A. I. Kuprin

Garnet bracelet

L. van Beethoven. 2 Son. (op. 2, no. 2).

Largo Appassionato

In mid-August, before the birth of the new moon, the bad weather suddenly set in, which is so characteristic of the northern coast of the Black Sea. Sometimes for whole days a thick fog lay heavily over the land and the sea, and then the huge siren in the lighthouse roared day and night like a mad bull. Then from morning till morning it rained incessantly, fine as water dust, turning clay roads and paths into solid thick mud, in which carts and carriages got stuck for a long time. Then a fierce hurricane blew from the northwest, from the side of the steppe; from him the tops of the trees swayed, bending down and straightening up, like waves in a storm, the iron roofs of the dachas rattled at night, it seemed as if someone were running on them in shod boots, the window frames trembled, the doors slammed, and howled wildly in chimneys. Several fishing boats got lost in the sea, and two did not return at all: only a week later the corpses of fishermen were thrown out in different places on the coast.

The inhabitants of the suburban seaside resort - mostly Greeks and Jews, cheerful and suspicious, like all southerners - hastily moved to the city. Cargo drogs stretched endlessly along the softened highway, overloaded with all sorts of household items: mattresses, sofas, chests, chairs, washstands, samovars. It was pitiful, and sad, and disgusting to look through the muddy muslin of rain at this miserable belongings, which seemed so worn out, dirty and beggarly; on the maids and cooks sitting on the top of the wagon on a wet tarpaulin with some kind of irons, tins and baskets in their hands, on sweaty, exhausted horses, which now and then stopped, trembling at the knees, smoking and often carrying sides, on hoarsely cursing quails, wrapped up from the rain in mats. It was even sadder to see the abandoned dachas with their sudden spaciousness, emptiness and bareness, with mutilated flower beds, broken glasses, abandoned dogs and all sorts of country rubbish from cigarette butts, pieces of paper, shards, boxes and pharmaceutical vials.

But by the beginning of September, the weather suddenly changed abruptly and quite unexpectedly. Quiet, cloudless days immediately set in, so clear, sunny and warm that there were none even in July. On the dry, compressed fields, on their prickly yellow bristles, autumn cobwebs shone with a mica sheen. The calm trees silently and obediently dropped yellow leaves.

Princess Vera Nikolaevna Sheina, the wife of the marshal of the nobility, could not leave the dachas, because the repairs in their city house had not yet been completed. And now she was very glad of the lovely days that had come, the silence, the solitude, the clean air, the chirping of the swallows on the telegraph wires that were flocking to fly away, and the gentle salty breeze that weakly pulled from the sea.

In addition, today was her name day - September 17th. According to sweet, distant memories of childhood, she always loved this day and always expected something happy and wonderful from him. Her husband, leaving in the morning on urgent business in the city, put a case with beautiful pear-shaped pearl earrings on her night table, and this gift amused her even more.

She was alone in the whole house. Her unmarried brother Nikolai, a fellow prosecutor, who usually lived with them, also went to the city, to the court. For dinner, the husband promised to bring a few and only the closest acquaintances. It turned out well that the name day coincided with summer time. In the city, one would have to spend money on a big ceremonial dinner, perhaps even on a ball, but here, in the country, one could manage with the smallest expenses. Prince Shein, despite his prominent position in society, and perhaps thanks to him, could barely make ends meet. The huge family estate was almost completely upset by his ancestors, and he had to live above his means: to make receptions, do charity, dress well, keep horses, etc. Princess Vera, whose former passionate love for her husband had long since passed into a strong, faithful feeling, true friendship, tried with all her might to help the prince refrain from complete ruin. She in many ways, imperceptibly for him, denied herself and, as far as possible, economized in the household.

Now she was walking in the garden and carefully cutting flowers with scissors to dining table. The flower beds were empty and looked disordered. Bloomed multi-colored terry carnations, and also levkoy - half in flowers, and half in thin green pods, smelling of cabbage, rose bushes they also gave - for the third time this summer - buds and roses, but already shredded, rare, as if degenerate. On the other hand, dahlias, peonies and asters bloomed magnificently with their cold, arrogant beauty, spreading an autumnal, grassy, ​​sad smell in the sensitive air. The rest of the flowers, after their luxurious love and excessive summer maternity, quietly showered countless seeds on the ground. future life.

Close by on the highway came the familiar sound of a three-ton car horn. It was the sister of Princess Vera, Anna Nikolaevna Friesse, who had promised in the morning to come by phone to help her sister receive guests and take care of the house.

Subtle hearing did not deceive Vera. She walked towards. A few minutes later a graceful carriage came to an abrupt halt at the dacha gate, and the driver, deftly jumping down from the seat, flung open the door.

The sisters kissed happily. From early childhood, they were attached to each other by a warm and caring friendship. In appearance, they were strangely not similar to each other. The eldest, Vera, took after her mother, a beautiful Englishwoman, with her tall, flexible figure, gentle, but cold and proud face, beautiful, although rather large hands, and that charming sloping of her shoulders, which can be seen in old miniatures. The youngest - Anna - on the contrary, inherited the Mongolian blood of her father, the Tatar prince, whose grandfather was baptized only in early XIX centuries and whose ancient family went back to Tamerlane himself, or Lang-Temir, as her father proudly called, in Tatar, this great bloodsucker. She was half a head shorter than her sister, somewhat broad in the shoulders, lively and frivolous, a mocker. Her face was of a strongly Mongolian type, with rather noticeable cheekbones, with narrow eyes, which, moreover, she screwed up due to myopia, with an arrogant expression in her small, sensual mouth, especially in her full lower lip slightly protruding forward - this face, however, captivated some then an elusive and incomprehensible charm, which consisted, perhaps, in a smile, perhaps in the deep femininity of all features, perhaps in a piquant, provocatively coquettish facial expression. Her graceful ugliness excited and attracted the attention of men much more often and stronger than her sister's aristocratic beauty.

