The story of one city. Based on original documents, published by M. E. Saltykov (Shchedrin). Tale (1869 - 1870)

This story is the “true” chronicle of the city of Foolov, “The Foolov Chronicler,” covering the period of time from 1731 to 1825, which was “successively composed” by four Foolov archivists. In the chapter “From the Publisher,” the author especially insists on the authenticity of the “Chronicle” and invites the reader to “catch the physiognomy of the city and follow how its history reflected the various changes that were simultaneously taking place in the highest spheres.”

"Chronicler" opens with "Appeal to the reader from the last archivist-chronicler". The archivist sees the task of the chronicler in "being a depiction" of "touching correspondence" - the authorities, "daring in measure", and the people, "thankfully giving thanks". History, therefore, is the history of the reign of various city governors.

First, the prehistoric chapter “On the roots of the origin of the Foolovites” is given, which tells how the ancient people of bunglers defeated the neighboring tribes of walrus-eaters, bow-eaters, scythe-bellies, etc. But, not knowing what to do to ensure order, the bunglers went to look for a prince . They turned to more than one prince, but even the stupidest princes did not want to “deal with fools” and, having taught them with a rod, released them with honor. Then the bunglers called a thief-innovator, who helped them find the prince. The prince agreed to “lead” them, but did not go to live with them, sending a thief-innovator in his place. The prince called the bunglers themselves “fools”, hence the name of the city.

The Foolovites were a submissive people, but the novotor needed riots to pacify them. But soon he stole so much that the prince “sent a noose to the unfaithful slave.” But the novotor “and then dodged: <...> without waiting for the loop, he stabbed himself to death with a cucumber.”

The prince and other rulers sent him - Odoev, Orlov, Kalyazin - but they all turned out to be sheer thieves. Then the prince "arrived in his own person to Foolov and cried out:" I'll screw it up. "With these words, historical times began."

This is followed by "Inventory of the mayors at different times in the city of Foolov from the higher authorities appointed", after which the biographies of "the most remarkable mayors" are given in detail.

In 1762, Dementy Varlamovich Brudasty arrived in Glupov. He immediately struck the Foolovites with his sullenness and taciturnity. His only words were “I won’t tolerate it!” and “I’ll ruin you!” The city was at a loss until one day the clerk, entering with a report, saw a strange sight: the body of the mayor, as usual, was sitting at the table, but his head was lying on the table completely empty. Foolov was shocked. But then they remembered about the watchmaker and organ maker Baibakov, who secretly visited the mayor, and, calling him, they found out everything. In the head of the mayor, in one corner, there was an organ that could play two musical pieces: “I’ll ruin it!” and “I won’t tolerate it!” But on the way, the head became damp and needed repairing. Baibakov himself could not cope and turned for help to St. Petersburg, from where they promised to send a new head, but for some reason the head was delayed.

Anarchy ensued, ending with the appearance of two identical mayors at once. "The impostors met and measured each other with their eyes. The crowd slowly and in silence dispersed." A messenger immediately arrived from the province and took away both impostors. And the Foolovites, left without a mayor, immediately fell into anarchy.

The anarchy continued throughout the next week, during which six mayors changed in the city. The townsfolk rushed from Iraida Lukinichna Paleologova to Clementine de Bourbon, and from her to Amalia Karlovna Stockfish. The claims of the first were based on the short-term activities of her husband, the second - of her father, and the third - she herself was a mayor's pompadour. The claims of Nelka Lyadokhovskaya, and then Dunka the fat-footed and Matryonka the nostrils, were even less substantiated. In between hostilities, the Foolovites threw some citizens from the bell tower and drowned others. But they are also tired of anarchy. Finally, a new mayor arrived in the city - Semyon Konstantinovich Dvoekurov. His activity in Foolovo was beneficial. "He introduced mead and brewing and made the use of mustard and bay leaves obligatory," and also wanted to establish an academy in Foolov.

Under the next ruler, Peter Petrovich Ferdyshchenko, the city flourished for six years. But in the seventh year, "Ferdyshchenko was embarrassed by the demon." The mayor was inflamed with love for the coachman's wife Alenka. But Alenka refused him. Then, with the help of a series of successive measures, Alenka's husband, Mitka, was branded and sent to Siberia, and Alenka came to her senses. A drought fell upon the Foolovs through the sins of the mayor, and famine followed it. People started dying. Then came the end of Foolov's patience. First they sent a walker to Ferdyshchenko, but the walker did not return. Then they sent a petition, but this did not help either. Then they finally got to Alenka, and they threw her off the bell tower. But Ferdyshchenko did not doze off either, but wrote reports to his superiors. No bread was sent to him, but a team of soldiers arrived.

Through the next hobby of Ferdyshchenko, archer Domashka, fires came to the city. Pushkarskaya Sloboda was on fire, followed by Bolotnaya Sloboda and Scoundrel Sloboda. Ferdyshchenko again shied away, returned Domashka to the “optism” and called the team.

Ferdyshchenko's reign ended with a journey. The mayor went to the city pasture. In various places he was greeted by townspeople and had lunch waiting for him. On the third day of the journey, Ferdyshchenko died from overeating. Ferdyshchenko's successor, Vasilisk Semenovich Borodavkin, took up his post decisively. Having studied the history of Foolov, he found only one role model - Dvoekurov. But his achievements were already forgotten, and the Foolovites even stopped sowing mustard. Wartkin ordered this mistake to be corrected, and as punishment he added Provençal oil. But the Foolovites did not give in. Then Wartkin went on a military campaign to Streletskaya Sloboda. Not everything on the nine-day hike was successful. In the darkness they fought with their own. Many real soldiers were fired and replaced with tin soldiers. But Wartkin survived. Having reached the settlement and not finding anyone, he began to tear away the houses for logs. And then the settlement, and behind it the whole city, surrendered. Subsequently, there were several more wars for enlightenment. In general, the reign led to the impoverishment of the city, which finally ended under the next ruler, Negodyaev. It was in this state that Foolov found the Circassian Mikeladze.

No events were held during this period. Mikeladze stepped aside from administrative measures and dealt only with the female sex, to which he was a great hunter. The city was resting. "The visible facts were few, but the consequences are innumerable."

The Circassian was replaced by Feofilakt Irinarkhovich Benevolensky, a friend and comrade of Speransky in the seminary. He had a passion for law. But since the mayor did not have the right to issue his own laws, Benevolensky issued laws secretly, in the house of the merchant Raspopova, and scattered them around the city at night. However, he was soon dismissed for relations with Napoleon.

The next was Lieutenant Colonel Pryshch. He did not deal with business at all, but the city flourished. The harvests were huge. The fools were worried. And the secret of Pimple was revealed by the leader of the nobility. A great lover of minced meat, the leader sensed that the head of the mayor smelled of truffles and, unable to stand it, attacked and ate the stuffed head.

After that, State Councilor Ivanov arrived in the city, but “he turned out to be so small in stature that he could not accommodate anything spacious,” and died. His successor, the emigrant Viscount de Chariot, was constantly having fun and was sent abroad by order of his superiors. Upon examination, he turned out to be a girl. Finally, State Councilor Erast Andreevich Grustilov appeared in Foolov. By this time, the Foolovites had forgotten the true God and clung to idols. Under him, the city was completely mired in debauchery and laziness. Relying on their own happiness, they stopped sowing, and famine came to the city. Grustilov was busy with daily balls. But everything suddenly changed when she appeared to him. The wife of the pharmacist Pfeiffer showed Grustilov the path of good. The holy fools and the wretched, who experienced difficult days during the worship of idols, became the main people in the city. The Foolovites repented, but the fields remained empty. The Foolov elite gathered at night to read Mr. Strakhov and “admire” him, which the authorities soon found out about, and Grustilov was removed.

