Tarantas. Travel impressions. Tale (1845)

The meeting of the Kazan landowner Vasily Ivanovich, portly, solid and middle-aged, with Ivan Vasilyevich, thin, dapper, barely arrived from abroad - this meeting, which happened on Tverskoy Boulevard, turned out to be very fruitful. Vasily Ivanovich, going back to his Kazan estate, offers Ivan Vasilyevich to take him to his father's village, which for Ivan Vasilyevich, who has spent a lot of money abroad, turns out to be most welcome. They set off in a tarantass, a quaint, clumsy, but rather comfortable structure, and Ivan Vasilyevich, assuming the study of Russia as the goal, takes with him a solid notebook, which he is going to fill with travel impressions.

Vasily Ivanovich, convinced that they are not traveling, but simply traveling from Moscow to Mordasy via Kazan, is somewhat puzzled by the enthusiastic intentions of his young fellow traveler, who, on the way to the first station, outlines his tasks, briefly touching on the past, future and present of Russia, condemns bureaucracy, yard serfs and the Russian aristocracy.

However, the station replaces the station, without endowing Ivan Vasilyevich with fresh impressions. There are no horses on each, everywhere Vasily Ivanovich revels in tea, everywhere you have to wait for hours. On the way, a couple of suitcases and several boxes with gifts for the wife of Vasily Ivanovich are cut off from dormant travelers. Saddened, tired of the shaking, they hope to rest in a decent Vladimir hotel (Ivan Vasilyevich suggests that Vladimir open his travel notes), but in Vladimir they will have a bad dinner, a room without beds, so that Vasily Ivanovich sleeps on his featherbed, and Ivan Vasilyevich on brought hay, from which an indignant cat jumps out. Suffering from fleas, Ivan Vasilyevich expounds to his comrade in misfortune his views on the organization of hotels in general and their public benefit, and also tells what kind of hotel in the Russian spirit he would dream of building, but Vasily Ivanovich does not heed, because he is sleeping.

Early in the morning, leaving the sleeping Vasily Ivanovich in the hotel, Ivan Vasilyevich goes out into the city. The asked bookseller is ready to give him "Views of the provincial city", and almost for nothing, but not Vladimir, but Tsargrad. Ivan Vasilyevich's independent acquaintance with the sights tells him little, and an unexpected meeting with an old boarding friend Fedya distracts him from thinking about true antiquity. Fedya tells the "simple and stupid story" of his life: how he went to serve in Petersburg, how, not having the habit of zeal, he could not advance in the service, and therefore soon got bored with it, how, forced to lead a life characteristic of his circle, he went bankrupt, how he yearned, got married, found that his wife's condition was even more upset, and could not leave Petersburg, because his wife was used to walking along the Nevsky, as former acquaintances began to neglect him, having sniffed out about his difficulties. He left for Moscow and from a society of vanity fell into a society of idleness, played, lost, was a witness, and then a victim of intrigues, stood up for his wife, wanted to shoot himself, and now he was expelled to Vladimir. The wife returned to her father in Petersburg. Saddened by the story, Ivan Vasilievich hurries to the hotel, where Vasily Ivanovich is already impatiently waiting for him.

At one of the stations, in his usual expectation, he ponders where to look for Russia, if there are no antiquities, there are no provincial societies, and capital life is borrowed. The owner of the inn reports that there are gypsies outside the city, and both travelers, inspired, go to the camp. The gypsies are dressed in European dirty dresses and instead of their nomadic songs they sing vaudeville Russian romances - the book of travel impressions falls out of Ivan Vasilyevich's hands. Returning, the owner of the inn, who accompanied them, tells why he once had to sit in jail - the story of his love for the wife of a private bailiff is set forth right there.

Continuing their movement, the travelers get bored, yawn and talk about literature, whose current situation does not suit Ivan Vasilyevich, and he denounces her venality, her imitation, her forgetfulness of her folk roots, and when inspired by Ivan Vasilyevich gives literature several practical and simple recipes for recovery , he finds his listener asleep. Soon, in the middle of the road, they meet a carriage with a broken spring, and in Mr. Ivan Vasilyevich, scolding with bad words, he recognizes with amazement his Parisian acquaintance, a certain prince. He, as long as Vasily Ivanovich's people are involved in the repair of his crew, announces that he is going to the village for arrears, scolds Russia, reports the latest gossip from Parisian, Roman and other lives, and promptly departs. Our travelers, thinking about the oddities of the Russian nobility, come to the conclusion that the past is wonderful abroad, and the future is in Russia - meanwhile, the tarantass is approaching Nizhny Novgorod.

Since Vasily Ivanovich, hurrying to Mordasy, will not stop here, the author takes upon himself the description of the Lower, and especially its Pechora Monastery. Vasily Ivanovich, in response to his companion’s questions about the hardships of landlord life, describes it in detail, sets out his views on peasant farming and landowner management, and at the same time shows such intelligence, diligence and truly paternal participation that Ivan Vasilyevich is filled with reverent respect for him.

Arriving in the evening of the next day in a certain provincial town, the travelers are amazed to discover a breakdown in the tarantass and, leaving it in the care of the blacksmith, go to the tavern, where, after ordering tea, they listen to the conversation of three merchants, gray-haired, black and red. A fourth appears and hands more than five thousand to a gray-haired man with a request to transfer the money to someone in Rybna, where he is going. Ivan Vasilyevich, entering into inquiries, learns with amazement that the guarantor is not a relative of the gray-haired man, he doesn’t even really know him, but meanwhile he didn’t take receipts. It turns out that, in accomplishing million-dollar deeds, merchants carry out their calculations on shreds, on the road they carry all the money with them, in their pockets. Ivan Vasilyevich, having his own idea of ​​trade, speaks of the need for science and system in this important matter, the merits of education, the importance of combining mutual efforts for the good of the fatherland. The merchants, however, do not quite comprehend the meaning of his eloquent tirade.

