Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

« Spring waters»

He returned home at two o'clock in the morning, tired and full of disgust for life. He was 52 years old, and he perceived his life as a calm, smooth sea, in the depths of which monsters lurked: “all everyday ailments, illnesses, sorrows, madness, poverty, blindness.” Every minute he expected one of them to capsize his fragile boat. The life of this rich but very lonely man was empty, worthless and disgusting. To escape from these thoughts, he began to sort through old papers, yellowed love letters and found among them a small octagonal box in which a small garnet cross was kept. He reminded Dmitry Pavlovich Sanin of the past.

In the summer of 1840, when Sanin turned 22, he traveled around Europe, squandering a small inheritance from a distant relative. Returning home, he stopped in Frankfurt. The stagecoach to Berlin was leaving late, and Sanin decided to take a walk around the city. Finding himself on a small street, Dmitry went into the Giovanni Roselli Italian Pastry Shop to drink a glass of lemonade. Before he could enter the hall, a girl ran out from the next room and began to beg Sanin for help. It turned out that the girl’s younger brother, a boy of about fourteen named Emil, had lost consciousness. Only the old servant Pantaleone was at home, and the girl was in a panic.

Sanin rubbed the boy with brushes, and he, to the joy of his sister, came to his senses. While saving Emil, Dmitry looked at the girl, marveling at her amazing classical beauty. At this time a lady entered the room, accompanied by a doctor, for whom a maid had been sent. The lady was the mother of Emilio and the girl. She was so happy about her son’s salvation that she invited Sanin to dinner.

In the evening, Dmitry was greeted as a hero and savior. He learned that the mother of the family's name was Leonora Roselli. Twenty years ago, she and her husband, Giovanni Battista Roselli, left Italy to open a pastry shop in Frankfurt. The beauty's name was Gemma. And their faithful servant Pantaleone, a funny little old man, was a former opera tenor. Another full member of the family was the poodle Tartaglia. To his disappointment, Sanin learned that Gemma was engaged to Mr. Karl Klüber, the head of a department of one of the large stores.

Sanin stayed up late with them and was late for the stagecoach. He had little money left, and he asked for a loan from his Berlin friend. While waiting for a response letter, Dmitry was forced to stay in the city for several days. In the morning, Emil visited Sanin, accompanied by Karl Klüber. This prominent and tall young man, impeccable, handsome and pleasant in all respects, thanked Dmitry on behalf of his bride, invited him on a pleasure walk to Soden and left. Emil asked permission to stay and soon became friends with Sanin.

Dmitry spent the whole day at Roselli's, admiring the beauty of Gemma, and even managed to work as a salesman in a pastry shop. Sanin went to the hotel late in the evening, taking with him “the image of a young girl, now laughing, now thoughtful, now calm and even indifferent, but always attractive.”

A few words should be said about Sanin. He was a stately and slender young man with slightly blurry features, blue eyes and golden hair, the scion of a sedate noble family. Dmitry combined freshness, health and an infinitely gentle character.

In the morning there was a walk to Soden, a small picturesque town half an hour’s drive from Frankfurt, organized by Herr Klüber with truly German pedantry. We dined at the best tavern in Soden. Gemma got bored with the walk. To unwind, she wanted to have lunch not in a secluded gazebo, which her pedantic fiancé had already ordered, but on the common terrace. A company of officers from the Mainz garrison was dining at the next table. One of them, being very drunk, approached Gemma, “slammed the glass” for her health and impudently grabbed a rose lying near her plate.

This act offended the girl. Instead of interceding for the bride, Herr Klüber hastily paid and, loudly indignant, took her to the hotel. Sanin approached the officer, called him impudent, took the rose and asked for a duel. Emil was delighted by Dmitry's action, and Kluber pretended not to notice anything. All the way back, Gemma listened to the groom’s self-confident rantings and in the end began to be ashamed of him.

The next morning, Sanin was visited by Baron von Donhof's second. Dmitry had no acquaintances in Frankfurt, and he had to invite Pantaleone to be his seconds. He took up his duties with extraordinary zeal and destroyed in the bud all attempts at reconciliation. It was decided to shoot with pistols from twenty steps.