The last Foolov mayor, Gloomy-Burcheev, was an idiot. He set a goal - to turn Foolov into “the city of Nepreklonsk, eternally worthy of the memory of Grand Duke Svyatoslav Igorevich,” with straight identical streets, “companies,” identical houses for identical families, etc. Ugryum-Burcheev thought out the plan in detail and began to implement it. The city was destroyed to the ground, and construction could begin, but the river got in the way. It did not fit into Ugryum-Burcheev’s plans. The tireless mayor launched an attack on her. All the garbage was used, everything that was left of the city, but the river washed away all the dams. And then Gloomy-Burcheev turned around and walked away from the river, taking the Foolovites with him. A completely flat lowland was chosen for the city, and construction began. But something has changed. However, the notebooks with the details of this story have been lost, and the publisher provides only the denouement: “... the earth shook, the sun darkened <...> It came.” Without explaining what exactly, the author only reports that “the scoundrel instantly disappeared, as if he had disappeared into thin air. History stopped flowing.”

The story closes with “exculpatory documents,” that is, the writings of various mayors, such as Wartkin, Mikeladze and Benevolensky, written for the edification of other mayors.

Author of the retelling: E. S. Ostrovskaya

Gentlemen of Tashkent. Pictures of morals. Sketches (1869 - 1872)

The whole book is built on the border of an analytical, grotesque essay and a satirical narrative. So what kind of creature is this - a Tashkent citizen - and what does she yearn for? And she craves only one thing - "Eat!". Whatever it is, at the cost of whatever it is. And Tashkent is turning into a country inhabited by Tashkent residents who left Russia, as unnecessary. Tashkent is located where they beat in the teeth and where the legend of Makar, who does not drive calves, has the right to citizenship, that is, everywhere. Tashkent exists both at home and abroad, and true Tashkent is in the morals and heart of a person. And although, on the one hand, wherever you spit, we have Tashkenters everywhere, on the other hand, it is not so easy to become a Tashkenter. In most cases, a Tashkent citizen is a noble son, his education is classical, and it evaporates immediately after leaving the school bench, which does not at all prevent a Tashkent citizen from being an architect and daring, because it was not the gods who burned the pots.

Here the narrator moves on to his personal experience, recalling his upbringing in one of the military educational institutions. The basics of education boil down to the following: the country does not have its own fruits of civilization; we should only transmit them, without looking at what we are transmitting. To carry out this noble deed, the hero goes, of course, to St. Petersburg, where he gets an appointment with Pierre Nakatnikov, his former classmate, a lazy man and a blockhead who has reached famous levels. Here the basic principles of civilizing activity are clarified: the Russian police officer and the Russian cart; and most importantly, Tashkent residents receive money from the treasury for government educational needs; gets on the train and... comes to his senses either in Tula or in Ryazan province - without money, without things; doesn’t remember anything except one thing: “I drank...”.

Well, now we should at least civilize our own Russian provinces, if we cannot do this with foreign ones. To this end, to the general’s cry: “Guys! God is with us!” - in summer St. Petersburg, tormented by a flood (the Peter and Paul Fortress, the last stronghold, broke from its place and was already floating away), Tashkent prospectors gathered. The selection of those eligible was based on national and religious grounds: four hundred Russians, two hundred Germans with Russian souls, thirty-three foreigners without a soul and thirty-three Catholics who made the excuse that they did not go to any church. The sewer work begins: they scare away bobbed girls on Nevsky Prospekt; at night they break into the apartments of ill-intentioned people who have books, paper and pens, and they all live in a civil marriage. The fun is suddenly interrupted when a Tashkent citizen mistakenly flogs State Councilor Peremolov.

The author characterizes the following examples of Tashkent residents as belonging to the preparatory category. So, Olga Sergeevna Persiyanova, an interesting widow who fled to Paris, has a son, Nicolas, a pure “doll”, who is raised by his aunt and uncle with the goal of making him a noble man. As the mother is convinced, having returned home and finding her “doll” at a more or less mature age, the goal has been successfully achieved. But the young son’s credo unfolds in full on the Perkali estate, where he comes for the summer holidays and where he meets his neighbor, a little older than him, Pavel Denisych Mangushev. The young Tashkent man and his mother are already unfurling their slogans and banners: I don’t make revolutions, I don’t form conspiracies, I don’t join secret societies, leave at least the women to my share!.. Nihilists are the most empty people and even scoundrels... nowhere like this you can’t live peacefully, like in Russia, just to do nothing, and no one will touch you... In the company of a maturing Tashkent citizen, who preaches that they, the landowners, should remain at their post, they sharpen their skills, over dinner and libations, during inspection stables, and other formulations: our Russians feel more inclined towards field work, they are dirty, but behind the plow - this is charm... But the holidays are over, somehow the hated studies are completed, mummy buys a carriage, furniture, arranges an apartment - “existence nest,” from where the Tashkent cry is heard, addressed to an unknown enemy: “Now let’s fight!..”

And a new type of Tashkent citizen with the label "executioner" flies onto the stage. This person is one of the pupils of a closed educational institution for children from poor noble families, and the action takes place in the late 30s. Khlynov was nicknamed "the executioner" because, having learned that the authorities were going to expel him for unprecedented laziness, he filed a petition to appoint him to the executioner anywhere at the discretion of the provincial government. Indeed, the measure of cruelty and strength in this unfortunate stupid man is unprecedented. His fellow students tremble and are forced to share provisions with him, while the teachers, taking advantage of the fact that Khlynov himself is in awe of any superiors, bully him mercilessly. Khlynov's only friend is Golopyatov, nicknamed "Agashka". Together they stoically endure the weekly floggings, spend recreation together, sometimes mercilessly torturing each other, sometimes sharing their experience, which of the uncles is fighting; now falling into a dull stupor, now drinking vodka somewhere in a dark corner. Relatives remember Khlynov only before the start of the summer holidays, and then they take him to the estate, standing in the middle of the village of Vavilov.

In addition to the father and mother of “The Executioner,” Pyotr Matveich and Arina Timofeevna, their two teenage sons, old grandfather Matvey Nikanorych and brother Sofron Matveich, live there. The family suspects that the grandfather is hiding his money somewhere, is keeping an eye on him, but cannot track him down. Pyotr Matveich retains the reputation of a dashing police officer, but he does not know how to bring anything into the house from his raids. "Tear!" - Khlynov the old man instructs Khlynov the father. "...I know my responsibilities very well!" - Pyotr Matveich answers this. The “executioner” happily left home for an educational institution: it would be better to let strangers tyrannize than to tyrannize their own. But now he cherishes one hope - to end his hated studies and get into military service. For such freethinking and disobedience, daddy treats him like Sidorov’s goat. The execution affects everyone in the household. The “executioner” pretends that he too is dejected; in fact, he’s like water off a duck’s back. Returning to the educational institution, “The Executioner” learns that the guardian is sending “Agashka” to the regiment. For the sake of friendship, “Agashka” decides to help his friend. Together they become so rowdy that after a few weeks they are expelled. Joyful and excited, they encourage each other: “We won’t be lost!”

The Tashkent man from the following essay, apparently, is the opposite of "Executioner" and "Agashka" in everything. Misha Nagornov, the late son of State Councilor Semyon Prokofievich and his wife Anna Mikhailovna, from early childhood until his entry into an independent life, always, in everything and everywhere, pleased and consoled his parents, mentors, teachers, comrades. The more Misha grew up, the more well-behaved and understanding he became. In early childhood, he was devout, always the first student at school - and not for some reason, but simply for him it was joyful and natural. Judicial reform coincided in time with the last years of study of Mikhail Nagornov. Young people entertain themselves by presenting a court session with a jury, a prosecutor, a lawyer, and judges. Nagorny is tempted to follow the path of a lawyer, money, brilliant, artistic, although he understands that a prosecutor's career is more solid, and more reliable, from the state point of view. In addition, the father categorically demands that his son become a public prosecutor. The ease and accessibility of a career, a plentiful and satisfying jackpot - all this befuddles the heads of those who have not yet completed their studies in Tashkent. The ruble, peeping out of the pocket of a naive simpleton, prevents them from sleeping. Finally passed the last exam; future lawyers and prosecutors, who have learned the lessons of demagogy and unscrupulousness (just to snatch their fat piece), are scattered over the haystacks of St. Petersburg.

