Anton Pavlovich Chekhov 1860 - 1904

A boring story From the notes of an old man. Tale (1889)

Professor of Medicine Nikolai Stepanovich is a scientist who has reached the heights of his science, enjoying universal honor and gratitude; his name is known to every literate person in Russia. The bearer of this name, that is, himself, is an old man, terminally ill; according to his own diagnosis, he has no more than six months left to live. In his notes, he tries to understand the situation in which he found himself: he, a famous person, was sentenced to death. He describes the usual course of his present life.

Sleeplessness every night. Household - wife and daughter Lisa, whom he used to love, now only irritate him with their petty everyday worries. The closest collaborators: eccentric and devoted university porter Nikolai, prosector Pyotr Ignatievich, a draft horse and a learned dumbass. The work that used to give Nikolai Stepanovich pleasure, his university lectures, once equal to the works of the poet, now bring him nothing but torment.

Nikolai Stepanovich is not a philosopher or a theologian, all his life the fate of the bone marrow interested him more than the ultimate goal of the universe, his soul does not want to know questions about the darkness beyond the grave. But what pleased his life - peace and happiness in the family, favorite work, self-confidence - gone forever. New thoughts, which he did not know before, poison his last days. It seems to him that life has deceived him, his glorious name, his brilliant past do not alleviate today's pain.

Ordinary visitors of the old professor. A faculty colleague, a negligent student, a dissertation begging for a topic - everyone seems to Nikolai Stepanovich funny, narrow-minded, limited, everyone gives a reason for irritation or mockery. But here is another welcome visitor: familiar steps, the rustle of a dress, a sweet voice...

Katya, the daughter of a late fellow ophthalmologist, grew up in the family of Nikolai Stepanovich. Even by the age of fifteen, she was seized by a passionate love for the theater. Dreaming of fame and service to art, trusting and addicted, she went into provincial actresses, but after two years she became disillusioned with the theater business, with stage mates, lost faith in her talent, experienced unhappy love, attempted suicide, buried her child. Nikolai Stepanovich, who loved Katya like a daughter, tried to help her with advice, wrote her long but useless letters. Now, after the crash, Katya lives on the remnants of her father's inheritance. She has lost interest in life, lies at home on the couch and reads books, but once a day she hangs Nikolai Stepanovich. She does not love his wife and Lisa, they reciprocate her.

An ordinary family dinner also brings Nikolai Stepanovich nothing but irritation. Present are his wife, Lisa, two or three of her friends from the conservatory, and Alexander Adolfovich Gnekker, a person who inspires sharp antipathy to the professor. An admirer of Liza and a contender for her hand, he visits the house every day, but no one knows what his origin is and on what means he lives. He sells someone's grand pianos somewhere, is familiar with celebrities, judges music with great authority - he took root in art, Nikolai Stepanovich draws a conclusion for himself.

He longingly recalls the former, simple and cheerful family dinners, sullenly thinks that for a long time the inner life of his wife and Lisa has eluded his observation. They are no longer the same as he knew and loved them before. Why there was a change - he does not know.

After dinner, his wife, as usual, begs him to go to Kharkov, where Gnekker is from, to make inquiries there about his parents and condition.

From a feeling of loneliness, from fear of insomnia, Nikolai Stepanovich leaves the house. Where to go? The answer has long been clear to him: to Katya.

Only at Katya's he is warm and comfortable, only she can complain about his condition. Before, he tells her, he had the feeling of a king, he could be condescending, forgiving everyone right and left. But now evil thoughts roam in his head day and night, decent only for slaves. He became excessively strict, demanding, irritable. His whole past life seems to him a beautiful, talented composition, the only thing left is not to spoil the ending, to meet death cheerfully and with a calm soul. "But I ruin the ending..."

Katya has another guest, philologist Mikhail Fedorovich. He is obviously in love with her and does not dare to admit it to her. He entertains with anecdotes from university life, and his slander also irritates Nikolai Stepanovich. He interrupts the talk about the reduction of the new generation, about the lack of ideals among young people with sharp objections. But inwardly he feels that evil, "Arakcheev" thoughts are taking over his being as well. And to the interlocutors, whom he compared with evil toads, he is drawn again every evening.

Summer is coming, the professor and his family live in the country.

At night still insomnia, but during the day instead of work - reading French books. Nikolai Stepanovich knows what creativity is and its main condition: a sense of personal freedom. His judgments about literature, theatre, science are precise and precise. But thoughts of imminent death, now in three or four months, do not leave him. The visitors are the same: doorman, dissector; dinners with the participation of the same Gnekker.

Calls in to give the professor a ride in his chaise, Katya. She understands that her life does not add up, that time and money go aimlessly. "What should I do?" she asks. "What to answer her?" - thinks Nikolai Stepanovich. It's easy to say "work hard" or "give your property to the poor" or "know thyself", but these general and formulaic advice is unlikely to help in this particular case. In the evenings, the same Mikhail Fedorovich, in love and slandering, visits Katya's dacha. And Nikolai Stepanovich, who previously condemned attacks on the university, students, literature, and the theater, is now participating in slander himself.

There are terrible nights with thunder, lightning, rain and wind, which are popularly called sparrow nights. Nikolai Stepanovich also experiences one such night.

He wakes up from the fear of sudden death, unable to control his unaccountable horror. All of a sudden, you hear groans or laughter. His wife comes running, calling him to Lisa's room. She moans from some kind of torment, throws herself on her father's neck: "My dad is good ... I don't know what's wrong with me ... It's hard!" “Help her, help her!” the wife pleads. “Do something!” "What can I do? I can't do anything," the father reflects. “There is some kind of heaviness in the girl’s soul, but I don’t understand anything, I don’t know, and I can only mutter: “Nothing, nothing .. It will pass ... Sleep, sleep ...”

A few hours later he is in his room, still awake, hears a knock on the window. This is Katya. And she has some heavy forebodings that night. She begs Nikolai Stepanovich to take her money from her and go somewhere for treatment. After his refusal, she dejectedly leaves.

Nikolai Stepanovich in Kharkov, where his wife insistently sent. The state of anger and irritation was replaced by a new one: complete indifference. He learns here that nothing is known about Gnekker in the city, but when a telegram arrives from his wife with the message that Gnekker has secretly married Liza, he meets the news with indifference. This frightens him: after all, indifference is paralysis of the soul, premature death.

Morning finds him sitting in bed in a hotel room, busy with the same haunting thoughts. It seems to him that he understood the cause of that weakness that led him on the eve of the end to evil, slavish thoughts, and then to indifference. The fact is that in his thoughts, feelings, judgments there is no general idea, or the god of a living person. "And if this is not there, then it means that there is nothing." If there is nothing in common that would bind everything into one whole, a serious illness, the fear of death, was enough for everything that saw the meaning and joy of life to be torn to pieces. Nikolai Stepanovich finally gives up and decides to sit and silently wait for what will happen.

There is a knock on the door, Katya is standing in front of him. She arrived, she says, just like that, drops a letter from Mikhail Fedorovich. Then, turning pale and clasping his hands, he turns to Nikolai Stepanovich: “For the sake of the true God, tell me quickly, this minute: what should I do? ... After all, you are my father, my only friend! .. You were a teacher! Tell me what to do ?"

Nikolai Stepanovich can hardly stand on his feet, he is confused.

“In all honesty, Katya, I don’t know ... Come on, Katya, have breakfast.”

Having received no answer, she leaves - where, she does not know herself. And he sees her, probably for the last time.

"Farewell, my treasure!"

Duel Tale (1891)

In a town on the Black Sea, two friends are talking while swimming. Ivan Andreyevich Laevsky, a young man of twenty-eight, shares the secrets of his personal life with military doctor Samoylenko. Two years ago, he met with a married woman, they fled from St. Petersburg to the Caucasus, telling themselves that they would start a new working life there. But the town turned out to be boring, people were uninteresting, Laevsky did not know how and did not want to work on the land in the sweat of his brow, and therefore from the first day he felt bankrupt. In his relationship with Nadezhda Fedorovna, he no longer sees anything but a lie, living with her is now beyond his strength. He dreams of running back to the north. But you can’t part with her either: she has no relatives, no money, she doesn’t know how to work. There is another difficulty: the news of the death of her husband came, which means for Laevsky and Nadezhda Fedorovna the opportunity to get married. Good Samoylenko advises his friend to do exactly this.