Sanin spent the rest of the day with Gemma. Late in the evening, when Dmitry was leaving the pastry shop, Gemma called him to the window and gave him the same, already withered, rose. She awkwardly leaned over and leaned on Sanin's shoulders. At that moment, a hot whirlwind swept down the street, “like a flock of huge birds,” and the young man realized that he was in love.

The duel took place at ten o'clock in the morning. Baron von Dongoff deliberately fired to the side, admitting his guilt. The duelists shook hands and went their separate ways, and Sanina for a long time It was a shame - everything turned out very childish. At the hotel it turned out that Pantaleone had blabbed about the duel to Gemma.

In the afternoon, Sanina visited Frau Leone. Gemma wanted to break off the engagement, although the Roselli family was practically ruined, and only this marriage could save her. Frau Leone asked Dmitry to influence Gemma and persuade her not to refuse her groom. Sanin agreed and even tried to talk to the girl, but the persuasion backfired - Dmitry finally fell in love and realized that Gemma loved him too. After secret date in the city garden and mutual confessions, he had no choice but to propose to her.

Frau Leone greeted this news with tears, but after asking the newly minted groom about his financial situation, calmed down and reconciled. Sanin owned a small estate in the Tula province, which he urgently needed to sell in order to invest in a confectionery shop. Dmitry already wanted to go to Russia, when he suddenly met his former classmate on the street. This fat fellow named Ippolit Sidorich Polozov was married to a very beautiful and rich woman from the merchant class. Sanin approached him with a request to buy the estate. Polozov replied that his wife decides all financial issues, and offered to take Sanin to her.

Having said goodbye to his bride, Dmitry went to Wiesbaden, where Mrs. Polozova was treated with water. Marya Nikolaevna really turned out to be a beauty with heavy brown hair and somewhat vulgar facial features. She immediately began to court Sanin. It turned out that Polozov was a “convenient husband” who did not interfere in his wife’s affairs and gave her complete freedom. They had no children, and all Polozov’s interests converged on tasty, plentiful food and a luxurious life.

The couple made a bet. Ippolit Sidorich was sure that this time he would not get his wife - Sanin was very much in love. Unfortunately, Polozov lost, although his wife had to work hard. During the numerous dinners, walks and visits to the theater that Mrs. Polozova arranged for Sanin, he met von Dongoff, the mistress’s previous lover. Dmitry cheated on his fiancee three days after arriving in Wiesbaden for horse riding, which was arranged by Marya Nikolaevna.

Sanin had the conscience to admit to Gemma that he had cheated on him. After that, he completely submitted to Polozova, became her slave and followed her until she drank him dry and threw him away like an old rag. In memory of Gemma, Sanin only had a cross. He still did not understand why he left the girl, “so tenderly and passionately loved by him, for a woman whom he did not love at all.”

After an evening of memories, Sanin got ready and went to Frankfurt in the middle of winter. He wanted to find Gemma and ask for forgiveness, but he couldn’t even find the street on which the pastry shop stood thirty years ago. In the Frankfurt address book he came across the name of Major von Donhof. He told Sanin that Gemma had gotten married and gave her address in New York. Dmitry sent her letter and received an answer. Gemma wrote that she was very happily married and was grateful to Sanin for upsetting her first engagement. She gave birth to five children. Pantaleone and Frau Leone died, and Emilio died fighting for Garibaldi. The letter contained a photograph of Gemma's daughter, who looked very much like her mother. The girl was engaged. Sanin sent her a “garnet cross set in a magnificent pearl necklace” as a gift, and then he himself got ready to go to America. Retold Yulia Peskovaya

Dmitry Pavlovich Sanin was going through his old papers and found a small box with a garnet cross inside. Memories woke up. In 1840, Sanin traveled around Europe and stopped in Frankfurt. Entering a small pastry shop, he came across a girl begging him to help her unconscious brother. When it was all over, their mother invited the savior to dinner. Leonora Roselli fled with her husband from Italy to open her own pastry shop. Her daughter's name was Gemma, and the little old servant was called Pantaleone, a former opera tenor.

Gemma was going to marry Karl Krüber. The next day, Dmitry went with Karl and Gemma to Soden. There, one of the officers offended Gemma, and Sanin asked for a duel. Pantaleone confessed to Gemma about the duel, and the girl intended to break up with her groom. The mother visited Sanin and asked her to influence her daughter, because their family was on the verge of collapse and great hopes were pinned on this marriage. Dmitry agreed, but the conversation turned in a different direction and Sanin decided to propose to her. The mother was against it at first, but then agreed. Dmitry owned a small estate, which Sanin intended to sell. A chance meeting with a classmate brought many changes to Sanin’s life.

