The history of the creation of the story is the hostess of Dostoevsky's scientific work.
Fedor MikhailovichDostoevsky
hostess
Tale
PART ONE
Ordynov finally decided to change his apartment. His landlady, a very poor elderly widow and clerk, from whom he rented a room, due to unforeseen circumstances, left Petersburg somewhere in the wilderness, to relatives, without waiting for the first day, the deadline for hiring her. The young man, living out an urgent time, thought with regret about the old coal and was annoyed that he had to leave it: he was poor, and the apartment was expensive. The very next day after the hostess's departure, he took his cap and went wandering along the Petersburg lanes, looking out for all the labels nailed to the gates of houses, and choosing a house blacker, more crowded and capital, in which it was most convenient to find the required corner from some poor tenants. He had been looking for a long time, very diligently, but soon new, almost unfamiliar sensations visited him. At first absent-mindedly and carelessly, then with attention, and finally with intense curiosity, he began to look around him. The crowd and street life, the noise, the movement, the news of objects, the news of the situation - all this petty life and ordinary rubbish, which has so long bored the business and busy St. warm nest, obtained by labor, sweat and various other means - all this vulgar prose and boredom aroused in him, on the contrary, a kind of quiet, joyful, light feeling. His pale cheeks began to be covered with a slight blush, his eyes shone as if with new hope, and he greedily, widely began to inhale the cold, fresh air. It made him extremely easy. He always led a life of quiet, utter seclusion. About three years ago, having received his degree and becoming as free as possible, he went to an old man, whom he hitherto knew by hearsay, and waited a long time until the livery valet agreed to report on him another time. Then he entered a high, dark and deserted hall, extremely boring, as it still happens in old, surviving, family, manor houses, and saw in it an old man, hung with orders and adorned with gray hair, a friend and colleague of his father and his guardian. The old man handed him a pinch of money. The amount turned out to be very insignificant; it was the remainder of the great-grandfather's legacy sold by auction for debts. Ordynov indifferently took possession, bowed forever to his guardian, and went out into the street. The evening was autumnal, cold and gloomy; the young man was pensive, and a kind of unconscious melancholy tore at his heart. There was fire in his eyes; he felt fever, chills, and heat alternately. He calculated on the road that he could live on his own means for two or three years, even with half-starvation, and four. It was getting dark, it was drizzling. He bargained for the first oncoming corner and moved in an hour later. There he seemed to have locked himself in a monastery, as if he had renounced the world. Two years later, he went completely wild. He went wild without noticing it; for the time being it never occurred to him that there was another life - noisy, thundering, eternally agitated, eternally changing, eternally calling and always, sooner or later, inevitable. True, he could not help but hear about her, but he did not know and never looked for her. From childhood he lived exclusively; now this exclusivity is defined. He was devoured by the deepest, most insatiable passion, exhausting the whole life of a person and not giving such creatures as Ordynov a single corner in the sphere of another, practical, everyday activity. That passion was science. For the time being, she ate away his youth, poisoned his nightly peace with a slow, intoxicating poison, robbed him of healthy food and fresh air, which had never been in his stuffy corner, and Ordynov, in the rapture of his passion, did not want to notice that. He was young and for the time being did not demand more. Passion made him an infant for external life and forever unable to force others to step aside. good people when the need arises to separate at least some corner between them. The science of other clever people is capital in their hands; Ordynov's passion was a weapon turned on him. There was more of an unconscious attraction in him than a logically distinct reason to learn and know, as in any other, even the most petty, activity that had hitherto occupied him. Even in childhood, he was known as an eccentric and was unlike his comrades. He did not know his parents; from his comrades, for his strange, unsociable character, he endured inhumanity and rudeness, which is why he became really unsociable and gloomy, and little by little fell into exclusivity. But in his solitary studies, there was never, even now, an order and a definite system; now there was only the first delight, the first fever, the first fever of the artist. He created his own system; it survived in him for years, and little by little a still dark, obscure, but somehow wonderfully gratifying image of an idea embodied in a new, enlightened form arose in his soul, and this form asked from his soul, tormenting this soul; he still timidly felt its originality, truth, and originality: creativity was already showing itself in his powers; it was formed and strengthened. But the date of incarnation and creation was still far away, perhaps very far away, perhaps completely impossible! Now he walked the streets as aloof, like a hermit who suddenly emerged from his silent desert into a noisy and thundering city. Everything seemed new and strange to him. But he was so alien to the world that boiled and rumbled around him that he did not even think to be surprised at his strange sensation. He did not seem to notice his savagery; on the contrary, some kind of joyful feeling was born in him, some kind of drunkenness, like a hungry man who, after a long fast, was given to drink and eat; although, of course, it was strange that such a petty news of the situation as a change of apartment could fool and excite a Petersburg resident, even Ordynov; but it is also true that until now he has almost never had the chance to go out on business. More and more he liked to roam the streets. He looked at everything like flaneur . But even now, true to his usual disposition, he read in the picture that was clearly revealed before him, as in a book between the lines. Everything amazed him; he did not lose a single impression and looked with a thoughtful eye at the faces of the walking people, peered into the physiognomy of everything around him, listened lovingly to the speech of the people, as if verifying on everything his conclusions, born in the silence of solitary nights. Often some trifle struck him, gave birth to an idea, and for the first time he felt annoyed that he had buried himself so alive in his cell. Here everything went faster; his pulse was full and fast, his mind, suppressed by loneliness, refined and elevated only by intense, exalted activity, now worked quickly, calmly and boldly. In addition, he somehow unconsciously wanted to somehow squeeze himself into this alien life for him, which he hitherto knew or, better to say, only correctly foresaw by the instinct of the artist. His heart beat involuntarily with the anguish of love and sympathy. He looked more attentively at the people passing by him; but the people were strangers, preoccupied and pensive... And little by little Ordynov's carelessness began to fall involuntarily; reality was already suppressing him, instilling in him a kind of involuntary fear of respect. He began to tire of the influx of new impressions hitherto unknown to him, like a sick man who joyfully got up for the first time from his painful bed and fell down, exhausted by the light, the brilliance, the whirlwind of life, the noise and variegation of the crowd flying past him, foggy, swirling with movement. He became melancholy and sad. He began to fear for his whole life, for all his activities, and even for the future. A new thought killed his peace. It suddenly occurred to him that he had been alone all his life, that no one had loved him, and that he had not been able to love anyone either. Some of the passers-by, with whom he accidentally entered into conversation at the beginning of the walk, looked at him rudely and strangely. He saw that he was mistaken for a madman or for the most original eccentric, which, however, was quite right. He remembered that it was always somehow hard for everyone in his presence, that even in childhood everyone fled him for his thoughtful, stubborn character, that his sympathy, which was in him, but in which somehow there was never a noticeable moral equality, which tormented him as a child, when he did not in any way resemble other children, his peers. Now he remembered and realized that always, at any time, everyone left and went around him. Inconspicuously he went to one end of Petersburg far from the center of the city. Having somehow dined in a secluded tavern, he went out to wander again. Again he passed many streets and squares. Long yellow and gray fences stretched behind them, quite dilapidated huts instead of rich houses began to be encountered, and at the same time colossal buildings under factories, ugly, blackened, red, with long chimneys. Everywhere was deserted and empty; everything looked somehow gloomy and hostile: at least so it seemed to Ordynov. It was already evening. In one long alleyway he came to the platform where the parish church stood. He entered her absentmindedly. The service has just ended; the church was almost completely empty, and only two old women were still kneeling at the entrance. The attendant, a gray-haired old man, put out the candles. The rays of the setting sun poured in a wide stream from above through the narrow window of the dome and illuminated one of the aisles with a sea of brilliance; but they grew weaker and weaker, and the darker the darkness that thickened under the vaults of the temple became, the brighter the gilded icons shone in places, illuminated by the tremulous glow of lamps and candles. In a fit of deeply moving melancholy and some kind of repressed feeling, Ordynov leaned against the wall in the darkest corner of the church and forgot himself for a moment. He woke up when the measured, muffled sound of two parishioners entering was heard under the vaults of the temple. He raised his eyes, and some inexpressible curiosity took possession of him at the sight of the two aliens. They were an old man and a young woman. The old man was tall, still straight and vigorous, but thin and painfully pale. From his appearance, one could mistake him for a merchant visiting from somewhere far away. He was wearing a long, black, obviously festive, fur-lined caftan, worn wide open. From under the caftan one could see some other long-brimmed Russian clothes, tightly buttoned from top to bottom. Her bare neck was carelessly tied with a bright red handkerchief; in the hands of a fur hat. A long, thin, half-gray beard fell on his chest, and from under overhanging, gloomy eyebrows a fiery gaze flashed, feverishly inflamed, haughty and long. The woman was about twenty years old and wonderfully beautiful. She wore a rich blue coat lined with fur, and her head was covered with a white satin kerchief tied at the chin. She walked with downcast eyes, and a sort of thoughtful solemnity, overflowing in her whole figure, was sharply and sadly reflected in the sweet contour of her childishly gentle and meek lines of her face. There was something strange about this unexpected couple. 341 The old man stopped in the middle of the church and bowed to all four sides, although the church was completely empty; so did his companion. Then he took her by the hand and led her to a large local image of the Mother of God, in whose name the church was built, shining at the altar with a dazzling brilliance of lights reflected on a robe burning with gold and precious stones. The clergyman, the last remaining in the church, bowed respectfully to the old man; he nodded his head. The woman fell prostrate before the icon. The old man took the end of the veil hanging at the foot of the icon and covered her head. A muffled sob echoed through the church. Ordynov was struck by the solemnity of this whole scene and looked forward to its end. After about two minutes the woman raised her head, and again the bright light of the lamp illuminated her lovely face. Ordynov shuddered and took a step forward. She had already given her hand to the old man, and both quietly left the church. Tears boiled in her dark blue eyes, covered with long eyelashes that sparkled against the milky whiteness of her face, and rolled down her pale cheeks. A smile flickered on her lips; but in the face there were traces of some kind of childish fear and mysterious horror. She timidly clung to the old man, and it was evident that she was trembling all over with excitement. Struck, scourged by some unknown sweet and stubborn feeling, Ordynov quickly followed them and crossed their path on the church porch. The old man looked at him with hostility and sternness; she also glanced at him, but without curiosity and distractedly, as if another, distant thought occupied her. Ordynov followed them, not understanding his own movement. It was already quite dark; he walked away. The old man and the young woman entered a large, wide street, dirty, full of various industrial people, flour storehouses and inns, which led straight to the outpost, and turned from it into a narrow, long alley with long fences on both sides of it, resting on a huge the blackened wall of a four-story capital building, through the gates of which one could go out onto another, also large and crowded street. They were already approaching the house; suddenly the old man turned and looked impatiently at Ordynov. The young man stopped dead in his tracks; he himself found his passion strange. The old man looked back another time, as if to be sure whether his threat had had any effect, and then both, he and the young woman, entered through the narrow gate into the yard of the house. Ordynov returned back. He was in the most unpleasant frame of mind and was vexed with himself, thinking that he had wasted his day in vain, he was tired in vain, and, moreover, ended in stupidity, giving the sense of a whole adventure to an incident more than ordinary. No matter how vexed he was with himself in the morning for his savagery, his instinct was to run away from everything that could entertain, amaze and shock him in his external, not internal, artistic world. Now, sadly and with a kind of remorse, he thought of his serene corner; then anguish and anxiety overcame him about his unresolved position, about the troubles ahead, and at the same time he became annoyed that such a trifle could occupy him. Finally, tired and unable to connect the two ideas, he stumbled late to his apartment and realized with amazement that he had passed, without noticing it, past the house in which he lived. Stunned, and shaking his head at his absent-mindedness, he attributed it to fatigue, and going up the stairs, he finally went into the attic, into his room. There he lit a candle - and in a minute the image crying woman struck his fancy. So ardently, so strongly was the impression, so lovingly reproduced by his heart, these meek, quiet features of a face shocked by mysterious tenderness and horror, drenched in tears of delight or infantile repentance, that his eyes became dim and it was as if fire ran through all his members. But the vision did not last long. After delight came reflection, then annoyance, then some kind of impotent anger; without undressing, he wrapped himself in a blanket and threw himself on his hard bed ... Ordynov woke up quite late in the morning in an irritated, timid and depressed state of mind, gathered hastily, almost forcibly trying to think about his urgent worries, and set off in the direction opposite to yesterday your journey; Finally, he found himself an apartment somewhere in the room of a poor German, nicknamed Spies, who lived with his daughter Tinchen. Spies, having received a deposit, immediately took off the label nailed to the gate and invited hirelings, praised Ordynov for his love of science and promised to work diligently with him himself. Ordynov said he would move in by evening. From there he went 343 was about to go home, but changed his mind and turned in the other direction; courage returned to him, and he mentally smiled at his own curiosity. The road in impatience seemed to him extremely long; at last he reached the church where he had been the previous evening. They served dinner. He chose a place from which he could see almost all the worshipers; but the ones he was looking for were not there. After a long wait, he came out blushing. Stubbornly suppressing some involuntary feeling in himself, he stubbornly and forcibly tried to change the course of his thoughts. Thinking about the ordinary, worldly, he remembered that it was time for him to have dinner, and, feeling that he was really hungry, he went into the same tavern where he dined the day before. He no longer remembers how he got out of there. For a long time and unconsciously he wandered through the streets, through crowded and deserted lanes, and finally went into the wilderness, where there was no longer a city and where a yellowed field spread; he woke up when a dead silence struck him with a new impression, long unknown to him. The day was dry and frosty, as often happens in Petersburg October. Nearby was a hut; near it are two stacks of hay; a small, stout-breasted horse, with bowed head, with a drooping lip, stood unharnessed beside the two-wheeled buggy, as if thinking about something. A yard dog grumbled and gnawed at a bone near a broken wheel, and a three-year-old child in one shirt, scratching his white, shaggy head, looked with surprise at the lone citizen who had come in. Behind the hut were fields and orchards. On the edge of the blue skies, forests were black, and on the opposite side they found muddy snow clouds, as if chasing a flock of migratory birds in front of them, without a cry, one after another, making their way across the sky. Everything was quiet and somehow solemnly sad, full of some kind of dying, lurking expectation ... Ordynov went on and on; but the desert only weighed him down. He turned back into the city, from which a thick roar of bells suddenly rushed, calling for the evening service, doubled his steps and after a while again entered the temple, so familiar to him from yesterday. His stranger was already there. She knelt at the very entrance between the crowd of prayers. Ordynov made his way through the dense mass of beggars, old women in rags, the sick and crippled, who were waiting at the church doors for alms, and knelt beside the stranger. His clothes touched her clothes, and he heard 344 impetuous breath flying out of her lips, whispering an ardent prayer. Her features were still shaken by a feeling of boundless piety, and tears again rolled and dried on her hot cheeks, as if washing away some terrible crime. It was completely dark in the place where they both stood, and only from time to time the dim flame of the lamp, swayed by the wind rushing in through the open narrow glass of the window, illuminated her face with a quivering brilliance, each line of which struck into the memory of the young man, clouded his vision and deaf , an unbearable pain tore at his heart. But this torment had its frenzied ecstasy. At last he could not endure; his whole chest trembled and languished in an instant in an unknown sweet longing, and he, sobbing, bowed his inflamed head on the cold platform of the church. He did not hear and did not feel anything, except for the pain in his heart, which was dying in sweet torments. Is this extreme impressionability, nakedness and insecurity of feeling developed through loneliness; whether in the weary, stifling and hopeless silence of long, sleepless nights, amidst unconscious aspirations and impatient upheavals of the spirit, this impetuousness of the heart, ready at last to burst or find an outpouring; and so it should have been for her, when suddenly on a sultry, stuffy day the whole sky would suddenly turn black and a thunderstorm would pour rain and fire on the fermented earth, hang like pearls of rain on emerald branches, crush grass, fields, beat tender cups of flowers to the ground, so that later, at the first rays of the sun, everything, again coming to life, rushed, rose to meet him and solemnly, up to the sky, sent him their luxurious, sweet incense, rejoicing and rejoicing in their renewed life. .. But Ordynov could not even think now what was happening to him: he was barely conscious of himself ... He almost did not notice how the service ended, and woke up, wading after his stranger through the crowd rallied at the entrance. Sometimes he met her surprised and bright look. Stopped every minute by people coming out, she turned to him more than once; one could see how her surprise grew stronger and stronger, and suddenly she flared up all over, as if with a glow. At that moment, yesterday's old man suddenly appeared again from the crowd and took her by the hand. Ordynov again met his bilious and mocking glance, and some strange malice suddenly constricted his heart. At last he lost sight of them in the darkness; then, with an unnatural effort, he rushed forward and left the church. But the fresh evening air could not refresh him: his breath spiraled and squeezed in his chest, and his heart began to beat slowly and hard, as if it wanted to pierce his chest. At last he saw that he had indeed lost his strangers; they were no longer in the street or in the alley. But a thought had already appeared in Ordynov's head, one of those decisive, strange plans had taken shape, which, although always extravagant, almost always succeed and are carried out in such cases; next morning at eight o'clock in the morning he approached the house from the side of the alley and entered the narrow, dirty and unclean back yard, a kind of garbage pit in the house. The janitor, who was doing something in the yard, stopped, rested his chin on the handle of his spade, looked Ordynov up and down and asked him what he wanted. The janitor was a young fellow, about twenty-five years old, with an extremely old-looking face, wrinkled, small, a Tartar breed. "I'm looking for an apartment," answered Ordynov impatiently. - Which one? asked the janitor with a grin. He looked at Ordynov as if he knew his whole business. “We need it from the tenants,” answered Ordynov. "Not in that yard," answered the janitor enigmatically. -- And here? - Not here either. - Here the janitor began to shovel. "Perhaps they will yield," said Ordynov, giving the janitor a dime. The Tatar looked at Ordynov, took a dime, then again took up the shovel and after some silence announced that "no, no apartment." But the young man no longer listened to him; he walked along rotten, shaking boards lying in a puddle, to the only exit to this yard from the outbuilding of the house, black, unclean, dirty, it seemed, choked in a puddle. Downstairs lived a poor undertaker. Passing his witty workshop, Ordynov climbed a half-broken, slippery, spiral staircase to the top floor, felt in the dark a thick, clumsy door covered with rags of matting, found a lock and opened it a little. He wasn't wrong. An old man he knew stood in front of him and looked at him intently, with extreme surprise. 