Everything that Nadezhda Fedorovna says and does seems to Laevsky to be a lie or similar to a lie. At breakfast, he can barely contain his irritation; even the way she swallows milk evokes heavy hatred in him. The desire to quickly sort things out and run away now does not let him go. Laevsky is accustomed to finding explanations and justifications for his life in someone’s theories, in literary types; he compares himself with Onegin and Pechorin, with Anna Karenina, with Hamlet. He is ready either to blame himself for the lack of a guiding idea, to admit that he is a loser and an extra person, or to justify himself to himself. But just as he previously believed in salvation from the emptiness of life in the Caucasus, he now believes that as soon as he leaves Nadezhda Fedorovna and goes to St. Petersburg, he will live a cultured, intelligent, cheerful life.

Samoilenko keeps something like a table d'hôte; the young zoologist von Koren and Pobedov, who has just graduated from the seminary, are dining with him.

“In the name of saving humanity, we ourselves must take care of the destruction of the frail and worthless,” says the zoologist coldly.

The laughing deacon laughs, but the stunned Samoylenko can only say: "If people are drowned and hanged, then to hell with your civilization, to hell with humanity! To hell!"

On Sunday morning Nadezhda Fyodorovna goes for a swim in the most festive mood. She likes herself, I'm sure that all the men they meet admire her. She feels guilty before Laevsky. During these two years she had run into debts in Achmianov's shop for three hundred rubles, and she was not going to say anything about it. In addition, she had twice hosted the police officer Kirilin. But Nadezhda Fyodorovna happily thinks that her soul did not participate in her betrayal, she continues to love Laevsky, and everything is already broken with Kirilin. In the bathhouse, she talks with an elderly lady, Marya Konstantinovna Bityugova, and learns that in the evening the local society is having a picnic on the banks of a mountain stream.

On the way to the picnic, von Koren tells the deacon about his plans to go on an expedition along the coast of the Pacific and Arctic Oceans; Laevsky, riding in another carriage, scolds the Caucasian landscapes. He constantly feels von Koren's dislike for himself and regrets that he went to the picnic. At the mountain spirit of the Tartar Kerbalai, the company stops.

Nadezhda Fyodorovna is in a playful mood, she wants to laugh, tease, flirt. But the persecution of Kirilin and the advice of the young Achmianov to beware of that darken her joy. Laevsky, tired of the picnic and von Koren's undisguised hatred, takes out his irritation on Nadezhda Fyodorovna and calls her a cocotte. On the way back, von Koren admits to Samoylenko that his hand would not tremble if the state or society had instructed him to destroy Laevsky.

At home, after a picnic, Laevsky informs Nadezhda Fyodorovna about the death of her husband and, feeling at home as in a prison, goes to Samoylenko. He begs his friend to help, lend him three hundred rubles, promises to arrange everything with Nadezhda Fyodorovna, to make peace with his mother. Samoylenko offers to reconcile with von Koren, but Laevsky says that this is impossible. Maybe he would have extended his hand to him, but von Koren would have turned away with contempt. After all, this is a firm, despotic nature. And his ideals are despotic. People for him are puppies and nonentities, too small to be the goal of his life. He works, goes on an expedition, breaks his neck there, not in the name of love for his neighbor, but in the name of such abstractions as humanity, future generations, an ideal breed of people ... He would order to shoot anyone who goes beyond the circle of our narrow conservative morality, and all this in the name of improving the human race... Despots have always been illusionists. With enthusiasm, Laevsky says that he clearly sees his shortcomings and is aware of them. This will help him to resurrect and become a different person, and he is passionately waiting for this rebirth and renewal.

Three days after the picnic, an excited Marya Konstantinovna comes to Nadezhda Fedorovna and invites her to be her matchmaker. But a wedding with Laevsky, Nadezhda Fyodorovna feels, is now impossible. She cannot tell Marya Konstantinovna everything: how confused her relationship with Kirilin, with the young Achmianov. From all the experiences she starts a strong fever.

Laevsky feels guilty before Nadezhda Fyodorovna. But the thought of leaving next Saturday so possessed him that he asked Samoylenko, who came to visit the patient, only if he could get money. But there is no money yet. Samoilenko decides to ask von Koren for a hundred rubles. He, after a dispute, agrees to give money for Laevsky, but only on the condition that he leaves not alone, but together with Nadezhda Fyodorovna.

The next day, Thursday, while visiting Marya Konstantinovna, Samoylenko told Laevsky about the condition set by von Koren. The guests, including von Koren, play mail. Laevsky, automatically participating in the game, thinks about how much he has to and still has to lie, what a mountain of lies prevents him from starting a new life. In order to skip it at once, and not lie in parts, you need to decide on some kind of drastic measure, but he feels that this is impossible for him. A malicious note, apparently sent by von Koren, causes him a hysterical fit. Having come to his senses, in the evening, as usual, he leaves to play cards.

On the way from the guests to the house, Nadezhda Fyodorovna is pursued by Kirilin. He threatens her with a scandal if she does not give him a date today. Nadezhda Fyodorovna is disgusted with him, she begs to let her go, but in the end she gives in. Behind them, unnoticed, young Achmianov is watching.

The next day, Laevsky goes to Samoylenko to take money from him, since it is shameful and impossible to remain in the city after a tantrum. He finds only von Koren. A short conversation follows; Laevsky understands that he knows about his plans. He keenly feels that the zoologist hates him, despises and mocks him, and that he is his most bitter and implacable enemy. When Samoilenko arrives, Laevsky, in a nervous fit, accuses him of not being able to keep other people's secrets, and insults von Koren. Von Koren seemed to be waiting for this attack, he challenges Laevsky to a duel. Samoylenko unsuccessfully tries to reconcile them.

On the evening before the duel, Laevsky is first possessed by hatred for von Koren, then, over wine and cards, he becomes careless, then anxiety seizes him. When young Achmianov takes him to some house and there he sees Kirilin, and next to him Nadezhda Fedorovna, all feelings seem to disappear from his soul.

Von Koren that evening on the embankment talks with the deacon about the different understanding of the teachings of Christ. What is love for one's neighbor? In the elimination of everything that in one way or another harms people and threatens them with danger in the present or future, the zoologist believes. Humanity is in danger from the morally and physically abnormal, and they must be rendered harmless, that is, destroyed. But where are the criteria for distinguishing, because mistakes are possible? asks the deacon. There is nothing to be afraid of getting your feet wet when a flood threatens, the zoologist replies.

On the night before the duel, Laevsky listens to the thunderstorm outside the window, goes over his past in his memory, sees only lies in it, feels guilty for the fall of Nadezhda Fyodorovna and is ready to beg her forgiveness. If it were possible to return the past, he would find God and justice, but this is just as impossible as returning a sunken star back to heaven. Before leaving for the duel, he goes to Nadezhda Fyodorovna's bedroom. She looks with horror at Laevsky, but he, having embraced her, understands that this unfortunate, vicious woman is for him the only close, dear and irreplaceable person. Sitting in a carriage, he wants to return home alive.

The deacon, leaving early in the morning to see the duel, ponders why Laevsky and von Koren can hate each other and fight duels? Wouldn't it be better for them to go down lower and direct hatred and anger to where whole streets are groaning from gross ignorance, greed, reproaches, impurity ... Sitting in a strip of corn, he sees opponents and seconds arrive. Two green rays stretch out from behind the mountains, the sun rises. No one knows exactly the rules of the duel, they recall the descriptions of duels by Lermontov, Turgenev ... Laevsky shoots first; fearing that the bullet would not hit von Koren, he makes a shot in the air. Von Koren aims the muzzle of the pistol straight at Laevsky's face. "He will kill him!" - the desperate cry of the deacon makes him miss.

Three months pass. On the day of his departure for the expedition, von Koren, accompanied by Samoylenko and the deacon, goes to the pier. Passing by Laevsky's house, they talk about the change that has taken place with him. He married Nadezhda Fyodorovna, and works from morning to evening to pay his debts... Deciding to enter the house, von Koren holds out his hand to Laevsky. He has not changed his beliefs, but admits that he was wrong about his former adversary. Nobody knows the real truth, he says. Yes, no one knows the truth, agrees Laevsky.

He watches how the boat with von Koren overcomes the waves, and thinks: it's the same in life ... In search of the truth, people take two steps forward, one step back ... And who knows? Perhaps they will swim to the real truth ...

