SOURCE: "Puškin's The Shot'," in Indiana Slavic Studies, Vol.111, 1963, pp. 113-29.

Puškin's short story, "The Shot," one of The Tales of Belkin, is often anthologized as one of the masterpieces in the art of the short story. However, it has received astonishingly little critical and scholarly attention; one usually finds only brief comment in the broader context of Puškin's prose in general or of The Tales of Belkin. Apparently there exists only one fairly detailed analysis of the story as a whole; my analysis differs greatly from it, as regards both form and interpretation.

The form of "The Shot" has apparently seemed to most readers to be simple and easy. The center of narrative interest is a hussar anecdote, the story of the two-stage duel between Silvio and the Count, in which the two parts of the duel are separated by six years and are narrated in the words of a principal in each of the two parts of the story. The plot of "The Shot" has hitherto been interpreted to be the story of this duel. Any close inspection of Puškin's completed prose works, as of his poems, shows that he is always a conscious craftsman, always conscious of literary form and proportions. The interpretation that the plot of "The Shot" is enclosed in the accounts of the two-stage duel would mean that, in form, each part of the story has a complete frame and that to the frame Puškin allots approximately three-fourths of the first part, and two-thirds of the second part. If, then, in form this is simply a frame story, the frame is given the largest proportions one is likely to find in narrative prose anywhere.

The question of proportions suggests that the real plot is to be found elsewhere—not in the direct accounts of the two-stage duel, but in the narrator's discovery of the events that have taken place, resulting finally in a recognition of the character of the participants and an evaluation of them and their action. Instead of forming the plot, the accounts of the stages of the central duel form the climaxes of it, and are properly understood by the reader, as by the narrator, only in the total context of the story.

The chief narrative devices used within the story are those of the narrator—who is also a participant in the plot but not the two-stage duel—and the first-person sui generis confessions of each of the principals of the duel. It is a peculiarity of the story that structurally each part is complete in itself, and that the structure of the first part is repeated in the second. Each part includes the narrator's brief presentation of a milieu and then his stimulating one of the other two principals, Silvio and the Count, to tell the story of one of the two stages of the duel. Each section concludes with the narrator's comment upon hearing the confession, giving a direct or implied reaction.

The use of the narrator is also combined with a curious time structure in the form of the story, in that he (and hence the reader) learns the details of each stage of the duel six and five years, respectively, after it occurred. The time of the two parts is brought together, however, in that the time of the narrator's learning of the first stage of the duel is separated only by days from the occurrence of the second stage. In spite of the length of time between the events and the confession of them to the narrator, they are extremely vivid in the memory of the principals of the duel, and hence there is the impression of a kind of compression of time in memory. At the same time, the passage of time and the changes it brings in the narrator and his life also suggest that the story of the central duel is to be evaluated through the prism of the narrator's consciousness and in the light of the passage of time and the changes it brings in men.

The story is provided with two epigraphs, which Puškin gives it as putative "editor" of The Tales of Belkin, suggesting the context in which the story is to be understood, and hence interposing still another consciousness between the events related and the interpretation of them, and even suggesting that the narrator may not grasp the total meaning of the story he tells.

This analysis will consider in turn the formal features of the story, beginning with the narrator. Next we shall consider in turn the structural features of the story, including each part's preliminary section leading up to the confession, the two confessions, the concluding sections of each part, and the epigraphs. The study will conclude with a discussion of themes and levels of interpretation of the story.

Who is the narrator of "The Shot"? One would expect that the supposed narrator of The Tales of Belkin would be Belkin himself. However, the prefatory note "From the Publisher," signed by Puškin's own initials ("A.P."), includes the information that on Belkin's manuscript of "The Shot" was written "Heard from Lieutenant Colonel I. L. P." As with the other Tales of Belkin, it is not clear from this whether it was the anecdote of the two-stage duel that was presumably heard from "I. L. P." or whether the entire story in its present form was thus heard, and hence it is unclear what is to be considered the function, if any, of Belkin in the story. It would seem that Belkin gave himself the task of retelling the stories, in order to make them literarily effective, but information is not given whether this retelling changes in any important way the interpretation of the story. Indeed, as has often been noted, what the prefatory materials to the Tales tell us about Belkin and what Belkin is supposed to have written about himself as the "author" of The History of the Manor of Gorjuxino coincide with the information made available about the narrator of "The Shot," including his approximate age, his army service and its dates, his retirement to his paternal estate upon the death of his parents, his liking for but shyness with women, his interest in reading, and even the details about the books he has on the estate and his listening to stories told by his housekeeper. It would seem that, regardless of the reputed source of the story, Belkin dramatizes himself as narrator of "The Shot," at least as regards the characteristics needed for the story. Thus, like the other Tales of Belkin, "The Shot" is narrated by a stylized fictional character, Belkin, who then stylizes himself in the guise of still another. In the case of "The Shot," the background of the "narrator" and Belkin are so close that they can be considered to flow together, unlike the situation with a number of the other Tales.

The narrator is shown as one whose mode of thinking and expression has been largely conditioned by his military service. In the first part, he is presented as a rather typical young officer, sharing young officers' attitude toward military life and mores, toward punch, cards, marksmanship, and a touchy sense of honor—but with an even touchier sense of honor than his comrades in service. He is "ashamed" even to look at a man who has suffered an offence and has not challenged the offender. In the second part of the story, he "continued secretly to sigh for his former boisterous and carefree life" in the military service. His attitude toward suffering an offence is closer to Silvio's than that of the other officers, and it is thus not surprising that he was on friendlier footing with Silvio than any of the other officers was (Silvio states in so many words that he loves the narrator; in the second part, however, the narrator speaks of Silvio as prijatel' rather than drug, marking the limit of their friendship). It is clear, too, that, at least before the story started, the narrator had established this relationship with Silvio only on the basis of subordinating himself to Silvio's will and way of doing things.

At the same time, the narrator has a simple-hearted good nature and sense of humor which are in sharp contrast to Silvio's disposition and biting tongue. This is shown in the narrator's delight in repeating the witticism that he "would not lift his hand against the bottle" and his lame pun on p'janica s gorja and gor'kij p'janica. His social gaucherie is shown by his inability to converse after the Countess comes in until a topic is found which is connected with his military experience—that of marksmanship. His naïveté is delightfully shown in his turn of phrase when it comes out that the "rake" who gave Silvio a "slap in the face" was the Count: "'Ah! Your Excellency!' I continued, guessing the truth: 'Pardon me . . . I did not know . . . could it have been you?'"

Concomitantly, there is a suggestion of development of character and outlook in the narrator, both within the story and between the events of the story and the telling of it. In the first part, in a number of passages the narrator emphasizes his having "from nature a romantic imagination" which led him, like his comrades, to see in the "man whose life was an enigma . . . the hero of some mysterious tale"—that is, of a romantic or Gothic novel—and to imagine that he had "upon his conscience the memory of some unhappy victim of his terrible skill" at shooting. The description of Silvio before his confession shows a stylization in these terms: "The gloomy paleness, flashing eyes, and the thick smoke proceeding from his mouth gave him the appearence of a real devil." However, after the narrator hears Silvio's story, the image shifts to one of a beast of prey, as Silvio "began pacing up and down the room like a tiger in his cage." There are no hints in the narrator's voice of romantic novels in the second part of the story. Hearing Silvio's story has apparently led to his outgrowing the romantic outlook. And, indeed, this is suggested by the soberness, directness, and even understatement of his presentation of milieux and of action in the entire story.

The story also suggests maturity looking back upon youth with a detachment that implies changed values, as the narrator emphasizes the point of view of the young. Silvio's "sullenness, unbending disposition, and sharp tongue had a strong influence on our young minds" (italics mine, here and below). When Silvio did not challenge the young officer who threw the candlestick at him, "this lowered him very much in the opinion of our young people," especially the narrator. This observation is immediately followed by an aphorism which becomes the theme of the entire story: "An insufficiency of courage is excused less than anything by young people, who usually see in valor the acme of human virtues and an excuse for all possible vices." The ability to formulate this aphorism suggests that the narrator's views at the time of composition of the story may not be the same as those of himself presented as a participant in it, and suggest a double vision and evaluation of the presentation of the theme of the entire story. Thus the narrator not only serves as a participant in the story, but he shows a development within it and between the occurrences presented and the telling of them that shows there may be different ways of looking at it.

The opening section of Part I of "The Shot" includes an extremely brief presentation of life in an out-of-the-way military camp, the general impression Silvio makes, and an event in which Silvio does not display the expected qualities, resulting in disenchantment with him on the part of the narrator, which, in turn leads to the confession on the part of Silvio.