She was married to a very rich and very stupid man who did absolutely nothing, but was registered with some charitable institution and had the title of chamber junker. She could not stand her husband, but she gave birth to two children from him - a boy and a girl; She decided not to have any more children, and never did. As for Vera, she greedily wanted children and even, it seemed to her, the more the better, but for some reason they were not born to her, and she painfully and ardently adored the pretty anemic children of her younger sister, always decent and obedient, with pale mealy faces and curled flaxen doll hair.

Anna consisted entirely of cheerful carelessness and sweet, sometimes strange contradictions. She willingly indulged in the most risky flirting in all the capitals and in all the resorts of Europe, but she never cheated on her husband, whom, however, she contemptuously ridiculed both in the eyes and behind the eyes; was wasteful

One of the most famous creations of Alexander Kuprin is the Garnet Bracelet. The genre of this work is not so easy to determine. It is called both a story and a story. What is the difference between these genres? And which of them does the "Garnet Bracelet" refer to?

Plot

The work "Garnet Bracelet", the genre of which will be defined in this article, is dedicated to extraordinary, unearthly love. The main characters are a married couple Vera and Vasily Shein. The action takes place in a small provincial town on the seashore. Vasily Shein occupies the honorary position of the head of the nobility, which obliges a lot. He attends dinner parties himself high level, has an appropriate appearance, and his family life is exemplary. Vasily and his wife have friendly, warm relations. Vera has not experienced passionate love for her husband for a long time, but she understands him perfectly, which can be said about Vasily.

The plot takes place in the fifth chapter, when the name day of the hostess is celebrated in the Sheins' house. Unnoticed by the guests, Vera receives a gift and a rather lengthy letter attached to it. The message contains a declaration of love. The gift is a massive inflated bracelet made of low-grade gold, decorated with a garnet.

Later, the reader will learn the backstory. Even before Vera's marriage, the author of the letter abandoned her. But one day, secretly from her husband, she in writing forbade him to send such messages. From now on, he was limited only to congratulations on New Year, Easter and name day. He did not stop the correspondence, however, he did not speak about love anymore in his messages.

Vera's relatives, and especially brother Nikolai, were extremely outraged by the gift. And so we decided to take effective methods to neutralize the restless admirer. One day, Vasily and Nikolai went straight to the house of a man who had loved Vera unrequitedly for more than eight years, and insistently demanded that they stop writing. The garnet bracelet was also returned to the donor.

Genre

In the literature there are different kinds works: from a small lyric poem to a large-scale novel in several volumes. The content of the work "Garnet Bracelet" was briefly outlined above. The genre must be defined. But first it is worth saying a few words about this literary concept.

Genre - a set of works that have some characteristic common features. It can be a comedy, and an essay, and a poem, and a novel, and a story, and a short story. We will consider two latest version. The genre of Kuprin's Garnet Bracelet, of course, cannot be either a comedy, or a poem, or a novel.

There is a significant difference between a short story and a novel. These genres cannot be confused. main feature stories are small. It is much more difficult to draw a line between him and the story. But there is still a difference. The story describes events that are components of one integral plot. This genre originated during Ancient Rus'. His first examples were works about the exploits of Russian soldiers. Much later, Karamzin began to develop this genre. And after him - Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenev. The story is characterized by a slow unhurried development of events.

This genre is a small realistic work. It resembles a Western European short story, but many literary critics single out the story as a separate, special type of work. The story has an unexpected twist. This genre differs from the story in the absence of background, a limited number of characters, and a focus on the main event.

So all the same - a story or a story?

At the beginning of the article, the plot of the work "Garnet Bracelet" was outlined. What genre comes to mind after reading this work or even his brief retelling? Undoubtedly a story. The "Garnet Bracelet" depicts characters who are not directly related to the main events. Some are mentioned in passing, others in great detail. The work gives a detailed description of Anna, Vera's younger sister. In addition, the biography of General Anosov, a friend of the Shein family, is presented in some detail. He is not only depicted by the author brightly and colorfully. His presence in the plot has symbolic meaning. Anosov discusses with Vera the topic of "true love, which men are now not capable of." He also utters an essential phrase about the feeling that Vera met on the path of life and which every woman in the world dreams of. But this hero does not affect the course of events in any way. Its meaning in the story is only symbolic.

It should also be recalled that there is a backstory. Vera tells the same Anosov about the events recent years, namely about a fan who gave her a compromising gift. All this allows us to state with confidence that the genre of Kuprin's work "Garnet Bracelet" is a story. Although it is worth adding that this concept is inherent exclusively in Russian literature. It has no exact equivalent in other languages. In English and German, for example, Kuprin's work is called a short story. And therefore, the one who determines the "Garnet Bracelet" with a story will not make a gross mistake.

In August, a vacation at a suburban seaside resort was spoiled by bad weather. The deserted dachas were sadly soaked in the rain. But in September the weather changed again, sunny days came. Princess Vera Nikolaevna Sheina did not leave the dacha - repairs were underway in her house - and now she is enjoying the warm days.

The princess's birthday is coming. She is glad that it fell on the summer season - in the city they would have to give a ceremonial dinner, and the Sheins "barely made ends meet."

