Reality is not banality, as Pushkin constantly shows us. There is nothing documentary about The Captain’s Daughter; on the contrary, it has elements of the folktale about it—mysterious appearances, interventions, coincidences. It is composed of two intertwining stories: the love story of Grinyov and Masha, and the story of Grinyov’s complex relations with the rebel Pugachev (their private conversations are some of the most extraordinary moments in the book). Grinyov’s fate is determined, not by some all-ruling historical inevitability, nor by his personal will, but by two chance meetings: his own with the wayfarer at the beginning, and Masha’s with a little white dog and its owner at the end.
“Pushkin is the golden section of Russian literature,” wrote Sinyavsky. “Having thrust it forcefully into the future, he himself fell back and now plays in it the role of an eternally flowering past to which it returns to be rejuvenated.” Tolstoy gave an example of that rejuvenation in a letter describing the beginning of his work on Anna Karenina. His wife, he says, had taken down a volume of Pushkin’s prose from the shelf to show to their son and had left it on the table.
The other day, after my work, I picked up this volume of Pushkin and as always (for the seventh time, I think) read it from cover to cover, unable to tear myself away, as if I were reading it for the first time. More than that, it was as if it dispelled all my doubts. Never have I admired Pushkin so much, nor anyone else for that matter. The Shot, Egyptian Nights, The Captain’s Daughter!!! There was also the fragment, “The guests were arriving at the dacha.” Despite myself, not knowing where or what it would lead to, I imagined characters and events, which I developed, then naturally modified, and suddenly it all came together so well, so solidly, that it turned into a novel…
Reading Pushkin’s prose will not make great novelists of us all, but we can certainly share Tolstoy’s enthusiasm for the incomparable works, both finished and fragmentary, collected in this book.
RICHARD PEVEAR
*1 Sinyavsky wrote the book as letters to his wife while he was serving a seven-year sentence in a Soviet labor camp, and published it in 1975 under his pseudonym, Abram Tertz, after his release and forced emigration. An English translation by Catharine Theimer Nepomnyashchy and Slava Yastremski was published by Yale University Press in 1994.
*2 The Letters of Alexander Pushkin, edited and translated by J. Thomas Shaw (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1967), p. 237.
*3 A History of Russian Literature (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1999), p. 124.
*4 The Critical Prose of Alexander Pushkin, edited and translated by Carl R. Proffer (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1969), p. 80.
*5 D. S. Mirsky, Pushkin (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1963), p. 212.
*6 Letters, pp. 188–189.
*7 Pushkin, pp. 177–178.
*8 Introduction to Alexander Pushkin, The Collected Stories, translated by Paul Debreczeny (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999), p. xvi.
The Moor of Peter the Great
By Peter’s iron will
Russia was transformed.
YAZYKOV1
CHAPTER ONE
I am in Paris:
I have begun to live, not just to breathe.
DMITRIEV, Diary of a Traveler2
Among the young men sent abroad by Peter the Great to acquire the knowledge necessary for the reformed state was his godson, the moor Ibrahim. He studied at the military school in Paris,3 graduated as a captain of artillery, distinguished himself in the Spanish war,4 and returned, gravely wounded, to Paris. The emperor, in the midst of his immense labors, never ceased to ask after his favorite and always received flattering reports of his progress and conduct. Peter was very pleased with him and repeatedly called him back to Russia, but Ibrahim was in no hurry. He excused himself on various pretexts—now his wound, now his wish to improve his knowledge, now his lack of money—and Peter condescended to his requests, begged him to look after his health, thanked him for his zeal for learning, and, though extremely thrifty in his own expenses, did not spare his purse for him, supplementing the money with fatherly advice and cautionary admonishments.
From the evidence of all the historical records, nothing could compare with the unbridled frivolity, madness, and luxury of the French at that time. The last years of the reign of Louis XIV, marked by the strict piety of the court, its pomposity and decorum, had left no traces. The duc d’Orléans, who combined many brilliant qualities with all sorts of vices, did not, unfortunately, possess even a shadow of hypocrisy.5 The orgies in the Palais-Royale were no secret for Paris; the example was contagious. Just then Law appeared;6 greed for money combined with the desire for pleasure and distraction; estates disappeared; morality perished; the French laughed and calculated, and the state was falling apart to the playful refrains of satirical vaudevilles.
Meanwhile, society presented a most interesting picture. Education and the need for amusement brought all conditions together. Wealth, courtesy, fame, talent, eccentricity itself—all that gave food for curiosity or promised pleasure was received with equal benevolence. Literature, learning, and philosophy left their quiet studies and appeared in the circle of high society to oblige fashion and guide its opinions. Women reigned, but no longer demanded adoration. Superficial politeness replaced profound respect. The pranks of the duc de Richelieu, the Alcibiades of the new Athens, belong to history and give an idea of the morals of the time.7
Temps fortuné, marqué par la license,
Où la folie, agitant son grelot,
D’un pied léger parcourt toute la France,
Où nul mortel ne daigne être dévot,
Où l’on fait tout excepté pénitence.*1
Ibrahim’s arrival, his looks, education, and natural intelligence, attracted general attention in Paris. All the ladies wanted to see le Nègre du czar in their salons and tried to be the first to catch him; the regent invited him to his merry evenings more than once; he was present at suppers animated by the youth of Arouet and the old age of Chaulieu, the conversation of Montesquieu and Fontenelle;8 he did not miss a single ball, nor a single fête, nor a single première, and he gave himself to the general whirl with all the ardor of his youth and race. But it was not only the thought of exchanging these diversions, these brilliant amusements, for the stern simplicity of the Petersburg court that horrified Ibrahim. Other stronger bonds tied him to Paris. The young African was in love.
The countess D., no longer in the first bloom of youth, was still famous for her beauty. At the age of seventeen, on leaving the convent,9 she was given in marriage to a man she had had no time to fall in love with and who never bothered about it afterwards. Rumor ascribed lovers to her, but, by the lenient code of society, she enjoyed a good reputation, for it was impossible to reproach her with any ludicrous or scandalous adventure. Her house was the most fashionable. The best Parisian society gathered there. Ibrahim was introduced to her by the young Merville, generally regarded as her latest lover—something he tried to make felt by every means possible.
The countess received Ibrahim courteously, but with no special attention. That flattered him. Ordinarily, the young Negro was looked upon as a wonder, was surrounded, showered with greetings and questions, and this curiosity, though hidden behind an appearance of benevolence, offended his self-esteem. Women’s sweet attention, all but the unique goal of our efforts, not only did not gladden his heart, but even filled it with bitterness and indignation. He felt that for them he was some rare sort of animal, a special, alien creature, accidentally transported to a world that had nothing in common with him. He even envied people whom nobody noticed, regarding their insignificance as happiness.