Gogol, having arrived in St. Petersburg, immediately went to the apartment of Pushkin, whom he idolized. But at the very door he was so intimidated that he ran out into the street - to drink a glass of liquor.
Then he returned and phoned in awe.
- Is the owner at home? - Gogol asked
- They are resting.
And the time was far from early.
“Probably worked all night,” Gogol said reverently.
- How, he worked! - answered the servant. - I played cards!
Poor Nikolai Vasilyevich was killed on the spot …
Promotional video:
Cards whim
No, we, of course, knew that the sun of Russian poetry was a passionate gambler - but not to the same extent! Imagine: in the police list of Moscow gamblers for 1829, 93 persons include, for example: “1. Count Fyodor Tolstoy is a subtle gambler and a planner … 22. Nashchokin is a retired guard officer, a gambler and a brawler … 36. Pushkin is a well-known banker in Moscow … ". Playing the bank, Alexander Sergeevich usually put his hands in his pockets and sang: "Pushkin is a poor man, he has nowhere to take …" Once the poet lost 10 thousand to the rich man Vsevolozhsky, there was nothing to pay, and then Pushkin gave him his first collection of poems, to which there was a subscription - so that he would receive income from it. Fortunately, the publication was delayed, and when the poet suggested that Vsevolozhsky buy the poems back, he acted extremely noble - he gave it away without any money!
Another time, Pushkin met in Moscow the famous card pro Okun-Vaganovsky, lost 30 thousand rubles to him - and then paid in installments all his life. And, repaying the debt, he continued, of course, to play more and more …
And in Moscow, playing big game with Alexander Zagryazhsky and left without a penny, he offered, as a bet, the fifth chapter of Onegin, which he had just completed. Having lost, he put down a couple of pistols - and then he was lucky. I played the chapter of Onegin, and pistols, and earned another fifteen hundred rubles.
Somehow a certain Mr. Poltoratsky put a thousand rubles in banknotes and offered Pushkin to bring in as a return rate Ryleev's letters, which he passionately wanted to get. And Pushkin in the heat of the moment agreed! True, after a few minutes he came to his senses and exclaimed: “What disgusting! Play Ryleev's letters to the bank! I'll give them to you!"
Alexander Sergeevich always played honestly, he did not use cheating tricks even in the most desperate times of lack of money. Once in St. Petersburg, penniless, I walked to my distant relative Obolensky, a professional gambler, to ask for money. Pushkin found him playing at the bank, and a kind relative invited the poet to play with him. They won very big money that night. In the morning, counting out the banknotes to Pushkin, Obolensky grinned: and you didn't even notice that I was playing "probably" (to put it simply, I was cheating). Pushkin got angry, threw the winnings on the table and immediately left.
The strongest of passions
Many times Pushkin vowed never to play again, swore to his wife. But at the very first opportunity that came along, good intentions were scattered to pieces, and until dawn he could not tear himself away from the green field. The poet received huge fees from Smirdin - but they melted away instantly.
He explained to Wolfe his irrepressible love for cards: they say, no game brings so many vivid and varied impressions as a card game, because during the biggest setbacks you hope for greater success. And even with a huge loss, there is always hope, the probability of winning. Therefore, the passion for the game is the strongest of the passions …
The first meeting of two great poets - Pushkin and Mickiewicz - turned out to be strange. It was summer. Pushkin, with his shirt sleeves rolled up, plunged his long nails into a box full of gold, and was seldom mistaken in the quantity that had to be taken each time. And at the same time, he followed the game with big eyes full of passion. The bored Mitskevich took the card, put five rubles on it in banknotes, repeated the bet several times - and went home.
When the Pskov landowner Velikopolsky wrote "Satire on the Players", in which he described the terrible consequences of the gambling game, Pushkin immediately published in the Bulgarin "Northern Bee" "Message to V., the Composer of Satire on Players."
Someone my neighbor
On players like you one day
I wrote an evil satire
And I read it to my friend.
His friend answered him
He took the cards, silently shuffled, Gave a take off, and a moral writer
All night long, alas! ponted.
Do you know this prankster?
Muse under the fly
Secular youth loved to gamble with Pushkin and revel, and he, forgetting himself, indulged in passions, which brought continuous troubles. And the youth of Alexander Sergeevich simply idolized.
Contemporaries animatedly discussed the poet's regular losses. The gendarme general Volkov reported to his chief Benckendorff: “About the poet Pushkin, how much the shortness of time allowed me to make reconnaissance, he was well received in all the houses and, it seems, is not so much engaged in poetry now as playing a card game, and changed Muse to Mukha, who now of all games in great fashion …”When Pushkin played, he did not even react to close friends, he was so excited. It was simply impossible to talk to him at that moment and tear him away from the cards.
“… I hear from the Karamzins complaints about you that you have disappeared for them without a trace, and there is one hum that you are not playing on your stomach, but for death. Is it true? - writes Prince Vyazemsky to Pushkin in 1828. Alas - the truth.
Nikolai Yazykov wrote to his brother three years later: “Between us it will be said that Pushkin came here on business not purely literary, or rather, not for business, but for gambling deals, and was in the most vile society: between the quips, rogues and ripped off … This always happens to him in Moscow. In Petersburg he lives more neatly. Apparently, brother, the saying is wrong - marry - will change!"
The Englishman Thomas Reike, a passionate admirer of Pushkin, was very disappointed to see him, which he honestly wrote: “I met last evening at the Baron Rehansen of the Russian Byron - Pushkin, the famous, at the same time the only poet in this country … I did not notice anything special in this personality and in his manners, his appearance is slovenly, this defect sometimes appears in talented people, and he frankly confesses his addiction to the game; the only noteworthy expression that escaped him during the evening was: "I would rather die than not play."
However, sometimes it was during a card game that the Muse appeared to the sun of Russian poetry.
According to Anna Kern's recollections, Pushkin wrote the poems “As on rainy days” at Prince Golitsyn, while playing the bank, with chalk on his sleeve. And that evening he lost again.
The poet and the crowd of cheats
When Pushkin went to the Caucasus, he was joined by a company of very experienced cheats. They did not cause any damage to Alexander Sergeevich himself, but they won big money from those who, upon hearing about Pushkin's arrival, flocked to him like flies to honey. On this occasion, evil tongues claimed that the poet acted with the sharpers at the same time. Friends of Pushkin fiercely denied the rumors. Meanwhile, the cheaters really could have planned this trip and took advantage of Pushkin's credulity. The calculation is simple: there are a lot of bored rich people in the Caucasus who would not sit down to play with ordinary gamblers, but they will gladly while away the night or two playing with Pushkin and his supposedly friends.
Source: "MYSTERIES OF THE XX CENTURY"