How to live?
(introductory article)

Writers explore life in two ways - mental, which begins with reflection on the phenomena of life, and artistic, the essence of which is the comprehension of the same phenomena not with the mind (or, rather, not only with the mind), but with all one’s human essence, or, as they say, intuitively.

Intellectual knowledge of life leads the author to a logical presentation of the material he has studied, artistic knowledge leads to the expression of the essence of the same phenomena through a system of artistic images. A fiction writer, as it were, gives a picture of life, but not just a copy of it, but transformed into a new artistic reality, which is why the phenomena that interested the author and illuminated by the bright light of his genius or talent appear before us especially visible, and sometimes visible through and through.

It is assumed that a true writer gives us life only in the form of an artistic depiction of it. But in reality there are not many such “pure” authors, and perhaps there are none at all. More often than not, a writer is both an artist and a thinker.

Ivan Aleksandrovich Goncharov has long been considered one of the most objective Russian writers, that is, a writer in whose works personal likes or dislikes are not presented as a measure of certain life values. He gives art paintings life objectively, as if “listening to good and evil indifferently,” leaving the reader to judge and pass judgment with his own mind.

It is in the novel " An ordinary story" Goncharov, through the mouth of a magazine employee, expresses this idea in its very pure form: “...a writer will only, firstly, write effectively when he is not under the influence of personal passion and passion. He must survey life and people in general with a calm and bright gaze, otherwise he will only express his own I, about which no one cares." And in the article “Better late than never,” Goncharov notes: “...I will first say about myself that I belong to the last category, that is, I am most interested in (as Belinsky noted about me) “my ability to draw.”

And in his first novel, Goncharov painted a picture of Russian life in a small country estate and in St. Petersburg in the 40s of the 19th century. Of course, Goncharov could not give a complete picture of life in both the village and St. Petersburg, just as no author at all can do this, because life is always more diverse than any image of it. Let's see whether the picture depicted turned out to be objective, as the author wanted, or whether some side considerations made this picture subjective.

The dramatic content of the novel is the peculiar duel waged by its two main characters: the young man Alexander Aduev and his uncle Pyotr Ivanovich. The duel is exciting, dynamic, in which success falls to the lot of one side or the other. A fight for the right to live life according to your ideals. But the uncle and nephew have exactly the opposite ideals.

Young Alexander comes to St. Petersburg straight from the warm embrace of his mother, dressed from head to toe in the armor of high and noble spiritual impulses, he comes to the capital not out of idle curiosity, but in order to enter into a decisive battle with everything soulless, calculating, vile. “I was attracted by some irresistible desire, a thirst for noble activity,” exclaims this naive idealist. And he challenged not just anyone, but the entire world of evil. Such a little home-grown quixotic! And after all, he has also read and listened to all sorts of noble nonsense.

The subtle irony of Goncharov, with which he describes his young hero- his departure from home, vows to eternal love Sonechka and his friend Pospelov, his first timid steps in St. Petersburg - it is this very mocking look of Goncharov at his young hero that makes the image of Aduev Jr. dear to our hearts, but already predetermines the outcome of the struggle between his nephew and uncle. The authors do not treat true heroes capable of great feats with irony.

And here is the opposite side: a metropolitan resident, the owner of a glass and porcelain factory, an official on special assignments, a man of sober mind and practical sense, thirty-nine-year-old Pyotr Ivanovich Aduev - the second hero of the novel. Goncharov endows him with humor and even sarcasm, but he himself does not treat this brainchild with irony, which makes us assume: here he is, the true hero of the novel, here is the one whom the author invites us to look up to.

These two characters, who interested the Gonchars, were the brightest types of their time. The founder of the first was Vladimir Lensky, the second was Eugene Onegin himself, although in a greatly transformed form. I will note here in parentheses that Onegin’s coldness and experience suffer exactly the same failure as the experience and significance of the life of Pyotr Ivanovich Aduev.

Still vaguely feeling the integrity of his novel, Goncharov writes: “... in the meeting of a soft, dreamer-nephew, spoiled by laziness and lordship, with a practical uncle - there was a hint of a motive that had just begun to play out in the most lively center - in St. Petersburg. This motive is a faint flicker of consciousness of the need for work, real, not routine, but living work in the fight against all-Russian stagnation.”

Goncharov really wants to take this man of “living action” as a model, and not only for himself, but also to offer him to the reader’s attention as a model.

With what brilliance the dialogues between uncle and nephew are written! How calmly, confidently, categorically the uncle breaks his hot, but unarmed terrible weapon nephew's logic and experience! And every critical phrase is deadly, irresistible. Irresistible because he tells the truth. Hard, sometimes even offensive and merciless, but exactly the truth.

Here he makes fun of “material signs... of immaterial relationships” - a ring and a lock of hair, given by Sonechka as a farewell to her beloved Sashenka, who is leaving for the capital. “And you brought this one thousand five hundred miles?.. It would be better if you brought another bag of dried raspberries,” the uncle advises and throws symbols of eternal love, priceless for Alexander, out the window. Alexander's words and actions seem wild and cold. Can he forget his Sonechka? Never!..

Alas, my uncle turned out to be right. Very little time has passed, and Alexander falls in love with Nadenka Lyubetskaya, falls in love with all the ardor of youth, with the passion characteristic of his nature, unconsciously, thoughtlessly!.. Sonechka is completely forgotten. Not only will he never remember her, but he will also forget her name. Love for Nadya will fill Alexander entirely!.. There will be no end to his radiant happiness. What kind of business can there be that my uncle keeps talking about, what kind of work, when he, one might say, disappears day and night outside the city with the Lyubetskys! Oh, this uncle, he only has business on his mind. Insensitive!.. How he dares to say that Nadenka, his Nadenka, this deity, this perfection, can deceive him. “She will deceive! This angel, this sincerity personified…” exclaims young Alexander. “But she’s still a woman, and she’ll probably deceive,” the uncle replies. Oh, these sober, merciless minds and experience. It’s hard!.. But the truth: Nadenka deceived. She fell in love with the count, and Alexander receives his resignation. My whole life immediately turned black. And my uncle insists: I warned you!..

Alexander fails on all counts - in love, in friendship, in impulses to creativity, in work. Everything, absolutely everything that his teachers and books taught him, everything turned out to be nonsense and scattered with a slight crunch under the iron tread of sober reason and practical action. In the most intense scene of the novel, when Alexander is driven to despair, starts drinking, has become depressed, his will has atrophied, his interest in life has completely disappeared, the uncle retorts his nephew’s last babble of justification: “What I demanded of you - I didn’t invent all this.” “Who? – asked Lizaveta Aleksandrovna (wife of Pyotr Ivanovich - V.R.). - Century.

This is where the main motivation for the behavior of Pyotr Ivanovich Aduev was revealed. Command of the century! The century demanded! “Look,” he calls out, “at today’s youth: what great fellows! How everything is in full swing with mental activity, energy, how deftly and easily they deal with all this nonsense, which in your old language is called anxiety, suffering... and God knows what else!”

Here it is, the climax of the novel! Here it is, the enemy’s decisive blow! Such is the age! “So you must certainly follow everything that your age comes up with?.. So everything is sacred, everything is true?” - “Everything is holy!” - Pyotr Ivanovich categorically cuts off.

The problem of how to live - by feeling or by reason, one might say, is an eternal problem. Surprisingly, when meeting with students of the Moscow Printing Institute, I received a note with the following content: “Please tell me how best to live - with the heart or the mind?” And this was in 1971! One hundred and twenty-five years after the novel “An Ordinary Story” was written.

There is one thing extremely remarkable place. “In your opinion, the feeling needs to be controlled like steam,” Alexander noted, “then let it out a little, then suddenly stop it, open the valve or close it...” - “Yes, it’s not for nothing that nature gave this valve to man - it’s reason...”

Throughout the novel, the reader follows these two ways of living life - feeling and reason. Sometimes it seems that Goncharov, in the most categorical form, advises us to live sensibly and only sensibly, in any case, to verify our feelings with our reason, like Salieri with algebra to verify harmony. But this is Goncharov the thinker, a reflective man. And if the author of the novel were just that, he would certainly “prove” to us that it is necessary to live wisely. However, Goncharov is first and foremost an artist, and a realistic artist at that. He depicts the phenomenon as it is, and not as he would like it to be. As a son of his century, Goncharov is entirely in favor of Aduev Sr., he himself admits this: “The struggle between uncle and nephew reflected the then, just begun, breakdown of old concepts and mores - sentimentality, caricatured exaggeration of feelings of friendship and love, poetry of idleness, family and the domestic lies of feigned, essentially unprecedented feelings... All this was becoming obsolete, gone away; there were faint glimpses of a new dawn, something sober, businesslike, necessary.”

In the figure of Aduev Sr., Goncharov felt a new person. And I felt right - this was exactly what was coming new person. Ivan Alexandrovich pinned his hopes on him.

Who is Pyotr Ivanovich Aduev, this role model, this man of action and sober mind? Historically, it has long been clear to all of us. This new type, replacing the people of the dilapidated feudal system, is a capitalist. But the capitalist at all times, from his very birth, and in all countries is the same - he is a man of action and calculation.

How many times in the novel does Aduev Sr. pronounce words about business and calculation. Calculation in action. Calculation in friendship. Calculation in love. Calculation in marriage... And this word never sounds condemning in his mouth. Even in matters of creativity there is calculation. “Are you sure you have talent? Without this, you will be a laborer in art - what good? Talent is another matter: you can work; You will do a lot of good, and besides, this is capital - worth your hundred souls.” - “Do you measure this in money too?” - “What do you order? The more people read you, the more money they pay.”

Here it is, a calculation expressed in its most real reality - in money. Everything is measured by money!

“You just can’t imagine the grief without money! “What kind of grief is it if it’s not worth a penny…”

Capitalist... The measure of value is money.

Goncharov - a thinker, sociologist - wants to see the ideal in a new type of person, in Pyotr Ivanovich Aduev. He wants... But Goncharov the artist does not allow the eyes of Goncharov, a reflective man, to become clouded. In knowing the truth, the artist is, in a certain sense, more accurate than the thinker, for “ fiction, - By apt expression A.P. Chekhov - that’s why it’s called artistic because it depicts life as it really is. Its purpose is unconditional and honest.”

With a feeling of undeniable superiority, from the height of his age and experience, from the height of his knowledge of life, the uncle crushes the naive and pure faith nephew in the “world of perfection”, and crushes with great success. This is what is going on in the soul of the once ardent, young Alexander:

“Looking into life, questioning the heart, the head, he saw with horror that neither here nor there there was not a single dream, not a single rosy hope: everything was already back; the fog cleared; naked reality spread out before him like a steppe. God! what a vast space! what a boring, desolate look! The past is dead, the future is destroyed, there is no happiness: everything is a chimera - but live!”

Aduev Jr. sinks to the most pitiful state and even attempts suicide. Goncharov does not spare his hero - he debunks it completely. There is no doubt: yes, this is exactly what happens to people who are disappointed in life.

“Teach me, uncle, at least what should I do now? How will you solve this problem with your mind?” – Alexander exclaims in complete powerlessness. And he receives the answer: “What should I do? Yes... go to the village."

And, cursing the city where he buried his best feelings and lost his vitality, Alexander returns to the “villages and pastures”: he goes back to the village. Alexander did not win. She was possessed by her uncle. Completely won.

In vain Alexander goes to the village, hoping for a miracle of resurrection there. Resurrection is impossible, only transformation is possible. And it happens. Strange as it may seem, it was in the village that Alexander began to yearn for Petersburg, that same evil, gloomy, soulless Petersburg that he had so recently anathematized. New thoughts began to stir in the brain of the transformed Alexander: “Why is uncle better than me? Can’t I find a way for myself?.. I can’t die here!.. And my career, and my fortune?.. I’m just very behind... but why?..” And Alexander Fedorov Aduev rushes back to St. Petersburg to pursue his career and fortune!

“...not a madman, not a dreamer, not a disappointed person, not a provincial will come to you, but just a person, of which there are many in St. Petersburg and no matter how long ago it’s time for me to be,” he writes to his aunt.

I have long noticed this phenomenon of life: some young people, prone to idealizing reality, throwing thunder and lightning against any manifestations of human weaknesses, demanding ideal behavior from others - having matured and seeing their peers, people who may not be so ideal, who have gone far ahead along the path of ordinary life advancement, suddenly seem to come to their senses and begin to catch up with them. Catch up at all costs! And then these very sweet, demanding idealists turn into extremely practical people, who do not disdain any means in achieving their belated goals, and are much more nasty than those whom they so recently reproached for all mortal sins.

The same thing happened with Alexander. The naive, pure provincial idealist becomes, simply put, a monster. Goncharov completely debunked his hero. This, as the author seems to say, is the end of a person who enters life with far-fetched ideas about it. First he smashes his ideal forehead on real ones sharp corners life, then this forehead hardens and a hard growth grows on it, this forehead, the person becomes a rhinoceros.

But what are the fruits of the victory of Pyotr Ivanovich, the author’s favorite hero? A hero in whom Goncharov saw a man of action, a man of labor, capable of fighting all-Russian stagnation? As strange and even illogical as it may seem, the fruits of the uncle’s victory are one more bitter than the other. A man with a realistic view of things, he first spiritually killed his nephew, who in his own way was even dear to his heart, and almost drove his beloved wife Lizaveta Alexandrovna to consumption. In the end, Pyotr Ivanovich is going to sell his factory, quit his service, give up the title of Privy Councilor and dreams of one thing - to go to Italy, where, perhaps, he will be able to prolong the life of his wife.

The nephew turned into an uncle, and with a twist! The uncle, to some extent, turns into a nephew. Quite involuntarily, Goncharov, who proves to us the advantages of sober reason and calculation, screams that love for people is higher than any calculation and soulless deed. It was precisely as a true artist that Goncharov did not see in his time a way out of this dramatic collision: the opportunity to combine a great cause with a truly human essence. Any business, if it is only a means of personal success, becomes difficult and sometimes disastrous for the people involved in it. The world of entrepreneurship is tough.

Goncharov the thinker and Goncharov the artist fought throughout the entire novel. Goncharov the artist won. And we can rightfully attribute him to those outstanding writers last century, the realism of which, according to F. Engels, “can manifest itself even regardless of views.”

A young man or girl who sent me a note with the question: “How to live – with feeling or with reason?” – I would ask you to read and re-read “Ordinary History”. True, in Goncharov’s novel one cannot find a direct answer to such a question. But this old novel will greatly help young people to independently find answers to some important questions that the twentieth century poses to them.

Victor Rozov

Part one

I

One summer, in the village of Grachakh, with the poor landowner Anna Pavlovna Adueva, everyone in the house rose at dawn, from the mistress to the chain dog Barbosa.

Only only son Anna Pavlovna, Alexander Fedorych, slept as a twenty-year-old youth should sleep, a heroic sleep; and in the house everyone was fussing and fussing. People walked on tiptoe and spoke in whispers so as not to wake the young master. As soon as someone knocked or spoke loudly, now, like an irritated lioness, Anna Pavlovna appeared and punished the unwary with a stern reprimand, an offensive nickname, and sometimes, according to her anger and strength, and a push.

In the kitchen they cooked with three hands, as if for ten, although the entire master's family consisted only of Anna Pavlovna and Alexander Fedorych. In the barn they wiped and greased the cart. Everyone was busy and worked their butts off. Barbos only did nothing, but he also took part in the general movement in his own way. When a footman, a coachman, or a girl snuck past him, he would wave his tail and carefully sniff the passerby, and with his eyes he seemed to ask: “Will they finally tell me what kind of commotion we’re having today?”

And the turmoil was because Anna Pavlovna was sending her son to St. Petersburg for service, or, as she said, to see people and show herself off. A killer day for her! This makes her so sad and upset. Often, in trouble, she will open her mouth to order something, and suddenly stop mid-sentence, her voice will change, she will turn to the side and, if she has time, wipe away a tear, but if she doesn’t have time, she will drop it into the suitcase in which she herself I was laying out Sashenka’s underwear. Tears have been boiling in her heart for a long time; they have risen to the throat, are pressing on the chest and are ready to splash into three streams; but she seemed to be saving them for goodbyes and occasionally spent them a little at a time.

She was not the only one mourning the separation: Sashenka’s valet, Yevsey, also grieved greatly. He went with the master to St. Petersburg, leaving the warmest corner in the house, behind the couch, in the room of Agrafena, the first minister in Anna Pavlovna’s household and - most importantly for Yevsey - her first housekeeper.

Behind the couch there was only room to put two chairs and a table on which tea, coffee, and snacks were prepared. Yevsey firmly occupied a place both behind the stove and in the heart of Agrafena. She sat on the other chair herself.

The story of Agrafen and Yevsey was already an old story in the house. They talked about her, like everything else in the world, slandered both of them, and then, just like everything else, they kept silent. The lady herself got used to seeing them together, and they were blissful for ten whole years. How many people will end up with ten happy years in their lives? But now the moment of loss has come! Goodbye, warm corner, goodbye, Agrafena Ivanovna, goodbye, playing fools, and coffee, and vodka, and liqueur - goodbye everything!

Yevsey sat silently and sighed heavily. Agrafena, frowning, fussed about the housework. She expressed grief in her own way. That day she fiercely spilled the tea and instead of serving the first cup of strong tea, as usual, to the lady, she threw it out: “Don’t let anyone get it,” and firmly endured the reprimand. Her coffee boiled over, the cream burned, the cups fell out of her hands. She will not put the tray on the table, but will blurt out; He won’t open the closet or the door, but slam it. But she did not cry, but was angry at everything and everyone. However, this was generally the main feature in her character. She was never satisfied; everything is not according to her; always grumbled and complained. But at this fatal moment for her, her character was revealed in all its pathos. Most of all, it seems, she was angry with Yevsey.

“Agrafena Ivanovna!..” he said plaintively and tenderly, which did not quite suit his long and dense figure.

- Well, why are you sitting here, you dumbass? - she answered, as if it was the first time he had sat here. - Let me go: I need to get a towel.

“Eh, Agrafena Ivanovna!..” he repeated lazily, sighing and rising from the chair and immediately falling down again when she took the towel.

- He just whines! Here the arrow has imposed itself! What kind of punishment is this, Lord! and he won’t let go!

And she dropped the spoon into the rinsing cup with a clang.

- Agrafena! - suddenly came from the other room, - you’ve lost your mind! Don’t you know that Sashenka is resting? Did you have a fight with your lover before leaving?

- Don’t move for you, sit there like you’re dead! - Agrafena hissed like a snake, wiping the cup with both hands, as if she wanted to break it into pieces.

- Goodbye, goodbye! - Yevsey said with a huge sigh, - last day, Agrafena Ivanovna!

- And thank God! Let the devils take you away from here: it will be more spacious. Let him go, there’s nowhere to step: he’s stretched out his legs!

He touched her on the shoulder - how she answered him! He sighed again, but did not move; Yes, it would have been in vain to move: Agrafena didn’t want that. Yevsey knew this and was not embarrassed.

– Will someone sit in my place? - he said, still with a sigh.

- Leshy! – she answered abruptly.

- God forbid! as long as it’s not Proshka. Will someone play the fool with you?

- Well, at least it’s Proshka, so what’s the problem? – she remarked angrily. Yevsey stood up.

- Don’t play with Proshka, by God, don’t play! – he said with concern and almost with a threat.

- Who will stop me? Are you some kind of idiot?

