As many friends of A. S. Pushkin noted, the poet was an extremely impressionable person. Perhaps the roots of his faith in various signs were from childhood, because it was his nanny Aritsa Rodionovna who introduced him to Russian fairy tales, folk customs and signs. However, the poet's faith in everything in the supernatural, no doubt, was exacerbated by his visit to the famous fortune-teller Alexandra Filippovna Kirchhoff.
Friends of the poet told the following about Pushkin's visit to the fortune-teller Kirchhoff: "When the fortune-teller saw Pushkin in front of her, she exclaimed:" Oh, you are an important head! " She took the young man's hand and began to speak. At first she said that upon returning home he would find a bag with money on the table, and then she continued: “Soon you will be offered to change the type of service, and then you will be exiled twice. You will enjoy immense popularity among your contemporaries and descendants. At the age of 37, you will be in big trouble because of your wife. Be wary of the white man or white horse. If they do not interfere, then you will live to a ripe old age … ".
Since the first two points of the prediction came true very soon, the poet completely believed everything Kirchhoff said, perhaps it was this case with the fortuneteller that made Pushkin an extremely superstitious person. Alexander Sergeevich was keenly interested in everything supernatural: magnetism, visits to spirits, predictions and omens. He was aware of all the adventures of the famous sorcerer of the 18th century Count Saint-Germain, moreover, he mentions him in his "Queen of Spades". The poet also knew about other famous magicians and sorcerers of the past.
In Pushkin's diary entries there are many entries about various mysterious phenomena. So, in one of them even a poltergeist is mentioned! The poet writes:
“There is a lot of talk in the city about a strange incident: in one of the houses belonging to the department of the court stables, they decided to move and jump; business went to the authorities. Book. V. Dolgorukov dressed up the investigation. One of the officials called for the priest, but during the prayer the chairs and tables did not want to stand still. There are different rumors about this."
All of the poet's friends knew about his belief in various omens, so they condescended to cases when, because of his superstition, Pushkin was often late for meetings. Here is just one such case. Once Pushkin was invited to the village of Apraksino to the Novosiltsevs' estate for the name day of the hostess. Although the poet was supposed to arrive for dinner, he did not appear. They waited for him for a long time, but in the end they decided to sit down at the table without him. When the champagne was uncorked, Alexander Sergeevich appeared. He immediately went up to the birthday girl and knelt in front of her, begging for forgiveness. As Tolycheva (E. V. Novosiltseva) recalled, he said; “Natalya Alekseevna, do not be angry with me: I drove out of the house and was already not far from here when the damned hare ran across the road. After all, you know that I am a holy fool: I returned home, got out of the carriage, and then got into it again and came,so that you rip me out by the ears."
As you know, there is a sign that a hare crossing the road brings misfortune. It is curious, but once the same hare running across the road actually saved the poet. It happened just before the Decembrist uprising. Having learned about the death of Alexander I, the poet, who was in exile in Mikhailovskoye, decided that due to the confusion around the throne, his short absence to St. Petersburg would pass without consequences. He wanted to visit his friends, among whom there were many future Decembrists. First of all, Pushkin was going to visit Ryleev …
During his trip to Trigorskoye, in order to say goodbye to the neighbors, hares once ran across the road in front of him both on the way there and on the way back. Whether this "harbinger of misfortune" was one and the same eared creature or whether the hares were different is not so important, the main thing is that these "defectors" made the poet think about it. However, this time Pushkin nevertheless decided to set off, but his servant suddenly fell ill.
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He also neglects this sign, takes another with him on the road, and then his carriage collides with the priest on the road (there is an old omen that an unexpected meeting with a priest does not bode well for the traveler). This meeting finally defeated the superstitious Pushkin, he orders to turn the cart and remains in the village. Needless to say, if Pushkin were in St. Petersburg at that time, he would certainly have got to Senate Square. It is not hard to imagine that participation in the uprising would end for the poet at best with hard labor or long-term exile to Siberia.
This incident helped to strengthen Pushkin's faith in omens. As Nashchokin's wife recalled: “At Pushkin there was a great multitude of people who would come. Often, getting ready to go on some urgent matter, he ordered to unharness the troika already given to the entrance, and postponed the necessary trip just because someone from the household or servants handed him some forgotten thing like a handkerchief. hours, etc. In these cases, he did not take a step out of the house until those days, until, in his opinion, a certain period of time had passed, beyond which the omen had lost its force …”.
The wedding with Natalya Gotscharova became a real torment for such a superstitious person as Pushchkin was. As V. A. Dolgorukova, “during the wedding, the cross and the Gospel accidentally fell from the lectern when the young were walking around. Pushkin turned pale from this. Then his candle went out. “All bad omens,” said Pushkin.”In addition, according to other sources, during the exchange of rings, Pushkin's ring fell on the carpet …
Alas, the fortuneteller Kirchhoff's prediction came true, and the omens at the wedding “spoke” the truth … There is an opinion that, blindly believing in predictions, omens, a person seems to be programming his future, it is possible that the words of Kirchhoff had a very negative impact on fate Pushkin and led to his early death.
Can such a belief in omens and predictions be considered a certain oddity in the poet's behavior? In my opinion, this question can be answered in the affirmative. Suppose a black cat crosses your path, and instead of going to work, you return home and sit there all day … It is unlikely that your boss will consider you a normal person after that, and Pushkin practically did the same. This already looks like a real phobia.
However, Pushkin is credited with another oddity - the love of shooting in the bathhouse. They say; that the wall he fired at is still intact. To be honest, I don't see anything particularly anomalous in turning the bath into a shooting gallery, in our time it seems strange, but then there was nothing supernatural about it. But if they believed some psychiatrists, apparently adherents of Lombroso's theory of the connection between genius and madness, A. S. Pushkin was almost their “client”.
Doctors remember his "hypersexuality", "sharp instability of the psyche", a pronounced cyclical change in moods. There are also supposed diagnoses - schizophrenia and manic-depressive psychosis, A milder diagnosis - cycloid psychopathy … Let's leave these diagnoses on the conscience of the doctors, I wonder what diagnoses they would make to each other? …