The wife of Polozov's classmate was an insidious woman and seduced Dmitry. Sanin told Gemma everything, after which he devoted himself completely to Polozova, who made him her slave and used him to the last. Only the cross remained in memory. After these memories, Dmitry decides to go to Frankfurt to ask Gemma for forgiveness. But there wasn’t even a street where that pastry shop used to be. Having accidentally found von Donhof, now a major, Sanin meets with him. He provided the address of Gemma, who lived in New York. Sanin wrote, in response he received a letter of gratitude from Gemma that he had upset her first marriage. She sent a photo of her daughter who was getting married. Sanin sent her a garnet cross, enclosed in a pearl necklace, and soon he himself was going to New York.

Gemma in the story “Spring Waters” - an Italian girl whom he fell in love with main character, Sanin. Gemma is an extraordinary beauty, as if she had stepped out of the paintings of Renaissance masters. Her appearance embodied the ideal of harmony, which in the minds of people of Turgenev’s generation was associated specifically with Italy.

Beauty is combined in the Italian with innate artistry and the power of passion. The spirit of freedom also lives in her, equally opposing both political despotism (Gemma is a “stubborn republican”) and measured and calculating bourgeoisism. The romantic nature of the heroine is manifested in the love story that makes up the first part of the story: the girl refuses her fiancé, the rich merchant Kluber, and falls in love with Sanin, who saved her brother and fought a duel for her honor. Gemma's love is surrounded by a halo of symbolic meaning: in it, according to Turgenev, the “last” secrets of life and beauty are revealed. All the more striking is Sanin’s refusal of the happiness that befell him. The heroine takes his betrayal seriously. But then, as Sanin learns, she embarks on the path of an ordinary (and, moreover, quite decent) existence - she leaves for America, gets married and prospers.

Polozova Marya Nikolaevna- the woman who destroyed the love of Sanin and Gemma in Turgenev’s story “Spring Waters”. She is extremely selfish, often rude and coldly calculating, but for all that she is clearly outstanding. Polozova is a person of a new formation, the daughter of an illiterate man who became rich, who received good education and having won a strong position in society, there is nothing in her from the psychology of an upstart: the heroine flaunts her plebeianism, although she despises the environment from which she came, as well as her new surroundings.

She knows human weaknesses and knows how to take advantage of them. Her goal is complete freedom for herself and power over other people. The sensuality of Marya Nikolaevna Polozova is marked by a shade of peculiar demonism: she seeks to enslave men, destroying their faith in ideal love and the possibility of happiness. There are deep reasons for this in her own destiny. Having “suffered” from slavery, she makes slaves of others; never in my life have I become an object true love, she deprives such love more happy women. This is exactly how she invades the ideal romance of Gemma and Sanin. This is a kind of revenge on the whole world that distinguished romantic heroes. But in Turgenev’s story “Spring Waters” Polozova is not sublime; the halo of “half-beast and half-god” that surrounded her at the climax eventually disappears, replaced simply by the features of the animal (“A hawk that claws a caught bird has eyes like these”).

Sanin Dmitry Pavlovich- the main character of the story “Spring Waters” by Turgenev, a young Russian landowner traveling around Europe for his own entertainment. Suddenly he becomes the main character of two diametrically opposed love stories. At first he experiences high pure love to Gemma, and then, almost without any transition, a blind and base passion for Polozova, who manages to completely enslave him. Having fallen in love with Gemma, Sanin behaves like a noble man, becoming Polozova’s slave - like a man without honor and conscience. He suffers, realizing the enormity of his betrayal, the baseness of his entire behavior, but this does not change anything. The contrast is very sharp, all the more significant is the fact that in both situations Turgenev explains the hero’s behavior with the same reason - his weakness of will. The hero every time succumbs to the intervention of chance, submits to circumstances, feelings, the will of other people: whatever their influence, so is he (in a situation perfect love noble, disgusting in a situation of base passion). Sanin’s weak will has some similarities with the psychology of Turgenev’s “superfluous people.” But the similarities only highlight the differences. The weakness of will that determines the behavior of this hero does not receive a specific social explanation (as happened in stories about “extra people”). This enlarges the scale of the generalization: the ability at any moment to move from noble idealism to uncontrollable fall and immorality is interpreted by the author as a trait national character, an expression of “Russian essence”.