Jumper's Story (1891, publ. 1892)

Osip Ivanovich Dymov, a titular adviser and doctor for thirty-one years, serves in two hospitals at the same time: an intern and a dissector. From nine o'clock in the morning until noon he receives patients, then he goes to dissect corpses. But his income is barely enough to cover the expenses of his wife - Olga Ivanovna, twenty-two years old, obsessed with talents and celebrities in the artistic and artistic environment, whom she receives daily in the house. Passion for people of art is fueled by the fact that she herself sings a little, sculpts, draws and, according to her friends, has an underdeveloped talent in everything at once. Among the guests of the house, the landscape painter and animal painter Ryabovsky stands out - "a fair-haired young man, about twenty-five, who had success at exhibitions and sold his last painting for five hundred rubles" (which is equal to the annual income from Dymov's private practice).

Dymov loves his wife. They met when he treated her father, on duty at night near him. She loves him too. There is "something" in Dymovo, she tells her friends: "How much self-sacrifice, sincere participation!" "... there is something strong, powerful, bearish in him," she tells the guests, as if explaining why she, an artistic nature, married such a "very ordinary and unremarkable person." Dymov (she does not call her husband except by his last name, often adding: "Let me shake your honest hand!" - which betrays an echo of Turgenev's "emancipe" in her) finds herself in the position of either a husband or a servant. That's what she calls him: "My dear maître d'!" Dymov prepares snacks, rushes to get clothes for his wife, who spends the summer at the dacha with friends. One scene is the height of Dymov's male humiliation: having arrived at his wife's dacha after a hard day and brought snacks with him, dreaming of having dinner and rest, he immediately sets off by train back at night, because Olga intends to take part in the telegrapher's wedding the next day and not can do without a decent hat, dress, flowers, gloves.

Olga Ivanovna, together with the artists, spends the rest of the summer on the Volga. Dymov remains to work and send money to his wife. On the ship, Ryabovsky confesses his love to Olga, she becomes his mistress. He tries not to think about Dymov. "Indeed: what is Dymov? why Dymov? what does she care about Dymov?" But soon Olga bored Ryabovsky; he gladly sends her to her husband when she gets bored with life in the village - in a dirty hut on the banks of the Volga. Ryabovsky - Chekhov's type of "bored" artist. He is talented but lazy. Sometimes it seems to him that he has reached the limit of his creative possibilities, but sometimes he works without rest and then he creates something significant. He is able to live only by creativity, and women do not mean much to him.

Dymov meets his wife with joy. She does not dare to confess in connection with Ryabovsky. But Ryabovsky arrives, and their romance continues languidly, causing boredom in him, boredom and jealousy in her. Dymov begins to guess about the betrayal, worries, but does not show it and works more than before. One day he says that he has defended his dissertation and he may be offered a privatdocentre in general pathology. It can be seen from his face that "if Olga Ivanovna had shared his joy and triumph with him, he would have forgiven her everything <...> but she did not understand what the privatdocentura and general pathology meant, and besides, she was afraid to be late to the theater and said nothing. Dymov's colleague Korostelev appears in the house, "a little shorn man with a rumpled face"; Dymov spends all his free time with him in scientific conversations incomprehensible to his wife.

Relations with Ryabovsky come to a standstill. One day, in his workshop, Olga Ivanovna finds a woman, obviously his mistress, and decides to break up with him. At this time, the husband becomes infected with diphtheria, sucking out films from a sick boy, which he, as a doctor, is not obliged to do. Korostelev takes care of him. A local luminary, Dr. Shrek, is invited to the patient, but he cannot help: Dymov is hopeless. Olga Ivanovna finally understands the falsity and meanness of her relationship with her husband, curses the past, and prays to God for help. Korostelev tells her about Dymov's death, cries, accuses Olga Ivanovna of having killed her husband. A great scientist could grow up from him, but the lack of time and home peace did not allow him to become what he rightfully should be. Olga Ivanovna understands that she was the cause of her husband's death, forcing him to engage in private practice and provide her with an idle life. She understands that in the pursuit of celebrities "missed" a true talent. She runs to Dymov's body, cries, calls him, realizing that she was late.

The story ends with Korostelev's simple words, emphasizing the senselessness of the situation: "But what is there to ask? You go to the church gatehouse and ask where the almshouses live. They will wash the body and clean it - they will do everything that is needed."

Chamber No. 6 Tale (1892)

Ward No. 6 for the mentally ill is located in a small hospital wing in a county town. There "it stinks of sour cabbage, wick, bugs and ammonia, and this stink at first gives you the impression that you are entering a menagerie." There are five people in the room. The first is "a thin tradesman with a shiny red mustache and tear-stained eyes." He, apparently, is ill with consumption and is sad and sighs all day long. The second is Moiseyka, a merry little fool who "got crazy about twenty years ago, when his hat workshop burned down." He alone is allowed to leave the ward and go to the city to beg, but everything that he brings is taken away by the watchman Nikita (he is one of those people who adore order in everything, and therefore beats the sick mercilessly). Moiseika loves to serve everyone. In this he imitates the third inhabitant, the only one "of the noble" - the former bailiff Ivan Dmitrievich Gromov. He is from the family of a wealthy official, who from a certain moment began to be haunted by misfortunes. First, the eldest son, Sergei, died. Then he himself was put on trial for forgery and embezzlement, and soon died in the prison hospital. The youngest son Ivan was left with his mother without funds. He studied hard and got a job. But suddenly he turned out to be sick with persecution mania and ended up in ward No. 6. The fourth occupant is "a fat, almost round man with a dull, completely senseless face." He seems to have lost the ability to think and feel; he doesn't react even when Nikita beats him brutally. The fifth and final occupant is "a thin blond man with a kind but somewhat sly face". He has delusions of grandeur, but of a strange quality. From time to time he tells his neighbors that he has received a "Stanislav of the second degree with a star" or some very rare order like the Swedish "Polar Star", but he speaks about it modestly, as if surprised himself.

After describing the patients, the author introduces us to Dr. Andrey Efimych Ragin. In his early youth, he dreamed of being a priest, but his father, a doctor of medicine and a surgeon, forced him to become a physician. His appearance is "heavy, rude, muzhik", but his manners are soft, insinuating, and his voice is thin. When he took office, the "charitable institution" was in a terrible state. Terrible poverty, unsanitary conditions. Ragin was indifferent to this. He is a smart and honest person, but he does not have the will and faith in his right to change life for the better. At first he worked very hard, but soon got bored and realized that in such conditions it was pointless to treat patients. "Besides, why prevent people from dying, if death is the normal and legal end of everyone?" From these arguments, Ragin abandoned his affairs and began to go to the hospital not every day. He developed his own way of life. After a little work, more for show, he goes home and reads. Every half an hour he drinks a glass of vodka and eats a pickled cucumber or a pickled apple. Then he has lunch and drinks beer. By evening, the postmaster Mikhail Averyanych, a former rich but ruined landowner, usually comes. He respects the doctor, and despises other townsfolk. The doctor and the postmaster have meaningless conversations and complain about their fate. When the guest leaves, Ragin continues to read. He reads everything, giving half of his salary for books, but loves philosophy and history most of all. Reading makes him happy.

Once Ragin decided to visit Ward No. 6. There he met Gromov, talked with him and soon became involved in these conversations, often visited Gromov and found strange pleasure in talking with him. They are arguing. The doctor takes the position of the Greek Stoics and preaches contempt for life's suffering, while Gromov dreams of ending suffering, calling the doctor's philosophy laziness and "sleepy madness." Nevertheless, they are drawn to each other, and this does not go unnoticed by the rest. Soon the hospital begins to gossip about visits to the doctor. Then he is invited for an explanation to the city government. This also happens because he has a competitor, assistant Yevgeny Fedorych Khobotov, an envious person who dreams of taking Ragin's place. Formally, the conversation is about the improvement of the hospital, but in fact, officials are trying to find out if the doctor has gone crazy. Ragin understands this and gets angry.

On the same day, the postmaster invites him to go together to unwind in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Warsaw, and Ragin understands that this is also connected with rumors about his mental illness. Finally, he is directly offered to "rest", that is, to resign. He accepts this indifferently and goes with Mikhail Averyanych to Moscow. On the way, the postmaster bores him with his talk, greed, gluttony; he loses Ragin's money at cards, and they return home before reaching Warsaw.