The hero of the last biography, Porfisha Velentyev, is a Tashkent citizen of the purest water, the whole logic of his upbringing and education leads him to the perfect ability to mint coins out of thin air - he is the author of a project entitled: “On the provision of collegiate adviser Porfiry Menandrov Velentyev in partnership with the Vilmanstrand first-class merchant Vasily Vonifatiev Porotoukhov for duty-free twenty-year exploitation of all forests belonging to the treasury for their inevitable destruction within twenty years.” Porfiry's father, Menander, received an excellent spiritual education, but did not become a priest, but became an educator in the family of Prince Oboldui-Shchetina-Ferlakur. Thanks to the princess, he cut his teeth, and later received a very profitable position as an official taxing distilleries. He married the second cousin of a princess from a seedy Georgian-Ossetian family of the Krikulidzev princes. Both before and after her marriage, Nina Iraklievna was engaged in speculation in the purchase and sale of peasants, giving them up as soldiers, selling recruitment receipts, and buying souls for the transport. But Porfisha Velentyev’s main teachers in acquiring life-giving skills were his mother’s imaginary relatives, Azamat and Azamat Tamerlantsev. They become so embedded in the everyday life of the home and family that it is impossible to sweep them away with any broom. The servants respect them as their own, they show Porfisha tricks with the appearance and disappearance of coins, a childish faint echo of their gambling earnings. Another shock for young Velentyev is the lessons in political economy that he receives at his educational institution. All this makes him look with contempt and contempt at the naive, in modern times, efforts of his parents. And already Menander Semyonovich Velentyev senses in his son, with his most naive ways of accumulating wealth, a reformer who will destroy the old temple, will not build a new one and will disappear.

Author of the retelling: I. A. Pisarev

Diary of a provincial in St. Petersburg. Cycle of stories (1872)

A diary? Well no! Rather, notes, notes, memoirs - or rather, physiology (a forgotten genre in which fiction is combined with journalism, sociology, psychology in order to more fully and more easily describe a certain social section). And now the hero is already on the train, rushing him from the Russian province to the Russian capital, the car is full of provincials like him, and the provincial complains that there is nowhere to hide from the province (even when the province settles in the same hotel ), ponders what the hell pulled him to migrate to St. Petersburg, because he has no concessions for the construction of railways, or other urgent matters.

However, the environment, as you know, sucks you in: everyone runs around the ministries and departments, and the hero begins to run, if not there, then at least to Eliseev’s oyster hall, to this peculiar stock exchange, where Adam’s apples, the backs of heads, caps with red bands and cockades flash, some olive personalities - either Greeks, or Jews, or Armenians - anempodists Timofeichi, administering court and business over cognac, balyk, vodka. The cycle of fussy business idleness sucks you in: everyone rushes to the theater to gawk at the visiting actress Schneider - and ours goes there too... They chew, talk idle, and everyone is depressed by the thought that there is still something that needs to be obtained, but what this something consists of - This is precisely what the hero cannot articulate. He involuntarily recalls his grandfather Matvey Ivanovich, who cheated with his life - he completely defeated the police, smashed dishes in taverns - and did not fall into misanthropy. True, the grandson realizes that he is sad because there is no one or nothing to rule over, although he does not feel sorry for serfdom, but for the fact that, despite its abolition, it still lives in our hearts.

The provincial's friend Prokop doesn't let him relax: he drags the poor fellow through all the circles and societies where projects are being written (these projects are in vogue these days, everyone writes them - one about reduction, another about expansion, another about shooting, some about waste, because everyone I want some pie). “A people without religion is like a body without a soul <...> Agriculture has been destroyed, industry is barely breathing, trade is stagnant <...> And why stand on ceremony with this vile literature? <...> Tell me where we are going Shall we go?" - Democratic circles are extremely concerned about the fate of their homeland. As for execution, it would be useful to subject the following persons to it: all those who disagree; everyone in whose behavior a lack of sincerity is noticed; all those who upset the hearts of well-meaning ordinary people with the gloomy outline of their faces; scoffers and newspapermen - and nothing more. From reception to reception, from one society of liberal-frightened people to another, until the provincial and Prokop get drunk as hell and spend the night, for mercy’s sake, in the apartment of the assistant district warden. No, apparently, there’s no escape from grandfather’s morality: the only way to protect your life from unpleasant elements is to cast aside your doubts and start hitting in the teeth again. And in a daze, the hero thinks: is it really possible that in modern progressive times, the destructive-conservative party will be replaced from the darkness by a party that will have to be called the most destructive-conservative?

So, having read the projects, mainly the works of Prokop (about the need for decentralization, about the need for deafening in the sense of temporarily lulling the senses, about the reformation of the academy), the provincial falls into a state of some especially alarming and prophetic dreams. He dreams that he is dying alone in furnished rooms, having made a million rubles from tax farming. And here the author describes how the soul of the deceased watches the looting of his property. Everything he could, from securities to cambric scarves, was stolen by his bosom friend Prokop. And in the family estate near the village of Proplevannaya, sisters Mashenka and Dashenka, nieces Fofochka and Lelechka, remembering the deceased in unctuous voices, are thinking about how to steal pieces of the inheritance from each other.

Years flashed by - and now the aged Prokop lives under the yoke of the blackmailer Gavryushka, a former licensee who saw how the master put his hand into someone else's property. A lawyer arrives, a case begins, the guardian of the law tries to snatch his legal rights from Prokop, and only because of the intractability of both, everything comes to court. Prokop wins his case, since the Russian assessors have no reason to lose theirs! That way you’ll soon be walking around the world! After such a dream, the hero wants only one thing - to run! Where? He has already fled from the provinces to the capital, there’s no way to go back...

The provincial rushes to his old friend Menander Perelestnov, who, while still at the university, wrote the essay “Homer, Man and Citizen,” translated a page from some textbook and, due to impoverishment, became a liberal and publicist with the daily literary, scientific and journalistic publication “The Oldest All-Russian Foam remover." In fact, our hero cannot be called alien to literary work: a copy of the youthful story “Malanya”, from peasant life, perfectly rewritten and superbly bound, is still kept by the provincial. The friends agreed that nowadays it is easy to breathe, life is bright, and most importantly, Perelestnov promises to introduce his comrade into the almost secret “Union of Foam Removers.” The hero gets acquainted with the Charter of the Union, established in the absence of a real business and in the form of a harmless pastime, and soon with its members themselves, mainly journalists, employees of various publications, such as the “True Russian Foam Remover”, “Mirror of the Foam Remover”, “All-Russian Foam Remover” ", where, it seems, under different pseudonyms the same person argues with himself. And so... which of these skimmers is engaged in the pedigree of Churilka; who proves that the plot of "Chizhik-Pizhik" was borrowed; who are actively working to maintain "abolition". In a word, the incompetence of skimmers in matters of life is beyond doubt; Only in literature, which is in a state of mortification, can they pass off their baby babble as answers to the questions of life and even impress someone. At the same time, literature sadly wanders along a stalled rut and mutters incoherently about what comes to hand first. The writer doesn’t want to write, the reader doesn’t want to read. And I’m glad to run, but there’s nowhere...