After parting with the merchants, the author hurries to finally acquaint the reader with Vasily Ivanovich closer and tells the story of his life: childhood spent on the dovecote, drunken father Ivan Fedorovich, who surrounded himself with fools and jesters, mother Arina Anikimovna, serious and stingy, learning from a deacon, then from home teacher, service in Kazan, acquaintance at the ball with Avdotya Petrovna, refusal of stern parents to bless this marriage, patient waiting for three years, another year of mourning for the deceased father and finally the long-awaited marriage, moving to the village, setting up a household, giving birth to children. Vasily Ivanovich eats a lot and willingly and is completely satisfied with everything: both his wife and life. Leaving Vasily Ivanovich, the author proceeds to Ivan Vasilyevich, tells about his mother, a Moscow princess, a frantic French lover who replaced Moscow with Kazan during the coming of the French. Over time, she married some dumb landowner who looked like a groundhog, and Ivan Vasilyevich was born from this marriage, who grew up under the tutelage of a completely ignorant French tutor. Remaining in complete ignorance of what is happening around him, but firmly knowing that the first poet Racine, Ivan Vasilyevich, after the death of his mother, was sent to a private St. Petersburg boarding school, where he became a rake, lost all knowledge and failed in the final exam. Ivan Vasilyevich rushed to serve, imitating his more zealous comrades, but the work begun with fervor soon bored him. He fell in love, and his chosen one, even reciprocated, suddenly married a rich freak. Ivan Vasilyevich plunged into secular life, but he got bored with it, he sought solace in the world of poetry, science seemed tempting to him, but ignorance and restlessness always turned out to be an obstacle. He went abroad, wishing to be dispersed and enlightened at the same time, and there, noticing that many were paying attention to him only because he was Russian, and that all eyes were involuntarily turned to Russia, he suddenly thought about Russia himself and hurried into it with already intention known to the reader.

Thinking about the need to find the nationality, Ivan Vasilyevich enters the village. Chrome festival in the village. He observes various pictures of drunkenness, from young women he receives the insulting nickname "licked German", having discovered a schismatic, he tries to find out what the attitude of the villagers to heresies is, and meets with complete misunderstanding. The next day, in the stationmaster's hut, Ivan Vasilyevich with disgust discovers an official who is acting as a police officer and is now waiting for the governor, who is touring the province. Vasily Ivanovich, loving new acquaintances, sits down with him for seagulls. A conversation follows, during which Ivan Vasilievich tries to convict the official of extortions and bribes, but it turns out that the time is now not that the position of the official is the most disastrous, he is old, weak. To complete the sad picture, Ivan Vasilievich discovers a paralyzed caretaker behind a curtain, surrounded by three children, the eldest performs his father's duties, and the caretaker dictates to him what to write to the traveler.

Approaching Kazan, Ivan Vasilyevich perks up a little, for he decides to write a short but expressive chronicle of Eastern Russia; his ardor, however, soon, as expected, subsides: the search for sources frightens him. He considers whether to write a statistical article or an article about the local university (and about all universities in general), or about the manuscripts in the local library, or to study the influence of the East on Russia, moral, commercial and political. At this time, the hotel room, in which Ivan Vasilyevich indulges in dreams, is filled with Tatars offering a khan's robe, turquoise, Chinese pearls and Chinese ink. Vasily Ivanovich, who soon woke up, inspects the purchases, announces the real price of each thing bought at exorbitant prices, and, to the horror of Ivan Vasilyevich, orders the tarantass to be laid. In the midst of the thickening night, moving along the bare steppe in an unchanged tarantass, Ivan Vasilyevich sees a dream. He dreams of the amazing transformation of the tarantass into a bird and the flight through some stuffy and gloomy cave filled with terrible shadows of the dead; terrible hellish visions are replaced by one another, threatening the frightened Ivan Vasilyevich. Finally, the tarantass flies out into the fresh air, and pictures of a wonderful future life open up: both transformed cities and strange flying carriages. The tarantass descends to the ground, losing its bird essence, and rushes through marvelous villages to a renewed and unrecognizable Moscow. Here Ivan Vasilievich sees the prince, recently met on the road, - he is in a Russian suit, reflects on the independent path of Russia, her choice of God and her civic duty.

Then Ivan Vasilyevich meets Fedya, his recent interlocutor in Vladimir, and leads him to his modest dwelling. There Ivan Vasilyevich sees his beautiful serene wife with two charming babies, and, touched by the soul, suddenly finds himself, and together with Vasily Ivanovich, in the mud, under an overturned tarantass.

Author of the retelling: E. V. Kharitonova

<< Back: Ivan Alexandrovich Goncharov 1812-1891 (An ordinary story. Novel (1847). Oblomov. Novel (1849-1857, published 1859). Broken. Novel (1849-1869))

>> Forward: Mikhail Yurievich Lermontov 1814-1841 (Song about Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich, the young guardsman and the daring merchant Kalashnikov. Poem (1838). Tambov Treasurer. Poem (1838). Demon. Eastern story. Poem (1829-1839, published 1860). Mtsyri. Poem (1840). Masquerade. Drama in verse (1835-1836, published 1842). Hero of our time. Novel (1839-1840))

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