346 -- What do you want? he asked abruptly and almost in a whisper. - Do you have an apartment? .. - Ordynov asked, almost forgetting everything he wanted to say. He saw his stranger over the old man's shoulder. The old man silently began to close the door, pushing Ordynov out with it. "There's an apartment," the gentle voice of a young woman suddenly rang out. The old man opened the door. "I need a corner," said Ordynov, hastily entering the room and addressing the beauty. But he stopped in amazement as if rooted to the spot, looking at his future masters; a mute, startling scene took place in his eyes. The old man was pale as death, as if about to pass out. He gazed at the woman with a leaden, motionless, piercing gaze. She, too, turned pale at first; but then all the blood rushed into her face and her eyes sparkled somehow strangely. She took Ordynov to another closet. The whole apartment consisted of one fairly large room, divided into three parts by two partitions; from the entrance they went straight into a narrow, dark hallway; straight ahead was a door behind a partition, apparently into the master bedroom. To the right, through the hallway, they went into a room that was rented out. It was narrow and cramped, flattened by a partition to two low windows. Everything was cluttered up and cluttered with objects necessary in any life; it was poor, cramped, but as clean as possible. The furniture consisted of a simple white table, two simple chairs, and a bench on either side of the walls. A large antique image with a gilded aureole stood over a shelf in the corner, and a lamp was burning in front of it. In the rented room, and partly in the hallway, there was a huge, clumsy Russian stove. It was clear that three of them could not live in such an apartment. They began to agree, but incoherently and hardly understanding each other. Ordynov, two steps away from her, heard her heart beating; he saw that she was trembling all over with excitement and as if with fear. Finally, we somehow agreed. The young man announced that he was about to move and looked at the owner. The old man stood at the door, still pale; but a quiet, even pensive smile crept on his lips. Meeting Ordynov's gaze, he again frowned. 347 -- Do you have a passport? he suddenly asked in a loud, abrupt voice, opening the door to the passage for him. -- Yes! answered Ordynov, a little puzzled. - Who are you? “Vasily Ordynov, nobleman, I don’t serve, I do my own thing,” he answered, imitating the old man’s tone. “Me too,” the old man replied. - I am Ilya Murin, a tradesman; enough of you? Go... An hour later, Ordynov was already at the new apartment, to the surprise of himself and his German, who was already beginning to suspect, along with the submissive Tinchen, that the well-trodden tenant had deceived him. Ordynov himself did not understand how it all happened, and did not want to understand ... His heart was beating so fast that his eyes were green and his head was spinning. Mechanically, he busied himself with arranging his meager possessions in the new apartment, untied the knot with various essential goods, unlocked the chest of books, and began to lay them on the table; but soon all this work fell out of his hands. Every minute the image of a woman shone in his eyes, the meeting with which excited and shook his whole existence, which filled his heart with such uncontrollable, convulsive delight - so much happiness rushed at once into his meager life that his thoughts darkened and his spirit sank in anguish and confusion. . He took his passport and carried it to the owner in the hope of looking at her. But Murin barely opened the door, took the paper from him, said to him: "All right, live in peace," and locked himself in his room again. Some unpleasant feeling took possession of Ordynov. For some unknown reason, it became hard for him to look at this old man. There was something contemptuous and malicious in his gaze. But the unpleasant impression soon dissipated. It is already the third day since Ordynov lived in some kind of whirlwind in comparison with the former calm of his life; but he could not reason, and was even afraid. Everything is confused and mixed up in his existence; he dully felt that his whole life seemed to be broken in half; one desire, one expectation took possession of him, and another thought did not bother him. Confused, he returned to his room. There, by the stove, in which the food was being cooked, a small, stooped old woman was bustling about, so dirty and in such disgusting rabble that it was a pity to look at her. She seemed to be very angry and at times grumbled something, mumbling her lips under her breath. It was the landlady. Ordynov tried to speak to her, but she remained silent, apparently out of spite. At last the hour of dinner came; the old woman took cabbage soup, pies and beef out of the oven and carried it to the owners. She gave the same to Ordynov. After dinner, there was dead silence in the apartment. Ordynov took the book in his hands and turned over the pages for a long time, trying to find the meaning in what he had already read several times. Impatiently he threw away the book and tried again to tidy up his belongings; Finally he took his cap, put on his greatcoat, and went out into the street. Walking at random, not seeing the road, he tried, as far as possible, to concentrate his spirit, to bring his broken thoughts together and to think at least a little about his position. But the effort only plunged him into suffering, into torture. Chills and fever took possession of him alternately, and at times his heart suddenly began to beat so that he had to lean against the wall. "No, death is better," he thought, "death is better," he whispered with inflamed, quivering lips, thinking little of what he was saying. He walked for a very long time; Finally, feeling that he was soaked to the bone, and noticing for the first time that the rain was pouring down, he returned home. Not far from the house, he saw his janitor. It seemed to him that the Tartar looked at him intently and with curiosity for some time, and then went on his way when he noticed that he had been seen. "Hello," said Ordynov, catching up with him. -- What is your name? “The name is the janitor,” he answered, baring his teeth. - How long have you been a janitor here? -- For a long time. - Is my master a tradesman? - A tradesman, if he said. - What is he doing? - Sick; lives, prays to God, - here. - Is that his wife? - Which wife? - What lives with him? - Zhe-na, if he said. Farewell, sir. The Tartar touched his cap and went into his kennel. Ordynov entered his apartment. The old woman, mumbling 349 and muttering something to herself, opened the door for him, again locked it on the latch and climbed onto the stove, on which she lived out her life. It was already getting dark. Ordynov went to get fire and saw that the door to the owners was locked. He called to the old woman, who, propping herself up on her elbow, was vigilantly looking at him from the stove, as if wondering what he would need at the master's castle; she silently tossed him a pack of matches. He returned to the room and set to work again, for the hundredth time, over his things and books. But little by little, wondering what was happening to him, he sat down on a bench, and it seemed to him that he had fallen asleep. From time to time he came to himself and guessed that his dream was not a dream, but some kind of painful, painful oblivion. He heard the knock on the door, how it opened, and guessed that it was the hosts returning from Vespers. Then it occurred to him that he had to go to them for some reason. He got up, and it seemed to him that he was already walking towards them, but he stumbled and fell on a pile of firewood thrown by the old woman in the middle of the room. Here he completely forgot himself and, opening his eyes after a long, long time, noticed with surprise that he was lying on the same bench, as he was, dressed, and that the face of a woman was bending over him with tender solicitude, wonderfully beautiful and, as it were, all soaked in silent, motherly tears. He heard how they put a pillow under his head and dressed him with something warm, and how someone's tender hand lay on his hot forehead. He wanted to thank, he wanted to take this hand, bring it to his parched lips, wet it with tears and kiss it, kiss it for eternity. He wanted to say a lot of something, but what it was, he himself did not know; he wanted to die at that moment. But his hands were like lead and did not move; he seemed to be speechless and could only hear his blood rushing through all his veins, as if lifting him up on the bed. Someone gave him water... Finally he fell into unconsciousness. He woke up in the morning at eight o'clock. The sun poured its rays in a golden sheaf through the green, musty windows of his room; Some kind of gratifying sensation was unliving in all the limbs of the patient. He was calm and quiet, infinitely happy. It seemed to him that someone was now at his head. He woke up, carefully looking around him for this invisible being; he so wanted to hug his friend and say for the first time in his life: "Hello, good afternoon to you, my dear." How long do you sleep! said a tender female voice. Ordynov looked around, and the face of his beautiful mistress leaned towards him with a friendly and bright smile, like the sun. “How long you have been ill,” she said, “enough, get up; what do you hate yourself? The volyushka of bread is sweeter, the sun is more beautiful. Get up, my dove, get up. Ordynov grabbed and tightly squeezed her hand. He felt like he was still dreaming. “Wait, I made tea for you; do you want tea? Want; you'll be better off. I have been sick and I know. "Yes, give me a drink," said Ordynov in a weak voice, and got to his feet. He was still very weak. A chill ran down his back, all his limbs ached and seemed to be broken. But his heart was clear, and the rays of the sun seemed to warm him with some kind of solemn, bright joy. He felt that a new, strong, invisible life had begun for him. His head swiveled slightly. "Your name is Vasily, isn't it?" she asked, “I either misheard, or it seems that the master called you that yesterday. Yes, Vasily. And what is your name? - said Ordynov, approaching her and barely able to stand on his feet. He swayed. She grabbed his hands, held him up and laughed. "Me Katerina," she said, looking into his eyes with her large, clear, blue eyes. Both held each other's hands. - Do you want to tell me something? she finally spoke. “I don’t know,” answered Ordynov. His eyesight was blurred. - You see what. Full, my dove, full; do not grieve, do not grieve; sit down here, to the sun, at the table; sit still, but don’t follow me,” she added, seeing that the young man made a movement, as if holding her back, “I’ll be right there myself; you can take a look at me. In a minute she brought tea, put it on the table and sat opposite him. “Here, get drunk,” she said. - What, your head hurts? “No, it doesn’t hurt now,” he said. "I don't know, maybe it hurts... I don't want... full, full!... I don't even know what's wrong with me." - he said, gasping for breath and finding her hand at last, - be here, do not leave me; give, give me your hand again. .. It's getting dark before my eyes; I look at you like at the sun,” he said, as if tearing his words from his heart, dying with delight when he spoke them. Sobs choked his throat. -- Poor what! To know that you did not live with a good man. You are alone; don't you have relatives? - There is no one; I'm alone... don't worry! now it's better... it's good for me now! said Ordynov, as if delirious. The room seemed to circle around him. “I haven’t seen people for many years. You look at me like that…” she said after a moment of silence. - Well... what? “As if my eyes are warming you!” You know, when you love someone... I accepted you from the first words in my heart. If you get sick, I will follow you again. Just don't get sick, no. Get up, we will live like brother and sister. Want? After all, it is difficult to acquire a sister, as God did not give birth. -- Who are you? where are you from? said Ordynov in a weak voice. - I'm not from here ... what do you want! You know, people tell how the twelve brothers lived in a dark forest and how a red maiden got lost in that forest. She went to them and cleaned everything in the house for them, she put her love on everything. The brothers came and realized that their sister had spent the day with them. They began to call her out, she came out to them. Everyone called her sister, gave her a will, and she was an equal to everyone. Do you know the fairy tale? “I know,” whispered Ordynov. -- To live well; Do you like to live in the world? -- Yes Yes; to live a century, to live long, answered Ordynov. “I don’t know,” Katerina said thoughtfully, “I would like to die. It's good to love life and love good people, yes ... Look, you've turned white again, like flour! - Yes, my head is spinning ... - Wait, I'll bring you my bed and a pillow - another one; here and bed. Fall asleep, dream about me; the disease will go away. Our old woman is sick too... She was still talking, as she had already begun to make the bed, from time to time looking over her shoulder at Ordynov with a smile. - How many books do you have? she said, moving the chest. She went up to him, grabbed him with her right hand, led him to the bed, laid him down and covered him with a blanket. "They say books spoil a man," she said, shaking her head thoughtfully. - Do you like to read in books? "Yes," replied Ordynov, not knowing whether he was sleeping or not, and squeezing Katerina's hand tighter to assure himself that he was not sleeping. “My master has many books; see what! he says divine. He reads everything to me. I'll show you later; Will you tell me later that he reads everything to me in them? "I'll tell you," Ordynov whispered, looking at her relentlessly. - Do you like to pray? she asked after a moment's silence. -- You know? I'm still afraid, I'm still afraid ... She did not finish, it seemed she was thinking about something. Ordynov finally raised her hand to his lips. Why are you kissing my hand? (And her cheeks flushed a little.) Here, kiss her, she continued, laughing and offering him both hands; then she released one and applied it to his hot forehead, then she began to straighten and smooth his hair. She blushed more and more; at last she sat down on the floor beside his bed and put her cheek to his cheek; her warm, moist breath rustled over his face... Suddenly Ordynov felt that hot tears poured from her eyes in a hail and fell like melted lead onto his cheeks. He grew weaker and weaker; he could no longer move his hand. At that moment there was a knock on the door and the bolt rattled. Ordynov could still hear how the old man, his master, entered behind the partition. He later heard that Katerina got up, slowly and without embarrassment, took her books, heard how she crossed him as she left; he closed his eyes. Suddenly a hot, long kiss caught fire on his inflamed lips, as if he had been stabbed in the heart with a knife. He cried out weakly and fainted... Then some strange life began for him. At times, in a moment of vague consciousness, it flashed through his mind that he was doomed to live in some kind of long, unending dream, full of strange, fruitless anxieties, struggles, and sufferings. In horror, he tried to rise up against the fatalism that was oppressing him, and in a moment of intense, most desperate struggle, some unknown force struck him again, and he heard, felt clearly how he was again losing his memory, how once again the impenetrable, bottomless darkness opened before him. him and he throws himself at her with a cry of anguish and despair. At times, moments of unbearable, annihilating happiness flashed by, when vitality convulsively intensifies in the entire human composition, the past becomes clearer, the present bright moment sounds triumphant, fun, and the unknown future is dreamed of in reality; when inexpressible hope falls like life-giving dew on the soul; when you want to scream with delight; when you feel that the flesh is weak before such a yoke of impressions that the whole thread of being is torn, and when at the same time you congratulate your whole life on renewal and resurrection. Sometimes he again fell into sleep, and then everything that happened to him in last days , repeated again and in a vague, rebellious swarm passed through his mind; but the vision appeared to him in a strange, mysterious way. Sometimes the patient forgot what had happened to him, and was surprised that he was not in the old apartment, not with his old mistress. He wondered why the old woman did not come, as she always did at the late twilight hour, to the extinguished stove, which at times poured a weak, flickering glow over the entire dark corner of the room, and, waiting for the fire to go out, did not warm, out of habit, her bony, trembling hands on the fading fire, always chatting and whispering to herself, and occasionally looking in bewilderment at him, her wonderful tenant, whom she considered crazy from sitting for a long time with books. On another occasion, he recalled that he had moved to another apartment; but how it happened, what happened to him and why he had to move, he did not know, although his whole spirit froze in a continuous, unstoppable striving ... But where, what called and tormented him, and who threw this unbearable flame, choking, devouring all his blood? He didn't know and didn't remember. Often he greedily caught some shadow with his hands, often he heard the rustle of close, light steps near his bed and sweet, like music, the whisper of someone's affectionate, tender speeches; someone's wet, impetuous breath slid over his face, and his whole being shook with love; someone's burning tears burned his inflamed cheeks, and suddenly someone's kiss, long, tender, dug into his lips; then his life languished in unquenchable torment; it seemed that all being, the whole world, stopped, died for whole centuries around him, and a long, thousand-year night stretched over everything ... It was as if his tender, serenely past years of his first childhood were coming for him again, with their bright joy, with unquenchable happiness , with the first sweet surprise to life, with swarms of bright spirits flying out from under each flower that he plucked, playing with him on a fat green meadow in front of a small house surrounded by acacias, smiling at him from a crystal 354 boundless lake, near which he sat for whole hours, listening to the beat of wave upon wave, and rustling wings around him, lovingly strewn with bright, iridescent dreams his little cradle, when his mother, bending over her, baptized, kissed and cradled him with a quiet lullaby in the long, serene nights . But then suddenly one being began to appear, which embarrassed him with some unchildish horror, which poured the first slow poison of grief and tears into his life; he vaguely felt how the unknown old man was holding in his power all his coming years, and, trembling, he could not take his eyes off him. The evil old man followed him everywhere. He looked out and deceptively nodded his head to him from under every bush in the grove, laughed and teased him, embodied himself in every doll of a child, grimacing and laughing in his hands, like an evil, nasty dwarf; he urged on him each of his inhuman schoolmates, or, sitting down with the little ones on the school bench, grimacing, peeking out from under every letter of his grammar. Then, during sleep, the evil old man would sit down at his head... He drove away swarms of bright spirits, rustling their golden and sapphire wings around his cradle, took his poor mother away from him forever and began to whisper to him a long, marvelous tale for whole nights, incomprehensible to the heart of a child, but tormenting, agitating him with horror and unchildish passion. But the wicked old man did not listen to his sobs and pleas, and kept on talking to him until he fell into a stupor, into unconsciousness. Then the little one woke up suddenly as a man; Whole years passed over him invisibly and inaudibly. He suddenly became aware of his real position, suddenly began to understand that he was alone and a stranger to the whole world, alone in a strange corner, between mysterious, suspicious people, between enemies who kept gathering and whispering in the corners of his dark room and nodding to the old woman who was sitting by the fire. squatting, warming her decrepit, old hands and pointing them at him. He fell into confusion, into anxiety; he kept wanting to know who these people were, why they were here, why he himself was in this room, and guessed that he had wandered into some dark, villainous den, being carried away by something mighty, but unknown, without first considering who and what are the tenants and who exactly are its owners. Suspicion began to torment him, and suddenly, in the midst of the darkness of the night, a whispered, long tale , and some old woman began it quietly, almost audibly, to herself, sadly shaking her white, gray head in front of the dying fire. But - and again horror attacked him: the fairy tale was embodied before him in faces and forms. He saw how everything, starting with his childhood, vague dreams, all his thoughts and dreams, everything that he survived in life, everything that he had read in books, everything that he had already forgotten about for a long time, everything was animated, everything took shape, embodied , rose before him in colossal forms and images, walked, swarmed around him; he saw how magical, luxurious gardens spread before him, how entire cities were built and destroyed in his eyes, how entire cemeteries sent him their dead, who began to live again, how whole tribes and peoples came, were born and outlived in his eyes, how incarnated finally, now, around his painful bed, his every thought, every ethereal dream, was embodied almost at the moment of birth; how, finally, he thought not in incorporeal ideas, but in whole worlds, whole creatures, how he rushed like a speck of dust in all this endless, strange, impenetrable world, and how all this life, with its rebellious independence, crushes, oppresses him and pursues him eternal, endless irony; he heard how he dies, collapses into dust and dust, without resurrection, forever and ever; he wanted to run, but there was no corner in the whole universe to hide him. Finally, in a fit of despair, he strained his strength, cried out, and woke up... He woke up, covered in cold, icy sweat. There was dead silence all around him; it was deep night. But it still seemed to him that somewhere his marvelous tale was going on, that someone's hoarse voice really started a long story about something that seemed to be familiar to him. He heard that they were talking about dark forests, about some dashing robbers, about some daring young man, almost about Stenka Razin himself, about merry drunk barge haulers, about one red maiden and about Mother Volga. Isn't this a fairy tale? does he really hear her? For a whole hour he lay with his eyes open, not moving a single limb, in an agonizing stupor. At