The general setting of the first part of the story is sketched in laconically. The details are humdrum, prosaic, with no romanticization or prettifying. This is followed by a presentation of the narrator's and his friends' idea of Silvio, the "only civilian admitted to our society," a former military man "who had served in the hussars, and with distinction." He seemed old to them, for he was thirty-five, and they appear to be in their early twenties. The description emphasizes his strange disposition, the mystery surrounding his past, his hospitality, and his marksmanship. His refusal to join in conversation about duels they explain by imagining that he has been only too successful in some duel in the past.

Next comes the beginning of the action of the story proper, the narrator's witnessing Silvio's accepting an offence without challenging the offender. All the officers are accustomed to accepting Silvio's way of keeping bank and correcting the score in silence, but a newcomer officer becomes incensed by Silvio's twice correcting the score while saying nothing, and "considering himself cruelly insulted, . . . in his rage he seized a brass candlestick from the table, and hurled it at Silvio, who barely succeeded in avoiding the missle." All expect a duel, but no challenge was forthcoming. At first this causes disillusionment in Silvio on the part of the young officers, but all gradually forget the incident, except the narrator, the one who has been closest to Silvio. Silvio understood, and the narrator "noticed in him once or twice the desire to give an explanation," but avoided such opportunities.

The estrangement of Silvio from the narrator leads directly to the confession. Silvio receives a letter, and he invites the officers, specifically including the narrator, for a farewell dinner. When the others leave, Silvio asks the narrator to remain, and he makes explicit the reason for wishing him to stay: "Before we part, I should like to have an explanation with you .. . I love you, and I feel that it would be painful to me to leave you with the wrong impression upon your mind." This leads directly to Silvio's confession.

Part II of the story has a similar structure. Upon the death of his parents, the narrator has retired to his out-of-theway family rural estate, and lonely life there is presented in the most sober terms. Instead of company, there are "no near neighbors, except two or three topers." During the day, there are the boring cares of the estate, and there is absolutely no amusement to take up the evenings.

As in Part I, an unexpected event relieves the monotony. In this case it is the visit to their estate of the Count and Countess, who had been there only for one month some years before. A false expectation is aroused, in that the narrator wishes to pay a visit, in order to see the reputedly beautiful Countess. Though he does indeed meet her, the center of interest proves to be the Count. Just as there had been a brief description in the first part of Silvio's bullet-punctured mud hut, there is a contrasting description of the Count's study, "furnished with every possible luxury." Just as Silvio, though a civilian, represents something of the young military man's ideal, the Count represents the epitome of expectation in rural landowners' Russia. The narrator is struck by the Count's handsomeness, his "frank and friendly air," and his "easy and agreeable" conversation. When the Countess comes in, her beauty throws the narrator into such obvious confusion that the hosts allow him, in order to recover himself, to look about the room. There he finds a painting "shot through by two bullets, one planted on the top of the other." A suitable topic of conversation has been found: discussion of marksmanship leads to discussion of the best marksman the narrator has known, and this to the name of Silvio. Upon learning that the narrator knew Silvio and the story of the first part of the duel, the Count, over the Countess' objections, says: "I will relate everything. He knows how I insulted his friend, and it is only right that he should know how Silvio revenged himself."

Thus the preliminary sections of the two parts of the short story have a common basic structure, though the details vary widely. Each opens with a sober, down-to-earth description of a milieu, and then to the presentation of direct observation of a figure who most typifies this milieu and who at the same time stands out in contrast to it. There is in each case a false suggestion as to the line the story will take, which at the same time leads naturally and inevitably to the true line—the interaction of the narrator with Silvio in one part and the Count in the other, and this stimulates the confession which provides the climax of each part.

Silvio's confession is a self-justification, which he assumes will restore the narrator's good opinion of him. He is already aware of the narrator's high esteem for valor; the task of the confession is to show that Silvio has not been deficient in this quality in the scene which resulted in the narrator's disenchantment with him. Silvio begins by characterizing himself as having the ruling "passion" to "be first," according to the fashion of the time and milieu: "In our time roistering was the mode: I was the most outstanding roisterer in the army." Silvio describes the worthy competitor he found there: "Imagine youth, wit, handsomeness, gaiety the most unrestrained, valor the most carefree, a famous name, money ... " He admits that the Count outshone him in the society of both men and women and in witticisms. And he openly admits that he deliberately incites the duel by saying "some gross coarseness" in the Count's ear. The Count thereupon slapped Silvio's face, which, according to the terms of the story, gave Silvio the right of challenge, of naming weapons, and even of the first shot. Thus the Count's life—like the "madcap's" in the event the narrator had witnessed—was in Silvio's hands, while Silvio's was in little danger. However, Silvio was so distraught with malice that he did not trust the steadiness of his hand, and so he offered the Count the first shot. Then when the Count refused, Silvio insisted that they draw lots for it. The Count won the draw, shot, and fired through Silvio's high cap—showing he was aiming at Silvio's head. Silvio has shown enough valor to stand up under fire. The Count is even more valorous: awaiting Silvio's shot he stands in complete unconcern, eating cherries. Silvio has the "malicious idea" of postponing his shot, and the Count carelessly allows Silvio to retain the right of concluding the duel at his pleasure. The end of the confession shows what Silvio's "malicious idea" was: to test the Count's valor again at the moment when life would have meaning for him, the eve of his marriage. Thus Silvio's narrative emphasizes the Count's valor and his own malice. Silvio has shown himself as not without valor, but the Count has outshone him.

Silvio's confession is marked by its complete frankness of description of act and acknowledgement of motivation, as he explains why he did not duel with the young officer in the village of N. and why he acted as he did before and during the first stage of the duel with the Count. There is absolutely no sign of remorse, of conscience, of any feeling of wrong-doing or wrong motivation in Silvio's confession. It is unrepentant and unremorseful, in contrast to the usual confession in poetry and prose, and hence in contrast to the expectation of the narrator, with his "romantic imagination."

The Count's confession, in contrast, is concerned with what happened at the last stage of the duel. It is based, not on statement, but on understatement, of action and motivation. Nevertheless, the Count is unsparing of himself in admitting action and clearly implying motive. He admits at the outset that the narrator will hear "how Silvio obtained his complete revenge on me." Silvio came during the Count's honeymoon which was spent in this house. The Count says, "To this house I am indebted for the happiest moments of my life, as well as for one of its most burdensome (tja ëlyj) recollections." The Count admits that when he recognized Silvio "my hair stood on end." His description of the renewed duel shows the opposite of the nonchalance he had shown six years earlier. He begs Silvio to hurry up and fire the shot remaining to him before the Countess' return; he admits that while Silvio was aiming his pistol at him, he "counted the seconds" and "thought of her." He "thinks" he was unwilling to "consent" when Silvio proposed that they start the duel all over again and draw lots for first shot. In recounting how he drew lots and then fired, even five years after the event, the Count's face "burned like fire." As during the first part of the duel, the Count apparently shot at Silvio's head, suggesting the Count's near-miss in the first part and also the young officer's barely missing Silvio's head with the candlestick. He "does not understand what was the matter with me, and how he was able to make me do it.. . but I fired and hit that picture." The Countess came in, whereupon the Count's "boldness" (bodrost'—his own term for himself, instead of the synonym xrabrost') returned, an admission that valor had been lacking in him up to this point on this occasion. The Countess falls at Silvio's feet, whereupon the Count, in a rage, tells her to "get up; it's shameful"—a description of the entire situation including the Count's role to this point, in the Count's eyes. Silvio pronounces himself satisfied: "I have seen your confusion, your faint-heartedness . . . You will remember me. I leave you to your conscience." Then he shoots, almost without aiming, and puts a bullet on top of the Count's bullet in the picture, and then departs.

Two images, cherries and cherrystones for the Count, and Silvio's hussar cap, become the symbols of their actions in the duel and the story. In the first duel, the Count stood awaiting Silvio's shot, "picking out the ripest cherries from his cap, and spitting out the stones, which flew almost as far as [Silvio's] feet." After telling the narrator his story, Silvio admits his "malicious idea" of testing whether the Count will be able to "look on death with the indifference he once used while eating cherries." In the last stage of the duel, Silvio taunts the Count that his "pistol is not loaded with cherry stones . . . a bullet is heavy." But it ends up that it is not Silvio's bullet that is tja ela for the Count, but the recollection (odno iz samyx tja ëlyx vospominanij.)

Silvio's hussar cap in which the lots are drawn before the shots are fired in the final stage of the duel is obviously the same one he had worn in the first duel and probably the one from which lots were drawn then. It is the one, pierced an inch above the forehead, which he had shown the narrator before the confession and thrown on the floor after it, and which he shows to the Countess to show her the nature of her husband's "jokes," and his own sharp tongue. The cap becomes the symbol not only of Silvio and Silvio's hatred for and competition with the Count, but also of the hussar military mores and ethics Silvio embodies in the story. Thus Silvio brings not only himself into the Count's rural estate but also the former hussar days, and the cap is a reminder and an embodiment of the Count's continuing responsibility in the present for the actions of the past, of the responsibility of the mature for actions taken while young.