Occupies a place of honor in Russian literature, primarily thanks to his works large shape. Six famous novels and several stories give any critic reason to consider Turgenev a brilliant prose writer. The themes of the works are very diverse: these are works about “superfluous” people, about serfdom, about love. In the late 1860s and early 70s, Turgenev wrote a number of stories representing memories of the distant past. The "first sign" was the story "Asya", which opened a galaxy of heroes - weak-willed people, noble intellectuals who lost their love due to weak character and indecision.

The story was written in 1872 and published in 1873 "Spring Waters", which largely repeated the plot of previous works. Russian landowner Dmitry Sanin, living abroad, recalls his past love to Gemma Roselli, the daughter of the owner of the pastry shop, where the hero went to drink lemonade during his walk around Frankfurt. He was young then, 22 years old, squandering the fortune of a distant relative while traveling around Europe.

Dmitry Pavlovich Sanin is a typical Russian nobleman, an educated and intelligent man: “Dmitry combined freshness, health and an infinitely gentle character”. During the development of the story's plot, the hero demonstrates his nobility several times. And if at the beginning of the development of events Dmitry showed courage and honor, for example, by providing assistance younger brother Gemma or having challenged a drunken officer to a duel who had insulted the honor of his beloved girl, then by the end of the novel he shows an amazing weakness of character.

Fate decreed that, having missed the stagecoach to Berlin and being left without money, Sanin ended up in the family of an Italian pastry chef, managed to work behind the counter and even fell in love with the owner’s daughter. He was shocked by the perfect beauty of the young Italian woman, especially her complexion, which resembled ivory. She also laughed unusually: she had “sweet, incessant, quiet laughter with little funny squeals”. But the girl was engaged to a wealthy German, Karl Klüber, a marriage with whom could have saved the unenviable position of the Roselli family.

And although Frau Lenore convincingly asks Sanin to persuade Gemma to marry a wealthy German, Dmitry himself falls in love with the girl. On the eve of the duel, she gives Sanin "the rose he won the day before". He is shocked, realizes that he is not indifferent to the girl, and is now tormented by the knowledge that he could be killed in a duel. His action seems stupid and senseless to him. But faith in the love of the young beauty gives confidence that everything will end well (that’s how it all happens).

Love transforms the hero: he admits in a letter to Gemma that he loves her, and a day later an explanation occurs. True, Gemma’s mother, Frau Lenore, takes the news of the new groom unexpectedly for both: she bursts into tears, like a Russian peasant woman over the coffin of her husband or son. After sobbing like this for an hour, she still listens to Sanin’s arguments that he is ready to sell his small estate in the Tula province in order to invest this money in the development of the confectionery and save the Roselli family from final ruin. Frau Lenore gradually calms down, asks about Russian laws and even asks to bring her some food from Russia. “Astrakhan whiting on a mantilla”. She is confused by the fact that they are of different faiths: Sanin is a Christian, and Gemma is a Catholic, but the girl, left alone with her beloved, rips a garnet cross from her neck and gives it to him as a sign of love.

Sanin is sure that the stars favor him, because literally the next day he meets his "an old boarding house friend" Ippolit Polozov, who offers to sell the estate to his wife Marya Nikolaevna. Sanin hurriedly leaves for Wiesbaden, where he meets Polozov’s wife, a young beautiful lady "in diamonds on the hands and on the neck". Sanin was slightly shocked by her cheeky behavior, but decided “indulge the whims of this rich lady” just to sell the estate for good price. But left alone, he recalls with bewilderment the vicious appearance of Marya Nikolaevna: her “either Russian or gypsy blooming female body”, "gray predatory eyes", "snake braids"; “and he couldn’t get rid of her image, couldn’t help but hear her voice, couldn’t help but remember her speeches, couldn’t help but feel the special smell, subtle, fresh and piercing, that wafted from her clothes.”.

