Daniel Charms, 31 Plays, #28

Anecdotes from Pushkin's biography

1. Pushkin was a poet and he was always writing something. Once, Zhukovskiy saw him writing and loudly exclaimed: - You're a true scribbler, not some dusty academic nibbler! From then on, Pushkin liked Zhukovskiy a lot more and started calling him domestically, simply: Zhukov.

2. It is a known fact that Pushkin's beard was rather pitiful looking. Pushkin suffered a lot because of this and was always envious of Zaharyn who, on the contrary, grew a very picturesque beard. "His beard is better than mine", - would often say Pushkin, while pointing at Zaharyn with his fingernails. And he was always right about that.

3. Once, Petrushevskiy broke his watch and sent for Pushkin. Pushkin came over, looked over Petrushevskiy's watch and put it back on the table. "So, what can you say about this, brother Pushkin?" - asked Petrushevskiy. "Now it's a stop watch", - said Pushkin.

4. When Pushkin broke his legs he started to move around on wheels. His friends enjoyed teasing Pushkin and would always grab him by his wheels. Pushkin would always get angry and would write abusive poetry about his friends. He would call this kind of poetry, "epigrams".

5. Pushkin spent the summer of 1829 in a village. He would wake up early in the morning, drink a whole jug of milk and run to the river for a swim. After his swim, he would sleep in the grass till noon. In the afternoon he would sleep in a hammock. If he met any stinking peasants, Pushkin would nod at them and pinch his nose with his fingers. The stinking peasants would take off their hats and say: "That's alright".

6. Pushkin liked to throw stones. If he saw stones, he would surely start throwing them. Sometimes he would completely loose his temper, standing there, blushing, waving his arms and throwing stones. It was rather terrifying!

7. Pushkin had four sons and all of them were idiots. One of them could not even manage to seat on his chair, and kept falling off it. Pushkin himself had problems sitting on a chair. Sometimes it would be ridiculously hilarious: they would both be sitting at a table; on one side, Pushkin would fall off his chair, on the other, his son. Enough to pee in your pants!