Page:The Writings of Prosper Merimee-Volume 5.djvu/241



Russian literature is very little known among us. The great poet Pushkin and the modern Russian writers have been the object of serious study, but the literary movement of Russia has not been followed with the attention it deserves. The Russian language, in fact, is almost completely ignored in France. The interpreters and competent critics are missing. A writer known by his works, which will be read when the greatest romances of the present age will be forgotten, is a happy exception, for the author of ColumbaColomba [sic] has turned toward Russian literature the same penetrating curiosity that he has devoted to the gypsies while he was composing Carmen. It is to Mérimée that we owe the translation of what we are going to read, and we will recognise in The Queen of Spades and the Bohemians two of those very rare productions to which this eminent spirit has given an original cachet. Pushkin could assuredly find no one better qualified to introduce him to French literature.—(Note by the French Editor.)

GAME of cards was going on at Naroumof's, a lieutenant in the Guards. The long winter night had gone by without anyone noticing it, and it was five o'clock in the morning before supper was served. The winners sat down and filled their plates