last he got up cautiously and with glee felt in himself a strength that had not been exhausted in a fierce illness. Brad passed, reality began. He noticed that he was still dressed as he had been at the time of his conversation with Katerina, and that, consequently, not much time had passed since she had left him that morning. A fire of determination ran through his veins. Mechanically, he found with his hands a large 356 nail, driven for some reason into the top of the partition, near which his bed was laid, grabbed it and, hanging on it with his whole body, somehow got to the crack from which a barely noticeable light came out into his room. . He put his eye to the hole and stared, barely taking breath from excitement. In the corner of the master's closet there was a bed, in front of the bed a table covered with a carpet, littered with books of large old form, in bindings resembling sacred books. In the corner stood an icon as old as the one in his room; in front of the icon a lamp burned. Old man Murin lay on the bed, sick, exhausted by suffering and pale as a sheet, covered with a fur blanket. On his lap was an open book. Katerina was lying on a bench near the bed, clasping the old man's chest with her hand and leaning her head on his shoulder. She looked at him with attentive, childishly surprised eyes, and seemed to listen with inexhaustible curiosity, dying from expectation, to what Murin was telling her. From time to time the voice of the narrator rose, animation was reflected on his pale face; he knitted his brows, his eyes began to sparkle, and Katerina seemed to turn pale with fear and excitement. Then something resembling a smile appeared on the old man's face, and Katerina began to laugh softly. At times tears lit up in her eyes; then the old man gently stroked her head, like a child, and she hugged him even tighter with her naked hand, sparkling like snow, and clung to his chest even more lovingly. At times, Ordynov thought that it was all a dream, he was even sure of it; but blood rushed to his head, and the veins throbbed tensely, with pain, at his temples. He released the nail, got up from the bed, and, swaying, making his way like a lunatic, not himself understanding his own impulse, which flared up like a whole fire in his blood, went up to the master's doors and pushed hard at them; the rusty latch flew off at once, and he suddenly found himself with a noise and a crack in the middle of the master's bedroom. He saw how Katerina fluttered all over and shuddered, how the old man's eyes flashed angrily from under heavily pressed together eyebrows, and how suddenly fury distorted his whole face. He saw how the old man, without taking his eyes off him, hastily looking with a wandering hand for a gun hanging on the wall; then he saw how the muzzle of a gun flashed, directed by an unsteady, trembling hand right into his chest ... A shot rang out, then a wild, almost inhuman cry was heard, and when the smoke flew out, a terrible sight struck Ordynov. Trembling all over, he bent over the old man. Murin was lying on the floor; he was writhing in convulsions, his face was contorted in agony, and foam showed on his twisted lips. Ordynov guessed that the unfortunate man was in the most severe attack of epilepsy. Together with Katerina, he rushed to help him. .. The whole night passed in anxiety. The next day, Ordynov went out early in the morning, despite his weakness and the fever that still did not leave him. In the yard he again met the janitor. This time the Tartar raised his cap from a distance and looked at him with curiosity. Then, as if coming to his senses, he took to his broom, looking askance at the slowly approaching Ordynov. -- What? did you hear anything at night? asked Ordynov. - Yes, I heard. - What kind of person is this? who is he? - She hired herself, you know; but mine is someone else's. “Will you ever speak!” Ordynov shouted beside himself from a fit of some painful irritability. What did mine do? It's your fault - your tenants frightened. Below, the undertaker lived: he was deaf, but he heard everything, and his woman was deaf, and she heard. And in the other yard, although far away, I also heard it - here it is. I'll go to the warden. "I'll go there myself," replied Ordynov, and went to the gate. - And at least as you like; she hired herself ... Master, master, wait! Ordynov looked around; out of courtesy the janitor touched his hat. -- Well! - If you go, I'll go to the owner. -- Well? - You'd better go. "You're stupid," said Ordynov, and started to walk away again. 358 -- Master, master, wait! The janitor touched his cap again and bared his teeth. - Listen, master: you hold your heart; why drive the poor? Chasing the poor is a sin. God does not command - do you hear? “Listen, you too: here, take this. Well, who is he? - Who is that? -- Yes. - I'll tell you without money. Here the janitor took the broom, waved it once or twice, then stopped, looking attentively and importantly at Ordynov. - You're a good sir. And do not want to live with a good man, as you like; mine is what I said. Here the Tartar looked even more expressively and, as if angry, again set to work on the broom. Showing at last the appearance that he had finished some business, he mysteriously approached Ordynov and, making some very expressive gesture, said: - That's what she is! -- What? How? - There is no mind. -- What. - Flew away. Yes! flew away! he repeated in an even more mysterious tone. -- She is ill. He had a barge, there was a big one, and there was another one, and there was a third one, she went along the Volga, and I myself was from the Volga; there was also a factory, but it burned down, and he was without a head. - Is he crazy? -- No no! - answered the Tatar with an arrangement. - Not mixed. He is a smart person. She knows everything, she read a lot, read, read, read everything and told others the truth. So, somebody came: two roubles, three roubles, forty roubles, but you don't like it, as you like; The book will look, see and tell the whole truth. And money on the table, immediately on the table - no money! Here the Tartar, who with excess of heart was in the interests of Murin, even laughed with joy. - Well, did he conjure, guess someone? “Hm,” muttered the janitor, nodding his head quickly, “she was telling the truth. She prays to God, she prays a lot. And then so, finds on him. Here the Tatar again repeated his expressive gesture. At that moment someone called to the janitor from the other yard, and after that some small, bent, gray-haired man in a sheepskin coat appeared. He walked groaning, stumbling, looking at the ground and whispering something to himself. One might think that he had lost his mind from old age. - Masters, masters! the janitor whispered in a hurry, nodding his head hastily to Ordynov, and, tearing off his hat, rushed to the old man, whose face was somehow familiar to Ordynov; at least he met him somewhere very recently. Realizing, however, that there is nothing surprising. he left the yard. The janitor seemed to him a swindler and an insolent first hand. "The idler was definitely bargaining with me!" he thought, "God knows what's going on here!" He already said it on the street. Slowly, other thoughts began to overwhelm him. The impression was unpleasant: the day was gray and cold, snow fluttered. The young man felt the chill begin to break him down again; he also felt as if the earth was beginning to sway under him. Suddenly a familiar voice in an unpleasantly sweet, rattling tenor wished him good morning. - Yaroslav Ilyich! Ordynov said. In front of him stood a cheerful, red-cheeked man, looking about thirty years old, short in stature, with grey, oily eyes, smiling, dressed ... as Yaroslav Ilyich is always dressed, and in the most pleasant way held out his hand to him. Ordynov met Yaroslav Ilyich exactly a year ago, quite by chance, almost on the street. A very easy acquaintance was facilitated, apart from chance, by the extraordinary inclination of Yaroslav Ilyich to look everywhere for kind, noble people, primarily educated and at least worthy of high society by their talent and beauty of manner. Although Yaroslav Ilyich had an extremely sweet tenor, even in conversations with the most sincere friends in the mood of his voice something unusually bright, powerful and imperious, brooking no delay, which was perhaps the result of habit, peeped through. -- How? cried Yaroslav Ilyich, with an expression of the most sincere, enthusiastic joy. -- I live here. - How long ago? - continued Yaroslav Ilyich, raising the note higher and higher. "And I didn't know that!" Noah is your neighbor! I'm in this part now. It's been a month since I returned from the Ryazan province. Caught you, 360 old and most noble friend! - And Yaroslav Ilyich laughed in the most good-natured way. - Sergeev! he shouted with inspiration, “wait for me at Tarasov’s; Yes, so that without me they do not stir the sacks. Yes, the turns of the Olsufiev janitor; tell him to come to the office at the same time. I'll be back in an hour ... Hastily giving this order to someone, the delicate Yaroslav Ilyich took Ordynov by the arm and led him to the nearest tavern. “I won’t rest until we have a few private words after such a long separation. Well, what are your activities? he added, lowering his voice almost reverently and mysteriously. "Always in the sciences?" “Yes, I still am,” answered Ordynov, in whom one bright thought flashed. - Noble, Vasily Mikhailovich, nobly! - Here Yaroslav Ilyich shook Ordynov's hand warmly. “You will be an ornament to our society. Give you the Lord a happy journey in your field ... God! How glad I am to have met you! How many times have I thought of you, how many times have I said: where is he, our kind, generous, witty Vasily Mikhailovich? They took a special room. Yaroslav Ilyich ordered an appetizer, ordered vodka to be served, and looked at Ordynov with feeling. "I've been reading a lot without you," he began in a timid, slightly insinuating voice. “I have read all of Pushkin…” Ordynov looked at him absently. “An amazing depiction of human passion, sir. But first of all, let me be grateful to you. You have done so much for me with the nobility of suggesting a just way of thinking ... - Have mercy! - No, please. I always love to do justice and I am proud that at least this feeling has not ceased in me. “Forgive me, you are unfair to yourself, and I, really ...” “No, absolutely fair, sir,” objected Yaroslav Ilyich with unusual fervor. What am I compared to you, sir? Is not it? -- Oh my god! "Yes, sir..." There was a silence. “Following your advice, I broke off many rude acquaintances and to some extent softened the rudeness of my habits,” Yaroslav Ilyich began again in a somewhat timid and ingratiating voice. - In my free time, I mostly sit at home; but in the evenings I read some useful book, and ... I have one desire, Vasily Mikhailovich, to bring at least possible benefit to the fatherland ... - I have always considered you a noble person, Yaroslav Ilyich. "You always bring balm... noble young man..." Yaroslav Ilyich warmly shook hands with Ordynov. - You don't drink? he remarked, calming his excitement a little. -- I can not; I am sick. - Sick? yes, indeed! How long ago, how, in what way did you deign to get sick? If you like, I'll tell you... what doctor treats you? If you like, I'll tell our private doctor now. I myself, personally, will run to him. The most skillful person! Yaroslav Ilyich was already taking up his hat, - I humbly thank you. I'm not being treated and I don't like doctors... - What are you talking about? is it possible like that? But this is the most skilful, most educated person, - continued Yaroslav Ilyich, begging, - the other day, - but let me tell you this, dear Vasily Mikhailovich, - one poor locksmith comes the other day: "I, he says, stabbed my hand with my tool Heal me..." Semyon Pafnutich, seeing that the unfortunate man was threatened by Antonov's fire, took the measure of cutting off the infected member. He did it in front of me. But it was done so, in such a noble ... that is, in such a delightful way, that, I confess, if it were not for compassion for suffering humanity, it would be pleasant to look at it so simply, out of curiosity, sir. But where and how did you get sick? - Moving to the apartment ... I just got up. “But you are still very unwell, and you should not go out. So you are no longer where you used to be, do you live? But what prompted you? “My mistress has left Petersburg. - Domna Savvishna? Really? .. Kind, truly noble old woman! Do you know? I felt almost filial respect for her. Something sublime of great-grandfather's years shone in this almost obsolete life; and, looking at her, it is as if you see in front of you the incarnation of our gray-haired, stately old woman ... that is, from this ... there is something here, you know, so poetic! .. - concluded Yaroslav Ilyich, completely shy and blushing to the ears. Yes, she was a kind woman. "But may I ask where you now deign to live?" “Here, not far away, in Koshmarov’s house. - I know him. Magnificent old man! I am with him, dare I say, almost a sincere friend. Glorious old age! The lips of Yaroslav Ilyich almost trembled with the joy of emotion. He asked for another glass of vodka and a pipe. Do you hire yourself? - No, the tenant. - Who is that? Maybe I know too. - At Murin, a tradesman; a tall old man ... - Murin, Murin; yes, excuse me, is it in the backyard, above the undertaker? - Yes, yes, in the very backyard. "Hm... do you live in peace, sir?" Yes, I just moved. “Um… I just wanted to say, um. .. however, but you didn’t notice anything special? - Right ... - That is, I'm sure that you will live well with him if you are satisfied with the premises ... I'm not talking about that, I'm ready to warn you; but, knowing your character ... How did this old tradesman seem to you? “He seems to be quite a sick man. - Yes, he is very suffering ... But you didn’t notice anything like that? Have you spoken to him? -- Very little; he is so unsociable and bilious ... - Hm ... - Yaroslav Ilyich thought. - Unfortunate man! he said after a pause. -- He? “Yes, an unfortunate and at the same time incredibly strange and entertaining person. However, if he doesn't bother you... Excuse me for drawing attention to such a subject, but I was curious... - And, really, my curiosity was aroused too... I would very much like to know who he is. Besides, I live with him... - You see, they say this man used to be very rich. He traded, as you may have heard. Through various unfortunate circumstances he became poor; he had several barges with cargo smashed in a storm. 363 The plant, entrusted, it seems, to the management of a close and beloved relative, also suffered an unfortunate fate and burned down, and his relative himself died in the flames of the fire. Agree, the loss is terrible! Then Murin, they say, fell into deplorable despondency; they began to fear for his mind, and indeed, in one quarrel with another merchant, also the owner of barges that sailed along the Volga, he suddenly showed himself from such a strange and unexpected point of view that everything that happened was attributed only to his strong insanity, which and I'm ready to believe. I have heard in detail about some of his oddities; Finally, a very strange, so to speak, fatal circumstance suddenly happened, which by no means can be explained otherwise than by the hostile influence of an angry fate. -- Which? asked Ordynov. “They say that in a painful fit of madness, he encroached on the life of a young merchant whom he had previously loved very much. He was so startled when he awoke from a fit that he was ready to take his own life; at least that's what they say. I don’t know, probably, what happened after this, but what is known is that he was under repentance for several years ... But what is the matter with you, Vasily Mikhailovich, doesn’t my simple story tire you? “Oh no, for God’s sake… You say he was under penitence; but he is not alone. - I don't know. They say there was one. At least no one else is involved in the case. And yet, I did not hear about the future; only know. .. - Well, sir. - I only know - that is, I actually had nothing special in my thoughts to add ... I only want to say that if you find something unusual in him and goes beyond the ordinary level of things, then all this happened no other way than a consequence of the troubles that befell him one after another ... - Yes, he is such a pious, great saint. “I don’t think so, Vasily Mikhailovich; he suffered so much; I think he is pure in his heart. “But he’s not crazy now; he is healthy. - Oh no, no; in this I can vouch for you, I am ready to swear; he is in full possession of all his mental faculties. He is only, as you rightly noted in a glimpse, extremely wonderful and devout. Very even 364 reasonable person. He speaks briskly, boldly, and very cunningly, sir. You can still see the trace of a past turbulent life on his face, sir. A curious man-s and extremely well-read. “He seems to read all the sacred books?” “Yes, sir, he is a mystic.” -- What? -- Mystic. But I tell you this in confidence. I'll tell you a secret that he was watched over for some time. This man had a terrible influence on those who came to him. - What is it? "But you won't believe it; you see, sir; then he did not live in the local quarter; Alexander Ignatich, an honorary citizen, a man of rank and enjoying general respect, went to him with some kind of lieutenant out of curiosity. They come to him; they are accepted, and a strange man begins to peer into their faces. He used to look into faces if he agreed to be helpful; otherwise, he sent those who came back, and even, they say, very impolitely. He asks them: what do you want, gentlemen? So and so, answers Alexander Ignatich: your gift can tell you this without us. Come, he says, with me to another room; here he appointed precisely that of them, which before him had a need. Alexander Ignatich did not tell what happened to him afterwards, but he left him as pale as a handkerchief. The same thing happened to one noble lady of high society: she also left him as pale as a handkerchief, all in tears and in amazement at his prediction and eloquence. -- Weird. But now he doesn't do it? -- Strictly forbidden. There were wonderful examples. One young cornet, the color and hope of the upper family, grinned at him. “What are you laughing at?” the old man said, getting angry. “In three days you yourself will be like this!” - and he folded his hands crosswise, meaning the corpse of a dead man with such a sign. -- Well? “I don’t dare to believe it, but they say the prediction came true. He has a gift, Vasily Mikhailovich ... You deigned to smile at my ingenuous story. I know that you are far ahead of me in enlightenment; but I believe him: he is not a charlatan. Pushkin himself mentions something similar in his writings. 365 -- Um. I don't want to contradict you. You seem to have said that he does not live alone. - I don't know... take off , seems to be his daughter. -- Daughter? - Yes, sir, or, it seems, his wife; I know that some woman lives with him. I saw a glimpse and did not pay attention. -- Hm. Strange ... The young man fell into thoughtfulness, Yaroslav Ilyich - into tender contemplation. He was touched both by the fact that he saw an old friend, and by the fact that he satisfactorily told the most interesting thing. He sat without taking his eyes off Vasily Mikhailovich and sipping from his pipe; but suddenly jumped up and fussed. - A whole hour has passed, and I forgot! Dear Vasily Mikhailovich, once again I thank fate for bringing us together, but I have to go. May I visit you in your learned lodging? Do me a favor, I'll be very glad to see you. I will visit you myself when the time is right. - Do you believe the good news? Oblige, inexpressibly oblige! You won't believe how excited you made me! They left the tavern. Sergeev was already flying towards them and quickly reported to Yaroslav Ilyich that Vilm Emelyanovich was pleased to pass. Indeed, a pair of dashing savras, harnessed to dashing cabs, appeared in the future. Especially remarkable was the unusual harness. Yaroslav Ilyich squeezed, as if in a vise, the hand of his best friend, kissed his hat and set off to meet the oncoming droshky. On the way, he turned around twice and nodded his head in parting fashion to Ordynov. Ordynov felt such weariness, such exhaustion in all his limbs, that he could hardly drag his feet. Somehow he got home. At the gate he was again met by the janitor, diligently watching all his parting with Yaroslav Ilyich, and even from a distance made him some kind of invitation. sign. But the young man passed by. At the door of the apartment, he closely collided with a small gray-haired figure, coming out, with downcast eyes, from Murin. Lord, forgive my sins! whispered the figure, jumping aside with the elasticity of a cork. "Didn't I hurt you?" 366 -- No, sir, thank you very much for your attention... Oh , Lord, Lord! The quiet little man, groaning, groaning and whispering something instructive under his breath, carefully set off up the stairs. It was the owner of the house, whom the janitor was so afraid of. It was only then that Ordynov remembered that he had seen him for the first time here, at Murin's, when he moved to an apartment. He felt that he was irritated and shocked; he knew that his imagination and impressionability were strained to the extreme, and he decided not to trust himself. Little by little he fell into a kind of stupor. There was a heavy, oppressive feeling in his chest. His heart ached, as if everything was ulcerated, and his whole soul was full of muffled, inexhaustible tears. He fell back on the bed she had made for him and began to listen again. He heard two breaths: one heavy, painful, intermittent, the other quiet, but uneven and as if also agitated, as if his heart was beating there with the same aspiration, the same passion. He sometimes heard the noise of her dress, light rustle her quiet, soft steps, and even this rustle of her foot echoed with a muffled, but painfully sweet pain in his heart. At last he seemed to have heard the sobs, the rebellious sigh, and, finally, her prayer again. He knew that she was on her knees in front of the image, wringing her hands in some frenzied despair! .. Who is she? Who is she asking for? By what hopeless passion is her heart troubled? Why does it hurt and yearn so much and pours out in such hot and hopeless tears? .. He began to recall her words. Everything she said to him still sounded like music in his ears, and his heart gave a loving, dull beat to every memory, to every devoutly repeated word of hers... For a moment it flashed through his mind that he saw it all in dream. But at the same moment his entire body languished in a dying anguish, when the impression of her hot breath, her words, her kiss was branded again in his imagination. He closed his eyes and forgot. Somewhere a clock struck; it was getting late; dusk fell. It suddenly seemed to him that she again bent over him, that she was looking into his eyes with her wonderfully clear eyes, moist from sparkling tears of serene, bright joy, quiet and clear, like the turquoise endless dome of the sky on a hot afternoon. Her face shone with such solemn serenity, her smile gleamed with such a promise of endless bliss, with such sympathy, with such infantile enthusiasm, she bowed on his shoulder that a groan escaped his exhausted chest with joy. She wanted to tell him something; she kindly confided something to him. Again the heart-piercing music struck his ears. He greedily sucked in the air, heated, electrified by her close breathing. In anguish, he stretched out his hands, sighed, opened his eyes ... She stood before him, bending down to his face, all pale, as if from fright, all in tears, all trembling with excitement. She was saying something to him, begging him for something, folding and wringing her half-naked arms. He wrapped his arms around her, she trembled all over his chest ...PART TWO