Princess Vera, whose former passionate love for her husband had long since turned into a feeling of lasting, faithful, true friendship, tried with all her might to help the prince refrain from complete ruin.

Vera's younger sister Anna Nikolaevna Friesse, the wife of a very rich and very stupid man, and her brother Nikolai come to Vera's name day. Toward evening, Prince Vasily Lvovich Shein brings the rest of the guests.

A bundle with a small jewelry case in the name of Princess Vera Nikolaevna is brought in the midst of simple country entertainment. Inside the case is a gold, low-grade puffy bracelet covered with garnets that surround a small green pebble.

When Vera... turned the bracelet in front of the light of the electric bulb, deep under their smooth egg-shaped surface, lovely deep red living lights suddenly lit up in them.

In addition to the garnet bracelet, a letter is found in the case. An unknown donor congratulates Vera on the day of the angel and asks to accept a bracelet that belonged to his great-grandmother. The green pebble is a very rare green garnet that communicates the gift of providence and protects men from violent death. The author of the letter reminds the princess how he wrote her "stupid and wild letters" seven years ago. The letter ends with the words: “Your obedient servant G.S.Zh. before death and after death.”

Prince Vasily Lvovich demonstrates at this moment his humorous home album, opened on the "story" "Princess Vera and the telegraph operator in love." “Better not,” Vera asks. But the husband nevertheless begins a commentary on his own drawings full of brilliant humor. Here the girl Vera receives a letter with kissing doves, signed by the telegraph operator P.P.Zh. Here the young Vasya Shein returns to Vera wedding ring: "I dare not interfere with your happiness, and yet it is my duty to warn you: telegraphers are seductive, but insidious." But Vera marries the handsome Vasya Shein, but the telegraph operator continues to persecute. Here he, disguised as a chimney sweep, enters the boudoir of Princess Vera. Here, having changed clothes, he enters their kitchen as a dishwasher. Here, at last, he is in a lunatic asylum.

After tea, the guests leave. Whispering to her husband to look at the case with the bracelet and read the letter, Vera sets off to see off General Yakov Mikhailovich Anosov. The old general, whom Vera and her sister Anna call grandfather, asks the princess to explain what is true in the prince's story.

G. S. J. pursued her with letters two years before her marriage. Obviously, he constantly watched her, knew where she was at the parties, how she was dressed. He served not at the telegraph office, but in "some government institution as a small official." When Vera, also in writing, asked not to disturb her with her persecution, he fell silent about love and limited himself to congratulations on holidays, as well as today, on her name day. Inventing a funny story, the prince replaced the initials of the unknown admirer with his own.

The old man suggests that the unknown may be a maniac.

Or maybe, Verochka, your life path crossed precisely the kind of love that women dream of and that men are no longer capable of.

Vera finds her brother Nikolai very annoyed - he also read the letter and believes that his sister will get "in a ridiculous position" if she accepts this ridiculous gift. Together with Vasily Lvovich, he is going to find an admirer and return the bracelet.

The next day they find out the address of G.S.Zh. It turns out to be a blue-eyed man “with a gentle girlish face” about thirty or thirty-five years old named Zheltkov. Nikolai returns the bracelet to him. Zheltkov does not deny anything and recognizes the indecency of his behavior. Finding some understanding and even sympathy in the prince, he explains to him that he loves his wife, and this feeling will only kill death. Nikolai is outraged, but Vasily Lvovich treats him with pity.

Is he to blame for love, and is it possible to control such a feeling as love - a feeling that has not yet found an interpreter for itself.

Zheltkov admits that he squandered government money and is forced to flee the city, so that they will not hear from him again. He asks Vasily Lvovich for permission to write his last letter to his wife. Having heard from her husband a story about Zheltkov, Vera felt "that this man would kill himself."

In the morning, Vera learns from the newspaper about the suicide of G. S. Zheltkov, an official of the control chamber, and in the evening the postman brings his letter.

Zheltkov writes that for him all life consists only in her, in Vera Nikolaevna. It is the love that God rewarded him for something. As he leaves, he repeats in delight: "Hallowed be thy name." If she remembers him, then let her play the D major part of Beethoven's Sonata No. 2, he thanks her from the bottom of his heart for being his only joy in life.

Vera is going to say goodbye to this man. The husband fully understands her impulse and lets his wife go.

The coffin with Zheltkov stands in the middle of his poor room. His lips smile blissfully and serenely, as if he has learned a deep secret. Vera lifts his head, puts a big red rose under his neck and kisses him on the forehead. She understands that the love that every woman dreams of has passed her by. In the evening, Vera asks a familiar pianist to play Beethoven's Appassionata for her, listens to music and cries. When the music ends, Vera feels that Zheltkov has forgiven her.

