Young Pushkin

In July 1813, the schoolboy Sasha Pushkin, nicknamed “the Frenchman” by his classmates at the Lycée in Tsarskoye Selo, was just 14 years old. He was already exhibiting a gift for poetry, but his mind was preoccupied with the same things that tend to engage the mind of any 14-year-old boy. So in the poem “The Monk,” which Pushkin wrote during June-July 1813, the young poet is clearly less concerned with rhyme and meter then with the somewhat indecent story of how the devil attempts to seduce a well-respected monk by showing him a woman’s skirt.

«Что вижу я!.. иль это только сон?—

Вскричал монах, остолбенев, бледнея.—

Как! это что?..» — и, продолжать не смея,

Как вкопанный, пред белой юбкой стал,

Молчал, краснел, смущался, трепетал.

Огню любви единственна преграда,

Любовника сладчайшая награда

И прелестей единственный покров,

О юбка! речь к тебе я обращаю,

Строки сии тебе я посвящаю,

Одушеви перо мое, любовь!

“What’s that I see, or am I merely dreaming?”

Exclaimed the monk, who froze in place and paled,

“How can this be?...” He tried to speak, but failed,

And froze in awe before the skirt of white,

Dumbfounded, blushing, trembling with fright.

Against sweet passion’s fire the sole defense,

The shroud that shields a lover’s recompense,

And serves to cover up such sweet delights,

Oh skirt! You are the one I now beseech,

To you I hereby dedicate this speech.

May love inspire all that my pen writes!

Pushkin’s classmates undoubtedly appreciated the poem, but probably none of them suspected that the author of these clever but rather salacious lines would grow up to be Russia’s greatest poet.