Путеводителями по внутреннему миру дворяне выбрали не святых отцов, а западных мистиков. Обнаружив в себе страсти и не зная как вести с ними борьбу, дворяне выбрали западный вариант их «обуздания». Идеалом светского человека становится «комильфо», – человек, подавивший в себе эмоции, ведущий себя безупречно в обществе. Такая внешняя задача исключала аскетическую работу по преображению страстей. Человек мог быть весьма любезным и даже радушным в обществе, по его поведению и лицу невозможно было понять его внутреннюю жизнь, он как бы являл некий «идеал» спокойствия, но во внутреннем его состоянии не происходило никакого изменения в сторону добра, скорее, наоборот, такое «оседлание» страстей порождало неимоверную гордыню. Подобная мистика и аскетика оказывались совершенно бесплодными и вредными в духовном отношении.

Но главное увлечение дворянства составила мистика каббалистическая. «Для всей этой мистики, – пишет Флоровский, – очень характерно резкое различие ступеней или степеней, и эта несдержанная стремительность и торопливость в искании или приобретении каких-то «высших» степеней или посвящений» [73]. Дворян увлекал именно эзотеризм, – в нем они чувствовали некий оттенок духовного аристократизма, который позволял им противопоставить себя всем остальным, – духовным профанам. В это время «мистицизм становится общественным течением и одно время даже пользуется правительственной поддержкой» [74]. Библейское общество, которое распространяло подобную литературу, пользовалось покровительством самого императора. Современник, писатель и журналист Николай Иванович Греч, писал: «Кто не принадлежал к Библейскому обществу, тому не было хода ни по службе, ни при дворе» [75]. Библейское общество в то время состояло сплошь из масонов. Существовала даже поговорка: «Ну, кто же нынче не масон»?

«Пиковая дама» –

ответ масонам

But what do all these noble interests have to do with The Queen of Spades? And the most direct is that everything that the nobility read and studied was the seed that the nobility sowed in their souls. What is the result of this sowing? Pushkin gives an answer to this question in his story. In fact, the main content of The Queen of Spades is Pushkin's response to the nobility and the emerging heterogeneous intelligentsia about their interest in Western ideas, mystical and social. In the same way, his drama "Boris Godunov" was an answer to the questions that were discussed by the nobility in Masonic lodges on the eve of the December uprising of 1825. Ninety percent of the Decembrists were Freemasons. At that time, the Masonic lodges discussed the question: "Is it possible to kill one person, for example, the emperor, so that the rest of the people would live better?" In fact, this was a biblical question, to which the high priest Caiaphas gave the answer: "It is better for us that one man should die for the people, than that the whole nation should perish" (John 11:50). But this answer was a death sentence against Jesus Christ.

The rebels were divided: some did not want to take radical measures, while others insisted on the assassination of the emperor. The very choice of the subject for the response to the Decembrists does not seem to us accidental. The murder of Tsarevich Dimitri attributed to Boris is essentially the same murder of the future Tsar. It is also known that during the reign of Boris Godunov there was an idea to build Solomon's Church on the site of the Assumption Cathedral. Since the Freemasons called themselves the builders of the Temple of Solomon, the choice of the character is an indirect hint at the addressee [76].

In Pushkin's drama, the same question was posed as the Decembrists. But Pushkin answered it in the negative. Using the example of the fate of Tsar Boris, who carried out such a murder, Pushkin showed that murder cannot be justified by anything - it leads to severe moral torment and the tragic death of the tsar himself and his relatives, as well as to the collapse of state and social life. Two weeks before the December uprising, the manuscript of Boris Godunov in its final version lay on Pushkin's desk.

The Queen of Spades is connected with Boris Godunov by a single theme. "Boris Godunov", in addition to a general Masonic address, also had a specific addressee. The most radical supporter of the murder of the tsar was Pestel among the Decembrists. Some researchers of Pushkin's work find features of external similarity between Hermann and Pestel, and even believe that under the name of Hermann Pushkin deduced Pestel [77].

Pushkin himself was involved in Freemasonry - on May 4, 1821, he joined the Ovid Lodge, he left evidence of this in his diary. But the "ideals" of Freemasonry, especially the "flexible" morality of Freemasonry, disappointed him, and he parted with it. In Freemasonry, Pushkin did not find answers for the development of Christian self-consciousness. In a scene from Faust, Pushkin expressed his attitude to Freemasonry.

Faust asks Mephistopheles: "What is turning white there? Speak."

Pushkin's Mephistopheles answers Faust differently from Goethe's: