Read online "Triad - A Midsummer Night's Dream". Random excerpt from a book

Monastyrskaya A Triad - A Midsummer Night's Dream

A Monastyrskaya

A.Monastyrskaya

Triad: A Midsummer Night's Dream

With those who hate each other, in this world there are no

embarrassment they always look alike

M. Pavich. "Khazar Dictionary"

When asked what will happen in twenty years, I always answered: everything will be

the same but a little worse

B. Strugatsky

Well, who, pray tell, came up with such stairs, where there are always no light bulbs? The elevator, of course, does not work. So, we pull ourselves together and climb the stairs. In total darkness. And at the top - two red lights: "Welcome to the underworld!". But the underworld is below, isn't it? Who knows, Nast, who knows!

Scary? Already horror! Stop being afraid, you know perfectly well that there is no one upstairs. All are long gone.

So, who's sniffing there?

Who, who... You sniffle, you fool, and even howl from an excess of feelings.

Yeah, here's the apartment, my little mink, one-room. Sim-Sim, open up. Clack with a half-turn key. Revealed where to go. Whatever one may say, she came to her house, not to visit.

Shur-shur-shur. Mustachioed bastards rustle. Now I’ll turn on the light, and they will crawl from all the cracks. They will crawl to me, they love the warmth of the human soul. Stretch. Only cockroaches are drawn to me, there is no one else.

Kitchen. Finally! You can sit quietly, take off your shoes, stretch your legs and cry comfortably. Like a woman. In voice. Roar from resentment, by the way.

And yet, she was to blame, there was nothing to substitute. Who pulled me by the tongue - I love, I love. Does he need it? We simply did not have time to agree on love. And for some reason, this unfortunate fact came to light just this evening, exactly five minutes after the subway closed.

Lord, how you want to drink or, at worst, get poisoned! Not forever, just temporarily. In English. Go out into the next world without saying goodbye, and then return. Would have a drink! A - no. But wait, why not? My husband has. At the legal. He always has everything. Well, let's go scraping the bottom of the barrel. It's a shame, of course, but the soul of the offended lady burns and cries. And this is sacred! You won't even laugh at it.

Our apartment is a masterpiece of family architecture. Communal room plus communal sofa. Have you ever slept in a communal bed? It is something! Highly recommended for thrill seekers. Get an indelible stain for the rest of your life.

Here! Know your spouse's habits, keep your distance and be vigilant! And then happiness will fall on you. And what, good happiness - one and a half liters of "Metaxa" Russian-Ukrainian bottling. And even with a faucet to make it more convenient. A week ago, hubby whined about a rainy day, and I noticed. Big-eyed, go crazy! So it came, that black day. Vadyusha doesn't care. In the morning he will crawl, he, poor fellow, will not be up to it. He, sorry, will be very, very sick - in the toilet. Vadyusha drinks a lot, even more than I do. On the day of filming, a traditional friendly Sabantuychik always happens, and since the shooting is two days later, my ex-Vadyusha is very tired.

By the way, I almost forgot, but who is our husband?

Representative of the working intelligentsia. No, God forbid, he's not a writer. He is a freelance director. He shone ... domestic pornography, with all, sorry, the ensuing consequences.

So, for Black Monday in my difficult life. Brandy, me and the cockroaches. All. We will not invite guests. Chu! The phone is silent, so it's me.

Perhaps it's time to get used to such nights. There will be many ahead.

I want, good fairy, to have everything!

Agreed, you had everything!

That's all I ever had. So when was that? Fate is like a Rubik's cube - everything is clear and simple, understandable. Oh well. One turn - and try to compose back. One wrong move and your orderly existence turns into chaos.

How they rustle, Lord! Cockroaches! They are from excitement. They are drawn to alcohol, as if to a source of knowledge. Smart bastards, no matter what they tell me about cockroach IQ. It is correct for them. Good I.Q. And they themselves are nothing. Smooth, glossy and understanding. They even have eyes like those of their best friend when she finally decided to reveal the whole truth:

You know your husband is cheating on you. Everyone knows you're the only one who doesn't know! Blind! Holy!

Why can't I guess? I know. And not blind. And who would talk about holiness.

Try not to notice when he tumbles in at 3:30 in the morning and sings a vodka recitative from the doorway:

Baby! I'm at work all day. I brought money - a lot ... wow! And pulls out of the wide pants - used condoms:

You see, the stage is he, she and the dog. Oh what a dog it was! Marble. I myself would not have resisted, but work, bunny, first of all! And the condoms are good, imported. Dense! They have no demolition. You can trust me?

Pornography is art. And it requires a rare dedication. Vadyusha is always looking for: nature, type, blacks, blondes. And prima in freeze frame! Lika superstar. Legs from the navel, dragging in the eyes and a menthol cigarette in the teeth.

Lika takes pity on me. Still, he has the right! Best friend. She even feeds me and solder me, purely out of the kindness of her heart. He condescendingly entertains with stories when Vadyusha snores on a communal sofa. Then he goes into his territory. She's too lazy to spend the night here alone. The star will follow its creator.

I'm not a star, I stay in the kitchen. Along with those who rustle.

They avoid Vadyusha. And they come to me. At night, during the day - at any time of the day. And after all, nothing can be brought out. They acclimatized with us. The war with them has been going on for many years now - and they, bastards, only mutate. Before they just crawled, now they also fly. I say smart. And on the other hand - let them fly, let them crawl, at least some kind of illusion of life.