This woman also attracts Sanin with her business acumen: when asking about the estate, she skillfully asks questions that reveal her "commercial and administrative abilities". The hero feels as if he is taking an exam, which he fails miserably. Polozova asks him to stay for two days to receive final decision, and Sanin finds himself captured by this powerful beautiful woman. The hero is delighted with Marya Nikolaevna’s originality: she not only business woman, she is a connoisseur of real art, an excellent rider. It is in the forest while riding on horseback that this woman, accustomed to victories over men, finally seduces young man, leaving him no choice. He follows her to Paris as a weak-willed victim, not knowing that this is not just the whim of a rich and depraved woman - this is a cruel bet that she made in own husband: she assured that she would seduce his school friend, who was about to get married, in just two days.

Many contemporaries saw image of Marya Nikolaevna Polozova "fatal passion" Turgenev himself - the singer Pauline Viardot, who, according to the writer's friends, simply bewitched him, which is why he never found happiness, basking all his life near someone else's family hearth (Viardot was married to Louis Viardot, a French writer, critic, theater figure, and I wasn’t going to get a divorce, because I owed him my solo career).

Motif of witchcraft there is also in “Spring Waters”. Polozova asks Sanin if he believes in "dry", and the hero agrees that he feels weak-willed. And the surname of the heroine Polozov is from “poloz”, i.e. huge snake, which for a Christian is associated with temptation. After the “fall” comes retribution - the hero is left alone. 30 years later, living out the boring days of his life, the hero remembers his first love - Gemma. Finding himself again in Frankfurt, he bitterly learns that the girl married an American, went with him to New York and is happily married (they have five children).

The story “Spring Waters,” like many other works of Turgenev, is about first love, usually unhappy, but it remains the brightest memory in the decline of every person’s life.

The story is prefaced by a quatrain from an ancient Russian romance:

Happy years
Happy days -
Like spring waters
They rushed by

Apparently, we will talk about love and youth. Maybe in the form of memories? Yes, indeed. “At one o’clock in the morning he returned to his office. He sent out the servant, who lit the candles, and, throwing himself into a chair near the fireplace, covered his face with both hands.”

Well, apparently, “he” (from our point of view) is living well, no matter who he is: the servant lights the candles, lit the fireplace for him. As it turns out later, he spent the evening with pleasant ladies and educated men. In addition: some of the ladies were beautiful, almost all the men were distinguished by their intelligence and talents. He himself also shone in the conversation. Why is he now choked by “disgust for life”?

And what is he, (Dmitry Pavlovich Sanin), thinking about in the silence of a cozy, warm office? "About vanity, uselessness, the vulgar falsehood of everything human." That's it, no more, no less!

He is 52 years old, he remembers all ages and sees no light. “Everywhere there is the same eternal pouring from empty to empty, the same pounding of water, the same half conscientious, half conscious self-delusion... - and then suddenly, just like out of the blue, old age will come - and with it... the fear of death... and crash into the abyss!" And before the end of weakness, suffering...

To distract himself from unpleasant thoughts, he sat down at the desk and began rummaging through his papers, in old women’s letters, intending to burn this unnecessary trash. Suddenly he cried out weakly: in one of the drawers there was a box in which lay a small garnet cross.

He again sat down in the chair by the fireplace - and again covered his face with his hands. "...And he remembered many things that had long passed... That's what he remembered..."

In the summer of 1840 he was in Frankfurt, returning from Italy to Russia. After the death of a distant relative, he ended up with several thousand rubles; he decided to live them abroad and then enter the military service.

At that time, tourists traveled in stagecoaches: there was still little railways. Sanin was supposed to leave for Berlin that day.

Walking around the city, at six o’clock in the evening he went into the “Italian Confectionery” to drink a glass of lemonade. There was no one in the first room, then a girl of about 19 years old “with dark curls scattered over her bare shoulders, with her bare arms outstretched forward” ran in from the next room. Seeing Sanin, the stranger grabbed his hand and led him along. “Hurry, hurry, come here, save me!” - she said “in a breathless voice.” He had never seen such a beauty in his life.

In the next room, her brother was lying on the sofa, a boy of about 14, pale, with blue lips. It was a sudden faint. A tiny, shaggy old man on crooked legs hobbled into the room and said that he had sent for the doctor...

"But Emil will die for now!" - the girl exclaimed and extended her hands to Sanin, begging for help. He took off the boy's frock coat, unbuttoned his shirt and, taking a brush, began to rub his chest and arms. At the same time, he glanced sideways at the extraordinary beauty of the Italian. The nose is a little big, but “beautiful, eagle-shaped,” dark gray eyes, long dark curls...

