Последняя квартира А. С. Пушкина - Автор Неизвестен Страница 2

Гостиная

Drawing-room

Будуар Н. Н. Пушкиной

Natalya Nikolaevna's boudoir

Столовая

Dining-room

Буфетная комната

Pantry

Жилет А. С. Пушкина, в котором он стрелялся на дуэли, свеча с отпевания тела А. С. Пушкина и перчатка П. А. Вяземского. В записке П. А. Вяземского, вложенной в витрину, сказано: «Для хранения в Остафьево. Жилет Александра Сергеича Пушкина, в котором он дрался 27 января 1837 года, свеча с отпевания его. Перчатка моя - другая перчатка была также брошена в гроб его Жуковским. Александр Тургенев был отправлен с гробом".

The waistcoat Pushkin wore in duel fighting, a candle from Pushkin's body burial service and P. Viasemsky's glove. P. Via-semsky's note in the show-case reads as follows: "To be handed over for keeping in Ostafievo. The waistcoat Alexander Sergee-vich Pushkin wore in fighting the duel on January 27, 1837, a candle from his burial service. The glove is mine-the other one was put in his coffin by Zhukovsky. Alexander Turgenev escorted the coffin".

Каминные часы в кабинете Пушкина. 2 часа 45 минут дня-время смерти поэта

Mantelpiece-clock in Pushkin's study 2: 45 p. m.-Pushkin died at this time

Посмертная маска А. С. Пушкина, снятая скульптором С. Гальбергом 29 января 1837 г.

Pushkin's deathmask moulded by sculptor S. Gal-berg on January 29, 1837

Медальон с прядью волос Пушкина. При нем записка писателя И. С. Тургенева: „Клочок волос Пушкина был срезан при мне с головы покойника его камердинером 30 января 1837 года на другой день после кончины".

A medallion with Pushkin's lock. The accompanying note by the writer I. Turgenev reads: „This lock of Pushkin was cut from the head of the deceased by his valet in my presence on January 30, 1837, the day after his death."

The "Pushkin's last apartment" museum in House No. 12 on the Moika quay in Leningrad is a branch of the Pushkin АН-Union museum. The Pushkin apartment museum was opened to visitors in 1925, its furnishings and layout being based on the recollections of the poet's contemporaries about his last residence and on a plan sketch drawn by V. Zhukovsky in 1837. The museum exhibition includes seven rooms - pantry, dining-room, drawing-room, bedroom, nursery, antechamber and Pushkin's study.

"Here is my address: Princess Volkonskaya's house on the Moika quay near to the Konyushenny bridge", Pushkin wrote to his father in the autumn of 1836. But only a few months later this address was to become known all over St. Petersburg. On January 29, 1837 at 2:45 p. m., Pushkin's friends stopped the clock in the study of his apartment - the poet breathed his last. In those January days of 1837 thousands of people came to the house on the Moika quay to pay their last tribute to Pushkin. One did not have to explain the address, it was all clear from a hint. According to contemporaries, cabmen knew where to drive when simply told: "To Pishkin".

Pushkin's last apartment… It had witnessed the most difficult, cruel months of his life and struggle for "independence and selfrespect", ending in the duel with D'Anthes, and those forty six hours that followed it, the last hours of a man who was mortally wounded and knew he was dying - the hours of great suffering and great courage.

Today the rooms in Pushkin's last apartment have been restored to their former appearance as remembered by the poet's friends and contemporaries. The suite of rooms comprises the bright-side quarters - dining-room, drawing-room, bedroom- overlooking the Moika quay, and the study and the nursery with their windows facing the court. All are adjacent rooms giving access to one another where, one may guess, Pushkin was bereft of the quiet so necessary to him for work.

Among these rooms the poet's study is of special value and interest. Its furnishings and objects are Pushkin's things that accompanied him tiiroughout his lifetime - a low desk at the sofa side for writing in a reclining posture, a Voltaire mechanical arm-chair (twilight would fall early in those winter days, one could bring the arm-chair closer to the window and go on working like that); a writing table standing almost in the middle of the room - large, comfortable, with telescopic boards on both sides which could be drawn out to put the necessary books and papers within easy reach; Pushkin's canes reminding of his walks; an Arzrum sabre on the wall; a travelling coffer that had once belonged to Pushkin's great-grandfather A. P. Gannibal, and a portrait of V. Zhukov-sky bearing an inscription: "To victorious pupil from vanquished teacher". In this study in the apartment on the Moika quay the poet prepared new books for the magazine "Sovremennik" ("The Contemporary"), completed his novel "The Captain's Daughter" and a preparatory test of "A history of Peter I" - the most important work he had done in those last months despite humiliation, insults and nagging sorrows that assailed his heart. Just on the eve of the duel, in the morning of January 27, Pushkin wrote a letter to a children's writer A. Ishimova. It ends with the words: "Today I chanced to open your "History in short-stories" and against my will I became engrossed in reading. This is the way one must write!" This is Pushkin's last letter - "a relic of the striking power с I moral courage".

Two weeks after the death of Pushkin his belongings and books were taken out of the apartment on the Moika quay and his family left St. Petersburg. New people moved in. A year later they celebrated here the wedding of the daughter of Benkendorf, the Chief of the Gendarmerie Corps. At the beginning of the 20th century the apartment on the Moika quay was assigned for stationing the Secret Political Police department.

It is after the October Revolution that in the house on the Moika quay amidst its frequently changed interior walls Pushkin's last apartment came back into existence, reviving the atmosphere which had reigned here in his living time nearly a century ago. After so many years of absence his belongings were returning home.