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cards, and dinners, “although he could not tell a
mountain horse from the Arabian, never remembered what
was trumps, and, at heart, preferred fried potatoes to all
the dishes of the French cook” (“Egyptian Nights”).
In spite of all his dissipations, in 1820 he published
his first poem, “Ruslan and Liudmila,” which made
an unusual sensation, although this fairy tale in verse,
founded on a Russian legend, reminds one of Ariosto, of
Wieland, and of Zhukovski, and has no other originality
than that which depends on great skill in story-telling
and careful composition. The poem passed for pure
romance; it was interesting from a certain archness
in its tone and a strong sensuousness in its color, but
was otherwise without any psychological interest.
At this time, Pushkin fell into disgrace for the first
time. As a young man, he had been a political revolutionary
poet. An ode written by him, “To the Dagger,”
was sung in all the garrision towns of Russia, but
probably without knowledge of the author’s name. He
detested the despotism which they were compelled to
endure at the close of the reign of Alexander I., hated
the idiotic censorship, which then weighed heavily upon
poetry, and the rough rule of the police, to whose
arbitrariness the young men beheld their welfare intrusted;
and, witty as he was and with cutting sarcasm, he pierced
the ruling persons and prevailing conditions with
epigrams which circulated through the land. In 1820
the Governor-General of St. Petersburg complained of
him to the Tsar for an “Ode to Freedom;” but
Alexander read it without indignation, and only asked the
young poet to let all his other manuscripts be laid
before him. Unfortunately, among them there was a
lampoon of the Tsar’s favorite, Arakcheyef; and,
indignant at this scornful treatment of a man whom he had
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