However, the most important event for the provincial, after immersing himself in the world of skimmers, was the hoax of the VIII International Statistical Congress, to which transatlantic friends and phony foreigners flock; the gullible Russian delegates, among whom are Kirsanov, Bersenev, Rudin, Lavretsky, Volokhov, are fed and watered, given excursions, and are going to show Moscow and the Trinity-Sergius Lavra. Meanwhile, at working sessions it becomes clear which articles and headings in Russia it is generally possible to conduct statistical research. Finally, the love of Russians to be frank with foreigners and to be liberal in front of Europeans leads to a seemingly inevitable conclusion: the entire congress turned out to be a trap to find out the political views and degree of loyalty of the gentlemen of the Russian delegates. They are recorded and obliged to appear for interrogation in a certain secret place. Now daredevils and frontiers are ready to pawn each other, and each exposes himself, just to show his trustworthiness and avoid complicity in God knows what. It all ends in the usual disgust: they extort at least some money from the defendants, promising to immediately stop the case. A sigh of universal relief... However, judging by the numerous blunders and slips, it would have been time to guess that this was a stupid, crude prank with the aim of making money.

The timid provincial sits at home and, out of great melancholy, begins to write little articles; Thus, the free press is enriched with imperishable topics: smallpox vaccination; who was Delia Tibullova? Is hemorrhoids a Russian disease? customs and customs of bats; the burial ceremony of Grand Duke Truvor - and a long series of others with subtle hints of current modernity. And again, like an obsession, a sleepy dream of a million, of his own death, of the trial of the theft Prokop, whose case, according to the cassation resolution, is decided to be examined one by one in all cities of the Russian Empire, approaches the provincial. And again the restless soul flies over the cursed land, over all the cities, in alphabetical order, everywhere observing the triumph of post-reform justice and the imposing resourcefulness of Prokop, rejoicing at the incessant ringing of bells, to which projects are easily written, and reformist ideas are happily combined with the smell of fusel and a favorable attitude to cheating. The sisters are visited in Proplevannaya by the young lawyer Alexander Khlestakov, the son of that same Ivan Alexandrovich. He repurchases the right to the entire inheritance for five thousand in cash. The soul of a provincial is transferred to St. Petersburg. Alexander Ivanovich is thinking about where to find completely reliable false witnesses to bring down Prokop? False witnesses are found, but only those who were planted by Prokop himself in order to deceive the provincial’s new relatives. His soul is again transported to the very end of the 70th century. Prokop is still in court, having triumphantly won in one hundred and twenty-five cities, giving away almost the entire stolen million. Meanwhile, the progressive changes in the kingdom-state are extraordinary: small cards have been introduced instead of passports; there is no division between military and civilian; curses, which were the beauty of the polemics of the XNUMXs, have been abolished, although literature is completely free... The hero awakens in... a mental hospital. How he got there, he doesn’t remember and doesn’t know. One consolation is that both lawyers Prokop and Menander are sitting there. This ends the year spent by the provincial in St. Petersburg.

In the yellow house, at leisure, the hero sums up everything he saw and heard, and mainly, he analyzes who these "new people" whom he met in the capital are. Then it dawns on him that the "new people" belong to the kind of mammals in which, according to the state, no virtues are supposed. People who imagine themselves to be leaders are in no way able to influence the general direction of life due to the mere fact that, being in the camp of spiritual poverty, they are vicious. There is nothing to expect from the average person either, for he is a representative of the masses, insensitive to the public interests, who are ready to give away their birthrights for free, but will never give up a single spoonful of their lentil stew. And the provincial blames himself as a newly-minted liberal, because he kept shouting at the new forms of the old outrages: faster! play it up!

So, one of the results of the provincial diary is the awareness of the emptiness of life and the impossibility of hanging out somewhere, playing an active role somewhere. And in vain the provincial intelligentsia flocks to St. Petersburg with the thought: won’t it be easier? Will it be possible to cling to the edge of some concession, then sell off your founding right, and then go abroad, to mineral waters...

Author of the retelling: I. A. Pisarev

Pompadours and pompadours. Essays (1863 - 1874)

In a brief preface, the author says that this book was written with the goal of shedding light on a very unique sphere of life activity, in which everything is so dark and uncertain that every beginning pompadour needs explanations and interpretations. Well, for example, a boss arriving at a new place should know how his and other people’s meetings and farewells are organized, how they treat subordinates, the law, the choice of a pompadour, etc. The author of the book, instead of instructions to readers, chooses the form of lengthy stories. It is they who will most likely highlight the entire range of Pompadour activities.

Leaders change quite often. It was before that they stayed in one place, because nothing was required of the boss, except to be called an administrator. Now it is required that he still "understand some essence, so that he is reliable and well-behaved from nature itself." An official, by definition, is a devoted person, he looks at all the bosses the same way, because they are all bosses. So, it is necessary to meet the chiefs with maximum cordiality, but to see them off is another matter that requires a more subtle policy. The celebration of farewell must be of exceptional devotion. “We understood,” says the person responsible for the toasts and speeches, “that the true art of governing lies not in severity, but in that complacency, which, combined with straightforwardness, draws a tribute of gratitude from the blackest and adamant hearts.”

While the new boss is liberalizing, creating a new era and all the people under his command are in agreement with him, the old administrator listens to reports from the former headphones about the new deeds of the “replaced irreplaceable” and sits down to his memoirs, on the first pages of which it is already noted that “the first word , which an experienced administrator has to address to a crowd of people who are dissatisfied with something, is a swear word." Task number two: to achieve administrative unanimity as a counteraction to the same polyphony. The average person should always be kept in strictness, influencing his vicious will in every way. “Young! If you think that this science is easy, then stop believing in it...”

Together with the pompadour, the pompadours also disappear from the horizon, although their destinies sometimes turn out to be quite comforting. Nadezhda Petrovna Blamanzhe managed to subjugate the new pompadour, and the period of her new reign was marked by useless cruelties: she expelled from the city, removed from office, and separated loved ones.

Of course, pompadour biographies develop differently. There are also those that are quite unexpected. No one ever thought that Dmitry Pavlovich Kozelkov, whom his peers called Mitenka, Kozlik, and Kozlenko, would one day begin to govern the province. His appearance immediately changes, a kind of “glossy obstruction” appears in his face. Trying to charm provincial officials, he says a lot of nonsense, but over time, everyone gets tired of his initially well-received chatter, and the seeds of doubt plant themselves in his already pompadour soul. He becomes a “brooding administrator,” which means nothing more than “confusion of thoughts.” Thoughts wander in his head, “like flies on the table in the summer. They wander and wander and fly away.” From doubt he moves to determination, a passionate desire to do something, preferably based on the law, for example, to give a flogging to a small official from the mixed race because he always walks around drunk... He is interested to know what ordinary people think about his rule people, and he, dressed in a simple dress, goes to the city square. Random passers-by and ordinary people answer him that there is no law for ordinary people, only “planida”. "The law is for those at the top." The first executors and lawbreakers are just pompadours who can easily be replaced if they no longer correspond to a certain state of affairs. And if anyone decides to be indignant or, even worse, to start fighting the law, then “snitches and informers will crawl out of all the cracks, watching the mirror surface of the administrative sea.” In this case, dozens of pompadours die.

