Having learned from the grandmother, - she was with the guests, - about Michel's disease, he has hurried to visit about him and has entered unexpectedly his room, minutes ten after Nikolay Fedorovich Arendt's departure. S. highly appreciated Lermontov's verses on the death of Pushkin. But only he said that in vain Michel, extolling the poet, has attached too strong significance to involuntary murderer. He as any noble person, after the fact that was between them, couldn't but to participate in a duel and but to shoot. "The honor obliges"!
Lermontov didn't want to hear it. He, grasping a sheet of paper, something quickly on it scrabbled by a pencil, breaking pencils one after another and and having damaged so with a half-dozen. The anger of him didn't know limits. He has angrily looked at S. and has thrown to him: "You, the sir, Pushkin's antipode, and I am not responsible for anything if you now don't leave from here". S. haven't forced itself to invite to an exit twice. And he left quickly, having told only: "But he just mad".
A quarter of hour later, Lermontov who has damaged so many pencils in time when here was S., and then was writing absolutely quietly clean off, have read me those verses with the first words: "And you, haughty descendants!" ['And you, the offspring arrogant'], - the verses in which there were such a lot of force.
And two or three days later almost all St. Petersburg read and knew "addition" to Lermontov's verses on the death of Pushkin. When the old woman the grandmother has learned about these verses, she tried in every way somehow as if it were false bank notes to withdraw them from the public circulation; but it was resolutely impossible: they extended with speed, and soon they were read already by all the Moscow where old men and old women, mainly in the Tverskaya street, declared them purely revolutionary and dangerous. Also the count von Benckendorff has read them ...
- Though we, the youth, didn't know properly, and there was nobody to explain: about whom it was talked in the stanza: "And you, by greedy crowd standing near a throne", etc., but after all we worried, came in a deep indignation ( - in relation to someone), we flared heartily, filled with heroic enthusiasm, ready, perhaps, on anything, - so the force of the Lermontov's verses raised us. The heat burning in these verses was so infectious. Hardly sometime in Russia verses made such enormous and universal impression. Unless 20 years earlier the "Woe from Wit", - V.V. Stasov, one of participants of excursion group, has spoken.
- To these verses it was necessary to treat as a poetic flash. I have told the chief of staff of the Corps of Gendarmes, general Dubelt: "The best not to pay any attention to similar thoughtless tricks: and their glory will fade soon. if we will begin to prosecution and their prohibition, will be nothing of good, and we will only inflate a flame of passions", - the portrait of the count Alexander von Benckendorff, the Chief of Gendarmes and Director of the Third Section has spoken.
- These verses, - V.P. Burnashev continued, - even the grand duke Michael Pavlovich read and have only told laughing: "Eh, as he accelerated! Who will think that he doesn't belong to the highest noble childbirth?"
Even we were reached by rumors, that the grand duke, at a meeting with von Benckendorff, has whispered to him, that this "nonsense" (as he has said), hasn't to reach attention of the sovereign of the emperor.
In a word, these verses, rewritten and learned by all everywhere, in the highest spheres were considered as childish flash, and in public, though isn't loud, but admitted for the ingenious literary work. The sovereign knew nothing about them, because the count von Benckendorff didn't attach significance to those verses.
- Perhaps, the Emperor Nicholas I also didn't wish to excess a noise? - someone from participants of an excursion has expressed doubts. - On January 27, 1837, O.S. the duel on the Chernaya River has taken place. On January 29, 1837, O.S. Pushkin has died. On February 3, 1837 , O.S. the coffin with Pushkin's body has been sent to Pskov. On February 6, 1837, O.S. Pushkin's body has been buried.
Lermontov has written "The first part" of the well-known poem on January 28, 1837, O.S.
"Addition" has been written after the visit of the physician Nikolay Fedorovich Arendt, after January 29, 1837, O.S. . therefore, "the first part", at least, of the well-known poem has been written even before burial of a body of Pushkin.
- However, - V.P. Burnashev kept logic, - these days the reception from the count F. has taken place, where there was also a count von Benckendorff among guests. Suddenly the famous St. Petersburg talker and, what is her names the "Leprosy of society", the street vendor of news and lampoons on all city, approaches to him,and this intolerable the source of news suddenly says:
"And you, truly, know, the count, new verses on all of us and in which the best representatives of the nobility are negatively characterized?"
- "About what verses you speak, the madam?" - the count von Benckendorff asks. - "Yes about those which were written by the hussar Lermontov and which began with the words "And you, haughty descendants!". - it is clear that it the words about all of us, all Russian aristocracy". von Benckendorff has dexterously channelized a conversation immediately to another direction and tried to evade from the interlocutor ...
However after this conversation, count von Benckendorff for next day, before the departure with the report to the sovereign to the emperor, has told Dubelt: "Well, Leonti Vasilyevich, what will be, it will be. And after the fact that H[itrova] knows about verses of this boy Lermontov, I may do nothing else as now to report on them to the sovereign".
- I came to the Emperor and began to talk about these verses in the soothing tone, - count Alexander von Benckendorffspoke from a portrait, - the Emperor showed me a copy of them, delivered by city mail, with a vile inscription: "The Appeal to the revolution".
- They did additional actions for reliability! - the comment from group of visitors of an exhibition was heard. - Svyatoslav Rayevsky's explanation has dated On February 21, 1837, O.S. . At this time Lermontov was under the house arrest. Between date of death of Pushkin and the beginning of "The administrative case concerning the unsuitable verses written by Lermontov and the distribution of this verses by Rayevsky" there have passed about three weeks.
In general, the interesting impression arises: there is no clarity with exact dating of many events.
The "official" version looks as follows: On February 7, 1837 Lermontov has written final 16 verses ("And you, haughty descendants..."). On February 18, 1837 Lermontov has been arrested and placed in one of rooms of the top floor of General staff.
However to archival documents P.E. Shchegolev had access. In his work 'Книга о Лермонтове' ("The Book about Lermontov") dates look less definitely:
1837. January 27. A.S. Pushkin is mortally wounded on a duel with d'Anthes.
1837. January 28. Lermontov writes the poem about the Pushkin's death ("The death of the poet"). [?]
1837. January 30. V.P. Burnashev in "Wolf's candy store" writes off the S.N. Glinka's the copy of the poem by Lermontov on the death of Pushkin.