At home, everyone again begins to bother Ragin with his imaginary madness. Finally, he could not stand it and drove Khobotov and the postmaster out of his apartment. He becomes ashamed and goes to apologize to the postmaster. He persuades the doctor to go to the hospital. In the end, he is placed there by cunning: Khobotov invites him to Ward No. 6, allegedly for a consultation, then allegedly leaves for a stethoscope and does not return. The doctor becomes "sick". At first, he tries to somehow get out of the ward, Nikita does not let him in, he and Gromov start a riot, and Nikita hits Ragin in the face. The doctor understands that he will never leave the room. This plunges him into a state of complete hopelessness, and soon he dies of apoplexy. Only Mikhail Averyanych and Daryushka, his former servant, were at the funeral.

The Black Monk's Story (1893, publ. 1894)

Andrey Vasilyevich Kovrin, Master, falls ill with a nerve disorder. On the advice of a doctor friend, he decides to go to the countryside. This decision coincides with an invitation to visit from her childhood friend Tanya Pesotskaya, who lives with her father, Yegor Semenych, in the Borisovka estate. April. Description of the huge crumbling house of the Pesotskys with an old park in the English style. Yegor Semenych is a passionate gardener who devoted his life to his garden and does not know to whom before his death to transfer his farm. On the night when Kovrin arrives, Yegor Semenych and Tanya sleep alternately: they watch the workers who save the trees from frost. Kovrin and Tanya go to the garden and reminisce about their childhood. It is easy to guess from the conversation that Tanya is not indifferent to Kovrin and that she is bored with her father, who does not want to know anything but the garden, and turned her into a humble assistant. Kovrin also likes Tanya, he suggests that he can seriously get carried away, but this thought rather amuses than seriously occupies him.

In the village he leads the same nervous life as in the city: he reads a lot, writes, sleeps little, smokes often and drinks wine. He is extremely impressionable. One day he tells Tanya a legend that he either heard, or read, or saw in a dream. A thousand years ago, a monk dressed in black was walking through the desert in Syria or Arabia. A few miles away, the fishermen saw another black monk, a mirage, moving across the surface of the lake. Then he was seen in Africa, in Spain, in India, even in the Far North ... Finally, he left the earth's atmosphere and now wanders in the Universe, he may be seen on Mars or on some star of the Southern Cross. The meaning of the legend is that a thousand years after the first appearance, the monk must again appear on earth, and now this time has come ... After a conversation with Tanya, Kovrin goes into the garden and suddenly sees a black monk emerging from a whirlwind from earth to sky . He flies past Kovrin; it seems to him that the monk is smiling kindly and slyly at him. Without trying to explain the strange phenomenon, Kovrin returns to the house. He is overwhelmed with joy. He sings, dances, and everyone finds that he has a special, inspired face.

In the evening of the same day Yegor Semenych comes to Kovrin's room. He starts a conversation, from which it is clear that he dreams of marrying Tanya to Kovrin .. in order to be sure of the future of his household. "If you and Tanya had a son, then I would have made a gardener out of him." Tanya and her father often quarrel. Consoling Tanya, Kovrin one day realizes that he has no closer people than she and Yegor Semenych in the whole world. Soon a black monk visits him again, and a conversation takes place between them, in which the monk admits that he exists only in Kovrin's imagination. "You are one of those few who are justly called the chosen ones of God. You serve the eternal truth." All this is very pleasant to listen to Kovrina, but he fears that he is mentally ill. To this, the monk retorts that all brilliant people are sick. "My friend, only ordinary, herd people are healthy and normal." Joyfully excited Kovrin meets Tanya and declares his love for her.

Preparations are underway for the wedding. Kovrin works hard, not noticing the hustle and bustle. He is happy. Once or twice a week he meets with a black monk and has long conversations. He was convinced of his own genius. After the wedding, Tanya and Kovrin move to the city. One night, Kovrin is again visited by a black monk, they are talking. Tanya finds her husband talking to an invisible interlocutor. She is frightened, as is Yegor Semenovich, who is visiting their house. Tanya persuades Kovrin to be treated, he agrees in fear. He realizes that he has gone mad.

Kovrin was treated and almost recovered. Together with Tanya, she spends the summer with her father-in-law in the village. Works little, does not drink wine and does not smoke. He's bored. He quarrels with Tanya and reproaches her for forcing him to be treated. "I went crazy, I had delusions of grandeur, but I was cheerful, cheerful and even happy, I was interesting and original..."

He receives an independent department. But on the day of the first lecture, he notifies by telegram that he will not read due to illness. He is bleeding from his throat. He no longer lives with Tanya, but with another woman, two years older than him - Varvara Nikolaevna, who takes care of him like a child. They go to the Crimea and stop in Sevastopol on the way. While still at home, an hour before departure, he received a letter from Tanya, but he reads it only in Sevastopol. Tanya announces the death of her father, accuses him of this death and curses him. He is seized by "anxiety, similar to fear." He clearly understands that he is mediocrity. He goes out to the balcony and sees a black monk. “Why didn’t you believe me?” he asked reproachfully, looking affectionately at Kovrin. “If you had believed me then that you were a genius, then you would have spent these two years not so sadly and meagerly.” Kovrin again believes that he is God's chosen one, a genius, not noticing that blood is coming from his throat. He calls Tanya, falls and dies: "a blissful smile froze on his face."

Literature teacher Story (1889 - 1894)

A teacher of Russian language and literature in a small provincial town, Sergei Vasilievich Nikitin, is in love with the daughter of a local landowner, Masha Shelestova, eighteen years old, who "the family has not yet lost the habit of considering small" and therefore they call her Manya and Manyusey, and when the circus visited the city, which she diligently attended, they began to call her Marie Godefroy. She is a passionate horsewoman, like her father; often with her sister and guests (mostly officers from the regiment located in the city), she goes out to ride, picking up a special horse for Nikitin, since he is an unimportant rider. Her sister Varya, twenty-three years old, is much more beautiful than Manyusya. She is smart, educated and, as it were, takes the place of her deceased mother in the house. She calls herself an old maid - which means, the author notes, "she was sure that she would marry." In the Shelestovs' house, they have views of one of the frequent guests, staff captain Polyansky, hoping that he will soon make an offer to Varya. Varya is an avid debater. Nikitin irritates her the most. She argues with him on every subject and to his objections she replies: "That's old!" or "It's flat!" This has something in common with her father, who, as usual, scolds everyone behind their backs and repeats at the same time: "This is rudeness!"

Nikitin's main torment is his youthful appearance. Nobody believes that he is twenty-six years old; His students don't respect him, and he doesn't like them himself. School is boring. He shares an apartment with a teacher of geography and history, Ippolit Ippolitich Ryzhitsky, a most boring person, "with a rude and unintelligent face, like that of a craftsman, but good-natured." Ryzhitsky constantly says platitudes: “Now it’s May, soon it will be real summer. And summer is not like winter. death, in delirium, he repeats: "The Volga flows into the Caspian Sea ... Horses eat oats and hay ..."

In love with Manya, Nikitin loves everything in the Shelestovs' house. He does not notice the vulgarity of their lives. “The only thing he didn’t like was the abundance of dogs and cats and the Egyptian pigeons, which moaned dejectedly in a large cage on the terrace,” however, here Nikitin assures himself that they moan “because they don’t know how to express their joy otherwise.” As they get to know the hero, the reader understands that Nikitin is already infected with provincial laziness. For example, one of the guests finds out that the language teacher did not read Lessing. He feels awkward and gives himself the floor to read, but forgets about it. All his thoughts are occupied by Manya. Finally, he declares his love and goes to ask for the hand of Mani from his father. The father does not mind, but "like a man" advises Nikitin to wait: "It's only the peasants who marry early, but there, you know, rudeness, and why are you? What a pleasure it is to put on shackles at such a young age?"

The wedding took place. Her description is in Nikitin's diary, written in an enthusiastic tone. Everything is fine: a young wife, their inherited house, minor household chores, etc. It would seem that the hero is happy. Life with Manya reminds him of "shepherd's idylls." But somehow, during a great post, after returning home after playing cards, he speaks with his wife and learns that Polyansky has transferred to another city. Manya thinks that he acted "badly" by not making the expected proposal to Varya, and these words strike Nikitin unpleasantly. "So," he asked, restraining himself, "if I went to your house, I certainly had to marry you?" "Of course. You yourself understand this very well."

