3 Lacunae and Implied Psychology in Aleksandr Puškin’s Belkin Tales

Around the mid-1820s the Russian poet Aleksandr Puškin “descended” to prose. The transition from poetry to prose is evidenced in fragments in which the project of a psychological novel can be seen, a genre not yet present in Russia. The model Puškin had in mind for his own experiments was neither Samuel Richardson’s epistolary novels nor Jean-Jacque Rousseau’s Julie, or the New Heloise (Julie ou la Nouvelle Héloïse), although he often mentioned the heroes of the former in his works and alluded to the latter in “The Snowstorm” (“Metel’,” 1831). Puškin was actually inspired by the novel Adolphe. This novel by the Swiss writer, politician, and state theorist Henri-Benjamin Constant de Rebecque, written in 1806 but only published in 1816, was so popular in Russia that it was available in two translations. The first was published in 1818 and was done by Nikolaj Polevoj; the second was done by Puškin’s friend Pëtr Vjazemskij and was published in 1831 with a foreword in which Puškin was involved.

Why did Puškin remain dissatisfied with his own experiments in psychological prose? The omniscient, intelligent narrators of the fragments reveal too quickly and too explicitly the complex psyches of their heroes (cf. Debreczeny 1983, 49). Dissatisfied with the explicitness of Constant’s psychological portrayals, Puškin took a different path in his first complete prose work, the cycle Tales of the Late Ivan Petrovič Belkin (Povesti pokojnogo Ivana Petroviča Belkina, 1831). The way to his first completed prose work can be described as a path from the explication to implication, as a turn away from the explicit representation of the soul à la Constant to the creation of an implicative, indexical psychology – to what can be called a psychologia in absentia.

How is consciousness implied in the texts of the Belkin cycle that seem at first glance to be purely anecdotal and non-psychological? The narrated stories are highly selective in relation to the happenings implied in them. Only a few elements of the plot to be told are selected, and they have only a few qualities. The reduction of the action to relatively few story-forming moments is a necessary act of any narrative, but the selectivity of the Belkin Tales is of a special kind because moments of considerable relevance are not depicted but implied. Thus, in the five tales, the motives of the heroes are not explicated. Why does Sil’vio not shoot at the count, why does he not shoot him? (“The Shot”; “Vystrel”)? Is it just coincidence or providence that those who, without knowing it, are already married fall in love with each other (“The Snowstorm”)? Why does the hero of “The Coffin-Maker” (“Grobovščik”) invite the “Orthodox dead” to his housewarming party, and why does he, awakening from his nightmare, apparently for the first time call his daughters, whom he otherwise scolds, to drink tea together with him? Finally, why does Aleksej propose marriage to Akulina, remarkably receptive to his instruction as she is, even though he must be aware of the unbridgeable social divide that exists between him, the landowner’s son, and her, the poor peasant girl (“The Noblewoman-Peasant”; “Baryšnja-krest’janka”)?

Even the least puzzling of the five tales, “The Station Supervisor” (“Stancionnyj smotritel’”), contains so many lacunae that it provokes questions about the motivations of the characters and thus about the causality of their story. Why did Dunja weep during the whole journey from the station to St. Petersburg even though, as the coachman testifies, she apparently went there with Minskij “of her own free will”? Why does Samson Vyrin not follow his biblical counterpart and remain at home trusting in the return of the “lost daughter,” in the manner of the father in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, which is depicted in the station supervisor’s room? Why does Vyrin, who hurried to Petersburg as a “good shepherd,” suddenly give up all attempts to bring his “lost sheep” home? And finally – why does he drink himself to death (cf. Schmid 1991; 2008)?

3.1 Why Is Sil’vio Late?

In “The Shot,” a young man tells of the two parts of a duel that are separated by an interval of six years. The narrator recounts encounters with the two duelists, each of whom tells him the story of a different phase of a duel, in separate chapters. The two chapters each contain two episodes from different points in time in different perspectives (as reported by the primary narrator and by the two protagonists, who act as secondary narrators). This results in four episodes that are equivalent in content, form, and position:

In episode 1, the narrated self is a young infantry officer. The monotonous life in the garrison is relieved only by the presence of a retired hussar who, at thirty-five, is about twice as old as the young officers around him and who stimulates the young officers’ imagination with puzzling contradictions: there is “something mysterious about him” (65).1 He appears to be Russian but bears a foreign name (Sil’vio); he leads “an existence at once frugal and prodigal”; he goes everywhere on foot, in a worn-out black coat, but the officers of the regiment are always welcome at his table; the meals consist of only two or three dishes, but the champagne flows freely. His “habitual sullenness, acrimonious temper, and sharp tongue” make a strong impression on the young minds of the officers. The figure, built up from enigmatic antitheses, recalls a number of Romantic heroes, especially from the works of Lord Byron and Aleksandr Bestužev-Marlinskij. The narrator, however, uses a variety of means to emphasize the distance that he, as the narrating self, has gained from the assessments of his then inexperienced, naive narrated self. “Endowed with a romantic imagination by nature, I had been his greatest admirer […], for the life of this man was an enigma, and he himself had struck me as the hero of some mysterious story” (66).

From this, one can draw the following conclusions: on the one hand, Sil’vio’s Romantic being owes itself to the projection and construction of the narrated self; but on the other hand, Sil’vio, who is presented as a reader of novels, himself seems to participate in the creation of a novelistic aura and to stylize his life according to Byronic stereotypes. What attracts the civilian retiree to the circle of young officers serving in the barren garrison if not the resonance that his existentialization of literary patterns finds among the well-read but inexperienced young men?

One incident, however, threatens the Romantic aura of the master marksman. Offended by someone during a card game, he fails to challenge him to the duel expected by everyone, which lowers him in the opinion of the young officers for a time. The Romantically inclined narrator, who is more closely attached to him than the others, remains disappointed. Sil’vio explains that he forwent the duel, in which his life would be little endangered, because of a slap in the face that he received six years earlier and has yet to avenge: he must not expose his life to the slightest danger in case it prevents him from doing so.

In his account (which is part of episode 1 but relates to episode 2), Sil’vio tells about the first part of the duel. In his active hussar days, his preeminence among his comrades, who idolized him, was shaken by a young, rich count who joined his regiment. This lucky fellow was superior to him in all hussar virtues. The envious Sil’vio provoked a duel. The count drew the first shot, and he shot through Sil’vio’s bonnet de police, which the latter has put on and keeps on his head while giving his account. Sil’vio, who had already declined to shoot first for fear of an unsteady hand, was so enraged by the indifference of the count, who, eating cherries, spit the pits out toward him, that he refrained...