- Mother, Agrafena Ivanovna! - he began in a pleading voice, hugging her waist, I would have said if she had even the slightest hint of a waist.

She returned the hug with an elbow to the chest.

- Mother, Agrafena Ivanovna! - he repeated, - will Proshka love you as much as I do? Look how mischievous he is: he won’t let a single woman pass. And me! eh! You are like blue gunpowder in my eye! If it weren’t for the master’s will, then... eh!..

At the same time, he grunted and waved his hand. Agrafena could not stand it: and her grief finally showed itself in tears.

“Will you leave me alone, you damned one?” - she said, crying, - what are you talking about, you fools! I'll contact Proshka! Don’t you see for yourself that you won’t get a good word from him? All he knows is that he is climbing with his hands...

- And he came to you? Oh, you bastard! But you probably won’t tell! I would...

- Get in there, he’ll find out! Are there no females in the household besides me? I’ll contact Proshka! look what you made up! It’s sickening to sit next to him - a pig is a pig! Just look, he strives to hit a person or devour something from the master’s hands - and you won’t see it.

- If, Agrafena Ivanovna, such a case comes - the evil one is strong - then it’s better to put Grishka here: at least he’s a quiet little guy, hard-working, and doesn’t sneer...

- I just made it up! - Agrafena attacked him, - why are you imposing me on everyone, am I really anything... Get out of here! There are many of your brothers, I will hang myself on everyone’s neck: not like that! Apparently, the evil one has only confused you with you, such a devil, for my sins, and even then I repent... otherwise I made it up!

– God reward you for your virtue! like a stone off your shoulders! - Yevsey exclaimed.

- I was happy! - she screamed brutally again, - there is something to rejoice at - rejoice!

And her lips turned white with anger. Both fell silent.

- Agrafena Ivanovna! – Yevsey said timidly a little later.

- Well, what else?

“I forgot: I didn’t have a drop of poppy dew in my mouth this morning.”

- That's all!

- Out of grief, mother.

She took out from the bottom shelf of the cupboard, from behind her head the sugar, a glass of vodka and two huge slices of bread with ham. All this had long been prepared for him by her caring hand. She slipped them to him, just as they don’t stick to dogs. One piece fell to the floor.

- Here, choke! Oh, I wish you... but be quiet, don’t champ at the whole house.

She turned away from him with an expression of hatred, and he slowly began to eat, looking from under his brows at Agrafena and covering his mouth with one hand.

Meanwhile, a coachman with three horses appeared at the gate. An arch was thrown across the molar's neck. The bell, tied to the saddle, moved its tongue dully and unfreely, like a drunk man, tied up and thrown into a guardhouse. The coachman tied the horses under the barn canopy, took off his hat, took out a dirty towel and wiped the sweat from his face. Anna Pavlovna, seeing him from the window, turned pale. Her legs gave way and her arms dropped, although she expected this. Having recovered, she called Agrafena.

“Come on tiptoe, quietly, and see if Sashenka is sleeping?” - she said. “He, my darling, will probably sleep for the last day: I won’t get enough of him.” No, where are you going? Look, you'll fit in like a cow! I'm better on my own...

- Come on, you’re not a cow! - Agrafena grumbled, returning to her room. - Look, I found a cow! Do you have a lot of these cows?

Alexander Fedorych himself, a blond young man in the prime of his years, health and strength, walked towards Anna Pavlovna. He cheerfully greeted his mother, but when he suddenly saw the suitcase and bundles, he became embarrassed, silently went to the window and began to draw with his finger on the glass. A minute later he was talking to his mother again and looked at the tolls carelessly, even with joy.

“What are you doing, my friend, how did you sleep,” said Anna Pavlovna, “even your face is swollen?” Let me wipe your eyes and cheeks with rose water.

- No, mummy, no need.

– What do you want for breakfast: tea first or coffee? I ordered to make beaten meat with sour cream in a frying pan - what do you want?

- It’s all the same, mummy.

Anna Pavlovna continued to fold the laundry, then stopped and looked at her son with longing.

“Sasha!..” she said after a while.

- What do you want, mummy?

She hesitated to speak, as if she was afraid of something.

-Where are you going, my friend, why? – she finally asked in a quiet voice.

- Where are you going, mama? to St. Petersburg, then... then... so...

“Listen, Sasha,” she said in excitement, placing her hand on his shoulder, apparently with the intention of making a last attempt, “the time has not yet passed: think, stay!”

- Stay! as possible! “But… the laundry is packed,” he said, not knowing what to come up with.

- The laundry is done! yes... here... here... look - and it’s not packed.

She took everything out of the suitcase in three steps.

- How is this so, mamma? got ready - and suddenly again! What will they say...

He became sad.

– I’m dissuading it not so much for myself as for you. Why are you going? Looking for happiness? Don't you feel good here? Doesn’t your mother think every day about how to please all your whims? Of course, you are at such an age that pleasing your mother alone does not constitute happiness; Yes, I don’t require this. Well, look around you: everyone is looking into your eyes. And Marya Karpovna’s daughter, Sonyushka? What... blushed? How she, my darling - God bless her - loves you: listen, she hasn’t slept for the third night!

- Here you are, mummy! she's so...

- Yes, yes, as if I don’t see... Ah! so as not to forget: she took to cutting off your scarves - “I, she says, myself, I won’t give it to anyone, and I’ll make a mark,” you see, what else do you need? Stay!

He listened in silence, with his head bowed, and played with the tassel of his dressing gown.

– What will you find in St. Petersburg? – she continued. “Do you think your life there will be the same as here?” Eh, my friend! God knows what you will see and endure: cold, hunger, and need - you will endure everything. Evil people There are many everywhere, but you won’t find good ones soon. And honor - whether in the village or in the capital - is still the same honor. Just as you don’t see life in St. Petersburg, it will seem to you, living here, that you are the first in the world; and so it is in everything, my dear! You are well-mannered, and dexterous, and good. I, an old woman, could only rejoice looking at you. If you got married, God would send you children, and I would nurse them - and I would live without grief, without worries, and I would live my life peacefully, quietly, I would not envy anyone; and there, maybe it won’t be good, maybe you’ll remember my words... Stay, Sashenka, huh?

He coughed and sighed, but didn't say a word.

“And look here,” she continued, opening the door to the balcony, “and aren’t you sorry to leave such a corner?”

The room smelled fresh from the balcony. From the house, a garden of old linden trees, thick rose hips, bird cherry trees and lilac bushes spread out into a distant space. Between the trees, flowers were full of flowers, running into different sides paths, then the lake quietly splashed into the shores, bathed on one side by the golden rays of the morning sun and smooth as a mirror; on the other, dark blue, like the sky that was reflected in it, and barely covered with swell. And there the fields with waving, multi-colored grains ran like an amphitheater and adjoined the dark forest.

Anna Pavlovna, covering her eyes from the sun with one hand, pointed to each object alternately to her son with the other.

“Look,” she said, “with what beauty God has clothed our fields!” From those fields of rye alone we will collect up to five hundred quarters; and there is wheat and buckwheat; only buckwheat is not the same nowadays last year: it seems like it will be bad. And the forest, the forest has grown so much! Just think how great is the wisdom of God! We'll sell the firewood from our plot for about a thousand. And game, what game! and after all, all this is yours, dear son: I am only your clerk. Look at the lake: what splendor! truly heavenly! the fish just walks like that; We buy one sturgeon, otherwise there are ruffs, perches, and crucian carp swarming with them: it’s a detriment to both ourselves and people. There are your cows and horses grazing. Here you are the only master of everything, but there, perhaps, everyone will push you around. And you want to run away from such grace, you don’t yet know where, into the pool, maybe, God forgive me... Stay!

He was silent.

“You’re not listening,” she said. -Where are you looking so intently?

He silently and thoughtfully pointed his hand into the distance. Anna Pavlovna looked and her face changed. There, between the fields, a road wound like a snake and ran away beyond the forest, the road to the promised land, to St. Petersburg. Anna Pavlovna was silent for several minutes to gather her strength.

- So that's it! – she finally said sadly. - Well, my friend, God be with you! go, if you are so drawn from here: I won’t stop you! At least you can’t say that your mother is eating away at your youth and life.

An ordinary story
Genre	novel
Author	Ivan Aleksandrovich Goncharov
Original language	Russian
Date of writing	1844-1847
Date of first publication	1847
Publishing house	Contemporary
Following	Oblomov

Plot

Convinced that “Ordinary History” was a remarkable work, Belinsky suggested that Goncharov give this novel to the almanac “Leviathan,” which Belinsky intended to publish in 1846. On May 14, 1846, Belinsky wrote to his wife: “Tell Maslov that Nekrasov will be in St. Petersburg in mid-July, and ask him to deliver the letter enclosed here to the address, even through the Maykovs, if he does not know where Goncharov lives.” One must think that in this letter from Belinsky we were talking about “Ordinary History” for “Leviathan”. At the end of June - after Belinsky had left for the south - Nekrasov talked about this topic with Goncharov, but without any success. In the fall, the idea of ​​publishing the almanac finally disappeared, and “Ordinary History” was bought by Nekrasov and Panaev for Sovremennik. “We explained to Goncharov the matter about the magazine,” Nekrasov wrote to Belinsky, “he said that Kraevsky gives him 200 rubles per sheet; we offered him the same money, and we will have this novel. I also bought his other story from him.”

In February 1847, Goncharov, according to I. I. Panaev, “beams while reading his proofs and trembles with delight, trying at the same time to pretend to be completely indifferent.” “Ordinary History” appeared in the third and fourth (March and April) books of the Sovremennik magazine. In 1848, Goncharov's novel was published as a separate edition.

Analysis

There are three themes at the heart of An Ordinary Story. The first of these is romance, the second theme is about the merchants, and the third theme is about a woman caged by the conventions of the time.

