The following proves sufficiently it was excessive modesty that impelled him to do it.
She had lived twenty years. She was loved, she was fair,
On a twilight she fell like a rose on the wind;
Where she sleeps with the dead, earth, press lightly there,
For her weight was so light upon human-kind.
After the tragedy of Oline Nesterzof, melancholy madness fell upon the brilliant Bestushev, who, by the way, was distantly related to Russia’s great and extraordinary Chancellor, Bestushev-Rjumin, of the days of Catherine the Great.
He courted death. He was in the front of the battle. And always as if by magic he escaped. Bullets whizzed past him, but they did not touch him. Unscathed he emerged from combat.
In the spring of 1838, a particularly unsettled period for the Caucasus, the commanding officer, Captain Alberand, had been told to capture some mutinous mountaineers. They were said to be in hiding in a little piece of woods. Just before order to attack was given, a messenger rode up in haste to tell them the woods were filled with concealed soldiers, and to enter meant death to every man. The Captain ordered retreat. Bestushev-Marlinski disobeyed the order. He put spurs to his horse. He rode into the woods and out of sight. He was never seen nor heard from again.
Fifty Mingrelian Chasseurs were sent by the Captain to rescue his valiant officer whom he loved, and to bring him back. But nothing was ever heard of him. With entry of the forest he disappeared from face of the earth. He had hastened to self-chosen death.
On return to the Fortress, the daughter of the Commandant showed the room which Bestushev-Marlinski had occupied, to Dumas, and to his surprise and delight, pointing to a chest of drawers, she said: “Some unpublished writing of the poet, done after the sad murder of Oline, is still there.”