Finally, the boy woke up, and soon a lady with silver-gray hair and a dark face appeared, as it turns out, the mother of Emil and his sister. At the same time, the maid appeared with the doctor.

Fearing that he was now superfluous, Sanin left, but the girl caught up with him and begged him to return in an hour “for a cup of chocolate.” “We are so indebted to you - you may have saved your brother - we want to thank you - mom wants. You must tell us who you are, you must rejoice with us...”

An hour and a half later he appeared. All the inhabitants of the candy store seemed incredibly happy. On the round table, covered with a clean tablecloth, stood a huge porcelain coffee pot filled with fragrant chocolate; around there are cups, carafes of syrup, biscuits, rolls. Candles were burning in antique silver candlesticks.

Sanin was seated in an easy chair and forced to talk about himself; in turn, the ladies shared the details of their lives with him. They are all Italians. The mother, a lady with silver-gray hair and a dark complexion, was “almost completely Germanized” since her late husband, an experienced pastry chef, settled in Germany 25 years ago; daughter Gemma and son Emil “very good and obedient children”; a little old man named Pantaleone, it turns out, was once upon a time opera singer, but now “was in the Roselli family somewhere between a friend of the house and a servant.”

The mother of the family, Frau Lenore, imagined Russia this way: “eternal snow, everyone wears fur coats and everyone is military - but extreme hospitality! Sanin tried to provide her and her daughter with more accurate information.” He even sang “Sarafan” and “On the Pavement Street,” and then Pushkin’s “I Remember a Wonderful Moment” to Glinka’s music, somehow accompanying himself on the piano. The ladies admired the ease and sonority of the Russian language, then sang several Italian duets. Former singer Pantaleone also tried to perform something, some “extraordinary grace,” but failed. And then Emil suggested that his sister read to the guest “one of Maltz’s comedies, which she reads so well.”

Gemma read “quite like an actor,” “using her facial expressions.” Sanin admired her so much that he did not notice how the evening flew by and completely forgot that his stagecoach was leaving at half past ten. When the clock struck 10 in the evening, he jumped up as if stung. Late!

“Did you pay all the money or just give a deposit?” asked Frau Lenore.

All! - Sanin cried with a sad grimace.

“You now have to stay in Frankfurt for several days,” Gemma told him, “what’s your hurry?!”

He knew that he would have to stay “due to the emptiness of his wallet” and ask a Berlin friend to send money.

“Stay, stay,” said Frau Lenore. “We will introduce you to Gemma’s fiancé, Mr. Karl Klüber.”

Sanin was slightly taken aback by this news.

And the next day guests came to his hotel: Emil and with him a tall young man “with a handsome face” - Gemma’s fiancé.

The groom said that he “wanted to express my respect and gratitude to Mr. Foreigner, who provided such an important service to the future relative, the brother of his bride.”

Mr. Kluber hurried to his store - “business comes first!” - and Emil still stayed with Sanin and told him that his mother, under the influence of Mr. Kluber, wants to make him a merchant, while his vocation is the theater.

Sanin was invited to new friends for breakfast and stayed until the evening. Next to Gemma, everything seemed pleasant and sweet. “Great delights lurk in the monotonously quiet and smooth flow of life”... When night fell, when he went home, the “image” of Gemma did not leave him. And the next day, in the morning, Emil came to him and announced that Herr Klüber, (who had invited everyone to a pleasure ride the day before), would now arrive with a carriage. A quarter of an hour later, Kluber, Sanin and Emil drove up to the porch of the pastry shop. Frau Lenore stayed at home because of a headache, but sent Gemma with them.

We went to Soden - a small town near Frankfurt. Sanin secretly watched Gemma and her fiancé. She behaved calmly and simply, but still somewhat more seriously than usual, and the groom “looked like a condescending mentor”; He also treated nature “with the same condescension, through which the usual boss’s severity occasionally broke through.”