Aduev Jr. and Aduev Sr. embody for Goncharov two sides of Russia - a semi-Asian province and a Europeanized capital. The gap between them becomes most obvious in the middle of the novel, when Aduev Jr. takes the position of a typical “superfluous man”. The wife of Aduev Sr. is trying to reconcile these two extremes without much success.

The mutual attraction and antagonism of the two Aduevs is a rehearsal for the relationship between Oblomov and Stolz in Goncharov’s next novel. Adueva’s place in the next novel will be taken by the young lady Olga Ilyinskaya. Aduevsky's lackey Evsei will be transformed into Oblomov's servant. The fundamental difference between the novels is that, unlike Oblomov, the younger Aduev finds the strength to overcome the “superfluous person” in himself, to overcome his own passivity, to achieve career growth, and with it - expansion of life experience.

Ivan Aleksandrovich Goncharov

"An Ordinary Story"

This summer morning in the village of Grachi began unusually: at dawn, all the inhabitants of the house of the poor landowner Anna Pavlovna Adueva were already on their feet. Only the culprit of this fuss, Adueva’s son, Alexander, slept “as a twenty-year-old youth should sleep, in a heroic sleep.” Turmoil reigned in Rooks because Alexander was going to St. Petersburg for service: the knowledge he acquired at the university, according to the young man, must be applied in practice in serving the Fatherland.

The grief of Anna Pavlovna, parting with her only son, is akin to the sadness of the “first minister in the household” of the landowner Agrafena - his valet Yevsey, Agrafena’s dear friend, goes with Alexander to St. Petersburg - how many pleasant evenings this gentle couple spent playing cards!.. Alexander’s beloved, Sonechka, - the first impulses of his sublime soul were dedicated to her. Aduev’s best friend, Pospelov, bursts into Grachi at the last minute to finally hug the one with whom they spent the best hours of university life in conversations about honor and dignity, about serving the Fatherland and the delights of love...

And Alexander himself is sorry to part with his usual way of life. If high goals and a sense of his purpose had not pushed him into long journey, he, of course, would have stayed in Rrachi, with his endlessly loving mother and sister, the old maid Maria Gorbatova, among hospitable and hospitable neighbors, next to his first love. But ambitious dreams drive the young man to the capital, closer to glory.

In St. Petersburg, Alexander immediately goes to his relative, Pyotr Ivanovich Aduev, who at one time, like Alexander, “was sent to St. Petersburg at the age of twenty by his elder brother, Alexander’s father, and lived there continuously for seventeen years.” Not maintaining contact with his widow and son, who remained in Grachi after the death of his brother, Pyotr Ivanovich was greatly surprised and annoyed by the appearance of an enthusiastic young man, expecting from his uncle care, attention and, most importantly, sharing his heightened sensitivity. From the very first minutes of their acquaintance, Pyotr Ivanovich almost by force has to restrain Alexander from pouring out his feelings and trying to embrace his relative. Along with Alexander, a letter arrives from Anna Pavlovna, from which Pyotr Ivanovich learns that great hopes are placed on him: not only by his almost forgotten daughter-in-law, who hopes that Pyotr Ivanovich will sleep with Alexander in the same room and cover the young man’s mouth from flies. The letter contains many requests from neighbors that Pyotr Ivanovich had forgotten to think about for almost two decades. One of these letters was written by Marya Gorbatova, Anna Pavlovna’s sister, who remembered for the rest of her life the day when the still young Pyotr Ivanovich, walking with her through the village surroundings, climbed knee-deep into the lake and plucked a yellow flower as a souvenir for her...

From the very first meeting, Pyotr Ivanovich, a rather dry and businesslike man, begins raising his enthusiastic nephew: he rents Alexander an apartment in the same building where he lives, advises where and how to eat, with whom to communicate. Later he finds a very specific thing to do: service and - for the soul! — translations of articles devoted to agricultural problems. Ridiculing, sometimes quite cruelly, Alexander’s predilection for everything “unearthly” and sublime, Pyotr Ivanovich gradually tries to destroy the fictional world in which his romantic nephew lives. Two years pass like this.

After this time, we meet Alexander already somewhat accustomed to the difficulties of St. Petersburg life. And - madly in love with Nadenka Lyubetskaya. During this time, Alexander managed to advance in his career and achieved some success in translations. Now he has become enough important person in the magazine: “he was engaged in the selection, translation, and correction of other people’s articles, he himself wrote various theoretical views about agriculture" He continued to write poetry and prose. But falling in love with Nadenka Lyubetskaya seems to close the whole world before Alexander Aduev - now he lives from meeting to meeting, intoxicated by that “sweet bliss with which Pyotr Ivanovich was angry.”

Nadenka is also in love with Alexander, but, perhaps, only with that “little love in anticipation of a big one” that Alexander himself felt for Sophia, whom he had now forgotten. Alexander's happiness is fragile - Count Novinsky, the Lyubetskys' neighbor in the dacha, stands in the way of eternal bliss.

Pyotr Ivanovich is unable to cure Alexander of his raging passions: Aduev Jr. is ready to challenge the count to a duel, to take revenge on an ungrateful girl who is unable to appreciate his high feelings, he sobs and burns with anger... Pyotr Ivanovich’s wife, Lizaveta Aleksandrovna, comes to the aid of the distraught young man ; she comes to Alexander when Pyotr Ivanovich turns out to be powerless, and we do not know exactly how, with what words, with what participation the young woman succeeds in what her smart, sensible husband failed to do. “An hour later he (Alexander) came out thoughtfully, but with a smile, and fell asleep peacefully for the first time after many sleepless nights.”

And another year has passed since that memorable night. From the gloomy despair that Lizaveta Alexandrovna managed to melt, Aduev Jr. turned to despondency and indifference. “He somehow liked to play the role of the sufferer. He was quiet, important, vague, like a man who, in his words, had withstood the blow of fate...” And the blow was not slow to repeat: an unexpected meeting with an old friend Pospelov on Nevsky Prospekt, a meeting that was all the more accidental because Alexander did not even know about the move his soulmate to the capital - brings confusion into the already disturbed heart of Aduev Jr. The friend turns out to be completely different from what he remembers from the years spent at the university: he is strikingly similar to Pyotr Ivanovich Aduev - he does not appreciate the wounds of the heart experienced by Alexander, talks about his career, about money, warmly welcomes his old friend in his home, but no special signs of attention doesn't show it to him.

It turns out to be almost impossible to cure sensitive Alexander from this blow - and who knows what our hero would have come to this time if his uncle had not applied “extreme measures” to him!.. Discussing with Alexander about the bonds of love and friendship, Pyotr Ivanovich cruelly reproaches Alexander the fact that he closed himself only in his own feelings, not knowing how to appreciate someone who is faithful to him. He does not consider his uncle and aunt his friends; he has not written to his mother for a long time, who lives only in thoughts of her only son. This “medicine” turns out to be effective - Alexander again turns to literary creativity. This time he writes a story and reads it to Pyotr Ivanovich and Lizaveta Alexandrovna. Aduev Sr. invites Alexander to send the story to the magazine to find out the true value of his nephew’s work. Pyotr Ivanovich does this under his own name, believing that this will be a fairer trial and better for the fate of the work. The answer was not slow to appear - it puts the finishing touches on the hopes of the ambitious Aduev Jr....

And just at this time, Pyotr Ivanovich needed the service of his nephew: his companion at the plant, Surkov, unexpectedly falls in love with the young widow of Pyotr Ivanovich’s former friend, Yulia Pavlovna Tafaeva, and completely abandons his affairs. Valuing business above all else, Pyotr Ivanovich asks Alexander to “make Tafaeva fall in love with himself,” pushing Surkov out of her home and heart. As a reward, Pyotr Ivanovich offers Alexander two vases that Aduev Jr. liked so much.

The matter, however, takes an unexpected turn: Alexander falls in love with a young widow and evokes a reciprocal feeling in her. Moreover, the feeling is so strong, so romantic and sublime that the “culprit” himself is not able to withstand the outbursts of passion and jealousy that Tafaeva unleashes on him. Raised on romance novels Having married a rich and unloved man too early, Yulia Pavlovna, having met Alexander, seems to throw herself into a whirlpool: everything that she read and dreamed about now falls on her chosen one. And Alexander does not pass the test...

After Pyotr Ivanovich managed to bring Tafaeva to her senses with arguments unknown to us, another three months passed, during which Alexander’s life after the shock he experienced is unknown to us. We meet him again when he, disappointed in everything he lived before, “plays checkers with some eccentrics or fishes.” His apathy is deep and inescapable; nothing, it seems, can bring Aduev Jr. out of his dull indifference. Alexander no longer believes in either love or friendship. He begins to go to Kostikov, about whom Zaezzhalov, a neighbor in Grachi, once wrote in a letter to Pyotr Ivanovich, wanting to introduce Aduev Sr. to his old friend. This man turned out to be just the right thing for Alexander: he “could not awaken emotional disturbances” in the young man.

And one day on the shore where they were fishing, unexpected spectators appeared - an old man and a pretty young girl. They appeared more and more often. Lisa (that was the girl’s name) began to try to captivate the yearning Alexander with various feminine tricks. The girl partially succeeds, but her offended father comes to the gazebo for a date instead. After an explanation with him, Alexander has no choice but to change the place of fishing. However, he doesn’t remember Lisa for long...

Still wanting to awaken Alexander from the sleep of his soul, his aunt asks him one day to accompany her to a concert: “some artist, a European celebrity, has arrived.” The shock experienced by Alexander from meeting beautiful music strengthens the decision that had matured even earlier to give up everything and return to his mother, in Grachi. Alexander Fedorovich Aduev leaves the capital along the same road along which he entered St. Petersburg several years ago, intending to conquer it with his talents and high appointment...