Thus the two confessions complement each other in content, in generosity in describing an opponent, in honesty of describing oneself, and in their brevity, directness, and lack of adornment. They give a reversal, in that the first shows the Count as winner in valor; the second, Silvio. The Count is left with a permanent memory of shame as strong as Silvio's earlier longing for revenge.

Each of the two parts of "The Shot" concludes with the words of the narrator of the story, giving or suggesting the narrator's reaction and understanding to the confession just heard. There is understatement and ambiguity in the concluding part of each of the two sections. The end of the first section is as follows:

With these words, Silvio rose, threw his cap upon the floor, and began pacing up and down the room like a tiger in his cage. I had listened to him in silence; strange conflicting feelings agitated me.

The servant entered and announced that the horses were ready. Silvio grasped my hand tightly, and we embraced each other. He seated himself in the carriage, in which there were two suitcases, one containing his pistols, and the other his effects. We said farewell once more, and the horses galloped off.

The description is dynamic, including Silvio's gestures and movement showing how he felt upon making his confession, and concluding with his departure. Silvio had assumed that the narrator would be completely in sympathy with the explanation he gives and that this would lead to a resumption of the narrator's earlier attitude toward him. And indeed it does lead to Silvio's grasping the narrator's hand tightly, and to their embracing each other. But nevertheless the essential admiration and renewed esteem for Silvio which this action shows is combined with something different; he experiences "strange, contradictory feelings."

The conclusion of the second part, and hence of the entire story, follows upon the Count's confession, and again gives the narrator the last word. The first part of it completes the description of the scene and suggests the narrator's interpretation of the story: "The Count fell silent. In this way I learned the end of the story, whose beginning had once made such a deep impression upon me. The hero of it I never saw again." Simply "falling silent" is perhaps the best way for the Count to finish the scene, for his own confession was interrupted to describe the blush which corresponds here with Silvio's gesture with the cap at the end of the first part. The narrator sums up his reaction and the Count's to the entire story, as he speaks of Silvio as the "hero" of it. That the narrator and Silvio never met again was foreshadowed in the final words of the first part, in that they said "farewell" (prostilis') instead of good-bye.

The epilog of the story is given in one sentence, as an unconfirmed rumor, rather than direct observation, the only thing in the entire story that is not presented by an eye witness: "It is told that Silvio commanded a detachment of hetaerists during the revolt under Alexander Ypsilanti, and that he was killed during the Battle of Skulyani." This epilog makes it possible to date the entire story more or less precisely; it gives Silvio a historical setting against which to measure the mores and qualities he displays. The battle took place in July 1821, which means that the conclusion of the duel with the Count could not have taken place after early summer 1821; this would mean that the first stage of the duel was fought about 1815, and that the hussar ideals presented are those of 1815-1820; the narrator's and the Count's meeting took place not later than 1826, and in that Belkin is said to have died in 1828, the story must be considered as having been written not more than two or three years after the narrative to the persona of the second stage of the duel.

Puškin could assume that his readers would know that Alexander Ypsilanti led the northern part of the first stage of the war for Greek independence, which was staged across the river Prut from Bessarabia (where, incidentally, Puškin was at the time it occurred). The attempt to invade the Balkans from Russian-owned soil failed when Russia did not support it. In the battle of Skulyani, which marked the debacle of this invasion, seven hundred hetaerists were annihilated by fifteen thousand Turks, and the unequal contest and the outcome might be compared to that of Davy Crockett and his comrades at the Alamo. Thus the implication is that Silvio died in battle as valorously under fire as he had stood twice under the Count's pistol in their duel.

There has been much critical and scholarly comment upon the characterization of Silvio, particularly in connection with this account of his death, and especially about Silvio's motives for participating in the war for the liberation of Greece. Within the story proper, there is no hint about Silvio having political ideas, or ideas of any other kind except in connection with his "passion" to "be first" and his jealousy, malice, and thirst for revenge on the one man who had shown himself superior in Silvio's eyes. The only suggestions within the story proper that Silvio had interests beyond his own ego are in the laconic observation that he had a quantity of novels and books, mostly on military subjects, and the narrator's statement that with him alone would Silvio "converse on various subjects in a simple and unusually agreeable manner." The story shows that Silvio gave up his career in the hussars and spent six years doing nothing but preparing for revenge upon the Count. Hence the story proper gives no grounds for one to attribute any serious ideological interest on his part in the struggle for Greek independence. The name attributed to him, Silvio (which the narrator suggests is not the correct one), indicates Italian rather than Greek nationality, and that participation in the struggle for Greek independence was not in support of his native land.

