Pushkin. T. Binyon J.
servants â without the express permission of the emperor. He now resolved to take this step: at the end of March he told Kiselev that he had decided to ask the Foreign Minister, Nesselrode, to transfer Pushkin elsewhere. âHere there are too many people and especially ones who flatter his conceit,â he wrote.81 He made the same point to Nesselrode: âThere are many flatterers who praise his work; this arouses in him a harmful delusion and turns his head with the belief that he is a remarkable writer, whereas he is only the weak imitator of a writer on whose behalf very little can be said (Lord Byron) [â¦] If Pushkin were to live in another province he would find more encouragement to work and would avoid the dangerous company here.â He had only Pushkinâs best interests in mind in making this request for his transfer, which he begged Nesselrode to bring to the emperorâs attention.82 A month later, having had no reply, he concluded a letter to Nesselrode about the Greek refugees in Moldavia with the words: âBy the by I repeat my prayer â deliver me from Pushkin; he may be an excellent fellow and a good poet, but I donât want to have him any longer, either in Odessa or Kishinev.â83 On 16 May he finally received a reply, but one which was unsatisfactorily inconclusive: âI have put your letter on Pushkin before the emperor,â Nesselrode wrote. âHe is completely satisfied with your judgement of this young man, and orders me to inform you of this officially. He has reserved his instructions on what should be finally undertaken with regard to him until a later date.â84 Vorontsovâs patience was running out. He had intended to leave Odessa for the Crimea in the middle of May, to spend the summer there with his family and a large number of guests. However, his daughter fell ill, and the departure had to be postponed. Constrained to remain in Odessa, and waiting vainly for the emperorâs permission to transfer Pushkin, he found that circumstances had provided an opportunity to rid himself for some time at least of the poetâs presence.
âThe neighbourhood of Odessa is very bleak and much infested by locusts, which come in immense bodies and in an hour after they have alighted, every vestige of verdure is effaced,â an English visitor wrote.85 In fact, the whole of New Russia, including the Crimea, was subject to these plagues. At the end of 1823 the Ministry of Internal Affairs had allocated 100,000 roubles to Vorontsov for a campaign against the infestations expected the following year. From the beginning of May 1824 reports that the insects had begun to hatch flooded in to Odessa. In July the swarms took wing, with catastrophic results, especially in Kherson province and in the Crimea. âLocusts have spread in terrible quantities,â ran an official report. âThe river Salgir was arrested in its flow by a swarm of these harmful insects, which had fallen into it, and 150 men worked for several days and nights to clear the stream. [â¦] Some houses near Simferopol were so filled with the insects that the inhabitants had to abandon them.â86
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