Nikitin feels trapped. He sees that he did not decide his fate, but some dull, extraneous force determined his life. The beginning of spring contrastsly emphasizes the feeling of hopelessness that has taken possession of Nikitin. Behind the wall, Varya and Shelestov, who came to visit, are having lunch. Varya complains of a headache, and the old man goes on and on about “how unreliable young people today are and how little gentlemanliness they have.”

“This is rudeness!” he said. “So I will tell him directly: this is rudeness, gracious sovereign!”

Nikitin dreams of fleeing to Moscow and writes in his diary: "Where am I, my God?! I am surrounded by vulgarity and vulgarity ... There is nothing more terrible, more insulting, more dreary than vulgarity. Run away from here, run away today, otherwise I will go crazy!"

Seagull Comedy (1895 - 1896)

The action takes place in the estate of Peter Nikolaevich Sorin. His sister, Irina Nikolaevna Arkadina, is an actress, visiting his estate with her son, Konstantin Gavrilovich Treplev, and with Boris Alekseevich Trigorin, a novelist, quite famous, although he is not yet forty. They speak of him as a smart, simple, somewhat melancholic and very decent person. As for his literary activity, then, according to Treplev, it is "cute, talented <...> but <...> after Tolstoy or Zola you don't want to read Trigorin."

Konstantin Treplev himself is also trying to write. Considering modern theater a prejudice, he is looking for new forms of theatrical action. Those gathered in the estate are preparing to watch a play staged by the author among natural scenery. The only role to play in it should be Nina Mikhailovna Zarechnaya, a young girl, the daughter of wealthy landowners, with whom Konstantin is in love. Nina's parents are categorically against her passion for the theater, and therefore she must come to the estate secretly.

Konstantin is sure that his mother is against staging the play and, having not yet seen it, passionately hates her, since the novelist, whom she loves, may like Nina Zarechnaya. It also seems to him that his mother does not love him, because his age - and he is twenty-five years old - reminds her of his own years. In addition, Konstantin is haunted by the fact that his mother is a famous actress. He thinks that since he, like his father, is now deceased, a Kiev bourgeois, he is tolerated in the company of famous artists and writers only because of his mother. He also suffers because his mother lives openly with Trigorin and her name constantly appears on the pages of newspapers, that she is stingy, superstitious and jealous of someone else's success.

While waiting for Zarechnaya, he tells his uncle about all this. Sorin himself loves the theater and writers very much and admits to Treplev that he himself once wanted to become a writer, but it did not work out. Instead, he served twenty-eight years in the judiciary.

Among those waiting for the performance are also Ilya Afanasyevich Shamraev, a retired lieutenant, Sorin's manager; his wife - Polina Andreevna and his daughter Masha; Evgeny Sergeevich Dorn, doctor; Semen Semenovich Medvedenko, teacher. Medvedenko is unrequitedly in love with Masha, but Masha does not reciprocate, not only because they are different people and do not understand each other. Masha loves Konstantin Treplev.

Finally Zarechnaya arrives. She managed to escape from the house only for half an hour, and therefore everyone hastily begins to gather in the garden. There are no scenery on the stage: only the curtain, the first stage and the second stage. But there is a magnificent view of the lake. The full moon is above the horizon and is reflected in the water. Nina Zarechnaya, all in white, sitting on a large stone, reads a text in the spirit of decadent literature, which Arkadina immediately notes. Throughout the reading, the audience is constantly talking, despite Treplev's remarks. Soon he gets tired of it, and he, having lost his temper, stops the performance and leaves. Masha hurries after him to find him and calm him down. Meanwhile, Arkadina introduces Trigorin to Nina, and after a short conversation, Nina leaves for home.

Nobody liked the play except Masha and Dorn. He wants to say more nice things to Treplev, which he does. Masha confesses to Dorn that she loves Treplev and asks for advice, but Dorn cannot advise her.

Several days pass. The action shifts to the croquet court. The father and stepmother of Nina Zarechnaya left for Tver for three days, and this gave her the opportunity to come to the estate of Sorina, Arkadina and Polina Andreevna are going to the city, but Shamraev refuses to provide them with horses, citing the fact that all the horses in the field are harvesting rye. There is a small quarrel, Arkadina almost leaves for Moscow. On the way to the house, Polina Andreevna almost confesses her love to Dorn. Their meeting with Nina at the very house makes it clear to her that Dorn does not love her, but Zarechnaya.

Nina walks around the garden and is surprised that the life of famous actors and writers is exactly the same as the life of ordinary people, with their everyday quarrels, skirmishes, tears and joys, with their troubles. Treplev brings her a dead seagull and compares this bird with himself. Nina tells him that she almost ceased to understand him, since he began to express his thoughts and feelings with symbols. Konstantin tries to explain himself, but, seeing Trigorin appearing, he quickly leaves.

Nina and Trigorin remain alone. Trigorin is constantly writing down something in his notebook. Nina admires the world in which, according to her, Trigorin and Arkadina live, she admires enthusiastically and believes that their life is filled with happiness and miracles. Trigorin, on the contrary, paints his life as a painful existence. Seeing a seagull killed by Treplev, Trigorin writes a new story in a book for a short story about a young girl who looks like a seagull. "A man came by chance, saw her, and from nothing to do, destroyed her."

A week passes. In the dining room of Sorin's house, Masha confesses to Trigorin that she loves Treplev and, in order to tear this love out of her heart, marries Medvedenko, although she does not love him. Trigorin is going to leave for Moscow with Arkadina. Irina Nikolaevna is leaving because of her son, who shot himself and is now going to challenge Trigorin to a duel. Nina Zarechnaya is also planning to leave, as she dreams of becoming an actress. She comes to say goodbye (primarily to Trigorin). Nina gives him a medallion containing lines from his book. Having opened the book in the right place, he reads: “If you ever need my life, then come and take it.” Trigorin wants to follow Nina, because it seems to him that this is the very feeling that he has been looking for all his life. Having learned about this, Irina Arkadina begs on her knees not to leave her. However, having agreed verbally, Trigorin agrees with Nina about a secret meeting on the way to Moscow.

Two years pass. Sorin is already sixty-two years old, he is very sick, but also full of a thirst for life. Medvedenko and Masha are married, they have a child, but there is no happiness in their marriage. Both her husband and child are disgusting to Masha, and Medvedenko himself suffers greatly from this.

Treplev tells Dorn, who is interested in Nina Zarechnaya, her fate. She ran away from home and made friends with Trigorin. They had a child, but soon died. Trigorin had already fallen out of love with her and again returned to Arkadina. On stage, Nina seemed to be getting even worse. She played a lot, but very "rudely, tastelessly, with howls." She wrote letters to Treplev, but never complained. She signed the letters Chaika. Her parents do not want to know her and do not let her even close to the house. Now she is in the city. And she promised to come. Treplev is sure that he will not come.

However, he is wrong. Nina appears quite unexpectedly. Konstantin once again confesses his love and fidelity to her. He is ready to forgive her everything and devote his whole life to her. Nina does not accept his sacrifices. She still loves Trigorin, which Treplev admits to. She leaves for the provinces to play in the theater and invites Treplev to look at her acting when she becomes a great actress.

Treplev, after her departure, tears up all his manuscripts and throws them under the table, then goes into the next room. Arkadina, Trigorin, Dorn and others gather in the room he left. They are going to play and sing. A shot is fired. Dorn, saying that it was obviously his test tube that burst, leaves to the noise. Returning, he takes Trigorin aside and asks him to take Irina Nikolaevna somewhere, because her son, Konstantin Gavrilovich, shot himself.

Mezzanine House An Artist's Story (1896)

The narrator (the narration is in the first person) recalls how six or seven years ago he lived on the estate of Belokurov in one of the districts of the T-th province. The owner "was up very early, walked around in a coat, drank beer in the evenings and kept complaining to me that he did not find sympathy anywhere and in anyone." The narrator is an artist, but in the summer he became so lazy that he wrote almost nothing. "Sometimes I left the house and wandered somewhere until late in the evening." So he wandered into an unfamiliar estate. Near the gate stood two girls: one "older, thin, pale, very beautiful" and the second - "young - she was seventeen or eighteen years old, no more - also thin and pale, with a big mouth and big eyes." For some reason, both faces looked familiar. He came back feeling like he had a good dream.