Garnet bracelet

A.I. KUPRIN
GARNET BRACELET
I
In mid-August, before the birth of the new moon, the bad weather suddenly set in, which is so characteristic of the northern coast of the Black Sea. Sometimes for whole days a thick fog lay heavily over the land and the sea, and then the huge siren in the lighthouse roared day and night like a mad bull. Then from morning till morning it rained incessantly, fine as water dust, turning clay roads and paths into solid thick mud, in which carts and carriages got stuck for a long time. Then a fierce hurricane blew from the northwest, from the side of the steppe; from him the tops of the trees swayed, bending down and straightening up, like waves in a storm, the iron roofs of the dachas rattled at night, and it seemed as if someone was running along them in shod boots; window frames trembled, doors slammed, and howled wildly in the chimneys. Several fishing boats got lost in the sea, and two did not return at all: only a week later the corpses of fishermen were thrown out in different places on the coast.
The inhabitants of the suburban seaside resort - mostly Greeks and Jews, cheerful and suspicious, like all southerners - hastily moved to the city. Cargo drogs stretched endlessly along the softened highway, overloaded with all sorts of household items: mattresses, sofas, chests, chairs, washstands, samovars. It was pitiful, and sad, and disgusting to look through the muddy muslin of rain at this miserable belongings, which seemed so worn out, dirty and beggarly; on the maids and cooks sitting on the top of the wagon on a wet tarpaulin with some kind of irons, tins and baskets in their hands, on sweaty, exhausted horses, which now and then stopped, trembling at the knees, smoking and often carrying sides, on hoarsely cursing quails, wrapped up from the rain in mats. It was even sadder to see the abandoned dachas with their sudden spaciousness, emptiness and bareness, with mutilated flowerbeds, broken glass, abandoned dogs and all kinds of dacha rubbish, rubbish from cigarette butts, pieces of paper, shards, boxes and apothecary bottles.
But by the beginning of September, the weather suddenly changed abruptly and quite unexpectedly. Quiet, cloudless days immediately set in, so clear, sunny and warm that there were none even in July. On the dry, compressed fields, on their prickly yellow bristles, autumn cobwebs shone with a mica sheen. The calmed trees silently and obediently dropped their yellow leaves.
Princess Vera Nikolaevna Sheina, the wife of the marshal of the nobility, could not leave the dachas, because the repairs in their city house had not yet been completed. And now she was very glad of the lovely days that had come, the silence, the solitude, the clean air, the chirping of the swallows on the telegraph wires as they flew away, and the gentle salty breeze that weakly pulled from the sea.
II
In addition, today was her name day - the seventeenth of September. According to sweet, distant memories of childhood, she always loved this day and always expected something happy and wonderful from him. Her husband, leaving in the morning on urgent business in the city, put a case with beautiful pear-shaped pearl earrings on her night table, and this gift amused her even more.
She was alone in the whole house. Her unmarried brother Nikolai, a fellow prosecutor, who usually lived with them, also went to the city, to the court. For dinner, the husband promised to bring a few and only the closest acquaintances. It turned out well that the name day coincided with summer time. In the city, one would have to spend money on a big ceremonial dinner, perhaps even on a ball, but here, in the country, one could manage with the smallest expenses. Prince Shein, despite his prominent position in society, and perhaps thanks to him, could barely make ends meet. The huge family estate was almost completely upset by his ancestors, and he had to live above his means: to make receptions, do charity, dress well, keep horses, etc. Princess Vera, whose former passionate love for her husband had long since passed into a strong, faithful feeling, true friendship, tried with all her might to help the prince refrain from complete ruin. She in many ways, imperceptibly for him, denied herself and, as far as possible, economized in the household.
Now she was walking in the garden and carefully cutting flowers for the dinner table with scissors. The flower beds were empty and looked disordered. Multi-colored terry carnations were blooming, as well as levka - half in flowers, and half in thin green pods that smelled of cabbage, rose bushes still gave - for the third time this summer - buds and roses, but already shredded, rare, as if degenerate. On the other hand, dahlias, peonies and asters bloomed magnificently with their cold, arrogant beauty, spreading an autumnal, grassy, ​​sad smell in the sensitive air. The rest of the flowers, after their luxurious love and excessive abundant summer motherhood, quietly showered countless seeds of a future life on the ground.
Close by on the highway came the familiar sound of a three-ton car horn. It was the sister of Princess Vera, Anna Nikolaevna Friesse, who had promised in the morning to come by phone to help her sister receive guests and take care of the house.
Subtle hearing did not deceive Vera. She walked towards. A few minutes later a graceful carriage came to an abrupt halt at the dacha gate, and the driver, deftly jumping down from the seat, flung open the door.
The sisters kissed happily. From early childhood, they were attached to each other by a warm and caring friendship. In appearance, they were strangely not similar to each other. The eldest, Vera, took after her mother, a beautiful Englishwoman, with her tall, flexible figure, gentle, but cold and proud face, beautiful, although rather large hands, and that charming sloping of her shoulders, which can be seen in old miniatures. The youngest - Anna, - on the contrary, inherited the Mongolian blood of her father, a Tatar prince, whose grandfather was baptized only at the beginning of the 19th century and whose ancient family went back to Tamerlane, or Lang-Temir, as her father proudly called her, in Tatar, this great bloodsucker. She was half a head shorter than her sister, somewhat broad in the shoulders, lively and frivolous, a mocker. Her face was of a strongly Mongolian type, with rather noticeable cheekbones, with narrow eyes, which, moreover, she squinted due to myopia, with an arrogant expression in her small, sensual mouth, especially in her full lower lip slightly protruding forward - this face, however, captivated some then an elusive and incomprehensible charm, which consisted, perhaps, in a smile, perhaps in the deep femininity of all features, perhaps in a piquant, provocatively coquettish facial expression. Her graceful ugliness excited and attracted the attention of men much more often and stronger than her sister's aristocratic beauty.
