It would be simplistic to suppose that Alexey Konstantinovich Tolstoy a thirty-four-year-old handsome man, naturally strong, gifted with an exceptional memory, torn between writing and court service and a friend of the imperial family had merely overcome the difficulty, already noted by Lermontovs Pechorin, of falling in love only with a quality of soul. In the poem dedicated to this fateful encounter, other motifs covered by mystery can also be discerned:
Примечания
1
V. Sollogub, who knew Pushkin, in his memoirs about Natalya Nikolaevna, wrote that «I have never seen a woman who combined such a completeness of classically correct features and stature. High in stature, with fabulously thin waist, with richly developed shoulders and chest, her little head like a lily on a stem, swaying and gracefully turned on a thin neck, such a beautiful and regular profile I have never seen more, and skin, eyes, teeth, ears! Yes, it was a real beauty, and not without reason, all the rest, even among the most beautiful women pale somehow at her appearance.»
2
Could Nicholas the First have foreseen thus he would resolve the anguish of the heart, settle down the "cleverest man of Russia", and he himself would be carried away by Pushkin's future wife?
3
The romantic hero sooner or later discovers that there are techniques for controlling loves passion. This skill, honed to perfection of art, incidentally touching some of the strings of the human heart allows one to inspire love or a womans caprice, but does not allow one to forget the fakeness of the inspired feeling if the natural foundations of love are missing. One of these is the possession of traits of natural beauty, unmistakably defined by aristocratic feeling.