The story does not speculate at all on possible motivation for Silvio's fighting for the Greeks. The usual interpretations have been either that Silvio's motivation here was that he was a "superfluous man"; or a serious, heroic desire for the independence of the Greeks. Iskoz's and Slonimskij's suggestion that it was clearly the first of these two alternatives, and Blagoj's and Grossman's confident assertion that it was clearly the second, have, however, no definite foundation in the text itself. Perhaps a third conjecture should be advanced, one that is suggested in the text: Silvio's only real métier was military service. That he "had served even with distinction" in the hussars suggests participation on the Russian side in the Napoleonic wars, as do his age in comparison with the Count and Silvio's comparison of himself with "Burcov, lauded by Davydov," the hussar poet. That Silvio's participation in the Greek war is presented only as an unverified rumor emphasizes for purposes of the story not a facet of the character the story does not give, but a facet it does give—namely his valor under fire. It also suggests what the story proper does not give, an adequate application—in battle—for the quality of valor, emphasizing the incompleteness of valor as an ideal in other contexts. In this respect, the epilog of "The Shot," in Silvio's lack of ideology but strength of will and ability to act with valor, can be contrasted with that of Turgenev's Rudin—which it obviously suggested—the title character of which, after a life of ideology but inactivity depicted in the novel proper, dies in his only, and unmotivated, moment of action, on the barricades of Paris in 1848.

Puškin carefully chose epigraphs, and they always have importance in the interpretation of his works. The two epigraphs to "The Shot" give an implied comment on the style of the story and on the content. The first, "We fired at each other," is from Baratynskij's narrative poem The Ball (Bal), which was published together with Puškin's Count Nulin in 1828, the year when Belkin's death is said to have occurred. The other epigraph, "I swore to shoot him according to the code of the duel (I was still due my shot at him)," is from Bestu ev-Marlinskij's "Evening at a Bivouac" (1823), a hussar tale in prose. Both the epigraphs are from confessions, both are from literary works in which one man wilfully incites another to a duel from jealousy over a woman, and both as a result of a challenge on the part of the narrator.

Baratynskij's poem presents, in the relevant part, a situation comparable to that in Lenskij's motivation for challenging the title character of Evgenij Onegin: after having been in love with his own Ol'ga from childhood, he thinks she has fallen in love with the friend he has introduced to her, and he acts so as to cause a duel. The epigraph from Baratynskij suggests, in contemporary Russian literary context, the type of man the narrator imagined Silvio to be, a romantic disillusioned hero, with a duel motivating his estrangement from people in general. Puškin is also suggesting the type of literary work in which such a hero might be presented and the literary style in which it might be done, a romantic poem based ultimately on the form of the Byronic verse tale, which Puškin himself had introduced into Russian and which he had outgrown. There is also an implicit contrast of a rather conventional romantic literary hero and the characterization of Silvio, whose sufferings are motivated quite otherwise.

The epigraph from Bestu ev-Marlinskij suggests a contrast of the style of the two works—"The Shot" and "An Evening at a Bivouac"—two short stories centering on the theme of hussar valor and on a duel, and including a postponed shot. Puškin suggests the contrast between the style of his story and of Bestu ev-Marlinskij's elevated-style heroics and sentiment in a form which Puškin in 1825 suggested to Bestu eí himself was proper for a romantic verse tale but not for prose stories: "Abandon these furriners and turn to us Orthodox; and enough of your writing rapid tales with romantic transitions—that is all right for a Byronic poem." Any passage might be given to illustrate the contrast in style. The final words of the story, for example, might be contrasted with the alreadyquoted last words of "The Shot": "'Bridle horses; mount!' commanded the colonel. 'Flankers! Examine your pistols. Sabers out! Make approach by threes to the left! March!'" The soberness of the description of milieu in each part of "The Shot" is in complete contrast to the style and tone of Marlinskij's story.