She was married to a very rich and very stupid man who did absolutely nothing, but was registered with some charitable institution and had the title of chamber junker. She could not stand her husband, but gave birth to two children from him, a boy and a girl; She decided not to have any more children, and never did. As for Vera, she greedily wanted children and even, it seemed to her, the more the better, but for some reason they were not born to her, and she painfully and ardently adored the pretty anemic children of her younger sister, always decent and obedient, with pale mealy faces and curled flaxen doll hair.
Anna consisted entirely of cheerful carelessness and sweet, sometimes strange contradictions. She willingly indulged in the most risky flirting in all the capitals and in all the resorts of Europe, but she never cheated on her husband, whom, however, she contemptuously ridiculed both in the eyes and behind the eyes; she was extravagant, terribly fond of gambling, dancing, strong impressions, sharp spectacles, visited dubious cafes abroad, but at the same time she was distinguished by generous kindness and deep, sincere piety, which forced her even to secretly accept Catholicism. She had a rare beauty back, chest and shoulders. Going to big balls, she was exposed much more than the limits allowed by decency and fashion, but it was said that under the low neckline she always wore a sackcloth.
Vera, on the other hand, was strictly simple, coldly and a little condescendingly kind to everyone, independent and royally calm.
III
My God, how good are you here! How good! - Anna said, walking with quick and small steps next to her sister along the path. - If possible, let's sit a little on a bench above the cliff. I haven't seen the sea in such a long time. And what a wonderful air: you breathe - and your heart rejoices. In the Crimea, in Miskhor, last summer I made an amazing discovery. Do you know what sea water smells like during the surf? Imagine - mignonette.
Vera smiled softly.
- You're a dreamer.
- No no. I also remember the time everyone laughed at me when I said that there is some kind of pink tint in the moonlight. And the other day the artist Boritsky - that's the one who paints my portrait - agreed that I was right and that artists have long known about this.
- Is the artist your new hobby?
- You always come up with! - Anna laughed and, quickly going to the very edge of the cliff, which fell like a sheer wall deep into the sea, looked down and suddenly screamed in horror and recoiled back with a pale face.
- Oh, how high! she said in a weakened and trembling voice. When I look from such a height, my chest always tickles somehow sweetly and disgustingly ... and my toes ache ... And yet it pulls, pulls ...
She wanted to bend over the cliff again, but her sister stopped her.
- Anna, my dear, for God's sake! It makes my head spin when you do that. Please sit down.
- Well, well, well, sat down ... But just look, what beauty, what joy - just the eye can not get enough. If you knew how grateful I am to God for all the miracles that he has done for us!
Both thought for a moment. Deep, deep beneath them lay the sea. The shore was not visible from the bench, and therefore the feeling of infinity and grandeur of the expanse of the sea intensified even more. The water was tenderly calm and cheerfully blue, brightening only in oblique smooth stripes in the places of the current and turning into a deep blue color on the horizon.
Fishing boats, hardly marked by the eye - they seemed so small - dozed motionless in the sea surface, not far from the coast. And then, as if standing in the air, not moving forward, a three-masted ship, all dressed from top to bottom with monotonous white slender sails, bulging from the wind.
I understand you, - the older sister said thoughtfully, - but somehow it’s not the same with me as with you. When I see the sea for the first time after a long time, it both excites me, and pleases, and amazes me. As if for the first time I see a huge, solemn miracle. But then, when I get used to it, it starts to crush me with its flat emptiness... I miss looking at it, and I try not to look anymore. Bored. Anna smiled.
- What are you? the sister asked.
“Last summer,” Anna said slyly, “we rode from Yalta in a big cavalcade on horseback to Uch-Kosh. It's there, behind the forestry, above the waterfall. First we got into the cloud, it was very damp and hard to see, and we all climbed up the steep path between the pines. And suddenly, somehow, the forest ended immediately, and we came out of the fog. Imagine: a narrow platform on a rock, and under our feet we have an abyss. The villages below seem no bigger than a matchbox, the forests and gardens look like fine grass. The whole area descends to the sea, like a geographical map. And then there is the sea! Fifty versts, a hundred ahead. It seemed to me that I hung in the air and was about to fly. Such beauty, such ease! I turn around and say to the guide in delight: "What? All right, Seyid-ogly?" And he only smacked his tongue: "Oh, sir, how tired of all this mine. We see it every day."
- Thank you for the comparison, - Vera laughed, - no, I just think that we northerners will never understand the charms of the sea. I love the forest. Do you remember the forest we have in Yegorovsky?.. How can he ever get bored? Pine trees!.. And what mosses!.. And fly agarics! Accurately made of red satin and embroidered with white beads. The silence is so... cool.
- I don't care, I love everything, - Anna answered. - And most of all I love my little sister, my prudent Verenka. There are only two of us in the world.
She hugged her older sister and snuggled up to her, cheek to cheek. And suddenly she caught on.
- No, how stupid I am! You and I, as if in a novel, are sitting and talking about nature, but I completely forgot about my gift. Here look. I'm just afraid, will you like it?
She took out from her handbag a small notebook in a surprising binding: on the old blue velvet, worn and gray with time, a dull gold filigree pattern of rare complexity, subtlety and beauty curled - obviously, the love work of a skillful and patient artist. The book was attached to a gold chain as thin as a thread, the pages in the middle were replaced by ivory tablets.
- What a wonderful thing! Charm! - Vera said and kissed her sister. Thank you. Where did you get such a treasure?