And in the village, life seemed to have stopped running: the same hospitable neighbors, only older, the same endlessly loving mother, Anna Pavlovna; Sophia just got married without waiting for her Sasha, and her aunt, Marya Gorbatova, still remembers the yellow flower. Shocked by the changes that have occurred with her son, Anna Pavlovna spends a long time asking Yevsey how Alexander lived in St. Petersburg, and comes to the conclusion that life itself in the capital is so unhealthy that it has aged her son and dulled his feelings. Days pass after days, Anna Pavlovna still hopes that Alexander’s hair will grow back and his eyes will sparkle, and he thinks about how to return to St. Petersburg, where so much has been experienced and irretrievably lost.

The death of his mother relieves Alexander from the pangs of conscience, which do not allow him to admit to Anna Pavlovna that he was again planning to escape from the village, and, having written to Pyotr Ivanovich, Alexander Aduev again goes to St. Petersburg...

Four years pass after Alexander's return to the capital. Many changes happened to the main characters of the novel. Lizaveta Alexandrovna was tired of fighting her husband’s coldness and turned into a calm, sensible woman, devoid of any aspirations or desires. Pyotr Ivanovich, upset by the change in his wife’s character and suspecting she has a dangerous illness, is ready to give up his career as a court adviser and resign in order to take Lizaveta Alexandrovna away from St. Petersburg, at least for a while. But Alexander Fedorovich reached the heights that his uncle once dreamed of for him: “a collegiate adviser, a good government salary, through outside labor”, he earns considerable money and is also preparing to get married, taking three hundred thousand and five hundred souls for his bride...

At this point we part with the heroes of the novel. What, in essence, is an ordinary story!..

The story begins in the village of Grachi, where chaos reigns in the estate of the landowner Anna Pavlovna Adueva: her only son Alexander leaves for service in St. Petersburg. In the village he leaves his beloved girl Sonechka and best friend Pospelov.

In the capital, Alexander turns for help to his uncle, Pyotr Ivanovich Aduev, who forgot to think about his nephew, but, having controlled himself, found him good job a translator and a decent apartment next door. He is somewhat embarrassed by his nephew’s desire for everything sublime, but he rightly believes that life in the capital will change him.

After a couple of years, Alexander becomes calmer and more reasonable, he achieved certain successes in the service and fell madly in love with Nadezhda Lyubetskaya. His uncle is negative about his hobby and believes that this hobby will bring him unnecessary disappointment. And it turns out to be right: the selfish Nadenka prefers Count Novinsky to Alexandra. The hero is completely crushed, he loses interest in life and only his uncle’s wife, Lizaveta Aleksandrovna, manages to distract him a little and turn his grief into slight sadness.

A year later, Alexander faced a new test: in the capital, he accidentally ran into his village friend Pospelov. He has changed a lot: he has become a real resident of the capital, has become rich and clearly disdains Alexander’s company. For the hero, this is the last straw, because everyone around, in his opinion, has forgotten about love and friendship and is only interested in money and entertainment.

Alexander falls into depression, but his uncle decides not to stand on ceremony with him and claims that he himself is to blame for this: he did not write to a friend, forgot about his mother and sister, isolated himself from his past life and got the expected result. To dispel his melancholy, Pyotr Aleksandrovich asks him for a favor: to make Yulia Pavlovna Tafaeva fall in love with him, who distracts his companion Surkov from work, which has a bad effect on profits. Alexander agrees, but unexpectedly the feeling between the young people becomes mutual. The uncle is in a panic: again his nephew is teetering on the verge of an emotional breakdown, he tricks Yulia into leaving, and Alexander goes to Grachi out of melancholy.

In the village he was greeted very cordially, his life became calm again and his only entertainment was fishing in the local pond. It was there that he met a girl, Lisa, but the death of his mother prevented the development of a new hobby. Alexander even sighs with some relief: now there are no obstacles to his return to St. Petersburg.

There, life changed in many ways, his uncle resigned and went with his wife to live on his village estate. He, a notorious cracker and skeptic, oddly enough, decided to add a little emotion to his relationship with his wife. Now Alexander has no relatives left in the capital; he focused all his attention on his career.

A few years later he was already a collegiate adviser, began to earn an obscene amount of money and completely forgot about his mental torments of his youth. The hero is even ready to marry, but only to a girl with a rich dowry. This is such an ordinary everyday story.

Essays

“Goncharov’s plan was broader. He wanted to strike a blow at modern romanticism in general, but failed to determine the ideological center. Instead of romanticism, he ridiculed provincial attempts at romanticism" (based on the novel by Goncharov "An Ordinary Story" by I.A. Goncharov “The Loss of Romantic Illusions” (based on the novel “An Ordinary Story”) The author and his characters in the novel “An Ordinary Story” The author and his characters in I. A. Goncharov’s novel “An Ordinary Story” The main characters of I. Goncharov’s novel “An Ordinary Story”. The main character of I. Goncharov's novel "An Ordinary Story" Two philosophies of life in I. A. Goncharov’s novel “An Ordinary Story” Uncle and nephew of the Aduevs in the novel “An Ordinary Story” How to live? Image of Alexander Aduev. St. Petersburg and the province in I. Goncharov’s novel “An Ordinary Story” Review of the novel by I. A. Goncharov “An Ordinary Story” Reflection of historical changes in Goncharov’s novel “Ordinary History” Why is I. A. Goncharov’s novel called “Ordinary History”?

The novel was conceived by the author in 1844. The work was first read in the salon of the Maykov family. Goncharov made some adjustments to his novel precisely on the advice of Valerian Maykov. Then the manuscript ended up with M. Yazykov, who was supposed to hand it over to Belinsky at the request of the author himself. However, Yazykov was in no hurry to fulfill the request, as he considered the novel too banal. The manuscript was handed to Belinsky by Nekrasov, who took it from Yazykov. Belinsky planned to publish “Ordinary History” in the almanac “Leviathan”.

However, these plans were never destined to come true. Goncharov received advantageous offer: he could earn 200 rubles for each page of the manuscript. But Panaev and Nekrasov offered the writer the same amount, and Goncharov sold them his work. It was decided to publish the novel in Sovremennik. Publication took place in 1847. A year later, the novel was published as a separate edition.

Alexander Aduev, the son of a poor landowner, is going to leave his native estate. The young landowner received a decent university education, which he now wants to use in the service of his fatherland. Alexander leaves his first love Sonechka and his inconsolable mother Anna Pavlovna on the estate, who does not want to part with her only son. Aduev himself also does not want to leave his usual way of life. However, the high goals he has set for himself force him to leave his parents' home.

Once in the capital, Alexander goes to his uncle. Pyotr Ivanovich had lived in St. Petersburg for many years. After his brother's death, he stopped communicating with his widow and his nephew. Alexander does not seem to notice that his uncle is not too happy to see him. The young man expects care and protection from a close relative. Pyotr Ivanovich receives a letter from the mother of his nephew, who asks him to help his son get a good job. The uncle has no choice, and he takes on the active upbringing of his nephew: he rents an apartment for him, gives him numerous pieces of advice, and finds him a place. Pyotr Ivanovich believes that Alexander is too romantic and out of touch with reality. It is necessary to destroy the fictional world in which the young man lives.

2 years have passed. During this time, Alexander was able to achieve success in his service. The uncle is happy with his nephew. The only thing that upsets Pyotr Ivanovich is the young man’s love for Nadenka Lyubetskaya. According to the stern uncle, “sweet bliss” can prevent his nephew from further promotion. Nadya also likes Alexander. However, the girl’s feelings are not as deep as the feelings of her lover. Nadenka is much more interested in Count Novinsky. Aduev Jr. dreams of a duel with his opponent. Pyotr Ivanovich is trying with all his might to dissuade his nephew from his fatal mistake. Uncle never found it the right words consolation. Lizaveta Alexandrovna, the wife of Pyotr Ivanovich, had to intervene. Only the aunt managed to calm the young man down and dissuade him from the duel.

Another year has passed. Alexander has already forgotten Nadenka. However, not a trace of the former romantic young man remained in him. Aduev Jr. is bored and sad all the time. The uncle and aunt try various ways to distract their nephew, but nothing helps. The young man himself tries to lose himself in love, but he fails. Alexander is increasingly thinking about returning home. In the end, the young man leaves the capital. Life in the village has not changed, only Sonya, Aduev’s first love, got married without waiting for her lover. Anna Pavlovna is glad that her son returned from St. Petersburg, and believes that life in the capital undermines her health.

Fascinating city
But Alexander finds no peace even in his father’s house. Having barely returned, he is already dreaming of moving to St. Petersburg. After the capital's salons, the quiet life in the countryside seems insufficiently dynamic and vibrant. However, the young man does not dare to leave because he does not want to upset his mother. The death of Anna Pavlovna relieves Aduev Jr. of remorse. He returns to the capital.

Another 4 years have passed. The characters in the novel have changed a lot. Aunt Lizaveta became indifferent and indifferent. Pyotr Ivanovich also becomes different. From the former cold and calculating businessman, he turns into a loving family man. Pyotr Ivanovich suspects his wife has serious health problems and wants to resign in order to take his wife away from the capital. Alexander was able to get rid of his youthful illusions. Aduev Jr. makes good money, has achieved a high position and is going to marry a rich heiress.

Alexander Aduev

Romanticism and egocentrism are the main character traits of a young man. Alexander is confident in his uniqueness and dreams of conquering the capital. Aduev Jr. dreams of becoming famous in the poetic and writing fields and finding true love. Life in the village, according to the young man, is not for such a talented and exalted person as he.

Alexander's dreams collapse one after another. Very soon he realizes that there are enough mediocre poets and writers in the capital without him. Aduev will not tell the public anything new. True love also disappointed the young romantic. Nadenka Lyubetskaya easily abandons Alexander in order to prefer a more advantageous game to him. The young man comes to the conclusion that the world that he lived in his imagination does not really exist. Thus began the degeneration of the romantic into an ordinary cynic and businessman, like Alexander’s uncle.