Soon a carriage appeared in Belokurov's estate, in which one of the girls, the eldest, was sitting. She came with a signature sheet to ask for money for the fire victims. Having signed in the list, the narrator was invited to visit, in the words of the girl, "how the admirers of his talent live." Belokurov said that her name is Lydia Volchaninova, she lives in the village of Shelkovka with her mother and sister. Her father once occupied a prominent position in Moscow and died in the rank of Privy Councilor. Despite good means, the Volchaninovs lived in the country without a break, Lida worked as a teacher, receiving twenty-five rubles a month.

On one of the holidays they went to the Volchaninovs. Mother and daughters were at home. "Mother, Ekaterina Pavlovna, once, apparently, beautiful, now damp beyond her years, sick with shortness of breath, sad, absent-minded, tried to keep me talking about painting." Lida told Belokurov that the chairman of the council, Balagan, "distributed all the posts in the county to his nephews and sons-in-law and does what he wants." "Young people should make a strong party out of themselves," she said, "but you see what kind of youth we have. Shame on you, Pyotr Petrovich!" The younger sister Zhenya (Miss, because in childhood she called that "Miss", her governess) seemed like a child. During dinner, Belokurov, gesticulating, knocked over a gravy boat with his sleeve, but no one except the narrator seemed to notice this. When they returned, Belokurov said: “A good upbringing is not that you don’t spill sauce on the tablecloth, but that you don’t notice if someone else does it. <...> Yes, a wonderful, intelligent family. .."

The narrator began to visit the Volchaninovs. He liked Misya, she also sympathized with him. "We walked together, picked cherries for jam, rode in a boat <...> Or I wrote a sketch, and she stood nearby and looked with admiration." He was especially attracted by the fact that in the eyes of a young provincial woman he looked like a talented artist, a famous person. Linda disliked him. She despised idleness and considered herself a laboring person. She did not like his landscapes because they did not show the needs of the people. In turn, Lida did not like him. Once he started a dispute with her and said that her charitable work with the peasants was not only not beneficial, but also harmful. “You come to their aid with hospitals and schools, but by doing so you do not free them from their fetters, but, on the contrary, enslave them even more, because by introducing new prejudices into their lives, you increase the number of their needs, not to mention the fact that what kind of books they should pay the zemstvo and, therefore, bend their backs more strongly. Lidin's authority was indisputable. Mother and sister respected, but also feared her, who took over the "male" leadership of the family.

Finally, the narrator confessed his love to Zhenya in the evening, when she accompanied him to the gates of the estate. She answered him in kind, but immediately ran to tell her mother and sister everything. "We have no secrets from each other ..." When he came to the Volchaninovs the next day, Lida dryly announced that Ekaterina Pavlovna and Zhenya had gone to her aunt's in the Penza province, then, probably, to go abroad. On the way back, a boy caught up with him with a note from Misyu: “I told my sister everything, and she demands that I part with you ... I was unable to upset her with my disobedience. God will give you happiness, forgive me. If you knew how my mother and I weep bitterly!" He never saw the Volchaninovs again. Once, on the way to the Crimea, he met Belokurov in the carriage, and he said that Lida still lives in Shelkovka and teaches children. She managed to rally a "strong party" of young people around her, and at the last zemstvo elections they "rolled" Balagin. "About Zhenya, Belokurov only said that she did not live at home and was unknown where." Gradually, the narrator begins to forget about the "house with a mezzanine", about the Volchaninovs, and only in moments of loneliness does he remember them and: "... little by little, for some reason, it begins to seem to me that they also remember me, they are waiting for me and that we I'll see you... I'm sorry, where are you?"

In the ravine A Tale (1899, publ. 1900)

The village of Ukleevo is known for the fact that “at the wake of the manufacturer Kostyukov, the old deacon saw grainy caviar among the snacks and began to eat it greedily; they pushed him, pulled his sleeve, but he seemed to be stiff with pleasure: he did not feel anything and only ate. and there were four pounds in the jar." Since then, they said about the village: "This is the same place where the deacon ate all the caviar at the funeral." There are four factories in the village - three cotton and one leather, which employ about four hundred workers. The tannery infected the river and the meadow, the peasant cattle suffered from diseases, and the factory was ordered to close, but it works in secret, and the bailiff and the county doctor receive bribes for this.

There are two "decent houses" in the village; Grigory Petrovich Tsybukin, a tradesman, lives in one. For the sake of appearance, he keeps a grocery store, and earns on the sale of vodka, cattle, grain, stolen goods and "whatever he needs." He buys wood, gives money at interest, "in general, the old man ... resourceful." Two sons: the eldest Anisim serves in the city in the detective department; the younger Stepan helps his father, but there is little help from him - he is in poor health and deaf. Help comes from his wife Aksinya, a beautiful and slender woman who keeps pace everywhere and in everything: “old Tsybukin looked at her cheerfully, his eyes lit up, and at that time he regretted that it was not her eldest son who was married to her, but her younger, deaf who obviously knows little about female beauty."

Tsybukin widows, "but a year after the wedding of his son, he could not stand it and got married himself." With a bride named Varvara Nikolaevna, he was lucky. She is a prominent, beautiful and very religious woman. Helps the poor, pilgrims. One day Stepan noticed that she took two octopuses of tea from the shop without asking, and reported to his father. The old man did not get angry and, in front of everyone, told Varvara that she could take whatever she wanted. In his eyes, his wife, as it were, atones for his sins, although Tsybukin himself is not religious, does not like beggars and angrily shouts at them: "God forbid!"

Anisim is rarely at home, but often sends gifts and letters with such phrases, for example: "Dear father and mother, I am sending you a pound of flower tea to satisfy your physical need." His character combines ignorance, rudeness, cynicism and sentimentality, the desire to appear educated. Tsybukin adores the elder, is proud that he "went on the scientific side." Varvara does not like that Anisim is unmarried, although he is in his twenty-eighth year. She sees this as a disorder, a violation of the correct, as she understands it, course of things. Anisima decide to marry. He agrees calmly and without enthusiasm; however, he seems to be pleased that a beautiful bride has been found for him. He himself is unprepossessing, but he says: "Well, yes, I'm not crooked either. Our Tsybukin family, I must say, are all beautiful." The bride's name is Lipa. A very poor girl, for whom to enter the Tsybukins' house, from any point of view, is a gift of fate, for they take her without a dowry.

She is terribly afraid and at the shows she looks as if she wanted to say: “Do with me what you want: I believe you.” Her mother Praskovya is even more timid and answers everyone: “What are you, have mercy, sir... You have a lot of satisfied, sir."

Anisim arrives three days before the wedding and brings everyone as a gift silver rubles and fifty dollars, the main charm of which is that all the coins are brand new. On the way he obviously drank and with an air of importance tells how at some commemoration he drank grape wine and ate sauce, and dinner cost two and a half a person. "Which men are our countrymen, and for them, too, two and a half. They didn't eat anything. Somehow the man understands the sauce!" Old Tsybukin does not believe that dinner can cost so much, and looks adoringly at his son.

Detailed description of the wedding. They eat and drink a lot of bad wine and disgusting English bitters, made from “I don't know what”. Anisim quickly gets drunk and boasts of a city friend named Samorodov, calling him "a special person." He boasts that by appearance he can recognize any thief. A woman screams in the yard: "Our blood sucked, Herods, there is no death for you!" Noise, mess. Drunk Anisim is pushed into the room where Lipa is being undressed, and the door is locked. Five days later, Anisim leaves for the city. He speaks with Varvara, and she complains that they do not live like a god, that everything is built on deceit. Anisim replies: "Who is assigned to what, mother <...> After all, there is no God anyway, mother. Why take it apart!" He says that everyone steals and does not believe in God: the foreman, and the clerk, and the sexton. “And if they go to church and observe fasts, it’s so that people don’t speak badly about them, and in case that, perhaps, there really will be a Last Judgment.” Saying goodbye, Anisim says that Samorodov has implicated him in some dark business: "I will be rich or perish." At the station, Tsybukin asks his son to stay "at home, in business", but he refuses.