- In an antique shop. You know my weakness for rummaging through old junk. So I came across this prayer book. Look, you see how the ornament here makes the figure of a cross. True, I found only one binding, I had to invent everything else - leaves, fasteners, a pencil. But Mollinet did not at all want to understand me, no matter how I interpreted him. The clasps had to be in the same style as the whole pattern, matte, old gold, fine carving, and God knows what he did. But the chain is real Venetian, very ancient.
Vera affectionately stroked the beautiful binding.
- What a deep antiquity! .. How long can this book be? she asked.
- I'm afraid to be precise. Approximately the end of the seventeenth century, the middle of the eighteenth ...
- How strange, - said Vera with a thoughtful smile. - Here I am holding in my hands a thing that, perhaps, the hands of the Marquise Pompadour or Queen Antoinette herself touched ... But you know, Anna, only you could come up with a crazy thought convert the prayer book into a lady's carnet [ Notebook; French]. However, let's go and see what's going on there.
They entered the house through a large stone terrace, closed on all sides by thick trellises of Isabella grapes. Plentiful black clusters, emitting a faint smell of strawberries, hung heavily between the dark, in some places gilded by the sun greenery. A green half-light spread over the entire terrace, from which the faces of the women immediately turned pale.
- You order to cover here? Anna asked.
- Yes, I myself thought so at first ... But now the evenings are so cold. It's better in the dining room. And let the men go here to smoke.
- Will anyone be interesting?
- I do not know yet. I only know that our grandfather will be.
Ah, dear grandfather. Here is joy! Anna exclaimed and threw up her hands. “I don’t think I’ve seen him for a hundred years.”
- There will be Vasya's sister and, it seems, Professor Speshnikov. Yesterday, Annenka, I just lost my head. You know that they both love to eat - both the grandfather and the professor. But neither here nor in the city - you can't get anything for any money. Luka found quails somewhere - he ordered a familiar hunter - and something is wiser over them. The roast beef came out relatively good - alas! - the inevitable roast beef. Very good crabs.
- Well, not so bad. You don't worry. However, between us, you yourself have a weakness for delicious food.
- But there will be something rare. This morning the fisherman brought a gurnard. I saw it myself. Just some kind of monster. Even scary.
Anna, greedily curious about everything that concerned her and what did not concern her, immediately demanded that they bring her a gurnard.
The tall, clean-shaven, yellow-faced cook Luka came in with a large, oblong white tub, which he held with difficulty by the ears, afraid to splash water on the parquet.
“Twelve and a half pounds, Your Excellency,” he said with a special chef's pride. “We weighed just now.
The fish was too big for the pelvis and lay on the bottom with its tail curled up. Its scales shone with gold, the fins were bright red, and from the huge predatory muzzle two pale blue, folded, like a fan, long wings went to the sides. The gurnard was still alive and worked hard with its gills.
Younger sister gently touched her little finger to the head of the fish. But the rooster suddenly flapped its tail, and Anna with a squeal pulled her hand away.
- Don't you worry, Your Excellency, all in at its best arrange, said the cook, obviously understanding Anna's anxiety. - Now the Bulgarian brought two melons. Pineapple. Kind of like cantaloupe, but the smell is much more fragrant. And I also dare to ask Your Excellency, what sauce would you like to serve with a rooster: tartar or Polish, otherwise you can just crackers in oil?
- Do as you like. Go! - ordered the princess.
IV
After five o'clock guests began to arrive. Prince Vasily Lvovich brought with him his widowed sister Lyudmila Lvovna, after her husband Durasov, a plump, good-natured and unusually silent woman; a secular young rich varmint and reveler Vasyuchkb, whom the whole city knew under this familiar name, very pleasant in society with his ability to sing and recite, as well as arrange lively pictures, performances and charity bazaars; the famous pianist Jenny Reiter, a friend of Princess Vera at the Smolny Institute, as well as her brother-in-law Nikolai Nikolayevich. They were followed by Anna's husband in a car with a shaved, fat, ugly huge professor Speshnikov and with the local vice-governor von Seck. Later than the others, General Anosov arrived, in a good hired landau, accompanied by two officers: Staff Colonel Ponamarev, a prematurely old, thin, bilious man, exhausted by excessive clerical work, and Guards Hussar lieutenant Bakhtinsky, who was famous in St. Petersburg as the best dancer and incomparable manager of balls .
General Anosov, a fat, tall, silver old man, was heavily climbing down from the footboard, holding on to the railing of the goat with one hand, and with the other on the back of the carriage. In his left hand he held an auditory horn, and in his right a stick with a rubber tip. He had a large, coarse, red face with a fleshy nose and that good-naturedly stately, slightly contemptuous expression in his narrowed eyes, arranged in radiant, swollen semicircles, which is characteristic of courageous and ordinary people who have seen danger and death often and close before their eyes. The two sisters, who had recognized him from afar, ran up to the carriage just in time to half-jokingly, half-seriously support him from both sides under the arms.
- Exactly... the bishop! - said the general in an affectionate hoarse bass.
- Grandpa, dear, dear! - Vera said in a tone of slight reproach. Every day we are waiting for you, but at least you showed your eyes.
Our grandfather in the south has lost all conscience, - Anna laughed. - One could, it seems, remember the goddaughter. And you keep yourself a Don Juan, shameless, and completely forgot about our existence ...
The general, baring his majestic head, kissed the hands of both sisters in turn, then kissed them on the cheeks and again on the hand.
"Girls... wait... don't scold me," he said, interspersing each word with sighs emanating from long-standing shortness of breath. ... jelly ... smells terrible ... And they didn’t let you out ... You are the first ... to whom you came ... Terribly glad ... to see you ... How are you jumping? .. You, Verochka .. ... quite a lady ... she became very similar ... to her dead mother ... When will you call for baptism?
- Oh, I'm afraid, grandfather, that never ...
- Do not despair ... everything is ahead ... Pray to God ... And you, Anya, have not changed at all ... You and at sixty ... will be the same dragonfly-egoza. Wait a minute. Let me introduce you to the officers.