Aduev Jr. realized in time that he was unable to remake reality, force it to be different. However, he can succeed by reconsidering his views and accepting the rules of the game.

Peter Aduev

At the beginning of the novel, Pyotr Ivanovich acts as the antipode of his nephew. The author characterizes this character as a person who is “icy to the point of bitterness.” Thanks to resourcefulness and composure, Alexander’s uncle was able to get a good job. Pyotr Ivanovich hates those unadapted to life, sentimental and sensitive people. It is these character traits that he has to fight in his nephew.

Aduev Sr. believes that only those who know how to control their feelings have the right to be called a person. That is why Pyotr Ivanovich despises Alexander’s tendency to “delight.” All the predictions of the experienced uncle came true. His nephew was unable to become famous either as a poet or as a writer, and his affair with Nadenka ended in betrayal.

The uncle and nephew embody in the novel two sides of the author's contemporary Russia. The country is divided into dreamers, who bring no practical benefit to anyone with their actions, and businessmen, whose activities benefit only themselves. Alexander represents a “superfluous person”, unsuitable for the real business and causing a sense of irony even among close relatives. The “superfluous” person will not benefit his fatherland, because, in fact, he himself does not know what he wants. Pyotr Ivanovich is overly practical. According to the author, his callousness is as destructive for others as the dreaminess of his nephew.

Some critics draw a parallel between “Ordinary History” and “Oblomov”, where the antipodes are Oblomov and his friend Stolz. The first, being a kind, sincere person, is too passive. The second, like Pyotr Aduev, is practical to the point of callousness. The title of the novel, “An Ordinary Story,” indicates that all the events described in the book are taken from life. Goncharov himself seems to admit that the story he tells is not unique. The transformation of romantics into cynics occurs every day. The “superfluous person” has only 2 options: leave this life, like Oblomov, or transform into a soulless machine, like Alexander Aduev.

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Ivan Aleksandrovich Goncharov
An ordinary story

© Children's Literature Publishing House. Series design, compilation, 2004.

© A. Kuznetsov. Illustrations, 2004

Comments by E. A. Krasnoshchekova

1812–1891

Ivan Aleksandrovich Goncharov 1
The text of the article is published according to the publication: Goncharov I. A. Collection. cit.: In 6 volumes. M.: Pravda, 1972. T. 6. (The article is printed in abbreviation.)
Better late than never
(Critical notes)

(“Russian Speech”, 1879, No. 6)

I put down my pen a long time ago and haven’t printed anything new. This is how I thought about ending my literary career, believing that my time had passed, and with it my writings had “passed”, that is, their time had passed.

I decided to resume only the publication of essays circumnavigation“Frigate “Pallada”” for the reasons stated in the preface to this publication. Traveling to the far ends of the world generally has the privilege of lasting longer than other books. Each of them leaves an indelible mark or rut for a long time, like a wheel, until the road is worn out to the point that all the ruts merge into one common wide path. Traveling around the world still has a long way to go.

Another thing is novels and literary works of fiction in general. They live for their age and die with it; Only the works of great masters survive their time and become historical monuments.

Others, having served their service in at the moment, go into the archives and are forgotten.

I expected this fate for my works, after they had gone through - some two, others three editions, and did not have the intention, and now I do not mean, to print them again.

But in public, where there are still many living contemporaries of mine literary activity, they often remember my novels, sometimes in print, and very often in personal addresses to me.

Some people ask why booksellers don’t have my works? Others flatteringly reproach me for why I don’t write anything new, sometimes they even offer to write about this or that subject, on this or that topic, saying that the public is supposedly expecting some other work from me. Still others - and these are the most - turn to my own view of one or another of my works, demanding explanations of what I meant by what I wanted to say with this; who or what did he mean when portraying such and such a hero or heroine, were these persons and events fictitious, or did they really happen, etc. There is no end to these questions!

At the same time, as happened with almost all writers, they try to mislead me into this or that hero, looking for me here and there or guessing certain personalities in heroes and heroines. Most often they see me in Oblomov, kindly reproaching me for my laziness as an author and saying that I painted this face from myself. Sometimes, on the contrary, they were at a loss as to where to put me in some novel, for example, as an uncle or nephew in Ordinary History.

Others openly express censure to me for this, for that, for the third, point out weak points, they find inaccuracies or exaggerations and call me to account for everything. Just recently, somewhere in print I saw a cursory critical essay of my writings.

And I kept thinking that if I had already fallen silent in the press myself, then others would talk and talk, and they would forget me and my writings, and therefore, to the questions addressed to me, I answered what came to mind under the influence of the moment, the personality of the questioner and others accidents.

But questions, information, demands for clarification, etc. not only did not stop, but, on the contrary, with the advent of the new edition of “Frigate “Pallada”” intensified. I hasten to add that I do not get tired or bored by this; on the contrary, I accept it as an expression of flattering attention. I am only sometimes hindered by the answers that I must always keep, so to speak, ready, to the questions addressed to me, and, of course, I inevitably have to fall into constant repetition.

In order to get out of this position of being answerable to one or another reader for my writings and a walking critic of the latter and once and for all to clarify my own view of my author’s tasks, I decided to print the following manuscript, which had long been idle in my briefcase.

This critical analysis of my books arose from the preface, which I was preparing for a separate edition of “The Precipice” in 1870, but then, for the reasons stated in this essay, I did not publish it. Then in 1875 I returned to it again, added something and again put it aside.

Now, going through it again, I find that it can serve as a sufficient, on my part, explanation and answer to almost all questions addressed to me from different sides, both personally and in print, sometimes flattering, exaggerated praise, more often - censure, misunderstandings , reproaches, – how relatively general meaning my author’s tasks, as well as regarding the characters, details, etc.

I by no means present this analysis of my works as a critical immutable criterion, I do not impose it on anyone, and I even foresee that in many respects many readers will not share it for various reasons. In communicating it, I only wish that they knew how I look at my novels myself, and would accept it as my personal answer to the questions asked of me, so that then there would be nothing left to ask me about.

If readers find this key to my works incorrect, then they are free to choose their own. If, contrary to my expectations, I needed to publish all my works again, then this same analysis could serve as the author’s preface to them.

I am late with this preface, they will tell me: but if it does not seem superfluous and now - then “better late than never” - I can answer this.

When I wrote “Ordinary History,” I, of course, had in mind myself and many like me who studied at home or at the university, lived in quiet times, under the wing of kind mothers, and then tore themselves away from the bliss, from the hearth, with tears, with a send-off (as in the first chapters of Ordinary History) and appearing at the main arena of activity, in St. Petersburg.

And here - in the meeting of a gentle dreamer-nephew, spoiled by laziness and lordship, with a practical uncle - there was a hint of a motive that had just begun to play out in the most lively center - in St. Petersburg. This motive is a faint flicker of consciousness, of necessity labor, real, not routine, but live business in the fight against all-Russian stagnation.

This was reflected in my small mirror in the average bureaucratic circle. Without a doubt, the same thing - in the same spirit, tone and character, only in different dimensions, played out in other, both higher and lower, spheres of Russian life.

The representative of this motive in society was the uncle: he achieved a significant position in the service, he was a director, a privy councilor, and, in addition, he became a factory owner. Then, from the 20s to the 40s, it was a bold novelty, almost humiliation(I’m not talking about factory owners-bars, whose plants and factories were part of the family estates, had quitrent articles and which they themselves did not manage). The Privy Councilors had little courage to do this. His rank did not allow it, and the title of merchant was not flattering.

The struggle between uncle and nephew also reflected the then, just beginning, breakdown of old concepts and mores - sentimentality, caricatured exaggeration of feelings of friendship and love, poetry of idleness, family and home lies of feigned, essentially unprecedented feelings (for example, love with yellow flowers spinster aunt, etc.), a waste of time on visits, unnecessary hospitality, etc.

In a word, all the idle, dreamy and affective side of old morals with the usual impulses of youth - towards the high, great, graceful, towards effects, with a thirst to express this in crackling prose, most of all in verse.

All this was becoming obsolete, going away; there were faint glimpses of a new dawn, something sober, businesslike, necessary.

The first, that is, the old, was exhausted in the figure of the nephew - and therefore he came out more prominently, more clearly.

The second - that is, a sober consciousness of the need for business, labor, knowledge - was expressed in my uncle, but this consciousness was just emerging, the first symptoms appeared, it was far from full development- and it is clear that the beginning could be expressed weakly, incompletely, only here and there, in individuals and small groups, and the figure of the uncle came out paler than the figure of the nephew.

Nadenka, the girl, the object of Aduev’s love, also came out as a reflection of her time. She is no longer an unconditionally submissive daughter to the will of any parents. Her mother is weak in front of her and is barely able to maintain only decorum 2
Appearance (lat.).

The authority of the mother, although she assures that she strict, despite being silent and it’s as if Nadenka doesn’t take a step won't go without her. It’s not true, she herself feels that she is weak and blind to the point that she allows her daughter’s relationship with both Aduev and the count, without understanding what the matter is.

The daughter is a few steps ahead of her mother. She without asking fell in love with Aduev and almost does not hide it from her mother or is silent only for the sake of decency, considering that she has the right to manage in her own way your inner world and Aduev himself, whom, having studied him well, she mastered and commands. This is her obedient slave, gentle, spinelessly kind, promising something, but pettyly proud, a simple, ordinary young man, of whom there is a legion everywhere. And she would have accepted him, gotten married - and everything would have gone as usual.

But the figure of the count appeared, consciously intelligent, dexterous, and brilliant. Nadenka saw that Aduev could not stand comparison with him either in mind, or in character, or in upbringing. In her everyday life, Nadenka did not acquire consciousness of any ideals manhood, strength, and what kind of strength?