Then lunch, coffee; nothing remarkable. But behind one of neighboring tables Some rather drunk officers were sitting and suddenly one of them approached Gemma. He had already visited Frankfurt and, apparently, knew her. “I drink to the health of the most beautiful coffee shop in Frankfurt, in the whole world (he slammed the glass down) - and in retribution I take this flower plucked by her divine fingers!” At the same time, he took the rose lying in front of her. At first she was scared, then anger flashed in her eyes! Her gaze confused the drunk, who muttered something and “went back to his people.”

Mr. Klüber, putting on his hat, said: “This is unheard of! Unheard of insolence!” and demanded from the waiter an immediate payment. He also ordered the carriage to be pawned, since “decent people cannot travel here, because they are subject to insults!”

“Get up, Mein Fraulein,” said Mr. Klüber with the same severity, “it is indecent for you to stay here. We will settle down there, in the inn!”

He walked majestically towards the inn, arm in arm with Gemma. Emil trudged after them.

Meanwhile, Sanin, as befits a nobleman, approached the table where the officers were sitting and said in French to the insulter: “You are a poorly brought up impudent man.” He jumped up, and another officer, an older one, stopped him and asked Sanin, also in French, who he was to that girl.

Sanin, throwing his business card, declared that he was a stranger to the girl, but could not indifferently see such insolence. He grabbed the rose taken from Gemma and left, receiving the assurance that “tomorrow morning one of the officers of their regiment will have the honor of coming to his apartment.”

The groom pretended not to notice Sanin’s act. Gemma didn't say anything either. And Emil was ready to throw himself on the hero’s neck or go with him to fight the offenders.

Kluber ranted all the way: about the fact that it was in vain that they did not listen to him when he proposed dinner in a closed gazebo, about morality and immorality, about decency and a sense of dignity... Gradually, Gemma clearly became embarrassed for her fiancé. And Sanin secretly rejoiced at everything that happened, and at the end of the trip he gave her that same rose. She flushed and squeezed his hand.

This is how this love began.

In the morning, a second appeared and reported that his friend, Baron von Dongof, “would be satisfied with a light apology.”

Happy years

Happy days -

Like spring waters

They rushed by!

From an old romance

At one o'clock in the morning he returned to his office. He sent out a servant, who lit the candles, and, throwing himself into a chair near the fireplace, covered his face with both hands. Never before had he felt such fatigue - physical and mental. He spent the whole evening with pleasant ladies and educated men; some of the ladies were beautiful, almost all the men were distinguished by their intelligence and talents - he himself spoke very successfully and even brilliantly... and, with all that, never before that “taedium vitae”, which the Romans already spoke about, that “disgust for life” - with such irresistible force did not take possession of him, did not choke him. If he had been a little younger, he would have cried from melancholy, from boredom, from irritation: an acrid and burning bitterness, like the bitterness of wormwood, filled his entire soul. Something persistently hateful, disgustingly heavy surrounded him on all sides, like a languid autumn night; and he did not know how to get rid of this darkness, this bitterness. There was no hope of sleep: he knew that he would not fall asleep.

He began to think... slowly, sluggishly and angrily.

He thought about the vanity, the uselessness, the vulgar falsehood of everything human. All ages gradually passed before his mind's eye (he himself had recently passed his 52nd year) - and not one found mercy in front of him. Everywhere there is the same eternal pouring from empty to empty, the same pounding of water, the same half conscientious, half conscious self-delusion - whatever the child enjoys, as long as he doesn’t cry, and then suddenly, out of the blue, old age will come - and along with it that constantly growing, all-corroding and undermining fear of death... and crashed into the abyss! It’s good if life plays out like this! Otherwise, perhaps, before the end, weakness and suffering will fall like rust on iron... Covered with stormy waves, as the poets describe, he imagined the sea of ​​life - no; he imagined this sea to be imperturbably smooth, motionless and transparent to the very dark bottom; he himself sits in a small, rickety boat - and there, on this dark, muddy bottom, like huge fish, ugly monsters are barely visible: all everyday ailments, illnesses, sorrows, madness, poverty, blindness... He looks - and here is one of the monsters stands out from the darkness, rises higher and higher, becomes more and more clear, more and more disgustingly clear. Another minute - and the boat supported by him will capsize! But then it seems to fade again, it moves away, sinks to the bottom - and it lies there, slightly moving its reach... But the appointed day will come - and it will capsize the boat.

