile, drawing him aside,

A passing stranger asks, appalled:

“Tell me: why this aimless wandering?

No sooner have you scaled the heights

Than you are bent upon descending

Into the vale as dark as night.

The well-formed world you see but vaguely;

A fruitless ardor wears you out;

Some paltry matter constantly

Lures you and beckons you about.

A genius should strive toward the heavens,

To the true poet it belongs

To choose himself the purest leaven

As matter for inspired songs.”

—Why is it that wind whirls and scatters

Leaves and dust across the heath,

While a ship in unmoving waters

Languishes, longing for its breath?

Why from the peaks, past lofty towers,

Does the great eagle, for all his powers,

Fly down to a withered stump? Ask him.

Why does young Desdemona trim

Her love for a blackamoor’s delight,

As the moon loves the dark of night?

Because law has no hold upon

Eagle, or wind, or a maiden’s heart.

Such is the poet: like Aquilon

He takes what he fancies for his part,

Then eagle-like he flies away,

And asking no one, he aspires,

Like Desdemona in her day,

To the idol of his heart’s desires.

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