Then they did not exist, these ideals, just as there was no Russian, independent life. Onegins and others like him - these were the ideals, that is, dandies, lions who despised petty labor and did not know what to do with themselves!

All she had to see was that young Aduev was not a force, that everything that she had seen a thousand times in all the other young men with whom she danced was repeated in him, and she flirted a little. She listened to his poetry for a minute. Writing poetry was then a diploma for the intelligentsia. She expected that strength and talent lay there. But it turned out that he only writes passable poetry, but no one knows about them, and he is also sulking to himself at the count because he is simple, smart and behaves with dignity. She went over to the side of the latter: that was the conscious step of a Russian girl- silent emancipation, protest against her mother’s helpless authority.

But this is where this emancipation ended. She realized but in did not reverse the action of her consciousness, stopped in the dark, since the very moment of the era was a moment of ignorance. No one yet knew what to do with themselves, where to go, what to start? Onegin and similar “ideals” only languished in inaction, without definite goals and activities, and they did not know Tatyana.

“What will come of this? - Aduev asks Nadenka in fear, “is the count not getting married?”

"Don't know!" - she answers in anguish. And indeed, the Russian girl did not know how to act consciously and rationally in this or that case. She only vaguely felt that it was possible and time for her to protest against the return her married parents, and she could only, unconsciously of course, like Nadenka, declare this protest, rejecting one and moving her feelings to another.

This is where I left Nadenka. I no longer needed her as a type, and I didn’t care about her as a person.

And Belinsky once noticed this. “As long as he needs her, as long as he bothers with her! “he said to someone in front of me, “and then he’ll quit!”

And many people asked me, what happened to her next? How do I know? I didn’t draw Nadenka, but a Russian girl from a well-known circle of that era, V famous moment. I myself didn’t know any one Nadenka personally, or knew many.

They will tell me that both her and other figures are pale - and do not form types: it may very well be - I cannot argue about that. I'm just saying what I meant by them.

At the beginning of the 40s, when this novel was being conceived and written, I could not yet look quite clearly into the next period, which had not arrived, but premonitions of which already lived in me, because soon after publication, in 1847, in Sovremennik , “Ordinary History” - I already had a plan ready in my mind Oblomov, and in 1848 (or 1849 - I don’t remember) I placed in the “Illustrated Collection” of “Sovremennik” and “Oblomov’s Dream” - this overture of the entire novel, therefore, I experienced this period in my imagination and, thanks to my sensitivity, foresaw what follows. Now I can answer, “what happened to Nadenka.”

Look in Oblomov - Olga there is a transformed one Nadenka next era. But we'll get to that below.

Aduev ended up like most of them then: he listened to the practical wisdom of his uncle, began working in the service, wrote in magazines (but no longer in poetry) and, having survived the era of youthful unrest, achieved positive benefits, like the majority, took a strong position in the service and got married advantageously , in a word, managed his affairs. This is what “Ordinary History” is all about.

She's in my books first gallery, serving as a prelude to the next two galleries or periods Russian life, already closely connected with each other, that is, to “Oblomov” and “Cliff”, or to “Dream” and to “Awakening”.

They may notice to me that long before this, our great poet Pushkin has hints of similar relationships between persons, as I have in “Oblomov” and “Obyv”, partly in “Ordinary History”, for example in Tatyana and Onegin, Olga and Lensky, etc.

To this I will answer first of all that in Russian literature there is still no escape from Pushkin and Gogol. The Pushkin-Gogol school continues to this day, and all of us, fiction writers, are just developing the material they bequeathed. Even Lermontov, a colossal figure, all like the eldest son in his father, poured out into Pushkin. He followed in his footsteps, so to speak. His "Prophet" and "Demon", poetry Caucasus And East and his novels are all the development of those examples of poetry and ideals that Pushkin gave. I said in a critical study about Griboedov, “A Million Torments,” that Pushkin is the father, the founder of Russian art, just as Lomonosov is the father of science in Russia. In Pushkin lie all the seeds and rudiments from which all kinds and types of art later developed in all our artists, just as in Aristotle the seeds, germs and hints for almost all subsequent branches of knowledge and science were hidden. Both Pushkin and Lermontov have the same kindred spirit, one can hear the same general structure of the lyre, sometimes the same images appear - in Lermontov, perhaps more powerful and deep, but less perfect and brilliant in form than in Pushkin. The whole difference is in the moment of time. Lermontov went further in time, entered a new period of development of thought, a new movement in European and Russian life, and was ahead of Pushkin in the depth of thought, courage and novelty of ideas and flight.

Pushkin, I say, was our teacher - and I was brought up, so to speak, by his poetry. Gogol influenced me much later and less; I already wrote myself when Gogol had not yet finished his career.

Gogol himself, of course, owes the objectivity of his images to Pushkin. Without this example and forerunner of art, Gogol would not have been the Gogol that he is. The charm, severity and purity of form are the same. All the difference is in everyday life, in the setting and in the sphere of action, but the creative spirit is the same, in Gogol it has completely turned into denial.

Therefore, it is not surprising that the traits of Pushkin, Lermontov and Gogol’s creative power still enter our flesh and blood, just as the flesh and blood of our ancestors passes on to our descendants.

It must be said that in our literature (and, I think, everywhere), especially the two main images of women constantly appear in the works of the word in parallel, like two opposites: a positive character - Pushkin Olga and ideal - his own Tatiana. One is an unconditional, passive expression of the era, a type that is cast, like wax, into a ready-made, dominant form. The other is with the instincts of self-awareness, originality, and initiative. That’s why the first one is clear, open, and immediately understandable ( Olga in "Onegin" Varvara in "The Thunderstorm"). The other, on the contrary, is original, seeks its own expression and form and therefore seems capricious, mysterious, elusive. Our teachers and models have them, and Ostrovsky also has them in “The Thunderstorm” - in a different area; they, I dare add, appeared in my “Cliff.” These are the two dominant characters into which, in basic terms, with different shades, almost all women are more or less divided.

The point is not in the invention of new types - and there are only a few indigenous human types - but in how in whom they were expressed, how they connected with the life around them, and how the latter reflected on them.

Pushkinsky Tatiana And Olga could not have been more responsive to the moment. Tatyana, depressed by her rude and pitiful environment, also rushed to Onegin, but did not find an answer and resigned herself to her fate by marrying the general. Olga instantly forgot her poet and married a lancer. The authority of their parents decided their fate. Pushkin, as a great master, with these two strokes of his brush, and a few more strokes, gave us eternal models, according to which we unconsciously learn to paint, like painters from ancient statues.<…>

An ordinary story
A novel in two parts

Part one

I

One summer, in the village of Grachakh, with the poor landowner Anna Pavlovna Adueva, everyone in the house rose at dawn, from the mistress to the chain dog Barbosa.

Only Anna Pavlovna’s only son, Alexander Fedorych, slept as a twenty-year-old youth should sleep, in a heroic sleep; and in the house everyone was fussing and fussing. People, however, walked on tiptoe and spoke in whispers, so as not to wake the young master. As soon as someone knocked or spoke loudly, now, like an irritated lioness, Anna Pavlovna appeared and punished the unwary with a stern reprimand, an offensive nickname, and sometimes, according to her anger and strength, and a push.

In the kitchen they cooked with three hands, as if for ten, although the entire master's family consisted only of Anna Pavlovna and Alexander Fedorych. In the barn they wiped and greased the cart. Everyone was busy and worked their butts off. Barbos only did nothing, but he also took part in the general movement in his own way. When a footman, a coachman, or a girl snuck past him, he would wave his tail and carefully sniff the passerby, and with his eyes he seemed to ask: “Will they finally tell me what kind of commotion we’re having today?”

And the turmoil was because Anna Pavlovna was sending her son to St. Petersburg for service, or, as she said, to see people and show herself off. A killer day for her! This makes her so sad and upset. Often, in trouble, she will open her mouth to order something, and suddenly stop mid-sentence, her voice will change, she will turn to the side and, if she has time, wipe away a tear, but if she doesn’t have time, she will drop it into the suitcase in which she herself I was laying out Sashenka’s underwear. Tears have been boiling in her heart for a long time; they have risen to the throat, are pressing on the chest and are ready to splash into three streams; but she seemed to be saving them for goodbyes and occasionally spent them a little at a time.

She was not the only one mourning the separation: Sashenka’s valet, Yevsey, also grieved greatly. He went with the master to St. Petersburg, leaving the warmest corner in the house, behind the couch, in the room of Agrafena, the first minister in Anna Pavlovna’s household and - most importantly for Yevsey - her first housekeeper.

Behind the couch there was only room to put two chairs and a table on which tea, coffee, and snacks were prepared. Yevsey firmly occupied a place both behind the stove and in the heart of Agrafena. She sat on the other chair herself.

The story of Agrafen and Yevsey was already an old story in the house. They talked about her, like everything else in the world, slandered both of them, and then, just like everything else, they kept silent. The lady herself got used to seeing them together, and they were blissful for ten whole years. How many people will end up with ten happy years in their lives? But now the moment of loss has come! Goodbye, warm corner, goodbye, Agrafena Ivanovna, goodbye, playing fools, and coffee, and vodka, and liqueur - goodbye everything! Yevsey sat silently and sighed heavily. Agrafena, frowning, fussed about the housework. She expressed grief in her own way. That day she spilled the tea with bitterness and instead of serving the first cup of strong tea, as usual, to the lady, she threw it out: “Don’t let anyone get it,” and firmly endured the reprimand. Her coffee boiled over, the cream burned, the cups fell out of her hands. She will not put the tray on the table, but will blurt out; He won’t open the closet or the door, but slam it. But she did not cry, but was angry at everything and everyone. However, this was generally the main feature in her character. She was never satisfied; everything is not according to her; always grumbled and complained. But at this fatal moment for her, her character was revealed in all its pathos. Most of all, it seems, she was angry with Yevsey.