-- What you? what's wrong with you? - said Ordynov, waking up completely, still squeezing her in his strong and hot embraces, - what is the matter with you, Katerina? what about you, my love? She sobbed softly, her eyes downcast and her flushed face buried in his chest. For a long time she could not speak and trembled all over, as if in fright. “I don’t know, I don’t know,” she finally said in a barely audible voice, panting and almost without uttering words, “I don’t remember how I came here to you ...” Here she is even stronger, with even greater desire she clung to him and, in an irrepressible, convulsive feeling, kissed his shoulder, arms, chest; finally, as if in despair, she covered herself with her hands, fell on her knees and hid her head in his lap. When Ordynov, in inexpressible anguish, impatiently lifted her up and sat her down beside him, her face burned with a whole glow of shame, her eyes wept for mercy, and her smile, forcibly breaking through on her lips, barely managed to suppress the irresistible force of the new sensation. Now she seemed to be frightened again by something, distrustfully pushed him away with her hand, barely glanced at him and answered his hasty questions, bowing her head, timidly and in a whisper. - You may have seen nightmare, - said Ordynov, - maybe you dreamed of something ... yes? May be, he frightened you ... He is delirious and without memory ... Maybe he said something that you shouldn't have listened to? .. Did you hear anything? Yes? “No, I didn’t sleep,” answered Katerina, suppressing her excitement with an effort. “Sleep didn’t come to me. He remained silent and only once called me. I came up, called out to him, told him; I became afraid; he didn't wake up and didn't hear me. He is in a serious illness, God help him! Then melancholy began to sink into my heart, bitter melancholy! I prayed all the time, prayed all the time, and that's what came over me. “Complete, Katerina, complete, my life, complete! It was you who got scared yesterday... - No, I wasn't scared yesterday!... - Does it happen to you another time? -- Yes, sometimes. And she trembled all over, and again, in fright, began to cuddle up to him like a child. “You see,” she said, interrupting her sobs, “I didn’t come to you in vain, not in vain, it was hard alone,” she repeated, squeezing his hands gratefully. - It's full, full of tears for someone else's grief! Save them for a rainy day, when it will be hard for you alone, and there will be no one with you! .. Listen, did you have your love? - No... before you I didn't know a single one... - Before me... you call me any of yours? She suddenly looked at him, as if in surprise, she wanted to say something, but then she calmed down and looked down. Little by little, her whole face again flushed with a sudden glowing blush; brighter, through the forgotten tears that had not yet cooled on her eyelashes, her eyes flashed, and it was clear that some question was moving on her lips. With bashful slyness she glanced at him twice, and then suddenly looked down again. “No, I won’t be your first any,” she said, “no, no,” she repeated, shaking her head, thinking, while the smile again quietly crept over her face, “no,” she said finally, laughing, - it's not for me, my dear, to be your darling. Then she looked at him; but so much sadness was suddenly reflected on her face, such hopeless sadness struck all her features at once, despair boiled so unexpectedly from within, from her heart, that an incomprehensible, painful feeling of compassion for unknown grief captured Ordynov's spirit, and he looked at her with inexpressible torment. 369 "Listen to what I'm going to tell you," she said in a heart-piercing voice, clasping his hands in hers, trying to suppress her sobs. - Listen to me well, listen, my joy! Tame your heart and don't love me the way you love me now. It will be easier for you, your heart will become lighter and happier, and you will save yourself from a fierce enemy, and you will gain yourself a beloved sister. I will come to you if you want, I will have mercy on you and I will not take shame on myself that I confessed to you. I was with you for two days, as you lay in an evil illness! Get to know your sister! Not without reason did we fraternize with you, not without reason did I tearfully pray to the Mother of God for you! you can't get another one like this! You will go around the world, you will recognize the heavenly - you will not find another such love, if your heart asks for love. I will love you passionately, everything, as now, I will love, and for that I will love that your soul is pure, bright, visible through and through; for the fact that as I looked at you for the first time, I immediately recognized that you were a guest of my house, a welcome guest and it was not for nothing that you asked for it; because when you look, your eyes love and they talk about your heart, and when they say that, I immediately know about everything that is in you, and for that I want to give my life to your love, kind a will, then how sweet it is to be a slave to the one whose heart she found ... yes, my life is not mine, but someone else's, and the will is tied! Take your sister, and be my brother yourself, and take me into your heart, when again melancholy, evil sickness will attack me; just do it yourself so that I would not be ashamed to come to you and sit with you for a long night, as now. Heard me? Did he open his heart to me? Did you take into account what I told you? .. - She wanted to say something else, looked at him, put her hand on his shoulder and finally, helplessly, clung to his chest. Her voice died away in a convulsive, passionate sob, her chest was deeply agitated, and her face flared up like the dawn of the evening. -- My life! whispered Ordynov, whose eyesight was dimmed and his spirit was busy. -- My joy! - he said, not knowing his words, not remembering them, not understanding himself, trembling, so as not to destroy the charm with one breath, not to destroy everything that was with him and that he took more for a vision than for reality: everything was so clouded in front of him! “I don’t know, I don’t understand you, I don’t remember what you were saying to me now, my mind is dimming, my heart is aching in my chest, my mistress! .. 370 Here his voice was again cut off from excitement. She grew stronger, warmer, hotter pressed against him. He got up from his seat and, no longer holding himself back, overwhelmed, exhausted by delight, fell to his knees. Sobs convulsively, with pain, finally broke out of his chest, and the voice that broke through right from the heart trembled like a string, from the fullness of the unknown delight and bliss. Who are you, who are you, my dear? where are you from, my darling? he said, trying to suppress his sobs. - From which sky did you fly into my skies? Like a dream all around me; I can't believe in you. Don't reproach me... let me talk, give me everything, tell you everything!.. I wanted to talk for a long time... Who are you, who are you, my joy?.. How did you find my heart? Tell me, how long have you been my sister? .. Tell me everything about yourself, where you have been until now - tell me what was the name of the place where you lived, what did you love there at first, what were you glad about and what did you yearn for? .. Was the air warm there, clean was there a sky? .. who were dear to you, who loved you before me, to whom did your soul ask for the first time? .. Did you have a mother, and did she cherish you as a child, or, like me, lonely, you life turned around? Tell me, have you always been like this? What did you dream about, what did you guess ahead of time, what came true and what did not come true for you - tell me everything ... For whom did your girlish heart ache for the first time and why did you give it away? Tell me what should I give you for him, what should I give you for you? , and he bowed his head. But when he raised his eyes, the mute horror froze him all at once and the hair stood on end on his head. Katerina sat pale as a sheet. She stared motionlessly into the air, her lips were as blue as those of a dead woman, and her eyes clouded over with mute, tormenting anguish. She slowly rose to her feet, took two steps, and with a piercing cry fell before the icon. She fainted. Ordynov, shaken with fear, picked her up and carried her to his bed; he stood over her, beside himself. A minute later she opened her eyes, sat up in bed, looked around, and grabbed his hand. She drew him to her, tried to whisper something with her still pale lips, but her voice still betrayed her. At last she burst into 371 hails of tears; hot drops burned Ordynov's cold hand. “It’s hard, it’s hard for me now, my last hour is coming!” she finally said, yearning in hopeless torment. She tried to say something else, but her ossified tongue could not utter a single word. She looked with despair at Ordynov, who did not understand her. He leaned closer to her and listened... At last he heard her whisper distinctly: "I am spoiled, they spoiled me, they ruined me!" Ordynov raised his head and looked at her with wild astonishment. Some ugly thought flashed through his mind. Katerina saw the convulsive, painful constriction of his face. -- Yes! spoiled,” she continued, “I was spoiled by an evil man. -- he , my destroyer! .. I sold my soul to him ... Why, why did you mention your own? what did you have to torment me? God be with you, God be your judge!.. A minute later she began to cry softly; Ordynov's heart beat and ached in mortal anguish. “He says,” she whispered in a restrained, mysterious voice, “that when he dies, he will come for my sinful soul ... I sold him, I sold my soul to him ... He tormented me, he read to me in books .. On, look, look at his book! here is his book. He says that I committed a mortal sin... Look, look... And she showed him the book; Ordynov did not notice; where did she come from. He automatically took it, all written, like the ancient schismatic books that he had been able to see before. But now he was unable to look and focus his attention on anything else. The book fell from his hands. He quietly hugged Katerina, trying to bring her to mind. - Full, full! he said, “they frightened you; I'm with you; rest with me, dear, my love, my light! "You don't know anything, nothing!" she said, squeezing his hands tightly. "I'm always like that!.. I'm still afraid... Stop, stop tormenting me!.." “Sometimes he simply speaks to me in his own words, another time he takes his book, the largest, and reads over me. He reads everything terrible, harsh! I don't know what and I don't understand every word; but fear takes over me, and when I listen to his voice, it’s as if it’s not him speaking, but someone else, unkind, whom you can’t soften with anything, you can’t pray for anything, and it will become heavy, heavy on the heart, it burns .. Heavier than when the melancholy began! - Don't go to him! Why do you go to him?” said Ordynov, hardly conscious of his words. Why did I come to you? Ask - I don't know either ... But he keeps telling me: pray, pray! Sometimes I get up on a dark night and pray for a long time, for whole hours; often sleep tends to me; but fear keeps waking me up, everything waking me up, and then it still seems to me that a thunderstorm is gathering around me, that it will be bad for me, that the evil ones will tear and torment me, that the saints will not beg me and that they will not save me from fierce grief. My whole soul is torn, as if my whole body wants to melt away from tears ... Here I will again begin to pray, and pray, and pray until the mistress looks at me more lovingly from the icon. Then I get up and go to sleep like the dead; sometimes I will fall asleep on the floor, on my knees before the icon. Then, it happens, he wakes up, calls me, begins to love me, caress, console me, and then it becomes easier for me, and come any trouble, I'm not afraid of him. He is powerful! Great is his word! "But what's the trouble, what's the trouble with you?.." And Ordynov wrung his hands in despair. Katerina turned terribly pale. She looked at him as if condemned to death, not expecting pardon. - Me? .. I am a cursed daughter, I am a gas chamber; my mother cursed me! I ruined my own mother! .. Ordynov silently embraced her. She trembled close to him. He felt a convulsive trembling run through her whole body, and it seemed that her soul was parting from her body. “I closed it in the damp earth,” she said, all in the anxiety of her memories, all in visions of her irretrievably past, “I have long wanted to speak, he ordered everything for me with a prayer, a reproach and an angry word, and sometimes he himself at me He will raise my anguish, just like my enemy and adversary. And to me everything—as it is now at night—everything comes to mind... Listen, listen! It's been a long time, a very long time, I don't even remember when, but it's like yesterday in front of me, like yesterday's dream that sucked my heart all night. Longing in two is long. Sit, sit here beside me: I will tell you all my grief; smash me, damned one, with a mother's curse... I betray my life to you... Ordynov wanted to stop her, but she folded her hands, begging his love for attention, and then again, with still greater anxiety, she began to speak. Her story was incoherent, a spiritual storm was heard in her words, but Ordynov understood everything, then that her life became his life, her grief - his grief, and then that his enemy was already in reality standing before him, embodied and growing before him in her every word and, as if with inexhaustible strength, crushed his heart and cursed his malice. His blood was agitated, filled his heart and confused his thoughts. The evil old man of his dream (Ordynov believed in this) was awake in front of him. “It was such a night,” Katerina began to say, “only more menacing, and the wind howled through our forest, as I had never been able to hear ... or my death began on this night!” An oak tree was broken under our window, and an old, gray-haired old beggar came to us, and he said that as a small child he remembered this oak tree and that it was the same as when the wind overpowered it ... That same night - - as now I remember everything! - Father's barge on the river was smashed by a storm, and although he was unable to break it, he went to the place as soon as the fishermen ran to our factory. Mother and I sat alone, I dozed, she was sad about something and wept bitterly ... yes, I knew what! She had just fallen ill, was pale, and kept telling me that I should prepare a shroud for her ... Suddenly, at midnight, a knock was heard at the gate; I jumped up, blood flooded my heart; mother screamed. .. I did not look at her, I was afraid, I took a lantern, went to unlock the gate myself ... It was he ! I became frightened, because I was always frightened when he came, and from childhood it was so, as soon as the memory was born in me. He did not yet have white hair; his beard was pitch black, his eyes burned like coals, and never before had he looked at me affectionately. He asked: "Is mother at home?" I close the gate, I say that "father is not at home." He said: “I know,” and suddenly he looked at me, he looked like that ... for the first time he looked at me like that. I walked, and he is still standing. "What are you not going?" -- "Dumu I think." We're going up into the light. "Why did you say that father was not at home when I asked if mother was at home?" I am silent ... Mother fainted - she rushed to him ... he looked a little - I saw everything. He was all wet, shivering: the storm drove him twenty miles, - but where and where he comes from, neither I nor my mother ever knew; we haven't seen him for nine weeks... threw off his hat, took off his mittens - he doesn't pray to images, he doesn't bow to his masters - he sat down by the fire... a minute later she raised her head again and began again: - He began to speak Tatar with his mother. My mother knew how, I did not understand a word. Another time, when he came, they sent me away; and now the mother did not dare to say a word to her own offspring. The impure bought my soul, and I, boasting to myself, looked at my mother. I see that they are looking at me, they are talking about me; she began to cry; I see him grabbing a knife, and more than once, recently, he grabbed a knife in front of me when he was talking to his mother. I got up and grabbed his belt, I wanted to snatch his unclean knife from him. He gritted his teeth, screamed and wanted to beat me off - he hit me in the chest, but did not push me away. I thought I would die here, my eyes clouded over, I fall to the ground - but I did not cry out. I look at how much strength it was to see, he takes off his belt, rolls up the hand with which he hit me, takes out the knife, gives me: “Na, cut her away, you will puff on her, at what time I was offended towards you, and I, proud, for that I bow down to the ground." I put down the knife: the blood began to choke me, I didn’t look at him, I remember, she smiled, not opening her lips, but I looked directly into my mother’s sad eyes, I looked menacingly, but shameless laughter did not leave her lips; and the mother sits pale, dead... Ordynov listened with strained attention to an incoherent story; but little by little her anxiety subsided at the first impulse; speech became calmer; memories carried away a completely poor woman and shattered her longing over her entire boundless sea. He took the hat without bowing. I again took the lantern to see him off, instead of my mother, who, although she was sick, but wanted to follow him. We reached the gate with him: I was silent, I opened the gate for him, drove the dogs away. I look - he takes off his hat and bows to me. I see, he goes into his bosom, takes out a red, morocco box, opens the bolt; I look: Burmic grains - bow to me. “There is, he says, in my suburb a beauty, she was taken to bow, but not brought to her; take it, fair girl, cherish your beauty, at least trample it with your foot, but take it.” I took it, but I didn’t want to trample with my foot, I didn’t want to give much honor, but I took it like a viper, didn’t say a word to anything. She came and put it on the table in front of her mother - that's why she took it. My mother was silent for a minute, all white as a handkerchief, as if afraid to talk to me. "What is it, Katya?" And I answer: "You, my dear, the merchant brought, I don't know." I look, her tears were squeezed out, her breath was taken. "Not for me, Katya; not for me, wicked daughter, not for me." I remember how bitterly, so bitterly she said, as if she had cried out her whole soul. I raised my eyes, I wanted to throw myself at her feet, but suddenly the accursed one suggested: “Well, it’s not for you, right, father; I’ll tell him if he comes back; I’ll say: there were merchants, they forgot the goods ...” Then she would cry, my dear. .. "I myself will tell you what kind of merchants came and what kind of goods they came for ... I'll tell him whose daughter you are, the lawless one! You're not my daughter now, you're a snake for me! You're my damned child!" I am silent, tears do not come from me ... ah! as if everything in me had died out ... I went to my room and listened to the storm all night and under the storm composed my thoughts. In the meantime, five days have passed. In the evening, five days later, the priest arrives, gloomy and formidable, but the sickness of the road broke him. I see that his hand is tied up; I realized that his enemy had crossed his path; and the enemy then tired him and sent sickness to him. I also knew who his enemy was, I knew everything. He didn’t say a word to my mother, didn’t ask about me, called all the people together, ordered the factory to stop and protect the house from the evil eye. I felt in my heart at that hour that it was unhealthy at home. Here we are waiting, the night passed, also stormy, blizzard, and anxiety sunk into my soul. I opened the window - my face is burning, my eyes are crying, my restless heart is burning; herself as if on fire: I just want to get out of the room, further, to the end of the world, where lightning and storms are born. My maidenly chest walks ... suddenly, it's too late, - I seemed to take a nap, or the fog sunk into my soul, confused my mind, - I hear a knock on the window: "Open up!" I look, a man through the window on a rope I immediately recognized who had come to visit, opened the window and let him into my lonely room. he ! He didn’t take off his hat, sat down on a bench, out of breath, barely able to catch his breath, as if there was a chase. I stood in a corner and I myself know how pale I was all over; "At home father?" -- "Houses". - "And the mother?" "Home and mother." "Be quiet now; do you hear!" - "I hear." -- "What?" - "Whistling under the window!" - "Well, do you want now, fair maiden, to remove the head from the enemy, to call the father of the darling, to ruin my soul? I will not get out of your girlish will; here is the rope, knit, if your heart tells you to intercede for your offense." I am silent. "Well? say, my joy?" - "What do you want?" - "But I need to leave the enemy, say goodbye to any old one in a healthy way, and bow to the new, young, like you, beautiful girl, with my soul ..." 