The good old pompadour suddenly ends his administrative run causes bewilderment. "How can you, sir?" After all, there is no example of a pompadour, once withered, suddenly blooming again. Therefore, as soon as the winds of change blow, the pompadour thinks that everything he drinks and eats will happen to him “for the last time.” For the last time, honors are paid to him, services are rendered, music rings. And when a group of ex-pompadours speaks on this important topic, one remembers the former free life, sterlet ear, prices for hazel grouse and turkeys, the most curious Senate decrees. None of the pompadours assume that retribution awaits them in the future. It is in vain that they think that they can always be insolent in the interests of state; the fashion for certain jokes is ending, and only pompadours with an absolute ear for politics remove the foam. Power is a harsh thing; when the wind changes to a “different operational basis of thoughts,” no merits in the form of reports, instructions, resolutions and decrees will save. Other people will come, for whom the new way of thinking will become something like an idea acquired with mother's milk. They will become the new pompadours. '

Social development occurs quickly: from a penny bribe, ordinary people quickly move on to a thousand or ten thousand. A bribe is sometimes cast in a form that you wouldn’t even guess about, it has such an ennobled appearance. “Today, what is important in a person is not heroism and the ability to endure hardships, but complaisance, accommodatingness and readiness.” And here the pompadour starts counting pennies again. “For the sake of the opportunity to capitalize an extra coin, he is ready to get along with any internal politics, to believe in any god.” However, at the same time, be able to express the absence of any fears; be able, if a new boss has arrived, to tremble instantly and strictly. Then only you will go to the “queens”.

Well, what about an educated society at this moment? Apathy overcomes him: “There is nowhere to go, nothing to read, nothing to write about. The whole body is stricken with fatigue and dull indifference to everything that happens. It would be good to sleep, but I don’t even want to sleep.” Literature and journalism will vent the absence of their own political and public interests on Louis Philippe, Guizot and the French bourgeoisie. But here, too, shapeless general phrases sound: “A boring time, boring literature, a boring life. Before, at least “slave speeches” were heard, passionate “slave speeches”, allegorical, but understandable, now one cannot hear “slave speeches”. so that there is no movement, there is movement, but the movement is tiresome, reminiscent of jerking from side to side.

However, even against the backdrop of general stagnation and dullness, sometimes worthy people appear, such as, for example, the founder of progress, Count Sergei Vasilyevich Bystritsyn, who established a farm in Chukhlom, and then tried to do this on a Russian scale. Observing the country from a bird's eye view, he sees in it "hundreds of thousands, millions, a whole sea of ​​martyrs" and understands that it is a sin to harass them by inventing a cruel and inert internal policy." It is also clear to him that Russian "community without vodka is unthinkable." : “In our harsh climate, it is just as difficult to do without vodka as, for example, for a resident of fiery Italy to do without pasta and without the life-giving rays of the sun, and for an inhabitant of a more temperate zone, a German, to do without a glass of beer and sausage.” Bystritsyn begins a war with his family divisions and communal ownership. In the circle of friends, Bystritsyn goes even further, he dreams of a general revival, of the chicken in the soup of Henry IV, and can even whisper in his ear: “It would be nice if life were so organized that everyone gets what they need.” However, such like Bystritsyn, they work among many others, obstructing any undertakings, since the job of government officials is not to philosophize, not to confuse minds, not to create, but to monitor the integrity of what has been created, to protect what has already been done, for example, public courts and zemstvos. There is currently no arena for administrative creativity, but what about pompadours who have living energy? It needs to be placed somewhere!

In the plug-in utopian short story "The Only One" the author introduces yet another "pretty" pompadour, "the most ingenuous in the world." As an administration philosopher, he is convinced that the best administration is no administration. Officials scribble papers, but he does not want to sign them: "Why, sir?" There should be only holidays in the city, then there can be no executions, revolutions, riots: the chiefs are inactive.

The biggest difficulty for this pompadour is the choice of a pompadour, because there are no charters or regulations on this matter. Behind the scenes, it seems that a woman is required to be a high-ranking lady, but the boss has a taste for bourgeois. After a short search, he finds a white-bodied widow at the door of a tavern. For a long time he then had to explain to the quarters that it was impossible to lie in wait for the pompadour at night.

In the city during the ten years of rule, there was not a single uprising, not a single theft. The townsfolk ate their fill, the quarters too, the leader was simply choking on fat, the pompadour became wider across herself. Pompadour triumphed, the authorities did not remember him. And in his hometown, everyone had only one thing on their minds: "put a monument to him alive."

At the end of the book, the author gives the opinions of noble foreigners about pompadours. The prevailing judgment is that there is a special estate in Russia - pompadours, "violating public silence and sowing discord" (Austrian Serb Glupchich-Yadrilich). And “Yamutsky prince, whose words were recorded by his tutor Khabibula, objects to him: “Ah-ah, it’s good here in Russia: there are no people, the pompadour is pure! Ayda home reform do! I went home, the reform began. The people drove, the pompadour planted; reform finished.

With this phrase, the notes on pompadours end.

Author of the retelling: O. V. Timasheva

Well-meaning speeches. Essays (1872- 1876)

In the preface chapter "To the Reader" the author is presented as a front man shaking hands with representatives of all parties and camps. He has a lot of people he knows, but he does not look for anything from them, except for "good intentions", it would be good to understand them. Let them hate each other, but they often talk the same thing. Everyone is concerned about ways to "bridle". The outlook of the vast majority of people rests solely on this idea, although it has not been sufficiently studied and even slandered by fanatics and hypocrites. And therefore, the urgent need of modern society is liberation from liars, because the true heroes of "curbing" are not theorists at all, but simpletons. Like lunatics, these latter decide to overcome any obstacles and sometimes even perform feats without intending to perform them.

"Why is the story written?" - asks the author in the first chapter, which is a travel sketches. "Ah, if only then, gracious sovereigns, in order to ascertain what well-intentioned speeches are."

The Russian people have become weak at all levels of modern society. The peasant is weak, but the enlightened master is no better, the German overcomes him everywhere. Painfully we are simple! "But, as often happens, Russians are swindled when buying, not because they are stupid, but because it does not occur to them that in a country where there are police everywhere, fraud is possible. "Don't be a fool!" This is foul and arrogant the word "fool" directly and indirectly haunts the author, as a panegyric to the fraud that appropriates the name of the mind.

A good official-administrator, whom big bosses rely on, is distinguished by his innate conservative beliefs and combat readiness to go wherever he is sent at the first sound of the trumpet. A bureaucrat of the newest caliber is Derzhimorda, “a cleaned, smoothed, straightened joker, ready to eat his own father with porridge.” It is impossible to imagine a single Russian boss who would treat himself with irony, with reservations; this is a pompadour who is always serious or recklessly amusing. For the good administration of Russia, spies are needed. But for some reason the Russian spy is a weakling, it is said about him: “He dries his hands in water.” He never knows what he needs, and therefore listens in vain. And once you’ve overheard it, everything falls into one heap. He is ignorant, amazed at trifles and frightened by ordinary things, passing them through the crucible of his unbridled imagination.

The candid confessions of Nikolai Batishchev in letters to his mother allow you to learn that in the public service you need to be zealous, but know when to stop. Wishing to become a prosecutor, at the mere name of which criminals will tremble, Batishev, as an assistant, sincerely cooks up cases against the innocent and categorically supports all strict indictments. When he is asked to deal with the "Society for the Anticipation of the Harmony of the Future", on the lists of which there are fifteen people calling for patiently enduring the disasters of the present, Batishev attracts up to a hundred people in this case. His zeal confuses even a sophisticated general. Realizing his unfitness for the prosecutor's case, the young man, cursing fate and his "honesty", resigns. In the postscript of letters addressed to his mother, Batishchev, in parallel with the history of his administrative failure, talks about the successes of a friend who became a lawyer, a certain Erofeev, who learned how to make good money and put it into circulation.

Who are the pillars of modern society? Where are their roots, what is their origin, how is the money that they own accumulated? Here is an example, Osip Ivanovich Derunov, who kept an inn through which hundreds of people passed and passed. Derunov accumulated a considerable fortune on a hryvnia, on a five-kaltyn, which allowed him to open his own large farm, to acquire a factory. At the last meeting with him in St. Petersburg, the narrator hardly recognizes him in a fur coat trimmed with light sable fur. Assuming a proud pose of an aristocrat, he holds out two fingers in a slurred motion as a sign of greeting. Having invited a writer, who, unfortunately, is not Turgenev, he wants to please his languid, white-bodied wife, who is reclining in the living room in an expensive negligee of four "Kalegvards". Assessing the society in which he found himself, the writer imagined "an incident in the Abuzza mountains", a story quite worthy of a Russian novelist who charms a lady with his adventures. Despite the luxury and richness of the new environment, the narrator recalls with regret that Derunov, who did not take off the old-fashioned blue frock coat, which helped him convince the German merchant of his thoroughness. True, with the disappearance of the former situation that surrounded Derunov, the mystery of squeezing a penny out of a guest, partner and interlocutor also disappears. Now he brazenly lusts for robbery, and this cannot be hidden in any way.

The author, nicknamed Gambetta, that is, “an inveterate person who does not recognize anything sacred,” has to talk about women’s issues with a responsible official from his former classmates, Tebenkov, who calls himself a Westerner and a liberal. However, he is not even a liberal, but a conservative. What is dearest to him in a woman is her ignorance; he sees good intentions in it. Can a woman derive any real benefit from all kinds of permissions, permissions, knowledge? He is convinced that a woman cannot do a better job than a man. Well, if women get involved in reforms and revolutions, then all hell breaks loose. All their “virtues” shown at the family level will come out. We will have to change all ideas about virtue, about the magnificent victories of women over adultery, about maintaining family ties, about raising children. “What will happen to us, who cannot exist without pampering a woman?” The pillar of Russian liberalism, Tebenkov, is ready to make not just any decision about them, but an arbitration decision. “My system is very simple: never directly allow anything and never directly prohibit anything,” he says. From his point of view, a woman, especially a pretty one, has the privilege of being capricious, wanting diamond jewelry and furs, but should not talk about amniotic fluid and Sechenov’s theories, otherwise she will seem “ill-intentioned.”

Maria Petrovna Volovitinova has three sons: Senichka, Mitenka and Fedenka. Senichka is a general, Mitenka is a diplomat, and Fedenka does not serve, he is just "an empty little and positive erga". And only the last child-loving mother wants to leave a large inheritance, so she is annoyed by other children and relatives. She really likes the "robber" beginning in her last son, and she forgives him everything and is ready to give, to the fear and horror of the eldest son, the general, who unsuccessfully dreams of receiving at least something from her as a gift during her lifetime.

Sergei Prokaznin's correspondence with his mother Natalie de Prokaznik testifies to how perceptive women can be, how to correctly instruct their sons and positively be intelligent. Sergey Prokaznin, wandering with his regiment, in his free time from exercises, has the pleasure of falling in love, and dragging himself, and even having a third older lady, a widow, showing remarkable interest in him. A subtle observer and psychologist, the mother, not without knowledge of female nature, instructs her son in his heart politics, telling something about her French lovers. She doesn't particularly like her son's intention to "do Trrah!" and end it once and for all without much talk. The salon of a true secular woman is not an arena and not a refuge for miserable pleasures. The son’s correspondence with his mother could have continued for a very long time if it had not been stopped by a short letter from Semyon Prokaznin, in which he reports that he had read all the letters of his son, from which he learned that the son was “inclined to commit adultery”, like his mother , who fled with the Frenchman to Paris, and therefore if he wants to somehow save the location of his father, then let him return to his parental estate and begin to herd pigs.

The story of Maria Petrovna Promptova, Masha's cousin, allows us to draw a sad conclusion that the marriages of young girls with elderly slow-witted husbands do not benefit them. From smart and pretty, benevolent and interested, they turn into prudent and sleepy-patriarchal, closed to kind speeches. The stubborn observance of all the Old Testament prescriptions of the spouse, the assimilation of the passion for hoarding makes the once cheerful cousin Masha a monster, crippling the fate of his own son. The air creature has turned into a hypocrite, a hypocrite, a miser.

In search of an ideal and an opportunity to lay the foundations for a new "not careless Russian life," it would be good for fellow citizens to have a clear idea about the state, about why it is needed at all. "To the question: what is the state? Some confuse it with the fatherland, others with the law, others with the treasury, fourth, the vast majority - with the authorities." Public feelings are often absent, everyone is busy observing their own interest, their own benefit, so other suppliers can dress the Russian army in boots with cardboard soles, keep them starving and send them with an incompetent boss to where there will be no return. There is a lot of noise in conversations about serving the fatherland, but in reality patriotism turns into a gross betrayal, and those responsible for it are transferred to another job. The people are a child, kind, intelligent, but it costs nothing to deceive them, to fool them. Russia is overflowing with "well-intentioned" officials who undermine its forces and resources.

Author of the retelling: O. V. Timasheva

Mr. Golovlev. Roman (1875 - 1880)

Russia, mid-19th century. Serfdom is already on its way out. However, the Golovlev family of landowners is still quite prosperous and is increasingly expanding the boundaries of their already extensive estates. The credit for this goes entirely to the owner, Arina Petrovna Golovleva. She is an adamant, obstinate, independent woman, accustomed to the complete absence of any opposition. Arina Petrovna’s husband, Vladimir Mikhailovich Golovlev, was careless and idle from his youth, and remains so. He spends his life composing poems in the spirit of Barkov, imitating birdsong, secretly drinking and stalking courtyard girls. That is why Arina Petrovna focused her attention exclusively on economic matters. The children, for whom all the enterprises seemed to be created, were, in essence, a burden to her. There were four children: three sons and a daughter.

The eldest son Stepan Vladimirovich was known in the family as Styopka the dunce and Styopka the mischievous one. From his father he inherited an inexhaustible prankishness, from his mother the ability to quickly guess people’s weaknesses; He used these talents for mimicry and other buffoonery, for which he was mercilessly beaten by his mother. Having entered the university, he did not feel the slightest urge to work, but instead became a jester among the rich students, thanks to which, however, he did not go to hunger with the meager allowance. Having received his diploma, Stepan wandered around the departments until he completely lost faith in his bureaucratic talents. The mother “threw away a piece” to her son, which consisted of a house in Moscow, but, alas, even with this supply Styopka the dunce went broke, partly wasting the “piece”, partly losing. Having sold the house, he tried to beg either for tobacco or for money from his mother’s wealthy peasants who lived in Moscow, but he was forced to admit that he was no longer able to wander and there was only one way left for him - back to Golovlevo for free contentment. And Stepan Vladimirovich goes home - to the family court.

The daughter, Anna Vladimirovna, also did not live up to her mother's expectations: Arina Petrovna sent her to the institute in the hope of making her a free house secretary and accountant, and Annushka ran away one night with a cornet and got married. Her mother "threw out a piece" to her in the form of a stunted village and a capitalist, but two years later the young capital lived and the cornet ran away, leaving his wife with her twin daughters, Anninka and Lyubinka. Then Anna Vladimirovna died, and therefore Arina Petrovna was forced to shelter orphans. However, these unfortunate events indirectly contributed to the rounding of the Golovlev estate, reducing the number of shareholders.

The middle son, Porfiry Vladimirovich, received the nicknames of Judas and Blood-drinking from Styopka the Stupid as a child. From infancy he was extraordinarily affectionate, and also liked to tinker a little. Arina Petrovna was wary of his ingratiations, remembering how, before the birth of Porfisha, the old seer muttered: "The rooster cries, threatens the mother hen; the mother hen - cackle-tah-tah, but it will be too late!" - but she always gave the best piece to her affectionate son because of his devotion.

