- Yes. There was an arrangement to not tell anything to anybody, not only the members of Synod. He and me kept the promise. Only after the duel in his farewell letter the emperor with one phrase made clear to me, that he remembered about our 4-hours conversation in September 8, 1826 in Nikolaevskiy palace.
- “I am asking you only one thing: die as Christian” – this phrase?
- Yes!? And how did you guess?
- Nun, this in our time of materialistic atheism was not complicated. By whom could a nobleman go to next world in orthodox power? By Muslim? By Jew? By Buddhist? Namely by elimination method. After that it was possible to restore the content of your conversation with emperor.
- How is it possible?
- It is reliably known only the answer of emperor to the question of the State Secretary count Bludov regarding this conversation: “I spoke today with the cleverest man of Russia”.
- And what does it give?
- If you will use dialectics as the art of learning truth by means of setting thought-provoking questions, then many things can be clear. The difficulty in this art is to formulate a question which is adequate to the situation.
- And what question would you ask?
- What something unusual could tell 27 years old Pushkin to 30 years old emperor? After what, he in the presence of all court gave so high estimate to exiled poet? – this is at output.
- And what is at input?
- What did researched Pushkin in Mikhaylovskoye before he met the emperor in Moscow?
- It is known, the history of rising and death of Ptolemy’s dynasty in ancient Egypt. But what does this give for you?
- In the deeply rooted history of this dynasty there is another one inside, which is more short, but very important. The history of relation between Ptolemy II Philadelphus and a poet of Alexandria epoch – Callimachus. At the moment, when his father Ptolemy I Soter dead, the son was at 30 years old, whom after father’s death possessed completely whole power. And now we come to the question: why Ptolemy Phyladelphus kicked away from Alexandria his mentor Demetrius of Phalerum and instead of him invited a lyceum teacher Callimachus from Eleusis, a suburb of Alexandria? It is known that Demetrius of Phalerum began collect manuscripts for famous Alexandria library. In addition, at his time was started translation of Judaic Torah to Greek language – five Books of Moses. What was the guilt of Demetrius before younger Ptolemy? Or in other words: why did he prefer Callimachus instead of Demetrius? And what was interested Pushkin in this mysterious history? Could it be, that both Callimachus and king Philadelphus were at thirty years old, but Pushkin and recently ascended the throne of Russia Empire Nikolay were 27 and 30 correspondingly? Or something else?
- Of course, something else.
- What?
- Something that binds “The Gabrieliad” and “The Prophet” with poetry of Callimachus.
- Is it indeed the hymn of Callimachus “Bath of Pallas”? And you answered to the hymn of Alexandrian epoch with such words: “What are the cunning, malice, word, deepness! How even powerful is crash of your ideas! And eternal new bath of Virgin! – Callimachus!”
- Nun, this is unsuccessful imitation to Callimachus, first attempt of writing, it was not published anywhere with me. Where have you found this?
- In Switzerland, from biographer of your second Danzas – Anatoliy Livri.
- May be, may be, - in deep thinking said Pushkin. Maybe you remember that in this hymn Athena calmed her friend - mother of Tiresias, whom she made blind by verdict of Zeus: “I will create from he a prophet, venerable among descendants, and without comparison others he will exceed by him”.
The Gray-headed man some time looked at guest by keeping silence, but his head was full of thoughts and questions.
- That why in “The Gabrieliad”: “I don’ need a great rank of prophet”? Thus, Tiresias had lost his gift of sight, but instead of that he had got a gift of prophecy. I am of course not Tiresias, but when I was 14 years old I tried to read out loud the “The Prophet”. But suddenly I had left my speechless. And a shock which I had that time was the same shock as Tiresias had. The gift of speechless came back but the “Puzzle of prophet” had left, which haunts me about half of century. The guest as if he has heart these thoughts of Gray-headed man and interrupted them with question.
- And what is the source of concern in “The Prophet”?
- Well, consider this: the poem I know, the teacher asks me read “The Prophet”, and I can’t spell a word. How it is possible? If he gave me grade two (one of the lowest grades) then I could forget about this episode. But he invited me in teacher’s room and said me that for ten years of teaching he at first time met with person who can’t read out loud “The Prophet”. And I remind myself, that by giving a task to learn by heart, he was at the same situation, he couldn’t read your poem. And as reader he was very excellent, particularly good he read by heart your poems. So, I understood that I am not the only who couldn’t read out loud “The Prophet” because of some unclear reasons. To read to myself – no problem.
- And, now can you?
- Yes, I can, because I found the words, which then paralyzed my tongue.
- Interestingly, what kind of words they are? Can you say loud them now?
- Yes, I can. God address to prophet: Fulfill yourself by my will!
- And what is dangerous in these words by your opinion?
- At 14 years old I couldn’t know that, what I know today. However, I suppose, in that September evening, 1826 you knew this. Among all species on the Earth God gave a freedom of chose and possibility to get a freedom of will only to one species - Homo sapiens. You may understand, that freedom of chose without freedom of will is nothing. Once given such possibility to human, He could not take it back. And you had finished “The Prophet” with these words in purpose that in the future, when people of Russia become literate and will read your “The Prophet”, somebody will stumble on these words, he will not be able to out loud say them and will think “What is a problem?” It is as if you accomplished the ask of emperor and did not recede from your own opinion to religion?
- I can’t say that I thought about this. I remember that near my bed on the nightstand lay Bible in French. I opened it and occasionally had got 6th chapter of prophet Isaiah. I read it one time, another time and wrote “The Prophet”.
- As for “The Prophet” our philologists had great debates.