376 I laughed; and I don’t know how his impure speech reached my heart. "Let me go, fair maiden, to take a walk downstairs, to taste my heart, to take a bow to the owners." I'm trembling all over, knocking tooth to tooth, and my heart is like red-hot iron. She went, opened the door for him, let him in the house, only on the threshold she said through force: “Here you are! Take your grains and don’t give me another time, never,” and she herself threw the box after him. Here Katerina stopped to catch her breath; she trembled like a leaf, and turned pale, then blood rose to her head, and now, when she stopped, her cheeks burned with fire, her eyes shone through tears, and heavy, ragged breathing shook her chest. But suddenly she turned pale again, and her voice dropped, trembling with anxiety and sadness. - Then I was left alone, and it was as if a storm had enveloped me around. Suddenly I hear a scream, I hear people running across the yard to the plant, I hear a saying: "The plant is on fire." I hid, everyone ran away from the house; I stayed with my mother. I knew that she was parting with her life, she was lying on her death bed for the third day, I knew, the accursed daughter! .. Suddenly I hear a cry under my room, weak, like a child screamed when she was frightened in a dream, and then everything calmed down. I blew out the candle, I myself freeze, covered myself with my hands, I'm afraid to look. Suddenly I hear a cry beside me, I hear people running from the factory. I hung out the window: I see, they are carrying the dead priest, I hear, they say among themselves: “I stumbled, I fell down the stairs into the red-hot cauldron; you know, the unclean one pushed him there.” I fell on the bed; I wait, I myself froze and I don’t know what and whom I was waiting for; It was just hard for me at that hour. I don't remember how long I waited; I remember that I suddenly began to shake all over, my head became heavy, my eyes were eaten away by smoke; and I was glad that my death was near! Suddenly, I hear someone lift me by the shoulder. I look as far as I can: he is all scorched, and his caftan, hot to the touch, is smoking. "He came for you, red maiden; take me away from trouble, as you used to lead me into trouble; I ruined my soul for you. Do not pray for me this damned night! Shall we pray together!" He laughed, the evil man! "Show me, he says, how to get through, so as not to by people!" I took his hand and led him along. We passed the corridor - I had the keys with me - I opened the door to the pantry and showed him to the window. Our window overlooked the garden. He grabbed me in his mighty arms, hugged me and jumped out of the window with me. We ran hand in hand with him, ran for a long time. Look, a dense, dark forest. He began to listen: "Chase, Katya, after us! chase after us, red maiden, but not at this hour to put our stomachs on us! Kiss me, red maiden, for love and for eternal happiness!" "Why are your hands covered in blood?" - "Hands in the blood, my dear? And cut your dogs; they barked painfully at the late guest. Let's go!" We ran again; we see, on the path, father's horse, broke the bridle, ran out of the stable; know he didn't want to burn! "Sit down, Katya, with me! Our God sent us to help!" I am silent. "Al if you don't want to? I'm not some kind of infidel, I'm not unclean; I'll cross myself if you want," and then he laid the cross. I sat down, clung to him and completely forgot myself on his chest, as if I had some kind of dream, but when I woke up, I see that we were standing by a wide, wide river. He got down, took me off the horse and went into the reeds: there he hid his boat. We've already sat down. "Well, goodbye, good horse, go to the new owner, and the old ones are all leaving you!" I rushed to Batiushkin's horse and hugged him tightly in parting. Then we sat down, he took the oars, and in an instant we could not see the shores. And when we couldn’t see the shores, I looked around, he folded the oars and looked around, all over the water. “Hello,” he said, “mother, stormy river, watering for God’s people, and my nurse! Tell me, did you take care of my goods without me, are my goods intact!” I am silent, lowered my eyes to my chest; the face of shame, like a flame, blazes. And he: “You would have taken everything, stormy, insatiable, but you would have given me a vow to cherish and cherish my precious pearl! He speaks, but he smiles; his heart burned for me, but I did not want to endure his smile, out of shame; I wanted to say a word, but srobela, kept silent. "Well, ying be so!" - he answers my timid thought, he speaks as if from grief, as if grief itself takes. “You can’t take anything from strength. God is with you, arrogant, my dove, red maiden! It can be seen that your hatred for me is strong, or it’s not like I liked your bright eyes. "I listened, and evil took me, evil from love took; I mastered my heart, said:" Love or not love, you came to me, to know it’s not for me to know about it, but, it’s true, some other unreasonable, shameless one, that she dishonored her maiden room on a dark night, sold her soul for a mortal sin and could not restrain her crazy heart; Yes, to know about that, right, to my burning tears, and to the one who thieves boasts of someone else’s misfortune, mocks at a girl’s heart! "Listen," she says to me, "the fair maiden," and her eyes burn wonderfully, "I will not say an idle word, but I will give you a great word: how much happiness you give me, how much I will be your master." but when you dislike it, don’t speak, don’t drop words, don’t work, but only move your sable eyebrow, move your black eye, move your little finger with one finger, and I will give you back your love with a golden will; only it will be here, my proud, unbearable beauty, and my life will end!" And then all my flesh smiled at his words. Here a deep emotion interrupted Katerina's story; she took a breath, smiled at her new thought and wanted to continue, but Ordynov's inflamed, riveted gaze met her gaze. She shuddered, wanted to say something, but blood flooded her face ... As if unconscious, she covered herself with her hands and threw herself face down on the pillows. Everything shook in Ordynov! feeling, confusion, unaccountable, unbearable, poured like poison through all his veins and grew with every word of Katerina's story: a hopeless desire, passion, greedy and unbearable, captured his thoughts, troubled his feelings. time pressed his heart more and more. For minutes he wanted to shout to Katerina to keep her quiet, wanted to throw himself at her feet and beg with her tears that she would return to him his former torments of love, his former, without clear, pure striving, and he felt sorry for his long since dried tears. His heart ached, painfully shedding blood and not giving tears to his wounded soul. He did not understand what Katerina was telling him, and his love was frightened by the feelings that agitated the poor woman. He cursed his passion at that moment: it choked, tormented him, and he heard melted lead instead of blood flowing in his veins. “Ah, my grief is not in that,” said Katerina, suddenly raising her head, “what I told you now; my grief is not in that,” she continued in a voice that rang like copper from a new unexpected feeling, while her whole soul was torn from hidden, hopeless tears, “my grief is not in that, my torment is not in that, my concern! What, what am I 379 before my dear one, even though I can’t make another mother in the whole world! what do I care that she cursed me in her difficult, last hour! what do I care about my golden former life, to a warm room, to a girl's will! what do I care that I sold myself to the unclean and gave my soul to the destroyer, for happiness I suffered eternal sin! Ah, my grief is not in that, although my death is great on this! And then it’s bitter and tears my heart that I’m his disgraced slave, that the shame and shame of my own, shameless, I love, that it’s a pleasure for a greedy heart and remember my grief, like joy and happiness - in my grief that there is no strength in him and no anger for his offense! .. The spirit took up in the chest of the poor woman, and a convulsive, hysterical sob cut off her words. Hot, impetuous breath burned her lips, her chest rose and fell deeply, and her eyes flashed with incomprehensible indignation. But so much charm gilded her face at that moment, with such a passionate stream of feeling, with such unbearable, unheard-of beauty, every line, every muscle of his trembled, that at once the black thought died out and the pure sadness in Ordynov's chest fell silent. His heart yearned to cling to her heart and passionately, in insane agitation, to forget herself in it together, to beat into harmony with the same storm, with the same impulse of unknown passion, and at least freeze with it. Katerina met Ordynov's confused gaze and smiled so that a redoubled stream of fire washed over his heart. He barely remembered himself. - Spare me, spare me! he whispered to her, holding back his trembling voice, leaning towards her, leaning his hand on her shoulder and close, close so that their breath merged into one, looking into her eyes. - You ruined me! I don't know your grief, and my soul is confused... What do I care about what your heart is crying about! Say what you want... I'll do it. Come with me, come, don't kill me, don't kill me! Katerina looked at him motionless; tears dried on her hot cheeks. She wanted to interrupt him, took his hand, wanted to say something herself, and seemed to be at a loss for words. Some strange smile slowly appeared on her lips, as if laughter broke through this smile. “I didn’t tell you everything, you know,” she finally said in a broken voice. - I'll tell you more; but will you, will you listen to me, ardent heart? Listen to your sister! To know, little did you recognize her fierce grief! I would like to tell you how I lived with him for a year, but I won’t ... But a year passed, he and his comrades went down the river, and I stayed at the named mother to wait for him at the pier. I'm waiting for him for a month or two - and I met a young merchant in the suburbs, looked at him and remembered the golden years of the past. "Lubushka-sister!" - he says, as he exchanged two words with me. - I'm Alyosha, your named betrothed, the old people married us children in words; remember me, remember, I'm from your place ..." - "And what do they say about me in your place?" “But people say that you went dishonestly, you forgot your girlish shame, you confessed to a robber, a murderer,” Alyosha tells me, laughing. "And what did you say about me?" - "I wanted to talk a lot, as I drove up here, - and my heart was confused, - I wanted to say a lot, but now my soul has died, as I saw you; you ruined me!" - says. - Buy mine too soul, take it, at least make fun of my heart, my love, red maiden... I am now an orphan, my master, and my soul is my own, not a stranger, I did not sell it to anyone, like another that extinguished its memory, but not to buy a heart become, I’ll give it away as a gift, yes, it’s clear that it’s a gainful business! I laughed; and more than once or twice he said - he has been living in the estate for a whole month, abandoned his goods, let his own go, all alone. I felt sorry for his orphan tears. So I said to him once in the morning: "Wait for me, Alyosha, when the night gets dark, lower by the pier; we'll go with you to your place! My miserable life is disgusting to me!" So the night came, I tied the knot, and my soul ached, played in me. I look, my master enters unexpectedly, unknown. "Hello; let's go; there will be a storm on the river, but time does not wait." I followed him; they approached the river, but it was a long way to swim to their own; we look: the boat and the rower familiar in it are sitting, as if waiting for someone. “Hello, Alyosha, God help you! What? Al late at the pier, are you hurrying to your ships? I do not know how". - "Sit down," said Alyosha, and my whole soul was exhausted, as I heard his voice. Sat down; the night was dark, the stars hid, the wind howled, a wave arose, and we rode a mile away from the shore. All three are silent. “A storm!” says my master. “And this storm is not good! 381 I have never seen such a storm on the river, which will now break out! It is hard for our boat! - "Yes, don't take it down, - Alyosha answers, - and one of us, you know, the extra one comes out"; he says, but his own voice trembles like a string. “But what, Alyosha? I knew you as a little child, fraternized with your own father, brought bread and salt together, tell me, Alyosha, will you reach the shore without a boat or perish for nothing, ruin your soul? "-" I won't come! - And you, good man, how will it happen, the hour is uneven, and sometimes you drink some water, will you get there or not? - "I won't get there; here is the end of my darling, do not demolish me with a stormy river! “Listen now, Katerinushka, my precious pearl! I remember one such night, only then the wave did not sway, the stars shone and the month shone ... I want to ask you so, simply, if you have not forgotten?" - "I remember," I say ... just as I didn’t forget her, so I didn’t forget the agreement, as one good fellow taught one red-haired maiden to steal his will back from Nemilov, - eh? dead. "Oh, I didn't forget! so now it's hard for us in the boat. Whose time has come? Tell me, my dear, tell me, dove, coo to us in a pigeon's way your affectionate word ... "- I didn’t say my word then! - whispered Katerina, pale ... She did not finish. - Katerina! they heard a dull, hoarse voice. Ordynov shuddered. Murin was standing in the doorway. He was barely covered by a fur blanket, pale as death, and looked at them with an almost maddened look. Katerina grew paler and paler, and also looked at him motionless, as if charmed. -- Come to me, Katerina!" the sick man whispered in a barely audible voice and went out of the room. Katerina still looked motionless into the air, still as if the old man was still standing in front of her. But suddenly the blood instantly singed her pale cheeks, and she slowly got up from the bed. Ordynov remembered the first meeting. "So see you tomorrow, my tears!" she said, somehow smiling strangely. "Until tomorrow! you, red maiden!" Will you remember, wait one night? - she repeated, half resting his hands on his shoulders and tenderly looking at him. 382 -- Katerina, don't go, don't ruin yourself! He's crazy! whispered Ordynov, trembling for her. -- Katerina! came a voice from behind the partition. -- Well? will it kill? replied Katherine, laughing. - Good night to you, my beloved heart, my hot dove, my dear brother! she said, tenderly pressing his head to her breast, while tears suddenly flooded her face. These are the last tears. Oversleep your grief, my dear, you will wake up tomorrow to joy. And she kissed him passionately. -- Katerina! Katerina! whispered Ordynov, falling on his knees in front of her and trying to stop her. -- Katerina! She turned around, nodded her head smiling at him, and left the room. Ordynov heard her go in to Murin; he held his breath, listening; but he heard no more sound. The old man was silent, or perhaps he was again unconscious... He wanted to go to her there, but his legs gave way... He weakened and sat down on the bed... For a long time he could not recognize the hour when he woke up. There was dawn or dusk; the room was still dark. He could not say exactly how long he slept, but he felt that his sleep was a painful sleep. Coming to his senses, he ran his hand over his face, as if taking off his dream and night visions. But when he wanted to step on the floor, he felt as if his whole body was broken and the exhausted members refused to obey. His head ached and was spinning, and his whole body was doused with either a slight tremor or a flame. Together with consciousness, memory returned, and his heart trembled when, in a single moment, he experienced the memory of the whole previous night. His heart was beating violently in response to his reflection, his feelings were so hot, fresh, that it was as if not a night, not long hours, but one minute had passed since Katerina's departure. He felt that his eyes were not yet dry with tears—or were new, fresh tears gushing out like a spring from his warm soul? And, wonderful thing! even his torments were sweet to him, although he deafly heard with his whole body that he could no longer endure such violence. There was a moment when he almost felt death and was ready to meet it like a radiant guest: his impressions were so intensified, his passion boiled with such a mighty impulse upon awakening, his soul was bathed in such delight that life, accelerated by intense activity, seemed to be ready. break, collapse, decay in an instant and fade away forever. Almost at that very moment, as if in response to his anguish, in response to his trembling heart, a familiar sound began to sound, like that inner music familiar to a person’s soul at an hour of joy about his life, at an hour of serene happiness, a thick, silver Katherine's voice Close by, near, almost above his head, a song began, at first quietly and mournfully... The voice first rose, then fell, convulsively fading away, as if secretly to itself and gently cherishing its own rebellious torment of an insatiable, stifled desire, hopelessly hidden in a longing heart ; then again it overflowed with a nightingale's trill and, trembling all over, blazing with an already unrestrained passion, overflowed into a whole sea of raptures, into a sea of powerful, boundless, like the first moment of the bliss of love, sounds. Ordynov was also distinguished by words: they were simple, sincere, composed long ago, direct, calm, pure and clear to himself feeling. But he forgot them, he heard only sounds. Through the simple, naive warehouse of the song, other words flashed to him, thundering with all the aspiration that filled his own chest, giving a response to the innermost, unknown to him, bends of his passion, which sounded clear to him, with a whole consciousness, about her. And then he heard the last groan of a heart hopelessly frozen in passion, then the joy of the will and spirit, breaking its chains and rushing lightly and freely into the inexhaustible sea of unrestrained love; then the first oath of the mistress was heard with fragrant shame for the first color in the face, with prayers, with tears, with a mysterious, timid whisper; that desire of the bacchante, proud and joyful with its strength, without cover, without secret, with a sparkling laugh circling drunken eyes ... Ordynov could not stand the end of the song and got out of bed. The song stopped immediately. - Good morning with a good afternoon passed, my desired! - Katerina's voice sounded, - good evening to you! Arise, come to us, wake up to bright joy; we are waiting for you, I am the master, people are all kind, submissive to your will; quench hatred with love, if your heart still hurts with resentment. Say a kind word! Ordynov had already left the room at her first call, and he barely realized that he was entering the hosts. The door opened before him, and, as clear as the sun, the golden smile of his wonderful mistress shone for him. At that moment he did not see, did not hear anyone but her. Instantly, all his life, all his joy merged into one in his heart - into the bright image of his Katerina. “Two dawns have passed,” she said, giving him her hands, “since we said goodbye to you; the second goes out now, look out the window. Like two dawns of the soul of a red maiden, - said Katerina, laughing, - one, that with the first shame the face will be flushed, as the lonely maiden's heart will tell for the first time in the breast, and the other, when the first shame will be forgotten by the fair maiden, burns like a flame, crushes the maiden's chest and drives ruddy blood into the face ... Go, go to our house, good fellow! What are you standing on the doorstep? Honor to you, love, and a bow from the owner! With a ringing laugh like music, she took Ordynov's hand and led him into the room. Shyness entered his heart. All the flames, all the fire that burned in his chest, seemed to have decayed and died out in an instant and for an instant; he lowered his eyes in embarrassment and was afraid to look at her. He felt that she was so wonderfully beautiful that his sultry gaze could not endure his heart. Never before had he seen his Katerina like this. Laughter and merriment for the first time flashed across her face and dried up sad tears on her black eyelashes. His hand trembled in hers. And if he had raised his eyes, he would have seen that Katerina, with a triumphant smile, fixed her bright eyes on his face, clouded with embarrassment and passion. "Get up, old man!" - she said at last, as if she herself had only just come to her senses, - say a friendly word to the guest. A guest is like a brother! Get up, uncompromising, arrogant old woman, get up, bow, take the guest by the white hands, put him at the table! Ordynov raised his eyes and seemed to have just come to his senses. He now only thought of Murin. The old man's eyes, as if extinguished in deathly anguish, looked at him motionless; and with pain in his soul he remembered that look that flashed in his last time from under the overhanging black eyebrows, compressed, as now, by longing and anger. His head swiveled slightly. He looked around, and now only understood everything clearly, distinctly. Mourin was still lying on the bed, but he was almost dressed and seemed to be getting up and going out that morning. The neck was tied, as before, with a red scarf, and there were shoes on the feet; The illness had apparently gone away, only his face was still terribly pale and yellow. Katerina stood beside the bed, leaning her hand on the table, and looked attentively at both of them. But the friendly smile did not leave her face. Everything seemed to be done at her beck and call. -- Yes! It's you,' said Murin, rising and sitting up in bed. You are my tenant. I am guilty before you, sir, I sinned and offended you unknowingly, unknowingly, fooled around with a gun the other day. Who knew that black sickness also finds on you? But it happens to me,” he added in a hoarse, sickly voice, knitting his brows and involuntarily averting his eyes from Ordynov. - Trouble is coming - it does not knock on the gate, like a thief creeps up! I nearly stabbed her in the chest with a knife...” he muttered, nodding his head at Katerina. "I'm ill, I'm having a fit, well, that's enough for you!" Sit down - you will be a guest! Ordynov was still staring at him intently. - Sit down, sit down! shouted the old man impatiently, "sit down, if she likes it!" Look, you fraternized, one-womb! Fall in love like lovers! Ordynov sat down. “You see, what a sister,” the old man continued, laughing and showing two rows of his white, whole teeth. - Have fun, my relatives! Is your sister good, sir? tell me answer! On, look, how her cheeks are burning with fire. Yes, look around, honor the beauty of the whole world! Show that it hurts zealously! Ordynov frowned and looked angrily at the old man. He flinched at his gaze. Blind fury seethed in Ordynov's chest. With some animal instinct, he sensed an enemy to death near him. He himself could not understand what was happening to him, reason refused to serve him. - Don't look! came a voice from behind him. Ordynov looked around. “Don’t look, don’t look, I say, if the demon incites, have pity on your love,” Katerina said, laughing, and suddenly covered his eyes with her hand from behind; then immediately withdrew her hands and closed herself. But the color of her face seemed to seep through her fingers. She took her hands away and, all grief like fire, tried to lightly and untremblingly meet their laughter and curious glances. But both silently looked at her - Ordynov with a kind of astonishment of love, as if for the first time such a terrible beauty pierced his heart; the old man is attentive, cold. Nothing was expressed on his pale face; only her lips turned blue and trembled slightly. Katerina went up to the table, no longer laughing, and began to put away books, papers, ink, everything that was on the table, and put everything on the window. She breathed quickly, haltingly, and at times greedily drank the air into herself, as if her heart were throbbing. Heavy, like a coastal wave, her full chest descended and rose again. She lowered her eyes, and black, resinous eyelashes, like sharp needles, shone on her bright cheeks ... - Tsar-maiden! said the old man. - My mistress! whispered Ordynov, trembling all over. He came to his senses when he heard the old man's look on him: like lightning, this look flashed for a moment - greedy, angry, coldly