It turns out that Anisim's coins are counterfeit. He did them with Samorodov and is now going on trial. This shocks the old man. He mixed the fake coins with the real ones, he can't tell them apart. And although he himself cheated all his life, making counterfeit money does not fit into his consciousness and gradually drives him crazy. The son is condemned to hard labor, despite the efforts of the old man. Aksinya begins to run everything in the house. She hates Lipa and the child she gave birth to, realizing that in the future the main inheritance will go to them. In front of Lipa, she scalds the baby with boiling water, and he, after a short torment, dies. Lipa runs away from home and meets strangers along the way; one of them says in consolation: "Life is long, there will be both good and bad, everything will be. Great Mother Russia!" When Lipa comes home, the old man says to her: “Oh, Lipa ... your granddaughter didn’t save you ...” She turns out to be guilty, not Aksinya, whom the old man is afraid of. Lipa goes to her mother. Aksinya finally becomes the head of the house, although formally the old man is considered the owner. She enters into a share with the Khrymin merchant brothers - together they open a tavern at the station, turn frauds, walk, have fun. Stepan is given a gold watch. Old Tsybukin sinks so much that he does not remember food, he does not eat anything for days when they forget to feed him. In the evenings, he stands on the street with the peasants, listens to their conversations - and one day, following them, he meets Lipa and Praskovya. They bow to him, but he is silent, tears trembling in his eyes. It looks like he hasn't eaten in a long time. Lipa gives him a porridge pie. "He took it and began to eat <...> Lipa and Praskovya went on and crossed themselves for a long time."

Three Sisters Drama (1901)

The action takes place in a provincial town, in the house of the Prozorovs.

Irina, the youngest of the three Prozorov sisters, is twenty years old. "It's sunny and cheerful outside," and a table is laid in the hall, guests are waiting - officers of the artillery battery stationed in the city and its new commander, Lieutenant Colonel Vershinin. Everyone is full of joyful expectations and hopes. Irina: “I don’t know why my soul is so light! .. It’s like I’m on sails, there is a wide blue sky above me and big white birds are flying around.” The Prozorovs are scheduled to move to Moscow in the fall. The sisters have no doubt that their brother Andrei will go to university and eventually become a professor. Kulygin, the teacher of the gymnasium, the husband of one of the sisters, Masha, is benevolent. Chebutykin, a military doctor who once madly loved the late mother of the Prozorovs, lends himself to the general joyful mood. "My bird is white," he kisses Irina touched. Lieutenant Baron Tuzenbach enthusiastically speaks about the future: "The time has come <...> a healthy, strong storm is being prepared, which <...> will blow away laziness, indifference, prejudice to work, rotten boredom from our society." Vershinin is just as optimistic. With his appearance, Masha's "merehlyundia" passes. The atmosphere of unconstrained cheerfulness is not disturbed by the appearance of Natasha, although she herself is terribly embarrassed by a large society. Andrei proposes to her: "Oh, youth, wonderful, beautiful youth! <...> I feel so good, my soul is full of love, delight ... My dear, good, pure, be my wife!"

But already in the second act, major notes are replaced by minor ones. Andrey does not find a place for himself out of boredom. He, who dreamed of a professorship in Moscow, is not at all attracted by the position of secretary of the zemstvo council, and in the city he feels "alien and lonely." Masha is finally disappointed in her husband, who once seemed to her "terribly learned, smart and important", and among his fellow teachers she simply suffers. Irina is not satisfied with her work on the telegraph: “What I wanted so much, what I dreamed about, that’s what it doesn’t have. Work without poetry, without thoughts ...” Olga returns from the gymnasium tired, with a headache. Not in the spirit of Vershinin. He still continues to assure that "everything on earth must change little by little," but then he adds: "And how I would like to prove to you that there is no happiness, should not be and will not be for us ... We must only to work and work..." In Chebutykin's puns, with which he amuses those around him, hidden pain breaks through: "No matter how you philosophize, loneliness is a terrible thing..."

Natasha, gradually taking over the whole house, escorts the guests who were waiting for the mummers. "Philistine!" - Masha says to Irina in her hearts.

Three years have passed. If the first act was played out at noon, and it was “sunny, cheerful” outside, then the remarks for the third act “warn” about completely different - gloomy, sad - events: “Behind the scenes, the alarm is sounded on the occasion of a fire that started a long time ago. open door you can see the window, red from the glow. The Prozorovs' house is full of people fleeing the fire.

Irina sobs: "Where? Where has everything gone? <...> and life is leaving and will never return, we will never, never go to Moscow ... I am in despair, I am in despair!" Masha thinks in alarm: "Somehow we will live our lives, what will become of us?" Andrey cries: "When I got married, I thought that we would be happy ... everyone is happy ... But my God ..." Tuzenbach, perhaps even more disappointed: "What was I like then (three years ago. - In B.) I dreamed of a happy life! Where is it? In a drinking bout Chebutykin: “My head is empty, my soul is cold. Maybe I’m not a person, but I just pretend that I have arms and legs ... and a head; maybe I don’t exist at all, but it only seems to me that I walk, eat, sleep. (Crying.)". And the more stubbornly Kulagin repeats: "I am satisfied, I am satisfied, I am satisfied," the more obvious it becomes that everyone is broken, unhappy.

And finally, the last action. Autumn is coming. Masha, walking along the alley, looks up: "And migratory birds are already flying ..." The artillery brigade leaves the city: it is being transferred to another place, either to Poland, or to Chita. The officers come to say goodbye to the Prozorovs. Fedotik, taking a photo for memory, remarks: "... silence and calm will come in the city." Tuzenbach adds: "And terrible boredom." Andrey speaks out even more categorically: "The city will become empty. It is as if they will cover it with a cap."

Masha breaks up with Vershinin, whom she fell in love with so passionately: "Unsuccessful life ... I don't need anything now ..." Olga, becoming the head of the gymnasium, understands: "It means not to be in Moscow." Irina decided - "if I am not destined to be in Moscow, then so be it" - to accept the offer of Tuzenbach, who retired: "The baron and I are getting married tomorrow, tomorrow we are leaving for a brick one, and the day after tomorrow I am already at school, a new life.<...> And all of a sudden, it was as if wings had grown in my soul, I cheered up, it became much easier and again I wanted to work, work ... " Chebutykin in emotion: "Fly, my dears, fly with God!"

He also blesses Andrey for the “flight” in his own way: “You know, put on a hat, pick up a stick and go away ... go away and go, go without looking back. And the farther you go, the better.”

But even the most modest hopes of the heroes of the play are not destined to come true. Solyony, in love with Irina, provokes a quarrel with the baron and kills him in a duel. The broken Andrei does not have enough strength to follow Chebutykin's advice and pick up the "staff": "Why do we, having barely begun to live, become boring, gray, uninteresting, lazy, indifferent, useless, unhappy? .."

The battery leaves the city. Sounds like a military march. Olga: "Music plays so cheerfully, cheerfully, and I want to live! <...> and, it seems, a little more, and we will find out why we live, why we suffer ... If only we knew! (Music plays quieter and quieter .) If only to know, if only to know!" (Curtain.)

The heroes of the play are not free migratory birds, they are imprisoned in a strong social "cage", and the personal destinies of everyone who has fallen into it are subject to the laws by which the whole country lives, which is experiencing general trouble. Not "who", but "what?" dominates man. This main culprit of misfortunes and failures in the play has several names - "vulgarity", "baseness", "sinful life" ... The face of this "vulgarity" looks especially visible and unsightly in Andrey's thoughts: "Our city has existed for two hundred years, in it has a hundred thousand inhabitants, and not a single one that would not be like the others ... <...> They only eat, drink, sleep, then die ... others will be born, and they also eat, drink, sleep, and, so as not to become stupefied with boredom, diversify their lives with nasty gossip, vodka, cards, litigation ... "

The Cherry Orchard Comedy (1904)

The estate of the landowner Lyubov Andreevna Ranevskaya. Spring, cherry trees bloom. But the beautiful garden is soon to be sold for debts. For the past five years, Ranevskaya and her seventeen-year-old daughter Anya have lived abroad. Ranevskaya's brother Leonid Andreevich Gaev and her adopted daughter, twenty-four-year-old Varya, remained on the estate. Ranevskaya's affairs are bad, there are almost no funds left. Lyubov Andreevna always littered with money. Her husband died six years ago from alcoholism. Ranevskaya fell in love with another person, got along with him. But soon her little son Grisha died tragically by drowning in the river. Lyubov Andreevna, unable to bear her grief, fled abroad. The lover followed her. When he fell ill, Ranevskaya had to settle him in her dacha near Menton and take care of him for three years. And then, when he had to sell the dacha for debts and move to Paris, he robbed and abandoned Ranevskaya.

