Russia in 1839 -Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia

THE POET POUSKINE.83

" Yet it is difficult to change the spirit of a people: it is the work neither of a day, nor of a reign."

" Is it a work at which they sincerely labour ? "

" I think so, but with prudence."

" What you call prudence, I call insincerity: you do not know the emperor."

" Reproach him with being inflexible, but not with being false: in a prince, inflexibility is often a virtue."

" Do you believe the character of the emperor to be sincere ? Remember his conduct at the death of Pouskine."

" I do not know the circumstances of that event."

Thus talking, we arrived at the Champ de Mars, a vast square which appears a desert, though it occupies the middle of the city. A man may converse there with less danger of being overheard than in hit-chamber. My cicerone continued : —

" Pouskine was, as you are aware, the greatest poet of Russia."

" We are no judges of that."

" We are, at least, of his reputation. Whether well founded or not, his reputation was great. He was yet young, and of an irascible temper. You know he had Moorish blood on his mother's side. His wife, a very handsome woman, inspired him with more passion than confidence. His poetical temperament and his African blood, made him easily jealous : and it was thus that, exasperated by appearances and by false reports envenomed with a perfidy which calls to mind the conception of Shakspeare, this Russian Othello lost all reason, and sought to foi`ce the man by whom he believed himself injured, to E 6