contemptuous. Ordynov was about to get up from his seat, but it was as if an invisible force had bound his legs. He sat down again. Sometimes he clenched his hand, as if he didn't trust reality. It seemed to him that a nightmare was choking him, and that a suffering, painful dream still lay before his eyes. But a wonderful thing! He did not want to wake up... Katerina removed the old carpet from the table, then opened the chest, took out of it a precious tablecloth, all embroidered with bright silks and gold, and laid it on the table; then she took out of the closet an old, great-grandfather's, all silver stand, put it in the middle of the table and separated from it three silver cups - for the host, the guest and the charm for herself; then with an important, almost thoughtful look she looked at the old man and at the visitor. “Which of us loves whom or does not love whom?” -- she said. - Whoever is not loved by anyone, he is loved by me and will drink his charm with me. And I love every one of you, every dear one: so drink to everyone for love and consent! - Drink and drown the black thought in wine! said the old man in a changed voice. - Pour it, Katherine! - Would you like me to pour it? asked Katerina, looking at Ordynov. Ordynov silently moved his cup. - Stop! Whoever has a riddle and a little thought, let it come true according to his own desire! said the old man, raising his charm. They all shook their glasses and drank. “Come on, let’s have a drink with you now, old man!” - said Katerina, turning to the owner. "Let's drink, if your heart is kind to me!" Let's drink to the happiness we have lived, let's bow to the years we've lived, let's bow to happiness with our hearts and love! Tell them to pour, if your heart is warm to me! “Your wine is strong, my dove, but you can only wet your lips yourself!” ' said the old man, laughing and putting his charm back on. - Well, I'll take a sip, and you drink to the bottom! .. What to live, old woman, to drag a heavy thought behind you; but only the heart aches with a heavy thought! A little thought goes out of grief, a little thought calls grief, but with happiness, one lives without a little thought! Drink, old man! Drown your mind! - Well, you know, a lot of grief boiled up in you, if you take up arms against him like that! Know you want to end at once, my white dove. I drink with you, Katya! Do you have grief, sir, if I may ask? - What is, that is, to himself, - Ordynov whispered, without taking his eyes off Katerina. “Did you hear that, old lady? I didn’t know myself for a long time, I didn’t remember, but the time came, I recognized everything and remembered; everything that has passed, lived again with an insatiable soul. “Yes, it’s bittersweet if you start to break through on an experienced one,” the old man said thoughtfully. - What has passed, like the wine is drunk! What is happiness in the past? The caftan has worn out, and down with it. - Need a new one! said Katerina, laughing with an effort, while two large tears hung like diamonds on her sparkling eyelashes. --Know, you can't live a century in one minute, and a girl's heart is tenacious, you don't get out of tune! Got it, old man? Look, I buried my teardrop in your spell! - And for a lot of happiness did you buy your grief? said Ordynov, and his voice trembled with excitement. - You know, sir, you have a lot of your own corrupt! answered the old man, - that you are poking around uninvited. And he laughed angrily and inaudibly, looking insolently at Ordynov. “And for what I sold it, that was it,” Katerina answered, as if in a displeased, offended voice. - One thinks a lot, another a little. One wants to give everything, there is nothing to take, the other promises nothing, but an obedient heart follows him! And don't blame a man,' she said, looking sadly at Ordynov, 'one is such a man, the other is not the same man, but as if you know why someone's soul asks for! Pour your cup, old man! Drink to the happiness of your dear daughter, your quiet, submissive slave, as she was for the first time, as she confessed to you. Raise your spell! -- Ying be so! Pour yours! said the old man, taking the wine. - Stop, old man! wait for your drink, let me say the word first! Katerina leaned her elbows on the table and looked into the old man's eyes with intently burning, passionate eyes. A strange determination shone in her eyes. But all her movements were restless, her gestures jerky, unexpected, quick. She was all as if on fire, and it was miraculously done. But it was as if her beauty grew along with her excitement, with her inspiration. From lips half-opened in a smile, showing two rows of white teeth as even as pearls, an impetuous breath flew out, slightly raising her nostrils. The chest was agitated; the braid, wrapped three times at the back of the head, casually slightly fell on the left ear and covered part of the hot cheek. Light sweat broke out at her temples. - Guess, old man! Guess to me, my dear, guess before you drink your mind; Here is my white palm! After all, it’s not for nothing that people called you a sorcerer. You studied from books and you know every black letter! Look, old woman, tell me all my miserable share; just look, don't lie! Well, tell me, as you yourself know, will your daughter be happy, or will you not forgive her and call on her one evil fate, a twist? Tell me, will my corner be warm, where I will settle down, or, like a migratory bird, will I be an orphan all my life looking for my place among good people? Tell me, who is my enemy, who is preparing love for me, who is plotting evil about me? Tell me, will my heart, young, ardent, live alone for a century and die out for a century, or will it find its equal and beat in harmony with it for joy ... to new grief! Guess at once, old lady, in what blue sky, behind what seas-forests my clear falcon lives, where, and vigilantly, he looks out for his falcon, and whether he lovingly waits, whether he will fall in love deeply, soon fall out of love, deceive won't he deceive me? Yes, all at once, everything is one to one, tell me at the last, old lady, how long will we spend a century with you, sit in a callous corner, read black books; but when should I bow low to you, old man, say goodbye in a good way, thank you for the bread and salt that you gave me water, fed, told fairy tales? .. Yes, look, tell the whole truth, do not lie; it's time to stand up for yourself! Her enthusiasm grew more and more until the last word, when suddenly her voice was cut off from excitement, as if some kind of whirlwind carried away her heart. Her eyes sparkled, and her upper lip quivered slightly. One could hear how an evil mockery snaked and hid in her every word, but it was as if weeping rang in her laughter. She leaned across the table to the old man and gazed intently, with greedy attention, into his clouded eyes. Ordynov heard her heart suddenly pound when she had finished; he cried out with delight when he looked at her, and half rose from the bench. But the quick, momentary glance of the old man again chained him to the spot. Some strange mixture of contempt, mockery, impatient, annoying anxiety, and at the same time malicious, crafty curiosity shone in this fleeting, momentary glance, from which Ordynov shuddered every time and which each time filled his heart with bile, vexation and impotent malice. Thoughtfully and with a kind of sad curiosity, the old man looked at his Katerina. His heart was wounded, the words were spoken. But not even an eyebrow moved in his face! He just smiled when she finished. - Well, you wanted to know a lot at once, my fledgling chick, my startled bird! Pour me rather a deep spell; Let's drink first in peace and goodwill; or with someone's black, impure eye I will spoil my wish. Bes is strong! far from sin! He raised his cup and drank. The more wine he drank, the paler he became. His eyes turned red as coals. It was evident that their feverish brilliance and the sudden, deathly blue of their faces foreshadowed soon a new attack of illness. Well, the wine was strong, so that from one cup drunk, Ordynov's eyes became more and more dim. His feverishly inflamed blood could not stand it any longer: it flooded his heart, troubled and confused his mind. His anxiety grew stronger and stronger. He poured and took another sip, not knowing what he was doing, how to help his growing excitement, and the blood flew even faster through his veins. He was as if in a delirium and could hardly follow, straining all his attention, what was going on between his strange masters. The old man rapped his silver glass on the table loudly. 390 -- Pour it up, Katerina! he cried. - Pour more, evil daughter, pour until you drop! Put the old man to rest, and that's enough of him! That's right, pour more, pour me, beauty! Let's drink with you! Why didn't you drink enough? I didn't see Ali... Katerina answered him something, but Ordynov didn't catch what it was: the old man wouldn't let her finish; he seized her by the hand, as if he could no longer hold back everything that was crowding in his chest. His face was pale; the eyes were first dimmed, then flared with bright fire; his whitened lips trembled, and in an uneven, confused voice, in which some strange delight flashed for moments, he said to her: Let me tell you the whole truth. I really am a sorcerer; know you were not mistaken, Katerina! to know that your golden heart told the truth, that I alone am a sorcerer to him and I won’t hide the truth from him, simple, uncomplicated! Yes, you didn’t recognize one thing: it’s not for me, the sorcerer, to teach you mind-reason! The mind is not the will for the girl, and hears the whole truth, but as if she didn’t know, didn’t know! At the very head is a cunning snake, although the heart sheds a tear! She will find the way herself, she will crawl between trouble, she will save her cunning will! Where he takes it with his mind, and where he does not take it with his mind, he will cloud it with beauty, he will intoxicate the mind with a black eye, - beauty breaks strength; and an iron heart, but split in half! And will you have sadness with a twist? Heavy is human sadness! Yes, there is no trouble for a weak heart! Trouble gets acquainted with a strong heart, secretly sheds a bloody tear, and does not ask for a sweet disgrace to good people: your grief. the maiden, like a footprint in the sand, will wash it with rain, dry it with the sun, blow it away with a violent wind, sweep it away! Let me say it again, I’ll conjure: whoever loves you, you will become a slave to him, you yourself will tie the will, you will give it as a pledge, but you won’t take it back; you won’t be able to stop loving at the right time; you put in the grain, and your destroyer will take back the whole ear! My tender child, golden little head, you buried your tear-pearl in my cup, but you couldn’t stand it, you immediately shed a hundred, you lost your red word and boasted of your grief-head! Yes, for her, for a tear, a heavenly dew, you don’t even have to grieve, grieve! It will more than shed for you, your pearly tear, in the long night, in the miserable night, when an evil little bug, an impure little thought, will gnaw at you - then your heart is hot, all for the same tear, someone else's tear will drip on you , but bloody, but not warm, but like melted lead; until the white chest inflames the blood, and until the morning, dreary, gloomy, which comes in rainy days , you will rush about in your bed, sharpening the scarlet blood, and you will not heal your fresh wound until the next morning! Pour more, Katerina, pour, my dove, pour me for wise advice; and then, you know, there is nothing to lose words ... His voice weakened and trembled: it seemed that a sob was ready to break out of his chest ... He poured wine and greedily drank a new charm; then he banged the glass on the table again. His cloudy gaze flared once more. -- BUT! live as you live! he cried. - What has passed, then off with your shoulders! Pour me a drink, pour more, all the time bring a heavy charm so that it cuts the violent little head from the shoulders, so that the whole soul freezes from it! Lay down for a long night, but without morning, so that the memory completely departs. What is drunk is lived! To know that the merchant’s goods have stalled, stale, give away for free And if that merchant had not sold it with his will, at will, that merchant below his price, the blood of the enemy would have been shed, innocent blood would have been shed, and in addition that buyer would have put his dead darling! Pour, pour me some more, Katerina!.. But his hand, holding the bowl, seemed to freeze and did not move; he breathed heavily and laboriously, his head bowed involuntarily. For the last time, he fixed a dull look on Ordynov, but this look also died out at last, and his eyelids fell like lead. A deathly pallor overspread his face... For some more time his lips moved and trembled, as if trying to say something else, and suddenly a hot, large tear hung from his eyelashes, tore, and slowly rolled down his pale cheek. .. Ordynov was unable to withstand more. He half rose and, staggering, took a step forward, went up to Katerina and seized her by the hand; but she didn't even look at him, as if she didn't notice him, as if she didn't recognize him... She, too, seemed to be losing consciousness, as if one thought, one immovable idea, carried her all away. She clung to the chest of the sleeping old man, wrapped her white arm around his neck and intently, as if riveted to him, looked at him with a fiery, inflamed look. She seemed not to have heard Ordynov take her by the hand. At last she turned her head towards him and looked at him with a long, piercing gaze. It seemed that she finally understood him, and a heavy, surprised smile, painfully, as if with pain, squeezed out on her lips ... "Go, go away," she whispered, "you're drunk and angry!" You are not a guest to me! .. - Then she again turned to the old man and again riveted to him with her eyes. She seemed to guard his every breath and cherish his sleep with her eyes. She seemed to be afraid to die herself, holding back her boiled heart. And there was so much frenzied admiration in her heart that at once despair, fury and inexhaustible malice captured Ordynov's spirit... - Katerina! Katerina!” he called, squeezing her hand as if in a vise. A feeling of pain passed over her face; she raised her head again and looked at him with such mockery, with such contemptuous insolence that he could hardly stand on his feet. Then she pointed out to him the sleeping old man and—as if all the mockery of his enemy had passed into her eyes—she again looked at Ordynov with a tormenting, chilling look. -- What? I suppose he will slaughter him?” Ordynov said, beside himself with rage. It was as if his demon had whispered in his ear that he understood her... And his whole heart laughed at Katerina's motionless thought... - I'll buy you, my beauty, from your merchant, if you need my soul! Probably not to kill him! .. The motionless laughter, deadening the whole being of Ordynov, did not leave Katerina's face. An inexhaustible mockery tore his heart apart. Without remembering, almost unconscious of himself, he leaned his arm against the wall and took the old man's old knife off the nail. As if amazement was reflected on Katerina's face; but as if at the same time anger and contempt for the first time with such force were reflected in her eyes. Ordynov felt sick looking at her... He felt as if someone was pulling out, washing his lost hand into madness; he took out the knife... Katerina was watching him motionless, as if no longer breathing... He glanced at the old man... At that moment it seemed to him that one of the old man's eyes was slowly opening and, laughing, was looking at him. Their eyes met. For several minutes Ordynov looked at him motionless... Suddenly it seemed to him that the whole face of the old man was laughing, and that a diabolical, killing, chilling laugh was finally heard throughout the room. An ugly, black thought 393 crawled through his head like a snake. He trembled; the knife fell from his hands and clanged on the floor. Katerina screamed, as if waking up from oblivion, from a nightmare, from a heavy, motionless vision ... The old man, pale, slowly got up from the bed and angrily kicked the knife into the corner of the room. Katerina stood pale, dead, motionless; her eyes were closed; a dull, unbearable pain convulsively squeezed out on her face; she covered herself with her hands and, with a soul-rending cry, almost lifeless, fell at the old man's feet... "Alyosha!" Alyosha! - escaped from her tight chest ... The old man clasped her in his mighty arms and almost squeezed her on his chest. But when she hid her head near his heart, every line on the old man's face laughed with such naked, shameless laughter, which filled the entire composition of Ordynov with horror. Deceit, calculation, cold, jealous tyranny and horror over a poor, torn heart - that's what he understood in this shamelessly no longer hidden laughter ... When Ordynov, pale, alarmed, not yet coming to his senses from yesterday's alarm, opened the door to Yaroslav Ilyich the next day, at eight o'clock in the morning, to whom he had come, however, without knowing why, he recoiled in amazement and, as if rooted to the spot, stood on the threshold upon seeing Murin in the room. The old man was even paler than Ordynov and, it seemed, could hardly stand on his feet from illness; however, he did not want to sit down, despite any invitations from Yaroslav Ilyich, who was quite happy with such a visit. Yaroslav Ilyich also cried out when he saw Ordynov, but almost at the same moment his joy passed, and some kind of confusion suddenly caught him, completely unawares, halfway from the table to the next chair. It was obvious that he did not know what to say, what to do, and was fully aware of all the indecency of sucking at such a troublesome moment, leaving the guest aside, alone as he was, his chubuchka, and meanwhile (his embarrassment was so great) all- I still pulled from the chubuchka with all my strength and even almost with some inspiration. Ordynov entered the room at last. He cast a cursory glance at Murin. Something resembling yesterday's evil smile, which even now sent Ordynov trembling and indignant, passed over the old man's face. However, everything hostile immediately disappeared and smoothed out, and the expression of his face took on the most impregnable and reserved look. He made a low bow to his tenant... The whole scene finally resurrected Ordynov's consciousness. He looked intently at Yaroslav Ilyich, wanting to understand the state of affairs. Yaroslav Ilyich trembled and hesitated. “Come in, come in,” he said at last, “come in, most precious Vasily Mikhailovich, overshadow with your arrival and put a seal ... on all these ordinary objects ...” Yaroslav Ilyich said, pointing to one corner of the room, blushing like a double rose, confused, entangled in hearts that the most noble phrase got stuck and burst in vain, and with a thunder he pushed a chair to the very middle of the room. - I'm not bothering you, Yaroslav Ilyich, I wanted ... for two minutes. -- Have mercy! is it possible for you to interfere with me, sir ... Vasily Mikhailovich! But—let me have a cup of tea, sir! Hey! service!.. I'm sure you won't refuse another cup! Murin nodded his head, signaling in such a way that he would not refuse at all. Yaroslav Ilyich shouted at the service that came in and in the most stern manner demanded three more glasses, then sat down near Ordynov. For some time he turned his head like a plaster kitten, now to the right, now to the left, from Murin to Ordynov and from Ordynov to Murin. His position was very unpleasant. He obviously wanted to say something, according to his ideas, very ticklish, at least for one side. But with all his efforts, he resolutely could not utter a word ... Ordynov, too, seemed to be at a loss. There was a moment when both of them suddenly began to talk... Silent Murin, who was watching them with curiosity, slowly straightened his mouth and showed his teeth to the last... on the most unpleasant occasion forced to leave the apartment, and ... - Imagine what a strange case! Yaroslav Ilyich interrupted suddenly. “I confess I was beside myself with astonishment when this venerable old man announced your decision to me this morning. But... 395 -- He announced to you? asked Ordynov in amazement, looking at Murin. Mourin stroked his beard and laughed into his sleeve. “Yes, sir,” put in Yaroslav Ilyich, “however, I may still be mistaken. But, I’ll boldly say, for you - I can vouch for you with my honor that for you there was not a shadow of insult in the words of this respectable old man! .. Here Yaroslav Ilyich blushed and suppressed his excitement with great force. Mourin, as if having finally enjoyed the confusion of the host and guest, took a step forward. “That’s what I’m talking about, your honor,” he began, bowing politely to Ordynov, “their nobleness dared to trouble you a little on your account ... It turns out that, sir, it turns out - you know - I am the hostess, that is, we would be glad with our soul and will, and would not dare to say a word ... but what kind of life is mine, you know, you see for yourself, sir! And rightly so, as soon as the Lord protects the stomachs, for this we pray to his holy will; otherwise, you see for yourself, sir, do I have to howl? Here Murin again wiped his beard with his sleeve. Ordynov almost felt sick. - Yes, yes, I told you about him myself: sick, that is, this is malheur ... that is, I wanted to express myself in French, but, excuse me, I'm not so fluent in French, that is ... - - Yes, sir ... - Yes, sir, that is ... Ordynov and Yaroslav Ilyich made each other a half-bow, each from his chair and somewhat to one side, and both covered the resulting bewilderment with apologetic laughter. The businesslike Yaroslav Ilyich immediately recovered. “However, I questioned this honest man in detail,” he began, “he told me that the illness of that woman ... Here ticklish Yaroslav Ilyich, probably wanting to hide the slight bewilderment that again arose on his face, quickly, inquiringly He turned his gaze to Murin. - Yes, our mistresses ... Delicate Yaroslav Ilyich did not insist. - Mistresses, that is, your former mistress, I somehow, right ... well, yes! She is a sick woman, you see. He says that she interferes with you ... in your studies, and he himself ... you hid one important circumstance from me, Vasily Mikhailovich! -- Which? “About the gun, sir,” said Yaroslav Ilyich, almost in a whisper, in the most condescending voice, with one millionth of a reproach that gently rang in his friendly tenor. “But,” he added hurriedly, “I know everything, he told me everything, and you did nobly, letting go of his involuntary guilt before you. I swear I saw tears in his eyes! Yaroslav Ilyich blushed again; his eyes shone, and he turned around in his chair with feeling. “I, that is, we, sir, your honor, that is, I, to use an example, and my mistress, and how we pray to God for you,” Murin began, turning to Ordynov, while Yaroslav Ilyich suppressed his usual excitement, and looking intently at him, - yes, you know, sir, she is a sick, stupid woman; my own legs can barely carry me. .. - Yes, I'm ready, - Ordynov said