“Agrafena Ivanovna!..” he said plaintively and tenderly, which did not quite suit his long and dense figure.

- Well, why are you sitting here, you dumbass? - she answered, as if it was the first time he had sat here. - Let me go: I need to get a towel.

“Eh, Agrafena Ivanovna!..” he repeated lazily, sighing and rising from the chair and immediately falling down again when she took the towel.

- He just whines! Here the arrow has imposed itself! What kind of punishment is this, Lord! and he won’t let go!

And she dropped the spoon into the rinsing cup with a clang.

- Agrafena! - suddenly came from the other room, - you've gone crazy! Don’t you know that Sashenka is resting? Did you have a fight with your lover before leaving?

- Don’t move for you, sit there like you’re dead! - Agrafena hissed like a snake, wiping the cup with both hands, as if she wanted to break it into pieces.

- Goodbye, goodbye! - Yevsey said with a huge sigh, - last day, Agrafena Ivanovna!

- And thank God! Let the devils take you away from here: it will be more spacious. Let him go, there’s nowhere to step: he’s stretched out his legs!

He touched her on the shoulder - how she answered him! He sighed again, but did not move; Yes, it would have been in vain to move: Agrafena didn’t want that. Yevsey knew this and was not embarrassed.

– Will someone sit in my place? - he said, still with a sigh.

- Leshy! – she answered abruptly.

- God forbid! as long as it’s not Proshka. Will someone play the fool with you?

- Well, at least it’s Proshka, so what’s the problem? – she remarked angrily.

Yevsey stood up.

- Don’t play with Proshka, by God, don’t play! – he said with concern and almost with a threat.

- Who will stop me? Are you some kind of idiot?

- Mother, Agrafena Ivanovna! - he began in a pleading voice, hugging her - around the waist, I would say, if she had even the slightest hint of a waist.

She returned the hug with an elbow to the chest.

- Mother, Agrafena Ivanovna! - he repeated, - will Proshka love you as much as I do? Look how mischievous he is: he won’t let a single woman pass. And me! eh! You are like blue gunpowder in my eye! If it weren’t for the master’s will, then... eh!..

At the same time, he grunted and waved his hand. Agrafena could not stand it: her grief finally revealed itself in tears.

“Will you leave me alone, you damned one?” - she said, crying, - what are you talking about, you fools! I'll contact Proshka! Don’t you see for yourself that you won’t get a good word from him? All he knows is that he is climbing with his hands...

- And he came to you? Oh, you bastard! But you probably won’t tell! I would...

- Get in there, he’ll find out! Are there no females in the household besides me? I’ll contact Proshka! look what you made up! It’s sickening to sit next to him - a pig is a pig! Just look, he strives to hit a person or devour something from the master’s hands - and you won’t see it.

- If, Agrafena Ivanovna, such a case comes - the evil one is strong - then it’s better to put Grishka here: at least he’s a quiet little guy, hard-working, and doesn’t sneer...

- I just made it up! - Agrafena attacked him, - why are you imposing me on everyone, am I really anything... Get out of here! There are many of your brothers, I will hang myself on everyone’s neck: not like that! Apparently, the evil one has only confused you with you, such a devil, for my sins, and even then I repent... otherwise I made it up!

– God reward you for your virtue! like a stone off your shoulders! - Yevsey exclaimed.

- I was happy! - she screamed brutally again, - there is something to rejoice at - rejoice!

And her lips turned white with anger. Both fell silent.

- Agrafena Ivanovna! – Yevsey said timidly a little later.

- Well, what else?

“I forgot: I didn’t have a drop of poppy dew in my mouth this morning.”

- That's all!

- Out of grief, mother.

She took out from the bottom shelf of the cupboard, from behind her head the sugar, a glass of vodka and two huge slices of bread with ham. All this had long been prepared for him by her caring hand. She slipped them to him, just as they don’t stick to dogs. One piece fell to the floor.

- Here, choke! Oh, I wish you... but be quiet, don’t champ at the whole house.

She turned away from him with an expression of hatred, and he slowly began to eat, looking from under his brows at Agrafena and covering his mouth with one hand.

Meanwhile, a coachman with three horses appeared at the gate. An arch was thrown across the molar's neck. The bell, tied to the saddle, moved its tongue dully and unfreely, like a drunk man, tied up and thrown into a guardhouse. The coachman tied the horses under the barn canopy, took off his hat, took out a dirty towel and wiped the sweat from his face. Anna Pavlovna, seeing him from the window, turned pale. Her legs gave way and her arms dropped, although she expected this. Having recovered, she called Agrafena.

“Come on tiptoe, quietly, and see if Sashenka is sleeping?” - she said. “He, my darling, will probably sleep for the last day: I won’t get enough of him.” No, where are you going? Look, you'll fit in like a cow! I'm better on my own...

- Come on, you’re not a cow! - Agrafena grumbled, returning to her room. - Look, I found a cow! Do you have a lot of these cows?

Alexander Fedorych himself, a blond young man in the prime of his years, health and strength, walked towards Anna Pavlovna. He cheerfully greeted his mother, but when he suddenly saw the suitcase and bundles, he became embarrassed, silently went to the window and began to draw with his finger on the glass. A minute later he was talking to his mother again and looked at the tolls carelessly, even with joy.

“What are you doing, my friend, how did you sleep,” said Anna Pavlovna, “even your face is swollen?” Let me wipe your eyes and cheeks with rose water.

- No, mummy, no need.

– What do you want for breakfast: tea first or coffee? I ordered to make beaten meat with sour cream in a frying pan - what do you want?

- It’s all the same, mummy.

Anna Pavlovna continued to fold the laundry, then stopped and looked at her son with longing.

“Sasha!..” she said after a while.

- What do you want, mummy?

She hesitated to speak, as if she was afraid of something.

-Where are you going, my friend, why? – she finally asked in a quiet voice.

- Where are you going, mama? to St. Petersburg, then... then... so...

“Listen, Sasha,” she said in excitement, placing her hand on his shoulder, apparently with the intention of making a last attempt, “the time has not yet passed: think, stay!”

- Stay! as possible! “But… the laundry is packed,” he said, not knowing what to come up with.

- The laundry is done! yes... here... here... look - and it’s not packed.

She took everything out of the suitcase in three steps.

- How is this so, mamma? got ready - and suddenly again! What will they say...

He became sad.

– I’m dissuading it not so much for myself as for you. Why are you going? Looking for happiness? Don't you feel good here? Doesn’t your mother think every day about how to please all your whims? Of course, you are at such an age that pleasing your mother alone does not constitute happiness; Yes, I don’t require this. Well, look around you: everyone is looking into your eyes. And Marya Karpovna’s daughter, Sonyushka? What... blushed? How she, my darling - God bless her - loves you: listen, she hasn’t slept for the third night!

- Here you are, mummy! she's so...

- Yes, yes, as if I don’t see... Ah! so as not to forget: she took to cutting off your scarves - “I, she says, myself, I won’t give it to anyone, and I’ll make a mark,” you see, what else do you need? Stay!

He listened in silence, with his head bowed, and played with the tassel of his dressing gown.

– What will you find in St. Petersburg? – she continued. “Do you think your life there will be the same as here?” Eh, my friend! God knows what you will see and endure: cold, hunger, and need - you will endure everything. There are a lot of evil people everywhere, but you won’t find good ones soon. And honor - whether in the village or in the capital - is still the same honor. Just as you don’t see life in St. Petersburg, it will seem to you, living here, that you are the first in the world; and so it is in everything, my dear! You are well-mannered, and dexterous, and good. I, an old woman, could only rejoice looking at you. If you got married, God would send you children, and I would nurse them - and I would live without grief, without worries, and I would live my life peacefully, quietly, I would not envy anyone; and there, maybe it won’t be good, maybe you’ll remember my words... Stay, Sashenka, huh?

He coughed and sighed, but didn't say a word.

“And look here,” she continued, opening the door to the balcony, “and aren’t you sorry to leave such a corner?”

The room smelled fresh from the balcony. From the house, a garden of old linden trees, thick rose hips, bird cherry trees and lilac bushes spread out into a distant space. Between the trees there were flowers, paths ran in different directions, then a lake quietly splashed into the shores, bathed on one side by the golden rays of the morning sun and smooth as a mirror; on the other, dark blue, like the sky that was reflected in it, and barely covered with swell. And there the fields with waving, multi-colored grains ran like an amphitheater and adjoined the dark forest.

Anna Pavlovna, covering her eyes from the sun with one hand, pointed to each object alternately to her son with the other.

“Look,” she said, “with what beauty God has clothed our fields!” From those fields of rye alone we will collect up to five hundred quarters; and there is wheat and buckwheat; only buckwheat today is not like last year: it seems it will be bad. And the forest, the forest has grown so much! Just think how great is the wisdom of God! We'll sell the firewood from our plot for about a thousand. And game, what game! and after all, all this is yours, dear son: I am only your clerk. Look at the lake: what splendor! truly heavenly! the fish just walks like that; We buy one sturgeon, otherwise they are swarming with ruffs, perches, and crucian carp: it’s a waste of both ourselves and people. There are your cows and horses grazing. Here you are the only master of everything, but there, perhaps, everyone will push you around. And you want to run away from such grace, you don’t yet know where, into the pool, maybe, God forgive me... Stay!

He was silent.

“You’re not listening,” she said. -Where are you looking so intently?

He silently and thoughtfully pointed his hand into the distance. Anna Pavlovna looked and her face changed. There, between the fields, a road wound like a snake and ran away beyond the forest, the road to the promised land, to St. Petersburg. Anna Pavlovna was silent for several minutes to gather her strength.

- So that's it! – she finally said sadly. - Well, my friend, God be with you! go, if you are so drawn from here: I won’t stop you! At least you can’t say that your mother is eating away at your youth and life.