“Bronze Horseman” by Pushkin in brief
“On the shore of the desert waves” of the Neva is Peter and thinks of the city that will be built here and which will become Russia’s window to Europe. A hundred years have passed, and the city “from the darkness of the forests, out of the marshland / blossomed magnificently, proudly.” Peter’s creation is beautiful, this is the triumph of harmony and light, which has replaced chaos and darkness.
November in Petersburg breathed a cold, Neva splashed and rustled. Late in the evening he returns home to his cottage in the poor district of Petersburg, called Kolomna, a small official named Eugene. Once his family was noble, but now even the memory of this has worn off, and Eugene himself is being beaten by noble people. He lies down, but can not fall asleep, amused by his thoughts about his situation, that bridges have been removed from the incoming river and that it will separate him for two or three days from his beloved Parasha living on the other
“Reddens the darkness of the rainy night / And the pale day is already coming…” The tiring day brings a terrible misfortune. Neva, not having overcome the force of the wind, barred her way to the bay, poured into the city and flooded it. The weather raged more and more, and soon the whole of Petersburg was under water. The raging waves behave like soldiers of the enemy army, which took the city by storm. The people see this as God’s wrath and awaits execution. The tsar who ruled Russia that year, goes to the balcony of the palace and says that “with God’s elements / Tsars can not master”.
At this time, on the Petrovskaya square, a motionless Eugene sits motionless on the marble statue of a lion at the porch of a new luxury house, without feeling the wind pulling off his hat, as the rising water soaks his soles, like rain gushing into his face.
But at last the Neva entered the banks, the water was asleep, and Eugene, dying of his soul, hurried to the river, found a boatman and crossed to the other shore. He runs down the street and can not recognize familiar places. Everything is destroyed by flooding, everything is like a battlefield, bodies are lying around. Eugene hurries to where the familiar house stood, but does not find it. He sees a willow growing at the gate, but there are no gates. Unable to endure the upheavals, Eugene laughed, losing his mind.
A new day, rising over St. Petersburg, no longer finds traces of the previous devastation, everything is put in order, the city has begun to live its usual life. Only Eugene could not resist the upheavals. He wanders through the city, full of gloomy doom, and in his ears the noise of a storm is heard all the time. So in wanderings he spends a week, a month, wanders, eats alms, sleeps on the pier. Evil children throw stones after him, and the coachmen whip, but it seems he does not notice anything. He is still deafened by inner anxiety. Once closer to the fall, in inclement weather, Eugene wakes up and vividly remembers last year’s horror. He gets up, hurries and suddenly sees a house, in front of which there are marble statues of lions with raised paws, and “above the enclosed rock” on the bronze horse sits a rider with an outstretched hand. Eugene’s thoughts suddenly clear up, he will recognize this place and that “whose will is fatal / Under the sea the city was founded…”. Eugene goes around the foot of the monument, wildly looking at the statue, he feels extraordinary excitement and anger and threatens the monument in anger, but suddenly it seemed to him that the face of the terrible tsar turns to him, and in his eyes the anger flashes, and Eugene rushes away, hearing for a heavy hoof of brass hooves. And all night the unfortunate rushes through the city and it seems to him that the rider with heavy tramping jumps after him everywhere. And from that time, if it happened to him to pass through the square on which the statue stands, he embarrassedly took off his cap and pressed his hand to his heart, as if asking for forgiveness from a formidable idol. he feels extraordinary excitement and anger and in anger threatens the monument, but suddenly he thought that the face of the terrible king turns to him, and in his eyes sparkles anger, and Eugene rushes away, hearing behind him the heavy tramping of copper hoofs. And all night the unfortunate rushes through the city and it seems to him that the rider with heavy tramping jumps after him everywhere. And from that time, if it happened to him to pass through the square on which the statue stands, he embarrassedly took off his cap and pressed his hand to his heart, as if asking for forgiveness from a formidable idol. he feels extraordinary excitement and anger and in anger threatens the monument, but suddenly he thought that the face of the terrible king turns to him, and in his eyes sparkles anger, and Eugene rushes away, hearing behind him the heavy tramping of copper hoofs. And all night the unfortunate rushes through the city and it seems to him that the rider with heavy tramping jumps after him everywhere. And from that time, if it happened to him to pass through the square on which the statue stands, he embarrassedly took off his cap and pressed his hand to his heart, as if asking for forgiveness from a formidable idol.
On the seashore, you can see a small desert island, where fishermen sometimes moor. Flood brought here an empty old house, at the threshold of which they found the corpse of poor Eugene and immediately “buried for God’s sake.”
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