So we sit with them, while away the nights, we wait for our husband: when he overcomes spermatotoxicosis at work. There was no other business for a housewife like me. True, and a special economy - too. This is not for me. Behind - revealing articles, foreign scholarships, grants, cash prizes. I left myself behind. Who remembers me now? That's it. It was a bitter blues name, with a subtle lemon flavor. (Well said! Bad... Pretentious. And so be it!) The name remains, there are no connoisseurs. There were and no.

After all, in 2000 it seemed that a little more, a little more - and we will enter the new era as winners. Everyone went crazy with the word "millennium", prophesied a new happy future and waited for bold and paradoxical revelations.

All guessed. Because it was only a millennium. Ghost, another phantom of change. Everything remains the same, only much more boring and disgusting. The elite was mowed down to the root in the very first five-year plan, having remembered past and future sins. Everything was abolished, even newspapers. Is it newspapers? Unleavened papers on a broken paper clip.

The true press is in the computer network. And after all, the funny thing is, we were warned, even then, at the turn of the century: guys, post-perestroika journalism sucks, the same thing will happen with tabloids. Nobody really believed. How so? That there will be no newspapers, no radio, no television. And so! Cheaper, easier and quieter. In the network, everything is under the hood. There everyone is his own journalist, critic. Oh sheets!

Behind the wall of the neighbors - a mediocre fighter with the eternal nasolabial pronunciation:

And who is it, good people, brought to our light?! The insects rushed about in all directions, and the brave madam froze with a hammer in her hands near the front door. Yes, it's sur, gentlemen, but what a sur!

Crap! That's so ringing! Maybe not open? We are not at home! We are not at home, and will not be! And who is speaking? Radio says: Moscow time - 00 hours 00 minutes. Goodnight!

However, is it worth it to treat a person so unceremoniously, even if he has the wrong apartment number? Let there be evil behind the door, but someone else's, unfamiliar, and therefore very, very seductive. There is always an alternative ... Yes, yes, the one that is now making faces at me from the Looking Glass. Of the two evils, we choose the one we haven't tried yet.

And she did open it. She took a step forward, brushing the Rubik's Cube off the table. Well, and who?

Nobody. Mr. Nobody. Not in the sense of mystery, but, on the contrary, in the sense of mediocrity. Mr. Nobody is middle-aged. (And as for middle age, I, post-Balzac, would be silent!) Gray suit. Gray (from dust?) shoes. Gray fur on the head.

I remember that at school we, memorizing the rules of grammar, rapturously muttered: "And then he came. Someone in gray with a candle."

Here... come. Only instead of a candle - a pot-bellied briefcase, gray with scuffs (former red?). And a wet birch broom - upright from the briefcase! Luxurious copy! I'm talking about a broom, not about a peasant. There are a bunch of them on a market day. I'm talking about the man again. Why does he need a broom? And in the middle of the night! Irony of fate, you know! Enjoy Your Bath!

From the health department.

So! We've arrived! Only SES was not enough for me to be completely happy.

You did not understand. I am a liquidation service.

Liquidation of what?

Elimination of everything. Are you complaining about cockroaches?

Everyone. Everyone complains about cockroaches. Everyone... May I come in? It's windy on the stairs.

Let me. Allowed. Women's logic, or rather, its complete absence. After all, why not? What difference does it make to remove cockroaches in the morning or right now. Moreover, at night there are always more of them.

I won't take off my shoes, okay? I am without socks. I forgot in the bathhouse, hung it up to dry and... forgot. And I'll drink cognac, I can ...

Yes, for God's sake, I haven't seen men without socks?! We drank in the kitchen. At the same time, they ate a hefty slice of lemon. ...

Stop! Wait, who did you say? - The seller rushed after Seryoga, dropping the owner's goods on the dirty asphalt of the market. - Mikhalych, hold him!

An overweight man in a black uniform, who had been talking so smilingly to the barmaid of the summer kiosk, unexpectedly nimbly took off from his place, cutting off the thief's exit from the mall. But Seregina's head worked like a good computer. He quickly calculated all possible escape options, choosing the most effective ones and discarding unnecessary ones. "The computer is not just a simple computer, if not everything, then a lot." Serega liked to compare his brains with an accurate, fast machine, for which there are no unsolvable problems. “The fourth stump, no less,” he sometimes joked at himself. And in that joke, as they say in the movies, there was some truth to it - Seryoga really was the fourth child in the family, the last child ...

The thief raced among the stalls and kiosks, slipping between the buying and selling people. Men turned irritably at him, women froze in fright, convulsively pulling bags with family capital to their chests and holding on to them with fingers that had turned white from tension. The sellers standing in the mall came to life from an interesting incident and lazily cheered on the chase: “Hold him, hold him! You bastard, steal from these years!? Break his hands so that it would be disrespectful for the rest of his life! I noticed it for a long time - I went here, looked out for it. Serega did not hear these words, he flew like a rocket scooter participating in the finals of the championship for the main prize of the galaxy. His thin body crashed into a crowd of people and dissolved in it, easily finding a gap for itself to escape. In the hands - the cause of the morning hype in the city market - a denim jacket. In general, that man lied, Seryoga did not look for anything. As soon as I saw a jacket of my size, I immediately decided, I waited only for the moment when the seller would turn his back.

The raid plan was born in Seryoga this morning, it was born suddenly, and, oddly enough, his mother provoked him.

Seryozha, this is what I think, you need a jacket for the summer. Simple, denim, for every day. You would go to the market yourself, I'll give you money, - the mother said, as if apologizing for the inability to help. It is understandable, as long as Seryoga could remember himself, she was always there, tried not to leave him without special need for others. The youngest, he was born prematurely, he was nursed for a long time. Even in the maternity hospital, with the light hand of one old nurse, they began to call him the last child. But there is nowhere to go, Andrey and Dimka have a session, Lenka has final exams, her mother is busy with her like a hen with an egg.

I would like to add RAM to the computer - without much hope, just in case, Seryozhka threw a bait.

Sergey! Where is your conscience? Do you think that money is easy for your father, all day at work, to pull you boobies. There is no money for any nonsense. What are you going to wear without a jacket? Or do you think the sun will shine for you all the time?

Okay, don't complain, give me the money. I'm going. - Seryoga felt important and mature.

All right, go son, buy it, - the mother breathed a sigh of relief, at least some business was settled, - and we will save on ice cream for your RAM.

The plan was simple, like all ingenious things: buy a RAM, walk around in a new jacket and eat ice cream. The goal was clearly formulated, the ways to achieve it were defined, the doubts were short-lived. It cannot be said that this case was new for Seryoga. From time to time he, with a gang of the same boys, went to the markets to profit, when to earn extra money, when to pull off, which is bad. So far everything has worked out. Having grabbed something closer, the punks immediately scattered in different directions. While the bazaar guards figure out what's what, they are already at the other end of the district.

This time, something didn't work out. Even the day before, at the moment when he was making up his mind, the computer in his head gave a warning signal. But Seryoga did not understand, waved his hand, - "It will ride, not for the first time." Already on the run, he realized: he miscalculated, today is a day off, and the market is filled with people. All the speed of his legs was useless. There was only one chance - to be able to get out of the fence by any means, and there - look for the wind in the field. All the time that guard did not go out of my head. He rushed straight through the stalls and crates of fruit to the nearest exit from the market, shouting and swearing after him. For some reason, I remembered a movie with Jackie Chan, he is also a master like this to get away from the chase. Here is the gate, another five meters ... Seryoga escaped from the crowd and had time to rejoice at his luck, but with all his might he slammed into a tight belly covered in a black uniform.

Stop, asshole! The final run and will be. - The guard smiled smugly, with one hand firmly holding the fugitive by the scruff of the neck, and with the other pulling the stolen jacket out of his hands. - You can't get away from Mikhalych! Mikhalych caught people like you for twenty years.

Realizing that he was caught, Seryoga threw his jacket to the guard and jerked to the side with all his boyish strength, a T-shirt crackling on his back. A panting salesman immediately ran up, along with a few more bazaars... Seryoga was beaten. They beat me, swearing mildly, it seemed like they were just warming up from fatigue ...

It seems that immersion in the psychology of the landowner, a person who recognizes the natural, fair former order of things - undivided possession of the fates and souls of other people, forced Nekrasov to deviate from the planned scheme for searching for another candidate for the happy and talk about the landowner - the "last", who did not recognize the legality of the abolition of serfdom rights. Researchers poems "To whom it is good to live in Rus'" write that the source of the idea chapters "Last Child", which tells about a case that is generally unique - the voluntary consent of peasants to portray serfs to please a dying master, is rooted in real incidents: the Decembrist Poggio told about a similar case. It is possible that the story of Father Nekrasov also served as an impetus for the emergence of the plan: having never come to terms with the abolition of serfdom, he tried to force the peasants to follow illegal orders after the reform, until the court ordered him to abandon this idea. But these, and quite possible similar examples, Nekrasov clearly exaggerates, satirically sharpens.

In the center of the story is the history of the Vakhlaks, the “stupid gum” - a game of serfs, started at the request of the heirs of Prince Utyatin, the reward for which should be meadows. What was the norm, the law of life for many generations of Russian peasants, their tragedy, becomes a game. Terrible pictures of serfdom cease to be, at first glance, terrible. It is no coincidence that the men call what is happening "gum". Vakhlaks have different attitudes towards “gum”: someone shows extraordinary acting skills, portraying obedience to the master, someone, like the courtyard Ipat, and you don’t need to persuade him to participate in the game - he doesn’t even think of life without pleasing the master. And even the sedate and conscientious steward Vlas, who condemned what was happening in his soul, was “touched” by the “tomfoolery of the Vakhlats”. Playing "stupid gum", the peasants amused themselves a lot, ridiculing the master who had gone out of his mind and his ridiculous orders behind his back.

It is characteristic that one of the frequently occurring words in the chapter are "freaks" and "stupid". These words refer not only to the present, but also to the past. Utyatin the prince always "freaked out" and "fooled": it is no coincidence that the author includes stories about Utyatin's youth, about the prince's "tomfoolery" sad for the servants. He continues to "strange" after the abolition of serfdom. The wahlak men are also weird and foolish. The intermediary to the question of the Vakhlaks whether they should agree to “gum” for flooded meadows, and answers: “Fool around.” “We were joking, fooling around,” Vlas says in response to the bewilderment of the wandering peasants. But the love of tomfoolery appears as a trait not only "Vakhlats". “You are also wonderful people,” Vlas says to the wanderers. "Tomfoolery" could be defined as a feature, in general, characteristic of Russian people - both peasants and gentlemen. But all the master's "eccentricities", which will be described in this and other chapters, for example, in "A Feast for the Whole World", are mockery of the peasants. Peasant fun - more harmless. So, the inhabitants of Korezhin, described in the chapter “Peasant Woman”, will also “amuse themselves” in their own way over master Shalashnikov. “Fun” for them is the ability to endure a spanking, and then count the “lobanchiki” not received by the master for dues. But peasant foolishness is harmless only at first glance. It is no coincidence that the "gum", Nekrasov shows, turned into a tragedy - the death of Agap, who taunted the Last and did not endure the subsequent humiliation - a comedic flogging at the request of the "world".

In The Last, through the eyes of wanderers, we look at the everyday life of the post-reform village and the "gum" started by the peasants - "vahlaks", returning both the heroes themselves and the readers to the recent past. It should be noted that, as in other chapters, the beginning plays an important role in understanding the author's intention. The story about the “last child” and the “stupid gum” played by his former serfs begins with a description of “wide mowing” and a peasant drinking water after work. The everyday scene takes on a deeply symbolic meaning: a man standing on a haystack he has just swept away drinks a huge jug of water. This scene itself confirms the initial opinion of the wanderers about the inhabitants of the village of Bolshie Vakhlaki: “Here is a heroic people!” “Tomfoolery” appears as a strange contradiction to this heroism. The reader also looks at “tomfoolery” through the eyes of wanderers, the same peasants, but who neither soul nor mind accepted the game of serfdom. Their reaction to Vlas’s explanation is very important: “Are you nonhumans with God?” What is happening for them is not "gum", not fun, not eccentricity or tomfoolery, but a violation of God's laws. Taking a rare case from Russian life as the basis of the plot, the author poses an important problem, reveals one of the sides of the national character: the willingness to give up freedom, to agree to humiliation and injustice for the sake of future prosperity. It is no coincidence that later, after the death of Utyatin, the Vakhlaks will take so close to their hearts the story of Ignatius in “A Feast for the Whole World” about a peasant sin, about Gleb the headman, who destroyed the free for eight thousand peasants for money. It seems that the words from the song of the angel of mercy “Among the world of the valley” about “a huge, greedy crowd to the temptation” refer not only to the “tops”, but also to the “bottoms”.

The decision to amuse the dying prince, who has not come to terms with the abolition of serfdom, is taken by the "peace" - all Vakhlaks. The theme of "peace", "patrimony" - the unanimity of the peasants in resolving the main issues, occupies a very important place in the chapter. “The world commanded”, the world decided to “keep quiet”, the world allowed “the dismissed gentleman to show off for the rest of the hours”, “the world thought for a long time” - this is the central theme of “Last Child”. “I pleased the world,” Klim Lavin will say later, who voluntarily took on the role of steward - the main defendant before the master. But the "peace" in this chapter does not appear as the bearer of the people's conscience, the people's truth. The unity of opinion does not prove its truth, but becomes evidence of a general deviation from the truth. The same motif of general deviation from the truth will be continued in The Peasant Woman, where the whole "world" is silent, seeing how the steward breaks the law and takes Philip Korchagin into the soldiers. “I bowed at the feet of the world, / Yes, what kind of world do we have?” - so says the father-in-law to Matryona Timofeevna, explaining the futility of his efforts to establish the truth.

It is characteristic that in the "Last Child" the male wanderers indicate the goal of their search in a different way:

We are looking for, Uncle Vlas,
unworn province,
Not gutted volost,
Surplus village!..

Not one lucky man who does not know what poverty and humiliation are, but an entire province, whose inhabitants live richly, regardless of the authorities - this is what now, after many meetings with "lucky" and "unlucky" for the peasants, is "happiness".

31 villages under the guise of a peddler) - and, undoubtedly, "rescued" more than one real Vavila. He liked to bring a glass or two of vodka to his peasant singers "for courage" - even the concept of "Yakushkin's glass" was preserved. He, like Nekrasov's hero, is not limited only to recording songs - for him, it is more important to realize the national character in all its volume. He sees, for example, that the people themselves - in the person of the same Yakim - are by no means delighted with his, Veretennikov's, activity and consider it idle and unnecessary: ​​We have a third year of the same poor gentleman, Like you, from near Moscow. Writes down songs, Tell him a proverb, Zagan riddle. And there was another - he asked, How much a day you work, Little by little, by a lot, do you shove Pieces in your mouth? Another measures the land, Another in the village counts the inhabitants on the fingers ... (5, 43) - and at the same time, Yakim laments, they “did not count” the most important thing: the level of those “ordinary” disasters that fall on the peasant every day. However, Veretennikov himself is already ready to look at his own activity as preparation for something “important”. In the draft version of the poem, he spoke about his own activities with revealing doubt: “If only what I think About the Russian peasant, I considered it to be true, I would sit in St. Petersburg Yes, I would compose books. And then I want to check my mind with the rumor of the people. “The voice of the people, have you heard? - The voice of God - they say ... "(5, 294) Nekrasov's character - a typical person of the era of the 1860s - wants to start his activity with the "recognition" of the people, with ethnology and ethnology. At one time, in this aspiration of numerous Russian Yakushkins, they found a certain drawback: “The people's consciousness, the people's voice is the goal of its study and rapprochement with the people. Veretennikov has no revolutionary ideals. He does not lead the people, but follows them. And therein lies its limitation. But Nekrasov does not seem to pay much attention to this "limitedness." Moreover, the poet treats those who study the people with much more sympathy than those who try to teach him about life (as does, for example, the same landowner Obolt-Obolduev - that’s who doesn’t “follow” people, but wants to "lead" them). Pavlusha Veretennikov, in fact, wants to find the same thing that the seven wanderers are looking for. Only it is more difficult for him to search: he himself does not belong to the main estate that forms the people ... 25 Krasnov G.V. The image of the people in Nekrasov's poem "Who in Rus' should live well." // About Nekrasov. Sat. articles. Yaroslavl, 1958. P.129. 32 In any case, an image of a person arises, which, although “not the main”, even “optional” for the disclosure of Nekrasov’s poetic theme, is very important - precisely as a character of the folk epic, without which the people themselves, the subject of the epic, turns out to be “incomplete”… The whole poem “To whom it is good to live in Rus'” can, in the end, be presented as a kind of “montage” of such “random” scenes and characters taken by the poet directly from the thick of people’s life. This “montage” is quite bizarre, “patterned”, and the number of scenes and characters of this kind, leading the reader away from the “headline question”, is even excessively large. But it is precisely in the loving depiction of such "passing" characters that, in the final analysis, lies the very meaning of Nekrasov's unhurried narrative. Here is another, this time "mass" scene, seen, it would seem, all at the same "rural fair": There was also a shop with pictures and books, Ofeni stocked up their goods in it. (5, 33-34) We are talking about the work of a bookstore with the wholesale sale of pictures and books for the people, not directly to the peasants, but to offen pedlars (“walkers” in the villages, who peddled books, paper, needles, cutters, etc.). It is unlikely that this scene could take place at an average village fair (which, in this case, is depicted by Nekrasov). The poet could “spy” on it at a fair of a larger scale: for example, he repeatedly visited the fair in the Vladimir town of Mstera (and in 1861 he specially visited the lithograph of the merchant I.A. Golyshev, which made popular prints for the people) 26. It seems that it was this merchant Golyshev, in whose shop they briskly traded in this kind of literature, cheap icons, pictures, all kinds of dream books and divination notebooks, etc., in this case he portrayed: “Do you need generals?” - Asked their merchant-burner. - And give the generals! Yes, only so that in conscience, So that they are real - Thicker, more formidable ... (5, 34) The criterion for selecting "generals" to decorate the "peasant summer hill" is, first of all, their external impressiveness; producers of “pictures” specially chose heroes according to this principle: popular prints of Seslavin, Platov, Kutuzov were widely distributed… But even Kutuzov somehow didn’t fit very well: “We don’t need Kutuzov stars!" (5, 286) In this sense, undoubtedly, the appearance of Gebhard Blucher, the Prussian general who commanded the allied German armies at Waterloo, turned out to be preferable to Kutuzov ... You are crazy! Before the Peasant 26 Vasiliev S. N. A. Nekrasov in the Vladimir Territory // Vladimir. Lit.-thin. Almanac. Book 2. Vladimir, 1952. P. 195. 33 All generals are equal, Like cones on a spruce... (5, 34) The thoroughness with which the poet chose this vivid comparison is indicative. In the drafts we come across successively crossed out options: “Like pines in a forest”, “Like woodpeckers in a forest”, “Like owls in a forest” ... And, finally, “Like cones on a spruce”, - not devoid of a sense of human pride of a Russian man ka. But this pride is uneducated, illiterate, and therefore absurd. Similar - as in the choice of "generals" - the criterion for choosing books to read. The current "cool" detective stories, bestsellers and "women's novels" in Nekrasov's time were replaced by "lubok" products with a similar heap of passions and events. “Complete Collection of Jester Balakirev’s Anecdotes…”, “The Tale of the Adventures of the English Milord George…”, “The Story of the Brave Knight Franzyl Venetsian…”, “The Battle of the Russians with the Kabardians…”. A contemporary of Nekrasov wrote about the book trade at the same Mstera fair: “... middle-class book sellers from Moscow come here to the fair and sell books to the officers, which without their help would forever lie on the shelves of bookstores and would not have waited for the second edition. , and thanks to these clever sellers, they reach five or more editions and roam the face of all of Russia in the number of more than one thousand copies. Who does not know these immortal creations: Guak, Milord George of England, the Battle of the Russians with the Kabardians, etc. ”27 And here Nekrasov does not maintain the position of an “objective” chronicler and directly sticks out the “face of the writer” (which he generally does quite rarely in the poem ). Since this author's digression is widely known, I present its interesting draft version: Eh! eh! Will the time come, When (come, welcome! ..) The Russian mind will awaken, the Russian mind will be cleared up by the Teaching. Throwing Blucher, the filthy Forschneider, the shameless Milord And the vile jester under the bench, The peasant will buy Pushkin, Belinsky and Gogol ... Will he come? Russian people! Orthodox peasants Have you ever heard these names? .. (5, 286-287) In the final version: “Belinsky and Gogol / From the market will be carried” (5, 35) - followed by a continuation about “protectors of the people” ... This lyric - this insert against the “variegated” background of heterogeneous everyday “pictures” does not even look like some kind of “retreat”: the author’s reflections become the same organic and natural material of the poem as everything else. Scene after scene, character after character - all this, the further, the more it becomes the basis of the poem structure. In the second and third parts of the poem, the heroes-wanderers turn to the "headline question" less and less often - and 27 Tikhonravov K. Vladimir's collection. M., 1857. S.29. If they apply, they receive answers, again complicated by a multitude of observations of a different series and character. Here - in the chapter "Peasant woman" - they find a candidate for "happy", Matryona Timofeevna, "governor" and, having persuaded her to answer their question (in exchange for a contracted day to work at harvesting), they ask this same question. ask in a very expansive form: “And you lay out your soul for us!” To which the peasant woman replies: - I will not hide anything! (5, 129) And why do wanderers, who only need to find out whether a peasant woman is happy at a given moment of time, her “soul” and her detailed biography? It only makes it more difficult to answer the original question, and besides, it loads the narrative with numerous details from a different set of problems. One gets the impression that it is more important for the author to pose all the numerous worldview problems that arise in the process of national knowledge than to continue looking for an answer to the question posed initially. The impression is not deceptive: in fact, this is exactly what happens. Further more. The original title of the chapter “A Feast for the Whole World” is “Commemoration for the “strings”” (5, 523). But in what relation to the problem of who turned out to be happy as a result of the land reform carried out, are the “commemoration” of serfdom already gone? Nekrasov seems to be aware of this himself: in the last part of his poem, the conversation was reduced to a combination of colorful songs, legends and stories that do not even formally correlate with the title problem. The whole action of this last part can be reduced to the fact that “at the end of the village under the willow” several Vakhlaks gathered and “washed” the “poem meadows” they had obtained. And since they gathered, as it were, in the central place of Rus' - at the crossing over the Volga - then a variety of inhabitants of this country come to them: peasants, courtyards, vagrants, Old Believers, pilgrims. And everyone wants to tell their own story. And each story introduces a new problem. And the opportunity to solve this new problem leads further and further away from the “headline question”. One of the editions of the last chapter has a complex subtitle: “Who in Rus' is the sinner of all. Who is all saints. Legends of serfdom” (5, 506) The fact that the problem of “sin” (and, accordingly, “holiness”) is bound to be connected in some way with the search for “happiness” - we have already spoken about this. But why is the problem of "universal" sin included in these searches (who is more sinful than all? ) is not entirely clear. The circle of Nekrasov's artistic research in this case includes several more important philosophical problems, without which one cannot understand his poems. 35 Philosophy of age In the author's indications of the age of some characters in the poem "Who Lives Well in Rus'", researchers have long noted some "inconsistencies". Especially often this concerned the “contradiction” at the age of the heroine of the chapter “The Peasant Woman” Matryona Timofeevna Korchagina: Matryona Timofeevna A portly woman, Broad and thick, Thirty-eight years old. (5, 126) This indication of the age of the heroine, given by the eyes of the men-truth-seekers and, probably, coinciding with the author's assessment, is adjacent to the remark of the peasant woman herself, which concludes her age-related self-assessment: “Do you drink vodka, Timofeevna?” - An old woman - why not drink? .. (5, 135) The self-name of the heroine - an old woman - in the neighborhood with an exact indication of her age gave rise to numerous sociological statements that with this detail the poet emphasizes the plight of a woman in tsarist 36 Russia: she is 38 years, and from an unbearable share, she already looks like an old woman ... However, a deeper consideration of this problem no longer gave grounds for such an unambiguous statement. L.A. Rozanova perceived this contradiction as a consequence of “changes in the writer’s plans.” T.A. Besedina gave a set of options related to the age indication: from option to option, the process of “rejuvenating” the heroine28 was going on: “There was a cheerful old woman / About sixty years old” (5, 407); “There was a cheerful old woman / Fifty years old” (5, 408); “Healthy and dense / Forty-five years old” (5, 482). The 38-year-old “old woman” who appeared in the final version, meanwhile, looks pretty good for her age: Beautiful; hair with gray hair, Big, strict eyes, Eyelashes of the richest, Harsh and swarthy. (5, 126-127) (In the "45-year-old" version it was even more revealing: "The eyes are large, clear ... / Straight and high" - 5, 482). Neither the wanderers nor the peasants who advise turning to the "governor's wife" even think of physically perceiving her as an "old woman" - quite the contrary: And there is in the village of Klin: A Kholmogory cow, Not a woman! wiser And smoother - there are no women. (5, 119) So the apparent contradiction between the heroine's age and self-awareness exists only within the limits of her self-assessment. But where does the unnatural idea of ​​oneself as an “old woman” come from for a woman who is “impressive”, “dense”, “smooth”, with “big, clear” eyes and “richest” eyelashes? This assessment also contradicts the ideas of the Orthodox, Christian worldview, as enshrined in the Bible. In Psalm 89 (“The Prayer of Moses, the Man of God”) it is directly defined: “Our days are seventy years, and with a greater strength eighty years; and their best time is labor and illness, for they pass quickly, and we fly.<…> Teach us to count our days in such a way that we may gain a wise heart” (Ps. 89, v. 10, 12). According to these ideas, Matryona Timofeevna should be in the time of “half of her life”, but not old age at all29. An age-related contradiction of a different nature refers to the landowner Gavrila Afanasich Obolt-Obolduev: The landowner was ruddy, portly, stocky, Sixty years old ... (5, 68) However, nowhere in the text of the poem Gavrila Afanasevich is called an old man. And no one perceives him as an old man. Diminutive epithets referring to his appearance give a stable idea of ​​someone “ruddy”, “strong”, “small”. His attire is associated with the “youthful” hunting occupation (“Hungarian woman with Brandenburgers, wide 28 Rozanova L.A. Poem by N.A. Nekrasov “Who should live well in Rus'”. Commentary. P.154-155; Besedina T.A. Study of Nekrasov's poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” at school, Vologda, 1974, pp. 84-85. Griboedov's year of birth, or "halfway of life". // A.S. Griboyedov. Materials for a biography. Collection of scientific works. L., 1989. P. 10-19. 37 pants"). And then there are a lot of details that characterize precisely human youth: they seem to be specially pumped up in this image: “Cheerful tricks” (5, 68); “I jumped out of the tarantass” (5, 71); “Healthy landowner laughter ...” (5, 71); “Are you about the apple of that tree?” (5, 73) “Jumping up from the Persian carpet, Waving his hand, jumping up and down, Shouting!..” (5, 75) And his listeners, as befits mature men who found themselves next to embodied youth, “listened in silence, / Looked , admired, / Laughed at the mustache ... ”(5, 76). Just as in the case of Matrena Timofeevna, the indication of age in this case seems to be hanging in the air and even confusing. But why did Nekrasov need it? Such indications of the age of the character, which clearly contradict his direct perception, are quite numerous in the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” and is by no means accidental. They open up a kind of folk “philosophy of age” and deepen the complex of peasant ideas about the “circle of life” of a person. In the structure of Nekrasov's narrative, these ideas sometimes become very peculiarly refracted. Russian religious and ethical traditions, coming from the ideas of deep antiquity, singled out seven basic "ages" within which a person exists: infant, childish (or childish), adolescent, youthful (or young), mature (or adult), masculine (or middle) and senile (or decrepit). Ages in different sources were given a seven-year, half-seven or two-seven-year terms. This whole book tradition corresponded to the magic of the "seven": seven "ages" were perceived along with the seven days of creation, seven planets, seven human virtues, seven deadly sins, etc. In the ordinary folk tradition, this age scheme was somewhat simplified: here the earliest ages were not considered, and all the rest were divided according to the principle of “trinity”: youth, courage (middle age) and old age. In the dictionary of V.I.Dal, this scheme is recorded as follows: “An old man, prtvpl. young and middle, advanced years, living out his life, who are under 60 or more. It is this "triad" of age signs that becomes conscious in Nekrasov's poem. At the same time, the author is primarily interested in the extreme poles - old age and youth. These two poles are already highlighted in the Prologue - in the collective image of the seven wanderers. Old man Pahom strained And said, looking at the ground, To the noble boyar, the Minister of the Sovereign... (5, 5) Old man Pahom is the only wanderer who is individualized from the very beginning. His peculiar “gesture” with which he presents his “candidate” is fixed; and the “candidate” himself is unusual: Pahom appeals not to a “lucky man” from modern Russia, but to a type of social tradition, a historical custom – almost to a fabulous “noble boyar”. He is engaged in a worthy old man’s business – beekeeping (“he carried honeycombs to the market in Velikoye”); in the chapter "Last Child" he is even named "according to the fatherland" ("Pahom Onisimych" - 5, 84). It is he who, already in the Prologue, expresses the most sound judgments and performs fundamental actions: he offered to rest “until the sun shines”, he picked up a “tiny chick”, thought of bewitching “old clothes”, etc. At the other extreme in the "Prologue" - "two brothers Gubina, Ivan and Mitrodor". They are presented with a completely different intonation: "two bros", as two indistinguishable faces. Their “initial” business, with which they “left the house”, turns out to be clearly optional: “their own flock” is grazing, and they needed a “stubborn horse” in the middle of the day. Their “candidate” for being lucky is not just a merchant, but a poster-like type of social appearance – “fat-bellied merchant”; they will not pay any attention to the "skinny" merchant. The deeds committed by the “bros” testify both to their “youthfulness” and to their “age-related” thoughtlessness; so, in addition to the dishes of the self-assembled tablecloth, they don’t know why, just out of youthful mischief, they stole a radish from someone in the garden: The Gubin brothers cackle: They grabbed such a radish In the garden - passion! (5, 129) Naturally, “youth” and “old age” have different attitudes to the same life events and notice different things: “The swaths are the widest! Pahom Onisimych said. “The heroic people are here!” The Gubin brothers are laughing: For a long time they noticed the High Peasant With a jug on a haystack... (5, 84) These two "poles" stand out throughout the entire poem. The “middle” age is presented in it, as a rule, in an indifferent, stylistically neutral way: “simply” Roman puts forward a “simply” landowner as a candidate for the lucky ones, thereby meaning any