He shook his head, jumped up from his chair, walked around the room a couple of times, sat down at the desk and, opening one drawer after another, began rummaging through his papers, old letters, mostly from women. He himself did not know why he was doing this, he was not looking for anything - he just wanted to get rid of the thoughts that were tormenting him through some external activity. Having opened several letters at random (one of them contained a dried flower tied with a faded ribbon), he just shrugged his shoulders and, looking at the fireplace, threw them aside, probably intending to burn all this unnecessary trash. Hastily thrusting his hands into one box and then into another, he suddenly opened his eyes wide and, slowly pulling out a small octagonal box of an antique cut, slowly lifted its lid. In the box, under a double layer of yellowed cotton paper, was a small garnet cross.

For several moments he looked at this cross in bewilderment - and suddenly he cried out weakly... Either regret or joy portrayed his features. A similar expression appears on a person’s face when he suddenly meets another person whom he has long lost sight of, whom he once loved dearly and who now unexpectedly appears before his eyes, still the same - and completely changed over the years. He stood up and, returning to the fireplace, sat down again in the chair - and again covered his face with his hands... “Why today? today?" - he thought, and he remembered many things that had happened long ago...

This is what he remembered...

But you must first say his first name, patronymic and last name. His name was Sanin, Dmitry Pavlovich.

Here's what he remembered:

It was the summer of 1840. Sanin was 22 years old and was in Frankfurt, on his way back from Italy to Russia. He was a man with a small fortune, but independent, almost without a family. After the death of a distant relative, he ended up with several thousand rubles - and he decided to live them abroad, before entering the service, before finally taking upon himself that government yoke, without which a secure existence had become unthinkable for him. Sanin carried out his intention exactly and managed it so skillfully that on the day of his arrival in Frankfurt he had exactly enough money to get to St. Petersburg. In 1840 there were very few railways; gentlemen, tourists rode around in stagecoaches. Sanin took a seat in the Beywagen; but the stagecoach did not leave until 11 o'clock in the evening. There was a lot of time left. Fortunately, the weather was fine and Sanin, having lunch at the then famous hotel “ white swan", went to wander around the city. He went to see Danneker’s Ariadne, which he liked little, visited Goethe’s house, from whose works he, however, read only “Werther” - and only then French translation; I walked along the banks of the Main, got bored, as a respectable traveler should; Finally, at six o'clock in the evening, tired, with dusty feet, I found myself in one of the most insignificant streets of Frankfurt. He could not forget this street for a long time. On one of its few houses he saw a sign: “Giovanni Roselli’s Italian Pastry Shop” announcing itself to passers-by. Sanin went in to drink a glass of lemonade; but in the first room, where, behind a modest counter, on the shelves of a painted cabinet, reminiscent of a pharmacy, there were several bottles with gold labels and the same number of glass jars with crackers, chocolate cakes and candies - there was not a soul in this room; only the gray cat was squinting and purring, moving its paws, on a high wicker chair near the window, and, blushing brightly in the slanting ray of the evening sun, a large ball of red wool lay on the floor next to an overturned basket of carved wood. A vague noise was heard in the next room. Sanin stood and, letting the bell on the door ring to the end, said, raising his voice: “There’s no one here?” At the same instant, the door from the next room opened - and Sanin had to be amazed.

A girl of about nineteen rushed into the pastry shop, with her dark curls scattered over her bare shoulders, with her bare arms outstretched, and, seeing Sanin, immediately rushed to him, grabbed his hand and pulled him along, saying in a breathless voice: “Hurry, hurry, come here, save me!” Not out of unwillingness to obey, but simply from an excess of amazement, Sanin did not immediately follow the girl - and seemed to stop in his tracks: he had never seen such a beauty in his life. She turned to him and with such despair in her voice, in her gaze, in her movement clenched hand, convulsively raised to her pale cheek, said: “Yes, go, go!” - that he immediately rushed after her through the open door.

In the room where he ran after the girl, on an old-fashioned sofa made of horsehair lying all white - white with yellowish tints, like wax or like ancient marble - a boy of about fourteen, strikingly similar to the girl, obviously her brother. His eyes were closed, the shadow of black thick hair fell like a spot on his petrified forehead, on his motionless thin eyebrows; Clenched teeth were visible from under his blue lips. He didn't seem to be breathing; one hand fell to the floor, he threw the other behind his head. The boy was dressed and buttoned up; a tight tie squeezed his neck.