The younger brother, Pavel Vladimirovich, was the complete personification of a man devoid of any actions. Maybe he was kind, but he didn’t do good; Maybe he wasn’t stupid, but he didn’t do anything smart. Since childhood, he remained outwardly gloomy and apathetic, in his thoughts experiencing fantastic events unknown to anyone around him. Palenysa refused to participate in the family trial of Stepan Vladimirovich, only predicting to his son that the witch would “eat him!”; younger brother Pavel declared that his opinions would not be listened to anyway, but it is already known that the guilty Styopka will be “torn into pieces...”. In the absence of such resistance, Porfiry Vladimirovich convinced his mother to leave Styopka the dunce under supervision in Golovlev, having previously demanded from him a paper renouncing hereditary claims. So the dunce remained in his parents' house, in a dirty, dark room, on meager food (just to keep from dying), coughing over a pipe of cheap tobacco and sipping from damask. He tried to ask for boots and a sheepskin coat to be sent to him, but in vain. The outside world ceased to exist for him; no conversations, affairs, impressions, desires, except to get drunk and forget... Melancholy, disgust, hatred consumed him until they turned into a deep darkness of despair, as if the lid of a coffin had slammed shut. On a gray December morning, Stepan Vladimirovich was found dead in bed.

Ten years have passed. The abolition of serfdom, coupled with the preparations that preceded it, dealt a terrible blow to Arina Petrovna's authority. Rumors exhausted the imagination and inspired horror: what is the name of Agashka Agafya Fedorovna? How to feed a horde of former serfs - or let them out on all four sides? And how to let go if education does not allow you to give, accept, or cook for yourself? In the midst of the fuss, Vladimir Mikhailovich Golovlev died quietly and humbly, thanking God that he did not allow himself to appear before his face along with the serfs. Despondency and confusion seized Arina Petrovna, which Porfiry took advantage of with crafty, truly Judas dexterity. Arina Petrovna divided the estate, leaving only the capital for herself, with the best part allocated to Porfiry, and worse to Pavel. Arina Petrovna continued, as usual, to round up the estate (now her son), until she completely belittled her own capital and moved, offended by the ungrateful Porfish, to her youngest son, Pavel.

Pavel Vladimirovich undertook to water and feed his mother and nieces, but forbade anyone to interfere with his orders and visit him. The estate was being plundered before our eyes, and Pavel drank alone, finding solace in the fumes of drunken fantasies that provided a victorious outlet for his heavy hatred for his blood-drinking brother. This is how his mortal illness found him, without giving him time and considerations to make a will in favor of the orphans or his mother. Therefore, Pavel's estate went to the hated Porfish-Judas, and mother and nieces left for the village, once "abandoned" by Arina Petrovna's daughter; Judas escorted them affectionately, inviting them to visit in a kindred way!

However, Lyubinka and Anninka quickly grew homesick in the hopeless silence of the impoverished estate. After a few lines to please the grandmother, the young ladies left. Unable to endure the emptiness of helpless loneliness and despondent idleness, Arina Petrovna nevertheless returned to Golovlevo.

Now the family results are as follows: only the widowed owner Porfiry Vladimirovich, the mother and the sexton’s daughter Evprakseyushka (the illicit consolation of the widower) inhabit the once flourishing estate. Judushka’s son Vladimir committed suicide, despairing of receiving help from his father to feed his family; another son Peter serves as an officer. Judas does not even remember them, neither the living nor the deceased, his life is filled with an endless mass of empty deeds and words. He experiences some anxiety, anticipating the requests of his nieces or son, but at the same time he is confident that no one and nothing will get him out of this meaningless and useless pastime. And so it happened: neither the appearance of the completely despairing Peter, who had lost government money and begged his father for salvation from dishonor and death, nor the mother’s menacing “I curse!”, nor even the imminent death of the mother - nothing changed the existence of Judas. While he was busy and counting his mother’s inheritance, the twilight enveloped his consciousness more and more thickly. It had just dawned in his soul with the arrival of his niece Anninka, a living feeling seemed to appear in his usual idle talk - but Anninka left, fearing life with her uncle more than the fate of a provincial actress, and Judushka was left with only the illicit family joys with Evprakseyushka.

However, Evprakseyushka is no longer as unrequited as she was. Previously, she needed a little for peace and joy: kvass, soaked apples and in the evening to play the fool. Pregnancy illuminated Eupraxeyushka with a premonition of an attack; at the sight of Judas, she was overtaken by an unaccountable fear - and the resolution of the expectation with the birth of her son completely proved the correctness of instinctive horror; Judas sent the newborn to an orphanage, forever separating him from his mother. The evil and invincible disgust that took possession of Evprakseyushka soon degenerated into hatred of the escheated master. A war of petty quibbles, insults, and deliberate nasty things began - and only such a war could culminate in victory over Judas. For Porfiry Vladimirovich it was impossible to think that he himself would have to languish in labor instead of the usual idle talk. He completely faded away and went completely wild, while Evprakseyushka was thrilled in the fumes of carnal lust, choosing between the coachman and the clerk. But in his office he dreamed of torturing, ruining, dispossessing, sucking blood, mentally taking revenge on the living and the dead. The whole world, accessible to his meager contemplation, was at his feet...

The final reckoning for Judas came with the return of Anninka’s niece to Golovlevo: she did not come to live, but to die, coughing muffledly and pouring vodka into the terrible memory of past humiliations, of a drunken stupor with merchants and officers, of lost youth, beauty, purity, the beginnings of talent, about the suicide of sister Lyubinka, who soberly reasoned that there was even no hope of living if there was only shame, poverty and the street ahead. On dreary evenings, my uncle and niece drank and remembered Golovlev’s deaths and mutilations, for which Anninka furiously blamed Judushka. Every word of Anninka breathed with such cynical hatred that suddenly a previously unknown conscience began to awaken in Judushka. And the house, filled with drunken, prodigal, tormented ghosts, contributed to endless and fruitless mental torment. The terrible truth was revealed to Judas: he was already old, and all around he saw only indifference and hatred; Why did he lie, talk idle, oppress, hoard? The only bright point in the darkness of the future remained the thought of self-destruction - but death seduced and teased, but did not go...

Towards the end of Holy Week, in a wet March blizzard, at night Porfiry Vladimirovich decided to suddenly go to say goodbye to his mother’s grave, but not in the way they usually say goodbye, but to ask for forgiveness, fall to the ground and freeze in cries of death agony. He slipped out of the house and wandered along the road, feeling neither snow nor wind. Only the next day did the news come that the stiffened corpse of the last Golovlev gentleman had been found, Anninka was lying in a fever and had not regained consciousness, therefore the horseman carried the news to his second cousin, who had been vigilantly following everything that was happening in Golovlev since last autumn.

Author of the retelling: R. A Kharlamova

Poshekhonskaya antiquity. Life of Nikanor Zatrapezny, Poshekhonsky nobleman. Roman (1887 - 1889)

Anticipating the story of his past, Nikanor Shabby, the heir to an old Poshekhon noble family, notifies that in this work the reader will not find a continuous presentation of all the events of his life, but only a series of episodes that have a connection with each other, but at the same time represent a separate whole. .

In the wilderness of Poshekhonye, ​​Nikanor spends his childhood and young years, witnessing the very heyday of serfdom, which determined the life and way of life of a noble family. The land of this region, covered with forest and swamps, is considered provincial, so the peasants are more than rewarded for the lack of valuable land. The Zatrapezny estate has little land, but the rent from the peasants on the Malinovets estate is received regularly. The family is steadily getting richer, new lands and estates are being acquired, and property is growing.