- I have had this honor for a long time! - said Colonel Ponamarev, bowing.
- I was introduced to the princess in St. Petersburg, - picked up the hussar.
- Well, I'll introduce you, Anya, Lieutenant Bakhtinsky. A dancer and a brawler, but a good cavalryman. Take it out, Bakhtinsky, my dear, out of the carriage... Let's go, girls... What, Verochka, will you feed? I have... after the estuary regime... an appetite, like a graduation... an ensign.
General Anosov was a comrade-in-arms and devoted friend the late Prince Mirza-Bulat-Tuganovsky. After the death of the prince, he transferred all tender friendship and love to his daughters. He knew them when they were very young, and even baptized the younger Anna. At that time - as still - he was the commandant of a large, but almost abolished fortress in the city of K. and daily visited the Tuganovskys' house. Children simply adored him for pampering, for gifts, for lodges in the circus and theater, and for the fact that no one knew how to play with them so excitingly as Anosov. But most of all they were fascinated and most strongly imprinted in their memory by his stories about military campaigns, battles and bivouacs, about victories and retreats, about death, wounds and severe frosts - unhurried, epicly calm, simple-hearted stories told between evening tea and that boring hour when the children are called to bed.
According to modern customs, this piece of antiquity seemed to be a gigantic and unusually picturesque figure. He combined precisely those simple, but touching and deep features, which even in his time were much more common in privates than in officers, those purely Russian, peasant features that, when combined, give an exalted image that sometimes made our soldier not only invincible , but also a great martyr, almost a saint - features that consisted of an ingenuous, naive faith, a clear, good-natured and cheerful outlook on life, cold and businesslike courage, humility in the face of death, pity for the defeated, endless patience and amazing physical and moral endurance.
Anosov, starting from the Polish war, participated in all campaigns except the Japanese one. He would have gone to this war without hesitation, but he was not called, and he always had a great rule of modesty: "Do not climb to death until you are called." In all his service, he not only never flogged, but even hit a single soldier. During the Polish uprising, he once refused to shoot prisoners, despite the personal order of the regimental commander. "I'll not only shoot the spy," he said, "but if you order, I'll personally kill it. And these are prisoners, and I can't." And he said it so simply, respectfully, without a hint of challenge or showiness, looking directly into the eyes of the chief with his clear, hard eyes, that instead of being shot himself, they left him alone.
During the war of 1877-1879, he very quickly rose to the rank of colonel, despite the fact that he was little educated, or, as he himself put it, he graduated only from the “bear academy”. He participated in the crossing of the Danube, crossed the Balkans, sat out on Shipka, was at the last attack of Plevna; they wounded him once seriously, four lightly, and, in addition, he received a severe concussion in the head with a fragment of a grenade. Radetsky and Skobelev knew him personally and treated him with exceptional respect. It was about him that Skobelev once said: "I know one officer who is much braver than me - this is Major Anosov."
He returned from the war almost deafened by a fragment of a grenade, with a sore leg, on which three fingers, frostbitten during the Balkan crossing, were amputated, with the most severe rheumatism acquired on Shipka. They wanted to retire him after two years of peaceful service, but Anosov became stubborn. Here he was very opportunely helped with his influence by the head of the region, a living witness of his cold-blooded courage when crossing the Danube. In St. Petersburg, they decided not to upset the honored colonel, and he was given a life-long post of commandant in the city of K. - a position more honorable than necessary for the purposes of national defense.
In the city, everyone knew him from young to old and good-naturedly laughed at his weaknesses, habits and manner of dressing. He always went about unarmed, in an old-fashioned frock coat, in a cap with large brim and with a huge straight visor, with a stick in right hand, with an auditory horn in the left and certainly accompanied by two obese, lazy, hoarse pugs, in which the tip of the tongue was always stuck out and bitten. If during his usual morning walk he had to meet with acquaintances, then passers-by for several blocks heard the commandant screaming and how his pugs barked in unison after him.
Like many deaf people, he was a passionate lover of opera, and sometimes, during some languid duet, suddenly his resolute bass was heard throughout the theater; "But he took it clean, damn it! It's like he cracked a nut." Restrained laughter swept through the theater, but the general did not even suspect this: in his naivety, he thought that he had exchanged fresh impressions with his neighbor in a whisper.
As a commandant, he quite often, along with his wheezing pugs, visited the main guardhouse, where they rested from hardships very comfortably over screw, tea and jokes. military service arrested officers. He carefully asked everyone: "What is the last name? By whom was he imprisoned? For how long? For what?" Sometimes, quite unexpectedly, he praised the officer for a brave, albeit illegal, act, sometimes he began to scold, shouting so that he could be heard on the street. But, having shouted his fill, without any transitions or pauses, he inquired where the officer was getting dinner from and how much he pays for it. It happened that some erring second lieutenant, sent for a long term from such a backwater, where there was not even a guardhouse of his own, admitted that he, due to lack of money, was content from a soldier's boiler. Anosov immediately ordered that lunch be brought to the poor fellow from the commandant's house, from which the guardhouse was no more than two hundred steps away.
In the city of K., he became close to the Tuganovsky family and became attached to the children with such close ties that it became a spiritual need for him to see them every evening. If it happened that the young ladies went somewhere or the service detained the general himself, then he sincerely yearned and could not find a place for himself in large rooms commandant's house. Every summer he took a vacation and spent a whole month at the Tuganovsky estate, Yegorovsky, fifty miles away from K..