impatiently, - completeness, please; I even now! .. - No, that is, sir, your grace is satisfied with many things (Murin bowed low). I, sir, do not mean that to you; I just wanted to utter a word, - after all, sir, she’s almost from my relatives, that is, from distant, for example, as they say, the seventh water, that is, don’t disdain our word, sir, we are dark people - yes from childhood such! The head is sick, fervent, grew in the forest, grew up like a peasant, all between barge haulers and breeders; and then their house will burn down; mother, sir, her burn down; father has sunk his soul - podika, she will tell you who knows what ... I just don’t get in the way, and her hee-hee-rug-gic advice looked at Moscow ... that is, sir, she was completely damaged, that's what! I only stayed with her, and lives with me. We live, we pray to God, we hope for the supreme power; I can't cross her at all... Ordynov's face changed. Yaroslav Ilyich looked first at one, then at the other. - Yes, I'm not talking about that, sir ... no! mourin corrected himself, shaking his head importantly. - She, by example, is such a wind, such a whirlwind, such a loving, exuberant head, all of a sweet friend, - if it’s excusable to say, - but give her a sweetheart in her heart: she’s crazy about that. I'm already coaxing her with fairy tales, that is, how I coax. But I, sir, saw how she—forgive me, sir, my stupid word,” continued Murin, bowing and wiping his beard with his sleeve, “probably recognized you; you, that is, to use an example, Your Excellency, wished to shed some love for her ... Yaroslav Ilyich flushed and looked reproachfully at Murin. Ordynov barely sat on his chair. "No... that is me, sir, not about that... I, sir, simply, peasant, I am from your will... of course, we are dark people, we, sir, are your servants," he said. , bowing low, - and how with my wife we will pray to God for your mercy! .. What do we need? Would be full, healthy, grumble not we grumble; yes, sir, what should I do, climb into the noose, or what? You know yourself, sir, it's a matter of life, have pity on us, and that, sir, it will be like with a lover! You, sir, your excellency, are a young, proud, ardent person, and she, sir, you know yourself, a small, unreasonable child - how long will it be with her to sin! She is a vigorous, ruddy, sweet woman, but me, an old man, takes everything sick. Well? the devil, to know, has beguiled your grace! I’m already flattering her with fairy tales, really, I’m flattering her. And how about your mercy and your wife would pray to God! That is how to pray! And what do you care, Your Excellency, even though she might be nice, but all the same she is a peasant, an unwashed woman, a stupid fool, me, a peasant, a couple! It’s not for you, sir, father, gentleman, to hobnob around the peasants! And how they would pray to God for your mercy, how to pray! .. Here Mourin bowed very low and did not straighten his back for a long time, constantly wiping his beard with his sleeve. Yaroslav Ilyich did not know. where he stood. “Yes, sir, this good man,” he remarked, all embarrassed, “told me about some kind of disorder that existed between you, sir; I don't dare to believe, Vasily Mikhailovich... I heard you're still ill, sir," he quickly interrupted, his eyes watering with excitement, looking at Ordynov in inexhaustible confusion. "Yes, sir... How much do I owe you?" Ordynov quickly asked Murin. - What are you, father sir? completeness! we're not some sort of Christ-sellers. What are you, sir, offending us! You should be ashamed, sir; How did my wife and I offend you? Have mercy, sir! “But, nevertheless, this is strange, my friend; after all, they hired you; do you feel that by your refusal you offend them? - interceded Yaroslav Ilyich, deeming it his duty to show Murin all the strangeness and ticklishness of his act. - Yes, have mercy, father! what are you, sir, barin? have mercy! so what we did not please about your honor? They tried so hard, they tried, they tore their stomachs, have mercy, sir! Complete, sir; Fullness, light-master, Christ have mercy on you! What are we, infidels, or what, what? Let him live, eat with us our peasant food for health, let him lie, - they would not say anything, and ... and they would not say a word; Yes, the unclean beguiled, I am a sick person, and my mistress is sick - what are you going to do! There would be no one to serve, but they would be glad, they would be glad in their souls. And how the hostess and I will pray to God for your mercy, that is, how to pray! Murin bowed from the waist. A tear squeezed out of the enthusiastic eyes of Yaroslav Ilyich. He looked enthusiastically at Ordynov. "Tell me, what a noble trait, sir!" What holy hospitality rested on Russian people ! Ordynov looked wildly at Yaroslav Ilyich. He was almost horrified ... and examined him from head to toe. - And rightly so, sir, we honor hospitality, that is, this is how we honor it, sir! said Murin, shielding his beard with his whole sleeve. “Really, now the thought is coming: if you would stay with us, sir, by God, you would stay with us,” he continued, approaching Ordynov. - and I, sir, nothing; a day or two, nothing, right would say nothing. Yes, the sin hurt painfully, my mistress is unwell! Oh, if not the hostess! That would be, approximately, I alone: how I would respect your grace, how I would walk, that is, how I would walk! Who are we, if not your grace, to respect? I would have cured you, I would have cured you right, I know the remedy... Really, they would have stayed for a while, sir, by God, that's a great word, they would have stayed with us! .. - Really, is there any remedy? - noticed Yaroslav Ilyich ... and did not finish. Ordynov made a slander, shortly before that, with wild amazement, he looked Yaroslav Ilyich from head to toe. He was, of course, the most honest and noble man, but now he understood everything, and, to be honest, his position was very difficult! He wanted, as they say, to burst with laughter! If he were one on one with Ordynov, two such friends! - of course, Yaroslav Ilyich would not have endured and indulged in an immoderate impulse of gaiety. In any case, he would have done it very nobly, would have shaken Ordynov’s hand with feeling after laughing, would sincerely and fairly assure him that he felt a double respect for him and that he would excuse him in any case ... and, finally, he wouldn’t even look for youth. But now, with his well-known delicacy, he was in the most difficult position and almost did not know where to hide himself ... - Means, that is, drugs! said Murin, whose whole face moved at the awkward exclamation of Yaroslav Ilyich. “I, that is, sir, out of my muzhik’s stupidity, that’s what I would say,” he continued, taking another step forward, “you, sir, have been painfully reading books; I will say, they became smarter; it, that is, as we say in Russian, in a peasant way, the mind has gone beyond the mind ... - Enough! - strictly interrupted Yaroslav Ilyich ... - I'm going, - said Ordynov, - thank you, Yaroslav Ilyich; I will, I will certainly be with you, ”he said to the redoubled politeness of Yaroslav Ilyich, who was unable to restrain him any longer. - Farewell, farewell ... - Farewell, your honor; goodbye, sir; do not forget us, visit us sinners. Ordynov heard nothing more; he came out like a lunatic. He could not bear more; he was like a dead man; his consciousness froze. He dully felt that illness was choking him, but cold despair reigned in his soul, and he only heard that some kind of dull pain ached, tormented, sucked his chest. He wanted to die at that moment. His legs buckled, and he sat down by the fence, no longer paying attention either to the people passing by, or to the crowd that began to gather near him, or to the calls and questions of the curious who surrounded him. But suddenly, from a multitude of voices, the voice of Murin was heard above him. Ordynov raised his head. The old man was indeed standing before him; his pale face was solemn and thoughtful. This was a completely different person than the one who so deeply mocked him at Yaroslav Ilyich's. Ordynov got up; Murin took him by the hand and led him out of the crowd ... - You still need to grab your belongings, - he said, glancing askance at Ordynov. - Do not worry, sir! Murin screamed. You are young, why grieve! Ordynov did not answer. 400 - Are you offended, master? To know that evil has taken you painfully ... but there is nothing; everyone cherishes his own, everyone preserves his good. “I don’t know you,” Ordynov said, “I don’t want to know your secrets. But she! she! .. - he said, and tears flowed in three streams from his eyes. The wind tore them off his cheeks one by one... Ordynov wiped them away with his hand. His gesture, his glance, the involuntary movements of his trembling blue lips—everything predicted insanity in him. “I already told you,” said Murin, clenching his eyebrows, “she’s crazy!” Why and how crazy ... why do you need to know? Only to me she is so dear! I loved her more than my life and I will not give her to anyone. Do you understand now! Fire flashed for a moment in Ordynov's eyes. "But why did I... why did I seem to have lost my life now?" Why does it hurt my heart? Why did I recognize Katherine? -- Why? Murin chuckled and thought. "Why, I don't know why myself," he said at last. - A woman's temper is not the depths of the sea, you recognize him, but he is cunning, steadfast, tenacious! On, they say, take it out and lay it down! To know, indeed, sir, she wanted to leave me with you,” he continued thoughtfully. - She scorned the old, outlived everything with him, as far as possible to get rid of! Liked you, know it hurts at first! Al really so, are you, or is it different ... I won’t contradict her in anything; he wants bird's milk, and I will get bird's milk; I will make such a bird myself, if there is no such bird! She is vain! She is chasing the will, but she herself does not know what her heart is blissful about. and it turned out that the old way is better! Eh, sir! you're young, it hurts! Your heart is still hot, like that of a girl who wipes her tears with her sleeve, abandoned! Recognize, master: a weak man alone cannot restrain himself! Just give him everything, he himself will come, give everything back, give him half the earthly kingdom to possess, try it - what do you think? He will immediately hide in your shoe, so he will decrease. Give him a will, a weak man, he himself will tie it up, bring it back. Foolish heart and will not for the future! Do not live with such a temper! I'm telling you all this - you're young, it hurts! What are you to me? You were and gone - you or the other, it doesn't matter. I knew at first that there would be one. And you can't argue! you can’t say words across, if you want to save your happiness. You know, sir," Murin went on philosophizing, "only everything says so: and what doesn't happen? For 401 a knife will be taken in the hearts, or unarmed, with bare hands on you, like a ram, it will climb and tear the throat of the enemy with its teeth. And let them give this knife into your hands, but your enemy himself will open his wide chest in front of you, I suppose you will retreat! They entered the courtyard. The Tartar saw Murin from a distance, took off his hat in front of him and stared slyly at Ordynov. - What's the mother? at home? Murin shouted to him. -- Houses. - Tell him to help him drag his belongings! Yes, and you went, move! They went up the stairs. The old woman who served at Murin's, and who turned out to be the janitor's mother, was fiddling with the belongings of the former tenant and grumblingly knitting them into one large knot. -- Wait; I’ll bring some more of yours, I’ve left it there ... Murin went into his room. A minute later he returned and gave Ordynov a rich pillow, all embroidered with silk and garus, the same one that Katerina had put for him when he became ill. “She sends you this,” said Murin. “Now go and get well, and look, don’t stagger,” he added in an undertone, in a paternal tone, “it won’t be so bad.” It was evident that he did not want to offend the tenant. But when he cast a last glance at him, it was involuntarily evident how a surge of inexhaustible anger boiled over his face. Almost in disgust, he closed the door behind Ordynov. Two hours later, Ordynov moved in with the German Spies. Tinchen gasped as she looked at him. She immediately asked him about his health and, having learned what was the matter, immediately settled down to treat. The old German self-satisfiedly showed his tenant that he had just wanted to go to the gate and stick the label again, then that today his deposit had neatly turned into a kopeck, deducting from it every day of hire. Moreover, the old man did not fail to far-sightedly praise German accuracy and honesty. On the same day, Ordynov fell ill and only three months later could get out of bed. Little by little he recovered and began to go out. The life of the German was monotonous, calm. The German was without much 402 temper; pretty Tinchen, without touching her morals, was anything and everything, but it was as if life had lost its color forever for Ordynov! He became thoughtful, irritable; his impressionability took a morbid direction, and he imperceptibly fell into an evil, hardened hypochondria. Books were not opened sometimes for whole weeks. The future was closed to him, his money was coming out, and he gave up beforehand; he didn't even think about the future. Sometimes the former fever for science, the former fever, the former images, created by himself, vividly rose before him from the past, but they only crushed, stifled his energy. Thought did not turn into action. Consciousness stopped. It seemed that all these images deliberately grew into giants in his imagination in order to laugh at the impotence of him, their own creator. In a sad moment, he involuntarily came to compare himself with that boastful student of the sorcerer who, having stolen the teacher's word, ordered the broom to carry water and drowned in it, forgetting how to say: "Stop it." Perhaps a whole, original, original idea would be realized in him. Maybe he was destined to be an artist in science. At least he himself believed it before. Sincere faith is the guarantee of the future. But now he himself laughed at some moments at his blind conviction and did not move forward. Half a year before, he survived, created and sketched on paper a harmonious sketch of creation, on which (due to his youth) in uncreative moments he built the most material hopes. The essay related to the history of the church, and the warmest, ardent convictions lay under his pen. Now he reread this plan, remade it, thought about it, read it, rummaged around, and finally rejected his idea, without building anything on the ruins. But something similar to mysticism, to predestination and mystery began to penetrate into his soul. The unfortunate man felt his suffering and asked God for healing. The worker of a German, from Russia, an old devout woman, with pleasure told how her humble tenant prays and how he lies for hours on end, as if lifeless, on the church platform ... He did not say a word to anyone about what had happened to him. But sometimes, especially at dusk, at that hour, when the roar of bells reminded him of the moment when for the first time she trembled, his whole chest ached with a hitherto unknown feeling, when he knelt beside her in God's temple, forgetting about everything, and only heard, how her timid heart beat, when with tears of rapture and joy he washed away the new, bright hope that had flickered to him in his lonely life—then a storm arose from his forever wounded soul. Then his spirit trembled, and the torment of love burned like a burning fire in his chest again. Then his heart ached sadly and passionately, and it seemed that his love grew along with his sadness. Often for whole hours, forgetting himself and his whole ordinary life, forgetting everything in the world, he would sit in one place, lonely, despondent, hopelessly shaking his head and, shedding silent tears, whispering to himself: "Katerina! my beloved dove! My sister lonely!.." Some ugly thought began to torment him more and more. More and more strongly, she pursued him, and every day she embodied before him in a probability, in reality. It seemed to him—and he himself finally believed in everything—it seemed to him that Katerina's mind was unharmed, but that Murin was right in his own way in calling her a weak heart. It seemed to him that some secret connected her with the old man, but that Katerina, not realizing the crime, like a pure dove, passed into his power. Who are they? He didn't know that. But he constantly dreamed of a deep, hopeless tyranny over a poor, defenseless creature; and his heart was troubled and trembled with impotent indignation in his chest. It seemed to him that in front of the frightened eyes of a soul suddenly made clear they were cunningly exposing her own fall, cunningly tormenting the poor, weak heart, interpreted the truth before her at random, deliberately supported blindness where necessary, cunningly flattered the inexperienced inclinations of her impetuous, troubled heart, and little by little cut the wings of a free, free soul, incapable, finally, of either rebellion or to a free impulse into real life ... Little by little, Ordynov became even more wild than before, in which, to be fair, his Germans did not interfere with him at all. He often liked to wander the streets, for a long time, without a goal. He chose mainly the twilight hour, and the place of the walk was deaf, remote places, rarely visited by people. On one rainy, unhealthy spring evening, in one of these nooks and crannies, he met Yaroslav Ilyich. Yaroslav Ilyich has noticeably lost weight, his pleasant eyes have dimmed, and he himself seemed to be completely disappointed. He ran in a hurry for some urgent business, got wet, dirty, and a raindrop, in some almost fantastic way, had not left his very decent, but now blue nose for a whole evening. In addition, he grew sideburns. These sideburns, and the fact that Yaroslav Ilyich looked as if he was avoiding a meeting with an old acquaintance of his, almost struck Ordynov ... a wonderful thing! it even somehow wounded, hurt his heart, which hitherto did not need anyone's compassion. Finally, he was more pleased with the former man, simple, good-natured, naive - let us dare to say at last frankly - a little stupid, but without pretensions to be disappointed and grow wiser. It's embarrassing when silly the man whom we used to love, perhaps precisely because of his stupidity, suddenly wiser decidedly unpleasant. However, the incredulity with which he looked at Ordynov was immediately smoothed out. For all his disappointment, he did not at all leave his former temper, with which, as you know, a person goes to the grave, and climbed with pleasure, as he was, into the friendly soul of Ordynov. First of all, he noticed that he had a lot to do, then that they had not seen each other for a long time; but suddenly the conversation took a strange turn again. Yaroslav Ilyich spoke about the deceitfulness of people in general, about the fragility of the blessings of this world, about the vanity of vanities, in passing, even with more than indifference, did not fail to speak of Pushkin, with some cynicism about good acquaintances, and in conclusion even hinted at the deceit and deceit of those who are called friends in the world, while true friendship in the world has never happened. In a word, Yaroslav Ilyich has grown wiser. Ordynov did not contradict anything, but he became indescribably, painfully sad: as if he had buried his best friend! -- Ah! Imagine, - I completely forgot to tell you, - Yaroslav Ilyich suddenly said, as if remembering something very interesting, - we have news! I'll tell you a secret. Remember the house where you lived? Ordynov shuddered and turned pale. “So just imagine, a whole gang of thieves was recently opened in this house, that is, my sir, a gang, a brothel; smugglers, swindlers everyone who knows them! Some have been caught, others are still being chased; given the strictest orders. And you can imagine: remember the owner of the house, devout, venerable, noble-looking... 405 -- Well! "Judge after this the whole of mankind!" This was the head of the whole gang of them, the groom! Isn't this ridiculous, sir? Yaroslav Ilyich spoke with feeling and condemned for one | all mankind, because Yaroslav Ilyich cannot do otherwise; it's in his nature. -- And those? and Murin? said Ordynov in a whisper. “Ah, Murin, Murin! No, this is a respectable old man, noble. But, allow me, you shed new light ... - And what? Was he also in the gang? Ordynov's heart was ready to pierce his chest with impatience... "However, what do you say..." Yaroslav Ilyich added, fixing his pewter eyes intently on Ordynov. them. Exactly three weeks later, he left with his wife to his place, to his place ... I learned from the janitor ... this Tatar child, remember?Dostoevsky's "Mistress" was conceived in the autumn of 1846. Work on the story lasted almost a year. In early September 1847, The Mistress was completed. The story was published in the journal Otechestvennye Zapiski, and the first independent edition was published only in the mid-1860s.
The prototype of the "sorcerer" was, presumably, Moses Murin. In his youth, Moses was the chieftain of a band of robbers, but later returned to the "true path."
The first critic of The Mistress was V. Belinsky, who believed that the public would not wait for the continuation of the story. However, Belinsky was mistaken. The first part of the work was published in the October issue of the magazine. The second one came out in December. Belinsky refused to take back his negative review and began to criticize the story even more actively. Dostoevsky was accused of "bizarre fantasy" and "poverty of talent." Belinsky claimed that the story was written in an unnatural style and everything seemed to be “on stilts”. Such a story, according to the critic, could only be written while being a recluse in a dark room.
Obviously, the harshness of Belinsky's statements is due to the fact that at the time of publication, relations between the writer and the critic had deteriorated sharply. Nikolai Strakhov, who was more friendly to Dostoevsky than Belinsky, responded much better to the story. Strakhov said that for the first time in Russian literature, the theme of relations between the intelligentsia and the common people was touched upon.
After the death of Dostoevsky, the story received a new interpretation. “The Mistress” was considered the first approach to the socio-political theme, which was considered in more detail by the writer in his later works.
The image of the new hero
Dostoevsky himself, commenting on The Mistress, explained that he wanted to create a new type of character. Main character certainly had to be a dreamer out of touch with life, desiring the common good and not knowing how to achieve it. Psychologically, this is a more complex type than, for example, the type of a simple layman or official.
A romantic lives in accordance with his own logic, which is often not clear to others. The impracticality of the dreamer often not only does not help to make the world a better place, but also leads to even more suffering.