landowner. On the contrary, the characters "old" and "young" are always given taking into account individuality, with a certain emotional "age" coloring. The antinomy of youth and old age was far from new in Russian poetry. This romantic antithesis, fixed by a stable tradition, is presented in many variants in the works of Zhukovsky, Batyushkov, Pushkin, Yazykov, Boratynsky, Benediktov, and others. Let youth weave wreaths for us - Let's have fun, my dear, Until the bald daughter of hell has wandered with a stick - old age ... (P.A. Vyazemsky) Youth in this antinomy is an indispensable component of romantically outlined "happiness", correlated with such conditional concepts as " joy”, “wine”, “love”, “bliss”, “joy”, “freedom”, etc. Old age, in turn, is “withering”, “ashes”, “sadness”, “diseases”, “heavy thoughts”... Such use of related concepts is typical, by the way, for young Nekrasov as well (not only for the collection “Dreams and Sounds”, but also for “Last Elegies” and “The Celebration of Life – Years of Youth…”) In “Who Lives Well in Rus'”, this antinomy takes on a completely different character. Firstly, it turns out that there are very few characters directly called “young” in the poem: “Olonchan stonemason, / Broad-shouldered, young…” (5, 51); the daughters of the Posledysh are “young ladies” (5, 87) and the sons of Trifon Dobrosklonov, Savva and Grisha, “good guys” (5, 188). All these characters are somehow “led away” from the title question of the poem – it is no coincidence that the wanderers in their search for the “happy” “did not notice” Grisha Dobrosklonov. Their sometimes lofty impulses often cause skepticism on the part of the peasants. So, the same Pakhom ironically “upsets” a young stonemason, who boasts of his strength: “Well, weighty! But won’t it be hard to carry around with this happiness Under old age?..” (5, 51) Nekrasov, as it were, exhibits the popular idea of ​​the “young”, given in Dahl’s dictionary: “Not old, young; lived a little century; ageless, immature, immature, not yet matured. This representation does not allow any romanticization of youth and demonstrates the insufficiency of “young enthusiasm” to solve the main problem of the poem. Therefore, there are much more “old men” in “To whom in Rus' ...” - even among episodic figures: “Rich landowners, / Praying old women ...” (ch. “Pop”; 5, 23); “Thanks even to the master / The old man forgot to say ...” (Vavilo from the Village Fair; 5, 33); “Hey, love me!.. An intoxicated woman, an old one, / Aaa-paaaa-drunk!..” (5, 39); “An old woman came, / Pockmarked, one-eyed ...” (5, 50), etc. All the “lucky ones” who “confess” to the peasants (except for the aforementioned “stone cutter”) are close to old age. In other chapters - and even more so. And the Last - "old man", and his courtyard Ipat - "old man", and elder Vlas - "gray-haired man", and Yakov Verny, and his paralyzed Mr. Polivanov, and "old man" Kudeyar, and, of course, "Savel, holy Russian hero”, who “has already turned, according to fairy tales, a hundred years” (5, 142). At the same time, Nekrasov does not show any particular reverence for the elderly, demonstrating again a complex of actually popular ideas, indicated by Dahl in numerous sayings like: “The old one is small, and the small one is stupid”, “I survived from the old mind, the new didn’t survive”, “Youth is not without stupidity, old age is not without stupidity, etc. The romantic tradition of depicting human old age as a kind of frozen, doomed state is rejected from the outset. A typical literary example of this kind of “static” old age is the allegory of V.F. spiritual old age” are declared something dead-end, ultimate. Nekrasov solves the problem in a completely different way: his “old age” becomes a “mobile” state. Most of the "old men" from "To whom in Rus' ..." are very active spiritually (Yakim Nagoy, Yakov Verny, Kudeyar, etc.). Moreover, they are very active and even “businesslike”: “old man” Vlas Ilyich, for example, successfully acts as an ideal “manager” who knows how to organize a multifunctional farm. At the same time, "old age" becomes a very relative concept: the "old woman" Matrena Timofeevna has her own "grandfather" - Savely, who died 107 years old just three years before she met the wanderers. With the awareness of “old age”, Nekrasov’s poem includes one of the key concepts for her, the concept of sin, which becomes the subject of discussion of the characters along with the concept of “happiness”. At the same time, “sin”, that is, an act that is contrary to the provisions of the law of God and determines a person’s guilt before the Lord, is considered in its broader meaning. Already in the first "everyday" chapters of the poem, pictures of sin were widely unfolded. First, the priest speaks about “sin”: “Tell me, Orthodox, Whom do you call the Breed of the foal? Chur! respond to demand!..” - The peasants hesitated… (5, 20). Then the concept of "sin" is realized in numerous scenes, replicas, dialogues. Here are just a few examples of various, minutely committed “sins” from “Drunken Night”: “There, in front of them, a peasant was killed…” Eh!.. sins!.. ................ ..... - And I'm burying my mother! .. - “Fool! what a mother! Look: you have buried a new undercoat in the ground!..” .................... “The elder son-in-law broke my rib, The middle son-in-law stole the ball… And the younger son-in-law takes everything Look, he’ll kill him, he’ll kill him! ..” ..................... Couples are walking together, Isn’t it right to the right grove? That grove beckons everyone, In that grove the vociferous Nightingales sing... (5, 39-41). These - big and small - "sins" seem to be made by young people: Olenushka and her "cute", "some kind of quiet guy", "younger son-in-law", etc. Awareness of life's sins is the lot of old age. The ways and possibilities of this realization become the meaning of the last part of the poem – “A Feast for the Whole World”. The plot of the conversation conducted by the Vakhlaks “at the end of the village under the willow” revolves around the concept of “sin” – and this concept itself is refracted in different aspects. The “sin” of Yakov Verny and the “sins” of his Mr. Polivanov, the “sin” of a hungry peasant, the unknown “sin” of Egorka Shutov “from the village of Tiskovo”, etc. The “humble praying mantis” “Jonah (aka Lyapushkin)” prefaces his legend “About two great sinners” with the phrase: “Open the mouth of sin. The turn has come: listen! ..” (5, 201) - - and then lists the multiple sins of the “elders” , one of which, the Old Believer Sprinklers,