At the same time, Marlinskij's story offers an interesting contrast in content. The valorous Me in called out another officer for audible "immodest expressions" at the expense of Me in's lady-love, Sofija, at a ball. The opponent gained, by lot, the first shot, and Me in was felled and seriously wounded. Upon convalescing, he learns that his opponent and Sofija have become engaged. This is followed by the passage from which the epigraph is taken: "Fury and revenge, like lightning, flooded my blood. I swore to shoot him, according to the code of the duel (I was still due my shot at him), so that the crafty woman would not be able to triumph with him . . . My friends, do you know what the thirst for blood and revenge is like?" However, a friend, without his knowledge, arranges a military transfer, and he gradually cools off and decides not to take the shot remaining to him; he comes to realize that his friend "saved my conscience from two murders"; i.e., he thought that not only the opponent but also Sofija would have died. The sentimental end of the story, in which Me in discovers that Sofija has been maltreated as the opponent's wife, and he forgives her and she touchingly dies in his arms, have no parallel in Puškin's story. The relevant consideration here is that the willingness to forget and ultimately to forgive a former real injury, the possibility of thirst for revenge dying down in a really valorous heart, and gallantry in the presence of ladies are presented in combination with the presence of indubitable valor. Silvio's readiness to provoke a duel over and in front of a lady, and his willingness to aim his gun at the Count in front of the Countess, in the context of this epigraph, put him in quite a different light. The epigraph suggests a comparison of Silvio's single hussar idea of valor against a hussar idea which combines valor with magnanimity, generosity, and gallantry. At the same time, the style of "The Shot" suggests a more down-to-earth and a much more lifelike and credible figure and actual motivation than either Baratynskij's conventional romantic hero or Marlinskij's heroic hussar.

"The Shot" presents a central story in which the characters act upon the assumption that "valor is the acme of human virtues and an excuse for all possible vices." In addition to the theme of valor, the story makes explicit the themes of conscience; a vice, malice; and another virtue, magnanimity.

Silvio's last words to the Count are "I leave you to your conscience." And the Count's conscience obviously is agonizing to him even five years after the conclusion of the duel. The theme of conscience, with regard to Silvio, is raised in the first part of the story. The young officers, as we have seen, imagined that he had "on his conscience" (na ego sovesti) a "victim of his terrible skill." When Silvio does not challenge the young officer, it is sovestno for the narrator to look at Silvio, a play on words between conscience (sovesf) and "shameful." This passage has a double echo in the conclusion of the story, when the Count tells his wife, kneeling to Silvio, that it is stydno "shameful," and Silvio can leave the Count as a result of the entire incident to his "conscience."

In Silvio's words about the incident with the young officer at N., the theme of magnanimity becomes explicit; in his words regarding the Count, that of his malice. This suggests that Silvio's motives in the entire story should be examined with regard to these themes.

Silvio's maintaining silence while twice correcting the young officer's tally—as other officers knew to be his custom, and to which they acceded, but which the newcomer was not aware of—was sufficient in the mores presented in the story to make the latter feel terribly insulted. Thus Silvio unwittingly provided the occasion for the young officer's throwing the heavy brass candlestick at him, and hence giving a provocation for a duel. Silvio flatly states: "You will agree that having the right to choose the weapon his life was in my hand, and my own in almost no danger: I could attribute my moderation to magnanimity alone, but I do not want to lie. If I could have punished R*** without subjecting my life to the slightest risk, not for anything would I have forgiven him." Silvio's inciting the young officer's act was not malicious, but his memory of the event is full of malice, and Silvio explicitly denies any magnanimity in not challenging him.

Silvio frankly admits malice in intentionally inciting the Count's slapping him in the face, by "uttering some gross coarseness" in his ear. He performed this act knowing that he would be able thus to dictate the conditions of the duel, and that the Count's life would be "in [his] hands." As we have seen, in the first stage of the duel, Silvio felt such "agitation from malice" that he "could not depend on the reliability of [his] own hand," and it was for Silvio's benefit—not the Count's—that the Count obtains the first shot. Silvio also openly admits his "malicious idea" of postponing the conclusion of the duel, when he sees the Count's complete nonchalance at Silvio's turn to fire. The story shows how Silvio spent six whole years awaiting and preparing for the moment to carry out his "malicious idea" of testing the Count's valor on the eve of the moment of greatest happiness. While waiting, Silvio practiced shooting "at least three times before dinner" every day. By implication we learn why his mud house was riddled with bullet holes: he had been shooting flies, so as to be able to crush the Count like a fly. Silvio's action and motivation on the morning after the incident with the young officer becomes clear: they "found him in the yard, setting one bullet on top of another into an ace attached to the gate." The Russian word tuz here signifies not only the "ace" but includes a collateral meaning "a rich man, a noble lord": Silvio is imagining himself shooting at the tuz of the story, the object of his major malice, the one who is preventing him from venting his wrath upon an offender whom he considers no rival.