L. van Beethoven. 2 Son. (op. 2, no. 2).

I

In mid-August, before the birth of the new moon, the bad weather suddenly set in, which is so characteristic of the northern coast of the Black Sea. Sometimes for whole days a thick fog lay heavily over the land and the sea, and then the huge siren in the lighthouse roared day and night like a mad bull. Then from morning till morning it rained incessantly, fine as water dust, turning clay roads and paths into solid thick mud, in which carts and carriages got stuck for a long time. Then a fierce hurricane blew from the northwest, from the side of the steppe; from it the tops of the trees swayed, bending down and straightening up, like waves in a storm, the iron roofs of the dachas rattled at night, it seemed as if someone were running on them in shod boots, the window frames trembled, the doors slammed, and the chimneys howled wildly. Several fishing boats got lost in the sea, and two did not return at all: only a week later the corpses of fishermen were thrown out in different places on the coast.

The inhabitants of the suburban seaside resort - mostly Greeks and Jews, cheerful and suspicious, like all southerners - hurriedly moved to the city. Cargo drogs stretched endlessly along the softened highway, overloaded with all sorts of household items: mattresses, sofas, chests, chairs, washstands, samovars. It was pitiful, and sad, and disgusting to look through the muddy muslin of rain at this miserable belongings, which seemed so worn out, dirty and beggarly; on the maids and cooks sitting on the top of the wagon on a wet tarpaulin with some kind of irons, tins and baskets in their hands, on sweaty, exhausted horses, which now and then stopped, trembling at the knees, smoking and often carrying sides, on hoarsely cursing quails, wrapped up from the rain in mats. It was even sadder to see the abandoned dachas with their sudden spaciousness, emptiness and bareness, with mutilated flowerbeds, broken glass, abandoned dogs and all sorts of dacha rubbish from cigarette butts, pieces of paper, shards, boxes and apothecary's vials.

But by the beginning of September, the weather suddenly changed abruptly and quite unexpectedly. Quiet, cloudless days immediately set in, so clear, sunny and warm that there were none even in July. On the dry, compressed fields, on their prickly yellow bristles, autumn cobwebs shone with a mica sheen. The calmed trees silently and obediently dropped their yellow leaves.

Princess Vera Nikolaevna Sheina, the wife of the marshal of the nobility, could not leave the dachas, because the repairs in their city house had not yet been completed. And now she was very glad of the lovely days that had come, the silence, solitude, clean air, the chirping of the swallows on the telegraph wires that flocked to fly away, and the gentle salty breeze that weakly pulled from the sea.

II

In addition, today was her name day - September 17th. According to sweet, distant memories of childhood, she always loved this day and always expected something happy and wonderful from him. Her husband, leaving in the morning on urgent business in the city, put a case with beautiful pear-shaped pearl earrings on her night table, and this gift amused her even more.

She was alone in the whole house. Her unmarried brother Nikolai, a fellow prosecutor, who usually lived with them, also went to the city, to the court. For dinner, the husband promised to bring a few and only the closest acquaintances. It turned out well that the name day coincided with summer time. In the city, one would have to spend money on a big ceremonial dinner, perhaps even on a ball, but here, in the country, one could manage with the smallest expenses. Prince Shein, despite his prominent position in society, and perhaps thanks to him, could barely make ends meet. The huge family estate was almost completely upset by his ancestors, and he had to live above his means: to make receptions, do charity, dress well, keep horses, etc. Princess Vera, whose former passionate love for her husband had long since passed into a strong, faithful feeling, true friendship, tried with all her might to help the prince refrain from complete ruin. She in many ways, imperceptibly for him, denied herself and, as far as possible, economized in the household.

Now she was walking in the garden and carefully cutting flowers for the dinner table with scissors. The flower beds were empty and looked disordered. Multi-colored terry carnations were blooming, as well as levka - half in flowers, and half in thin green pods that smelled of cabbage, rose bushes still gave - for the third time this summer - buds and roses, but already shredded, rare, as if degenerate. On the other hand, dahlias, peonies and asters bloomed magnificently with their cold, arrogant beauty, spreading an autumnal, grassy, ​​sad smell in the sensitive air. The rest of the flowers, after their luxurious love and excessive abundant summer motherhood, quietly showered countless seeds of a future life on the ground.

Close by on the highway came the familiar sound of a three-ton car horn. It was the sister of Princess Vera, Anna Nikolaevna Friesse, who had promised in the morning to come by phone to help her sister receive guests and take care of the house.

Subtle hearing did not deceive Vera. She walked towards. A few minutes later a graceful carriage came to an abrupt halt at the dacha gate, and the driver, deftly jumping down from the seat, flung open the door.

The sisters kissed happily. From early childhood, they were attached to each other by a warm and caring friendship. In appearance, they were strangely not similar to each other. The eldest, Vera, took after her mother, a beautiful Englishwoman, with her tall, flexible figure, gentle, but cold and proud face, beautiful, although rather large hands, and that charming sloping of her shoulders, which can be seen in old miniatures. The youngest, Anna, on the contrary, inherited the Mongolian blood of her father, a Tatar prince, whose grandfather was baptized only at the beginning of the 19th century and whose ancient family went back to Tamerlane, or Lang-Temir, as her father proudly called her, in Tatar, this great bloodsucker. She was half a head shorter than her sister, somewhat broad in the shoulders, lively and frivolous, a mocker. Her face was of a strongly Mongolian type, with rather noticeable cheekbones, with narrow eyes, which, moreover, she squinted due to myopia, with an haughty expression in her small, sensual mouth, especially in her full lower lip slightly protruding forward - this face, however, captivated some then an elusive and incomprehensible charm, which consisted, perhaps, in a smile, perhaps in the deep femininity of all features, perhaps in a piquant, provocatively coquettish facial expression. Her graceful ugliness excited and attracted the attention of men much more often and stronger than her sister's aristocratic beauty.