Nikanor's mother, a hereditary merchant's wife, is much younger than her enlightened noble father, which at first incurs the displeasure of her relatives. However, the prudence and economic intelligence inherent in her lead the family to prosperity and allow other winters to be spent in Moscow or St. Petersburg. After twelve years of marriage, she has eight children who are in the care of governesses before entering the institutes and military service. The younger Nicanor, who turned out to be extraordinarily gifted, is not very lucky with teachers. Bogomaz teaches him the alphabet, and he will learn to write himself. Nikanor reads the first books on his own, almost uncontrollably, and a little later, according to the instructions for teachers, he will master the program of the junior classes of the gymnasium. It is both a chance and a miracle that he will be able to pave the way for a real education himself. According to the author of the notes, children are very easy prey for damage and distortion by any system of education and upbringing or its absence. "The wax heart of a child will accept any pedagogical undertaking without opposition." But epochs are perceived with great pain when human thought is condemned to inaction, and human knowledge is replaced by a mass of uselessness and slovenliness.

In the portrait gallery of persons encountered in the house of the Shabby, a prominent place is occupied by aunts-sisters, represented first by elderly, then by very old women. At first, the aunts are received quite cordially in the house, they prepare rooms for them, meet and treat them, but then the vindictive mother of Nikanor shows complete callousness and stinginess towards them. Old, useless women are expelled first to the mezzanine, and then they are completely removed from the yard. They once took their brother's new marriage very badly, and they have no money at all, and their estates are worthless, they are fed only out of mercy. And at the right moment, they are completely expelled from the yard to a distant wing, where they, half-starved, die one after another in a cold room.

Nikanor’s story of his father’s third sister, Anfisa, is connected with the most terrible memories of his childhood. No matter how strict his own mother was towards the peasants, who did not spare girls who “conceived at the wrong time” (marrying them off to a teenager or being too old), Anfisa Porfiryevna was even crueler and uglier, to the point of tyranny. On his first visit to his aunt, it is in her yard that he sees his peer tied with her elbows to a post, bare feet in corrosive manure, unable to defend herself from wasps and horse flies. Two old men sitting at a distance will not allow the young man to free this girl. It will only get worse for everyone. Anfisa Porfiryevna's husband and son openly mock men and beat many women and children to death. It is no coincidence that Aunt Anfisa will be strangled by her own housekeeper and the hay girls who came to the rescue. Nikanor has another aunt, Raisa Porfiryevna, nicknamed the sweet tooth for her indifference to the tasty morsel. All the rooms of her house are “appetizing in character and inspire appetizing thoughts.” All her household eat and drink from morning to evening, and at the same time become kinder. This is one of those rare houses where everyone lives at ease, both masters and servants. Everyone here loves and cherishes each other, welcomes guests and serves them many well-thought-out dishes. They go to bed in clean, comfortable and fresh rooms “on beds that do not inspire the slightest fear in terms of insects.” This is important for Nikanor, because in his home the children are forced into cramped kennels, where they are rarely cleaned, and dirt and insects are deposited not only by humans, where both the healthy and the sick sleep side by side on old felts. Discontent and constant punishments for peasants and peasant women arise naturally. Mutilation, degeneration, fear and senselessness are instilled in every way known to despots.

The non-serving local Russian nobility, among whom are the Shabby, gravitates towards Moscow, which for them is the center of everything. Players find clubs in it, revelers - taverns, devout people rejoice at the abundance of churches, noble daughters look for suitors. In order to marry Nikanor's sister, the Shabby leave for the winter in the capital, where for this purpose a furnished apartment is rented in one of the Arbat alleys. Griboedov's Moscow, known to all, in which, however, the highest Moscow circle prevails, differs little in the moral and mental sense from the Moscow represented by Nikanor.

Of course, it is easier and more pleasant to go to balls and give visits to the Shabby than to host them at home, but it is necessary to arrange a bride-to-be. The bad-looking sister Nikanora has already sat up in the girls, so, like it or not, clean the furniture, wipe the dust, create comfort, as if it’s always like that in the house. Nadine puts on fashionable dresses, she even deserves a brooch with diamonds. A grand piano is opened in the hall, notes are placed on the music stand and candles are lit, as if they had just played music. The table is set with all possible taste, laying out the dowry: teaspoons and other silver items. However, suitors are often only lovers of food and drink for free. First of all, they are in a hurry to release the decanter, it does not come to serious proposals. Sister and fall in love with something especially no one. When this happens, it immediately turns out that the chosen one of her heart is a rogue and a gambler, and even a naked falcon. In the end, the mother takes her daughter's diamonds and pearls and takes her back to the village. Poor Nadine finds her destiny only in the provinces, having married an armless mayor. However, he rakes in as much money with one hand as the other cannot rake in with two, and for this his sister regularly gives birth to his children and is known as the first lady in the province.

All these bridesmaids, balls, dinners, matchmaking are so colorful that they sink deep into Nikanor's memory. However, as follows from his notes, serfs will also leave memories of themselves, who live much worse than just serfs. The economy is run, as a rule, by managers, people who are depraved to the marrow of their bones, who curry favor with the help of various shameful merits. By a whim alone, they can bring a prosperous peasant to begging, by a flash of lust, take away a husband's wife, or dishonor a peasant girl. They are incredibly cruel, but since they observe the lordly interest, complaints against them are not accepted. The peasants hate them and are looking for all possible ways to exterminate them. When confronted with such vengeance, the landowning milieu usually quiets down, only to return to the old system later.

Of the courtyard women, Nikanor remembers Annushka and Mavrusha the Novotorka. The first knows the Gospel and the lives of the saints and preaches complete submission to the masters in this life. The second, being a free bourgeois who joined fate with a serf icon painter, rebels against the hard work imposed on her. Her sincere love for her husband turns into hatred, and she commits suicide.

Among the courtyard men, Nikanor's sympathy is attracted by the funny Vanka-Cain, a barber by profession, and then a housekeeper. He endlessly litters with buffoonish words, but everyone loves him for his jokes, although the hostess often grumbles. “Oh, you boorish brat,” she says. To which he, like an echo, replies: “Mercy, bonjour. What a slap in the face if you didn’t get your ear. I’m very grateful for your affection.” Ivan is sent to the recruits, he does not return from the army. Among the landowners, Nikanor Zatrapezny notes two: the leader Strunnikov and the exemplary peasant Valentin Burmakin. Leader Strunnikov is brought up in one of the higher educational institutions, but is distinguished by such stupidity and laziness that he will not only be able to organize life in the district, but also wastes his entire fortune on balls and orchestras. Years later, Nikanor meets him in Geneva, where he serves as a sex worker in a hotel restaurant. “There was a Russian gentleman and he all came out.”

Valentin Burmakin is the only representative of university education in the county. An immaculate, highly moral person, a student of Granovsky, an admirer of Belinsky, he is a member of a circle of young people who want to sow goodness, love, and humanity around them. In the foreground he has music, literature, theater. He is worried about disputes about Mochalov, Karatygin, Shchepkin, each gesture of which gives rise to a lot of passionate comments in him. Even in ballet, he sees truth and beauty, so the names of Sankovskaya and Guerino usually sound in his friendly conversations. For him, they are not just a dancer and a dancer, "but plastic explainers of the" new word ", forcing you to rejoice and grieve at will. However, isolation from the real soil, complete misunderstanding of it, eventually leads Burmakin to an unsuccessful marriage to the rustic Milochka, who soon begins to deceive Moscow friends help him find a teacher in one of the most remote provincial gymnasiums.

The mass of images and facts that arose in the memory of Nikanor the Shabby had such an overwhelming effect on him that, having described the visions of his childhood, he doubts whether he will be able to continue his notes in the future.

Author of the retelling: O. V. Timasheva

<< Back: Alexander Vasilievich Druzhinin 1824-1864 (Polinka Sax. Tale (1847))

>> Forward: Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky 1828-1889 (What to do? Novel (1862-1863). Prologue. Novel from the early sixties (1867-1870, unfinished))

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