“FROM THESE NOBLE GENTLEMEN...”: TEXT - OMEN

We suggest arguments that Pushkin’s work published under a conditional title “From these noble gentlemen…” is, as a matter of fact, completely finished. This text contains (in a suggestive form) hints at a forthcoming violent death of a jailer (but not of a person who was condemned to the execution). As a result, the text as a whole becomes an omen of an event that is not explicated but can be anticipated to occur soon. The break of the text is related to the theme of the break of life. In doing so, two kinds of death are juxtaposed. Death is present as an action of a system presented by a jailer and as an excess (probably, because of the attempt to liberate a convict). As a whole, Pushkin poses a question about relation between a repressive system and an individual responsibility of a person.