Silvio's leaving the Count to his conscience raises the question of motivation in not shooting the Count at the end, but instead putting a bullet on top of the Count's bullet in the picture. There cannot be the slightest doubt of Silvio's capability at this point of killing the Count. His leaving the Count alive has been attributed to magnanimity, to "nobility" of character. However, in context, it is clearly motivated completely otherwise. The story gives absolutely no basis for attributing any magnanimity to Silvio; with regard to the young officer, Silvio is honest with himself and admits it. Nor is there magnanimity with regard to the Count. On the contrary, Silvio shows the most refined malice in the worst punishment he could inflict upon the Count, the painful memory of having shown "confusion and faintheartedness," of Silvio's "making" him take a shot to which he could have no right.

"Conscience" is an extremely curious word in the mouth of Silvio. The early suggestion that he had a terrible crime on his conscience is negated, not only in fact, but in potentiality. There is no evidence in the story that Silvio had any conscience at all. The Count had never been illdisposed toward Silvio, but had responded to an intentional offense in the socially prescribed manner. Nothing that happened later could change the fact that Silvio was morally at fault in deliberately inciting the duel, and in such manner that he could confidently expect to be the master of the situation in the duel itself. That his harboring his "malicious idea" for six years, while keeping in practice with his pistols and nursing his hatred for the Count, is hardly laudable, is underlined by the epigraph from Bestu ev-Marlinskij. Silvio is presented as something less than an ideal moral hero. At the conclusion of the duel, the Count did not live up to what was expected of him and what he expected of himself. But he had already made his great mistake in the nonchalance of his easygoing and totally unnecessary consent that the duel be broken off and resumed at Silvio's pleasure, in "attaching no value whatever" to life—in youthful fashion—and assuming it would never have value for him.

Puškin himself was never willing to withstand an intentional offense, and he never showed faintheartedness under fire. But in Boldino, in the autumn of 1830, Puškin built into the story his realization that his own cherry-eating nonchalance under fire in a duel in Kishinev in 1822, the autobiographical reminiscence in the story, had reflected an immature view toward the value of life. Not only the Count's conscience, but also Puškin's, is involved in "The Shot." Puškin himself at the time of writing the story was on the threshold of marriage and the honeymoon, and the recurrent theme of "happiness" as regards the Count in the story appears again and again in his correspondence at the time in reference to himself, and in reference to the possibility of death on the eve of marriage, as Asiatic cholera was taking great toll over Russia. As Puškin looked forward to marriage, "happiness," and the honeymoon, he took new stock of his own past. The story assumes, as Puškin did, that the young should act youthfully, but it also includes his realization that the mature man has reason to look with twinges of conscience upon acts and attitudes which he had accepted in his youth as normal and even virtuous.

On this plane we see the serious basis for the story's suggestions of diabolism with regard to Silvio. The description of Silvio about to make his confession to the narrator not only suggests the narrator's reading, the Gothic novel, but has a serious level of meaning: "The intense pallor of his face, his flashing eyes, and the thick smoke issuing from his mouth, gave him a truly diabolical appearance." At the first meeting of Silvio and the Count, Silvio embodies a temptation, which the Count does not resist. In the final scene, his flashing eyes, his sneer, and his "horrible" mien as he aimed his pistol at the Count, and the "horror" with which even the servants looked on him as he departed, suggest that the personification of temptation has now become that of retribution for earlier behavior, such as Puškin's Don Juan faced at the end of The Stone Guest (also written in autumn 1830), and the Prince at the end of Rusalka (written 1829-32). In 1837, when the mortally wounded Puškin recalled to Danzas, his second, his own earlier duel in which he ate cherries (and hence, indirectly, the autobiographical reminiscence in "The Shot"), he suggests a feeling that retribution for his own youth had overtaken him.

Thus the total structure of "The Shot" shows simultaneous contradictory levels of interpretation, by suggesting that it should be read from two different points of view, that of youth and that of maturity. In a literary context, the story can both ironize at the expense of the conventional romantic hero, the Gothic novel, and tales of hussar heroics, and at the same time use them seriously as an implied measure of actions and attitudes in this story. As regards theme and content, the story can be read with a young man's eyes and values, as a story of the double test of valor, with the assumption that valor is the supreme virtue. At the same time, for maturer vision, the story juxtaposes valor as a virtue against magnanimity and its opposite, malice, and implies the question whether there is not a more adequate manifestation for valor than personal jealousy and the "passion" to "be first." The Count is not excused for failure to live up to his expectation of himself, but there is an implied judgment of Silvio, who is shown as retaining into mature years the immature outlook of the young. Nevertheless, the story does not choose between its differing sets of values, but offers each on its own terms.