The intellectual and dreamer Vasily Ordynov is looking for a new home after being forced to move out of his previous apartment in St. Petersburg. The protagonist set himself the task of writing a work on the history of the church. In order to achieve what he wants, Ordynov does not spare even the meager funds that he inherited for his undertaking. Vasily wants not only to rewrite ready-made historical facts. He is going to create a completely new scientific "system". The main character is looking for a secluded place where no one would interfere with his work.
Walking around the capital, Vasily went to the church. Here he met a very unusual couple - an old man and a young woman. Subsequently, it turned out that the old man's name was Ilya Murin, and the woman's name was Ekaterina (Katerina). Circumstances developed in such a way that Ordynov moved to live with his new acquaintances. The main character suddenly falls ill. The hostess willingly takes care of the sick.
Murin and Ekaterina seem to Ordynov even more strange than on the day they met. The owner of the house, in the present Old Believer, probably has a dark past. The young wife is in the absolute power of the old man. Ordynov wants to free the woman from "captivity". The protagonist feels that he has fallen in love with the hostess and can no longer work on his work. Vasily notices that Catherine does not need to be released. She lives quite comfortably under "hypnosis".
Character characteristics
Vasily Ordynov
Not possessing great wealth, the protagonist dreams of spending the last thing he has for the common good. Ordynov is a typical romantic. This is evidenced by his disorder in life and impracticality. The actions of the protagonist have no self-interest. All his actions are dictated by philanthropy. The main character does not intend to cash in on his work. For him, this work is, above all, an opportunity for self-expression.
Love for a young woman becomes a new stage in the life of the protagonist. The original plans lose their former meaning. Now he faces a new task - to free the "captive", even if after the release Catherine does not make him her chosen one.
The desire to remake the world is inherent in every romantic. The dreamer strives to make everyone feel good. However, in most cases, the romantic fails. The extraordinary work, in which, according to the author's hints, Ordynov developed the idea of utopian socialism, leads Vasily to a deep ideological crisis.
Ilya Murin
The disinterested open Ordynov is opposed by Ilya Murin. The author deliberately does not tell details from the past of his hero, leaving readers the opportunity for the most terrible guesses.
It is likely that in the distant past, Murin was a "murderer". In the present, according to Vasily, he is a sorcerer. Ordynov comes to this conclusion only because he does not know how else to explain the strange behavior of Ilya and his mysterious influence on his young wife. The dark past of the "sorcerer" is also evidenced by his isolation and selectivity in communication. Perhaps Murin is afraid that new acquaintances will weaken his influence on Catherine.
main idea
In the deeply philosophical works of Dostoevsky, it is not always easy to define an idea. The author pays too much attention inner world their heroes, their experiences, dreams, knowledge, etc.
The main idea of "Mistress" can be called the endless and eternal struggle of the new with the old. This opposition is eternal because any new idea tends to become obsolete. She, in turn, will have to fight with another, even more recent idea that has come to replace her.
Dostoevsky's "Mistress" was conceived in the autumn of 1846. Work on the story lasted almost a year. In early September 1847, The Mistress was completed. The story was published in the journal Otechestvennye Zapiski, and the first independent edition was published only in the mid-1860s.
The prototype of the "sorcerer" was, presumably, Moses Murin. In his youth, Moses was the chieftain of a band of robbers, but later returned to the "true path."
The first critic of The Mistress was V. Belinsky, who believed that the public would not wait for the continuation of the story. However, Belinsky was mistaken. The first part of the work was published in the October issue of the magazine. The second one came out in December. Belinsky refused to take back his negative review and began to criticize the story even more actively. Dostoevsky was accused of "bizarre fantasy" and "poverty of talent." Belinsky claimed that the story was written in an unnatural style and everything seemed to be “on stilts”. Such a story, according to the critic, could only be written while being a recluse in a dark room.
Obviously, the harshness of Belinsky's statements is due to the fact that at the time of publication, relations between the writer and the critic had deteriorated sharply. Nikolai Strakhov, who was more friendly to Dostoevsky than Belinsky, responded much better to the story. Strakhov said that for the first time in Russian literature, the theme of relations between the intelligentsia and the common people was touched upon.
After the death of Dostoevsky, the story received a new interpretation. “The Mistress” was considered the first approach to the socio-political theme, which was considered in more detail by the writer in his later works.
The image of the new hero
Dostoevsky himself, commenting on The Mistress, explained that he wanted to create a new type of character. The protagonist certainly had to be a dreamer out of touch with life, wishing for the common good and not knowing how to achieve it. Psychologically, this is a more complex type than, for example, the type of a simple layman or official.
A romantic lives in accordance with his own logic, which is often not clear to others. The impracticality of the dreamer often not only does not help to make the world a better place, but also leads to even more suffering.
The intellectual and dreamer Vasily Ordynov is looking for a new home after being forced to move out of his previous apartment in St. Petersburg. The protagonist set himself the task of writing a work on the history of the church. In order to achieve what he wants, Ordynov does not spare even the meager funds that he inherited for his undertaking. Vasily wants not just to rewrite ready-made historical facts. He is going to create a completely new scientific "system". The main character is looking for a secluded place where no one would interfere with his work.
Walking around the capital, Vasily went to the church. Here he met a very unusual couple - an old man and a young woman. Subsequently, it turned out that the old man's name was Ilya Murin, and the woman's name was Ekaterina (Katerina). Circumstances developed in such a way that Ordynov moved to live with his new acquaintances. The main character suddenly falls ill. The hostess willingly takes care of the sick.
Murin and Ekaterina seem to Ordynov even more strange than on the day they met. The owner of the house, in the present Old Believer, probably has a dark past. The young wife is in the absolute power of the old man. Ordynov wants to free the woman from "captivity". The protagonist feels that he has fallen in love with the hostess and can no longer work on his work. Vasily notices that Catherine does not need to be released. She lives quite comfortably under "hypnosis".
Character characteristics
Vasily Ordynov
Not possessing great wealth, the protagonist dreams of spending the last thing he has for the common good. Ordynov is a typical romantic. This is evidenced by his disorder in life and impracticality. The actions of the protagonist have no self-interest. All his actions are dictated by philanthropy. The main character does not intend to cash in on his work. For him, this work is, above all, an opportunity for self-expression.
Love for a young woman becomes a new stage in the life of the protagonist. The original plans lose their former meaning. Now he faces a new task - to free the "captive", even if after the release Catherine does not make him her chosen one.
The desire to remake the world is inherent in every romantic. The dreamer strives to make everyone feel good. However, in most cases, the romantic fails. The extraordinary work, in which, according to the author's hints, Ordynov developed the idea of utopian socialism, leads Vasily to a deep ideological crisis.
Ilya Murin
The disinterested open Ordynov is opposed by Ilya Murin. The author deliberately does not tell details from the past of his hero, leaving readers the opportunity for the most terrible guesses.
It is likely that in the distant past, Murin was a "murderer". In the present, according to Vasily, he is a sorcerer. Ordynov comes to this conclusion only because he does not know how else to explain the strange behavior of Ilya and his mysterious influence on his young wife. The dark past of the "sorcerer" is also evidenced by his isolation and selectivity in communication. Perhaps Murin is afraid that new acquaintances will weaken his influence on Catherine.
main idea
In the deeply philosophical works of Dostoevsky, it is not always easy to define an idea. The author pays too much attention to the inner world of his characters, their experiences, dreams, knowledge, etc.
The main idea of "Mistress" can be called the endless and eternal struggle of the new with the old. This opposition is eternal because any new idea tends to become obsolete. She, in turn, will have to fight with another, even more recent idea that has come to replace her.
Fedor Dostoevsky
story
PART ONE
Ordynov finally decided to change his apartment. His landlady, a very poor elderly widow and official from whom he rented a room, due to unforeseen circumstances, left Petersburg somewhere in the wilderness, to relatives, without waiting for the first day, the deadline for hiring her. The young man, living out an urgent time, thought with regret about the old coal and was annoyed that he had to leave it: he was poor, and the apartment was expensive. The very next day after the hostess's departure, he took his cap and went wandering along the Petersburg lanes, looking out for all the labels nailed to the gates of houses, and choosing a house blacker, more crowded and capital, in which it was most convenient to find the required corner from some poor tenants.
He had been looking for a long time, very diligently, but soon new, almost unfamiliar sensations visited him. At first absent-mindedly and carelessly, then with attention, and finally with intense curiosity, he began to look around him. Crowd and street life, noise, movement, news of objects, news of the situation - all this petty life and ordinary rubbish, which has so long bored the business and busy Petersburg man, is fruitless, but troublesome all his life, looking for ways to reconcile, calm down and calm down somewhere in warm nest, obtained by labor, sweat and various other means - all this vulgar prose and boredom aroused in him, on the contrary, a kind of quiet, joyful, light feeling. His pale cheeks began to be covered with a slight blush, his eyes shone as if with new hope, and he greedily, widely began to inhale the cold, fresh air. It made him extremely easy.
He always led a life of quiet, utter seclusion. About three years ago, having received his degree and becoming as free as possible, he went to an old man, whom he hitherto knew by hearsay, and waited a long time until the livery valet agreed to report on him another time. Then he entered a high, dark and deserted hall, extremely boring, as it still happens in old, surviving, family, manor houses, and saw in it an old man, hung with orders and adorned with gray hair, a friend and colleague of his father and his guardian. The old man handed him a pinch of money. The amount turned out to be very insignificant; it was the remainder of the great-grandfather's legacy sold by auction for debts. Ordynov indifferently took possession, bowed forever to his guardian, and went out into the street. The evening was autumnal, cold and gloomy; the young man was pensive, and a kind of unconscious melancholy tore at his heart. There was fire in his eyes; he felt fever, chills, and heat alternately. He calculated on the road that he could live on his own means for two or three years, even with half-starvation, and four. It was dark, it was raining. He bargained for the first oncoming corner and moved in an hour later. There he seemed to have locked himself in a monastery, as if he had renounced the world. Two years later, he went completely wild.
He went wild without noticing it; for the time being it never occurred to him that there was another life - noisy, thundering, eternally agitated, eternally changing, eternally calling and always, sooner or later, inevitable. True, he could not help but hear about her, but he did not know and never looked for her. From childhood he lived exclusively; now this exclusivity is defined. He was devoured by the deepest, most insatiable passion, exhausting the whole life of a person and not giving such creatures as Ordynov a single corner in the sphere of another, practical, everyday activity. That passion was science. For the time being, she ate away his youth, poisoned his nightly peace with a slow, intoxicating poison, robbed him of healthy food and fresh air, which had never been in his stuffy corner, and Ordynov, in the rapture of his passion, did not want to notice that. He was young and for the time being did not demand more. Passion made him an infant for external life and forever incapable of making other good people step aside when the need arises to separate at least some corner between them. The science of other clever people is capital in their hands; Ordynov's passion was a weapon turned on him.
There was more of an unconscious attraction in him than a logically distinct reason to learn and know, as in any other, even the most petty, activity that had hitherto occupied him. Even in childhood, he was known as an eccentric and was unlike his comrades. He did not know his parents; from his comrades, for his strange, unsociable character, he endured inhumanity and rudeness, which is why he became really unsociable and gloomy, and little by little fell into exclusivity. But in his solitary studies, there was never, even now, an order and a definite system; now there was only the first delight, the first fever, the first fever of the artist. He created his own system; it survived in him for years, and little by little a still dark, obscure, but somehow wonderfully gratifying image of an idea embodied in a new, enlightened form arose in his soul, and this form asked from his soul, tormenting this soul; he still timidly felt its originality, truth, and originality: creativity was already showing itself in his powers; it was formed and strengthened. But the date of incarnation and creation was still far away, perhaps very far away, perhaps completely impossible!
Now he walked the streets as aloof, like a hermit who suddenly emerged from his silent desert into a noisy and thundering city. Everything seemed new and strange to him. But he was so alien to the world that boiled and rumbled around him that he did not even think to be surprised at his strange sensation. He did not seem to notice his savagery; on the contrary, some kind of joyful feeling was born in him, some kind of drunkenness, like a hungry man who, after a long fast, was given to drink and eat; although, of course, it was strange that such a petty news of the situation as a change of apartment could fool and excite a Petersburg resident, even Ordynov; but it is also true that until now he has almost never had the chance to go out on business.
More and more he liked to roam the streets. He looked at everything like flaneur.
But even now, true to his usual disposition, he read in the picture that was clearly revealed before him, as in a book between the lines. Everything amazed him; he did not lose a single impression and looked with a thoughtful look at the faces of walking people, peered into the physiognomy of everything around him, listened lovingly to the speech of the people, as if verifying his conclusions on everything, born in the silence of solitary nights. Often some trifle struck him, gave birth to an idea, and for the first time he felt annoyed that he had buried himself so alive in his cell. Here everything went faster; his pulse was full and fast, his mind, suppressed by loneliness, refined and elevated only by intense, exalted activity, now worked quickly, calmly and boldly. In addition, he somehow unconsciously wanted to somehow squeeze himself into this alien life for him, which he hitherto knew or, better to say, only correctly foresaw by the instinct of the artist. His heart beat involuntarily with the anguish of love and sympathy. He looked more attentively at the people passing by him; but the people were strangers, preoccupied and thoughtful... And little by little Ordynov's carelessness began to fall involuntarily; reality was already suppressing him, instilling in him a kind of involuntary fear of respect. He began to tire of the influx of new impressions hitherto unknown to him, like a sick man who joyfully got up for the first time from his painful bed and fell down, exhausted by the light, the brilliance, the whirlwind of life, the noise and variegation of the crowd flying past him, foggy, swirling with movement. He became melancholy and sad. He began to fear for his whole life, for all his activities, and even for the future. A new thought killed his peace. It suddenly occurred to him that he had been alone all his life, that no one had loved him, and that he had not been able to love anyone either. Some of the passers-by, with whom he accidentally entered into conversation at the beginning of the walk, looked at him rudely and strangely. He saw that he was mistaken for a madman or for the most original eccentric, which, however, was quite right. He remembered that it was always somehow hard for everyone in his presence, that even in childhood everyone fled him for his thoughtful, stubborn character, that his sympathy, which was in him, but in which somehow there was never a noticeable moral equality, which tormented him as a child, when he did not in any way resemble other children, his peers. Now he remembered and realized that always, at any time, everyone left and went around him.
background
In October 1846, Dostoevsky had an idea for a new work. By this time, he finally broke up with the circle of Vissarion Belinsky, who had just left Andrey Kraevsky’s journal Domestic Notes for cooperation in the Sovremennik magazine, transformed by Nikolai Nekrasov and Ivan Panaev. At the time when Belinsky broke with Kraevsky, Dostoevsky, on the contrary, began to get closer to this publisher. In 1846 Kraevsky published The Double and Mr. Prokharchin. All subsequent years, until sent to hard labor in 1849 and after it, Dostoevsky places his works of art in Kraevsky's journal. The exceptions were The Novel in Nine Letters, published by Nekrasov in Sovremennik, and Polzunkov, published by him in the Illustrated Almanac.
A month later, Dostoevsky wrote to his brother about the break with the Sovremennik magazine and the rapprochement with Otechestvennye Zapiski: “... work for the Holy Art, work holy, pure, in the simplicity of the heart, which has never trembled and moved so much with me, as it is now in front of all the new images that are created in my soul”. The creatively happy work on The Mistress, which Dostoevsky planned to finish by January 1847, was unexpectedly interrupted by a new idea - the novel Netochka Nezvanova. In January-February, he wrote to Mikhail with enthusiasm for work: “I am writing my Mistress. It's already better than Poor Folk. It's the same kind. My pen is guided by a spring of inspiration, which comes straight from the soul. Not like in Prokharchina, which I suffered all summer.. Work on The Mistress lasted until autumn, until Dostoevsky informed his brother on September 9, 1847 that he was finishing the work.
The plot of the work
The protagonist of the work - "an artist in science", according to Dostoevsky, Vasily Ordynov, who received some inheritance, directs his efforts to compose a work on the history of the church. To do this, he deliberately retired from people in order to create his own unique scientific "system". From the context of the work, it becomes clear that such a “system” could imply a new concept based on utopian socialism. In the course of the work, Ordynov experiences complex dramatic events that lead him to an ideological crisis, as a result of which he abandons his original "system", but "without building anything on the ruins", "begged for healing from God".
Ordynov, who lives in the realm of abstract "chimeras" and dreams, is forced to face the infernal personality of the "sorcerer" Murin - in the present, an old believer, and in the past, perhaps, a "smart robber" and "murderer". Under the influence of the old man-teacher is the young beauty Katerina, whom Ordynov is trying to free from the power of Murin. Ordynov's struggle with Murin for influence over Katerina has a certain symbolic meaning: according to Dostoevsky's commentators, the image of the hostess Katerina becomes for Dostoevsky a symbol of the "national element, folk soul, suffering under the gloomy power of the past, "displayed in the image of a" sorcerer "Old Believer. But all that Ordynov can oppose to Murin is his love for Katerina, and with the power of his love he fights against the evil will of the mysterious old man. Katerina, being under the hypnotic influence of Murin, is in no hurry to free herself "from her painful and at the same time sweet captivity."
Criticism of the work
The story itself is maximally saturated with new visions for Dostoevsky, dreams, hallucinations, the hero's delirium, a fantastic interweaving of the real and the chimerical. Here a fundamentally new phenomenon arose - the "image of an idea", and its heroes-"dreamers" from now on will think not in ordinary ideas, but in "images of ideas": Versilov, Ivan Karamazov.
Dostoevsky and Romanticism
The appearance of the “dreamer” character brought the story closer to the romantic tradition, which had similar characters in the works of Alexander Veltman, Mikhail Pogodin, Nikolai Gogol (“Nevsky Prospekt”), Vladimir Odoevsky, Nikolai Polevoy, Mikhail Voskresensky (“Dreamer”), Georges Sand, Hoffmann . It allowed the author to reduce the distance between the main character (formerly an official), his own spiritual world and the spiritual world of young people close to him in a romantic frame of mind. Mikhail Alekseev drew attention to a friend of Dostoevsky's youth, I. N. Shidlovsky, as a possible prototype of Ordynov. Other researchers (V. L. Komarovich) do not exclude the autobiography of this character.
The influence of romanticism affected not only the image of the hero-dreamer, but in general the plot construction of the work. A. G. Tseitlin finds some similarity of episodes with the story of M. P. Pogodin "The Betrothed". Viktor Vinogradov sees traces of the influence of Mikhail Lermontov's "Fragment" from an unfinished story in the interweaving of typical St. Petersburg "physiology" with elements of Hoffmann's narrative. The conflicts in the relationship between Ordynov, Murin and Katerina could also be inspired by Hoffmann, Thomas De Quincey, Russian romantics.
Gogol's Terrible Revenge played an exceptional role in shaping the image of Katerina (including her name). Gogol's heroine was the victim of a sorcerer father, a gloomy medieval traitor. Dostoevsky brings his Katerina closer to the present. Later, the female image of the infernal, demonic Katerina will repeatedly appear on the pages of various works of the writer. The influence of "Terrible Vengeance" manifested itself in speech characteristics Katerina, marked by the influence of the folklore environment.
The image of Murin is easily guessed in the biography of Moses Murin, the former chieftain of a band of robbers, taken from the Life of Our Reverend Father Moses Murin (The Book of the Lives of the Saints, M., 1840).
Performances on stage
Notes
hostess at Wikiquote | |
in Wikisource | |
hostess at Wikimedia Commons |