Novels, Tales, Journeys

8. the Herald of Europe: A biweekly journal published in Petersburg from 1802 to 1830. It began in a liberal spirit but turned more and more conservative, consistently attacking Pushkin’s work, especially in the jeering personal critiques by Nikolai Ivanovich Nadezhdin (1804–1856) of the long poems Poltava and Count Nulin.

9. Fornarina…tableaux vivants: The Portrait of a Young Woman (1518–1520), by Raphael (1483–1520), known as La Fornarina (“The Baker Woman”), is said to be the portrait of the artist’s Roman mistress, Margherita Luti, who appears in several of his paintings. The parlor game of tableaux vivants (“living pictures”), in which live people would simulate famous paintings, was popular in the nineteenth century.

10. Minin…Pozharsky: In 1818 a bronze sculpture was set up on Moscow’s Red Square to commemorate Prince Dmitry Pozharsky and the merchant Kozma Minin (see note 8 to Roslavlev).

11. collegiate assessor: See note 43 to Journey to Arzrum.

12. La Bruyère: Jean de La Bruyère (1645–1696), moralist and philosopher, is known essentially for one book, Les Caractères (1688), a collection of portraits forming a chronicle of the French seventeeth century and its mores, written with a sylistic sharpness and perfection that has served as a model ever since its publication, not least for Pushkin himself.

13. Fonvizin…Prostakovs and Skotinins: For Fonvizin, see note 1 to The Tales of the Late Ivan Petrovich Belkin. The names Prostakov and Skotinin, while perfectly normal in Russian, are suggestive of simple-mindedness and brutishness respectively.

14. “And that’s…patriots”: From act 2, scene 5 of Griboedov’s Woe from Wit (see note 7 to “The Blizzard”).

15. The first line refers to Pierre Terrail, the Chevalier Bayard (1475–1524), called by one of his fellow soldiers le bon chevalier sans peur et sans reproche, an embodiment of French chivalric ideals. The second line is from the device of Enguerrand III de Coucy (1182–1242) and his descendants. The full version reads Je ne suis roy, ne prince, ne comte aussi, / Je suis le sire de Coucy.

16. Faublas…women: The Loves of the Chevalier de Faublas (1787) was the first of a trilogy of novels about Faublas by Jean-Batiste Louvet de Couvrai (1760–1797), journalist, novelist, playwright, and revolutionary activist.

17. hoarse-voiced guardsman of 1807: According to Vyazemsky (see note 1 to “The Stationmaster”), the boastfulness and haughtiness of young Russian officers were combined with an affected huskiness of voice, a practice that began in 1807, the year of Napoleon’s war with East Prussia, which ended with the treaty of Tilsit. Another explanation attributes the huskiness to the wearing of extremely tight-waisted uniforms.

18. Adam Smith: Scottish philosopher and economist (1723–1790). His book The Wealth of Nations (1776), setting forth the free market theory, was and remains a fundamental work in modern political economics.

Notes of a Young Man (1829–1830)

1. the prodigal son: See note 4 to “The Stationmaster.”

My Fate Is Decided. I Am Getting Married…(1830)

1. “My native land, adieu”: The words (in English) are an inexact quotation of an inserted lyric from canto 1, stanza 13, of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (1812–1818), a long poem by Lord Byron: “Adieu, adieu! my native shore / Fades o’er the waters blue […] / My Native Land—Good Night!”

2. Mlle Sont The soprano Henriette Sontag (1806–1854), born in Koblenz, Germany, made her début in 1821 and went on to become internationally famous.

A Romance at the Caucasian Waters (1831)

1. Boston: Already referred to in previous stories, Boston is a card game similar to whist, which became very popular in Europe during the later eighteenth century. It was probably named after the capital of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, birthplace of the American Revolution. At any rate, the game was not played by the British.

2. Bukharans: The Bukharans were inhabitants of the Muslim khanate of Bukhara, in the region of Uzbekistan, at that time a Russian protectorate.

3. from Basmannaya to the Arbat: At that time, Basmannaya Street and the Arbat were on opposite sides of Moscow.

A Russian Pelham (1834–1835)

1. Pelham: Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803–1873), English writer and parliamentarian, published his best-selling novel Pelham: or the Adventures of a Gentleman in 1828.