Gaev and Varya meet Lyubov Andreevna and Anya at the station. At home, the maid Dunyasha and the familiar merchant Yermolai Alekseevich Lopakhin are waiting for them. Lopakhin's father was a serf of the Ranevskys, he himself became rich, but he says about himself that he remained "a peasant a peasant." The clerk Epikhodov arrives, a man with whom something constantly happens and who is called "thirty-three misfortunes."

Finally, the carriages arrive. The house is filled with people, everyone is pleasantly excited. Everyone talks about their own. Lyubov Andreevna looks at the rooms and through tears of joy recalls the past. The maid Dunyasha is impatient to tell the young lady that Epikhodov proposed to her. Anya herself advises Varya to marry Lopakhin, and Varya dreams of marrying Anya off as a rich man. The governess Charlotte Ivanovna, a strange and eccentric person, boasts about her amazing dog, the neighbor landowner Simeonov-Pishik asks for a loan. He hears almost nothing and the old faithful servant Firs mutters all the time.

Lopakhin reminds Ranevskaya that the estate should soon be sold at auction, the only way out is to break the land into plots and lease them to summer residents. Lopakhin's proposal surprises Ranevskaya: how can you cut down her favorite wonderful cherry orchard! Lopakhin wants to stay longer with Ranevskaya, whom he loves "more than his own", but it's time for him to leave. Gaev delivers a welcoming speech to the hundred-year-old "respected" cabinet, but then, embarrassed, again begins to senselessly utter his favorite billiard words.

Ranevskaya did not immediately recognize Petya Trofimov: so he changed, became uglier, the “dear student” turned into an “eternal student”. Lyubov Andreevna cries, remembering her little drowned son Grisha, whose teacher was Trofimov.

Gaev, left alone with Varya, tries to talk about business. There is a rich aunt in Yaroslavl, who, however, does not like them: after all, Lyubov Andreevna did not marry a nobleman, and she did not behave "very virtuously." Gaev loves his sister, but still calls her "vicious", which causes Ani's displeasure. Gaev continues to build projects: his sister will ask Lopakhin for money, Anya will go to Yaroslavl - in a word, they will not allow the estate to be sold, Gaev even swears about it. The grouchy Firs finally takes the master, like a child, to sleep. Anya is calm and happy: her uncle will arrange everything.

Lopakhin does not cease to persuade Ranevskaya and Gaev to accept his plan. The three of them had lunch in the city and, returning, stopped in a field near the chapel. Just here, on the same bench, Epikhodov tried to explain himself to Dunyasha, but she had already preferred the young cynical footman Yasha to him. Ranevskaya and Gaev do not seem to hear Lopakhin and talk about completely different things. So without convincing "frivolous, unbusinesslike, strange" people of anything, Lopakhin wants to leave. Ranevskaya asks him to stay: "it's still more fun with him."

Anya, Varya and Petya Trofimov arrive. Ranevskaya starts talking about a "proud man." According to Trofimov, there is no point in pride: a rude, unhappy person should not admire himself, but work. Petya condemns the intelligentsia, who are incapable of work, those people who philosophize importantly, and treat peasants like animals. Lopakhin enters the conversation: he just works "from morning to evening", dealing with big capital, but he is becoming more and more convinced that there are few decent people around. Lopakhin does not finish, Ranevskaya interrupts him. In general, everyone here does not want and does not know how to listen to each other. There is silence, in which the distant, sad sound of a broken string is heard.

Soon everyone disperses. Left alone, Anya and Trofimov are happy to have the opportunity to talk together, without Varya. Trofimov convinces Anya that one must be "above love", that the main thing is freedom: "all Russia is our garden", but in order to live in the present, one must first redeem the past with suffering and labor. Happiness is near: if not they, then others will definitely see it.

Comes the twenty-second of August, the day of trading. It is on this evening, quite inopportunely, that a ball is being held in the estate, a Jewish orchestra is invited. Once upon a time generals and barons danced here, and now, as Firs complains, both the postal clerk and the head of the station "are not willing to go." Charlotte Ivanovna entertains guests with her tricks. Ranevskaya anxiously awaits the return of her brother. The Yaroslavl aunt nevertheless sent fifteen thousand, but they are not enough to buy the estate.

Petya Trofimov "reassures" Ranevskaya: it's not about the garden, it's been over for a long time, we need to face the truth. Lyubov Andreevna asks not to condemn her, to feel sorry for her: after all, without a cherry orchard, her life loses its meaning. Every day Ranevskaya receives telegrams from Paris. At first she tore them up right away, then - after reading them first, now she doesn't vomit anymore. "That wild man", whom she loves after all, begs her to come. Petya condemns Ranevskaya for her love for "a petty scoundrel, a nonentity." Angry Ranevskaya, unable to restrain herself, takes revenge on Trofimov, calling him "a funny eccentric", "a freak", "clean": "You must love yourself ... you must fall in love!" Petya tries to leave in horror, but then stays, dancing with Ranevskaya, who asked for his forgiveness.

Finally, the embarrassed, joyful Lopakhin and the tired Gaev appear, who, without saying anything, immediately goes to his room. The Cherry Orchard was sold and Lopakhin bought it. The "new landowner" is happy: he managed to outbid the rich Deriganov at the auction, giving ninety thousand in excess of the debt. Lopakhin picks up the keys thrown on the floor by the proud Varya. Let the music play, let everyone see how Yermolai Lopakhin "suffices the cherry orchard with an ax"!

Anya comforts her crying mother: the garden has been sold, but there is a whole life ahead. There will be a new garden, more luxurious than this, "quiet deep joy" awaits them ...

The house is empty. Its inhabitants, having said goodbye to each other, disperse. Lopakhin is going to Kharkov for the winter, Trofimov returns to Moscow, to the university. Lopakhin and Petya exchange barbs. Although Trofimov calls Lopakhin a "predatory beast" necessary "in the sense of metabolism," he still loves in him "a tender, subtle soul." Lopakhin offers Trofimov money for the journey. He refuses: over the "free man", "in the forefront going" to "higher happiness", no one should have power.

Ranevskaya and Gaev even cheered up after the sale of the cherry orchard. Previously, they were worried, suffering, but now they have calmed down. Ranevskaya is going to live in Paris for the time being on the money sent by her aunt. Anya is inspired: a new life begins - she will finish the gymnasium, she will work, read books, "a new wonderful world" will open before her. Simeonov-Pishchik suddenly appears out of breath and, instead of asking for money, on the contrary, distributes debts. It turned out that the British found white clay on his land.

Everyone settled down differently. Gaev says that now he is a bank servant. Lopakhin promises to find a new job for Charlotte, Varya got a job as a housekeeper to the Ragulins, Epikhodov, hired by Lopakhin, remains on the estate, Firs must be sent to the hospital. But nevertheless, Gaev sadly says: "Everyone is leaving us ... we suddenly became unnecessary."

Between Varya and Lopakhin, an explanation must finally occur. For a long time, Varya has been teased by "Madame Lopakhina." Varya likes Yermolai Alekseevich, but she herself cannot propose. Lopakhin, who also speaks well of Vara, agrees to "put an end immediately" to this matter. But when Ranevskaya arranges their meeting, Lopakhin, without deciding, leaves Varia, using the very first pretext.

"It's time to go! On the road!" - with these words, they leave the house, locking all the doors. All that remains is old Firs, whom everyone seemed to take care of, but whom they forgot to send to the hospital. Firs, sighing that Leonid Andreevich went in a coat, and not in a fur coat, lies down to rest and lies motionless. The same sound of a broken string is heard. "There is silence, and only one can hear how far in the garden they knock on wood with an ax."

Authors of the retelling: Slava Yanko, Alexandra Vladimirova

<< Back: Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy 1828-1910 (Childhood. Tale (1852). Adolescence Tale (1854). Youth Tale (1857). Cossacks. Caucasian Tale of 1852 (1853-1862, unfinished, published 1863). War and Peace Novel (1863-1869, 1- e separate edition 1867-1869).Anna Karenina Roman (1873-1877))

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